Thanksgiving 2013

I have many pictures of our Thanksgiving table, and next to none of the actual people who ate the meal.  That is the exact reason I took pictures of our table setting long before we ate. It always gets crazy, and pictures are the last thing on my mind.

We invited some folks from church who don't have family around. We ended up with a very eclectic mix of people, with all kinds of different life experiences. Unfortunately, due to some unexpected things coming up for them, many had to cancel. It ended up being a quiet day, and that is also nice.

My neighbor told me last week that he had ordered their Thanksgiving dinner from the club house. You better believe I jumped at the chance to remove the cooking stress from my list. The next door neighbor was even kind enough to actually go and pick up our food and bring it to us! I only made Brussels sprouts as a side dish! I barley had to lift a finger! Awesome! The bad news, despite my telling them I had a nut allergy, some of the veggies came with walnuts on top as a garnish. Del immediately took that dish out, and threw it away. While it was obvious they were there, and I did not eat them, the wrapping of the food must have been done by the nut toucher, because after opening all the food tins and containers, I was an itchy mess! There must have been some cross contamination with the oils. I had to go upstairs and wash all my makeup off, and scrub myself down. I was okay after that. Thank goodness!

We went with the ever popular chalk board theme, and our chargers were mini chalk boards at dinner.

Individual cranberry sauce servers.

We sent all our leftovers home with a dinner guest after we realized the containers were irritating me. Then we loaded up and went to see "Frozen" in our town's newly remodeled movie theater. They have switched the bell chimes in the square to play Christmas music on the hour. It is so charming.

Green, white and calm. Oh, and some black and white check always adds warmth.

No pictures with Del. Poor guy.
I am so full of gratitude for these growing people, and Del. I am also so grateful for our healthy bodies, and the ability we have to accomplish what needs to be done day to day, without much thought as to how we will manage physically.
I have such supportive and exemplary in laws and extended family. My Grandma Clark is about to start treatment for her newly diagnosed stage 3B breast cancer. I am so thankful for her in my life! She is amazing. There is no other word for her!
It has been a good, but challenging year for us! We have learned a lot, and we have become mindful of all the blessings that could easily go overlooked when in the middle of a struggle. Even when it seems the hits just keep coming, we realize that we are being sustained in an amazing and miraculous way, that is impossible to explain!
I am so thankful for employment, and the peace and ease it brings to life to be provided for. So many don't have that security right now, and I am grateful for the work we have.
 I have learned a lot this year about patience and moving forward, even when things seem unfair. I am thankful for that perspective. I hope I have learned something this year about gratitude and faith.

Now we need to get busy preparing for our upcoming venture West to see our family members. We are also learning to be thankful for moments of happiness and health with those we love, and don't live near. It is time to go take advantage!

Cards of Christmas Past

I have received delivery of the final print of our Christmas cards for 2013! I had to have them reprinted because the first time around they did it on a thick card stock like paper that was making us all look like our hands and faces were dirty. It was a weird finish. The company was good about doing the reprint, and now I am so relieved to see the photography doesn't look as grainy! We went the complete opposite direction when it comes to location for the 2013 card than we did at the beach in 2012. So I had to get used to them not being as bright and sunny!

I am calling for all addresses now! If you think I don't have yours, send it to me! I am ready and able to send out as many as I need to this year, so hit me with it! I am ready to address these babies!

I scrolled through my blog after I got the reprint to see what our cards had looked like in past years, and realized that not many of them ever made it on the record. I did post some of the photo sessions, but not the actual cards.
I went and dug through my boxes, and found every single Christmas card we have ever sent out! Counting this year, that is eleven Christmas card photos! Some of them are just a photo. Those were the years we inserted them in into a card. I like this tradition, and I am glad we started doing it ten years ago!

I got a kick out of some of these! I cannot believe that I sent some of them out! I guess I cannot believe I am posting them for all to see now, either!  I look less than amazing in many of them! Maybe I just care more now than I did back then, but wow! It is good for a laugh anyway!

I will post our card for 2013 after I get them all addressed and sent out.
So here is a walk down memory lane...

