November 2010

Catchy title right?  Are you impressed by my creativity and witty-ness?  Does the title of this blog just lure you in and cause you to thirst for more?

NO??  What do you mean no?

I am offended. 

Ok, not really.  The truth is that I have a mega cold and am exhausted and just trying to stay awake.  Matt's working the next couple of days and it is all that I can do to keep myself awake while my also sick girls are zoned out watching movies.  It wouldn't be very responsible to sleep while they are awake, but if I sit still too long I fade out.  So I am trying to do things that I can do without expending much energy, in my jammies with a tissue in my nose to keep myself awake.  Yeah, my life is glamorous.  Sorry if it makes you feel bad about yourself.  :)

So anyway, this blog will probably be incredibly lacking in any sparkling entertainment because my brain is BARELY functioning at this point.  So here is the rundown on our month of November, which I can't BELIEVE is already over (almost)!

The first 2 weeks of November Matt was crazy busy with school, it was the last 2 weeks of his RN-BSN program at ASU, so he was finishing up his last few program classes, which of course included major time-consuming 'end of the program' type projects.  It was rough.  The girls and I came home from Thatch and he was busy like a mad-man and had to be at a lot of extra meetings/presentations, etc.  He even had one of those lovely days where he left on Sunday for work and didn't come home until Tuesday, because he had school and work straight through.  He literally didn't go to sleep at all and just survived on energy drinks, drove straight from work to school & straight back to work.  I am SO glad that those days are behind us.  Now he just needs to finish up his much less demanding electives and we are ready to start applying to CRNA (certified registered nurse anesthetist) programs in the spring.  One day all of this school will just be a stressful memory :)

After Matt's school was over we tried to get some much needed projects done.  Poor guy never gets a break.  He has been super great in helping me get all those things done that we needed to do before Thanksgiving, and now get done before Christmas/baby.

We also had a little over a week where we couldn't use either of our bathrooms upstairs due to mysterious leaks.  That was exciting.

We went to a preview day at Midwestern University and learned all about their CRNA program.  Which was good.  A huge shout out to our good friends Josh and Jess for babysitting last minute for us when our original arrangements fell through.

Mostly we have spent alot of November at home but incredibly busy.  If I felt up to patting myself on the back I would list off all of the things I have accomplished, so that you could all marvel in my productivity, but it would be boring and I am too tired to even try and remember it all.

We had Thanksgiving here at the house and it was nice/lots of work.  We then woke up the day after and both the girls and I were sick.  We have been sick the whole long weekend and today I feel worse than ever.  And now Matt is feeling sick as well.  So that stinks.

I was originally going to post a big long list of all the things I am Thankful for this month.  But now I am too worn out.  But you should know that my heart has been incredibly full with gratitude for all my blessings.  At the top of the list are my faith, the opportunity we have to learn as much as we can about the nature of God and feel his love for us and all man and the ability that love has to truly change us, to make us better, to allow us to love more and forgive completely when normally our hurt pride wouldn't allow us and to gradually shed our flaws.  And of course my family.  The amount of gratitude I feel for the blessing of my family, is overwhelming.  I will never be able to be worthy of or grateful enough for, the blessings of my sweet family.  And the list goes on and on; friends, health, all the physical and financial blessings and all the small things that I am blessed with.  I just don't have the stamina and energy to elaborate on them, but this year has truly been one of perspective for me, and I feel more gratitude in my heart than ever before.

Now we are up to today, which happens to be my GG's birthday.  Happy birthday GG, I love you with all my being.  She is another one of my blessings that I will never be able to be grateful enough for.

November is drawing to a close and we are at the start of the Christmas Season.  All my shopping is done and I am going to try and focus on the real reason for the season.  I just need one more trip to the store to stock up on all the necessities for the new baby/postpartum mommy.  Plus the regular other stuff for the girls that I won't want to go out for once the baby comes.  

I realistically feel like I have 3, maybe 4 (tops) weeks before the baby comes.  I am to the point where I am constantly having contractions.  They are mostly just annoying.  I will get checked at my appointment next Monday and then I will know how much preliminary work they are actually doing.  I am far enough along that they won't stop me should I go into labor, so it technically doesn't matter if I am "progressing" or not.  It is just a, 'go to the hospital when you think you are in labor', type thing.  But it is still nice to know, and will also help me gage better how much time is really left.

