Thankful Thursday

I thought I would do "Thankful Thursdays" this month, and then saw this challenge on Amanda's blog (see sidebar), so I'll be keeping a list in my sidebar. Here's the list I had started, I'm trying to be specific and notice things everyday:

1. A warm house with working electricity and heat. Especially when this is what is outside (that's our back door and the house across the street, looks a lot like pictures I took just six months ago!):

2. Nice friends who come shovel front and back and driveway when Scott is gone- thanks Shaun and Cam!

That leads me to...

3. I'm thankful for two 'built-in' support systems I have available to me all the time no matter where we go: the Air Force (ie. Scott's squadron members), and the Church (hometeachers, visiting teachers, etc.).

4. An enclosed garage to park the van in, so I don't have to scrape every time I want to leave the house during the winter!

5. A nice little gym that has a nursery that will take kids age newborn and up. I was a little nervous at first (bud decided I didn't want to shell out the big bucks for a good treadmill), but the lady who watches Andrew and Jake for me is so sweet and she is always so excited to see them, especially the babies. This is wonderful for me because it is so much easier to be a happy person (read Mom) when I am able to exercise.

6. I'm thankful for a great friend who sets up a space for me in the Body Pump class at the gym. It's so nice not to stress about getting the three of us there early every week, not to mention the extra motivation of knowing someone expects to see you there. Thanks Amanda!

7. I'm thankful school is closed today (and tomorrow)- I really don't like driving in the snow until the roads have been cleared well.

Which reminds me...

8. I'm thankful for the good day we had all cooped-up indoors together. This really is saying a lot for one parent vs. 3 young kids! We made a Thankful Turkey (his name is Theo and we're going to keep adding feathers this month) and played games (and watched TV). The kids even said what a fun day it was and how great a mom I am. It's so nice to actually hear them say things like that, even if I'm a "mean mom" again 2 minutes later when I won't let them (actually just Andrew had a fit) have a cookie before dinner. I hope we can have another good day tomorrow!

(That's "baby" Bumblebee Transformer, which Andrew had put down for a nap, he's such a boy, but he can be so sweet! Everything into the mouth for Jake, I keep trying to get one with his fingers in his mouth, but haven't been able to catch him yet.

9. I'm thankful for Scott. He called just to tell me he would be calling later than normal because he has to go back to class this evening- how thoughtful is that!

Happy Halloween!

I got this idea from Mandi, we used a Zuchinni Meatloaf (recipe from Amanda) instead of Spaghetti for the 'guts' and I didn't have quite enough breadsticks, but our Skeleton Man dinner was fun- and tasty!

For our Young Women activity this week, we had a party and the girls were encouraged to invite friends. I was in charge of food, so I found these ideas online plus Ghoulish Punch from Kraft.com of which I did not get a picture. For someone who hasn't done much 'festive' fare for Halloween in the past and doesn't particularly enjoy cooking, I thought it all turned out pretty good!

Here's a picture of the kids right before trick-or-treating. Jacob wasn't particularly fond of his cute little Jack-O-Lantern costume and the snaps just weren't very secure, so you can't see the face on his tummy, but you get the idea. Eden is a witch and Andrew is a ninja turtle (he was so excited to find out his best buddy who moved to Ohio was a ninja turtle too). I feel a little guilty that I did not even attempt to be creative, and got all the costumes from the store. Oh well...

...they sure are cute! Notice the totally gross pumpkins in the background- we carved them early and have had some nice warm weather on top of that, I didn't even put candles in them, but I decided to leave them out anyway. (The bright and happy one is a WalMart special incase you were thinking it was real.)

All in all, we had a pretty fun "Halloweek", but we did skip the Squadron trick-or-treating, since we already had the ward trunk-or-treat and the YW party (and Eden had a party at school) all in one week. It was fun, but I'm glad its over.

I did it!

I've been thinking I should do something to make our blog 'prettier'. I kept seeing people using the "cutest blog on the block" website, (and along with the moving furniture, I tend to stay up later than necessary doing unimportant things like watching reruns of things like MASH or Home Improvement while on the computer), so tonight I finally tried it out! I can't believe how easy it was! But I better go to bed now, staying up late is so not good when you have one kid who doesn't sleep through the night and two more who think "sleeping good" means staying in their beds until after 6AM. And I'm going to "Body Pump" at the gym tomorrow!

