Decorating the Tree

Sunday after church and after we ate and rested a bit we set up the Christmas Tree and had the Kids decorate it with their ornaments. I had put all of our Fall things away Saturday morning and was ready to decorate for Christmas, my shelves were looking pretty empty and sad. Kefford set up the tree and put on his tinsel garland and then the kids set about putting up their cute ornaments. It is always fun to watch them unwrap them and talk about when they got it or what it was. I had Christmas music playing on our Pandora radio and it was pretty fun to start getting in the Christmas mood.

I was a bit overwhelmed and indecisive with where I wanted to put things and so I let the decorations sit for a while as I thought about it and begun randomly placing things and by Monday mid afternoon enough inspiration hit and I had things put up and done. I found a black friday ad for lit garlands that were on sale at Tai Pan Trading and knew I wanted at least one and on Monday morning I headed over to see if they had any left and was excited to be able to purchase one for my stair railing and one for my mantel. I love finally having a mantel to hang our stockings on and I love how everything turned out. I wanted the focus of my mantel and shelves to be about Christ and had plenty of Nativities and things to be able to do just that. The Santa and Merry Christmas decorations are scattered around the house making everything feel so festive. I love this time of year and I love the Spirit and goodness that the holidays bring. I hope that we can keep the focus on our Savior and work on becoming better

At the Farm after Thanksgiving

After my family left to drive back home to Utah we loaded up and headed out to Nyssa to visit family who were out there. We got to see Kylie and Andrew for a little bit and Whitney showed up after a bit  with her kids. Sadie is pretty hot and cold with me which I understand and am fine with. This day a Television show was put on for her to watch and I was pretty happy with how cuddly she was sitting next to me. She was watching her show and I was reading my book, it was a nice arrangement. After a while Kenedy came over and sat down next to Sadie who for some reason was not happy with her sitting there and fussed a bit until I pulled her onto my lap. She seemed happy with that and I enjoyed cuddling with my cute niece until she was done with TV. I love all my little nieces and nephews and love when they are to the age or stage that they are comfortable with me and don't mind a little attention. 

I heard Rylee, Madi and Sadie giggling over by the Christmas tree so I wandered over to see what was making them so happy and to get some pictures. They were having fun with the train that goes around the tree and were also playing christmas morning I think because Sadie and Rylee would pretend to be asleep while Madi would set a wrapped box in front of them. I love seeing the imagination at play in kids, they are too fun!

For dinner Bob invited us, Whitney, Kylie and Jeremy plus families over for some chicken wings that he and Dustin cooked up with a variety of sauces we could choose from. I made a batch of brownies which turned out delicious and we had fun being with the Peterson side of the family. 

Thanksgiving on Joy Ave

This year we got to host Thanksgiving dinner with Emily and her family and Andrew at our new house. I was so excited to have family come for the holidays and as always lament that it can't happen more often. Our company arrived late tuesday night and wednesday morning all of the kids were excited to wake up to their Aunt, Uncles and cousins being here, happy day! 

Uncle Andrew let Avy practice her cheer stunts on him. She was pretty nervous about being up that high but we told her she has to learn if she wants to be a cheerleader. She did awesome!

JoAnns always does a 70% off Flannel sale for black Friday and this year they started it early, on Wednesday. Emily and I both had needs for material so we headed over and found some fun things. While shopping around I was thinking about my friend Cristal and what I could get her fro Christmas. We are in the fun habit of exchanging Christmas gifts and I love it! I was getting fabric for me to make myself a new apron, more about that in another post, when I thought I should make Cristal one as well. I was looking over all the fabric when I found some that although not to my taste at all I knew Cristal would love it. She is a huge Zombie and The Walking Dead fan and when I found The Walking Dead fabric I knew I found something great and that she would love. Thursday morning I woke up bright and early, per usual, and after puttering around a bit decided to get some sewing started on her Apron. It did not take me too long and I was able to finish it by the time the rest of my family came to life. It turned out really cute and I am pretty excited for her to open it.

I was the lucky winner to find some Ariel material, so exciting, and I made myself some cute pajamas that morning as well. 

Everyone had different assignments regarding Thanksgiving dinner and it was fun to have everyone hustling and bustling around my kitchen. Ryker and Ben were putting together a meat and cheese platter for the hors d'oeuvres portion of the feast.

Emily was putting together a cute salad kabob which was a fun take on the traditional salad.

Andrew agreed to make his amazing apple pie and berry pie and he was the lucky winner to have Avynleas help!

I was busy eating all the food while they all worked. just kidding. 

This was when hors d'oeuvres were served, about 11:30,  and I was eating for the first time that day. 

I went to find Rylee and to see why she was not downstairs helping us all and I found her on netflix. Not ok kid. 

After all the preparing and snacking it was time for our delicious Thanksgiving Feast. After our prayer and before everyone filled their plates we went from youngest to oldest and had everyone say what they were thankful for. 

