Cranberry

What a great week.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and felt so much love in our home.

With Thanksgiving behind us, it's only a few short weeks to the end of the year.  One of the things that that means is trying to spend what's left in our flexible spending account for medical expenses.  We are very blessed with excellent health benefits and as such, didn't have many out-of-pocket expenses this year.  Tuesday, Jeff and I went to the dentist for cleanings, x-rays, and an exam.  My teeth were perfect and everything went well.  Jeff has two cavities that need to be filled, so that will cost a few extra dollars out of the FSA.  I went to the eye doctor this week as well and got the works; new glasses, sunglasses, and contacts.  Jeff will head to the optometrist and the girls have dentist appointments next week.  We did put money aside in the FSA for next year, I'll be going back to the orthodontist to re-straighten my teeth and that won't be inexpensive.

I was home by 1:30 on Wednesday afternoon and started preparing for the Thanksgiving luncheon we hosted at our house this year.  I got the house all clean and pre-cleaned and prepped a lot of the food.  I didn't get to make my pies like I had planned as Jeff wasn't available to help.  He was at school until 9:30PM and then had homework to finish.  He did help me on Thursday and everything went smoothly.  I made my pies int he morning and we fried our turkey again this year, which is our favorite.  My parents, sister-in-law, niece, Gabrielle, Marjorie, and her niece joined us at 1:00PM for lunch.  It was great and we visited for several hours and enjoyed the company.  Jeff and I stayed up late watching a movie, we don't do black Friday shopping.

On Friday we went through the girls room and they helped us pick out toys that they don't play with as much to donate.  They were very charitable this year and the room looked a lot less cluttered after going through things and moving some of the Fisher Price Little People toys over to Arlo's room.  We spent the afternoon at the Sahuarita Lake Park taking some pictures.  It was a chore and I didn't get a really good picture with all three of them.  It seems near impossible to get them to all smile and look in the right direction at once!

Saturday morning I went for a run, my longest yet, I ran 8 miles.  I ran from my house to the park and around the lake three times.  I was tired when I got finished, but not exhausted.  I'm working up to being able to run a 1/2 marathon, only 6 months ago I wouldn't have believed someone if they don't me that I would be running, let alone running long distance.  I wasn't as faithful during the week about exercising each day, so I will try to do better in the coming week.  After my run, I helped Jeff clean out the garage.  We had a bunch of stuff in bags that needed to be donated, and a lot of clutter had accumulated.  We organized everything and loaded up the truck with the items to donate.  We had lunch and then Jeff dropped me off at the optometrist's office and took the bags to the White Elephant.  He also took the girls to the library where they excitedly picked out books for themselves.

 

 It was our last week of 8AM church and I couldn't be more pleased.  The kids were very well behaved during our meetings and I had a great primary lesson, I really enjoy my students.  After four days off it will be hard to drag myself to work tomorrow, but you have to do what you have to do!  Luckily it is my off Friday this week, so I think I can make it through the short work week.  I worked on making invitations to Arlo's first birthday party, as that is the next event on the horizon.  He'll be having a Very Hungry Caterpillar book party and I'm excited to design a cake just for him.  His walking is coming right along as he has become more and more confident.  I can't believe my little baby is ready to turn one.

Mustard

Hot Dog its Sunday!  Can you believe that its the middle of November already?  I certainly can't, but here we are.  I'm excitedly preparing for Thanksgiving this week, I'll be grocery shopping tomorrow, and Jeff put the Turkey in the fridge this afternoon to let it defrost.  I love that it's been so cool in the evenings; we've enjoyed snuggling on the couch together as a family to watch a movie or read.

We've been reading The Hobbit and the girls have really been enjoying it.  Felicity has asked lots of questions, she really enjoyed the chapter where Bilbo and Gollum have the riddle contest.  At the end of the quarter, Felicity's teacher had asked if it was alright to increase the number of spelling words she has and we welcomed the challenge.  She went from 10 words to 24 words.  They do a pre-test on Thursday and if they get them all correct, they don't have to take the test on Friday.  She had previously not missed any on the Thursday test, but is now finding that its not as easy.

Helen is getting ready to go to preschool starting in January.  She'll be doing three hours a day twice a week at the Sahuarita Early Childhood Center first thing in the morning.  We've been including her in Felicity's afternoon homework with her own homework.  I can't believe she'll be going to kindergarten in only a few months.

Arlo is walking!  He went from standing for a few seconds at a time last week to taking two and three steps at the beginning of the week to four or five this weekend.  He's really enamored with his new skill, and only a month behind when the girl's learned to walk.  He's so darn cute shuffling across the family room floor.

