Thanksgiving 2018

We had a really fun Thanksgiving this year!  First of all, I have to share a few photos of our "design your own turkey" party we had for Family Home Evening.

This dapper little fella is Nicole's.  Who is that lovely woman in the background???

Quinton looks very proud of his long legged turkey

I think Bronson was just in it for the candy

Josh's "turkey" was Master Shifu from Kumg Fu Panda.

Alison's turkey looks like an angry bird.

Our Thanksgiving Day Feast was hosted by Kristin this year.  My parents and Scotty were at Katie's house, and we decided to have our own little party rather than try to get the whole crew crammed into one place.  It really turned out lovely.  Kristin and I both LOVE food!  And we both love her dogs!  So we had a ball!

As a thank you gift, I brought over a lovely herb planter.  Isn't it cute?

Look at that spread!  Not bad for just two cooks, eh?

There was so much food!  

L-R: David, Kristin, McKenna, Alison, Nicole.

L-R: Bronson, Quinton, Brian, Payton, Joshua.

We ate and ate and ate.  Then, while we were relaxing post-feast, Alison decided that she really needed some gum or a drink or something.  I can't really remember what it was, but it doesn't matter.  The point is, she somehow talked her dad into driving her to a gas station to buy something.  Nicole and Bronson went along for the ride.

On the way back to Kristin's house from the gas station, Bronson got motion sick and threw up his entire Thanksgiving feast all over the van. Never mind the fact that I keep throw up bags stashed behind every seat so he was literally within an arms reach of it.  Also, ignore the fact that his sister Nicole was sitting right next to him and could easily have handed a bag to her dear old brother.  No - she was to busy recording it on her cell phone.  Grrr.

Anyway....they came back from their little escapade with a pleasant surprise for me.  Why do moms always get stuck with clean up duty???

Happy Thanksgiving, Mom.

Bronson was totally fine after he got out of the car.  His clothes needed an emergency trip to Kristin's washing machine...My parents and brothers came over for pie later that day. We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening visiting and eating and playing and looking at Black Friday ads. It was a perfect Thanksgiving.

On our way home from the Thanksgiving feast, we decided to officially ring in the Christmas season by taking a drive through the Layton City Christmas lights.

Worst Day

November 7th was the worst day.  Oh was it hard!  That was the day I had to take Buddy to Davis County Animal Services to have him put down.  It was such a difficult decision to take him in, even though we had been warned months and months in advance.  We knew ever since January that he was very sick, that his health would decline. In fact, we were told that he only had a few months to live.  So we felt incredibly blessed to have him for almost a year! But knowing it was coming didn't make the actual day any easier.

In the last month or so of his life, Buddy slowed down considerably.  He hated going for walks (one of his favorite things to do). He would go a few steps, then turn towards home and refuse to go any farther.  He went in-and-out of the house a million times per day (kidney disease, remember). He was getting thinner and thinner.  His seizures began to come a little more frequently, and he started to have incontinence issues.  One Sunday morning, we woke up to dog poop all over the house!  He had apparently had a bad accident on the floor (perhaps a seizure that we slept through) then walked all over the house, spreading it everywhere.  We had to call our friend who cleans carpets and ask for an emergency ox-in-the-mire cleaning. We were really to the point when we thought he could die any time and we felt like it was better to let him stop suffering.

This picture was taken as we were leaving for the last time.  My heart hurts just looking at it.  The people at Animal Services were so kind and gentle with him (and me - I was in tears).  One of the hardest thing I've ever done in my life was walking out the door without my dog.  I called David and just sobbed for a while.

I will say this: in spite of the pain of saying goodbye to our beloved dog, I would still get him again in a heartbeat!  Buddy was the best dog!  In the short time that we were able to have him in our home, we loved him with all our hearts! He brought us a lot of joy!  We miss him, but treasure the memories we have!

Changing a Tire

On November 1st, I thought I heard something weird as I drove Alison to school.  I couldn't figure out what it was, so I just forgot about it.

