Another first day of school

Moving to Washington means that the boys had to enroll in a new school, therefore had to go through the first day jitters all over again. They are now attending Park Lodge Elementary. Hayden's teacher is Mrs. Fields (who I knew from high school!) and Roman's teacher is Miss Brown. Hayden and Olivia are in the same class and he sees Rix throughout the day. Jack and Bryce are in Roman's preschool class. And Nana Lynda is the school secretary. They love their classes and love that they can see Nana throughout the day. They also know that, because Nana is there, she's the first one to find out if they get in trouble!

This is Roman's first day of school. Hayden had been in school a few weeks already, but the process for signing Roman up for preschool was a bit longer. I happened to also be dropping Jack off, too.

Roman with Nana. Roman gets dropped off at lunch time, so sometimes he and Bryce will eat lunch with Nana before heading to class, although Roman prefers to sit with Hayden during lunch. I think he feels like a big boy eating with the first graders!

Visiting Santa

Last year, our visit to Santa included getting to the mall and standing in line with three cranky kids for 45 minutes just so they could spend 10 seconds on Santa's lap, get a candy cane, and a quick picture with the man in red. And no, we didn't spend $15 for a single photo with Santa. We used our own ghetto camera. It was borderline nightmare-ish. I wasn't looking forward to another venture to the mall this year.

Luckily for us (mostly me), Carissa invited us to her ward's Christmas party, which included a visit with Santa and free professional photography. Merry Christmas to me, right?! The kids stood in line for maybe five minutes max, got to sit on Santa's lap, and told him exactly what they wanted - Legos, Wii games, and Pokemon stuff. Then they got their photos and a bag of candy from a helpful little elf. Aubrey, sadly, stayed home with Jeremiah because she had pink eye. Not that she would have sat on Santa's lap anyway. While she can recognize him, she wants nothing to do with sitting on him.

As for the rest of our Christmas, we are surviving. We've finished shopping, except for the traditional Christmas Eve dash for stocking stuffers, and most of the presents are wrapped and under the tree - and we've even set a gate around the tree to keep pesky little kids from opening presents early. Our stockings are finally hung up. I finished baking cookies today - lemon raspberry thumbprint cookies, chocolate peppermint sandwich cookies, Mexican wedding cookies, and double chocolate mint cookies. The kids are dutifully counting down the days to Christmas. It certainly doesn't feel a whole lot like Christmas, maybe because it hasn't snowed in Washington yet - rained, yes, but no snow. And we miss our Christmas decorations that are in our storage locker in Utah. But, according to the kids, it's two more days to Christmas Eve and then we get to open one present (pajamas, most likely) and then three days to Christmas!!!

Day of Thanksgiving

We somehow managed to fit 10 adults and 11 children into my parents home for Thanksgiving this year. That included us and our children, my parents, Carissa and her family, Celeste and her family, and a family friend, Tessa, and her family. The adults were technically outnumbered, but we figured out how to control (sort of) the chaos. Mom and Dad set up a tv and dvd player in the playroom, which seemed to keep the kids busy most of the time.

While I wouldn't consider Thanksgiving my most favorite holiday, I do love the spread of food every year. Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes...and then there's always the leftovers that seem to last for days! We even had a ham and funeral potatoes, green beans, mashed potatoes, and raspberry jello salad, and that's not counting the appetizers of cheese and crackers and a vegetable platter!

While the kids did a great job taking pictures, I couldn't seem to get the adults to take a serious shot.

Even as I try (in vain) to get a good picture of Adam, Celeste is in the background playing around...or maybe that's how she normally eats???

Here's FINALLY a good shot, but if you see below, it didn't last.

Celeste is trying to get in the spirit of Movember...yes, I said Movember. Something about growing out a mustache for prostate cancer awareness? I'm not sure what mustaches have to do with prostate cancer but I think Bryan loved the excuse.

Please don't think this is a serious shot. Carissa is making fun of my tendancy to tilt my head while taking pictures.

My apple pie. I teased mom that I needed a turkey cookie cutter for the pie, but turns out she actually had one!

