These boots . . .

. . . are the reason that I got out of bed at 4:30 a.m. on Friday.

Shopping Black Friday sales is a long standing tradition in this house. Nate hasn’t always been a fan, but once he saw the great deals to be had on electronics, he was hooked. That being said, we almost didn’t go this year. We found some quality deals online for a TV, a computer monitor, and a hard drive the week before, so there wasn’t much in the ads to justify getting up before dawn to face the cold and the crowds. I was sorely tempted to just sleep in, but some part of me was sad to not keep up the tradition. Nate left it up to me and was a good sport about getting up to go with me even though he was far from excited about it.

We were at Sears at 5:00 so I could get these quality boots at an awesome price. They are normally $75 a pair, but with the sale and a coupon and signing up for a Sears card, I got them for $17.50. It was such a great deal that I bought some brown ones too. It made my day. Since we were up, we stopped by Staples for some “free after rebate” remotes and a year’s supply of DVD-Rs. We ran into Home Depot for some tape measures and then went to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart was surprisingly fruitful. We found lots of random things that we wanted up by the checkout lines where other people had dumped them. It was a fun shopping day. Not quite as memorable as the year we camped out at Best Buy, but LOTS more pleasant (and successful).

We got home at 8:00. The kids had just woken up and five of them had crawled into bed with Grandma. Nate made us all pancakes and the kids got in a little more playtime before their cousins went home. We spent the rest of the day decorating for Christmas (in between kid tantrums/fights . . . they were tired and grumpy and it showed) and went to bed early.

We certainly don’t have a Martha Stewart Christmas tree. We have lots of handcrafted, preschool ornaments. That’s okay with us. We’re just glad the kids are getting taller so ALL of the ornaments aren’t on the bottom three branches.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. It started out with some funny mishaps for everyone. Holly and Shane got a flat tire; Jody and Kevin had a dead battery; Lesle’s pumpkin pie took an inordinate amount of time to set up; etc. For me and Nate, the catastrophes were all in the cooking department. We were in charge of the turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy. We so wanted everything to be just right that we did a trial run with a roasted chicken a couple of weeks ago . . . that meal turned out just delicious. On Thursday, we struggled a little with mushy potatoes, oniony gravy, and a turkey that just wouldn’t brown. Nate worked his magic and by the time we were ready to eat, everything was fabulous. Some year we will have it down to a science.

Once everyone got here, it was a big party. After a delicious dinner, there were all kinds of activities going on . . . ping-pong, football, PlayStation, movie watching, ad looking, sewing, etc. The kids were having such a great time with their cousins that we decided to let them have a little slumber party. Having nine kids in the house and absolutely no desire to cook inspired us to start a new Thanksgiving tradition of cold cereal for dinner. Genius!

It was a fun, full, busy day. I was exhausted by the time I went to bed, but exhausted in a good way. My favorite part of Thanksgiving with my family is that we split up all of the leftovers so we get to have Thanksgiving dinner for two (or three) days in a row. Yum! I’m already looking forward to having a turkey sandwich and some frog eye salad for lunch. Maybe even some apple pie to top it off . . . mmm.

Twilight

My sisters and I went to see Twilight this morning. I’m a fan of the Twilight series. Not the kind of fan that wears a prom dress and vampire teeth to the midnight showing of the movie, but the kind that still wants to see it on opening weekend. I didn’t get around to ordering tickets until Thursday, but we lucked out and got the last three tickets available (not counting the front row) to the 9:25 a.m. show today.

I loved the movie. It helped that I had low expectations and I’m not a purist about book-to-film movies. There were small things that bugged me . . . some of the special effects/make-up and Jasper’s striking resemblance to Edward Scissorhands for the first half of the movie. Overall, I was just plain entertained. I had fun hanging out with my sisters. We made a day of it and went to breakfast first and then did a little shopping afterwards. It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

We took a couple of pictures with Jody’s cell phone. They are not so quality, but it’s all about the memory.

