The Day After Thanksgiving We...

8am Woke up at the children's leisure and popped some left over chocolate chip pancakes in the toaster for breakfast.

9am Miles watches a Thomas the Train DVD...again and Gwen and I read books while Richie tidied up the house.

10am Got the kids dressed, got ourselves dressed in our finest work wear and headed outside to clean up the yard. The kids thought it was fun for the first 10 minutes and then it was a constant battle. We raked leaves, hauled the leaves onto the garden, picked up millions of sticks that our willow tree likes to leave, swept the patio and mowed the lawn.

1015 am Forced Miles to stay outside even though he was cold. Bribed him with money for doing chores. He thought that was a good deal.
1017 am Reminded Miles of his chore money that he was earning after he started whining again. He pitched in and picked up some sticks.
1020 am Richie lets Miles help him push the lawn mower. Gwen is jealous and starts crying, so Richie puts Gwen on his shoulders.
1030 am I have one of those moments where I feel the spirit at an unexpected time. I'm hauling leaves in a laundry basket to our garden, and I look over and see my husband teaching and loving our children while they all mow the lawn together. I think my heart might just burst.

1130 am We give each of the kids a dollar and take them to the gas station down the street and let them pick out a treat. Gwen grabs 2 small candies and Miles chooses a fountain root beer. Richie and I exchange one of those looks that says, "Man that was hard, but wasn't it great??" Eventually Gwen wants Miles' soda, and Miles wants Gwen's candy, but neither of them wants to share. Of course, you saw that coming right?

1230 pm The kids watch some "Shaun the Sheep" (one of the few kids shows we all actually like) while Richie and I finish the yard work that didn't get done because the kids were "helping". Miles goes to the fridge to drink some more soda and as he reaches for it, knocks it over, spilling it all over the kitchen floor. Poor kid. Lunch. Naps. Hallelujah, we made it.

2 pm We both work on our lessons and our talks for the upcoming Sunday. Richie finally rips off those awful blue shutters with hearts in them from the front of the house and takes off all the door nobs and other such accessories so I can paint them. They all need a little sprucing and TLC from a can of spray paint.

3 pm I slink off to the grocery store to buy meat. We don't eat hardly any meat these days, but Thanksgiving just didn't seem finished without the traditional bird to feast on. I found 2 drumsticks for $2.50. Score! I also run by the library to return that awful Thomas DVD. Sneaky mom, yes?

4 pm The kids are still napping and I wrestle with the two choices before me. Cook dinner or shower. Dinner, shower, dinner shower...I try my best to throw dinner in the oven and clean up the kitchen. Showers are for rookies. Instead I change from my hole-in-the-knee-jeans to my other pair of jeans that are slightly nicer, keep the same pj shirt on but spring for some deodorant, and change my sweater from the one that says,"I'm not trying at all" to the one that says, "Ok, I'm trying a little".

515pm Try to force some food down the kids so that we won't be late to the very special end of our family day, a "big movie" as it's called around these parts. A first for Baby Gwen. "Brave" is finally at the cheap seats in Sandy. Too bad the turkey wasn't cooked enough to eat. We left it in the oven cooking on low just to torment Ozzy. We pumped the kids up to hurry them along, and both were pretty excited, until "Brave" turned out to be a little bit darker than Miles was expecting and he kept asking to go home.

630 pm Feel the spirit unexpectedly again while watching a movie with my family. Richie and I steal a glance again, over the kids in between us, and smile.

8 pm Get the kids in bed, feast on our gluttonous turkey legs, more yam and apple casserole and watch "Prison Break" re-runs until we're sufficiently tired. What a fantastic way to spend a day, even if I didn't get a shower.

On All Matters Thanksgiving

What a different Thanksgiving we had! No traveling, no stress and no turkey! We woke up and after our morning routine, Richie took the kids over to spend the majority of the day at Grandma and Grandpa Garner's house. I had the entire house to myself and just took my time making the side dishes I was assigned. No little people tugging on my pants or needing to go potty, no dog running around, nothing! I caught up on some of my shows and channeled my inner chef as I made rolls, mashed potatoes, Dixie salad and cranberry butter. It was wonderful and sort of strange to be "celebrating" Thanksgiving by myself.

