Hello again! Sorry, for the long lapse in postings. I'm trying to get a jump start on my New Year's resolutions and it's been keeping me very busy to get things organized this week. I tried to post yesterday but in addition to trying to do 5 other things at the same time, blogspot wouldn't upload my photos. Unlike those of you who can have very entertaining blogs with your mere wit, I rely heavily on the adorable pictures of my cute kids.
Thanksgiving was fabulous though. We got up at 4 AM to catch the 5:13 train. Unfortunately, we were going to a station that no one had ever been to before and it was SUPER foggy and to make a long story short, we missed the train. It was an hour until the next one. But it was good because we got to get the kids dressed in the privacy of the car instead of on the train. And I don't think the kids would have handled waiting at the parade for an hour longer.
It was totally packed when we got there, so we struggled a bit to find a good place to watch. Next time we're going to find out who the special people are who get tickets to sit in the bleachers lining the street and how we can become one of them. We were able to find a spot and even had time for Kayli to play at a playground with Blake while we waited.
TA DA! We made it!
Getting ready to watch the show. You can't tell, but we were sitting on a very steep hill. It was very hard to sit up there the whole 1 1/2 hours. I almost slid down it a few times. I also managed to sit in the mud instead of on the Neat Sheets that we had, so I had a nice muddy backside the rest of the day. You can tell we had perfectly gorgeous weather for the day. We couldn't have picked a better year to go.
Dolly started things off for us. Those of you who know Blake will know how delighted he was. As he put it, "She's so much better in person!" (for those of you who don't know Blake well, he was being facetious).
Sesame Street was a highlight too. Unfortunately, Elmo is so small next to Big Bird it was hard for Kayli to pick him out and get truly excited. The parade was a lot of fun. Utah was even represented by the American Fork marching band. Not quite as impressive as Tennessee though, they were all dressed as clowns and did some fun dances.
However, I don't mind watching from the comfort of my own home in the future.
On our way to FAO Shwartz, we stopped to feed the ducks in Central Park. These were a couple of the braver ones who were willing to get up close to eat the pieces Kayli was dropping right over the fence.
This is what a long fun day will do to you. She was totally asleep for this but her head kept slipping off of Blake's.
We had our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday after my mom and I hit a couple of stores for some Black Friday shopping. It was delicious. The food, not the shopping. But that's no surprise because my mom is an excellent cook. I especially loooove her stuffing.
It was a great Thanksgiving weekend. The only way it could have been better would have been if we had been able to watch the BYU v. Utah game Saturday. But at least WE WON!
And I found a lot of things to be grateful for this year. I have a wonderful family as you can all see from reading my blog. And I'm feeling better than I have in years. I can hardly contain my excitement at finally being so healthy. In addition to great family, I have the greatest friends too. And despite all my complaining about the hours, Blake really does have a great job. He's happy there and it enables us to have such a great life. And the list goes on but this is getting to be a very long posting and I'm not done yet.
And I found a lot of things to be grateful for this year. I have a wonderful family as you can all see from reading my blog. And I'm feeling better than I have in years. I can hardly contain my excitement at finally being so healthy. In addition to great family, I have the greatest friends too. And despite all my complaining about the hours, Blake really does have a great job. He's happy there and it enables us to have such a great life. And the list goes on but this is getting to be a very long posting and I'm not done yet.
A couple days before Thanksgiving we got the first snowfall of the year. It wasn't much but we had to go out and play in it. Blake took Kayli out before he went work to throw a couple snowballs at me while I finished jogging on the treadmill and then I took both of the kids out after getting them dressed in their snow clothes. If you've been following my blog from the very beginning then you know how excited Kayli was to finally get to wear her snow suit and boots.
It actually turned into sleet/freezing rain by the time we got out there and Bryce really wasn't sure what to make of it. I had to work really hard to get this smile which is very rare for him. He usually breaks into smiles as soon as he sees the camera.
Kayli kept trying to throw snowballs at me but they somehow ended up landing in her face every time.
I tried to get them both to look at the camera to no avail.
And lastly, I've been tagged. So, here we go--six things that you probably don't know about me:
1. I LOVE the sky. I love the clouds, the blue-ness, and looking at the stars at night has always helped me put things in perspective and feel at peace knowing that even when I feel so small and insignificant, there is a God who knows me and loves me. But I have a passion for sunsets. I have tons of photos I've taken of them (not so many from Connecticut because I'm rarely up high enough to be able to see the sunset above all the trees). I want to one day publish a book of them. But I need to work on my photography skills a bit.
2. When I was a small child, too small to get myself a drink from the faucet, I would dip a cup in the toilet when I got thirsty. To my mother's credit, she was unaware of this until a few years ago when I mentioned it. I'm sure she would have put a stop to it if she had known.
3. I talk too much. That, by itself, is not a secret about me at all, but the fact that I know it and I'm working on it might be. This blog is actually helping since I post about pretty much everything and anything significant in my life so I have less to actually talk about that my friends don't already know.
4. Gumption and plethora are two of my favorite words. Would you say I have a plethora of pinatas?
5. One of the things I really miss from my single life is making prank calls. I loved doing it and my roommates and I always got a kick out of it. I'm not sure why I don't do it any more. Possibly because my favorite pranks involved calling guys and being pretty flirty (shocking, I know). Or maybe because I'm not sure who to prank any more. Or maybe it just seems unfitting for a mother? I don't know. On a side note, Blake actually successfully prank called me from our bathroom while we lived in our tiny one level two bedroom apartment in Orem. Pretty impressive. That's just one of his many skills.
6. I love being a mother and I can honestly say that there is nothing I would rather be doing right now, however, I am frequently thinking about what I want to be when I grow up. I think I've finally figured it out. I want to be a life coach chef talk show host. I love when people come to me for advice and I am actually able to help them, I love cooking and baking, and (not to be overly confident) I think I'm fairly funny--like Ellen only straight. Well, maybe not quite as funny, but I'm sure practice would help.
I think pretty much all of you have been tagged so, I tag the husbands, including Blake.
