Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we were unable to make it down to Southern Utah for Thanksgiving, so we spent it up here with my parents and my Grandma Andreason.




The boys all looked Handsome dressed in their cute sweaters! And we all enjoyed our wonderful meal.




This year I made mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls. And I also brought some spinach dip and a fruit tray for appetizers. Here's is my awesome fruit tray. Sorry I have to show off a little.




My mom told me just to make stove top stuffing, but I wanted something a little fancier for Thanksgiving. I've never made stuffing otherwise, so I searched online and found this delicious cornbread stuffing recipe. And believe me, It was delicious!

After dinner we enjoyed a movie, and then some pie.

Then we gave the boys their new Christmas Pajamas.




After all was said and done Craig and I headed to Wal-Mart to get a start, and almost a finish, on our holiday shopping. I love Black Friday. Sure it's crazy, and crowded, but it's also fun-- kind of like a slumber party. I enjoy going to all the displays. Grabbing random things here and there. And then deciding what to give to who, and what to put back. It really is great for getting your holiday shopping list cut down to size.


The Friday after Thanksgiving, Craig and I found we had slept in until 12:45 in the afternoon. The funny thing is that the boys let us. They were all still asleep too-- except for Baby M. The twins must have been tired after staying up at Grandma's house, while we were out shopping for Black Friday. Anyway, this all led to us taking a trip to McDonalds for lunch. After all we were all starving, and not in the mood to cook.

I'm am truly Thankful for the church and all the wonderful blessings it has brought into our lives.

I'm very thankful that Craig got two enjoy to days off from work. Two days of sleeping in, and getting some rest. And that we got two days of having Dad all to ourselves!

I'm also so incredibly thankful for all the wonderful people we have in our lives. Whether you be family, or friends, you guys all make life so much sweeter!

I'm thankful for our house and home, and all the help that has been given to us to keep, fix up and maintain it.

I'm thankful for all my boys, and my wonderful husband. I love the small joys they give me each day. On that note, I have to share some more cute little tidbits before I forget-- this is mostly so I remember to write them down somewhere.

One night Big H wanted to watch a movie at my parents, so they put one in the DVD player. But they couldn't find the remote to press play. My mom asked Big H to go press play on the player. He happily did! He pushed the button then turned around and said, "There, is that better?"

Big H loves music. In the car he always asks to hear songs again, and he gets mad when I turn off the car and the music ends. Now when we get in the car, and he hears his music, he always says, "Listen!"

The boys are learning letters. We have been working on "A" for the most part. I told them, "The 'A' says ah." However, Little H likes to say, "The 'A' says 'S'!" A phrase that can be slightly misinterpreted.

In the car Little H kept saying, "The 'A' says ah!" Big H would then repeat. Little H got upset and said, "No, it's my ah." Another phrase that can be misinterpreted.

Then Big H saw some birds and said, "Look Birds!" Little H saw a truck and said, "Look a truck!" They then began to go back and forth saying, "It's my bird," and "It's my truck!"

Though they fight with each other, they are good brothers. When one of the twins gets hurt the other is always there to help him up, give him a hug and pat him on the back, saying, "Are you OK Henrum?" And other phrases along those lines. However, when it comes to Baby M, they are not so inclined to give out the "feel goods"! If they hurt Baby M I tell them to apologize and give him a hug. The apology isn't so hard to get out of them. The hug on the other hand is always met with obstinacy.

I have many things to be thankful for this year. But I think, as of now, the number one thing I'm thankful for is that Wal-Mart had a great sale on a Thomas and Friends train set. Thank you! The boys will finally get a train set of their own.

I Need to Write it Down Somewhere

Cute Little Boy Moments:

The other night the boys were watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Big H kept pushing buttons and skipping ahead in chapters.

"Stop pushing buttons!" I said.

Then Big H kept asking me for something. I assumed he wanted to watch the part where Jack sings "What's This!" So I pushed the chapter button back to that part of the movie. I then walked out of the room and turned around to find Little H standing in the door frame. He was saying something that I couldn't quite understand. Then it all became clear.

"Hey, don't push buttons Mom!"

The boys and I drove to church today. The twins like to climb up to the front seat to get out of the car. We were getting out and I look up to see Big H, opening and closing the vanity mirror, saying, "I see Henrum. I see Henrum."

As we walked up to go to nursery-- not just to drop of the twins, but to report for duty since I was subbing-- Little H kept yelling, "Lets go Ursery! Ursery!"

My parents have a little oval train set on their dining room table. It's an electric one. The twins played and played with it all night. Along with my Nephew K. The train track is small and tricky so my Dad got tired of having to fix it. After my nephew left to go home, Little H kept begging to play with the train set again.

"No more train! You guys keep braking it!" My dad said sternly.

"I don't break!" Little H, yelled back.



In other News:

I forgot to inform everyone that Craig got in a car accident. He came up over a bridge, on a road where the speed limit is 55 mph, to find they had put up a signal and made a one lane road. He rear ended the guy in front of him. According to Craig, my Mom, my Dad, the officer at the scene and others it was a very unsafe situation. There were few warning signs, and many other accidents had occurred. So Craig's poor car, Mitzy, is totaled. We are very thankful to Craig's parents for loaning us a car until we can buy a new one!

