Thanksgiving in Texas

We traveled to the Lone Star State to spend Thanksgiving with John's sister, her family, John's dad, and his wife.  We had a lot of fun, and I am sure that my kids would move in with their family if they could. Especially Christopher.   

Sadly Ben, who is only a year older than Nick, wasn't able to make it home for Thanksgiving.  He's away at a special boarding school (Think Hogwarts for aspiring large animal vets) and there are rumors floating around about bribes and skiing, and I never got the full story, but somehow Ben never made it home.  Hence the reason for the picture in the picture.

Corrine slaved away in her kitchen, and I did my best not to feel helpless by cutting up (lots of)potatoes and bothering her with questions like "Where does this go? How can I help? What can I do? Where do I find...? and Can I get that recipe?" (I was probably more of a nuisance. I felt like a little kid trying to "help".)

On one of the days they heated up the swimming pool and the kids headed out for some fun.  We tried to waterproof Christopher's cast, but his arm was just too little and the layers of duct tape weren't keeping out the water, as the special waterproof bag I bought started filling up with water, so we had to make him get out of the pool.  He was SO sad.  He cried and cried and cried.  And then we found out later that he had ear infections in both ears, so he was having a really rough time.

 

The older three kids spent hours out in the pool as uncle Rick broke out the scuba gear and they all got their first lessons in scuba diving.  They loved it.  Obviously they don't take after me, since I learned the hard way that snorkels and scuba masks give me panic attacks.  Rick took a bunch of awesome pictures with his waterproof camera, and supposedly transferred them to the thumb drive like I asked, but although said thumb drive did make it home, I can't find it anywhere. 

Corrine is a big Black Friday nut, so the four of us (me, Maddie, Corrine and Kaeli) went out and braved the crowds.  It was Maddie's first time, and she was having the time of her life one minute, then totally freaked out the next.  (Target was insane).

After all that, we had a little mini Christmas complete with tree and presents and ham dinner.  Corrine is the kind of person that makes you feel lazy because you can't keep up with her even though you got twice as much sleep as she did.  I don't mean that she's judgmental and mean, quite the contrary, she just has twice the energy of any one I know, and it's difficult to not feel that way in her presence.

With as many people descending on her home at one time as there were, we opted to make it a little easier on her and we booked a hotel room for John and I and the two younger boys.  We figured that Nick and Maddie would not want to be pulled away from their cousins, and we were right.  They got along famously.  Fortunately right before our trip Marriott became partners with a pretty cool resort right near their house so we were able to use some of our points and stay there.  The building and grounds were amazing and totally decked out for Christmas, but the beds sucked.  So miserable.

 They even had this really cool ice sculpture exhibit that was supposed to be amazing, but it was pretty expensive and we figured the little boys would be bored within minutes, so we spent that money on tickets to Six Flags.   Zach even went on one of the scariest roller coasters.  He hated it, but we're proud of him for going on it.

And if you're wondering what's up with the BYU shirts and my kids?  That was their idea.  They know how much Corrine loves BYU, and they love their aunt Corrine.  Ironically, her kids have no plans to attend themselves.  Years of being forced to sing the BYU fight song so they could get ice-cream probably back fired a little bit. 

Breaking up is hard to do

No.  I'm not breaking up with my blog.

I've thought about it. It's been nice not having that hanging over my head.

Combine my "I just don't care anymore" attitude with a broken computer that's away at the computer hospital (I'm using the family's right now which makes me cranky)  and a really busy (crazy, maddening) few weeks, (I was seriously debating breaking into my homemade vanilla stash, except I knew that wouldn't actually solve anything) and despite the busy-ness of it all, I didn't feel I really had anything to write about.  

The only thing that kept me from actually typing the words "The End" was the knowledge that my kids love this blog, and they love looking through the annual books I publish every year, and seeing the pictures and reading the stories and being reminded about all the good times and how cute/silly/funny/little everyone was.  I realize the grandparents love reading this too, but honestly, I don't do it for them.  Sorry, but that's the truth.  Just myself, and my kids.  And it's not just fun for me anymore.  What was once a creative outlet is now mostly just another chore. 

Anyways, no, I'm not quitting. Today, anyway. (I reserve the right to change my mind at any given time. Tomorrow...Next week... Next month...Next year...)

But speaking of things breaking....

We had another accident over the weekend.

Christopher fell down a flight of stairs and broke his arm.

It's his left arm right above the elbow, which is better than when Maddie broke hers a year ago, her right arm right below the elbow, but it's still no fun.

He's doing pretty well.  But he gets a little cranky when the ibuprofen wears off, and he tries to use it as an excuse to skip dinner and go straight to the ice-cream.  "I'm broken!"

He picked a purple cast at the orthopedic surgeon, and I was happy to find that they make Sharpies in silver so we can all sign his cast and it will show up.

