week in review

saturday

last week was super saturday and i had no responsibilities in planning this year, so i was able to go and just enjoy. yay! i invited my friend beth from the pta and she said yes, so yay again! it was so fun to go with her and get to know her better. :) we made these cute burlap wreaths that i cannot wait to put upon the day after thanksgiving.

it was a fun day of ladies and crafts and delicious soups and laura's yummo cinnamon rolls.

while we were there, matt took the little ladies to the beach. it was cold, but they had a great time. and i had several hours to work in peace, which was good because i had about 6 hours of my google job to do.

i love this.

addie is still enjoying piano, which i am so thankful for. a few years ago i heard a talk by julie b. beck that explained her philosophy on children learning instruments. she felt that because we no longer live on farms (most of us) and our children don't have all those difficult chores, that learning an instrument should be like a chore, and one they can earn money at doing. addie wanted to buy a yoyo this week, and was able to with her own money because of how hard she's been working at piano. she generally has a really good attitude about practicing and johnna said she was so impressed with her progress this week that it made her day. happy mama!

chris tried out for indoor track on saturday too. he did really well and seems excited about running. that made me happy because he totally didn't want to try out after he found out that several other friends weren't trying out after all. he came in top 10 for the 200 and 400, and top 16 (can you guess his spot?) for the 1600. hoping for a good and happy season!

sunday

sunday morning mom heels and dancing to dads guitar playing.

good times. :)

 

nothing notable about sunday. church was good, we made pecan bars for dessert, and enjoyed another week of 1 church.

monday

b-to-the-usy.

that morning i worked, couponed, got addie to school, and then took my little buddies to target. all before 9:00.

we were on a mission to get autumns birthday gift bought and in the mail, get things for missionary dinner, and pick up several other necessities (like nighttime pullups). target is a little slice of heaven. :)

of course, the day that we had several errands to run was also the day that it poured down rain all day. quick break at the post office for cute pictures.

i love my little buddies. :) and i am absolutely in love with laney's face here. gahhh, my baby!!!

they love each other. :)

we managed to get everything done and enjoyed an authentically yummy mexican dinner with the missionaries. i am also happy to report that on a scale of 1-10 the girls craziness level while the elders were over went down to about a 4. the last few weeks (they've been giving our family practice lessons) have been about 8-10 on that scale, so this was a marked improvement.

not pictured: christian's first day of track practice. in the rain. and cold. he was thrilled.

tuesday

gymnastics day, hooray!

we love our coach casey, she is so patient and fun. :)

forward roll on the beam, we are getting professional up in here!

working on it...

adorbs.

i'm giving that a 10. 

ps - i hate the new gymnastics scoring. why mess with a good thing?!

after gymnastics my little buddies and i performed operation-go-so-fast in which we hit the commissary and finished in less than 30 minutes. and because we'd made it a fun operation (and bribed) it was also enjoyable. laney ran in singing "operation-go-so-fast, operation-go-so-fast!" it was sweet. :) then we really pushed our luck and hit michaels for activity days supplies. i did end up dropping frankie off late to school, but she's been on time for like, 3 weeks straight, so we really were due.

addie had piano on tuesday, chris had track, and i took dinner to a neighbor who's mom passed away. i've communicated with her through fb for a few years, and when harvey passed away she gave me a nice packet to take to tom and bonnie because she runs a grief support organization that she started after she lost her daughter to trisomy 13. i just felt so bad that she's been through so much and wanted to help. i'm really glad i finally got to meet her. i find that my go-to way to show love to people is food, go figure. i give what i would like. :) after we'd all made it home, we did a quick whole house blitz in preparation for wednesday's shower. it was so awesome to have so much help. the house was pretty tidy to begin with, but definitely not party ready. i love our quick family blitzs!

wednesday 

beth's shower!
 beth is one of tracie's (non-mormon) friends that i've seen a lot of lately at church events. she's getting ready to have her 8th baby and just seemed like such a sweet and humble lady. i texted tracie the other day to ask if she'd like to help me throw a shower for her, she said yes, and bam!

i think she had a good time. :)

i do love me some shower food.

we had such a nice time visiting and tracie is the perfect co-host. when she left the house was as clean as it was when she arrived. it was pretty amazing. :)

after the ladies left i took an hour long nap before the girls got home from school. it felt like i had been cooking forever and my fingers were sore from dish washing. i could never be like laura, all the time baking!

we had activity days that night, and i offered to bring these cute pilgrim cookies i found on pinterest. i wanted to do something cute, but also super easy. voila!

 
the girls and matt had fun putting them together.

of course, they kind of do the whole "make one, eat one" method.