I also forgot to mention that Craig got a new job. As far as I understand it, he makes the brains for the blend tech blenders. The place he works is called Computral(sp?). He seems pretty happy with it so far. Twelve hour shifts aren't my favorite, but I'm going to have to get used to it seeing how Craig is going into nursing.

Along with that job he works at a couple Home healthcare places. He was working at a rehabilitation home, up in Salt Lake, but he lost that job over the summer.

We have also discovered that our camera has called it quits-- didn't even give us a two week notice. Luckily there are a few good Black Friday deals coming up, but still it wasn't an expense we were planning on. We may still be able to reclaim the camera, but chances are kind of slim. It's not necessarily a necessity, but it is kind of an important thing for us.

Well that's just some of the updates I've neglected to include in my posts. I'm sure there is more, but that is all my brain can recall for now.

Hope Everyone has fun plans for Turkey Day!

An Early Thanksgiving, Fun Projects and Some Sad News

On Thursday I rushed home from work, grabbed the boys from my mom and headed to Provo to try and catch Thanksgiving Dinner/Lunch with Craig's Grandpa. The home that Craig's Grandpa is living in had a Thanksgiving Dinner for the family members this week. We were about an hour late, but the employees were extremely nice, and set us up no problem. We enjoyed our little get together. I was glad we were able to make it, and that they were so accommodating. I wish Craig could have come with us, but he started clinicals this week and couldn't make it. But I had fun getting to know Grandpa Darrington. This was the first time we had officially met.




We enjoyed a good visit and a good meal-- the boys ate, mostly, pumpkin pie and Baby M helped me eat my yams. We need to go back and visit again when Craig can come.

The boys and I have been busy this week as well. We've been working on shapes, so we made these trains.



And today I, went a little crazy, and pulled out the paints to make these turkeys. Little H was way excited about his turkey. And they all enjoyed squishing the paint between their fingers. Surprisingly we escaped with very little paint on our clothes. I was also way impressed when Big H recognized his name when I wrote it on his Turkey.



In other news, I forgot to post that my Great Aunt Barbara passed away from pneumonia. She is my aunt on my Dad's side. My Grandma Andreason's younger sister. We were all pretty shocked by her passing. I feel really bad for my grandma because they were both widows, and had been keeping each other company. I'm also sad that I wasn't well informed about her viewing and funeral, so I couldn't pay my respects. I hope she knows I will miss her, and that I'm sorry I never got those pictures to her.

To end with, I'll post some pics of the boys that never made it to the blog.

Where to Begin? Because it Never Seems to end :)

I feel so behind. I don't even know where to begin. I'm sitting here at the computer, feeling like a stranger because it has been so long since I've spent time organizing photos and updating blogs.

I had to spend some time online doing some fun stuff for work(got to love the mandatory mumbo jumbo that's all for legal purposes), but haven't had a chance to sort through pictures since Halloween.

I've also burned up, some of my, online time searching for the boys Christmas PJ's. It's a family tradition we started. Every year they get Christmas PJ's on Thanksgiving. This year I was hoping to find all matching Thomas. . . ones. Well all I could find was a two pack of Thomas. . . holiday PJ's. It didn't make sense to order two two packs for three little boys. So I thought I'd get Baby M something sock monkey themed-- I call him my sock monkey baby because he's named after my mom's baby, that died, and one of the things that sticks out in my memory is the sock monkey she had for him. Low and behold, I was actually successful at tracking down some sock monkey PJ's-- that were extremely cute. But, alas, they were two sizes to small. We ended up finding some on Carters web site we were happy with, though the were sock monkey-less. But it was all for not because I just purchased some cute PJ's I saw at Wal-Mart today.

On top of all that, to make it more confusing, I've been reediting the the photos I took of my dad, and the boys, for Father's Day. My Dad said he looked old, and I didn't want a costumer to go on being unhappy with our work, so I've been giving them a once over. :)





That all sort of added to the confusion of getting photos sorted. But now that that is all behind me maybe I can sit down and make a somewhat decent post. I always hope this will be quick and easy, but something always happens with the picture uploads-- or I get distracted and get caught up making online searches, or reading backed up email.

I had fun celebrating my birthday this year.

On the third I had a hand-me-down party with some friends. It was partially a birthday party too. I had so much fun visiting, laughing and enjoying everyone's company. I probably got too carried away, but I still really enjoyed myself. Thanks everyone for coming!




On Saturday my parents took me to Ikea, and bought me lunch. I picked out a few small things here and there, that I bought for myself. And they bought me some really cute lanterns to hang in the house.

On Sunday we had some family over for lunch and cake. I couldn't enjoy the food though thanks to a nickel sized canker sore on my tongue, but I still had a really good time.




The twins crashing into Grandpa!



Who likes cake?!




Random:

These three love to watch movies. Here they all are watching "Pumpkin Jack". Or as others may call it The Nightmare Before Christmas.



We enjoyed a trip on the Heber Creeper with Grandpa and Grandma Stratton.







We got robbed by some bandits :)




And we aided in a proposal.



All in all it was a pretty full, and fun, trip!

More random:

One night Big H had a whole bundle of things he wanted to take with him. So I gave him a bag to put everything in. Well he wanted a back pack. So this was my solution.



Those three boys! They like to keep us busy!