Excited Hyrum

Time to decorate

Brigham has been asking us about decorating for Christmas since before Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong, he and Levi were very excited about the big dinner and going to Me-Maw and Poppy's house but you can imagine just how excited they were about getting the lights up outside and decorating the inside of the house this weekend. We always have Egg Nog after decorating the tree (a tradition that I grew up with) and it has been calling Brigham's name from the fridge ever since I bought it a few days ago! He gets so excited about all holidays! I heard him singing, "Deck the halls with vowels and consonants..." Kindergarten is paying off!

Thanksgiving

I haven't been to a Thanksgiving dinner with my family since being married. With the exception of 2 Thanksgivings, we have always spent it with David's side of the family. I really missed them this year. As far back as I can remember, we always had Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa's house or Little Papa's house. The big hit with us kids were always the olives...putting them on each fingertip and going back for more. With the Grandkds being parents now we bring part of the dinner. I made the bread and mashed potatoes. I turned my back for a second and little Hyrum had gotten a hold of part of the mixer and went to town! He loved it so much and it was so cute that I kept putting more mashed potatoes on top of the places he had already licked clean.
By the time we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house, the game had already started! April and Shaylee have never been afraid of a man's game!

It's weird to me that we are so big now that we have to have 2 high chairs and another table....and still have adults sitting on the floor in the living room while eating dinner!

I woke up this morning having had bad dreams. That always puts me in a somber mood. It took me a little bit but I was able to pull through it quicker than normal. That seems to be happening a lot more lately. I'm very grateful for that. I'm grateful for a husband who senses it every time; who knows just what to say to help me remember what is important, what is real, and that I'm not broken...just healing.

Lovey Dove

Before I left for the Bank and Walgreens this afternoon, I told Levi where I was going (Hyrum, Daddy, and Brigham were asleep). He repeated back to me where I was going and said, "And then you will be back." I feel guilty that I didn't take him with me now that I saw this sign/picture in our front door window. It says, "I miss you Mom. Love Levi" with all kinds of hearts together in the shape of another heart. This boy melts my heart!

Family Home Evening in November

We try to have Family Home Evening every Monday night...sometimes it ends up happening on Tue. or Wed. or so on but we are usually pretty good at doing it weekly. I wonder sometimes if the reason we are so diligent on doing it weekly is really because of the kids though. I'm not sure they would ever let us forget! I try to remember to enjoy these FHE now while they are young and still like to do them! Our FHE are very simple. They last maybe 5-10 minutes long. Sometimes we will do an activity of some sort that will make it longer but usually it is just short enough to keep their attention and long enough for Mommy and Daddy to be able to handle it before someone starts crying. I feel so blessed to have boys that love each other so much. Especially to see Levi and Hryum together. I think Levi babies Hyrum more than his parents do sometimes! But even though they love each other, it never fails that when we are trying to have "family" moments all of us are tried with our patience eventually. I think we have figured out that short FHE work the best for us! This picture was actually taken last week. We are blessed to own the Living Scriptures series. They are DVD/videos that are 30 minutes long. They are animated and tell a scripture story. They come with coloring and activity booklets. We only let them watch "Jesus" movies on Sundays so lately for FHE we have just been going over an account, since they have already seen the movie, in the scriptures and then coloring/activity pages for our lessons and activities. We feel very blessed that we have these "tools" to teach our children with. When we lived in Colorado we started getting these DVD's in the mail monthly but when David lost his job we had to stop doing this. No one knew this but we were blessed that Christmas to get as a present, from Steve and Barbara, a few Living Scriptures DVD's. Then we moved out here and some friends from church, the Rickners, had also gotten into the Living Scriptures on video by mail but their children had grown up and left the home so guess who got blessed once again?! We eventually ended up owning all! But I have to say that my favorite is the coloring and activity books....it makes for great FHE lessons. Thank you for blessing me and my family! I'm using the word "blessed" a lot but I really feel that we are because I'm not sure that we should own even half of what we do. And I have no doubt that the kids have a better understanding of the scriptures because of them.

