November Gratitude journals

Raynaud's phenomenon

Only special people have magic color changing finger tips!!  

For real though... I've had Raynaud's Phenomenon (sometimes called Raynaud's Symptoms, Raynaud's Disease) since I was about 21, I think. That's the first time I can remember. It started when I was at BYU in Provo. I would go out running in the winter and come back with a few fingertips white and painful. I dismissed it.  10 years later... still dismissing it, ha!  I'm not too worried about it. Just a circulation issue, I guess. I haven't read a whole lot about it, just enough to know I'm not going to die. My mom has it too. I've met a couple other ladies with it.  Just an annoying, odd thing to deal with!

Off to work!

Brian almost left for work today WITHOUT any kind of costume!! I told him that would be professional suicide! His career is on the line here!  So he threw on some Hawaiian garb. Perfect. Enough to make the nurses smile. 

Brianna left for school as the Candy Corn Witch, and Bennett is this Blaze dude. Not sure the real character.  It was a hand-me-down from Nathan. He liked it. Done. 

Yay for Monday Halloweens!

Sunday best, Halloween edition

These two! And a glimpse at our Halloween art wall.

Brian's first nasal hair removal

Bennett lost his first tooth!

Money well spent!

Sent from my mobile.
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    I offered her $0.10 per book to read to her younger siblings. She's been at this over 90 min!!  

Pumpkin pacer 5k

Just another event on the Halloweening rounds!

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   Greenbluff Grange Children's Haunted House. Very fun!   

Homemade "candy corn"!

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   https://youtu.be/2cxOggK1voY  

hairy situation

Charity got her first hair trim today, thanks to putty.   

Kindergarten Bear visits us

Festive attire

I've somehow amassed quite a collection of halloweeny clothing. So I encourage them to wear it. Every.single.day.
Then it goes away in it's big orange bin, not to be seen til next Halloween!

FredMeyering

Our local Freddy's had it's grand reopening today so we stopped by!

20 miles to take me out of my funk

I started this spin class in a rotten mood. I wasn't planning on doing it, I had signed up for a 9:30 class but due to the twins checkup then forgetting my gym clothes I missed it. So frustrated and mad at myself. Then I remembered the leftover Hershey bars from the Halloween and thought surely that would make me feel better (so logical, right?). Nope. Just made feel yucky. But I dragged myself here and started spinning around. Halfway thru....something CLICKED.  I decided I would TAKE BACK this day! It wasn't too late! I determined I would hit the magical 20 mile point no matter what. 

And I did, and it made all the difference for the rest of my day. 

Feeling Halloweeny

Kid's reactions:

https://youtu.be/qMdjhfaqXi8   

Ouch

Nothing more fun than dragging my kids out of bed early Monday morning to go get caught up on immunizations so they don't get kicked out of kindergarten. 

Blah.

Struggling with unchristlike feelings towards this person...

Seriously.
Who does this?!
Hits someone's car, then writes them a nasty note.
Really!
Must be a miserable human being!
I feel sorry for her!
And for my poor car.
It was already pretty dinged up.

Starve a vampire- donate blood!

They all love blood donation day! Free snacks! And I'm loving October double points! Almost earned an Amazon gift card. All it's costing is a few pints of blood. Who needs all that extra anyways?!

Library visit

I rarely let them check out library materials. It's so tough to keep track of it all and make sure it doesn't get mixed in to our stuff. Plus we already have too many books at home.  But I gave in today because Brianna is in love with Magic Treehouse books. And I'd do just about anything to support her love of reading. Hopefully I'll have better luck getting the materials back than my luck in convincing her not to wear those too-short Halloween jammie pants in public...

Triple Braiding Girls

Brianna was so proud of her work. She exclaimed, "This is the best part!! I'm going to take all three braids...AND BRAID THEM INTO ONE!!"  Then she helped Courtney learn to do it too.
I don't mind sitting here letting them practice at all :)

Playdough is serious business

It's worth letting them make this big mess to see them all nicely playing together:)

Ortho party

Our friends own this Ortho office, but we would've gone here anyway for this party!