I heard the noise again as I took Nicole to school, and a third time when I took the boys.  After they got out of the car, they looked at the back tire and said, "You have a flat!"  Boy, did I ever!!  The sound I had been hearing was me driving on my hubcap!  Yikes!  I pulled over right there in the NDPA parking lot to try to get it fixed.  I went to the trunk of the van to get the spare.  What I found instead, hidden where I thought a spare tire would be, was a long metal "key" and a map to where the tire actually was!  I guess in our van, the tire is underneath the carriage.  You remove it by unlocking a secret compartment in the front console and unscrewing the wench, then pulling the tire out from under the van (which can't be done if your flat tire makes your van too low to the ground).

I don't love to do things like this, but I feel like I'm at least capable of doing them!  However, it wasn't fun. It was raining and cold. at least I got dressed on this particular morning.  About 50% of the time, I'm in my robe and slippers.

Quinton was very patient and "helpful." He even took pictures of me while I struggled with the bolts.

Me trying to figure out the jack.

Wait a minute...am I a mechanic or a plumber? Thanks for that picture, Quinton!

About the time I was getting frustrated with the stupid jack, David showed up and saved the day.  I was certainly happy to let him take over!!!  I have no doubt I COULD have done it - I WAS doing it, but David was about 10 times faster and I was freezing!

We drove straight from there to the tire repair shop to get our flat fixed.  Luckily for us, it was right across the street from Granny Annie's Diner.  All's well that ends in a giant scone, I say!

October Ditties

Here are some of the day-to-day joys of October:

************************************************************

Quinton started an online preschool to help him get ready for kindergarten.  It is called Upstart.  It's run by the state board of education.  He was required to be on it for at least 15 minutes per day (never more than a half hour).  He loved it... at first.  By the end of the year, he was tired of it.  But he sure learned a lot!

*********************************************************************

We grew a lovely batch of mushrooms in our yard!  Some of those beasts are as big as my fist!

*******************************************************************

Just a cute picture of some sweet boys (Quin and Josh) in a fort.  Gotta love brotherhood!  I think Bronson was on his special 8-year-old trip at the time, or else he certainly would have been in there too.

******************************************************************

Nicole's cooking class in school was sure a huge benefit for the rest of us!  She was REQUIRED to cook us delicious food several times- AND to clean up after her self!  I LOVE that class!

Her favorite dish was sesame noodles.  She makes them still, even after the class has ended.

*****************************************************************

We had a very heartbreaking death in our ward.  A sweet family in our neighborhood lost one of their 2-month-old twin boys to a strange, unexplained virus.  It was horrible.  I was neck deep in the funeral serving when a great friend in the ward offered to take Quinton home with her and her daughter. I was so grateful! So was he. He was tired of being helpful.  Later, my friend texted a picture of the pair watching a movie in pure comfort! 

***************************************************************

One youth activity that had me laughing was this one: They had a lesson about how to avoid the firey darts of the adversary.  Then, they actually had to avoid darts!  The leaders attacked them and they protected themselves with "armor."  How fun AND impactful at the same time!

By the way, the leader in the plaid shirt (who looks like he know what he's doing with a gun because he's a cop) is the father of the little baby that died.  He's our Young Men's president.  This was just a week or two after his son's funeral.  He is amazing.  Nicole is in a green sweatshirt hiding behind the giant shield.  I can't tell which one is Ali.  Could that be her kneeling???

*************************************************************************

Josh and two of his buddies went mini golfing at Cherry Hill.  It was Josh's first time ever.  He had a blast!

L-R: Josh, Walker, Max.  I just want to point out that Walker and Max are both about a year older than Josh.

***********************************************************************************

We used our Lagoon season passes as much as we could throughout the season.  We went to Lagoon-A-Beach a few times, the girls went with friends a couple of times, and we really enjoyed Frightmares when the temperatures were cooler.  We even went with our neighbors one night!  SO fun!  It was great because there were enough adults to accommodate everyone's level of entertainment!  One parent went with the littles, one with the crazies, etc!.  

Here we have (top to bottom-ish): Josh, Bronson, Finleigh, Quinton, Walker, and Easton.  

Halloween 2019

One dish that I'd planned on cooking for my "spooky meal" (but forgot about until it was too late) was black tapioca - aka bat eyeballs.  Since I forgot to cook them the day before, I made them on Halloween.