Most women will agree (some are crazy and never have any pregnancy complaints) that the last month of pregnancy is no fun.  I am trying not to whine or complain too much.  Since this is my 3rd "final month" I expect the back pain/rib pain/reflux/contractions/sleepless nights that come standard at this point.  But I am anxiously anticipating the arrival of this little girl and I just keep wondering who is in there!  I am glad that December has so many things going on to distract me from constant baby thoughts.  But I am sure alots of my December posts will involve baby things.

Anyway, I am losing my steam MAJOR, and I have no idea how ramble-ee this post is.  I have the zoned out/head cold thing going full steam, so I apologize for that. I'll just wrap it up.  If you made it through this post, you deserve a cookie!  So go eat one!  And bring me one while you are at it :)

Here are some pics from this month

The girls snuggling with Grandpa Ben

 Thanksgiving morning

 Typical Tommy covered in kids on T-day

 Here is Izzie admiring baby Davin, the newest addition to our family.  She is OBSESSED with babies.  And I am pretty sure that once our baby comes out she will CONSTANTLY be in her face/fawning over her/climbing all over me to get to her.

Halloween 2010

So for Halloween this year Matt got tricked instead of treated, he had to work 5 nights in a row all surrounding Halloween.  Matt's parent's were still out of town (they spent 2 weeks at the beach house) and I knew it would be just me and the girls!  So my family convinced me to come home for the holiday weekend.  Not only would there be LOTS going on to celebrate Halloween, but my nephews would be there visiting their mom and we would be having Riley(my oldest nephew)'s 10th Birthday party!  He was born on Halloween.  *Interesting side note, his mom-my sis- was born on Christmas Day, he was then Halloween and his brother was then April Fool's day and the next brother was on MLK Jr day.  It makes them easy to remember!*  So my brother Charlie was going to go home for Riley's birthday and also to celebrate Dia de los Muertos (mostly going out to my Grandpa's grave and bringing some of his favorite things and listening to his favorite music, to remember him) on Monday.

So I decided since I would be lonely here and since all my family was actually going to be together for the first time in over a year, I would go home.  Plus it would be great to have the extra help with the girls for all the Halloween stuff.

The Thursday before Halloween was Lily's Halloween party at school.  She was also in charge of being the helper that day, which includes bringing snacks.  She was super excited to be able to pick out special Halloween treats to bring, so we brought popcorn balls and frosted sugar cookies.  The last half hour of school the kids all did a costume parade and sang us a couple of songs, it was so cute and fun and she had a great time!

Right after school we came home, dropped off Dad had a quick lunch and the girls and I left for Thatcher!  We got to my mom's around 3:30 and spent the afternoon hanging out there. That night my sister and I went to "Fall Sing" which is EAC's Choir Department's fall performance, for all you non-EA'ers out there.  Then I went back to my mom's and stayed up chatting with her until past 1am, which was SO nice, but incredibly dumb as we were both exhausted!

On Friday I went to lunch with my sisters and then spent some time that afternoon at GG(my grandma)'s house.  That night the girls, my mom and I met up with Andrea and her family at the Thatcher Middle School's Halloween carnival.  It was lots of fun, the girls had a great time and we supported a good cause!  I love attending these kinds of things when I am home, I really miss the small town street fairs and the county fair and all those community get togethers that are pretty safe and wholesome in the Gila Valley.

Since we are church going folk and a huge portion of the Gila Valley community is also we actually celebrated Halloween on Saturday the 30th.  I spent the morning in my jammies feeling kind of crummy and letting the girls run wild at my mom's while I tried (a very little contribution) to help her get ready for the party that night.  Then after lunch I went out to spend a little time with some of my favorite friends Tavia and Courtney while the girls were having quiet time.  I just love them to death and could spend countless hours just chatting them up!  The time always flies when I am with that girl, so I had to rush home and get the girls (and myself) dressed in our costumes so that we could hit up a few friends and family for the trick or treating experience before we headed over to my mom's dinner/trunk or treat/carnival at the church at 5pm.

My mom helped me feed the girls their hot dog dinner and then went inside to set up for the carnival. *side note: my mom can never say no to anything and therefore ALWAYS ends up doing WAY more than is necessary, so she of course was responsible for like 4 different booths including a cake walk for which she made ALL the cupcakes herself, she was like a crazy person getting everything ready that day*  So I took the girls around to a few cars in the parking lot to trunk or treat and my sister Emily and her whole family met up with us.  Then we all went inside to the carnival for a little while.