After we ate our meal and rested for a bit Kefford headed out for some Black Friday shopping he needed to do and Andrew, Emily, Kenedy and I went out to do some of our shopping. We went to Target first and I had a gift card I had saved from my birthday that I wanted to use to get some towels for our master bath and also to get some new cute clothes. I was able to take advantage of the awesome deals and get everything I wanted. The clothes were 30% off and when I came out of the dressing room after trying them on the Lady told me I could get another 15% off with the cartwheel app. That was a fun bonus and so cool of her to let me know! After Target we stopped at Micheals so Emily could get some things and then we went to Old Navy and Bath and Body Works. BBW is right next to Old Navy but when we got there a sign on the door said it had moved. We looked it up and saw it was in the same shopping center but down a little bit. After getting some fun things in Old Navy we headed outside to go to BBW. Andrew and I decided to walk while Emily and Kenedy drove. As we turned the corner on our walk we realized it was a bit further then we thought. I was not about to let the drivers beat us so I told Andrew we needed to run! So we did and we beat them and it was so fun! We joked about our run and Heather and Ashleigh had did a turkey trop 10K earlier that day and so we joked about how we just ran our own turkey trot and it was a .5K. Hahaha! We posted it in our family chat that we ran a .5K and Mom and Joshua were the only ones to catch the point. We crack ourselves up! In Bath and Body Works we found some tiny santa hats and had a girl Emily made friends with take our picture. We are too cute!

Our Family had to leave Saturday right after lunch, it was a sad time but we are so glad for the time we did have with them. Before they left I wanted to get a picture of all the cousins and Andrew since he managed to sneak his way into the shot. :)

We also had to do a recreation of a picture from about 10 years ago. Ben does not do a good fake cry and he needs to act on his acting skills a little bit better but overall it turned out pretty cute. After we took the above pictures I said in 10 years those will be our next recreation photos. I can't wait!

I am so grateful that we could have some of our family here in our new home to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. I am grateful to have family that loves me and that I have good relationships with my siblings. I am grateful for all of my blessings and for my Heavenly Father who is aware of me and my family. 

Trolls and FroYo

I had some pictures that were not showing up when I tried to post them to my blog. It was really weird and I cannot figure out why they were hiding. Kefford helped me figure out how to get them put on my desktop and then I could transfer them from the desktop to my blog. 

While Rylee was on track break she went with me one day to Costco and she found this Harry Potter movie magic book that she fell in love with. She asked me to buy it for her and I told her I was not going to do that but that if she really wanted it she could buy it with her own money. She put it back and said she would think about it. The next day she came back and told me she really wanted to buy the book with her own money and we went and got it. She was pretty excited about having it and it is really a cool book.

One day while out at the farm Rylee got to go up with her Grandpa in his airplane. She loves flying with him and really loves when he lets her take control of the plane in the air. 

Kefford took this picture of a sign hanging at the airport. Pretty clever!

I told the kids Monday morning the week of thanksgiving that if they would get the upstairs good cleaned that I would take them to get frozen yogurt that afternoon. Every couple of weeks one of the FroYo places out here does a fill your cup for $3 deal and that Monday was one of the days. The kids decided that was a good enough incentive and we all headed upstairs and cleaned rooms, cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed, wiped down doors and baseboards, cleaned couches and dusted. Not once did anybody complain or argue and I was very impressed with all of them and felt they definitely deserved the FroYo. 

The next day was $5 movie day and I told the kids that if they would clean the downstairs like they did the upstairs that I would take them to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I cleaned the downstairs bathrooms that morning and I told them I would clean the stove top but that they needed to do the rest. I gave them all their assignments and told them to have it all done by the time I got back from the Temple so we could go to the movie. When I got back I found a clean home and happy kids and off we went to the movie. We saw some Trolls posters as we were heading in and Avy and I got a picture with them. 

We all really liked the movie and I really liked being able to do fun things with my kids. I need to think about this incentive thing more often because it really worked like a charm!

McCall Trip

Thursday at 4:00 we headed out to Emmett to pick up Kefford and head up to McCall. The kids all except Kenedy had the day off from school and Kenedy plus the rest had Friday off. It was the annual November trip to McCall but not everyone could make it this year. Kenedy stayed at Mikells house while we were gone. She had cheer choreography on Saturday that she could not miss. It was awesome of Steve and Mikell to let her sleep there and I know their kids loved having her to play with all day friday. She told us it was endless games of hide and go seek. Of all of Keffords family only his parents, Trevor and his family and Whitney and her family plus us could make it up there. It was a bummer not having everyone around but we had a lot of fun with the ones that were there.

The greatest thing about being up there with limited people was my girls got to love on the littles to their hearts content. Some of the little cousins get a bit overwhelmed with too many people around trying to love on them and so this was the perfect scenario. Holding the babies was fun for the girls and playing with Sadie and Maddie was extra fun!

Kinsley, Rylee, Sadie and Avynlea

Friday morning Bob took us out to eat at the Pancake House, this is a fun tradition we all love! We like to go and look at all of the fun Holiday things they have in their Christmas Shop and of course we love eating a yummy breakfast that we do not have to cook ourselves or clean up after, bliss! I was smart this time around and ordered a child's meal. The servings are always so big and I get stuffed so fast and am not ever able to finish my meal. Since I got the kids meal I was able to finish it and not feel too full which is a feeling I do not like. Go me!

