Happy Thanksgiving!

well friends, it's finally happened.  i've filled up my photo storage space.  and  i can't figure out how to dump photos from my old blog yet.

so have a happy thanksgiving!
if you're keeping track, Disney World is coming up in just under two weeks! So i'll for sure have it fixed by then!!

have a wonderful holiday!

thankful week

7: I'm thankful for my work.  I worked a full and busy day on Wednesday. I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to still be a speech therapist, have Lulu with her aunt and cousin in the morning, and keep them with me after school and still get in seven hours of work. I'm truly blessed.

8:I'm thankful for Thursdays.  This was a particularly rotten Thursday actually, because I got a filling replaced and Miss M was out of school for a four-day weekend and acting quite the toot and my numb-mouth, slightly-drugged self was not the most patient of moms.  But I love Thursdays every week because it means my work week is over and whether or not there is school, I have a four day weekend!!

And I'm thankful for nitrous.  First time using the gas at the dentist and I will never go back!!!

9:I'm thankful for my van.  We got her after we totaled the Accord last Christmas, and I never thought we'd have a van so soon but oh, how I love her!! I love that running around town all day Friday I could fill her up with errands and groceries and shopping and have plenty of room to spare, plus my trunk full of speech therapy stuff!

10:I'm thankful that my husband cleans my toilets.  I hate, absolutely hate, cleaning bathrooms.  I'm a lucky lucky girl though because W always cleans the toilets and always takes out my trash.  I am a blessed woman!

11:I'm thankful for family Sunday dinners.  I'm thankful to spend time with my family and live so close to my family.  Even when sometimes the cousins fight, or stressful (not that today's was, or not) I'm still so thankful to live near my brothers and my parents. And I love them so much.

t:6

What I learned today? Arkansas has really boring "I voted" stickers! My friends posting on Facebook and Instagram had much cooler stickers than mine.  Luckily that's not important.

I'm thankful for the right to vote.  I would be remiss on Election Day not to be thankful for that right, even when I wasn't sure I'd know what to do a few weeks ago, I'm thankful for the opportunity to share  my opinion and make my choice.

It's funny to me. I made my choice a few days ago. Now I'm all antsy and interested when I was so frustrated and apathetic a few weeks ago.

thankful:5

kit kats

gelish

diet cherry coke

ice cubes

Target sunglasses

stuffed pumpkins

carmel highlights

six hours of uninterrupted sleep

a clean floor in my girls' room

It's the little things today.

thankful:4

I'm so thankful to be a Mom to these two girls. 

I remember being so excited for when Miss M's hair was long enough to play with.  

Now I have two in curlers!

 I'm thankful to have Lulu with me on my days off. I love that she and I get special time with just us.  I love her sense of humor.  I love her beautiful smile and I love that she loves her sister.

 I love my smart and wild first grader.  I'm so thankful for her love of reading and that she is always creating things.  She goes through paper, drawing pictures and writing stories and poems, like a madwoman.  We really need to start planting trees!  She makes me crazy sometimes, but I'm thankful for all the things she's teaching me!

I'm thankful for these girls who made me a mom.

Thankful

My cousin has informed the blogosphere that she is over Facebook daily thankful posts. And while I consider myself ahead of the curve and have done it for a few years now and not quite a bandwagon hopper onner, I will concede defeat and move my thankfulness to my blog where you're as apt to ignore it as on Facebook. :)

Day one-I'm thankful for book club.  I love my book club. Nothing gets in the way of book club. I felt soooo guilty when I was in Denver for book club.  I even still read the book...almost. I love my book club ladies and I love the friends I've created from book club.

Day two-I am thankful for my hubby. He has been in Fayetteville working for three days and boy do I miss him when he's gone.  I am thankful for his amazing work ethic, even though it means everyone takes advantage of him!  I'm thankful for his unconditional love.

Today-I'm thankful that we were able to put Miss M in dance this fall.  I can't wait until we feel we can afford to add lulu.  I love what she's learning. I love channeling her natural constant dancing into technique while not squashing her personal style.  I love that she loves it and is totally motivated by it.  I love the cute pink tights and little girls in leotards.  They are truly darling.

See you tomorrow.

Top 3 Halloween Movies

When I was a kid, I loved this movie.  The cute teen romance, the hilarious witches, the mystery, the all  night Madonna dancing, and the light Halloween fun!

I was raised on this movie!  We have quoted this movie for years in our family!  

Put ze candle back!

Zat vas my fazzah's name!

Walk this way.

Abi-Normal.

It's a classic!

 I used to watch this movie every time I visited my Grandma Tobler.