2012: My favorite one so far!  I just like it! Sandy beach, sunny day, what's not to love?! We were at Huntington Beach in California. Maybe everyone just looks better on a beach in California. I also love this photographer, Brittany Wood.

The 2012 card had pictures on the back:

2011: A Fall vibe. Will and his fake smile are cute, and Walker had really long hair! I wish I could slide us all down a bit to give Georgia more room! Ha!

2010: We had this photo done in Lincoln Park, Chicago. I loved Georgia's outfit in the photo. (edit: my brother in law reminded me that he had to help us out by photoshopping Walker's head to the extreme! Walker was asleep in this photo, and Christopher put his head from a different picture on him, and fixed the shrubbery. Oh, and he got rid of my fly aways. Thanks Christopher! Oh, and note to professional photographers, people don't want to pay hundreds of dollars for pictures, and get them back with something as easy to fix as fly aways still in the pictures.)

2010 had a back:

2009: Tripod picture. Walker was less than a week old, and I look like I just had a baby. What is with my hair?  The kids and Del just look confused! We learned this year that it is hard to look natural and cute, when there is no one behind the camera.

2008: Standing in front of the garage door of someone we don't know. We put the boys on step stools. I set the camera up, and had a neighbor push the button over and over for me. I actually like this card though. It came out pretty well for not putting much energy into it.

2007: My amazing friend Mandy took this photo for us. It was a fun idea, and I still love it! I want to kiss Georgia's sweet little blue eyed face!

2006: Taken on self timer in front of our fireplace at our old home. Wally was a three and a half year old terror, and I remember that right after we took this he snuck the camera away, (which was brand new) and threw it into a sink full of water. I was so frustrated when I found it! I was still sick as a dog because I was about four months pregnant with Georgia. Not the best photo, but quit festive! Ha!

2005: I actually think we may have sent out a photo with a little bit different positioning than we are in here. I think Wally was standing and Will was not burying his face in his jacket as much. But I didn't find that photo, and we may have sent some of this out too. Wally's little mouth looks so sweet here. I love how fair Will is! Such a blondie! I wish he was not looking away! Wally is holding a toy train. He was obsessed with trains at this age. And obsessed does not even begin to cover it! Our lives rotated around trains! I have dead eyes, but it could be worse.

2004: What was I thinking? This is the most unflattering photo of me, maybe ever! I was still getting this Christmas card thing down. Good thing we didn't send out very many early on! I was pregnant with Will, and sick. I think we took it at my Aunt Sandy and Uncle Scott's house on Thanksgiving. I believe Del and I had been to the city the night before for my birthday. We stayed at the historic Palmer House Hotel, and Sandy watched Wally for us. What a saint! Sorry, this is bringing all kinds of random memories out of the corners of my mind!

2003: Our very first Christmas card photo. Just our Wally boy that year. He was nine months old that Christmas. We took him to a studio. This is the cheesy quality you get, right? Wally is such a cute boy! He was in the middle of cranial facial helmet therapy at this time to help his misshaped little head. We even have one photo at this studio that we left it on him for. You can see his tilt from his Torticollis. He had one stubborn case! We had only lived in Illinois for about seven months that Christmas.

Christmas cards are one of the most exciting things about December! I think everyone loves checking the mail at Christmas time!  Nothing like building Christmas card friendships!

Walker's Puppy Birthday Party

We had Walker's fourth birthday party this past week.
We went with a puppy theme. Walker's two favorite things are trucks and dogs, so it was either or. Georgia also loves dogs, so she was totally on board with a puppy theme.

 I found these really cute invites and had them printed up, then realized that the date on the invite overlapped a swim meet. So, I had to scratch the date and time out and make a few phone calls. We started the party on a Friday after school, and since it starts getting dark around these parts at about 4:00 in the afternoon, it looks like we had a party in the middle of the night in the pictures!

Here are some shots of the dessert table.

We sent the guests home with some individually wrapped play doh. Red, brown, and white. It is tough to find play doh in the colors you want in a big tub, so I made the brown and red. My kids thought that was the coolest thing ever. I have obviously never made home made play doh before.

My amazing friend Jane came to the rescue again and made exactly what I envisioned with the cake pops and cupcakes.

