Gratitude emails

My cute friend, Elise, is the keeper of the gratitude emails.  She has asked a few of her close friends, some local, some far away, some she has had for years, others of us a short time in comparison.  Each day, she collects one thing we are grateful for during the month of November.  Then, she compiles, makes us anonymous and sends the results back to all of us so we may share in each other's blessings.

I wanted to share what I wrote to her today.  I ran to Salt Lake to pick up some family pictures we just had taken with Mike's family.  We haven't had our own little family picture professionally taken since the last time my family had a portrait done....Brandon was maybe 2?

After I grabbed the photos, I drove around my old stomping grounds for a minute.  I had seen a big crash on the northbound freeway and wanted to avoid it on the way back home.  So, as I winded my way through the streets of Holladay, I found myself close to my Grandma & Grandpa Gibson's former home.

I figured I had time and pulled into their neighborhood.  Funny how when you are no longer a child,  everything that was once big seems so much smaller.  The houses, the streets, the yard of my grandparent's home that I used to spend summers in mowing their lawn.  It seemed so much bigger when I was 12!

I am feeling sentimental today, so my email to Elise was longer than I have written this month.  Don't get my wrong...I send her things that I am grateful for, but in an abbreviated fashion.  For example, 'Terry's Chocolate Oranges, the Utes, Email, etc to keep in touch with loved ones, doing homework with my son, playing the piano with my teenager, Sydney's made up songs'  That sort of thing.  I guess I wanted our kids to hear some of these memories of my heart and have them written down so they won't fade like the stories Grandma was telling me at the kitchen table as we had spam sandwiches.  The only thing I can remember is that her friend's dad used to call her Windy instead of Wanda.  Tragic that I didn't record these conversations.  This must be part of my penitence.  Enjoy.

"Like someone said before I am grateful for my grandmother...and all my grandparents. I had the chance to drive by one grandparent's former home today.  I don't get in that neighborhood hardly ever, and I just sat parked in front of their house remembering all the great times we had with them.  I was remembering the Christmas celebrations where my cousins, siblings and I would 'put on a show' for the adults and we would all munch on the wonderful goodies their Greek neighbors would bring by. I remember the year we drove to SLC from Washington in a HUGE blizzard to get home for Christmas.  When we arrived and were shuffled off to bed in the blue bedroom, my brother, Danny and I kept hearing 'Santa's sleigh bells' and would jump up and look out the window.  I remember sitting on their back patio in the summertime 'having a coke' and a chat.  And remember mowing their lawn for them for $20. It seemed like a lot more lawn when I was 12!  Now I see they were super generous in paying me $20 to mow that small beautiful yard with its overflowing petunia gardens.  My grandma used to have me over for lunch once a week when the office I was working at was close to her home.  She'd fix me deviled ham or spam sandwiches (I ate them so I wouldn't hurt her feelings) and tomato soup and always gave me a vitamin.  I would get as many stories from her youth as she could tell me in an hour.  I loved every minute of that one-on-one time with her.   I'm feeling so sentimental today about my grandparents.  I'm grateful for my parents and in-laws that have great relationships and fun traditions with our kids, too.  Maybe someday they'll write a long, sappy note about the times they spent with their grandparents :)"

Thankful

I am so in love with my fireplace this year.  Every time I look at it I feel peaceful.

I don't know why.....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Camera Phone Dump

Time to dump!

 And time to jump! Here are the kids at Get Air, a trampoline park close to our house. I think this was Martin Luther King Day 2012. We got their super early and had the whole place to ourselves!

 Love this photo of Amanda and her friends soccer feet

 This is Amanda's first soccer practice with her new coach, Melvin Marius. It was POURING rain. We were trying to wait it out and the girls got bored and went out to practice.  That was impressive to this new coach!

One of Brandon's only flag football games before he broke his leg.

 A fun trip to Cowabunga Bay with Kellie & her kids.

 Great little water park!

 Oh, poor B in the instacare after it was determined he broke his leg. Not happy.