It is a delightful old movie. Funny and creepy and it's hilarious to watch these two, clueless old women who poison "lonely old men".  I have always loved it! 

We'll fit in Hocus Pocus tomorrow night, but I might just have to borrow Young Frankenstein for a late Halloween date after the kids fall asleep.  It's been too long!

Mom's crazy stalker bird

I told her it sees dead people.

And wants to to warn her of evil spirits.

She has this cardinal.
It flies into her laundry room window over and over and over multiple times a day.
Just the laundry room window.
It sits on that perch and leans over to peck at the window over and over and over multiple times a day.
It's truly psycho!
It was really starting to freak her out.  And animal control basically laughed at her.

So she trimmed the bush, obliterating its perch.
And it's gone away.
weird.

sparkly teeth

We love our kids' dentist! I probably wouldn't hate the dentist so much if I got to watch tv with headphone sunglasses!

Ode to Pie by Miss M

I love my creative girl! 

She asked for paper the other day and told me she was going to write a poem about pie.  We talked  briefly about words that rhyme with pie, and she came back with this!

I want some pie
O that guy
I will not lie
Please tie
I want some pie
Go buy some pie
I am not too shy.

I love this girl!!

Best Day Ever!

Miss M loves this polly pocket video called "Best Day Ever"
She has proclaimed last Friday to be her best day ever!!
She had the day off from school.
It was a gorgeous day so the girls and I headed off to the State Fair!
Now the Arkansas State Fair has NOTHING on the Minnesota State Fair, but for free kid Friday at the Fair, we headed out! We spent two fun hours riding rides with Teriney and the kids and went home, having not spent a dime! Love that!!

Lu was very brave on the rides.  At first, I thought this was a terrible premonition of a rough week at DisneyWorld but she got into it!!

We capped off our fun morning with lunch with friends at Larry & Bob's Pizza, and an afternoon at the park! It was delightful!

six weeks and counting!!!!

We will be leaving for Florida in six weeks!!!

When we get to four weeks, we will start our official countdown with a red and black chain countdown.  The girls love visual things like this!

We have lots of projects underway in preparation!!
Miss M has outgrown so many of our costumes that we will be making some new duds for princess wear for the girls!
We are making matching mickey and minnie mouse t-shirts for the whole crew!  (Grace, we need to figure out how to make yours!!)
We are making jammie pants for all the kiddos in cute mickey and pooh bear flannels.
I've been stockpiling dollar trinkets, pens, stickers, treats with princess and fairy and disney stuff for special prizes on the way and at the park.  I plan to leave treats in our room like fairies visited our room! I love it!!

Here are my debates.

To stroll or not to stroll? Should Lu be able to walk? Of course! But is she going to get ridiculously tired? Of course!! I'm thinking of looking for a larger umbrella stroller where we can store gear and have a resting spot for our babes when they tire out.  Because they will and I don't wanna carry them! :)

To buy a stroller or not to buy?  We have a standard crappy WalMart umbrella stroller.  It's too short for even us average height peeps.  It hurts my back when I push it because I have to lean over.  Our double stroller is just too much for our needs. We just need room for one.  And so we kind of need a new, taller stroller but the recommended online Maclaren is $300. Um, no!  So I'll be looking for a taller, affordable stroller!

To Hogsmeade or only to Magic Kingdom? It breaks my heart to come this close to Harry Potter World and not partake, but it's an expensive day to add on, the girls are still a bit young to fully appreciate it, and W was just not passionate about it like I was.  Which means that if we go, I'm responsible for all of us having $400 worth of fun.  So, alas, I think we'll be saving it for the future.  When the kids can appreciate it more.

We are so stinkin' excited!!!! The next six weeks are going to fly, I think!!

Halloween fun!

Having a little fun on pic monkey tonight.

So fun!

You can upload photos and add all these effects like Instagram, and they have a bunch of Halloween effects right now too! 

This could be addictive!

My INdecision

I have a confession.
I don't want to vote.
It may come as  a shock that I'm not the typical Republican Mormon.
But I've never strongly aligned with either party. I have voted for both over the years.
My husband and I rarely talk about politics.
It is something he loves, but he won't engage in a political discussion with me.
It drives me nuts, but mostly I think he's avoiding my mostly "liberal for Mormons" family (yes, most of them are like me-independents)
And so I don't want to vote.
But I feel very obligated to.
I remember feeling four years ago, like I was voting for the "lesser of two evils". I don't want to do that again. I want to feel good about my decision.
And I haven't felt that way about either option yet.
Don't get me wrong. I am a patriotic person.  I have pride in our country.  I feel very very strongly that once a president is elected, we need to support him. The hatred I see for our elected officials bothers me greatly.
I feel that our current President deserves more time to get us out of the mess that took more than four years to create, and it drives me nuts when people say that he's not done anything.
I am a strong supporter of healthcare change.  I have pre-existing conditions.  My five year old nephew has pre-existing conditions. Change HAD to happen, and I'm so thankful it did.
My brother slaves away protecting our city as a police officer but before this legislation, they wouldn't insure his son because he has asthma.
I am fearful of going back down a road that created this mess.
My family was personally and strongly affected by the economy. We lost jobs, and we lost a house.
I want change. I want to feel like we can succeed in our dreams.
I want the hope that someday we can own a house again and one day I can be a stay at home mom much more.  I need things to improve.
But my heart and my conscience don't know yet who will take us there!

