Thanksgiving

 Traveling

The kids and I left Monday morning and were the first to arrive at our grandparents' house for the week, so we could settle in and be ready for our cousins. They ended up getting in past bedtime, so they only got to say hi before everyone went to sleep, and then woke up at 6:30am to play loudly right outside Adrian's and my room. Luckily, Adrian is a great sleeper, except when he is sick, like the next night when he started coughing and waking up. Poor guy now has a runny nose and hopefully didn't spread it to the rest of the family we visited during the holiday. Chris rode a bus from Boise after work on Wednesday and made it to Blackfoot so he could help me drive home after visiting.

Family

We had many of the cousins in town and just missed one of Chris' siblings, who lives too far to come, but hopefully we will get them next time. We missed out on several important events when we lived in California, and I don't get to see my family because I live so far, so I understand. The girls were happy to play with their cousins for the time we had, and we attended the baptism and baby blessing we wanted to be here for. They played with toys, drove Mario Kart on the Wii, created imaginary games, and played outside on the trampoline a lot! There is always so much fun to be had at the Bell's house, and new toys for Adrian to find interesting and give me ideas for gifts. It didn't feel like it was a long time visiting because it ended so quickly, but with Adrian getting cranky from being sick, we were ready to come home to sleep in our own house.

Dinner

I did my portion of cooking for Thanksgiving dinner really early so I would be out of the way, but we still ate an hour later than planned. Being late makes the food taste so much better, and we all fit at the adult and one kids' table, even! Not that we all stayed sitting for the whole meal, because kids are first in line and then first to be done, and jump up and want more or ask for pie. There was turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, rolls, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, veggies, eggnog, sparkling cider, and a few pies for dessert. All the traditional yummy food to make your stomach stuffed and ready for a nap. The only thing missing is eating leftovers for a week since we didn't grab any on our way out the door!

A little bit of play and a little bit of work

Playing

It has been really fun to see how excited Adrian is to have his sisters come home from school and want to just do whatever they start doing. He got sad when they closed their door on him so they could do their laundry yesterday, and he stood at the door yelling in protest. He played a whole game of chasing Claire around the downstairs while she was trying to watch a movie, and she would jump over the couch to get away from him. His way of cuddling is jumping on people, so I know why she was running away, and it turned into a cute game of chase. We have a full week of playing coming up because the girls are off from school, and we are going to see cousins! I'll get more pictures for sure...

Working

Most of the time, I still have the mindset that I need to get things done while he is napping because more often than not, he is in the way instead of helping during projects. Sometimes he will just like to play in the same area, though, and I can work around him like piling the dishes on the counter and not opening the dishwasher until he is out of the kitchen. He is a good helper at unloading the dishwasher! After I've removed the knives, he will bring me everything one by one! If the work is outside, he gets really excited, and he was so excited to help with his own rake as Daddy and the girls were raking the small amount of leaves we have. 

Our Nifty November

Last week

It was brought to my attention that I forgot to write my blog last weekend, and that usually happens when I'm lazy and don't have a lot to share anyway. The only pictures I had were from when the kids were being cute right before bedtime because Shay convinced me to blow up her water floaty, and they shared with Adrian and cuddled. I know we had a very normal week and are remembering more often to pray right before the girls rush off to the bus, and both know how much we care about them. I usually pray about the same thing each time, so they remember the things they need to work on, which I know about at least. 

Swimming

We went on a family date to swim at Chris's gym, where they used to have their swim lessons, and they both had me blow up their floaties. I'm very glad I bought an electric inflating machine for it because it would have taken so long and made me winded! They were a lot of fun since we were the only people in the pool and didn't have to worry about taking up too much space. Since the girls didn't have spare clothes and we were all wet, I called in an order and we picked up yummy pizza for dinner. I'm glad we have the ability to go do fun things together every week, and when it is close, we have time in the morning to finish chores. 

Smarty Pants

The girls have been a little more responsible this week because they have the motivation of playing Roblox before bed. Claire has been the one to instigate packing her lunch and putting away her school items, and then she started asking to do homework and reading instead of getting distracted. We work on only needing mom's help when she isn't busy cooking dinner, so if they can read with Adrian while I'm cooking, it works great! Shay likes to read at the same time, so she is motivated to do her responsibilities too, after she has her snack, of course. Adrian is getting to be a smartypants, too! He not only likes to read with his sisters, but he is saying more words now, and they sound better as he practices. He has some fun play times around the house, including wearing my shoes, spreading toys all around the ground, driving cars, and his all-time favorite...throwing balloons.

Happy Halloween!

 Trunk or Treat

Our ward Halloween activity was on Wednesday night, and we had a great theme to decorate our trunk and dress up for. It was Shay who inspired our family costume this year, very early on, when she was shopping with me a couple of months ago. They first put out the costumes in the store when we were shopping for school things, and she saw Elphaba's broom in the clearance section, and we went to the costumes and found both Glinda and Elphaba's outfits. It was easy enough to match the Oz theme with the original movie, and I had a lot of fun getting Buttercup to be our cowardly lion. Most years, I usually try to DIY most of our costumes, but this year, we bought most of them. As you can tell, Shay was Glinda for the trunk or treat because Claire also wanted to be Elphaba, so they traded off for trick or treating.

Halloween

We carved our pumpkins very last minute on Thursday night so we could have some decorations for around our candy bowl! It was nice to have Halloween on Friday because we could stay up late and still be able to sleep in the next day. The girls' school parties and costumes parade was at the end of their school day on Friday, and we brought them home so they could do their reading before getting ready for the night. We started earlier than most in the neighborhood because it felt very scarce when we first went out, but we had our friends with us, so it wasn't too bad. Plus, the girls got tired right when we got to the next neighborhood after ours and struggled through the last 30 minutes.  Adrian stayed in his stroller for most of our walk around our neighborhood, and then wanted to join in after we went to the next area. 

Corn Maze

It wasn't planned, but we got 1/2 off our admission to the corn maze we went to because we went yesterday and it wasn't busy at all. It just so happened that we weren't able to go earlier in the season because of birthday parties and being busy with projects. The corn maze was fun, but the girls and Adrian only wanted to do the small one, and I ended up going on a race with myself to do the bigger one by myself. They were more interested in the slides, towers, corn pit, animals, and many things to see. They both got to ride a horse for the first time, and they liked it even though both horses used the bathroom while being ridden, and it was 'gross'. Then we went out for some pizza to end the day. We found this one because the corn maze we went to last year wasn't open, but it was a great day, and we will go again next year because it is a fun memory. 

Other

They also had Red Ribbon Week this week and wore red on Monday, brought a can of food on Tuesday, forgot to dress up as superheroes on Wednesday, were twins on Thursday, and did the Halloween costumes on Friday, of course.