Feeding Time

My family has a tradition of going out to the Jewell/Mist Wildlife Preservation area each year to help feed the herds of elk. Apparently, winter is a tough time for them to find enough food to eat. Because of this they (the dept. of fish & wildlife) supplement their diets with bales of hay/alfalfa. You can ride along in the tractor and help distribute the hay. It's actually pretty neato to get so close to these giant animals.
This year Chris took the girls. I stayed home in my warm bed while the baby slept in. It was interesting to hear that they sometimes relocate a few elk each year in order to start new herds around Oregon and even as far as Alaska. I think the girls had a really great time seeing all the elk. Afterwards, they headed to Camp 18 for a tasty brunch.

Candy Cane Please

Saturday was our ward Christmas party. We had a tasty ham dinner followed by a musical program. Afterwards there was a special visitor. Neil just wanted them to hurry up and give him a candy cane. Claire didn't mind Santa, but Grace wanted nothing to do with him. She ran past and grabbed her candy cane. Maybe next year I can get the three of them together.

One Decade

This is us...ten years ago. What an amazing day it was! A November wedding in Oregon, and we lucked out with no rain. We were sealed together forever surrounded by our family and friends. A whole decade has now passed, and although we may look a little bit different, we are still very much in love, if not more so. I can't wait to see what the next ten years will bring!

In order to celebrate our milestone anniversary, we headed off to Las Vegas while our kiddos were able to stay with Grandma. What an amazing trip we had! It was so nice to not be on a schedule and get to sleep in everyday! We stayed 3 nights in Luxor Hotel on the strip, and we had a blast! The weather on our first day was perfect! Blue skies and 72 degrees was just what I needed. We took advantage of it by going to the Red Rock Canyon Conservatory that is just outside the city. They have a visitor center and maps of probably 20 different hikes that you can take ranging in difficulty. It was perfect. The landscape was beautiful, and it was so quiet out there. The hike we chose was amazing! It climbed up a rock canyon and ended with a great vista of the city. What a great way to spend our day. We also ate lots and lots of great food, including our stop to Max Brenner Chocolate. We saw Blue Man Group perform, which was pretty entertaining.

The next day was actually pretty cold and rainy, which was a bummer, but we made the best of it. We went to a movie, shopped, went out to eat, and saw Chris's family in the evening. Our last morning we found a great place for breakfast that is pretty popular called Hash House a Go Go. Chris had the fried chicken and waffles, which was actually pretty tasty. I had a more normal breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and a giant pancake. It was pretty tasty!

It felt great to get away, and have no responsibilities. We definitely needed a break! We were happy to come home and see our kids much more relaxed and ready to tackle the holiday season. a big thanks to everyone who helped make our trip possible! Thanks Grandma's and Uncle Troy! We can't wait to do it again sometime!

PS- We spent 3 nights on the strip and did not gamble a dime....there are plenty of fun things to do there. We were always busy!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY HONEY!

Blessed

Last Thursday was a really bad day. It all started bright and early at around 7:30am. Claire went off to school, and Chris went off to work. I was feeling lucky that the baby was still asleep, so I decided to throw a load of laundry in before he was up and hanging on my legs. A little while later he woke up and I went to put in his hearing aids, like I do every morning. They weren't in their container. I looked in all the usual places where they could sometimes be forgotten. Not anywhere. So I called Chris. He didn't answer. So I waited. Then I was getting pretty anxious about it, so I texted him again. Sure enough he knew where they were. He had left them in his shirt pocket when putting him to bed the night before. Immediately my mind flashed to what shirt he had been wearing the day before, and I KNEW instantly that it was in the pile that made it into the wash. I raced up the stairs and took the shirt out. Sure enough they were both still in the pocket...soaking wet. They had made it through almost the entire cycle. I was devastated. I quickly dried them the best I could and put them in their overnight drier. I didn't know what else to do. For those that don't know, hearing aids are very expensive, and we are past the 1 year replacement warranty. I was certain that we would be getting new ones for our Christmas and anniversary presents.

As you can imagine, I was pretty angry. I slammed my computer keyboard tray, which apparently scared my cat...and broke my keyboard. So the cat started hissing, clawing, and growling at me. I was definitely not in the mood for that. I decided that I would just walk away and let him cool off. That didn't work out too well. He started following me around the house, trying to jump at me while growling and hissing. I actually got pretty scared. He has never acted like that before. Eventually, I just didn't feel safe anymore so I called Chris in tears to come and rescue me from the cat. Thankfully, he was able to come right away. Of course the cat was behaving himself in front of Chris, but he did put him in his cage for me before going back to work. I drove the cat to the shelter with the intention of leaving him there. Unfortunately, they wouldn't take him. They were full. So I brought him home, released him in the house, and left to go run other errands, resigned to the fact that the cat was going nowhere. About 3 hours later we came home with groceries. I figured everything would be back to normal. Grace went in the house just fine. Then, with my arms full of grocery bags, I went to walk in the door, and the cat decided to block the door hissing and growling at me again. I had it! I told Grace to open the front door, and the cat went outside. He just sat around in the front for a couple hours looking through the bushes. I opened it up around dinnertime and he was gone. I haven't seen him since. It was a rough day.

