December happenings

December was relatively uneventful until Christmas.  We did get a night of gingerbread house making and The Grinch in, and also got to go see lights and have dinner with our friends the Matthews up in Preston, ID one night (forgot to take the camera, but the display was awesome!)

 (RANDOM: Deeg decided one day to line up all of his cars on the back of the couch! I thought it was kind of funny, and he was pretty picky about who touched them and which ones you could move for the whole day.)

Christmas Eve was spent at mom & dad Jorgensen's house with all my siblings, their kids, my aunt Stacy and Grandma and Grandpa Jorgensen. We began the night by feeding the kids pizza and playing pin the nose on the snowman and a little Christmas cupcake walk. After they were all in their Christmas jammies, we looked up Santa on the Norad tracker to see where he was at, then we let them watch a little Christmas special movie on Netflix while the adults ate good food upstairs. After the movie was over, the kids all cuddled up in bed while Grandpa read them a bedtime story.  Once the kids were in bed, we migrated to the basement to enjoy a night full of exciting games. We had our gift exchange and I ended up with the coveted gift of one of Grandpa Jorgensen's handmade burl bowls (I'll write a separate post on Grandpa's work!)  After the gift trade, we played a super fun game called "Akward Family Moments". It was especially fun because my grandparents and aunt Stacy were there to add variety to the mix!  We played most of the night, then cleaned up and got things ready for Christmas morning.

I found this T-shirt for Brett and knew he had to have it! (he works for the sewage plant, so he is usually at the forefront of any "poop" jokes in the house!)

Christmas morning was utter chaos, but so fun! 10 kids and 10 adults all opening presents at the same time gets a little wild! Everyone was so happy, especially Griff... he has been on cloud 9 non-stop since Sunday morning, laughing at just about everything and carrying a huge grin! Christmas is so much more magical when you have little kids that get so excited!

 

Griffin trying out Cullen's new bike and squishing Afton.

After finishing up at the Jorgensen house we ventured a mile down the road to Mom and Dad Powell's house.  We had a nice breakfast, opened more presents and opened all the toys to play for a while.  The boys' "Big" Chistmas gift was too big to take to Jorgensen's after storing it at Powell's house, so we waited for that one until we went there.

I don't know a lot about Christmas day from about 11:00 on because I had some aweful stomach bug and decided to more or less sleep with no interruption from then until about 7 that night.  The sleep was just what I needed and I felt much better on Monday morning, and was able to get up and play with the boys and Adam. 

Today (Tuesday) is Deegan's birthday! We celebrated with a few more presents to open this morning before heading out to breakfast at Angie's.  The waitress was really sweet and got the staff to come sing to Deeg and brought out a HUGE cinnamon roll for us to share.  After Breakfast, we spent the morning searching every store imaginable for a cowboy hat and stick horse... to no avail! How can it be so hard to find those? (we found hats, but they were $40 or more, and for a 4 year old, that seems a bit steep!)  Adam brought balloons home for Deeg just before Grandma and Grandpa Powell came up for a lunch at McDonald's play place and spent a few hours at the house playing. We finished off the day with a nap (Deeg fell asleep on the way home from running a couple errands) and are now watching The Lion King (new birthday present) before bed. It's been a GREAT few days, but I'm anxious to get life back to normal!

We wrapped Deegan's presents in our new phone boxes... he was so excited to open the first present and think he was getting a phone (major let down when you realize the new phone box is holding just Batman underwear, but he liked them anyway.) !!!

Birthday Bath :-)

 Deegan got color tablets in his stocking for Christmas and he asked for an orange bath today!

