Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Movies, Rewards, & Holidays

Well another week has past. Had some fun stuff happen last week and many more to come! My sister-in-law and I both love Twilight. I love that she is close by and that we get along and are close to each other. She came over and we watched the first 3 movies together. Then one of my friends has a connection and got us pre-showing tickets of Breaking Dawn for Thursday night. I was little bummed we missed out on the "party stuff" from the midnight showings, but with 2 active little boys and being 5 months pregnant, I think it was better to have an 8 o'clock showing instead. We really liked the movie. A few corny parts, but overall I liked it. They did a good job. Eclipse is still my favorite movie, but Breaking Dawn part 1 is a close 2nd.
Mark had had a talk with one of his supervisors last week and they said he would be getting a raise. They had been looking at what other companies were paying there employees at Mark's "level" and wanted to get him up there. Mainly "we want you to be happy to work here sort of thing." He didn't say when he would get the raise or how much it would be. Until the beginning of this week.... He will get it starting with this pay period we are in now, so next week Hello Raise! It's enough to make me feel even more comfortable about staying at home and not working outside the home. We are calling it "The Christmas bonus that keeps on giving".
We have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season. Instead of doing daily posts here or on Facebook we do a family board. We have it hanging in our sitting/living/family room(whatever you want to call it). We haven't been the best at keeping it up to date, but we catch up. It's fun watching it fill up and re-reading them. We started doing this last year and had lots of fun with it. We will be having Mark's family over for dinner tomorrow, Kiera and I will be going shopping on Friday. We don't get up super early, we just go after breakfast. More for the tradition and deals than the specific items at midnight etc. Mark and I tried that I think it was last year. The things we really wanted to get turned out to be limited and we got in line to late even though we were super early. We froze waiting outside, and was just a total bust. There are a few deals I want to grab this year, but if I don't get them... oh well we will survive and it's not going to break my heart. Saturday will be time with my side of the family. Looking forward to all the family time and making memories!
Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Family, Friends, Gospel, & Singing Bliss

I got to help my mom a lot last week in working on the Christmas Village she puts together every year. We also had my nephews Nik and Mo over one day and spend the night another. Their mom had a nice long labor. My newest nephew Gavin Owen was born on the 9th. We went to see him on the 10th after Mark got home from work.
I also finished Emmett's stocking on the 10th!!! About time right? Now I just need to find some fabric for the backing and get that done and it will be complete and ready for Christmas.
We had some friends over Saturday for dinner. We did this monthly with them for awhile, then had to stop for a bit and now we have picked it back up again. It is really nice getting to hang out with them eating dinner, playing games, and just talking once a month. They are thinking about moving to Maine, which we will really miss them if they do.
Sunday was a busy day for me. I got up early and drove out to Magna. I went to our old ward's primary program. I was able to help the primary president set some stuff up for it. I'm glad I was able to help her out in a small way. After working with her for 9 months in the presidency I was glad to have some part in the day. The kids did awesome! The spirit was there. Afterwards I chatted with some old friends then headed home for lunch then off to my current ward's choir practice. I'm excited to be in a choir again. It's a smaller choir, but it's still fun. After that I had enough time to run home and get my boys for church. It was our Primary's program too. My mom came, and waited for us in the foyer. After Chase ran to give her a hug, he hugged the lady that walked in behind us too. He thought she was Kiera. I didn't think to call her or Mark's dad or any other family members and invite them. I had mentioned it to mom when we worked on the village and she "invited herself".
As soon as we entered the chapel Chase got scared and didn't want to go up for the program. After some convincing we got him up there. He did really good. He sang the songs and actually danced a bit on them too. One lady told me he was doing the robot(we couldn't fully see him, the pulpit was in our way). He got up when it was time for his part and said it perfectly, "I can follow God's plan by being patient." He came up with it on his own, the ending. I was very proud of him and can't believe how big he is getting.
That night the stake had a Christmas Choir practice. I of course attended. It was the best! Not your normal church choral, where it is usually just hymns and nothing to high. One of the songs we are singing is the Halleluja Chorus, from The Messiah. I loved hitting those high notes again. Yeah I sing along with my choir cds etc, but it's not the same as being with a choir doing it. I came home very giddy! I'm loving having the two choirs. I've really missed singing in one.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Another Fun Filled Week

