Thanksgiving Weekend

My family loves when I make them take pictures.  HA!  We snapped a quick picture on Thanksgiving before we went to my mom's for dinner.  I have so many things to be thankful for, but these five are at the top of my list!

We were the only ones there for dinner this year.  Hallee loves all of the attention that Alexys gives her.  They sure are pretty girls!

Mel's family came over later and we had fun playing games.  Wyatt loved being King in Scum.  We laughed a lot during the games, all of the kids are so funny!  

On Friday Keith and I went shopping all morning.  The kids cleaned the house while we were gone.  They did a great job because they wanted to earn the Xbox that we were out buying.  We got a great deal on a used, older model.  Keith and the kids have already had a lot of fun with it.  When we got home we put up our Christmas decorations.  The kids loved decorating the tree.

Hallee couldn't believe we had a big tree.  She only remembers the small tree we set up last year.  It was really fun to get the house decorated and get in the Christmas spirit.  This is the first time we have decorated this house for Christmas, so that made it even more fun.  

Hallee got to help dad put the star on the tree.  Caitlyn was a huge help decorating.  She is really good at it and did a lot of it outside too.  

We finished up decorating just in time to make it to the movie.  At first Hallee was the only one that wanted to go, but Wyatt decided to go at the last minute.  Crazy kids!  Caitlyn and Jonah were happy to stay home and play on the new Xbox. 

Moana was a cute movie.  We don't go to movies very often so it was fun.  We had a gift card which makes it even better! 

Yesterday I got together with Tiff and Mel to watch the Gilmore Girls.  I'm so glad I had my sisters to watch the show with.  We watched two episodes here and then grabbed dinner and watched the last two episodes at Tiff's house.  It was so fun!

Garth's birthday

Sunday was Garth's birthday so we had the family over for dinner to celebrate.  Katy and Brent couldn't come at the last minute because of a sick baby, we missed them. 

I am so impressed with Garth.  Pat is suffering from dementia and he quit his job and wants to be her full time caregiver.  It is not an easy job, especially with his age.  Kelly helps out and we are going to start helping with Sunday dinners, but for the most part Garth does it all.  We have talked to him about looking for a home for Pat, but he doesn't want her to go anywhere, he wants to take care of her.  They are working on getting some home health care to help.  I really admire his desire to take care of his wife and make her comfortable.  Keith has been helping Garth figure out what he needs to do.  You can tell that Garth really respects Keith and listens to him.  

Pat was having a good day on Sunday and enjoyed having time with the family.  You could tell she was having a harder time as the night went on.  She doesn't even know who Garth is a lot of the time.  It is so sad.

I love this picture. Caitlyn is so sweet, she has such a tender heart.  She gave grandma a hug and told her she loved her out of the blue.  

I think Garth had a great day.  We had all of his favorite food and his favorite pie for dessert. He loved all of his presents.   

Happenings

Jonah was one happy boy when Kyler invited him to a BYU game a couple of weeks ago.  He loved every minute of it.

He was even more excited that he had money so he was able to buy himself snacks at the games.  I'm so happy he got to go to a game!

We love when the Barths come over to play.  We all love to watch Damon and see all of the cute things he does and says.  Jonah had fun playing peek-a-boo with him.

Love these cute boys!

We have been loving this warm weather.  It was been so great for playing outside.  

We tried out a new park last week.  The kids all loved it and are dying to go back. 

Wyatt wants to get in the Lego magazine really bad.  He asks me to take pictures of him and post them on Facebook so the magazine will see the picture and put his picture in the magazine.

Keith got to go to Wyatt's class for Dads and Donuts.  I love that Keith rearranged his schedule to make sure he could be there.  Wyatt was thrilled to have him there.

Keith and I got pedicures last weekend.  It was so great! Keith's feet, otherwise known as the shredders, really needed some help!  I think he felt a little awkward at times, but he is very happy with the results!

The kid's school had a robot art show.  Each of the kids had to create a robot to display.  We got a phone call telling us that Wyatt's picture was selected for an Excellence award.  Here he is with his certificate and prize.  His robot picture is the one above his head with a lot of blue in it.  He was thrilled!

The older grades worked in groups to create their robots.  Jonah and his friends made the Super Bot.  I thought it turned out great!

Caitlyn and her friends created, Toby the animal care bot.  I love it!  The kids were excited to go to the art show and show us their work.  

I love Kenzie!

We were all excited to have Kenzie, Kiara and Boston over for the evening.  Hallee had a picnic with Kenzie and then gave her a hug and told me she loved her.

Kenzie didn't lack for attention!  Caitlyn always scoops her up as soon as we walk into Katie's house.

Jonah had fun playing with Kenzie too.  

I loved watching Keith fawn all over Kenzie.