at daisies that night they made a compost pile. we got there to pick addie up a few mintues early (so we could rush to activity days/scouts at church) and they talked about all the things that had been brought for their compost pile, and addie was proud to have contributed. i love when i actually remember to send the kids with asked for supplies, especially since i forget sometimes. and i love that addie always has the best face of the group. also, on an unrelated note, we need to work with her on writing out her whole name because she's been writing "addieson" on her school pages lately. oh, the trials of having a nickname.

chris volunteered to work at chicfila for the track fundraiser on wednesday, so he was looking for some school spirit stuff to wear. he contemplated wearing lexi's letterman jacket, but we decided it was just a tad too small. i sent her this picture and she responded "WHERE DID YOU FIND THAT?" the coat closet, dear one, it's amazing what you can find in there. ;)

 

after a. days, a group of lovely lay-days met up at applebees for desserts, or, if you are christina and i, half-price appetizers. we talked relationships, child rearing, love languages, it was great. i know i am so blessed to have such a wonderful, non-judgemental, happy group of girlfriends. we have a good thing going and i am so thankful for them!

thursday
mismatch day for march of dimes. yes, those are leopard pants to go along with her awesome leopard coat.

and the whole ensemble.

thursday was a nice low key day after the 3 very busy days earlier in the week. it was my turn to host kid swap, so ellie came over, and because i like to maximize each day, i invited rosie over too. they played really nicely together and it was a good day. i didn't get a lot done, but that's the way some days go. a little here, a little there.

and yes. how are people ever bored?

 

that night a group of us went to see mockingjay. i've been so bad about pictures lately, i didn't even think about taking pictures of kid swap day or the movie until just now. gotta do mo' bettah at that. alecia, shelly, kassie, darlaina, asa, ainsley, chris, and i went to the 11:00 showing and loved it! it was edge of your seat excitement, which is silly because i've read the books and know what happened, but it was just so good. and i love going to the movies, so it was a fun and late night.

friday
temple day! alecia came over at 11 to watch the girls, and matt and i hit the road. we were able to do some family sealings and then the 2:00 endowment session. then we hit ikea to look for a craft table for the girls santa christmas gift. we were famished, so the first stop was for some swedish meatballs and pumpkin cheesecake. we sent this one to uncle tom and he replied with "i'm all bout them meatballs, dawg." i wish he'd transfer to this ikea. it would be so nice to have family closer.

earlier in the day, on our 2 hour drive to the temple, i had been texting darlaina and told her we were headed to the temple and she asked if we were with laura. we weren't, and didn't know we had missed them. then while we were eating, laura texted me a cute pic of laney and i told her where we were. she was like, "we just passed ikea! we're turning around!" then the 4 of us proceeded to spend 4 hours closing ikea down. it was so fun. we sat at this comfy display table for a little while, enjoying the scenery and visiting. i spied some "dryck julmust" and saw a photo op.

 
we had fun and now we are a few steps closer to buying some christmas presents. :)

 

Saturday
today was our turn to watch the darrows so they could go to the temple. sarah had texted last night and said target was having a fun frozen event, so matt and i decided to load up the jolly green giant and go. we were almost out of dishwasher detergent and thought it would be fun for the kiddos. laney was up several times last night, so she woke up late and then kept saying "i'm not awake yet!" she's very dr jekyll/mr hyde'ish lately. she finally deigned to be "awake" for us, but still wouldn't get dressed till we got to target. such a little bratty!

we had a whole lot of princesses! and a curtis. :)
he was a total good sport though! when we were getting the girls all princessed up i told him that he could wear the aina's antlers and be sven. he thought about that for a minute and then asked if he could also wear our pilot costume. but of course!

we had emma in the front of the cart, matt carried dr jekyll, and the other 4 were standing on the 4 sides of the cart. we got lots of looks and a few "are they all yours?" and "aren't they all beautiful princesses!" i totally don't mind those comments. i actually like that people are curious and willing to ask questions. if my life had gone as planned, i would have had a cart very similar to the one i was pushing today. but life doesn't usually go as planned, and instead i had to wait 10 years between #2 and #3. i've got a pretty darn good life now, though, so i'm totally not complaining, i just always wanted a whole house full of littles, not really a house full of 1/2 bigs and 1/2 littles. also, i think that people that comment on how many kids i've got (or how pregnant i am/was, etc) are pretty well meaning. judgey people probably wouldn't lower themselves to even ask questions, so that's another reason i don't mind. anywho. :)

we can't hit up target without their fantastic popcorn, so there ya have it!

mr hyde wouldn't look, wouldn't look, then shot me a dirty look with eyebrows all furrowed, then wouldn't look again. she was actually really good at target, she's just a turkey when it comes to pictures lately. i wonder why...

i had to put in 6 hours of work today. :/ chris went to brenna's tournament with her family. he said the temp was 19° and with the windchill it felt like 10°. yuck! she won her games and he came home tired and happy. and still looking for a job. :/ the kids all played together nicely and it was altogether a good day and a good week. :)