We're Thankful

We had a great Thanksgiving at my brother's house in Tennessee, with two other brothers and their families.  My sister-in-law is an awesome cook, and hostess--thanks again, Kristen!  I hope you have recovered from having us all there!  Maybe picutres will follow?  With some Halloween ones?

We have a Tree of Gratitude on our wall, and each day the kids and I wrote things we're grateful for on a little leaf which we stuck to the tree.  I thought I'd record some of the things that we are thankful for this year:
Mom and Dad
bodies
Jesus
turtles
furniture
games
water
school
sun and moon
President Uchtdorf
our family
President Monson
shoes
fruit
vegetables
warm days
cool days
new baby
Tessa (3 times)
cake
diamonds
plants
toilets
missionaries
electricity
the Earth
friends
toys
plastic
our pets
God

And now it's time to deck the halls!

Guess where...

Where can you can go to see:

my children's favorite puppet show, which they declare is better each year (though it is almost exactly mind-numbingly the same)

[and don't mind the little boy and his mom who clearly needed to see the puppet at the exact moment we were taking a picture];

an enormous farm scene made entirely of butter;

a petting zoo full of cute baby animals (and cute baby girls);

children flying on mechanical kites;

Caytie on her one and only favorite ride (and we were just happy she was on it, since the poor girl was fighting something requiring stops at a bathroom every half-hour...or less);

and a pig race (after the diving dog show, which we unfortunately missed this year)?



Why, at the Texas State Fair, of course!  We also saw the deep-fried bubble gum being featured this year, but we thought it looked pretty yucky, so we stuck with the basics of funnel cake, cotton candy, and foot-long corn dogs.  Yum and yum and yum.

Oh, and if you ever go, I can tell you where all the bathrooms are.  Just in case.

Some things I know

1.  No one is pregnant forever!  I said that to my friend a couple years ago, and then forgot all about it.  A little while ago, she reminded me of it (thanks, Kelsie!), and it actually really helped me to get through the last bit of "morning" sickness, which hits me the hardest at night.  Now I've had almost a whole week of pretty good nights, and considerably less grouchiness, so I'm holding my thumbs (that's South African for "crossing my fingers") that this nausea is done.

2. When your 6 foot 4 inch husband is out of town for a week, that is the perfect time for the carbon monoxide/smoke detector to start beeping and saying "Main Battery" (I didn't know it talked!) at 1:30 am, right outside the bedrooms of four sleeping girls.  I found a chair tall enough (after some experimentation) to take the battery out, but that made it beep and talk even more.  So after a call to an anxious out-of-town husband, I wisely followed his advice to replace the battery with a new one.  Problem solved.

3. My kids are cute.  Thankfully.  It makes it easier to forgive certain things...

4. My Ben is really missed when he's gone.  By me most of all.

5. I really like warm homemade applesauce.  And tapioca pudding.  And fudge.  (Yes, the nausea has definitely decreased.)

6.  Tessa was not a fan of Halloween.  Her new words from the season were "spooky" and "scary," minus the beginning s's for each, said with much facial expression.  She made me carry her past our front porch decorations each day, so she wouldn't set off our screaming tombstone.  (Why that screaming tombstone isn't broken yet is beyond me, since all the other kids can't keep their hands off of it.)  But once the candy was introduced...things were much better.

7. Caytie is on her third year of wearing a different costume to each Halloween event we attend--the blessing and curse of having a huge dress-up box in the playroom.

8. Emma decided to go as a "lazy person" (pajamas, messy hair, etc.). She really got into it, too--avoiding as much work as possible.  She threw up on our way home from Trunk or Treating at the church.  Halloween candy consumption has since been regulated, for the first time at our house.

9. Scott changed his costume last-minute from a hunchback to a "missionary in a bike accident."  It was well received at the church activity.  On Halloween he said he didn't want to dress up, except as a kid who wants candy.  When I told him that people don't like to give candy out to those who don't really dress up, he decided he could do it after all.  He's 10 this year, so we'll see how many more years he goes...

10. Gracie was a cat.  I will include pictures in my next post.