After nap time, we all headed over to have our mostly vegan Thanksgiving feast. Definitely a first! It was delicious! Although I will admit, the next day I made my favorite yam and apple casserole and 2 turkey drumsticks for Richie and I to indulge in. I guess I'm just too weak!

The kids were not interested in the food one bit, so they mostly played and watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Later we made pilgrim and Indian hats. We had time to squeeze a little wrestle time in too of course. The kids got to stay up late playing so we were all ready to go to sleep when the time came. It must have been the most relaxing Thanksgiving I can remember!

"Slow Down, You Move Too Fast..."

I don't want to brag or anything, but I've been great at taking pictures lately. So yeah, there's a few pictures in this post. Maybe a few too many. It also seems that lately I've been doing a decent job of letting the dishes sit in the sink longer and the laundry go unfolded so that I can play. I'm not so good at that sometimes, but I've really been enjoying being a fun mom, until the mess drives me crazy and I let the TV babysit the kids.

The other day we got ready to run errands and when we went outside to get in the car, it just seemed wrong to not be outside. The air was crisp, the leaves were falling, it was picture perfect. It surprised me that I had to teach the kids how to play in the leaves! We threw them around, jumped in piles, and made leaf angels.

Rich's brother Jacob left on his mission this past Wednesday so we went to say good bye after he was set apart. Miles and Gwen are getting really familiar with their cousin Ethan, which I'm grateful for. I also think it's hilarious that Gwen looks like she's twice as big as Miles and half as big as Jeffrey in this picture.

We met Ethan and Makenna in SLC at Liberty Park one day. We tried to get into the cheap day at The Tracy Aviary, but we were too late. The kids could have cared less, the park was super cool. Have I mentioned before that Richie comes home around 330 every day? It's amazing.

It was a good thing we played in the leaves when we could cause a few days later it was snowing! This is my first Northern Utah Winter, and I'm curious to see how it pans out and how it compares to an Eastern Idaho Winter. On Friday it snowed. I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to venture outside or run errands, so we stayed at home all day Friday. Tell you what, it was fun...and exhausting. After our normal morning routine we made cookies, read books, brought back the trusty "stuck inside slide", turned the slide into a fort and ate cookies in the fort.

Richie has the idea of being a "fun dad" down. When he got home that day, he took Miles outside to play in the snow while Gwen was still sleeping. Before I sent him outside with dad, we just sat on the couch and watched the snow fall. He said, "I so love the snow. It's Christmas time!" Yup, this kid knows all about snow. Thanks Idaho.

Today, Gwen got in on the snow action today and helped Miles and dad build a snow fort, while mommy cleaned the bathrooms. Check! We had Gwen so bundled up, all that stuck out were those kissable cheeks!

So that's our life lately. We're "feelin' groovy". And when I say groovy, I really mean, we seem to wake up every morning wondering how we got so blessed.

End of October Photo Dump

The homeschool group that Richie grew up in was hiking Timpanogos one day and invited us to tag along for the picnic afterward and enjoy the fall colors up in the mountains. We met Ian, Makenna and Ethan there and had a wonderful afternoon.

We re-roofed our house. No big deal. After getting quotes from professionals that were a little too rich for our taste, we were convinced we could do it ourselves. And by "ourselves" I mean Richie's brothers, mom, dad and Richie. I didn't nail a single nail in! Pathetic I know. I did have my hands full with the kids, and now we have some new stylin' architectural shingles on top of our house. Now I need your opinions. To make the outside of the home transformation complete, we need to repaint the door, address numbers, and trim around the garage. We're also going to get new shutters. What color for all of these things do you think would look best? Keep in mind the roof is a semi-dark grey, the brick has a lot of pink/purple hues in it, and the siding is such a creamy color, it's almost yellow. Alright...go!

One day, I went to get Miles out of his "nap" and found every single pair of Gwen's underwear around Ozzy's neck. Thankfully, Ozzy is such a good dog and didn't even seem upset. But that was the last day we let Ozzy "sleep" in Miles' room during "nap time."

