Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving trip to New Mexico to be with Justin's family. We drove seven hours on Wednesday to get to his sister Danielle's house. We'd had a lazy morning, including Carrie eating only marshmallows picked out of her cereal bowl, thanks to Grandpa Mark ;) She didn't really eat lunch, just drank her Capri Sun... We grabbed some cheetos and gummy bears at a gas station along the way.... You'd think we should have been expecting it, but we were still surprised when about 20 minutes before we got there, Carrie suddenly started throwing up... All over the carseat....

I considered it lucky that we were so close to Danielle's house. I stripped Carrie down, wiped her off with wipes, put her jacket underneath her and a thin blanket between her and the nasty wet seatbelt straps and toughed it out until we got there. Then started a load of laundry.... Of course. Fortunately, I think it was just the sugar. It didn't happen again. Phew!

On Thanksgiving Day, Danielle was bustling around making dinner (while I sat on the couch.... what a mooch huh?) I guess it wasn't getting done quite fast enough for Carrie though. She snagged a roll off the table about half hour early ;)

The meal was delicious, the company was fantastic, and the football on TV was loud.... We had fun. So much fun, in fact, that Carrie fell asleep about 5:30 watching a movie. When I tried to pick her up so she would wake up (so she would sleep at bedtime), it didn't work.... She was still zonked out. So I enjoyed about 45 minutes of snuggly time with my non-snuggly girl. It was awesome.

I braved WalMart at 10:00 by myself to snag a few little kid board games. I was in and out in 20 minutes. And I'm soooo glad. It was crazy in there!

Friday we headed down to Justin's parents' house (about an hour from his sister's). We went out for enchilada's for his dad's birthday, and I wimped out and got bean and cheese sopapillas with my green chile on the side.... What can I say, I have a weak palate....

Saturday morning we met with a guy Justin's dad knows who refurbishes laptops. And we scored big time! We got a very nice laptop, new to us, for $450. We'd been looking to buy one soon anyways, but we saved ourselves about $300 from our original "budget". Take that Black Friday deals! :P

Then the boys went golfing and the girls went shopping at the local outlet store and played at the park. We threw probably a hundred teeny rocks (pebbles, really) into the Rio Grande. Nana had told Carrie if we went down by the river, we might see some ducks. As we started to look for them, she started yelling out, "Duckies! Duckies!!", then turned to look at me really quick and asked, "Wait a minute! Is it your ducky or my ducky?"

It was hilarious. :) And I didn't know where she had gotten it until I heard her watching Finding Nemo today. Dory and Nemo are yelling, "Dad! Dad!" when Dory stops and asks, "Wait a minute, is it your dad or my dad?".... She's always loved that movie....

Anyways, I made some delicious chocolate cake muffins with glaze (baked, not fried) and we all pigged out. Pizza and Root Beer for dinner and a couple of board games before hitting the sack.
Carrie watched movies almost the entire time on her own little personal 19" TV with built in VCR. She's started to love the movies we grew up with. Pocahontas, The Lion King, Cinderella, Aladdin.... I love it, because I already know all the songs and can quote most of the lines. It's fun to reminisce :)

The driving was long, but we had fun. It was totally worth it! We don't see Justin's family nearly as often as mine just because they live further away, so it's always good to see them when we can. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are constantly reminded of how much we have to be Thankful for. What a wonderful life we live!

Wannabe Park

Not it's not a park named after ancient Indians or anything... It's Wanna-be. As in, not quite there... But for now it works. Here's our wannabe park!
Lumpy dirt in the playground, no landscape rock, empty garden, and splotchy grass..... But Carrie loves it anyways. Someday it'll be a full fledged children's wonderland! ;)

Train Park Party

Yesterday Carrie and I were invited to her friend Jake's Birthday Party at the train park in Chandler. We had a ton of fun! The kids ran around on the HUGE playground for a while...

And then it was time to ride the train! Doesn't she look excited?!

First she did the cheesy face and then she did her new favorite, the fake grumpy pout... Looks like Blue Steel to me...

Once the train got going though, there was no stopping the smiles!


We got to ride the carousel a couple times too, woohoo!

We finished up the party with pizza, cupcakes, one last train ride, and more playing before she had to literally be carried off the playground. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of her with the birthday boy :( We had a lot of fun though! Thanks for inviting us to your birthday party Jake! Or, should I say, Jake's parents! ;)

Too Many Funerals

Today I attended my 5th Funeral of the year. Fifth....