The good news is that little kids' bones heal fast so he'll get it off in three weeks.  The bad news is that is one week after we go to Texas.  Marriott just acquired a new fancy hotel chain and we are staying in a pretty swanky hotel with both indoor and outdoor pools, a lazy river, and a water slide.  (No swimming for little kids with casts.)

~~~~~~~~

"I beg of you, don't say good bye.  Can't we give our love another try?  Come on baby, let's start anew, 'cause breaking up is hard to do." - Neil Sedaka

Halloween

The stinky part about trying to write a blog post 3 months after it happened is that the details get fuzzy.  I've been putting this off because I didn't get pictures of the oldest two kids, and I've been hoping to persuade them to dress up for me.  But they are teenagers, and a little busy, plus Maddie made part of her costume, so there's a little bit of crafting to be done before any picture can be taken.

Halloween itself was fun and busy.  We had the usual trunk or treat with our church.  Nick participated in a bit of a spook alley at the High School as part of his drama/technical theater class. I heard it was supposed to be pretty scary, but Nick had them tone it down for his autistic 6 year old.  Our awesome neighborhood got together for the annual Halloween potluck dinner party at the park before trick or treating. I made the usual homemade rootbeer with the dry ice and everything.  Then the older two kids parted ways, Nick ran off to a party and Maddie went trick or treating with a friend.  I got the dubious honor of accompanying the littles while they went trick or treating, and John got to stay home and watch movies and hand out candy.  I'm not sure how that worked out that way, I think John must have bribed Christopher or something.

Anyway, Nick dressed up as The Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who. So, until I get a picture of Nick, this will have to do. 

Not surprisingly, many people had thought he was a Shriner or something like that.  (funny story- all my kids have turned into these little Doctor Who/ BBC fans and at a recent movie party with some girls, Maddie tried to convince all the other girls to watch Doctor Who.  The mom hosting the event said she put up a good fight, but none of the other girls were interested.  I told Maddie I was very proud of my "little geek girl".  She was very adamant in proclaiming that she "Was not a geek!". I argued that since Doctor who was Sci-Fi that meant she was a geek.  "It's not sci-fi, it's just awesome!"  "Yeah, sorry honey, any show about a man from another planet, who travels through time and space fighting off aliens and robots and monsters, is most definitely sci-fi, and your love of it makes you a geek." She still refuses to accept it.

Speaking of Maddie.  Last year she wanted to be a car-hop girl with roller skates and everything.  But if you remember, last year she broke her arm, so I vetoed that idea claiming that if she fell while rollerskating she'd probably break her other arm, and that wouldn't be a good idea.  So this year she was a '50's car hop.  I didn't think that they made car hop outfits, so we just got dolled her up in a generic '50's outfit with the poodle skirt and the pony tail and all that, but then on Halloween I saw a little girl in a '50's diner outfit which probably would have been a better plan.  But I think it worked out fine as she made up a little tray with a burger, fries, a soda complete with her own little diner design on it.  So if you can picture that...

Zach was by far the easiest when he finally decided what he wanted to be.  An "army dude".  I was going to make him a big ol cardboard AK-47 or something (he wanted to take a fake plastic one to school, but there are rules about that, I thought that maybe a cardboard one might be acceptable. Of course you never know these days...) But I ran out of time...

Christopher was actually the hardest, and all he wanted to be was "a white ghost".  They don't sell plain old boring "white ghost" costumes.  You have to make them.  And I can't sew.  Thankfully, Chelsa saved my hide and helped out.   It was a couple simple stitches here and there, and a few rips and tears there, but still beyond my ability. And she found the perfect white hat to go with it.  The school has a rule against face paint and masks, and Christopher wouldn't go for either of those anyway, so I figured my best plan was a hat. Plain white hats are ridiculously hard to find.  They are all cute these days and they look like monkeys or bears or other fuzzy woodland creatures.

 

And finally, I have a cute picture to share.  Christopher has a little girlfriend who goes to our church and was in his school class at the time.  He has a cute little crush on her and loves to give her hugs and generally has a cute, dopey little smile on his face when she's around.  She came running up to him to say hi, but it took him a second to recognize her without her glasses and in her Rapunzel wig. This picture was taken shortly after he realized who she was.

Christopher has already decided what he wants to be next year.  "A white pledge."   (What the heck?)  It took me days to figure out what that was.  I finally figured out what he was talking about when we were at his school and he pointed to a speaker on the ceiling and said, "Look, a pledge. Put your hand on your heart."  I gathered from that little statement that every morning they say the Pledge of Allegiance at school, and he is instructed by means of the speaker to put his hand over his heart.  I took this picture of a "pledge" he pointed out to me at Wal-mart.

Hopefully he will change his mind, or if not, at least I will have a year to figure out how to make it happen.