Work was stressful this week, I'm hoping for quiet in the week to come, we'll see.  I got out and did some running this week in the beautiful fall weather.  Wednesday evening I found a 20 dollar bill on the side of the road, and on Saturday morning nearly stepped on a rattlesnake.  I have continued to loose weight and am flattered by the nice comments from so many people.  I am also in a new size, so I got to bring some things in my closet out into my regular rotation, things that had been hanging unused for awhile.  My goal for the coming week is to not only not go overboard at Thanksgiving, but to actually lose weight this week.

On Friday, Jeff's childhood friend, Landon, came to visit for the weekend.  We stayed up way too late on Friday night chatting and catching up and on Saturday, he and Jeff went to look at guitars while the kids and I wandered the mall.  It was crowded, but Arlo really enjoyed his first opportunity to play on the foam landscape at the play place.  He had a ball and managed to not be trampled by the older kids.  There was one little boy, about 8 years old, who kept trying to pick up Arlo and kept touching him.  He didn't speak English, and didn't seem to be dissuaded when I told him in my best Spanish that Arlo didn't understand him and to please not pick him up or touch him again.  After he picked him up again and tried to walk off with Arlo I packed the kids up and we left.  We met up for lunch at Applebee's and the kids had a great time.  We stopped by the estate sale to see Nana on our way home (and I bought some little glass dessert cups).  Jeff and Landon played guitars and the girls and I watched Brave, which I got for them on Friday afternoon.  We had a great morning at church, although I'm really looking forward to a new time next year, 8 AM had been a little rough!

I need to get on top of planning Arlo's first birthday party.  I am thinking of doing a Hungry Caterpillar theme book exchange party, but I don't have anything decided.

I'm grateful for so much that its hard to make a list, but I'll attempt to.  I'm grateful for my job and the comfort it provides us.  I'm grateful for my degree which enabled me to get my job and take care of our family while Jeff finishes his degree.  I'm grateful for the opportunity Jeff has to go to school to finish his degree.  I'm grateful for my beautiful children and for our health.  I'm thankful for our home and for this wonderful, beautiful, and free country I am privileged to live in.  I'm grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life and the peace and focus it gives me and my family.  I'm grateful for a wonderful family and so many loving and supportive friends.  I'm grateful to have such an amazing eternal companion who is also a stupendous father.  I'm grateful for modern conveniences and I'm grateful for the changes that have come into my life which have helped me to be healthier and more confident.  I'm grateful for temples that allow me to feel so close to Heaven and my Heavenly Father and provides a place for me to find solace and peace in a turbulent word.  I feel so much gratitude for the myriad of blessing with which I have been given.  I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving in the coming week.

Topaz

 We had a great week at our house.  The semester is starting to wind down for Jeff, less than four weeks until finals.  He's doing very well and was doing some graduation planning this week, planning out his last three semesters.  He only has a few more mandatory classes for his major, but in order to stay full time and thus receive financial aide, he needed to decide on some extra classes to fill his schedule.  He has some information technology courses that will work well with his degree, but he also has been considering a minor in music.  He'll be doing campus band in the spring and piano and theory in the fall.  I think it'll be a welcomed addition to the math and computer science classes that have filled his schedule thus far.

The pace at work has been furious, which, unfortunately, seems to be the typical scenario as opposed to the exception.  I'm looking forward to some time off for the holidays to catch my breath.  I did receive a small bonus this week, which doesn't make it worth it, but its appreciated, especially with Christmas fast upon us.  It's going to be a busy December for us.  I still have to plan Arlo's first birthday, and then there's our annual gingerbread house and caroling FHE, Christmas dinner, and this year we have tickets to take the kids on the Grand Canyon Railway's Polar Express. 

It was a big weekend for us.  It was my birthday on Friday and our anniversary on Sunday.  We had a weekend get away planned and we had so much fun.  As I've mentioned before, we've been working toward the goal of worshiping in each of the LDS temples in the United States.  As of today, that's about 80 temples to check off our list.  We were able to do service in three in southern California in two days this weekend.  My mom and dad graciously watched the kids for us.  We left Arizona just after getting Felicity on the bus and dropping Helen and Arlo off.  We arrived at the Newport Beach temple at 3 PM.  Even though its a fairly small temple, the inside was simply stunning, the mural in the room we were in was ethereal, I've never seen one more beautiful.

After leaving the temple we drove up to San Bernardino and checked into our hotel.  We stayed at a Hilton and it was very nice.  We had a wonderful steak dinner with appetizers and dessert at the Black Angus across the street from the hotel.  We were dressed up and had the best time.  After dinner we soaked away our traveling aches in the hot tub.  It was refreshing too, seeing as it was about 40 degrees outside!  In the morning I spent some time in the gym to work off the delicious dessert from the night before.  I wonder how much those gym quality treadmills cost, because I want one!

