I'm thankful for my crazy life!

Although not the biggest Thanksgiving fan, I do love the holidays because it means awesome sales at my favorite stores...oh, and family visiting! Jeremiah's sister, Amy, and her ladykiller son, Edmund, visited us for the Thanksgiving week. It was nice to have her around, she's full of energy and we got out of the house a lot more than we normally do. She even took me on a "date" to see New Moon - although I could have done without the 40-somethings behind me swooning over Jacob Black's every screen appearance.


Edmund and Aubrey got along like, well, siblings. Edmund loved to grab at Aubrey and Aubrey loved to grab at any toy Edmund happened to be playing with. She even threw her girly fits with him, screaming in his ear, and making him cry. But they had their moments of peaceful playing and it was fun to see them together.

One of the many activities that Amy suggested was a trip to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving Point. The boys and I got there early and decided to peruse the shops (well, I decided...they would have happily played in the itty bits of snow on the ground). While looking in the toy shop, they came up to me with big suckers in their mouth. Apparently they thought the open bins of bulk candy were just there for the taking. Luckily I had my wallet and some change and paid for their sins. I drooled over the store's clothing, pricey enough to match my utility bills, and then met up with Amy, Nana, Natalie, and Edmund for the zoo.

The cows were as cute as cows could be. They were mild mannered and nudged at the boys until the petted them. The $3 admission even came with a pony ride, but only for those 12 and under, meaning the boys were the only ones to take advantage of that. We saw horses, pigs, ducks, goats, sheep, and turkeys, which I pointed out to the boys would be our dinner the next evening. They didn't seem traumatized by that at all, luckily.

Yes, that is Roman wearing Jeremiah's scarf. He's deemed it his own scarf, and Jeremiah replaced his with a new one.

Hayden playing around in the zoo's gift shop.

So Wednesday night Jeremiah and I invited everyone over for couscous. Amy brought over Costco cupcakes (thus the enormous size) and because I had no room on the counters, I placed them on the floor for what I thought would be a short, uninterrupted period of time. As Jeremiah stated, "Why did you put cupcakes on the floor when we have a chocoholic for a daughter?!"

Roman and Hayden are obsessed with their costumes lately. Hayden was in his Harry Potter robe earlier, but Roman kept his elephant costume on. It's hard to take them seriously when they are dressed like this. They love playing the Wii when their cousin Taylor comes over.

Another new habit of Roman's is personalizing Lovey. Lovey "goes potty in the potty chair", jumps in the jumper for "quiet time", goes in time out, and "pushes" Roman, causing him to fall down. I noticed especially when Roman is disciplining Lovey just how much he is mocking me, such as "Listen carefully, Lovey..." and "Are we clear Mister?".

Thanksgiving Day was as expected. I woke up eager for the morning newspaper and all the Black Friday ads. I spent the morning making my Blue Ribbon Apple Pie (below) and thought it looked amazing. We then met everyone for "Planet 51" at the theaters. The boys loved it, Jeremaih thought it was awful, but I didn't have much of an opinion since Aubrey preferred crawling the halls to watching the big screen. Thanksgiving Dinner was totally worth the wait, of course. Steve always makes the best sweet potatoes with pineapple (although I will always have a spot in my heart for my mom's sweet potatoes!) and the turkey was delicious. I brought over a store-bought pecan pie, plus my apple pie and a pumpkin cheesecake. We played Mexican Train and the boys played ping pong.

All the cousins in attendence, plus Nana: Hayden, Natalie, Aubrey, Edmund, Nana, Taylor, and Hayden. This was the best shot I could get, and Aubrey had just woke up from a nap. Maybe next year we'll brave professional photographers!

Saturday morning the boys helped me decorate the tree, which meant that all the ornaments were on the lower half of the tree and a lot of them managed to be hooked on the same tree limb. Of course I gushed over their gorgeous tree only to rearrange the ornaments during quiet time. We've only had one incident of Aubrey grabbing ornaments and lights, fingers crossed.

The boys have a habit of eating dry cereal throughout the day, mostly at breakfast and for afternoon snack. They also prefer to eat "out of the bag" as opposed to me putting the cereal in a bowl. On Saturday, Aubrey got ahold of a bag. I was talking to Jeremiah when we heard what could only be a ton of cereal being poured onto the floor...

