Thanksgiving week

This was a busy, fun-filled week. I'm pretty sure I didn't sit down once Monday or Tuesday. I do laundry on Mondays (and I folded it this week, too, which almost never happens), and I usually need to go grocery shopping (which I did this week), plus Mira had a playdate with cousin Dylan who lives 25 minutes away, (so I drove there and back twice--almost 2 hours in the car). I was also trying to get Christmas decorations finished, so I took Cecily to DI to see if I could find a few things to fill in the display. Mira had dance. I actually cooked a real meal for dinner.

Tuesday, Cecily had tumbling, all three girls had dentist appointments, I had a presidency meeting to plan our ward Christmas party, I had writing group, and Steve had a presidency meeting, since he's now the Elder's Quorum secretary. I also had visiting teaching and Mira had another playdate (luckily this one was closer to home). I also managed to exercise, shower, and get my scripture study in there, along with running kids to and from school and feeding people. :)

Wednesday was Thanksgiving prep day. We made squash casserole and two pies, apple and cherry. I say "we" because Steve volunteered to make the squash. Nice, huh? The kids had the day off of school and it was a super nice day, so they played outside for at least half the day. I decided to finally finish my sewing projects that have been sitting in the playroom since Halloween. And I did it! I fixed a teddy bear, altered a shirt and sewed a skirt with a lace overlay. You could be impressed with that if I could wear it, but I think I'm going to have to give it away. I can wear it standing up, but I failed to consider how much wider I would be sitting down and it gets a little short. Erg.

Thursday was spent with the Frohlichs. We were dismayed/horrified when Cecily threw up Wednesday night around 10:30 and then again Thursday morning about the same time. Steve was generous enough to stay home with the sick kid while I took the older two girls to eat turkey and all the sides without him. The Watts' were kind enough to bring him some of their dinner after it was all prepared, so he still got some food, but he missed out on the great company. When I got home at 6pm, I let him go up to his parents house to get some extended family time in.

We should have known Cecily was sick when she fell asleep on the couch before bedtime (the cat is laying on her legs).

Friday and Saturday were all planned out by the Watts' and we had a great time. We did a talent show for Great Grandma Watts at her nursing home. My girls sang with all the girl cousins, cousin Jane played the harp, cousin Haley played the violin, and the adults sang various pieces.

Then we went back to the house and everybody made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. My kids were very creative. I was so impressed with them!

Grandma Watts decided that her present to the grandkids this year would be a ride on the Heber Valley Creeper posing as the Polar Express. We had to be in Heber by 10:30 Saturday morning, so we headed up as soon as everyone was ready for the day. I think the kids had a great time. They enjoyed their cookie and hot chocolate, a visit from Santa Claus's daughter and from the man in red himself, plus the train ride and cousins. It made for a fun trip. And Steve and I got to enjoy each other's company for an hour and a half without worrying about the kids. That's always a win.

In the afternoon, the boys went to the BYU basketball game while the women watched Elf. I worked on a baby book for Cecily, Nicole graded papers, and Grandma cut fleece for Nicole. It was good to get a bunch of work done and be together and laugh.

All in all, no complaints for our busy week. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Fun with the little things

A lot of fun things were done by the Wattses this week.

A month or so ago, I told you we went to meet Shannon Hale at the Provo Library because she's one of Emilia's favorite authors. On Monday they had another meet the author night, this time with Cressida Cowell. She is the author that wrote the books that How To Train Your Dragon was based on. We love that movie around here and last year I read the first book in the series to the girls. Emilia read another seven books in the series (though there are 12 total, so she didn't make it through all of them.) Steve wanted to go to the BYU basketball game that night with his parents, so I decided to take all three girls to the AuthorLink.

Cressida was a great presenter and the library was very organized for the signing. They had crafts and coloring for the kids and everybody got a letter that grouped them for the signing order. Unfortunately since we got there late, we had to wait to the very end to meet her and get our books signed. My poor girls were up until almost 10pm. It was craziness.

But they did come home with a dragon each that they made themselves, a hero mark (dragon "tattoo" from an ink stamp--it was pretty cool), a poster, and two signed books. I think they had fun for the most part. I think I had fun for the most part, too. ;)

Steve enjoyed his basketball game. BYU won. He got home just in time to help me put the girls in bed. And since BYU scored more than 80 points, his ticket became a coupon for BOGO pizza at Malawi's--and they have gluten free pizza, so of course I took advantage of it. I haven't had pizza since the beginning of October!