All About Emily

I did this with Ben a few months ago, and thought I would try it with Emily today. It was fun to see her little mind working.

I am: cute
I think: about my family
I know: how to swing upside-down on the monkey bars
I want: to color
I have: a family
I wish: to be happy all the time
I hate: ravioli
I miss: Will and Mara
I fear: black widows
I feel: air
I hear: people talking
I smell: flowers
I crave: chicken rollups
I search: for my Polly Pockets
I wonder: about Heavenly Father and Jesus
I regret: having fits
I love: my family
I care: about my house
I always: color
I am not: sad
I believe: in Jesus Christ
I dance: like a ballerina
I sing: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
I don't always: go to school
I argue: with my friends . . . sometimes
I write: I love you
I win: Go Fish
I lose: a couple of my Polly Pockets
I never: ride bikes . . . not anymore
I listen: to my teacher
I can usually be found: outside
I am scared: of nothing
I need: a house to live in
I am happy about: going to school

We sure love Emily. She has her moments of grumpiness, but she is a sweet girl. Last week in Primary, they had a lesson on service, so she has been doing little acts of service around the house this week. Yesterday morning I went into my room to find that she made our bed and left this cute little “note” for us.

Ben's Latest Passion

Ben has a tendency to pick one area of interest and obsess over it. He has gone through lots of phases, some lasting longer than others . . . diggers, dinosaurs, Thomas, Star Wars, etc. His latest love is the scriptures (score!). A few weeks ago we decided that we needed to start having a regular scripture study with our kids, so we broke out the Book of Mormon Readers and the accompanying DVD. This isn’t the first time we have read/watched them with the kids, but something just clicked with Ben this time. He took his Book of Mormon Reader to bed with him that night and stayed up to read the whole thing. The next day he started with the Old Testament Reader. They have become his books of choice for bedtime reading. Last night, Nate went down to check on him and he had both his Book of Mormon Reader and his real Book of Mormon open on his bed. He was looking up each of the scripture references from the reader and reading it directly from the scriptures. I don’t know how long this will last, but I love that he is so interested in learning all of the scripture stories. With his little sponge brain and amazing memory, it should give him a good knowledge base for the rest of his life.

Yesterday in Primary he leaned over and whispered to me “When I grow up, I’m going to be weird and name my kids after prophets from the Book of Mormon.” Glad to see he has a plan.

Again with the rattiest of all ratty t-shirts. He really does have a whole drawer full of pajamas. I can’t explain him.

Temple Square

We took advantage of the nice weather and took the kids to Temple Square yesterday after church. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We took a tour of the conference center, spent some time on the temple grounds, did a mini-tour of the tabernacle, and spent the rest of our time in the visitor center. The kids loved pushing the buttons for all of the audio visual presentations. The only thing cooler than that, was riding the “exclavator” (as Elise pronounces it). We heard “What a beautiful family!” from 17 different missionaries. I think it must be part of their training.

BTW, there is free parking at the conference center on Sundays. Maybe everyone else in Utah already knows that, but it took us a while to figure it out. We just aren’t cut out for city life.

Giving Thanks

Last night for Family Home Evening we made our annual “I’m thankful for” turkey. It was more fun this year since Ben and Emily could write on their own feathers. After we finished the turkey, the kids started naming off lots of other blessings . . . science books, games, Book of Mormon stories, a trampoline, water, electricity, maps, cars, etc. It is always good to get the kids (and us) thinking about how blessed we are.

For the treat, we made (or at least attempted to make) rice crispy turkeys. While the other kids were decorating their turkeys, Abby managed to spread hers from her wrist to her belly button. How does that even happen? It took Nate a good ten minutes just to pick it all off of her clothes.

School Projects

So far, second grade has been a year of projects. Ben has done a rock collection, a seed collection, and today he gets to do his show and teach. He gets pretty excited about these little projects. I think he collected eight times the number of rocks he needed for his collection and still brings home the occasional “cool rock” that he finds on his way home. After learning about seeds, he’s decided that we should plant all of the seeds from the apples we eat and have an “apple forest” in the back lot.