She was so proud of herself! She's growing up so fast, from getting into cereal and cupcakes to pulling herself up on furniture and talking way too much. She's quite patient with me when I do her hair (only because I've been doing it since she was born) and she loves her brothers to death.

Reaping the Utah Benefits...

In Ohio, I rarely saw family. I made the two-hour drive to Carissa's house in Cleveland, but because of gas prices and such, I reserved those trips for times that I was especially homesick...or when Jeremiah was in finals mode because trust me, he's not so much fun to be around during that time. So now that we are in Utah, I love being around family that I missed so much! I see Josette, my mother-in-law, at least three times a week and Kory and Ana Lee make random visits to our house at least weekly. My parents have even visited, which always makes me happy.

I was lucky to have my Grandma Betty and my Aunt Cathy visit from Colorado this last weekend. They were up in Sandy visiting my Aunt Wendy and Uncle Lorrin and their kids, so I drove up with my own kids (what's three more kids in a chaotic house, right?) to see them. Grandma baked the best bread ever- even Hayden, who is not a bread fan (seriously, is this kid really mine?!) is in love with this bread and has yet to refuse it. She also gave us some homemade strawberry jam, with strawberries that Wendy's girls picked over the summer...so thanks Paige and Ivie for all your child labor! I love seeing my grandma, we've always had a close bond and she's so laid back and easy to talk to - she's also good at telling it like it is, which can be refreshing, funny, or obnoxious, but I love it about her. She is just an awesome lady. And I haven't seen my Aunt Cathy that much, but it was good to see her. Sometimes when I looked at her I could have sworn she was my mother, so it was nice to cuddle up with her and feel some of that homesickness for my own mother go away. Cathy has always been so funny - take a look at our picture, she's wearing feetie pajamas! I think Aubrey has a pair just like them!

I seriously need to get Paige and Ivie to babysit for me. After an hour of crying and clinging to me, Aubrey stopped crying to go play with Paige. It was like a miracle. Really.

(A Million) Pictures of a Princess

I took Aubrey to get her one-year photos done at Target a few weeks ago, and for reasons that I can't figure out, she was afraid of the camera they used. Either it's because she's a girl and is allowed to be dramatic for no apparent reason or the camera was big, bulky, and the flash was super-bright. I think it's a mixture of both. Needless to say, I was stuck choosing between several pictures of my baby girl crying at the camera, which wasn't how I wanted to remember her first year. She's really a happy baby, not that the pictures proved that at all.

So I went with CheapShots and it was the best $20 I've ever spent! She worked so well with Aubrey and really listened to what I wanted. I can't wait for the summer to get the boys' pictures taken and possibly family pictures. Her prices are amazing and her photography is even better. Take a peek (or sit down with some snacking food, there's a lot of photos)...

Halloween 2009

The kids have been waiting for Halloween for weeks! I'd been putting off carving pumpkins since we got them a few weeks ago, I'm not the biggest fan of pumpkin-gutting and pumpkin carving. So I was finally forced of Friday to get it done and over with. Luckily the boys were pretty excited for the pumpkin-gutting, even if I had to finish it up for them. I had them use a crayon to draw a face on their pumpkin and then I would carve it for them. Roman had drawn something that resembled more of a Picasso than an actual pumpkin face, so he opted to have me cut his just like Hayden's. I need to remind myself next year to use something besides a $2 pumpkin-carving knife :)

So we were getting ready to run errands, and I hear, "Aubrey is eating my pumpkin!" I thought it was a bit of an overreaction, but nope, it was all about right...she was totally eating a pumpkin. And was quite sad when I took it away from her.

I dressed the kids up in their shirts for Halloween. Aubrey's said, "Daddy's under my spell" which is so true.

The boys making "scary" faces...or just faces. Not too scary. In fact, Aubrey thinks they are pretty funny.

Jeremiah stayed home with Aubrey while I took the boys around the neighborhood, only to find out that single college students don't tend to have a bucket of candy at the front door. Frustrated, I took the boys to my mother-in-law's neighborhood. They got their fill of candy and then we headed to Kory and Ana Lee's house for a party. The boys filled up on cupcakes and doughnuts, wrestled with Kory's friends, and then we were on our way home. They had a good time. They loved their costumes. They were eager to share their candy with Aubrey. And I'm excited to try making cookies out of some of their candy bars :)