Labor Day in Denver: the finale!

I finally got the pictures off Mom's computer to share the rest of our Denver trip. (sorry if any are repeats)

First, we are so thankful that our family opened their homes and schedules for us and were thrilled that we just up and decided to visit.  

They always make us feel so welcome and we always pick right up from the last trip, even if it's been three years, right where we left off. 

After our weekend of mountains, lakes, and moose, we headed back to Denver to relax, sightsee, visit and relax.  This trip was EXACTLY what my husband needed.  He even read a book! He hardly cracked the GEICO computer.  These are big milestones!!

Our first day in town, we spent shopping!  We visited IKEA and we picked up lots of odds and ends and enjoyed a cheap, yummy lunch!

We then spent some time at a HUGE mall nearby and catered to our girls.  They got to each pick an outfit for the american girl dolls they have at home.  They were in heaven just looking around!

We relaxed at the mall.  Read, sat back, and enjoyed our free time!

I'm not gonna lie.  Usually I hate shopping with W.  He sighs a lot, he gives lots of "looks" that make me feel guilty about any money spent, and it usually does not end well. He was a dream this trip. He was all about being on vacation and enjoying our time with our girls.

In the afternoons, cousins Bev, Lola and baby Stella came over to play.

It was a treat to see all these girls play so well!  Bev and Lola are each nine months older than my girls so it was perfect! Bev and Miss M played outside and did makeup.

Lola LOVED giving Lulu makeovers with hair things.

At dinner that night, Lu and Lola discussed how they could be best friends even though they just met. melt my heart!

We also got new Disney nightgowns on our shopping spree.  We always seem to need more jammies for some reason!

The next night, Aunt Sue made us Arabic food for dinner. It was fabulous! So tasty and so beautiful!

Aunt Cal, Thomas, Em, baby Nell and Kate.  So thankful that family made time to see us and visit!

They even showered Lu and I with early and late birthday presents. Lulu LOVES books and they were spot on with books that she is still enjoying at home weeks later!

The five beautiful cousins!

That are a little weird too :)

We already miss these guys.  And I'm wondering how Aunt Sue and Mae escaped any pictures.  I'll do better next time!!!  Because we will sooooo be going back!  It was a delightful trip!

a little bit of lately...in photos!

dinner with family at Larry's & Bob's Pizza

 the girls had a birthday party at a gymnastics place.  Lu loved the trampolines.  and that's it. so she would wait til it was free and keep getting on while all the other kids did all the other activities. :) silly girl!

 Miss M lost her 5th tooth! she officially has a jack-o-lantern grin just in time for Halloween!

 We decorated to make our house "halloween-y"

 General Conference Sunday breakfast! We are having the most lovely fall weather this weekend!

 And look what came in the mail!!!!!

So proud of my hubby and all THREE LONG YEARS of hard work with almost all straight A's, to boot!

pictures

Soooo, my parents are refinishing their floors this month.
It's been so weird to not be over at my parents' house all the time.  They actually went on a week road trip to Texas and Utah since they couldn't be in their own home.
And the floors are STILL being worked on a whole week later.

The point of this is that I do still take pictures.  There are even more pictures from our Denver trip I haven't blogged about. But they're all living on my mom's computer, in the house I can't go in.
I WILL get to them!
I promise!

Happy Octobler!

It's Octobler!
I needed a new wreath for the season, so for a craft night, we made yarn-wrapped wreaths.
I've had a wreath form for months, intending to wrap it with yarn or fabric (originally to actually participate in a blog contest but I never got inspired to do my summer wreath so it turned into a fall wreath!)

 I made felt flowers and bought two fall berry picks to add to it.
I love how cheap it was to make and how easy it came together!
I love how it turned out!!

 Here are Maria Mae's and Ceanne's

 Jen made a winter wreath, and so we are getting together this Saturday so Jen can make a fall wreath and the rest of us can make winter wreaths! :)