I let the hearing aids dry for 24hours and then tried them out. To my amazement they actually worked! I even had them checked out by the audiologist and they are perfectly fine. We are so very blessed to have another chance. I'm still shocked that they are working at all, let alone not damaged.

Halloween night

Halloween was a pretty low key event after the weekend that we had, with birthday parties and the ward activity. The kids dressed up again, and stopped by both Grandma's houses for special treats. Then we hit the neighborhood for some candy. The girls were much less timid this year about going up to doors. I took Neil in early because it was really cold, and he was falling asleep in the stroller. Grace ended up coming in early too, because of a melt down over not getting candy at a particular door. It was quite strange. Oh well. They had plenty of loot for me to "check" at the end of the night. Another successful Halloween! Here are my cute kiddos...a bee, a "butterfly", and Lightning McQueen. (Grace apparently hates ladybugs, but she really liked her "butterfly" costume, so we ran with it. I cringed a bit every time someone said how cute she was as a ladybug. I thought for sure that would be the cause of a meltdown. Fortunately, it didn't phase her. She just knew that they were all confused.)

Tooth Fairy

Claire has been looking like a shark lately. Not in a evil, scary way...she just happened to have two rows of teeth on the bottom. Yep, her adult teeth grew in behind her baby teeth. It had been looking pretty crazy. Finally, the baby teeth started to really loosen up. She was terrified of the pain that surely would come from pulling them out. Then on Sunday night I asked her if I could "look" at it. I gently wiggled it and saw that it would rotate all the way around and point down at the floor. Uh, ok Claire, it's really time to get it out. So I just grabbed it and pop. Easy as pie. She was super excited! And it didn't hurt at all! Now she has a nice $1 bill compliments of the tooth fairy, and we can get to work on the next tooth. :)

4 Years

Wow! What a crazy weekend we've had. It's hard to believe that only 4 years ago our beautiful little Gracie pants came into our family. She is the sweetest, yet most stubborn child at times. She makes the most remarkable facial expressions. It's amazing to see how smart she is and how fast she is learning new things. Grace is loving going to preschool, and she is quickly mastering writing her own name. I am so proud of her. So, back to our weekend....

Friday: We took Grace and a friend to Chuck E. Cheese's. It was a Friday night, so you would think pure chaos right? Not so. It was awesome. We all had a really good time! There were hardly any people there. The girls got to run around and be silly and do all the rides. They could have cared less about the games that actually give you tickets. They just wanted to ride. Chris and I got to relax and watch them have fun without stressing about keeping track of them. It was perfect.

Saturday..... So this was Grace's actual birthday. We celebrated by carving our pumpkins. It was quite a chore. Cleaning out pumpkins in a house of girls is a bit of a chore. We heard a lot of "ewww", "gross", "I don't want to touch that yucky stuff", and "I don't want to do it anymore". Tobe honest, I was thinking the same things. If it hadn't been for Chris giving them a hard time, I probably would have been complaining too. I was brave for them. They did enjoy making their pumpkin faces and cutting out the pieces. They also helped me collect all the seeds to bake. We enjoyed that yummy snack in the afternoon.

After nap time, we headed to Costco. We ended up with a nice new couch for the downstairs. So we spent a lot of the afternoon taking out the old couch, vacuuming, and putting in the new one. Phew! I love it!

While we set this up, I was also making chili to take to our ward Halloween party. We ate chili and cornbread and had a costume parade along with costumes and games galore. The kids had a great time! It was a busy day!

Whew. Sunday....after 3 hours of Church, including the greatly anticipated primary program, we came home to get ready for Grace's other birthday party. We made tacos for our families. We had about 20 people in our house, and it turned out great! The food was good, Grace loved her presents, and the cake was a hit. I think everyone had a good time. The only exception was Neil. He was so tired, that during dinner we looked over and he was asleep in the high chair. Poor baby. It was pretty cute though. To top off the evening, Claire lost her first tooth just before bedtime. I will post more about that later. Now, the kids are all in bed, and we are relaxing after such a crazy weekend. The really crazy part is that things aren't over yet. Halloween is tomorrow. This time tomorrow night, I will be "inspecting" the night's loot. Can't wait!