Later that day I was sitting on the couch doing things on my computer when suddenly all the giggling going on down by my feet registered and I realized I did not have my phone. I looked down and saw Rylee and Maddie playing with my phone and taking pictures. Later when I looked at the photos I started laughing at how ridiculous they looked, not wonder there was so much giggling going on!

This little baby has stolen my heart. She is so cute and so chill and so chubby, I love everything about baby Kins.

Whitney brought up a painting kit for her girls to do and was really sweet to let Avy and Rylee do it with them. They liked doing it and it gave them another fun thing to do while up in McCall.

I caught this sweet picture of Ryker playing with Sadie and Madi. He is so good with his little cousins and they all love him so much!

Alison took Ryker and I out to lunch for our birthdays and that was fun to spend some time just with her. She has always been so good to us and we really love her. We had a fun couple of days up in the mountains with some of our favorite people and are so glad we were able to go.

Veterans Day and Surgery Day

Wednesday morning Meridian Middle School had their annual Veteran's Day Assembly. Ryker has not been involved in choir his middle school years so the last time we went to one of these assemblies was when Kenedy was in Middle School. I think this day was the worst of my sick days and while I loved the assembly, it was pretty hard sitting through it. Like always they opened and closed with a flag ceremony and also two men playing patriotic songs on the bagpipes. I love the bagpipes and think they have such a cool sound, unfortunately it was pretty hard to listen to them today because my head was stuffed up and hurting. I love the patriotic music and the sixth grade choir, the one Avy is a part of, sang my most favorite patriotic song, "God Bless the USA". That song always brings the Spirit to me and makes my eyes well up. I have always loved that song. The other choir sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" which is another special song to me. It was my Dad's favorite and makes me think if him. They told about the Tomb of the Unknown soldier and I always love hearing about that, someday I hope to be able to go and see it for myself. Avynlea sent a message to her Grandma Alison a couple of weeks ago to ask her if she would be able to come to her concert. She was and it was fun to have her there with me and Rylee. 

After the concert Rylee and I went home for a bit and i laid on the couch and tried not to feel so miserable. I really wanted to lay there all day, but after a couple of hours we had to head back to the school to pick up Ryker for his Adenoidectomy. Back in March I took Ryker to the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist to have his tonsils looked at. He is always stuffy and constantly has a runny nose he also sleeps with his mouth open and snores a bit so we thought he should be checked out. We wondered if it was that his tonsils needed to be removed but Dr Beck said those looked fine and then said she wanted to use a scope up his nose to look at his Adenoids. That is where a problem was found. At his age his adenoids should be at about 20% but Rykers were at 80%. She said we could try having him use some flonaise for a while but that we were probably going to have to just take them out. It took us a while, more then half a year, but we finally got a surgery scheduled for him and it happened to fall on the day after his birthday. Poor kid. Not the best of days in that sense but it was the best of days in that he did not have school on the 10th and 11th for teachers inservice and Veterans Day. I liked that he was only going to miss a couple of hours of school.

His surgery was not scheduled until 3:15 but we had to be at the hospital by 1:15 for check-in. The poor kid had to fast all day and so I took him out of school right before lunch so he would not have to suffer any more then necessary. After we checked in they put us in a room and there we waited for what seemed like forever. Ryker had nurses come in to help out and he had one that explained to him all about the IV and showed him, using a doll, the entire process. I guess they felt he was most nervous about having an IV put in. When they did put it in the nurse did everything she could to distract him and it must of worked because he did great. Towards the end of the wait they put a little medicine in his IV to help calm him down and it made him a little loopy. All of a sudden he would just start laughing for no reason. Silly kid.

After they took Ryker back to the operating room, Rylee and I hung out in the waiting area. I have to say this girl was a trooper the entire day. Not once did she complain about having to be there, the wait, her being hungry, nothing. She just went with the flow and I really appreciated it. She colored, watched TV, read a book and played on the iPad they gave her to use. I was happy to have her there with me!

The surgery went really quick and it seemed like in no time we were heading back to the recovery room. Ryker was still out of it when we got in the room and as we walked in he was rubbing his nose with his finger and it went in his nose. The nurse pulled his finger out and Rylee and I giggled a bit and Ryker lifted his head up like a drunk man, pointed his finger at us and called out stop in a lazy drawn out way. It was pretty funny watching him. His nose must have been bothering him because he kept rubbing it and when they gave him a popsicle his hand/eye coordination was off because he would open his mouth to get it but would miss and rub it on his face. I wish I would have thought to record him. Darn it. It took him a while to come out of the anesthetics and we had a great time watching him.

After a long day at the hospital we were finally able to get him loaded up into the car and headed home. I was impressed with how well Ryker did and I hope he has a good recovery and that this will solve his breathing and sleeping issues.