Christmas Starts Early

Oh man am I just so pumped for Christmas this year! I did my absolute best to not do a single Christmas thing until Thanksgiving had it's time. That is now! I have already started shopping (and got most of it done, even!), Christmas music is already on the radio (sweet! Sure made shopping that much more fun) and we are planning on putting our décor up today.

Really quick, I have to say how happy I am with my shopping already. I just went to the strip mall place near us and crossed off SO many items! I am making sure to go lighter with our family (I always overdo it and forget about how others ALSO have gifts for the kids and so it just gets so overwhelming) and I feel I got a good chunk for the kids crossed off. I think I just have a few more things to get others (as in, those not living in my house) and then just stockings and maybe some online stuff and I'm done! Like, really done! I think I might even be able to start wrapping this week and I'm just feeling so head of the game.

So I hope you all were able to enjoy your Thanksgiving and got a good head start on Christmas. It'll be here before we know it, it always is!

Thanksgiving 2023

Thanksgiving this year was definitely one of the top ones for me. The only bad part was I was still feeling a little iffy. Not enough that we had to stay home, but enough that I wasn't going to get dressed until the very last moment haha (mostly just a stupid little cough at this point)

We started the day with relaxing and watching the parade. Luckily, we only needed to bring cheesecake and carrots to dinner. Larry is the king of making cheesecakes and we grabbed carrots at the store on Sunday so I got to sit and relax while Larry did all of the cooking. The kids all came to snuggle with me at some point during the parade so that was nice. We also watched the Packers DOMINATE and just kill it. It was definitely the first win that I was very proud of this season. 

It finally got to be time to get ready, so I did real quick and we quickly got the kids ready as well. We headed over to Marie's (our year with them this year) while "watching" the Cowboys on my phone (they also killed it). Dinner was so yummy and I just love holidays where you visit with family and just eat so much amazing food haha.

Marie decided to do a Bingo game for some treat bags for the kids (she's seriously the best mother-in-law!) and the kids all had so much fun with that. Gwen also got more birthday gifts from that side (she seriously got spoiled this week...not sure how she's going to go back to normal haha).

Once we were done, it was early enough that I decided we should stop by my mom's (I wasn't sure if anyone was able to make it to hers and I knew she shouldn't be alone for Thanksgiving...it is about being with family after all). We got there and it turns out Andy and Rachel were able to go so it was all of us on that side there and it was actually really nice. We had some dessert, visited with each other, the kids got to play with the dogs. I think my mom really enjoyed having us there.

We did decide we're going to do our own Thanksgiving today. We decided to make it small so that we don't have leftovers for a couple weeks (like normal) so we didn't load up on too much. I did have to do the homemade mashed potatoes (my favorite), but I forgot to get the right gravy so that was a bummer. Other than that it was all delicious. I am thinking this might be our last year doing our own though. It's so much work and I don't actually enjoy too many of the leftovers like I used to. I love the smells of the dinner, but it's just SO much. We'll see how I'm feeling next year though.

Anyways, a very successful Thanksgiving in the books and now onto Christmas. Happy Holidays and Thanksgiving to anyone reading this.

Gwen is 5

Gwen-Gwen is officially 5 now! Five is such a crazy age, it's the age I saw up to when we started talking about having kids. I didn't know what to expect after that point and thought that's when they are like little people. So to have two kids at this age (or older) is so surreal for me. We had a great time celebrating our sweet little crazy girl. We did her "party" on Saturday. We went to Airborne in Lindon because she decided she wanted to go to a trampoline place. We stayed there for about an hour and a half and had SO much fun doing ALL the things. We came back and did cake, ice cream, and presents at our house. She got a lot of good things and even though she clearly hates being center of attention, you could tell she was happy it was her day. We didn't have a lot of people come, but I don't mind. I just care that we had fun as a family and maybe next year we can do a friend party.

Sunday, she said she wanted donuts and watermelon for breakfast, so that's what she got. We also had her birthday table set up for her with some more presents and some treats. I unfortunately, started feeling a little iffy that morning so it was a low-key day.

