Thankful

Thanksgiving was wonderful and so, so relaxing. The entire weekend was really.

Maggie was extremely excited for Thanksgiving. She asked me every day for a week if it was Thanksgiving yet and on Thanksgiving morning woke up at dawn thrilled that she was going to see her cousins. I adore her enthusiasm and love of her cousins, though I am a little nervous for Christmas if it was that hard for her to sleep in until a decent hour on Thanksgiving.

My lovely sister-in-law Jenn hosted. She did the majority of the cooking: PERFECT turkey (she had this magical roaster), mashed potatoes, green beans, and stuffing. Another lovely sister-in-law, Lisa, brought some veggies and fruit and covered the homemade pie angle--I'm talking delicious FROM COMPLETE SCRATCH pumpkin and raspberry pies. I am getting her recipes for some day when I am feeling ambitious. I showed up with my store-bought rolls, store-bought pies, and an easy-peasy salad. Basically, I got off nearly scot-free again. (Scot, does that term bug you?) That's twenty-eight Thanksgivings and counting. I'm thankful for that. I had until last-minute envisioned making homemade rolls, but we had a lot going on throughout the rest of November and I got lazy. Life is long. I have had and will have plenty of opportunities to make homemade rolls. Thanks to Mike for being really supportive of my decision. He went out Thanksgiving morning and bought plenty of yummy ones, so we had variety. And we enjoyed lazing around the night before Thanksgiving, just watching a movie and spending time together. It was heavenly. Between kids and work and school, etc., that is always a treat. Post-Thanksgiving was filled with more relaxing, a little shopping, and of course laundry. There is no vacation from that.

Here are my cuties at desert time...I think Maggie and Kate were in those jumpers last Thanksgiving. It's going too fast. And Maggie is wearing her favorite Hello Kitty shirt with short sleeves, even though I tried to tell her it was cold out. Oh well.

I am thankful for so many things right now. Here is a tiny sampling:

-the comfortable home I have to live in
-the car I have to drive
-I never want for yummy food to eat
-wonderful visits with so many family members throughout the year
-good friends near-by and afar
-my health
-little snippets of time I find to keep in touch with loved ones and the myriad of ways I have at my disposal to do so: calls, e-mails, blogs, facebook, texts, instant messaging (does anyone still call it that?), video chats, and good, old-fashioned letters
-all the good weather we've had this year and the park time that's been possible because of it
-outlets like running and music, writing and reading, home projects and photography, and even cooking and cleaning--even though I just dabble, those activities nourish that part of me that needs to grow and learn and accomplish
-the simple pleasure I feel every time I walk by a few recently hung pictures (just a little well-placed effort has given me so many moments of satisfaction)
-my camera, even though I always wish for more, I am grateful for the sweet memories it enables me to capture
-the gold loafers I just happened on to replace my well-beloved gold flats, which I recently discovered holes in
-my lovely little town
-Mike is headed for his last! semester of grad school

Most of all, I am grateful for my testimony and my family. I have a Heavenly Father who has a plan for me and a Savior that loves me and has made that plan possible. I have sisters who I adore, a brother who is just as loved, and parents I am proud to call my own. My in-laws treat me as their own and I feel lucky to be associated with each of them. And my beloved husband makes so many of my dreams reality and makes it possible for me to be at home each and every day with my darling girls Margaret, Katherine, and Emily. Thanks Mike!

Date Night

We didn't have a solid date night planned when Friday night rolled around. Most of our date nights are after the kids go to bed and are usually pretty simple: making a fun snack, watching a show or movie on Netflix, playing a game, doing a project. Relaxing and low-key. Every now and then we plan something really exciting or get a baby-sitter and go crazy. Last week, Mike made my day by bringing me Thai food on his way home from class, which we enjoyed while the kids were busy napping and movie-ing. This weekend, one of our sweet trio stepped in and provided a full night of unanticipated fun by flooding our basement.

I was getting Emily down for a late afternoon nap and getting dinner started while the girls played. I heard the water for a couple minutes, but didn't think too much of it. The girls often play with the water a little bit as they wash their hands. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, little missy resting and pizza dough started, I walked downstairs to see what my little misses were up to. As I walked into the room, the carpet squished a bit under my feet. Alarmed and puzzled, I queried Maggie and Kate, "Did someone have an accident?"

"No, Kate had too much water in the sink, but I helped her turn it off."