Gratitude and Charity and Thanksgiving

I know Thanksgiving is over, but since I didn't get around to posting earlier, this is a late Thanksgiving post! For all of the days in November leading up to Thanksgiving, I decided to post on Facebook one thing that I was grateful for.  At first it was just a fun game that a lot of my FB friends were playing so I decided to play along. After a few days I found myself lying in bed everynight thinking about what I was going to be thankfuk for the next day. Every night was an overwhelming list of things, and I had the hardest time deciding which to post. I was never able to post all of them, because there are SO many wonderful things in my life, especially things I take for granted. That was probably one of the most uplifting "games" I have ever played! So, on that note, I'd just like to express my gratitude for all the people who have infulenced my life (for better or worse) and helped me become a better person.  I am especially grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Without my savior in my life, I don't know where I'd be, but I'm pretty certain I'd never be as happy as I am now!
In my rush to get my visiting teaching done before Thanksgiving, I searched for a quick little thought to give since there was no designated message for the month.  I found this little card that had 2 quotes that I thought were a PERFECT way to start the Christmas Season...

President Monson teaches: "Charity is having patience with someone who has let us down. It is resisting the impulse to become offended easily. It is accepting weakness and shortcomings. It is accepting peopel as they truly are. It is looking beyond physical appearances to attributes that will not dim through time. It is resisting the impulse to categorize others."

"When we havecharity, we are willing to serve and help others when it is inconvenient and with no thought of recognition or reciprocation. We don't wait to be assigned to help, because it becomes our very nature. As we choose to be kind, caring, generous, patient, accepting, forgiving, inclusinve, and selfless, we discover we are abounding in charity." -Silvia H Allred

I've always looked at charity as just doing something for someone in need, but it's good to recognize that charity is more than just that, it's basically an unconditional love for everyone around us. I can handle the kind acts of service, but the unconditional love is one I need to work on, so that is my goal for this month and the coming year.

Anyway, enough of the "journal" and on to pictures.....


First Snow day (11/5):

I learned that you can print (with your computer printer!) on Fabric! That opens up SO many possibilities! I was ECSTATIC, so I made a cute little Thanksgiving sign to add to my lonely wreath!

The boys found a secret hide out.....

We put up the tree the Saturday before Thanksgiving so that we could do our Black Friday shopping and not have to hurry home from visiting parents to put up the tree (because I insist on having it up by the weekend after Thanksgiving :)

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. The boys and I spent Wednesday hanging out with my mom and sister. Griff had his 18 mo check up that day also. He is growing, but slowly.... he's in the 8th percentile for weight, 15th for height and 45th for head circumference!   (At that age, Deegan's head was about 90th percentile, so I'm happy with 45! :-)

Thursday we spent the day with Adam's parents, brother and G & G Powell. We took the boys to see "Arthur Christmas" with Adam's parents in the morning. It was a cute movie and it was fun to see Deegan get excited. Griffin was excited too, but mostly just excited at all the open places he could run through the theater... Oh well, I got my workout for the day!  After the movie we went home and had dinner. At 6 that evening, Keli and I went to Walmart to wait in line until 10 pm for an Xbox with Kinect.  We quickly made friends with the 2 groups in front and the one behind us, and had a lot of fun talking, planning, playing cards and relaxing.  Brett and my dad cam and joined us after a little while as well, and it was really just a fun night! We of course got our Xbox's and went out to fight the lines... They were totasl chaos, but something about the chaos is just fun for me!  Adam and I normally just get up around 5 and go to whatever stores look appealing at the time, rather than planning and waiting in lines, but since the stores were all opening early on Thursday instead, we changed it up a little this year. 

Overall it was just a fun weekend with family, and I can't wait to do it all again for Christmas!

Tis the Season

Wow! It's already that time again! Adam and I have been on the look out for awesome Christmas gifts for everyone on our lists for a couple weeks now. The weather is finally getting cold and it's time for the Christmas Music!!!!  Anyway, here's a quick re-cap of October before I get so caught up in November and December that I forget about it!

The Boys have been loving the Raspberries all summer long, but I think they'd agree they taste especially good when they're cold and freshly washed by rain!