Monday, we had to do her birthday dinner because she wanted Leatherby's and it's closed on Sundays. By this point I was feeling dead to the world. I started my work day, but about halfway through I stopped and just went upstairs to sleep for as long as I could. I mentioned to Larry that I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it to dinner and he'd have to take the kids by himself. He said he was okay with that, but after sleeping a good portion of the day I knew I couldn't miss out on her birthday inner (I didn't care that we spent the whole weekend celebrating her, this was important too). I dragged myself to dinner and, even though I was extremely miserable and didn't eat much of my food and definitely didn't order ice cream (which is a sure sign I'm not doing great), it was good I was there as the girls needed to go to the bathroom multiple times and I'm not sure how Larry would've done that with Pierce and all them. 

On Tuesday she got to do her classroom treat at school since that was her first day back at school after her birthday. I also had another present show up so she got another present.

So while she didn't have a HUGE party, she got a whole week where she was celebrated and she seemed to enjoy every bit of it. I'm so glad it was good. I'm still a little under the weather, but getting better so I'm glad I survived all of it as well haha.

Gwen is so silly! She loves being a goofball, she always has to be right (she's SO stubborn!), she loves to draw stick figures with shirts with hearts on them, and she loves being active or messy. She can't sit still for anything. She still loves being naked as much as she can be and groans when we tell her to put clothes on (and she loves saying "hey! I'm in my birthday suit!"). She likes to do things that Cara likes to do, so I've been trying to push her to be her own person. She's extremely shy and hates to ask for help, even her teacher says she doesn't talk much to her.

She loves Charlie and giving cuddles and protecting him from Pierce. She is a gentle giant for sure, she's strong, but she'll be cautious with him. She loves being loud and fast (running is her favorite thing). She loves laughing and doing goofy stuff to make us laugh. She also still loves Spiderman, but is also starting to get into her unicorn phase.

Our lives are definitely better with her in them and she makes us laugh on a daily basis with either silly questions or thoughts or random things she's figured out how to do. I am so excited to see the kind of person she grows up to be and I hope she's always as happy as she is now (just a little more vocal when she needs help and a little less stubborn when she thinks she's right even though we've shown her the truth). Gwen, please always know we love you so very much and we hope you continue to be as great as you are!

Happy Halloween

Halloween this year was such a fun one! We did a lot of good things to get ready for it:

-I love this time of year as it's the start of my spooky movie season. I decided to put what I was watching or have a recommendation on my stories each night. It was fun (most of the time) finding a new one. A couple weeks I did a theme (90s, family, and Stephen King ones). 

My newest favorite one!

-We, of course, put up our decorations. Not all of them as Lucy got scared pretty easily with them, but we had a good amount up and the girls really got into putting up some bloody handprints on the window. We also had fun doing the countdown every day. Unfortunately, Pierce broke a huge chunk of the countdown one of the days, so I'll have to try and fix that (it's one I got at Disneyland many years ago so I love it), but otherwise no issues. I did end up finding the cutest little mummy cutout stand for pictures to put up, I was really hoping a lot of kids would want to take a silly picture. It was a little cold so Larry said only a couple kids did, but that's worth it enough for me (maybe more next year?)

-We went out in September to look at costumes at the Spirit store (that's where we learned Lucy is VERY terrified about a lot of the things for Halloween) and we found some really cute, fun ones for the kids. Then we went out in October to actually get them. Cara wanted to be a zombie nurse, Gwen wanted to be a Sally, but decided she wanted to be a zombie nurse too (my brother and I dressed as the same thing a couple Halloweens so it was kind of fun and funny that two of my girls did that). Lucy wanted to be a rainbow fairy. For Pierce, we found the cutest Ooggie Boogie costume that I knew he just HAD to be. When Gwen changed her mind on her costume, I decided to be Sally (I also decided I'm only doing a costume if it goes with someone else, otherwise I'm just sticking to one of my Halloween shirts). Larry had gotten a blow up costume of a man riding a snail early one so his was definitely the silliest. 

Cara loved being scary

While Lucy would NOT get further than this
From me and my face

-We definitely carved pumpkins. This was almost done last minute and I wasn't feeling up to roasting the seeds, this year, so it wasn't AS exciting, but it was still fun to do.