I love when businesses choose to spend their marketing dollars on family-fun events :)

Facepainting, bouncy houses, carnival games, treats, contests, and great prizes! We won an awesome sled, and Disney on Ice tickets!!

But we're not moochers....Brianna has an appt there now for her first consultation. There's nothing especially concerning about her teeth right now...but since both of her parents needed braces, it's definitely worth checking out early to see if we can avoid issues. Plus, she's super excited about the prospect of having braces. I'm guessing that will wear off in a few years, better jump on it now!

I wasn't grateful enough to my parents for the gift they gave me in paying for braces...so this is the way to make up for that, right? Perfect straight teeth for all my kids! All for the price of.... a very nice car. Oye.

Date night!

I was pretty shocked when Brian asked me out on a date! In advance! And planned the babysitter! He hasn't done this in... well, I won't share that :) We had a great time! The Chinese Lantern Festival at Riverfront Park was amazing. I thought I had seen it enough, since I've walked around the perimeter, and ran through it during a race in daylight hours. But seeing it at NIGHT, plus the live show, plus the IMAX - totally worth the admission. Bonus - hardly anyone there, since it was raining! Not even raining - just drizzling. Still fun to be in. Unfortunately, our kids weren't great for the babysitter. Poor girl, Emily...too soft spoken. Gotta be firm with our kids and they'll comply. We paid her well, and Bennett had to write an apology letter. I think it will go better next time :)

Socktoberdash 5/10K

I wonder if my kids think it's totally normal for their mom to wake them up at 7am on a Saturday morning and say, "cmon kids, put on your crazy socks, time to go to the fun run!"

We had a blast! I ran the 10K, which started a few minutes before the 5K, so I was able to circle back after finishing and help Brian with the crew. He had Charity and Bennett in the double jogger. Brianna ran the whole thing, Courtney ran most of it but got to trade Bennett for stroller time when she got a little tired.


The kids got lots of prizes, and great post-race refreshments. And they learned a great lesson about helping others when they heard what the event was raising funds/awareness for.... Teen Closet, a local organization helping outfit homeless/foster kids. Such a foreign concept for our children....good for them to realize how blessed they truly are. 

And good for them to RUN!! :)

(my time was invalid - since I went the wrong way - not my fault - poorly marked course with lame volunteers - but I was first overall, and got a decent workout, so it's all good)

Our new puppy

Everyone was so excited about Spike besides a certain toddler...

Post race refreshments...

COURTney found a COURTroom

Prepping for future husband hunt

family self stick practice

Feeling tropical...

2016 School Pictures!

Two Kindergartners and a 3rd grader!  THEY'RE JUST SO DANG BEAUTIFUL I WANNA CRY!!!

Nonny made WonderOven bread...

....But I really wish she wouldn't, cuz I end up eating way too much of it! But I waited til the next day, after the gym...and I get Delayed Gratification Points for that, right!

How Brianna watches Gen Conf

Before Conference, she makes a list of words she thinks she'll hear. Then everytime she hears that word, she makes a checkmark on it.  She earns a penny per checkmark!  Win win win!  She gets SO much out of it...she can tell me all about the talks she heard. And more importantly, how it made her FEEL.  I love it.   And it only ends up costing me $2-3.  Perfect investment :)

Hair

I see little video clips being shared on FB with quick tutorials and hair style ideas for little girls.... it's SO FUN! I love having new options for cute styles!  

I'm glad her friend's moms take time to do this stuff....

Brianna went to a friend's birthday party, themed "Emoji Party."  Kamryn's mom Ashlie went all-out in cute stuff! 

It was a sleepover, but we decided a few years ago that our kids wouldn't do sleepovers if we can avoid it. We'll do "late night-overs" instead.  All the fun, none of the worry! 

No reason not to sleep in your own bed safely at home :)

FHE - tennis edition

I want to pass on my love of this sport to my littles!  And the sooner we can get them good at this....the sooner I'll have people to play tennis with :)

I honestly look forward to the day my kids can beat me - and I'l really trying - in any sport!!