Another day, I was occupied with something and realized Gwen was suspiciously quiet. (Is there any other kind of quiet?) I found her sitting in the sink in our bathroom putting eye liner all over her face. When I got after her, this was the ashamed face she pulled. Hilarious!

And then, this happened:

Oh yeah. Isn't it awesome? :) A man in our ward was getting rid of some old furniture for a friend. It was free, we don't have any furniture in our front room, so we snagged it up. It's totally 70's, semi-crazy, but I think I kind of love it. Our plan is to paint/stain all the wood furniture the same color and add lots of modern touches in the front room so that the couch and chairs seem vintage and cool, and not 70's and nasty. We're having them deep cleaned on Monday, which I'm excited for.


Scroll down to see how we celebrated Halloween this year!

The Official Halloween Post

A day or two before Halloween we ate our traditional dinner in a pumpkin. Pumpkin brains (spaghetti), pumpkin eyes (sliced carrots), and green slime (green vanilla pudding with sprinkles!)

Halloween! What a fun day!! We woke up and I made pancakes since Miles has been asking for pancakes for about a week. They even got to make pumpkin faces out of chocolate chips. Later on we used black paper shapes to make faces on our orange paper pumpkins during "school" time. You'll just have to believe me since I didn't take pictures.

They were so excited to actually be wearing their Halloween costumes, so they got to wear them all day! The night before Halloween, I realized I didn't have the cowhide chaps for Jessie or the cowhide vest for Woody. Doh! Then I saw this old white towel on the clothesline and figured that was just as good. :) I stayed up late cutting up the towel, painting cow spots all over it, and sewing them (sans pattern, mind you) into the costume finishing touches. I thought of my mom always hand making these amazing costumes for all of us, probably staying up late till the wee hours of the morning.I laid them out so they were the first thing they saw in the morning. Man, they just lit up! What with chocolate chip pancake faces AND Woody and Jessie costumes?? They were more excited than they've ever been on Christmas. After we were all ready, we headed to visit Richie at work and "trick-or-treat" to some of his students. It was hilarious listening to all the girls ooh and ahh and "oh how cute! It's so cute I think I'm going to cry!!" The boys were about to gag on all the girl swooning going on. I, however, ate it up. :) *As a revised, side note, I thought I'd come back and add how these costumes came together. I found 2 white church shirts, 1 cowboy hat and 1 woody hat at the DI. I spray painted Jessie's hat red. I dyed Woody's shirt yellow then had my mom help me draw the lines on with a fabric pen. I also had my mom help me paint the details on Jessie's shirt. I used brown duct tape and taped up their rain boots to make them more authentic. I estimate each costume cost about $6, bringing this year's costume total to a whopping $12. Yes!!

We went to the park after, just for a few minutes and it cracked me up listening to Miles run up to other kids and say, "Look! I'm Woody! Howdy, Howdy, Howdy!" After naps, we got ready again and hit up our street trick-or-treating. I guess when you go trick-or-treating at 5 pm, not many people are at home and ready to hand out candy! The kids didn't even notice. They got a few pieces, we packed them up in the van and we headed to a party at Tyler and Sheree's house. They have this amazing play room, so the kids are ALWAYS in heaven there. We were happy just to chat with everyone and eat yummy food. We even got a little more trick-or-treating in. I made Richie wear his old football jersey and I wore one of my old exec sweaters. So we were us 10 years ago. Clever, yes? That's about as "into Halloween" we get. Once again, you'll just have to believe me since I forgot to snap pictures of us!

We got home and the kids were rightfully in a sugar coma, and fell asleep quicker than I've ever seen. It was one the best Halloweens I can remember.

SG Halloween Party

My mom sometimes throws a Halloween party for the grand-kids. She decided to throw a shin-dig this year, and since we are closer we jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, Richie is saving up his days off so I was flying solo. Although it was a wonderful trip, I was pretty tired out by the end. All the single parents out there have my respect! We left early on Friday and managed the one-parent car ride fairly easily thanks to movies, snacks, books, peeing on the side of the road, and a stop at Cove Fort. I always feel pretty special telling the missionary guides that my great-great grandfather built Cove Fort. "Yeah, Ira? Me and him are totally related. See my name on that plaque over there? That's my name, no biggie." I recently started reading his history and so this short stop at the Fort had more meaning to me. Hope I can pass that on to my kids.

