Josh's Birthday & Thanksgiving

It's a quiet Saturday afternoon. It's been a very nice, relaxing Thanksgiving break. Today Courtney and Brittney went on FrontRunner out to the Gateway with a few of Courtney's friends. Josh and Sean went to watch the BYU/Utah game with Dennis. Lexi is sleeping. I'm listening to Christmas music and trying to fix the Christmas tree ornaments after the kiddos decorated it last night. One day I'll have a really pretty tree, but for now I like having a tree full of elementary school created ornaments, who-cares-if-they-break-it ornaments, all placed in clusters and clumps. Trying to keep that perspective that the kids will be grown and not want to decorate the tree anymore pretty soon. My collection of Christmas decorations really needs an overhaul. It's pretty sorry. Someday.

So Josh's birthday was last weekend. He had a pretty good day. I can't believe my baby boy is six!







I bought this stuff for $1 and seriously we've all played with it. I don't know exactly why it's so funny, but it really is. Especially when you hear from the other room, "Josh, it's bedtime." "Not yet, I've got to do a really good fart."


I guess Brittney was excited about the Transformer Josh got.


Two weekends ago Courtney went to the Sadie's dance with her boyfriend and a group of friends. She didn't take any pictures. Bummer. I should have thought to do it for her. They took over my house for lunch, dinner, and then came over after the dance to watch a movie. It was a lot of work for her, but she had fun so it was good.

Thanksgiving was a great feast. There was so much good food! It was fun to hang out with everyone. We had some good, deep conversation. Courtney's friend Skyler came with us. They've been friends since junior high. I love this picture of the two of them from a few summers ago. It's fun to watch these kids grow up.



Now, it's on to Christmas. The lights are up, the decorations are up, the shopping has commenced. I don't do Black Friday, but I'm all ready for Cyber Monday. Sean's mom and sisters bought us some Black Friday deals, so that was super nice of them. I don't even know what we had them buy. Sean saw some stuff he wanted and asked his mom to get it. We went and saw a Christmas light display last night. I'm ready for some snow. I'm in the spirit this year. Bring it on.

Yay! Also... Is it summer yet?

Yay! I got my phone connection working! Most of what's on there isn't worth posting, but here are two.

The girls in Las Vegas


Lexi after daycare trick-or-treating.

Lest I seem like a (more) horrible mother, she didn't actually eat all three of those. She opened them all, licked them all, set them all down, and I threw them away when she wasn't looking.

So, I think it's going to be a really long winter. Really. Long. I'm already wishing for summer. That's a bad sign. Apparently I'm not the only one. The other night Lexi said to me, "When us going boating, mom? Thursday? Us going boating Thursday." OK baby. Sounds good to me.

Sean's been pheasant hunting Saturday mornings and in the evenings in the field down the street from our house. Luckily, I don't think any pheasants really actually live there. If he gets one he's going to expect me to eat it, and I really, really hate gagging. So we'll hope that the season ends quietly and without dead birds at my house.

So Lexi is in this "pink" phase where she requests everything to be pink. She doesn't get upset if it isn't, thankfully, but it's, "I want my pink pumpkin." "I go to my pink school." "I want my pink pancake." "I'm riding in my pink boat, mom." If I say, "Let's get a redbox tonight," she'll say, "I want my pink box." I love the way they say things at this age. Yesterday she told me, "Mom, I love you best I can."

Josh is learning to read so well! I was worried because he got a really slow start. He had no interest in letters or numbers up until now. If I tried to talk to him about that kind of thing he would just change the subject. He really struggled at the beginning of Kindergarten, so I was thinking we were in for a real battle. But he's getting it down all of a sudden, thank goodness.

And so it goes...

Hotties, Halloween, and Britt's Birthday

Sean and I went to the Joan Jett concert a few weekends ago, and it was loads of fun. The data connection for my phone is messed up, so I can't pull the pics off, or I would torture you with them. I decided that I'm going on the Joan Jett diet, though. I have to do a little research here to find out what her secret is... maybe all she eats is fruit and large quantities of Jack Daniels. Who knows. All I know is she is 51 years old and looks like this.



Halloween was a week-long extravaganza at our house this year. The daycare went trick-or-treating on Tuesday, so Josh and Lexi came home with a bunch of candy. I have a picture of Lexi with 3 suckers in her mouth, but again, on the phone. Then we had a party at my mom's house while Heather and Peter were here. We had loads of awesomely creepy food made by Heather and Peter. Severed fingers, spiders, eyeballs, you name it. And fabulous soup and bread. It was great fun to visit with everyone. Then we had actual Halloween.

Pumpkin carving




Josh the Karate Kid


Brittney the zombie vampire prom queen of the undead


Lexi the ladybug




Brittney's birthday was yesterday. 14 big ones. Love this girl. She is funny, smart, a great writer, cute, and has pretty good taste in music and movies.




On a final note... Good-bye to my World Series boyfriend Jayson Werth. I'm sorry that it had to end this way. But you were oh-so-lovely to look at for the past 6 games.