Christmas is coming

The Christmas season has begun. We had our ward party last night, it was "A Night in Bethlehem." So we were all supposed to dress like we were from Bethlehem in the days when Jesus was born. A lot of work went into decorating the foyer and gym to look like a marketplace. It looked great. And there was yummy food. I spent all week making pita bread (not authentic because it had yeast in it, but good anyway), and made yogurt to make tzatiki, and helped make hummus. They had lots of other good food too. I think everyone had fun. The kids really had fun dressing up. Alice was quite enamored with her costume. And Simon wanted to wear his headdress to bed. (I made the costumes out of sheets and tablecloths and felt I bought at Goodwill.) It thought these pictures were fun so I wanted to share.

Oh, the little baby is a Joseph Yule, he belongs to another ward member. He was enjoying the comfy manger!

Funny things my kids say

Here is another installment of funny things my kids say:

Simon - I didn't spend all my money, right? (He got birthday money recently)
Me - No you have $5.
Simon - I'm in the black!

Who knew his 5-year old mind would grasp the concept of red/black financial descriptors that we explained to Eli a couple of days earlier when he asked about Black Friday! Gotta love it!

Happy Thanksgiving

I really like Thanksgiving and the time we all spend thinking about all the many blessings we have. I know that I am truly blessed and have so much to be thankful for. At dinner one night this past week (no not on Thanksgiving but prior to it), as a family we did ABCs of things for which we are grateful. So here is some of that exercise

A - Alice, it is good for me to remember that I am thankful for her and all her 2-year oldness.
B - Beds
C - Cars
D - Dad, both mine and the great one that Joe is!
E - Education and Eli
F - Family and friends and Freedom
G - Grandparents
H - Home
I - Ice cream
J - Joseph Smith
K - Knowledge
L - Love
M - Moms
N - Nighttime so we can see the stars
O - Opportunities (Eli thought of this one!)
P - Prayer
Q - Quiet times
R - Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
S - Simon and Scriptures
T - Telephones
U - Underwear!
V - Voting
W - Water
X - X-rays
Y - Yummy food
Z - Zippers
It would only take 4 things in each letter to have more than 100. Makes me realize how many great things I have to be thankful for and how easy it really is to count my blessings!

Halloween

I know it has been a couple of weeks, but here are some pictures from Halloween, Simon's birthday gathering and raking leaves.

Here is Alice as a ladybug and Simon the fearsome pirate.

My 3 cuties! Eli was Garfield.

This little girl is Riley. She is in Simon's preschool class. They found each other during the Trick-or-treat down Main Street, and the next thing I know, they were holding hands!

We had trunk-or-treat for our ward activity Saturday before Halloween. We dressed up as "Gilligan's Island"

Here is Simon with his cupcake cake. A definite pirate at heart!


Aren't these girls cute. It was a beautiful day and we had fun raking the leaves and jumping in them. I couldn't resist putting Taryn in the leaves in her pumpkin outfit!

Time to brag

I just wanted to take a moment and be proud of my kids. First, Eli. We went to parent/teacher conference for Eli and he is doing awesome in 3rd grade. His teacher thinks he is a great kid, and I know he is. He is very smart. She said they gave the kids the test for the end of 3rd grade, to see where the kids are, and he scored a 96%! And he has an average of 100% on all his math tests for the year so far! He is a smart kid and I am proud of him for doing a good job and continuing to try. I am a little concerned that he will not learn anything in 3rd grade (well he does need to work on his handwriting....), but hopefully the teachers will find something to challenge him with :)

Simon turned 5 yesterday! I can't believe he is 5! He is so much fun and so inspiring in his love of life. He is also very smart, he reads like a pro already! He loves preschool and dressing up. He was born at the right time of year because he sure loves Halloween (and Christmas, he is standing here reading as I type and insisting I add Christmas). He is so awesome at making me feel like a great mom because he gets so excited about little things. I bought him a pirate costume for Halloween, various parts from Goodwill, and he was so excited you would think he won the lottery. He told me it was the best ever and I am the best. Ohhhh, so sweet. I wish everyone had a Simon! (But I am keeping mine for myself!)

Is there a family resemblance?

Here are pictures of me when I was little...



And here is Alice now...

I love her in pigtails, but it makes her so little girl instead of baby :(

(Of course she also never leaves them in for very long!)

