Feeling Thankful

Throughout the day yesterday, my brain kept going back to the same topic--all the wonderful blessings I have of which I'm truly thankful for. If I don't get them recorded this very second, I think my brain will burst! Where to start...

I'm thankful that Reagan got her cast off this morning, that Taylor has a new and permanent teacher finally hired for the year named Ms. Dove, that Will is such a smart and big boy completely potty trained even waking up at 4 in the morning to use the potty instead of wetting in his bed. I seriously have the most beautiful children and I just want to gobble (seems appropriate with it being Thanksgiving and all) them up sometimes! I'm thankful for a husband who never complains about the house being messy but instead rolls up his sleeves and cleans it himself! I'm thankful for a close relationship with my husband as he is my best friend and listens to anything and everything I want to babble about (before his head hits the pillow anyway-haha). I'm thankful for two cars (though not very new) run really well and will take us home for the holidays to visit all my other blessings (our parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins). Speaking of driving to Utah, I'm thankful for low gas prices that continue to fall!

I'm thankful for our new ward and the opportunities we have to meet new friends in our new neighborhood, for a chance at a Girls-Night-Out to see a movie for the first time since living here. So much fun! I'm thankful for cell phones that are not only very convenient and make life so much easier but also have free long distance so I can keep in touch with family, for MyFamily.com that keeps me in better touch with extended family since its inception than it did when I lived in the same town as the same. I'm thankful for a nice home in which to raise my children, for nice weather that requires no more expensive AC nor does it require the heater (not yet anyway!)

I'm thankful for Eric's job and despite hard economic times they are still having a Christmas party and that they picked one of my favorite places, The Melting Pot, to have it at! I'm thankful for the good health in our family and despite all that goes on in this world and the hardships that so many face in this country right now, we are doing just fine. I'm extremely thankful for a knowledge that my Lord and Savior lives and loves me! I'm thankful that I can feel the love of a Father in Heaven when I pray and forgiveness when (everyday) I don't do all that I should or could.

I'm just feeling thankful today and hope this "attitude of gratitude" lasts as it does a lot for feeling happy as well!

Knob Hill

On November 15th we set out yet again to get lost in the dessert surrounding our new home. Our friends the Cobia's told us about Knob Hill where they have camped and played in the past, and after they shared some pictures we knew we need to go and check it out. After the great packing debacle of 2005 when I forgot to pack our tent poles when leaving camp, we haven't really done any tent camping. Maybe someday I'll atone for my sins and get a new tent, but for now we are exploring with day trips.

We packed a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly, something a little more fancy for Cyd, picked Taylor up from the primary program practice, and headed towards Searchlight. Just past mile marker 36 on US95 there is yet another long stretch of high voltage power lines breaking up the desert landscape. Heading east down the utility road (labled powerline road on Google Earth), Taylor was thrilled to be on a roller coast ride, and said the road "tickled her tommy like the Tower of Terror" did at Disney's California Adventure.

After about fifteen minutes the unrelentlessly straight road started winding around rock outcropping such as these.


We soon turned right into a natural playground. The campsite the Cobia's had shared pictures of was occupied by a group of what appeared to be Boy Scouts shooting trap. Otherwise we had the place to ourselves. The kids quickly started running around and finding little "hideouts" as Taylor called them.


Reagan was a little mor cautious to walk under a mutli ton piece of stone precariously resting over her head.


We settled down and enjoyed a nice picnic. Taylor didn't want to tailgate it like the rest of the family, and insisted on sitting atop what looked like a mini arch in the wind.


After lunch we went exploring and climbing. We found a lot of large hideouts, a even scaled up one of the larger boulder piles.


After playing around for a while, we did some more exploring, and I even managed to get the cruiser in a few spots that made Cydnee scream about her precious car. We made it to an amazing vista following what had to be a motorcylce route, and enjoyed a breathtaking view of Lake Mohave and the surrounding desert. We finally found our way out of the desert, having found Taylor's new favorite place to hike, and a long list of places to come back and explore.

I've been tagged!