The girls had dentist appointments on Tuesday, which wouldn't really be noteworthy except it was Cecily's first appointment. Everyone was so impressed with her courage. She didn't hesitate to get x-rays done or let people stick their hands and noisy instruments in her mouth. She is my brave girl. That's for sure. She was mostly just excited to be big like her sisters. Mira was brave this time too. She used to throw screaming/punching/kicking fits. She was TERRIFIED of having her teeth cleaned. But she had no problems this time. I was glad. It's awful to hold your child down when they're scared. (I wouldn't have done that either, except Mira got these black deposits on her teeth when she was younger that wouldn't come off with normal brushing. So we had to have the dentist do it, but it was not fun.)

Wednesday my parents came to visit us. They are hosting the Staleys the week of Thanksgiving (so this week) and we had a day bed/trundle set we weren't using, so they came and got it.They were nice and helped me clean out my garden, too. I pulled up all my peppers and tomatoes and potatoes and cucumbers, put away my cages and chopped down my multitudinous marigolds. I had so many that I gave my mom a bucketful, made six bouquets to give to friends and kept five bouquets to display on my table. That was after doing 22 tables worth of marigold centerpieces last week. That's a lot of marigolds.

I had a three-hour presidency meeting to plan our Christmas party, plus I spent five hours researching service projects to do since the bishop is insisting we do LOTS of service this year instead of having a big meal. It's great that he wants to do service, don't get me wrong, and I'm all for changing up tradition. I guess I just didn't realize it would be just as much work to do service projects as it would be to do a meal for 300 people.

Saturday Steve took the girls to a pizza party. I didn't go so there are no pictures. But it was the person in our ward who owns a brick oven pizza foodtruck. It would have been yummy if I could eat the crusts. Hopefully next time!

We also went to another BYU basketball game Saturday night as a family. Nick and Wilda were out of town, so they gave us their four tickets. So it only cost our family $8 to see a basketball game. Which is good, because our kids complained through most of the the 2nd through 4th quarters. They only stopped because we handed them our phones. :/

I don't remember what day it was, but I also took the younger two girls to the mall to look for new shoes for Cecily. We didn't end up buying shoes, but it was such a nice day, we had a picnic. The new fountain apparently has the capability to do musically choreographed displays, so we stayed for two of them and the girls were in love. I can't wait to take them to see the Bellagio one day.

While we were there, Mira took the phone and decided to take some shots. She's a photographer in the making.

Also, when I woke up Saturday morning, this is what I found. Mira was "reading" to Cecily.

shenanigans

Completed Halloween costumes:

Emilia as Glitter Breeze

Mira as Glitter Lucky

Cecily as Glitter Peace (I know--the irony)

The Glitter Force

Emilia at the school costume parade

Trick or treating

As we took Cecily (and the other two) trick-or-treating on Halloween, I told Steve that Cecily probably thought this was the best night of her life. She got to dress up as one of her favorite characters ALL DAY and now we were going to people's houses and they were just HANDING her candy. She couldn't run to the next house fast enough. After her bag got so heavy she couldn't carry it, Steve held it for her and she had people hand her candy at their doors. EVERY TIME someone handed her a piece of candy, she would flip around, hold it high above her head and make her "Look at this! I am so surprised!" face. She LOVED it. Every night for the last week, her bedtime prayers have started like this: "Heavenly Father, Thankful for Halloween. Thankful of all the candy for the people." (Meaning "from the people.") Her enthusiasm for life is my favorite thing about Cecily. Love that turkey.

Last Saturday, we drove up to Layton to watch cousin Meg's first gymnastics meet. It was fun to spend time with the cousins and eat good food.

Yes, Cecily considers Mac N Cheese good food. But we also had Dickey's BBQ, which in my opinion was way better. :) Thanks Nick and Wilda for the good eats and the Nelsons for hosting us!

This is a picture from Mira's dance class.

Cecily learned to play Pretty Pretty Princess

The cat looking all cute and innocent.

And shenanigans as we waited in line for (almost) 2 hours to vote early.