We drove to the Redlands temple which was not far from the hotel, and arrived a little after 8 AM.  The grounds were amazing, with beautiful rose bushes and little alcoves for reflection.  There were two fountains and lillies and bird of paradise in the most radiant of colors.  I even got a picture of some hummingbirds, my favorite.  After Redlands, we had breakfast and then drove the almost two hours to the Los Angeles temple. I had no idea how big it was, it was by far the most impressive in size outside of the Salt Lake temple.  I have found that there is a different feeling in temples that are so immense, its definitely a less intimate experience, but it has other attributes that you don't get in the smaller temples.  The art was unique and in a lot of ways, outside of size, it reminded me of the Salt Lake temple.  After that it was time to head home and oh, my was traffic horrendous.  It took us nearly two hours to drive 30 miles.  It was an amazing trip and I was so grateful to spend quality bonding time with my companion.  The last few years of our marriage have been exceptional and I love him more every year, every day.

Pumpkin

What a week.  I worked an extra 6 and a half hours this week and toward the end, I was really looking forward to the weekend!  Jeff and I are going on a trip for our anniversary next weekend and I wanted to put in an extra day so that I could take Friday off.  The highlight of the week was of course Halloween.

I finished the kids costumes last weekend and so on Tuesday I had time to change an old radio flyer wagon into a covered wagon for Arlo to ride in.  I lined the inside and covered a canopy for a floaty toy with muslin for the cover.  We covered Arlo's bumbo with fabric and it fit inside the wagon perfectly.  I painted paper to look like wood for the sides and a "West or Bust" sign on the back was the cherry on top.  It was really cute and a great way for him to enjoy trick or treating without having to be carried.

Felicity got to wear her costume to school on Wednesday and she said she got called little bo-peep and Mary had a little lamb a few times, but she enjoyed explaining what a pioneer is.  In the evening after dinner Gabrielle came over and we went to the ward trunk or treat.  My mom went with me and Jeff stayed home and handed out candy to the neighborhood kids.  We were at the trunk or treat for about 30 minutes and then Jeff and Mom took them out around the neighborhood.  They all had a great time and came back with a ton of candy.  The 6AM wake up the next morning was fun with four kiddos who were an hour and a half late to bed and coming down from a sugar high.

 We're continuing to pull veggies out of our garden almost daily.  We've been allowing our anaheim chilies to turn red on the bush and are drying them for crushing into red pepper.  We have more bell peppers than we can eat; red, yellow, and green.  I need to clean, chop, and freeze them to use over the winter.  We got one watermelon from our vine and we've had lots of tomatoes and green beans.  I planted five pumpkin plants, and so far I've only gotten male flowers, so no pumpkins yet.

I had a cold this week and it kept me from getting in as much exercise as I normally like.  I did get out and run Friday morning, but it was pretty slow going.  I managed to not eat any Halloween candy.  I think eventually I'll get to a place where I can eat a "fun size" candy bar and not want to eat the whole bucket, but I'm not there yet, so I just avoided it all together.  It was to my benefit too, I lost 3.4 pounds this week.

It was my off Friday, but I wasn't very productive.  As you may remember from my post about Arlo's birth, Baby It's You Reprise, we were given the news that we should not have any more children.  Looking back over the past year, I'm just beginning to realize what a difficult thing this was for us, or more specifically me.  We did get a second opinion, counsel with friends, and go to the temple to pray about it before deciding to heed the doctor's advice and follow through with a permanent birth control option.  Jeff had a vasectomy on Friday morning, and it was only a $30 co-pay and 30 minute procedure.  He was a little saddle soar, so to speak, this weekend, but otherwise it was pretty painless.  The girls had some questions around why dad spent Friday and Saturday on the couch icing his pride, so I drew them a picture and gave them an age appropriate explanation (its the biologist in me) and that sufficed.  Okay, that was probably more than most of you wanted to know (I am a bit of an over-sharer) but this is for posterity, right?  Even though we can't have anymore of our own children we've not felt like we were "done" having children.  We plan to do foster care in the hopes of adoption in the near future.

I admittedly have been enjoying teaching primary.  I have a great group of smart, eager learners and we have had some great lessons.  After church today, my mom picked up the girls to spend the afternoon with her, so with Arlo napping, I'm looking forward to a quiet peaceful day.  I'm really looking forward to the holidays, I'm getting my menu and recipes ready for Thanksgiving.

It's election week, regardless of your political affiliations, get out and vote and have your voice heard!