The party that night was fantastic! (Of course) Mom always puts so much effort into these things. She must love her grand-kids a lot. :) There was a ring toss, bean bag toss, minute to win it games, roasting hot dogs, roasting marsh mellows, and a make your own costume station. Everyone had a bag of the same things and then the option to use other things.

Gwen's latest obsession is turtles. In her own little language, one of her favorite phrases is, "I'm Gwen, I'm a turtle." Since I'm not indulging in her fetish for her real Halloween costume, I figured now was an opportune time. She thought it was so cool!

My brother has often remarked that Miles is a great Billy Idol look-alike, mostly due do that white blonde, spikey hair. So we ran with the idea and Miles got a kick out of it. He'd show us his muscles and say, "I'm a rock star! I'm Billy Idol!" (I'll admit, I'm so glad he doesn't really know who Billy Idol is)

The most memorable part of the trip however might have been our visit to Great Grandma Crosby's house. I had stayed up late the night before reading parts of her life story and looking through these awesome old-photo albums. I was excited to chat with her the next day about her mission pictures and how she met Grandpa, and on and on. We spent about 15 minutes chatting and I felt like we could have been best friends if we had been born at the same time. Although she's on in age, she sat on the floor, picked up my kids, played matching games and built towers of blocks. She told me about how handsome my Grandpa was in his army uniform and the first time she saw him in Eager when he was on leave, she just thought he was something else. "I fell pretty hard" she said. It was picture perfect. A little too perfect.

It was then I realized it was quiet, and that's never a good sign. I found Gwen in the front bathroom stuffing the last of an entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet. Now, I don't want to brag or anything, but I've become somewhat of an amazing toilet plunger-er since we moved into our home, where the toilets aren't the best of flushers. "No big deal." I thought. "Grandma, where's your plunger? There's no problem, I just need to get this toilet paper out of the way real quick. Do you mind getting the kids a snack to keep them occupied?" She got me the plunger, got the kids cupcakes and milk and I went to work.

A few good solid plunges in, I decide to flush. It usually does the trick, but in this case the water kept rising. So I plunged some more, and flushed again. This time the water raised so much it started coming out the top. I'm a toilet flooding virgin, so I start to freak out. I start messing with all the gadgets inside the top of the toilet, but this only seems to make it worse. I grab a sheet from the linen cupboard above and create a barrier to the water so it doesn't get into the carpeted hallway and run into the kitchen. I frantically call my mom and beg for assistance, but my dad can't come at the moment. I run across the street to her kind, elderly neighbor, Brother Larson and ask him to come save the day. By this time the water has stopped flowing, thankfully, and Brother Larson and I take turns plunging the toilet and breaking a sweat, but to no avail. He heads back home and gets his snake and takes operation toilet to another level. Meanwhile, Gwen sneaks into the other bathroom and poops her pants. (I should mention that she is potty training herself. She's done marvelously, especially since she's only 19 months old, but it's still potty training, and that means accidents.) I run out to the van to get her a new outfit. Once that's cleaned up, my mom shows up to lend assistance. She isn't there more than 5 minutes when Miles screams because he's got his finger stuck in the magic, old-person, up and down chair. Followed my Gwen throwing the phone off the bookshelf in the hallway. I give up. I bow at brother Larson's feet, apologize for the one millionth time to Grandma, gather up the sopping mats and sheets and head out. But not before taking a group shot while I hold a screaming Gwen hostage for the photo op. Oh memories.

We finished up with mom helping me create the kids Halloween costumes and dinner with the Lambs. I got the kids in their pj's, pacified them with Toy Story 3 and hit the road. We pulled in about midnight and slid the kids into their very own beds. They were so happy. They never sleep great in other beds. What a whirlwind trip. So good.