They went beautifully with our traditional dinner in a pumpkin served in pumpkin bread bowls.

Lovely, Nicki!  Our kids like dinner in a pumpkin!  Even when they were little and it wasn't their favorite, I could always count on being able to persuade them to eat a few bites before going trick-or-treating. That way they would have at least SOMETHING healthy in their bellies before the sugar fest began.

Until Quinton came along, that is.  He is our first kid who would rather DIE than eat certain foods.  I now know what it's like to have a picky eater. Urgh!  After much persuasion, I finally got a bite into his mouth.  He promptly spit it out.

Somehow we all survived dinner and got dressed up.  Quinton was a vampire this year.  Spooky!!!

Bronson was a baby!  Bless you, Bronson for choosing something easy to dress up as!

Josh was some sort of freaky zombie skeleton ghost thing.  

Josh's best friend in school, Seth lives on a very busy road. Josh invited him to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, where it's easier and much safer.  Seth's mom and I texted back and forth and set up plans.  This is Walker, Seth, and Josh getting ready to hit the pavement.  They has a blast!  Then Seth went home and we went over to Grandma and Grandpa Smith's house for a little more trick-or-treating. It was crazy busy the whole time, so I didn't take a ton of photos and the ones I did get weren't great, but such is life.  

Spooky Dinner

The day before Halloween, I decided to make a spooky meal for the family.  I was so proud of myself for being creative.  I can't say that everything was delicious, but that's not the effect I was going for anyway...

Black noodles that I got at our local Asian market.  I mean, "worms"!!!

Blood!!! And Maggots!!! (spaghetti sauce and Parmesan cheese)

Monster eyeballs!

Skeleton bones!

Aliens! (Rombutan) Rombutan is a super tasty fruit from Asia.  I got it at the Asian market too. I think my trip to the Asian market is what inspired me to do this meal! 

Bronson's Special Vacation

One of our favorite family traditions is for our children to go spend a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Smith after they get baptized. They get to feel extra big and extra special!  We love it and are so grateful to my parents for keeping the tradition going (we did it when I was a child with my grandparents as well). I wasn't there, so I can't tell you all the details, but I can show you the pictures and tell you what I heard about them:

Off he goes!  Grandma picked him up after school one afternoon.  

Grandma Church was having a trick-or-treating party at her assisted living facility, so Bronson went!  Grandma Smith dressed him up in a Dodgers jersey and took him over.  

Here he is with Grandma Church!  He got a lot of candy and had a ton of fun!

Looks like he is enjoying a little down time with his tablet.  When he and the grandparents were planning the vacation, he said he didn't want to go anywhere fancy.  He just wanted to stay in their house and go to nearby places.  I think that was a good choice!

He got to eat at a lot of restaurants! The Habit is so yummy!  And he got an adult sized meal - no kid's meals for him! And a milkshake! I think they also went to the movie theater and saw "Small Foot" on this day.

They explored the local Cabela's and had a little photoshoot.

They bought him a Cabela's baseball cap as a souvenir.  He wore that thing every day! He even wore it to school for a while.  Since you can't wear hats at school, he would take it off and put it on his desk during class time.  Then he would put it on for recess.  

He slept in Grandpa's office, right across the hall from Grandma and Grandpa.

Just chillin' at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

They went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Pointe.  Wow!

Look out!

Look how huge that Dino is!

Cute kid.

I think he's one of the cavemen fighting this Mammoth.

Bron really loves tacos.  Poor Grandma and Grandpa ate at Taco Bell with him more than once.

While they were at Thanksgiving Pointe, they also went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity.

It was pretty awesome!  Bronson loved it!

I think this is a tornado machine.

Exploring the super cool playground

What a cutie!

There is something really magical about this trip with the grandparents. Being one of five siblings, it is very rare that my kids get to be the sole focus of attention.  It's great to be in the spotlight for a couple days.  And they just don't get spoiled like that in their everyday life!  Usually, the answer is "no" to most of their "can we do that? can I have one of those?" type questions, but they get to hear the answer "yes" a lot on these trips!  Bronson had so much fun!  He soaked up all the attention and created memories he will always treasure!  Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!