On our way to pick up the Big Christmas present for the boys, we saw this stop sign. Elliott Smith is Adam's favorite musician, and where Deegan's middle name (Elliott) came from, so we had to have a pic!

I have decided that during the warmer months, I may just install a porta potty and leave the boys in the backyard with some sleeping bags, they can live off the land for months! :-) Maybe just on the naughty days!

We had more apples this year than any of the years past. I gave away about half of them, left a ton on the ground to be thrown out because I didn't have time for them, and still got 32 quarts of apple sauce! Everytime Griffin goes outside he finds another apple to eat. I think Deegan has been helping some because he always seems to find the ones with no worm holes, luckilly!

Adam's mom throws a Halloween party every year for the kids (and adults I guess).  While we waited for the "party" to start, the kids played "Just Dance".  Deegan LOVED it and Griffin even joined in on the dancing!

Posing for a picture. I guess he was so into dancing that he just couldn't stand in a normal standing position!

Even though there's a whole room full of toys at Grandma Powell's house, Griffin's favorite toy is the wooden duck!

On sunday (Oct. 30) I decided maybe we should do SOMETHING with the pumpkins on our porch (we got 5 from our garden). They were too small to carve, and I was out of kid paint, so we improvised with our Mr. Potato Head parts. I think they turned out pretty dang cool. I'll probably be on the look out for cool potato head parts for all of the next year!

Halloween morning my friend Krista and her kids came over to play and make SLIME! It was really gross, but super fun!

Trick or Treating (this pic is super blurry, but I still think it's cute)

TOTing this year was super fun. Krista and her husband joined us and the boys and girl had a blast!  Griffin and Annie were more in to it than the older boys I think! Both were very protectinve of their candy and didn't want to get back in strollers once they were out! They were polite though. Griffin kept putting candy back in the people's bowls and even signed thank you at a few houses!  We were definately ready for bed when we got home, but it was fun while it lasted!

Figuring this 24/7 Mom thing out...

I'm still trying to decide if it's harder to be a stay at home mom or a full time working mom........ Of course, I LOVE that I am home with my kids all the time and I am loving that I can play and watch what they are doing, but when I was working I had (what I considered) a good excuse for taking time to myself to get away, even if the laundry wasn't done. Now I feel like "I'm home all day, why would I need a break when I didn't even do the laundry today?" I'm adjusting... I'm sure I'll find my balance, but I feel almost like a prison inmate that's been in prison for so much of his life that he doesn't know how to live in a normal world. I'm almost more overwhelmed by the thought of doing easy every day tasks (that I see all the other stay at home moms doing) than I ever was by work. Whatever the case, I Love being home, and still have no intentions of going back. So here's a quick recap of what we have been doing since August:

Deegan finally outgrew his little tricycle that he's been riding since he was like 18 mo. old, so we got a "Big Bike" to finish the summer off.

After a couple of weeks, the excitement wore off and he asked me to take it back to the store (I got it on KSL for $10) because he likes his "little bike" better. He's starting to ride the big one more now and Griffin has kind of hijacked the trike.

He Idolizes his dad! He tells me all the time that when he turns 5 he gets to go to work like his dad (you know, how most kids say "When I'm 5 I get to go to School"...) Whatever. He's going to be pretty disappointed when Kindergarten doesn't have a concrete mixer to drive!

(Before)

We FINALLY re-painted the bathroom that we've wanted to re-do for almost 3 years now. My network at work was having issues one day so I couldn't work, so I decided I needed a project for the day. I found a small one, but didn't have the supplies and the boys were napping, so I decided to start sanding the cupboards instead.... I don't think I thought very far ahead on that one because it was a MUCH bigger project than the few extra hours that I had, but atleast it got us started! I sanded, painted and then stained the cupboards then Adam (and Deegan) painted the walls. It looks MUCH better!

(AFTER)

(During! )

Half of a cow: 97 lbs ground beef and TONS of steak, roasts and stew meat!

First time mini- golfing!