At a loss

I felt like I should post something today, in memory of 9/11. I don't know what to say about it really. I have mostly avoided reading or watching anything about it because it I know it will make me cry. Even 10 years later. The thought of all those that died, all those that helped, and most of all, those that survived and are mourning the loss of someone. Thinking about kids growing up without their mom or dad because of what happened is what gets me most. I don't know any one directly that died or lost someone, but I feel it. We all feel it. I know our country is different because of it, even from my little house out here on the eastern plains of Colorado. I just want to extend my sympathy to all those out there who have been so much more affected by the events of this day than I have. I pray for all of you and for our country. I am so thankful to live in the United States of America.

Alice is 2!

Happy Birthday to Alice! She turned 2 on September 1st. Can't believe 2 years have already passed. She sure is growing up. She is very independent, and rather stubborn at times. But also very sweet, she is a little nuturer and tries to mother her brothers. She loves baby dolls and Dora the explorer. We have been working to help her learn more words and she is really picking it up. She can say or try to say lots of things when we prompt her, but doesn't always do it on her own. We are working on communication. But she is a lot of fun and loves to run and play. We are glad she is part of our family!

Here she is on her birthday

And all dolled up for church

And with her cool fish birthday cake her auntie made

And after she ate the blue cupcakes.

This last picture seems to be most representative of what she looks like at any given time (ok maybe not that blue, but dirty face and hair in her eyes!)

Look what I did

I am going to toot my own horn for a minute. In the midst of everything else we have been doing, Joe and I and my sister decided to enter some things in the county fair. My sister and I put in some of the cards we made, and Joe entered some photographs. Well, I won 3rd place, Joe won 2nd and my sister won 1st! Woohoo! Next year I will enter more categories. How cool is that?

Busy bodies

The circus wasn't in town, so I did not join them. Somehow I managed to get control of my house, for a time. Alice had a broken arm, but actually it was a bad nurse-maid elbow. We got to visit with my grandparents. And we went off for a quick trip to Utah. Maybe now I have a little more control of myself. Maybe not. But in the meantime I will share a few pictures from what has been happening.

We went bowling a few weeks ago. Alice likes us to drag her around on the floor, so Joe was dragging her, but only had ahold of her right arm. He felt it pop, but thought she was fine. I found her on the floor crying. I tried to fix it, but she was still crying all the way home. So I took her to the ER thinking maybe it was just more dislocated than last time. The doctor looked at her, took x-rays, didn't like the fact that she wouldn't use her arm even 3 hours later. The x-ray didn't show any breaks but there was joint effusion, which is a small amount of blood in the joint. They said that happens when there has been damage to the bone, so they had to call it a fracture. They put a splint on her (the picture above) and sent us home. She was happy to have her arm immobilized, but Joe and I were scratching our heads at how her arm could be broken. A couple of days later, we took her to the orthopedist to get a cast. He took off the splint, was pretty sure it was just nurse-maid elbow, tried to reset it, and told me to watch for a little bit to see if she would use her arm. She still didn't really want to use it, so the doctor took more x-rays just to make sure. Still not broken. He said joint effusion could be caused by break, sprain, or dislocation. So he said it was just the nurse-maid elbow, it would take longer to heal completely since it was out for a couple of days and sent us on our way. The rest of that day and most of the next, Alice acted as if she had no arm. She would do everything with her left arm. It was fascinating to watch her run around and do things and just refuse to use her right arm. But by the following afternoon she started to use her arm again, and she is fine. Thank goodness the orthopedist knew what he was talking about!

We took a quick trip to Utah. Joe and I wanted to do something to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, so we decided to go to Utah to have a night out, plus we could see some friends. So my wonderful aunt, Jeanne the Great, watched the kids while Joe and I were able to do an endowment session and some sealings at the Salt Lake Temple. Then we went to dinner at Rodizio Grill, and we stayed at the Castle Creek Inn bed and breakfast. The b&b had rooms all with castle themes. We stayed in Edinburg. Here is suit of armor that was in our room. And the outside of the b&b.

It was fun. We saw one of Joe's mission companions, Tom, and his wife and kids. And we were able to see my good friend Claudia and her husband and new baby!

We took the kids to see Temple Square, here they are at the door of the temple

and we took them to the aquarium they have, which they really enjoyed. Alice was quite fascinated by all the different creatures. She had no fear of petting the rays. The kids had fun watching the Gentoo penguins.

We came home and spent a few days with my little brother and his wife who were visiting. And now we are home and getting ready for school to start. I don't know if the kids are looking forward to the beginning of school, but I am ready to get back to more structured days!