I liked the idea of the cupcakes looking like hostess cupcakes. The brown cupcakes looked so cute with our theme.

Kid food. We went with the kid food.

Didn't realize the cheese shapes had cracked until I posted this.

The kid's table.

Not many of the decor was labeled, because most four year old's cant read. But I couldn't resist the "sit: sign.

Coco Crispies as a center piece. Some of the kids really thought was dog food when I handed them a bag to fill and take home at the end of the party. So cute! Loved the marquee sign number 4 I found.

Puppy straws.

Walker told me "It so pretty in here Mom!" So sweet! He also said that one of his favorite things at the party were the huge red balloons.

We set up the activity tables in my kids play area in the basement. I decided to just set up some pre-school age appropriate stations for our party entertainment. It worked out really well. The guests were happy to have time to play with the toys in the basement when they were done with the stations.

We had an adopt a puppy station. The kids picked a puppy, gave him a name, and made a collar for him with pipe cleaner and beads. They loved this! It was cute to see them get excited to pick an animal.

Coloring station. We had eyes and a fluffy brown nose to glue on a puppy coloring page.

Time to party!

The birthday boy!

The gift unwrapping kind of got underway thanks to Georgia taking the lead. This meant it was kind of chaotic, and I am still not 100% sure who gave him what! But everyone is always so generous with my kids on their birthdays!

Walker's favorite sitter, Nicole, or "Cole" as he calls her, came and helped me out at the party. She is so cute and amazing. Walker specifically told me to invite her! He loves her!

We are very grateful for this boy. Our baby guy is getting so big, and I can't believe that I am in the stage of my youngest getting so big! Love ya Walkie boy!

BYU at UW

Del and I were able to get away for a night this past weekend. We have an awesome, and very resilient sitter for the kids, so we took off!

BYU was playing the University of Wisconsin at Camp Randall Stadium, in Madison.
Sorry, all I have is iphone shots.

I have actually never been up to Madison, which is crazy considering how close to us it really is. It is a fun city. Lots of charm, and very, very full of activity on a game day!

It was nuts! I have never seen students so excited to get some partying on! And people tell me and Del that WE went to a party school! They were a fun crowd of game fans! They have all kinds of songs, cheers and gimmicks at that school. I thought I was going to have a panic attack when they started in on "Jump Around." The stadium was shaking like there was an earthquake. And we were up in the nosebleeds, so thoughts of tumbling backward once all the screws came loose from the jumping were not very settling!  

Unfortunately for BYU fans, they lost.
We had a nice time seeing so many of our friends from back home, our church here, and friends who have moved away. We were running into people left and right. It was great! We even saw our high school principal the night before the game! What a flashback!

We drove up the night before the game because the players do a fireside at a church near the stadium when they travel. A fireside is a meeting where a message about Christ is shared with a congregation in the evening. There was a huge crowd for the fireside. The players sang songs and some spoke and bore their testimonies. Coach Bronco Mendenhall also spoke and gave a nice talk.

Saturday morning we drove around campus before going to the BYU pre game lunch. We turned onto a street that turned out to be a fraternity row. Lots of action there. Including this group of guys rolling a giant ball down the street. When I pulled out my phone for a picture, they yelled for us to stop so I could sign the ball. I told them I was sorry I was going to write something they would not like, and when I wrote "Go BYU" they told me they would just be drunk either way, weather they lost or not. Ha! They were cool and posed for some pictures for me. So nice to make new friends, right? Ha!

We sat by our friends the Laws during the game. It was SO good to catch up with Jessica a bit! I have missed her so much since they moved away to Wisconsin! Dru was a game crazy guy that weekend. He and his brothers hit four games spanning from Chicago to Green bay in just three days!

Our friends, the Critchfields, minus their two oldest daughters.

I love Jill! She is such a good friend, and example. What a blessing her move to our ward at church has been! Del is first counselor to Bishop Crtichfield. It has been so much fun getting to know their family. And Walker has found a kindred spirit in Nicole. She is his favorite babysitter! He loves his Cole.

Jill's coat is so cute! And perfect for BYU games!

It was a good weekend! So glad we got to go. So nice to spend some time with Del.