Our 20 day old son Brigham,
His 18 day old NICU friend, Alana Larson,
A 16 year old girl from my home ward, Kelsey Preston,
My 80 year old Grandpa Daryl Rogers,
And a 24 year old friend from High School, Spencer Webster....
Does anyone else see a sickening trend in the age of these funeral "hosts"? Four of the five were just plain too young.... I'm all funeraled out. I hope we don't have more for a loooong while. Heaven must be starting to get full. Maybe it would be a good idea to send some more spirits down to Earth.... Our family would willingly take one right now ;)

The Baby Tree

I love the little things Carrie does and says. Yesterday she ran over to me and said, "Mommy, watch me do a cool trick." She then proceeded to do a little skip-hop, and a very lopsided forward roll. And she was SOOO proud. She had been practicing in the other room until she got it just like she wanted and then was so excited to show it off to me. Over and over... :)

Today was the kicker though... I can't remember how it came up, but she said something like, "Mommy, we need a new baby."

I, of course, quickly agreed with her and said, "Wouldn't that be so fun?"

She thought for a second and said, "Let's go plant the seeds and make a baby tree grow and we can get a new baby!!!"

Ohhhh, if only it were that easy.... ;) I've heard of kids believing in the money tree before, but never the baby tree.... Looks like the simplified version of the "where babies come from" talk is in order. ;)

Numbers

Grandpa Daryl passed away today. 11-11-11, at 1:11 pm. Apparently he always had a thing for numbers.

Some of us joked that he wanted to make sure we'd remember what day he died, so he waited three and a half days in a coma until 11-11-11. Another little joke in the family was that he "tried to die" two hours earlier (at 11:11), but then he heard someone say, "Oh, 11:11 is over, it's 11:12....", so he held on for a little longer. :)

It's sad to see him go, but we know he's free from all his pain and is truly living in paradise with loving family members who have gone on before.

Sprouts!!

Our backyard grass is growing!!! Finally!!! We planted the seed on Halloween and we were starting to wonder if we'd done something wrong because it wasn't sprouting up at all.... But yesterday, Justin noticed one teeny little spot of sprouts, and then when we looked more closely, we found teeny little sprouts all over the place! I had to crawl on hands and knees around the border to find it though.

Today there are parts that look like this! Woohoo!!

Our only problem now, is the birds... I knew I should have been watching out for them since we laid the seed, but I really hadn't seen any until yesterday. Now they're everywhere! Luckily, Carrie likes to play outside and so far, her presence alone has been enough to deter them. And if it's not, she's more than happy to clap her hands and shout, "Hey birdies! Go away! Don't eat my baby grass!!" (A phrase coined by Justin while teaching her not to walk on the grass. "It's only baby grass, and we need to not step on it so it can grow big and strong." Cute huh?!)

The problem comes when she wants to come inside... The birds are watching and waiting for her to leave... So at Justin's suggestion, Carrie and I built a scarecrow this morning...

Carrie helping me build up muddy dirt support piles for the posts.

Tah-dah! Two stakes, a t-shirt, and a broom.... It's actually very wavy and mobile when the wind blows.... I hope it works....

While I was "building" the scarecrow, I asked Carrie if she could come help me hold the posts for a second. She looked at me, sighed, and said, "Mommy, I'm working on my cub scouts, I'll be there in a minute ok?"..... Think she's heard that too much lately?

And just because, a few pictures of Carrie covered in chalk. Sidewalk chalk has been her new best friend since the weather's cooled off. Fortunately it wipes off easily! ;)

Visiting Grandpa Daryl

Tuesday morning I got a text from my dad saying my Grandpa Daryl (pronounced like Carl) was in the hospital. He'd suffered a major brain hemorrhage and they didn't know if he would make it through the day. My aunt said he was laughing and joking with them the night before, but when morning came, she couldn't wake him up. He was still breathing on his own, but his brain had received enough damage to keep him in a persistent state of sleep. He's basically in a coma.

By the afternoon, they transferred him from the hospital to a hospice center nearby. When Justin got home from work, we went to visit him and say goodbye.