 Here is me and Em and all our kids (plus one, she had Kaiden with them he is a boy that she watches alot of the time)

This is my youngest nephew Carter, his super tight costume cracked me up, I had to get a pic!

My mom turned the booths over to my step dad and sister Beth and her boyfriend and to the young women for a while and helped me take the girls to a few booths, which they of course loved.  Then Charlie showed up (he got to town that night) and he helped me with the girls so my mom could go back to the booths.

Isabel showing me her loot, she just wanted to eat a piece of candy every time one was handed to her.

 Izzie and Ava doing the bean bag toss

 Here is Lily with John, he is teaching her how to be a "real" cowgirl!

It was a great night and I think that Lily now thinks that Halloween is really 3 days long and that there should be fun activities the whole week!  I don't know if we will keep up that standard, but it sure was fun (and exhausting!).

The next day I went to church with my mom and then we went out to my sister Emily's for Riley's party.  It was lots of fun, and for a while all my blood/non-step siblings were there so we of course had to get a picture, because it unfortunately doesn't happen often enough.  Also unfortunately my sister Andrea left after being there for less than 5 minutes to go out to lunch... because she is an idiot.  But I am not bitter... :)

 Lily after her pin the tail on the donkey turn, her face cracks me up

Anyway, the party was great and I really wish that we could spend more time with my family.  Especially my 3 nephews that live with their Dad in Florence.  They are such good kids and I love and miss them like crazy, I am so glad that I was able to see them a little that weekend!

Monday, mom and I (and the girls) hit up the 50% off Halloween sale, which is always a good time, afterwards my mom took the girls out to show them the cotton.  Lily as soon as we got close to town when first driving in on Thursday asked what the cotton was, so I explained to her about how cotton grows and is harvested and all the different things that cotton is used for.  She followed along really well, until I told her about how clothes are made out of it.  She just couldn't believe that, so I wanted to take her out and let her feel it.  She had spent the weekend pointing out every field of cotton she saw (which is ALOT in the gila valley!)  Here they are showing me the cotton they got!

  Then we went out to Grandpa's grave to celebrate the day of the dead, we brought some of his favorite things and I made him some flowers (his favorite-purple).  It was nice.  I still miss my Grandpa constantly and also miss my GG with my whole heart and wish that I lived closer to her!

 After that Charlie left and my mom, the girls, and I went out to visit GG for a couple of hours.  We had been planning on leaving around 11, but that is when my niece and nephew, Ava & Carter, showed up for GG to watch for an hour or so we stayed for an extra 20 minutes so that the kids could play.  They had a great time.

 Pretending to start up the mower and mow the lawn

 Mom and Izzie sitting on the wall to check out neighbor's chickens and Turkey

 Lily and I checking out the chickens

One of my favorite sights in the world, GG siting on the back porch. ** Side note the door in the background of this picture is the entrance to the guest house/apartment where Matt and I lived for the first 3 years of our marriage (before kids!), it brings back happy memories!

 GG has these cool hanging spin-ny things (I don't know how to describe them), but they were SO cool to watch!  Really, I was entranced.  She hooked them on to her dining room light and let the kids stand on the table and spin them, what a great GG!

Then we headed back to my mom's.  She fed the kids lunch while I packed the car up, after lunch we jumped on the road and headed home so that we could see Daddy before he left for work that night.  And boy, it was great to see him.  I won't be up for any more trips without him soon, I just missed him too much!

It was a super busy and fun filled trip and we had such a good time.  I am glad we went, but I sure came home wiped out!

 And now, at last, my blogging is caught up to November!  Now I should be able to do one blog that will capture the first 2 weeks of November (which should be small) and be all caught up!  Woohoo!  I figure that I need to stay up to date during the Holiday season, because if this baby comes out and I am behind a month or 2, which includes Holidays, I may just quit!  So I will do my best to keep this bad boy current and up-to-date, so that when the baby comes it is not as daunting of a task!

Oh, another random side activity from the month of October was that Matt and I decided we wanted to get a trailer hitch put on our car so that we could take bikes on trips, and so I ordered one and we installed it!  :)  Isn't it sexy?  I must admit that I love it and was proud of my 7.5 month pregnant self (at the time) crawling under the car to mount it :)  Thanks to Matt for putting up with my "do it yourself" cheapness and taking the time to make it a team effort and get it done!  You are a champ!