Happy Thanksgiving!

 Happy Thanksgiving! I love this time of year. I love reflecting on my many blessings of the past year.  I have a friend who was emailing a few of us each day with things we were grateful for. It was inspiring to read each woman's grateful thoughts.

One woman was so grateful that her husband had just moved them to a safer rental house, off the busy street where their last house was and that she had a dishwasher this time. I have been so fortunate that Mike & I have always had safe places to live and have always been off busy streets in nice neighborhoods.

I did think deeper after reading her story, because we are all grateful for the same basic things....house, food, clothing, our family, but the reasons we are grateful became more than a quick thought.  As our community and our stake lost a family man through a car accident on a snowy road, the reasons we were so grateful for our families, for our husbands that work so hard to make us happy, became so heartfelt.  I hugged our kids tighter, appreciated my husband more and humbly thanked my Heavenly Father for the blessings I enjoy.

 Don't you just love this kid?  We had Thanksgiving dinner with Jim & Renae and Scott & Kellie's family.  It was the smallest gathering we have had ever, but it was really nice! We enjoyed the calmness of the day (minus the broken glasses-sorry Renae!) and the kids played outside most of the day.  We talked and talked and talked and enjoyed each other's company.

That evening, our family headed to St. George.  It was a nice relaxing weekend, minus the Utes losing their game!  My parents had gone to Bud & Kay's for Thanksgiving, so we visited with them one evening.  Wasn't long before Uncle Bud was teaching the kids rope tricks and playing with their new 'tablet' finding constellations and playing around with google earth!  So much fun! We love them and don't see them near enough. They had gone to Mesquite that day and looked at houses.  My Dad was ready to move, but Mom is saying no.

The kids and I saw a movie while Mike watched the terrible Utah game.  We went to Mesquite for dinner at the seafood buffet.  Quite a relaxing weekend....

Now, I am updated! That took awhile!  Today, I was supposed to go Christmas shopping with Renae, but we are experiencing high winds....and when I say high winds, it's like hurricane scary winds. Mike made it to work ok, and when I tried to go to Salt Lake to meet Renae, I turned around in Centerville because it was the scariest drive I have ever taken!  I have driven in some pretty scary snowstorms, etc, but this was so bad I was crying and praying out loud to make it back home without injury.  I had a tree branch hit my car antenna, almost ran into a power line and felt the pressure change in my ears as I drove along.  I saw about 10 semi-trucks rolled over and there is a restriction for semis that they can't drive until 6pm tonight.  I don't know what they are doing at Mike's work today.  I'm sure they can't move anyone.  Out on the freeway looks like a tornado ripped through. Both Mike & I said we've never seen wind so bad.

So, that gave me the chance to finish blogging and finish putting up Christmas decorations. I'm getting updates via text from Amanda each time she's out of class.  I drove Sydney & Brandon to school today because they didn't want to ride in the 'high-profile' bus. No problem. That is the blessing of being a stay-at-home Mom.  I'm here to make sure our kids feel safe and take care of business at home. Our home is fine, too. I just had to pick up a garbage can and catch the bbq cover.  Thank Heaven!

The Nutcracker!

After many practices, a Mom begging the ballet school to let her kids remain in the performance even though we missed a rehearsal, 30 gifts made (hair bows and chocolate soldiers), a week on ticket committee, among many things I think I probably blocked out, the girls were in their ballet school's performance of The Nutcracker!

 It was hard to get a picture of the girls before they went out to perform. They get dressed just before they go on stage, hats go on only about 1 minute before they leave, so I had to grab them quickly for a photo.  Don't they look cute? They aren't smiling on purpose. First, they are toy soldiers and those don't smile:) and because of the white face make-up, their teeth look yellow....

 Anyway, we were so proud of the girls! They were beautiful dancers and did their parts so well! Sydney was the blue soldier that got to shoot the gun at the mice, so for a moment she was on stage as the only soldier with the mice.  She had to count and then shoot the gun when the orchestra made a gunshot sound.

This night Grandma Arvy and Maddy came up to see the girls. Papa had just had his knee operated on, so he stayed home.  We went to Friday's afterward, like we usually do with the Arvys and it was really fun.  Thank you to all our cute neighbors and friends and family who bought tickets and came to support the girls!  It was a great experience for them and it really is such a great production.  It's always held the week before Thanksgiving, so I was glad for the upcoming holiday for things to slow down a bit!  Great job, girls! We love you!

First snow!

Oops...I posted this one too early.  You will see the rest of Halloween after this post!

First snowstorm of the winter! The younger kids and Max went crazy running around in the backyard. Amanda had to be at ballet, or she would have been out there, too!

 Nothing cuter than the kiddos enjoying the snow! Hot cocoa was in order after they got inside...they just had sneakers and sweatshirts on! Well, I guess Sydney had her 'fashion boots' as she calls them...but they have holes in the bottom! :)

 The new Natural History Museum of the University of Utah was also holding a VIP tour for those companies involving in building and moving everything into the new building.  The building is right up by Red Butte Gardens and is magnificent!  We got invited because Mike's company, Bailey's, did an amazing job at moving all of those very valuable and old items.

 When Mike would tell the employees where he worked, they went on and on and on about how wonderful Baileys has been to work with! As Mike put it, they love those artifacts more than their own families, and were so worried about them being destroyed in the move.

 The dino exhibit is really cool now! All the bones there together in this huge space.

 There are so many interactive displays interesting to both kids and parents!

 One of these moccasins is 800 years old!  We got to go into some of the storage areas that the general public will not be allowed to view.  It's quite amazing.

We were also treated to lunch.  We travelled there in the snow, but it was completely worth it! What a great treasure we have so close to home!