-We did our usual tradition of driving around to look at decorations and at the end the kids said that was their favorite part of the day and they love doing that. They didn't want to stop and wanted to go everywhere. I love that they like it so much. It was one of my favorite things as a kid and I love passing it down to them.

-The kids got to dress up for school. Unfortunately, Cara couldn't wear her zombie nurse costume because of the blood, so we were able to throw together a Misty from Pokemon costume for her (it actually turned out really cute). Gwen could wear hers, she didn't want to at the last minute, but I told her we didn't have any other options. Cara loved her Misty costume so much she decided to wear it for trick-or-treating. We were going to do another costume party this weekend that I told her she had to wear it for that, but then that got cancelled. Luckily, they both wore it at Legoland so we did get some use out of it, at least.

This isn't a costume, but I unintentionally 
Dressed him like Kreuger

-We got to do a LOT of extra trick or treating. There was Brick or Treat two nights at Legoland, we did our neighborhood trick or treating, AND Andy and Rachel invited us to their trunk or treat at their ward. So the kids LOADED up on candy (we even went around our block almost two full turns, normally we only do 1 so it was a ton more!). I actually learned, this year, that going zig zag up your street and around your block seems to be more effective. Normally we stay on our side of the street and do a "small circle" around our "block", but I told the girls we should start across the street and do the big circle and then when we hit our house, do the small circle. We did the big one about 1/3 of the way, and then started zig-zagging and I thought "man we should've done it this way the whole time." By the time we reached our home, the girls didn't want to do the houses we missed initially (in their defense it was really cold at this point). Either way, they loaded up, had fun, and they are happy with their holiday. They love coming back to hand out candy, start eating what they got, and get out of their costumes and into their cozy, warm pajamas.

Anyways, we had a great Halloween, I am very happy with how it turned out this year. I really need to stop planning vacations in October, it makes it so much more difficult to really get to everything we want to do. But I'm glad at the end of the day everyone was happy. Happy Halloween to anyone reading this! We hope you had a great holiday.

October Happenings

- I had my Spouse Appreciation Day on the 14th this month and it was lovely. Nothing big, but Larry brought me my French Toast (from Kneaders) in bed (but this time he remembered to have everyone stay haha). I had also told Larry that I think a hike sounded nice since we didn't do too many this year and I gave him a list of a few that sounded like they'd be good for us for him to pick from. While on the hike (he chose Cascade Springs) I told him I was craving Cafe Rio, so we stopped there for lunch on the way back (YUM!). During nap time I watched Scream 7 (I knew it would be bad, but I just have to watch those movies, I'm stuck in them haha....and it was pretty bad). After nap time, we went to Maurices and I picked a couple cute shirts out and then we went to Denny's because I knew the kids would actually eat that food so it wouldn't be a fight haha). It was a nice day.

LOOK at the colors! It looked better in person.

-This one is silly, but I got a new cleaning toy (a Tineco wet/dry cordless vacuum). I wasn't going to get anything on the Amazon Deals page, but I was reading a review on cordless vacuums and I was hoping to get a new one soon (my last one just wasn't cutting it). This one had great reviews, is a cordless wet/dry vacuum that self cleans and is a kind of smart device. So I decided to get it and I'm just SO excited to use it. Larry said I really don't need two so I'm giving our Crosswave to Andy and Rachel (it's a great cleaner, I just really don't need two).

-Since it's starting to get darker earlier, we brought back doing activities for kids after dinner. I was doing them a lot last winter just to fill up that time slot and then, once it got warmer, we just spent all our nights out front playing. I'm excited to bring back activities, but now I'll have to start thinking of them and planning them a little better. So far I've found some good ones the kids like though.

Oobleck...Gwen's favorite activity

-Pierce had his 18 month checkup this month. Everything is looking good and he's growing very big. They still say they hear the heart murmur so they think it would be good if we took him to a cardiologist to get a second opinion. I'm leaning more towards waiting till he's 2 to see since I've heard it's actually pretty common and does tend to go away on it's own. If he still has it at that point then that will be almost a year he's had it so it might be good to get another opinion at that point, we'll see.