Of course we took advantage of Black Friday, although I've learned that you can usually get similar prices by shopping online. And I think it was easier to take advantage this year because some stores started their sales on Thursday night. We drove out to Toys R Us, but the line to get in was around the store twice, and they were only allowing 50 people in every 10 minutes. We would have been outside waiting for hours. In the cold. And there was nothing I needed that bad. So we went to Walmart, which was open and not at all crazy, but we got there at 10:30pm and weren't allowed to make any Black Friday purchases until midnight. We got everything we needed and were home by 12:30pm. Not bad for Black Friday! We slept in and even ran to a few stores later that day. How many times can I say most of my Christmas shopping is done before December even starts?!

As usual, Thanksgiving gives us all a chance to really think about what we are blessed with and what we are thankful for. Here are some of mine:

• Family, all of them. My husband, my kids, my parents, my siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents...all of them. Even on the worst day, it is my family that puts a smile on my face.
• Friends. I just love them, probably because they love me.
• The gospel. It has given my life meaning and direction that I couldn't get anywhere else.
• A house, food to eat, clothes - all the necessities of life that we tend to take for granted.
• Good books. I'm reading the Hunger Game series and can't seem to put it down.

Early November

Our last day in Utah was spent mostly packing and running errands (and for me, bawling my eyes out). However, we took time out of our busy day to take Hayden and his BFF Will to dinner at Arctic Circle. Hayden and Will became joined at the hip soon after school started, and separating them was one of the hardest parts of our move. Hayden, who was generally excited for our move to Washington, was in tears as he left his bestie for the last time. The only thing that slightly cheered him up was the idea of becoming pen pals with Will and knowing that he could visit Will whenever we went to Utah. ** Side note: It was crazy hair day at school. Thus the spiky hair on the boys. It's the only day out of the year that they are actually eager for gel and hairspray.

Our second night of traveling, we stayed at a hotel in Pendleton, Oregon. Between hours of driving and the hotel's swimming pool, apparently Roman got a bit tired. He fell asleep mid-cartoon. On my pillow. Holding Buzz. Cute, right?

Hayden had to have his in-bed picture taken, too.

And Aubrey wore the boy's school shirt to bed because she leaked through every pair of jammies we brought. And yes, she currently has a face only a mother could love. She got into the Halloween candy and the evidence is all over her face.

Where we are

I'm trying to come up with a valid excuse for why it's taken me a while to update our blog. Hmmm... catching up on work? Moving to a new state...with three crazy kids and one crazy husband? Job searching? PASSING THE BAR???

That's right. Jeremiah passed the Texas bar. The way I see it, the easy part is done. Now to find a job. Jeremiah might not agree with the "easy" part, but I always knew he could do it.

The day after the bar results, we finished packing up the U-Haul trailer, said a tearful goodbye to friends and family, and headed to Washington. The only thing that slightly kept our sanity during the long drive was the promise of a swimming pool at our hotel in Pendleton, Oregon. We barely had to threaten banning the pool and the kids would stop fighting/whining/kicking.

I'm so glad our lives do not come with a daily complimentary breakfast. Well, no, that's not entirely true. I would certainly like that. But for the kids? They would waste enough food to feed a small, starving country. Each morning they'd pile their plates with eggs, sausage, cereal, yogurt, donuts, apples, and oatmeal...and barely ate.

The pool, however, was totally worth it. They practiced swimming in the hot tub because it was quite a bit smaller...and warmer...than the pool. She-who-hates-water-in-the-face...I mean Aubrey...became a lover of pools. In fact, she and Roman took turns jumping into the pool when we weren't looking as if we needed practice playing lifeguard. We eventually herded all of them to the hot tub just to keep track of them.

We are now in Washington, living with my parents. I'm still job searching. Jeremiah is working for my dad's company until he finds another job. We are in desperate need of a place of our own. I miss our life three months ago - a place of our own, our things, our friends and family, my job (sort of). Is it weird I miss my boys' old school? They had BFFs there, great teachers, and they were learning so much. I love being close to my family in Washington - we've had some cousin's playdates and we are making plans for group dates and family activities. I get to see my parents and sisters every day, something I never got to do in Utah. I just look forward to the day when we can stand on our own two feet and live in a home where we can watch our family grow.

