So Blessed

Another Thanksgiving has already come and gone, and the Christmas holiday is quickly approaching. Our family has been blessed in so many ways and after spending the past week pondering these things I feel truly grateful.

I am so thankful for a wonderful and supportive husband. Chad is my best friend and I love him so much. We have been blessed with the most amazing little boys who are healthy and happy. My family is my life and they are certainly the reason that I look forward to each day.

We have the most amazing extended families. I am so thankful for the good people that they are and for all that they constantly do on our family's behalf. We love each of them.

We have a beautiful home in a wonderful and safe part of the world. We have great neighbors and friends. The people that surround us are good examples to us and to our children. For that, I am thankful.

We have the blessings of a good job, financial security, health care, reliable transportation, food and many uncountable other things. We are safe, healthy, happy, and secure. We are very blessed.

We spent Thanksgiving this year with my dad and his wonderful wife, Debbie, at their home in Hyrum. My brother Luke was also there with us. It was a great day to make the trip, the weather was beautiful. The food was just how Thanksgiving food should be, and the company was great. Here are a few pictures from our day:

We spent the morning after Thanksgiving decorating for Christmas. No, we did not brave the "Black Friday" crowds. The boys helped decorate our beautiful tree and put up the rest of the decorations. They are excited to have a few decorations in their bedroom this year, including Christmas lights in their bedroom window.

We are excited and ready for the Christmas holiday. It is my hope that we can keep the real meaning of Christmas in our hearts and that we can truly enjoy each others company. Happy December!

What a weekend!

We are at the end of a really fun weekend. Friday night Chad and I decided to bundle up the boys and head down to Gardner Village. It is such a fun place to wander around. They have their Christmas lights up now and the cute little elves are out. The boys were really excited to finish that night up with a donut from the bakery.


Saturday morning we were up bright and early to go shopping for our new counter top. We found it! We chose a beautiful piece of granite. It was a bit out of our price range, but as Chad always says, "everything is negotiable".

In celebration of my father in law's 55th birthday, Becky treated us all to an awesome time at iFly later Saturday afternoon. At iFly, you are first trained and then suited up before you jump into a crazy wind tunnel. The wind blows so hard that you literally fly. Everyone did it (even though some of us were moments away from chickening out!), including my brave little guys... we've got video to prove it. I will admit that it was scary but it was also so much fun, what a rush! Thank you Becky and Happy Birthday Ken!!!

Cabinets

It has taken every ounce of my free time for the past two weeks, but I FINALLY have my kitchen cabinets painted! They went from worn out honey oak:

To black and white with a little beadboard and knobs:

Jack asked me "how come we have an Oreo house?" I can see what he means, but I love Oreos so it's okay with me. Now the only thing left to decide are what to do with those counter tops. How does it look?

Go, Dog. Go!

Jack has been reading little books and doing quite well at it. Last night we pulled out the Go, Dog. Go! book and my sweet little Jack read all 64 pages of the book by himself! I am so proud of him. He is so smart.

Pancakes

We have a little chef on our hands! Nixin loves to make pancakes and he is really good at it. He can make an awesome batch of pancakes (with a little mommy help, of course!). Saturday morning he said "What day is today?" and I told him that it was Saturday. He said "Is that the day I go to school?" and I told him that it was the day that we all stayed home. Then he said "That means it's pancake day!" and into the kitchen he ran. He is such a sweet boy!

Fire Station

Today we went with our ward play group to the South Jordan fire station. My boys loved it, in fact I think that all of the kids loved it. They watched a fire safety video and then toured the station. I learned a lot and my boys are still talking about it.

Murphy

I am just realizing that I have forgotten to introduce an important part of our family to this blog. Murphy is our daschund (or wiener dog, as our boys like to call her). She is the laziest, cuddliest, sweetest dog that we could have ever asked for. We have had Murphy for almost 5 years. The boys love her so much. The first thing they do every morning is find Murphy, who is usually hiding in a pile of blankets somewhere, and give her loves. Chad might love her even more than the boys do...he tries to sneak her into our bed all the time because "she is cold" and I tease him that he gives her more cuddles than he gives me. She can to a total of 5 tricks: Sit, Give Me Five, Bang! (Roll over onto her back), Speak, and Sing. She LOVES to sing. If you sing a song and wiggle your pointer finger at her, she will bark along. It's pretty cute really. She loves to eat Iams dog food and bones. The funniest thing about Murphy is that when she is out of food or water she will bring you her dish. She is a wonderful pet and we love her.

Halloween 2008

Let me just say that we live in the funnest neighborhood ever! Halloween night was a blast. The streets were packed with families trick or treating, friends everywhere, our neighbors, the Leewellyn's, have the neatest Halloween yard that I have ever seen, the weather was wonderful, and the kids got hooked up with so much candy. Jack and Nixin both have completely caught on to the idea of trick or treating and it really made it so much fun this year. Oh, and our costumes were a hit! Jack and Nixin were ghosts and Chad and I were the Ghostbusters. We were darling if I do say so myself.

Nightmare

Wanna know what we love? We LOVE The Nightmare Before Christmas. We love the movie (my kids have it memorized, seriously), we love the book, we love Jack Skellington, we love the songs from the movie (Nix sings them all the time and it is darling) and we love that the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland is transformed into The Nightmare Before Christmas during the holiday season. As Jack Skellington would say, it is "splendid".