Just some pre-bedtime tests of strength.....

skillz

Dinner

Racing around

Previous to the past 2 weeks I haven't done any official races in months. Not sure why....just wasn't focused on finding them or prioritizing them. I also felt really out of shape. Well, running shape. I always workout. But the only way to be good at running is to RUN. So why waste my time and money driving out to race events when I wasn't training for them?
But Meredith kicked me out of my comfort zone by making me do this Happy Girls 5K. Her coworker had a couple entries she couldn't use, so sold them to us.
I was super excited and nervous to do a race. No idea what to expect for my time or how I'd feel. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I haven't totally lost it. Time was 19:55, and I was the first woman. I had to work super hard for it - the 2nd girl, Haley, was on my tail. But my pride wouldn't let her beat me, since she had beat me last Spring at a 5K while she was pregnant. Now she has a 2 month old. So while I've had all summer to train, she's been busy with the infant stuff. So I have absolutely no excuse. And I'm going to have to train much harder to beat her in future races, since she's already THIS good, despite the best excuse in the world. I won some cool stuff - a nice Athleta jacket and hat, $25 gift card (gave all that to Mere, she appreciates it more and had bought my entry), and a free entry to a future race. And chocolates. And they had delicious chicken/tofu/veggie teriyaki bowls after...and I think I took like 6 of them....So overall, very worth driving out to SFCC for this! Oh, and the best benefit - a killer workout.

The next weekend, Oct 1, I did the Colbert Half Marathon. I had actually been planning on this one all year. No reason not to... it starts a mile from my house, costs just $20, and is a beautiful course! I won last year in 1:30, this year in 1:36. They changed the course, so I could blame that....but it's more likely that I was just in better shape last year. Still happily accepted the case of HUGE Honeycrisp apples as my prize! Gave it to Lindsay & parents. The medals were awesome - a 40th year commemoration. Crazy they've been doing it so long! Before half marathons were even popular.  Looking forward to next year! And planning to train better so I'm not SO sore after. My quads/calves/hams were dead for several days.
I've got about 5 races on the calendar for the rest of the year (not actually registered for any, since I tend to procrastinate that)...a 5 mile trail race, a couple 10Ks, 5Ks.  And Snake River half in the Spring to hopefully keep me training all winter! I have a brilliant idea for a Half/full that would be super successful here... the Mt. Spokane Half, going down the canyon from the ski resort. If I had more time/motivation I'd totally jump in and put it on.  But nope! Tryingtryingtrying to keep life simple and focus my energies on my fam. Anyway...ramble over...yay for running :)

How bout them 'tatoes

The weather's turning chilly, so this might be our last tomato harvest unless we get some sunshine!

The highlight of her day...

She came running in the door after school exclaiming, "I bought an invisible pen!!"

Let's pretend 1998 never happened.

While going through the storage room today to trade out the summer clothes for fall clothes and deal with sizing and all those fun issues that come along with having children... I came across my bin of high school stuff. I opened it up, looking for my YW Medallion. Because I would really like to be wearing it on Sundays and at our activities. Set a good example and all that. My stack of journals was in there. I kept a journal pretty consistently starting around age 10, all through college. I don't anymore. This blog has to suffice. But maybe that's a good thing, because I might look back at what I write 10 years later and be horrified? I hope not. But today I really was. My freshman Journal was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Mind-numbingly ridiculous. Wanna slap my 14 year old self ridiculous. Just completely obsessed with boys. Boy drama. Some friend drama. But mostly just Boys Boys Boys. And lots of poor choices. And lots of stupid thinking. Or lack of thinking all together. Wow. I'm now absolutely terrified of having to parent four teenagers. It's obviously a terrible time in life filled with hormones and neurological impairment causing totally irrational behavior. I'm going to immediately start praying that somehow my children are Leaps and Bounds better than I was and I don't have to deal with this. I need to start now coaching them. "Children, repeat after me, 'I will not be a stupid teenager. I will not be a stupid teenager. Got that guys?' Great." After some internal debate, I decided that this journal needed to go bye bye. Ripped it up and put it in the recycle bin. I thank the Lord I somehow made it through that time in life without making any super serious mistakes.