Halloweekend

Our Halloween started on Friday this year with a trip to Gardner Village. We'd planned on going last weekend, but with everyone still feeling slightly ill, we decided to go this weekend instead. While there weren't any real witches walking around (although Jeremiah joked that I was there, didn't that count?) there were plenty of stuffed witches dressed in their best attire. Such as said witch on a bike...

A witch in a cute litte hat...oh wait, that's Aubrey! Josette bought her a hat exactly like this but with purple webbing. Hopefully next year she'll be old enough to bribe because she's not a wearer-of-hats. She cries.

This witch is a girl after my own heart. She is holding a Diet Coke. See, everyone needs a little caffeine now and then (or every day).

On Saturday Jeremiah and I took the kids to the pumpkin patch. Hayden was sick and stayed home on the day his class went on a field trip to pick out pumpkins, and I felt bad that Roman had a pumpkin but Hayden didn't. Hayden felt bad, too, and let me know all about it.

Can you tell he's in love with his pumpkin? It only cost $4 and they gave us two free pumpkins because they had so many to get rid of.

We went trick-or-treating on Saturday (the 30th) this year because Utah is obviously a religious state and no one wanted to go trick-or-treating on a Sunday. Jeremiah and I took the kids around a few neighborhoods in the area. He then took Aubrey home while I went out with the boys and Kory and Ana Lee for some more candy. It was COLD! It had rained earlier in the day and everyone was wet, but we didn't hear any complaints from the kids. They had candy to get!

My army man and our trusty dog :)

And then there's our lion (lioness?) who cried because we put her hat on. The drama of a 2-year-old!

This is my view most of the time. Don't you love her big lion butt?

Kory and Ana Lee's costume. Don't call him Davy Crockett. Apparently that's offensive. He's a hunter, she's his prey. Get it?

On Sunday we went up to Steve and Mel's house after church for dinner and games. We haven't seen these guys in several weeks and with our move only a week away, we had to plan something! Melanie ordered pumpkin-shaped bread bowls (complete with green stem!) from the Lehi Bakery and we had stew. And pie. And Canadian chocolate. Oh, and we played cards, and yes, I lost. Don't I always?

Knowing Aubrey would refuse her lion hood, I decided to put her hair up into "ears". I sat her down in her chair with Skittles and worked fast. Apparently Skittles keeps her busy enough that she didn't cry. Why didn't I think of this before? Oh, and don't ask what this look is for. She just looks like she is plotting something evil.

This is the look of an army man who's lost his army helmet. Bummer huh?

Roman had issues with his dog face getting into his own face. Can you see him in there? Sort of?

Aubrey-monster in her full attire.

She was refusing a picture, but Daddy caught her in a hug just in time!

Melanie told me that her friend bought her an Easy Bake oven because Melanie mentioned once how she'd always wanted one as a little girl but never got one. Well, now she does! She baked Aubrey a little birthday cake in her Easy Bake! Fun, right? I want one!

Taylor, Hayden, Roman, Aubrey, and Natalie.

Aubrey loves her Natalie.

Aubrey FINALLY got to blow out her candles. At our little family party we couldn't find matches so we just ate the cake. She had some help from Roman, though, since she couldn't quite figure out how to blow them out and Roman was more than willing to show her.

We had a great Halloweekend. We still have pumpkin carving to do, which will probably happen tomorrow. Holidays are always so much fun when you have children and you can see the excitement in their eyes over the decorations, costumes, and creativity that go into each event. We enjoyed watching them run from door-to-door, get candy, and then yell "Thanks! Happy Halloween!" to everyone they met. They loved trick-or-treating with Kory and Ana Lee (and still talk about the Mad Hatter's house!!!) and of course we love spending with with our family here, getting in as many visits with them before we leave!