I actually took pictures to do this post right before Jake was born, and never got around to it. I took some more recently on a day when Eden was sick and I let the kids veg infront of the tv most of the day. So, the pictures might not be the most recent and on a couple I posted both, but they weren't "prepped" at all. You can see from the date how long its taken me to finish this post, today's date (the day I actually am posting this) is October 25th. Such is my life right now.

1. Closet

This is the closet in my "craft room" that is slowly being transformed to be Jacob's bedroom. He sleeps in a co-sleeper in our room right now which is just fine since he's still not sleeping through the night very well.

2. Kitchen Sink 3. Bathroom

4. Laundry That's the last clean cloth diaper in the dryer. They never got put away, I just kept grabbing them from the dryer (or asking Andrew to grab one) and now its time to wash them again!

5. Kids Eden was such a trooper! I am STILL such a baby when it comes to nausea/vomiting- I think its just about the worse thing that can happen to a person, just ask anyone who's lived with me. But Eden was very calm and just about took care of herself- what gal!

6. Place I would like to go

I'd love to go back to Kauai (1st pic), especially on a day like today. But, I haven't been to Germany (2nd pic) yet, and I'd also love to go to New Zealand, Scotland, and lots of other places.

7. Fridge

8. Self 9. Favorite Room It's messy most of the time, but we love having a separate area for the kids to play in. Our last place had a 'multipurpose' room at the front of the house, so everyone who came over got to see our mess. I rearranged it recently, so I like it better now, but I'm not going to take another picture right now for fear I may never actually finish this post. (Anyone else like to move furniture when the hubby is gone? I don't know why I do it, since it would be easier to do with Scott and I really don't need to add more "projects" to my list, but I do it anyway).
I really couldn't decide on a favorite becaus I don't really like any of them right now. But this is the craft room that is slowly being morphed into Jake's room. I picked it for my favorite because I like the idea of a craft room, not because I actually get a chance to use this one. That's Scott laptop, he probably uses the room more for his studying than I do for crafting! I'm starting to like this one more too because I've started moving the craft stuff out and its looking more like a nursery.

10. Favorite Shoes

These are still my favorites. I wear the newer version for running, but I really like the looks of these better. I don't think I've ever liked the way my running shoes looked as much as these. Silly I know, but there you have it.

Finally! Its done, I tag anyone who would like to bare all to the blogging world- remember no cleaning or prepping for the pictures allowed! Let me know if you decide to do it so I can come to your blog and see!

Crazy Horse Relay

Last Saturday, I ran a marathon relay with some awesome ladies. (L to R: Emily, Me, Amber, Aryn). When we signed up, the legs were pretty even, but they made some changes and the legs ended up pretty UNeven. I ran the first leg, 7.7 miles, with a couple hills in the first 3 miles, but mostly gradual downhill. Aryn ran 5.3 miles all downhill. Emily was the powerhorse and ran THE HILLS- about 5.5 miles of them during her 6.8 mile leg. Amber brought is in, looking great, on the fast 6.4 mile finish leg. We all just wanted to run less than a half-marathon, but we ended up finishing 3rd for the women's relay! Next year I plan to do the half. I was pretty happy with my time (1:06), but can't help but wonder how much faster I could have been if I weren't still lugging around quite a bit of baby weight. It really does get harder after every baby.

Aren't they cute!?!

I just thought these were some really cute pictures of Eden and Andrew enjoying tummy-time with Jake. And a video, I don't use video very often since the audio doesn't work, and I don't know how to edit length, but here's Jacob enjoying the orange monkey. Notice when he gets tired, he just puts his head down (just watch the last 20 seconds). He only gets mad on his tummy if he wants to be held or is hungry. A lot of times he'll just play then fall asleep.

Pumpkins and SNOW!

Scott took the kids to pick out pumpkins at the grocery store. If there is a pumpkin patch anywhere around here, I don't know about it. He wanted to carve the jack-o-lanterns with them before he has to be out of town for a while. They were so excited starting out. Eden had a pretty good time (I did help quite a bit, but she sorted to seeds from the pulp). Andrew on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with the cleaning out- notice his expression as he pulls out some pumpkin guts- after a couple of obligatory handfuls.

The finished products. They told us how to draw the faces, then we carved it out.

This morning there was a nice dusting of SNOW on the ground! I know we've lived here over a year now, and I shouldn't be surprised by the weather, no matter what it does, but I was really hoping the weatherman was wrong about the snow! I'm not ready for winter yet!