Since Thanksgiving is this week we decided to go over some of the things that the kids have been learning in school about this holiday. I asked Brigham why we celebrated Thanksgiving and his reply was, "To celebrate God's birthday!" Very cute! After he and Levi told us things that they knew about the holiday I asked them to tell me 3 things that they are thankful for. Levi said, "You, Dad, Brigham....but I need another one for baby." Then Brigham said that he only needed 1 thing. He was thankful for his family. Brigham and Levi tried to tell me this at the same time so I knew that they were not trying to outdo the other. They truly meant it. I LOVE MY FAMILY! Moments like these make it all so very worth it.

Just Like Old Times

About 2 months ago Ryan Wilhelmsen contacted me about surprising his wife, Charlene, for her birthday. Charlene was my roommate at Ricks College. Ryan wanted me and Brittany Doll, another roommate, to come up with a place for him to fly Charlene out to so that we could all get together....so I guess happy birthday to us all! Of course, Charlene figured it out before our weekend actually came but it was still fun trying to keep it from her! They flew in to the Tulsa airport on Wednesday and on the next day off we went to Branson, MO. That first night we went to the Dixie Stampede. We took this picture because I was giving Charlene a hard time when she said that these poinsettias were in the shape of a butterfly. They were obviously boots....I mean, we were at the Dixie Stampede! We thought it was neat how they got all those poinsettias to look like boots.....but when we went back to go look at them....ok, so it was a butterfly after all!

The next day we did a LOT of shopping and went the the Hollywood Wax Museum. We had a little bit to much fun there! There were many pictures taken there and now each of us girls have enough blackmail evidence on each other to last a lifetime....so this is all you get to see!



We continued to shop the next day and take as many pictures as we could. We laughed so much that I often heard the phrase, "My face hurts" or "My stomach hurts" coming out of each of our mouths. We may be a bunch of old moms now but we still know how to laugh!

On our way back from Branson we stopped at a Russel Stover Store. We had to take this picture because of the obnoxious amounts of junk food we had that we were taking home.

I love my Husband and my children dearly, but I am so grateful that I was able to make this trip with my dear friends. There are so many things that you forget when you are going about your daily routines. I forgot to laugh at myself. I forgot that so many moms go through the same things as I do. Thank you girls for reminding me of who I once was and who I am now. Both are good.

Date Nights

I am going to Branson, MO for a few days with some of my friends in a few days and so my Dad came to watch the kids last night so David and I could go on a date. It was so wonderful! I came to realize something last night. I guess it is more of remembering something. David and I both know that we should put date nights as a priority in our lives but we don't. For years it was because I couldn't leave the kids. It seriously was no fun for me to go on dates with David because I worried about the kids the whole time we were gone. There were plenty of times that we cut a date short because of this. About 2 years ago is when I finally was able to feel comfortable with leaving the kids with someone; probably because we were living by family for the first time! We would put the kids to bed and then Helen would come over (or should I say, up the stairs. She lived below us in the basement.) and listen for the kids....and sometimes watch them because they would sneak out of their rooms! There is only so much you can do that late at night though. So then we started realizing how important it is to have a real date no matter what! We actually started spending money on ourselves! That was always a factor in not going on dates also. We have went through ups and downs since then on remembering what we realized not so long ago. We let money get in the way. I've let my fear of being in crowded places get in the way. There are always excuses. But we are remembering again.....and I am very much in love with my husband.....

All those in love with Fall

Everyone seems to love the Fall. They usually love it because it brings in the holidays and because of all the awesome beauty of the outdoor colors changing before our eyes....I just like it because it means that in Oklahoma, it isn't summer anymore! June bugs are gone, the ants are slowing down (has anyone else noticed that the ants are seriously acting lethargic?!), but most importantly it isn't humid anymore!!! Levi discovered that "brooming" the leaves was much easier than raking them. It took me a while to finally get him to understand what "sweeping" was and what "brooming" was not!
Yes, that would be Hyrum with his eye completely closed shut now! He woke up like this on Sunday morning and because of him testing positive for influenza, we were afraid this was due to that. It scared us enough to make another ER visit. Did you know that you can have a viral infection as well as a bacterial? I didn't know that. I thought it was just one or the other. He has "peri-orbital cellulitis" which is like an ear infection except this infection is in the soft tissue around the eye. We lovingly call him "winky" now. These pictures were taken on Sunday and as of today, he has almost got the eye completely open now. It is still very red though and the eye itself stands out farther than the other eye now. It is the oddest looking thing.