The kids all had a great time playing together.  The girls gave us a little concert.  

Jonah helped with Kenzie while I made dinner.  I forgot how hard it is to do anything with a one-year-old around.  

Wyatt and Boston had a blast.  They loved building a fort and trapping Jackson in there.

We found some old boxes under the stairs and the kids had a blast coloring them and building a train with them.  It was such a fun night.  I need to steal Katie's kids more often!

Oh, I look adurable!

I love Hallee's confidence.  She loves to look in the mirror and see how adorable she looks every day.  I also love how she can't say her R's.  Four sounds like fur and adorable sounds like adurable.

She sure is a cutie and she sure makes us laugh.  She hasn't been asking as many questions lately, but she still loves to talk! She loves to tell me all about pre-school and who behaved and who didn't.

Here she is showing off her new jeggings!

Hallee has such a fun personality.  She loves to entertain.  Life sure would be boring without this cute girl around!

We can do hard things

I ran a 5K!!! I have never been a runner and I honestly didn't think I could do it.  I have always struggled with asthma, but I have been able to run without any breathing problems.  Tiff pointed out that not drinking soda probably helped with that.  I finished my couch to 5K program on Monday and I was planning on running the 3.1 miles on Wednesday morning, but I kept thinking about it on Tuesday and decided to go out and do it while Hallee was at preschool.  I went to the Provo River Parkway and just went for it.  It was tough at times, but overall I felt great.  I finished in 40 minutes, which was my goal.  I was so proud of myself when I finished.  It felt so good to work so hard and accomplish something that I didn't think I could. Isn't the parkway beautiful?  I loved running on the trail. 

Jonah has wanted to hike to the Y for a while.  We finally decided that Friday was the day. 

Jonah and I were the only ones that wanted to do it.  We were both surprised with how steep it is.  We both thought about quitting after the first big hill, but we kept going.  I had to stop and take a breather a lot because I have a hard time breathing with a steep incline like that, not to mention my legs were burning!  Jonah didn't mind stopping, we would rest for a minute and then head back up.

I was a little nervous when Jonah climbed up on this rock, but it did make a great picture!

Jonah loved looking through the binoculars.

We thought about just stopping at the bottom of the Y, but we both decided we would regret that so we hiked to the top.  It was a beautiful view.  We were both proud of ourselves for working hard and making it to the top.

It was fun to spend some time with Jonah and talk to him.  I told him to use this as a lesson and never let hard work keep him from reaching his goals.  You will never regret working hard and doing your best!  I'm pretty sure he doesn't hear most of what I say, but hopefully things sink in here and there. 

Jonah and I were so hot after hiking. We decided we would go swimming when we got home.  Keith was out of town so I took the kids and we had a blast.  The kids played for hours and loved it.

On Thursday, Gordon Hayward was at Macey's in West Jordan.  I went back and forth about going, but we decided at the last minute to go.  We took Jonah's friend, Kyle with us and headed out.

I don't think very many people knew about it, we only had to wait in line for about 15 minutes.  They rushed you through pretty quickly, but the kids were thrilled to meet him and get his autograph.  Jonah got his basketball card signed, Wyatt got a picture signed and Caitlyn got her jersey signed. I had the perfect picture in my mind, but it didn't quite work out. The three older kids had Hayward jerseys on and Hallee had a Hayward shirt on, but she got really shy and wouldn't line up or look for the picture.  Oh well, it was so fun to see him.  Jonah told him he was a great basketball player and he said, "thanks man!"  The other kids ended up being too shy to say anything. 

When we got home on Thursday night Jonah told me I needed to come see the bubble in the bathroom ceiling.  No one ever wants to see this in their ceiling. I called plumbers and got one booked for the next morning.  

These are the times that you don't want your husband to be out of town!  I hate dealing with house and car problems.  I did it though and it all worked out.  The plumber had to cut into the ceiling to find the leak.  The leak was coming from the hot water line form the kitchen.  He was able to repair that, but it was pretty wet up there.  The plumber gave us a discount and charged me for less time, which I was so grateful for.  He probably thought we needed it when he saw me going through our garbage looking for Caitlyn's $30 that she thought she threw away.  Turns out the money was in the front room the whole time!  After the plumber left I had to call a disaster clean up company.  They charged a fortune to cut into the wall and cut out more of the ceiling and pull out all of the wet insulation.  I think a big part of the cost was the fans that we have going until Monday to make sure we don't get mold.  Tomorrow they will come back and make sure everything is dried out and give us an estimate for fixing the wall and the ceiling.  Good times!  Oh well, it's only money.  I am very grateful that Keith just got a raise, that has made this whole experience much less stressful.  There are blessings all around us, sometimes we have to look a little harder to find them!