Sure enough, the bathroom floor was soaked, as was the entire hallway. Minor puddles had even eked out into the storage rooms. Luckily, the majority of the family room and guestroom were unaffected. I was too flabbergasted to even react. I just kept saying, "I don't understand. How did this happen?"

I think I've finally figured out that I only heard the water for a little bit because once the water got high enough it probably didn't make much sound. It just quietly flooded the vanity. Every drawer in it. The floor. And the hallway. Just minutes before Mike was scheduled to come home. I called him, slightly freaking out, because that's not the kind of surprise I would want upon arriving home. And because I was at a loss how to begin.

This is the week after Emily ended up needing her forehead glued just like her sister, requiring my second trip to the ER this year (and third ever). Pretty sure she hit the bookcase. (I think it's strange that they will both have scars dating close to their 2012 birthdays...I am planning on keeping Kate in a helmet throughout the month of December).

So, yeah, I guess I am not getting any gold stars this week. But seriously, these things happen so darn fast!

I had a talk with the girls and had them practice coming to tell me if a similar situation ever arose, though I pray it doesn't. Kate's version: "Oh no, Mom. Water."

Mike really "bailed" me out. (Bad pun, I know.) He used our neighbor's shop vac to remove several gallons of water. Then we (mostly him) spent the evening and much of the night on our hands and knees soaking every towel in our house. Drying them. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Last, we borrowed a de-humidifier from his brother and have had that and a couple huge fans going the past couple days. They seem to have pretty much finished the job.

Keep your fingers crossed that we have eliminated potential for mildew. I am. It's almost to the point where it's kind of funny. It was definitely a memorable date night. And I guess it could have been worse...?

Cause for Celebration

In the past several weeks...

1. Another half-marathon bit the dust.

2. Our littlest little had a birthday, so of course we had a fiesta.

3. These signs were mildly successful.

4. Maggie/Mike bought me gorgeous roses at the grocery store. (The story is Maggie picked them, Mike paid. Good to know who's looking out for me.)

5. Emily is official: We FINALLY took family pictures, after months of postponement. (Health, the weather, and travel were all conspiring against us.)

exhibit #1:

Halloween 2012

Yes, we celebrated Halloween. Do you still care? We had two princesses and a fairy. The older girls decided early that they wanted to be princesses--Ariel and Belle respectively. I decided early to buy costumes for the first time to circumvent any crazy, last-minute ideas I might have of making or putting them together. Especially as the image of the darling Ariel costume my darling mother made five-year-old me kept popping to mind. I just needed to keep it simple for my sanity because the last year has been busy, busy and I am still recovering time-management-wise from adding our third little girl. (Although, I struggled with time-management before I ever had children, if anything, having children has increased my productivity, even if it sometimes doesn't feel like it.) We had many opportunities to enjoy our costumes throughout the month both for party and play and I was glad many times over that I had taken the easy road this time around. Emily kept with the Disney theme as Tinkerbell, with some wings and a tutu we already had on hand.

In hindsight, even though I didn't manage to get any good pictures of the girls in their costumes on Halloween (or any of the parties preceding--church, library), I should have just posted this one of the girls in action and called it good.

But for memory's (aka future photo album's) sake and for extra practice with my camera, I knew I wanted to get a couple better ones and since I was going to take them anyway, I waited to post about Halloween until I did. Of course it took me a couple days to get around to it and another while to get them uploaded, add a few days for good measure, since my procrastination was now in full force. Silly Sarah. When will I learn?

We really did have a fun time though. Mike had class, so the girls and I trick-or-treated around town square and then visited with a few of our neighbors, including our local adopted grandparents Ed and Iris. It's always like Halloween when we visit there, meaning they always give the girls candy, so you can guess the girls like to go there as often as possible. One day last year, Maggie told me, "We need to go to Iris's house because she has better candy than you."

We got ourselves to our local pumpkin patch on Emy's birthday (the 29th) and spent family night picking and carving pumpkins. The girls were so cute. Kate found her pumpkin right away and toted it the whole time. Maggie kept running in search for "the perfect pumpkin" and several times announced she had found it. And Emily enjoyed the whole experience. This year we carved Huckle (from Richard Scarry's Busytown Mysteries) for Kate, Hello Kitty for Maggie, and the Y-emblem for our alma mater BYU. Next year when Mike is done, we may do KU.