I feel like this is turning into a bit of a diary. I'm just trying to document some of the things that happen in our life as a family. I don't write in my journal as much as I should and these posts help me make sure I get everything in it when I do. I don't know if anyone is reading these, if you are I hope I don't bore you and you enjoy a glimpse into my life....
We had a fun Halloween. Mark wore his costume to work. The boys and I just hung out at home. We went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat that night. It was a good thing for us, not know to many people on our street and our great neighbors told us not to go trick-or-treating on the street unless we just visit the ward members houses(which we don't know all yet). So Mark took the boys around to all the trunks. I stayed in the van with our Halloween mix CD playing to hand out candy. After Emmett's first car he came running back to me to show me his candy. He was so excited about it he didn't care for more then he realized he could get more and walked around with daddy. It was great getting to talk with the ward members a little more.
We were really close to running out of candy, so we decided to leave just in case we had a few trick-or-treaters come to the house. Mark and I made dinner. We had brains and eyes..... Spaghetti and Meatballs. It was the first time we had made meatballs. They didn't really turn out, but worked. We will have to use a different recipe next time. After dinner we got the boys back into costume and drove out to visit our parents. We hung out with Mark's dad for awhile then drove out to see my parents. While there my mom gave me some of my baby clothes and my blessing dress for Lyla.
On November 2nd I finished Emmett's stocking, well I can start backstitching it, which is putting all the detail to faces and outlining the animals etc. We realized that day, our fridge wasn't keeping stuff cold as it should. Our milk was curdling a bit. So we set up a time to have a repair man come over to take a look at it the next day. We have a home warranty and luckily it covers all our appliances. It saved us over $200. The heater and thermostat were gone so he replaced them. The night of the 2nd I got to go to a Girls Night with some of the women in our ward. It was really nice. We mainly just chatted, but was perfect for me, since I don't really know them. So this helped get to know them better. There are some awesome women in my ward!
I had a doctors appointment Thursday morning before the fridge repair guy came. Everything looks good. Still on target for March 20th. Ultrasound showed no problems!
Friday was a pretty chillaxed day.
Saturday it snowed! When Chase saw it, he was ecstatic. He wanted to go out right then to play. We made him wait till after breakfast. Then while I watched the boys play Mark shoveled the walks. Then I wanted to clean off the cars and we realized that neither of us had our keys, and that the front door handle was locked... We were locked out of the house! I went to our next door neighbor who is a cop to see if he had anything to help us get in the house. Nope, but he does have a ladder but the only window opened was small, but he has a 6 or 7 yr old daughter small enough to fit. So they got ready and he climbed up opened the window, put her in, and she opened the door for us. It was crazy. I am sooooo thankful for them. They are just awesome and have helped us so much since we bought the house. After warming up and cleaning the house a bit we took the boys to my parents house. My mom watched them while Mark and I used the gift card my father-in-law gave me for my birthday to go out to lunch then we did a Temple Session. We haven't been in a while and it was perfect. The serenity of the temple was just what I needed. We really need to get back in the habit of going monthly. Afterwards we got the boys, hung out for awhile then went home for dinner. We blew up a couple air mattresses, got the boys to bed.
Then Kiera, my parents, and youngest brother all came over to spend the night. We stayed up late talking, laughing, and sharing stories. It was a lot of fun. We went to bed around 11 I think. We had to be up at about 4 AM to get ready and get on the road to Wyoming for my niece's' blessing. Their church starts at 9. The boys were really good about waking up and I think it helped seeing everyone was at the house. We put Lion King on in the van and they were great. I seriously love having that DVD player, it has helped so much on those long trips, especially the early ones. We had been worried that we would run into snow on the drive up, but didn't hit any! The blessing was beautiful! Then we went over to my brother's house for a luncheon. The boys loved playing with all their cousins. After lunch I started to get a migraine. I had had a bit of a headache, but not to bad. Well the migraine was horrible! We left around 2 so the boys could get a nap in. I tried to rest as well to get rid of the migraine. It went, but came right back after we left Evanston. Then we hit the twisty-turnys of the mountain and was not great for me. I had to make Mark pull over at one point so I could get out of the van and.... I felt better afterwards. Shakey of course, but better. Just a slight headache and wiped out for the rest of the evening. We got home just after 5. I went and laid down and slept for almost 2 hours. Felt much better afterwards. Mark and I were both exhausted. We stayed up long enough to watch CSI Miami and went to bed. Now on to another week. Hoping I'll finish Emmett's stocking this week.