He insists on doing all of the typing for these projects. His keyboarding skills have certainly improved in the last couple of months. It took him a full hour to type the 12 labels for his rock collection. He would put his fingers on home row. Look for the letter. Hit it with his right index finger and then put his fingers back on home row. It was a little painful for me to watch. Compared to that, he whipped through the text for his show and teach poster.

We love Ben's teacher this year. She really motivates him and he is doing well in her class. We are very grateful for her.

The New Abby

Abby underwent a major personality transformation during October. We’ve been seeing the signs of her independent streak for a while, but this last month was a real turning point. She changed from a pretty easy going, happy kid to a strong willed, strong minded little girl who is getting ready for the terrible twos. She is still cute and sweet (some of the time), and of course we still love her loads, but she has definite opinions about how things should be done and isn’t afraid to let us know when we aren’t going along with her plan. “NO!” has become her favorite word.

She thinks she should be able to do everything that her brother and sisters can do. The other day I asked the kids to carry some two liter bottles of water down to the food room. She dragged a stool over to the counter to get one. It was almost as big as her, but she managed to carry it over to the stairs and drag it down one stair at a time until she was in the basement. She yelled when Emily tried to take it from her to put with the other ones. She had to waddle over there herself and squeeze it in right next to the other bottles. Then she just grinned. She was so proud of herself.

She has a whole new list of rules. She is too old to be strapped into her highchair. Cutting her food into pieces is no longer allowed. She has to have a real cup at dinnertime . . . no sippy cups! We can open a piece of candy for her, but she has to be the one to throw the wrapper away. There’s no more going down the stairs on her tummy or holding our hands when she walks. She has to pick out her own pants (it is the only drawer she can reach . . . I’m sure she’ll be picking her own shirts too when she grows a few inches). She is the only one who can throw her diapers in the garbage. She still needs us to open doors for her (when she commands “DOOR!”), but she is the only one who is allowed to close a door. Her latest thing is that she insists on sitting on the toilet after we change her diaper. (If we could just teach her to do it before her diaper needed changing.)

It is fun to see her growing up, but we kind of miss the happy, smiling, easy to please baby that was the old Abby.

I can do it myself.

This was on Sunday when Nate was trying to close the refrigerator door before Abby was done looking inside.

Abby thinks she is the queen of the world sitting on the potty.

It is a good thing she is so darn cute!

Happy Halloween!

After all of the hype, the actual holiday finally arrived. The kids didn’t have to go to school because it was a teacher work day. Once we got past a bit of grumpiness and a few sibling squabbles in the morning, we had a great day. The kids passed the time by playing with their friends, watching movies, and playing GameCube. When Nate got home we got in our costumes and had a little photo shoot. I don’t know if we’ll ever do a family theme again for Halloween, so we had to make the most of it. Considering how reluctant Elise and Abby were to participate, the pictures turned out pretty cute.

Nate took the kids trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and I stayed home to pass out candy. When they got home, Ben and Emily wanted to go out for a while longer, so I went up the street with them. I was glad I got some one on one time with them. They were pretty funny. They just kept saying "This is the best Halloween ever" and "We've never gotten to go trick-or-treating this far before." Emily was the thank you police. Several times after people would close the door, I could hear her saying, “Ben, you forgot to say thank you again!” She was a trooper and kept reassuring me that she wasn’t tired at all. Our neighbors up the street invited us in for homemade donuts and apple juice. Ben thought that was the “awesomest” thing ever. The kids took in a haul of candy. They are planning on making it last until July. We’ll see how that goes.

The funniest part of the night for me was when I heard Ben having a little conversation with a neighbor that we have never met before. When he got to the sidewalk, I asked him what he was saying to her. He was telling her that her doorbell sounded a little like Sister Shelton’s (his piano teacher). I don’t think that boy ever has a thought that he doesn’t verbalize.