I had a piano recital in September. Two sessions.  The kids all did so great!

 Had to go to Camp Kiessel with the activity day girls.  It was fun to be there with Sydney. Not so fun to spend a day at the camp. This is after the canoes. That was the best rotation of the day.

 I took Amanda and Maddy to Cafe Rio one afternoon after one of their marathon dance days.

And the tag alongs!

 Amanda's beautiful smile right after she got her braces off!

B & Sydney at the Jazz game in a suite. Thanks Baileys!

Beautiful view from the last seats in the stadium for the USC game. We had a great time with Jim & Renae who got the free tickets from a friend.  Even though the seats were not so great, it was a fun game!

Halloween 2012

Drama is a good word to describe our Halloween day for 2012.

 We had a good day.  I taught a group piano lesson and it worked well.

 I started making dinner. Mummy hot dogs and loaded nachos.  Then both girls had friends over. 

 I guess long gone are the days when we get to have just our kids on Halloween. I even tried to get Sydney's friends to leave and have her meet them later, but after Amanda showed up with her friends, it was over.

 So, I fed Amanda, Ally and Reggie and offered food to Sydney's friends who politely declined. 

 Sydney and her friends were meeting up with some boys and she wanted to leave. I told her I wanted pictures of my kids.  She had a meltdown.  The pictures above are me, Amanda and B waiting for Sydney outside.  Sydney was changing into her costume and Mike was encouraging her to come outside for a picture. Then, we took too long (spraying Amanda's hair blue) and she melted down again.

 So, then I had to threaten her that she wouldn't trick or treat unless I get a picture. So, she changed back into her Elmo costume and we got these pictures.  Aren't they awesome?

 Then she was gone....changing into her 'street' clothes so she could go find her friends before they went to get (back) into their costumes.  

 But the other two are always up for a photo shoot!

 I drove Sydney over to meet her friends and after some prodding, she got out of the car and met up with them. We saw her later that night and she was having a blast. The previous drama over.  Konnor is the latest boy to make her heartbeat and she brought him by to meet us and Max.  After she got home, her friend, Addy, started drama by saying that she was so upset that Konnor loves Sydney and not her (Addy).  Oh my GIRLS! We had a nice talk about friends and how they should be supportive.

 These are Amanda's friends who were hanging out with us on Halloween.  Here is Amanda's drama.  She how she is Thing 1? Well, there is a Thing 2, Thing 3, and Thing 4 running around without her.  They wouldn't answer texts, phone calls....even when Amanda went to one of their houses to ask them if they were all going together, they ignored her (this happened last year, too).  So, she went with these nice kiddos.  We made Reggie put on a costume because he came with a byu shirt on.....bad.

They all went out for awhile and then ended up back at our house to watch a  movie until 9pm.  There were also a few more boys that joined the group including Jake E and Ben R and someone else I don't know.  The kids in the picture are Randy, some kid I don't know, Carson, Ally, Erynn, Mary, Amanda and Reggie.

Mike & Brandon went together starting out with Brandon's friends.  Brandon had a hard time keeping up with the boys that were running since he's still limping, so soon it was just Mike & B.  Mike said Brandon was just fine hanging out with his Dad on Halloween. I mentioned to Mike to enjoy that because it won't last unfortunately.  They did quite a bit of the neighborhood before they came back home and Brandon took over handing out the candy.  We ran out. I don't know how many pieces I had, but probably around 800.

There was a really good spook alley down the street put on by the Cheneys who gave all the $ to charity.  The Wilsons house was fabulous and they had added quite a few full sized monsters in their yard this year.  The Elliotts house was Harry Potter.  I heard the Hennenbergers did a swamp in their garage this year and handed out scones.  Mike is inspired to do something cool to give us an 'anchor' house down at this end of the street.  I did have a few people ask where our root beer was this year.  We'll have to do it again next year when there isn't so much drama!

I'm taking down all the Halloween decor right now and moving on to the season of Thankfulness!