He'll respond a teensy bit sometimes like slurping his tongue a bit when we give him a drink of water from his "lollipop", aka, wet sponge on a stick. (Anyone else having Brigham flashbacks?)

My grandparents had 9 kids (apparently the joke my grandpa always used to say was that he had 3 & 1/2 dozen kids... 3 girls, and a half dozen boys) They're ALL coming from everywhere (even the one who lives in Japan). They told the hospice nurses there would be a LOT of people there, so they made sure to give him the biggest room.

And convenient for us, it has it's own private back door to the "backyard" where there's a playground, a picnic table, and a lot of grass. It was nice for all the little kids to have somewhere to play instead of just sitting around in Grandpa's room. It was nice for the rest of us too, when we went and got 6, yes SIX pizzas for everyone there to eat for dinner....

The hospice center is very homey. Actually, it used to be a home... They just remodeled a little to accommodate medical supplies. They still have a family room and a kitchen with snacks like pretzels, doughnuts, and lemonade for family members to munch on. And of course, Carrie found the candy dispenser machine, dragged Auntie Marissa to it and waited while she fished quarters out of her change-purse so they could get some.

For now, Grandpa's still with us, but the doctors said it won't be long until his brain is too damaged from the bleed. He's lived a long life and he's been sick for a while. He had prostate cancer 3 years ago, and it recently came back and has spread into his bones. He has Parkinson's and lately has just been feeling, acting, and looking really old and tired. His passing will be a blessing.

When we first got there, I picked Carrie up and went over to his bed. We both said hi, and I love you. Then I tried to explain to her that Papa was very sick. She asked, "Is his tummy sick like mine?...." I answered, "No sweetie, his whole body is sick. Soon he's going to die and go live with Jesus and Brigham in Heaven". She looked a little sad, but just said, "Ok..." It's both sad, and wonderful the level of comprehension she has of death and heaven. We'll be sad when Grandpa Daryl dies, but we'll rejoice that he will be pain free and living in a new beautiful place with family members who have gone before.

Experiment

To give you an idea of the kind of ho-hum mood I'm in and level of energy I have, let me fill you in on our weekend. Justin woke up Saturday morning with the flu bug. He was sick all day Saturday and Sunday. I took Carrie to church by myself, which wasn't really that bad, it was just crazy. Because Saturday night 2 of the 4 of us in the Primary Presidency's kids got sick. So we were running at half man-power. Or family pretty much wore pajamas all weekend and didn't really cook dinner. Not quite the way to get you energized for a new week. Thankfully, Justin is feeling better, and started his workweek as usual.

Here's how my morning has been so far. Woke up to find that Carrie's diaper was so full it leaked pee all over her sheets. For the second day in a row.... Yesterday I changed them quickly and threw the wet ones in the laundry room, but somehow didn't get around to washing them. When I went to go throw both sets of sheets in the washer this morning, I was overjoyed (sarcasm) to find a load of laundry still in the washer from 3 days ago!! @#%&*#@*!!!

I knew I was behind and thought there was only one load still in the dryer, but I didn't realize I was two loads behind and one had gotten left in the washer too! So now they'd been damp for days and had started to smell funny.... Not something you can just rinse away. So I had to ran the washer all over again.

Now, to the point of this post.... My experiment. My mom always said you can trick your brain into being happy by just putting a smile on your face, no matter what you're doing. So my experiment this week is going to be slapping a huge cheesy grin on my face the whole time I'm doing laundry, ironing (which I hate, but I'm going to have to do because I left the clean clothes unfolded for so long), cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, and especially, working out. I'm going to see if I can trick my brain.

Smiling releases endorphins, and maybe if I can succeed at this experiment, I can train myself to actually like doing all those things, rather than just doing them because they need to be done. I'll let you know how it goes.... Anyone is welcome to join me! :)

New Family Pictures!

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!!

Elevator

This is short, but too cute not to post. Tonight as we were brushing teeth, getting ready for bed, Carrie herded me and Justin into our walk-in closet. She said, "We need to go suuuper-high".

We had no idea what she meant.... Until she slid the closet door shut, pretended to "push a button" on the wall, and stood there with her arms crossed.... waiting....

It clicked with both of us at the same time.... We were in an "elevator".... After a few seconds, she made a little "ding" sound, and proudly announced as she opened the door, "OK, we're suuuper-high!"

Oh the imagination!!! :)