8 favorite TV shows

The Biggest Loser
American Idol
Home Makeover show
Designed to Sell
Devine Design
Oprah (only half the time)
House Hunter
Anything HGTV really (I love this channel because I don't have to dedicate myself to it)

8 favorite restaurants

Any restaurant where my kids aren't present
Melting Pot (I've only been here once because it is such a splurge!)
Chick-fil-a
Cafe Rio
PF Chang's
Mikado
Ichiban Sushi
Baja Cantina

8 things that happened yesterday

Taught Will's preschool at my house
Laundry
Watched Tuesday's episode of The Biggest Loser (finally)
Took Taylor to dance lessons
Picked up a cooked chicken at Smith's for dinner that night (one of our favorite easy dinners)
Talked to Nikki on the phone
Vegged (didn't exercise today)
Watched ER before bed which I haven't done for literally several years

8 things I'm looking forward to

Having our backyard put in
Getting Reagan's cast off
Seeing my family at Thanksgiving
Our next vacation (possibly seeing a new little nephew in Maryland)
My baby brother getting married someday (maybe sooner than later)
Christmas time
Taylor getting a real teacher at school
Getting rid of the ugly vertical blinds in my kitchen/family room

8 things on my wishlist

To have a beautiful master bedroom IN the master bedroom
To have a great back yard for entertaining
To have a really large savings account for peace of mind
To visit Oregon (have never been there)
For Eric to make his goals this year so we can go on an all expense paid trip
To go hike to Havasupai Falls and helicopter out
A big screen TV would be nice
a cream for crows feet that really works

8 people I'm tagging

Sorry, I'm too lazy (or I've spent enough time on this already) to figure out who hasn't been tagged of all my friends and family.

Valley of Fire

With the great weather we are having, we decided to go do some exploring. We drove an hour east of town to Valley of Fire State Park to check out this red rock mecca for the first time. Our friends Nikki and Lynn and their kids joined us making it that much more fun! We did a really short little hike exploring Petroglyphs Canyon and seeing Mouses Tank. The kids loved playing in the sand and climbing on the rocks. We also went to the visitor center to check out our options for next time we come to explore. We wished we were camping when we saw the fun campgrounds surrounded in the outcroppings of the red rock. Maybe next time!

Three Witches and a Ghost

We had so much fun trick-or-treating this year because it was such nice weather. 78 degrees to be exact! I had to cut the sleeves off of Reagan's costume to accommodate her cast and it was more than comfortable outside for her little bare arms. Neighbors passing out candy sat on their front porches enjoying the weather as well. The kids did more trick-or-treating this year than ever before. We suffered through the heat of the summer and now we are being rewarded with some really fantastic weather.

Reagan's Fall from ... Well ... The Chair ... I think ....

Little Reagan has been climbing on top of everything. And I mean everything. Tables, chairs, computers, couches, speakers, beds; you think of it, and she's climbing on it. Last Friday evening (October 24) Reagan kept climbing on the chairs in the office while Taylor and Will played on the computer. After watching her for about five minutes to make sure she had given up on climbing on the chair after her first fall of the evening, I walked out of the office into the loft. It was not more than twenty seconds later I heard a thud come from the office.

I ran back to the office wondering how I could have been duped by something so small and cute. Taylor and Will had not missed a beat playing playing on the computer. Reagan lay sprawled face down on the floor, a slight whimper slowly leaking out. When asked what happened, Will completely ignored me while Taylor shrugged and then said, "Reagan fell." Well, duh.

It was time for bed, and this crying child had obviously has enough for one night. After all, if she were really hurt she would actually break out into a real cry rather than her "I'm too tired to live another minute" whining. I took Reagan into her room to put her pajamas on.

After the nightly struggle to put pajamas on a baby who knows this is her last chance to stay up, I realized Reagan was not moving her left arm. This was not normal. I tried to get her to move either arm, and finally she started moving her right arm around, but only to poke at her left arm. This was a little strange, especially since she had not given up her vocal fight against her pending crib incarceration.

I called Cyd and asked her to cut her evening shopping ritual short so we could take Reagan to the doctor. She reluctantly came home, while I found someone to what the other rug rats. Our wonderful neighbor Kerry obliged.

Since the urgent care place, much to my chagrin, was no longer open at the late hour of 9pm in this 24 hour town, we headed to the emergency room to add financial pain and misery to our family's ailments. By the time we got in Reagan was just happy to play with us and laugh, until the doctor got his hands on her arm. There was the cry that I had been waiting for, the cry of pain. Good thing that only lasted a few seconds. Then we got some really cool x-rays.


Well, I guess there was no question the bone was broken. Both of them actually. We made the doctor show us the x-rays since Reagan couldn't stop laughing at games such a patty-cake, peek-a-boo, and give-me-five. The evidence was hard to argue, especially after the suspicious look I got from the doctor when I asked if this was really Reagan's x-ray.

Then Ariel came and back in with a temporary cast. Reagan was already weary of Ariel because he tried to touch her arm when we first came in. Now he had a big bucket of water and some strange medical stuff. Then Reagan broke down as I turned her over to this strange man and his assistant. They molded a temporary cast on her arm, and wrapped it. Reagan couldn't be happier.


Our little angel still had a grand time playing with all her toys and getting into trouble.


After a wonderful weekend that Reagan used to learn how to get into just as much trouble with a broken arm as she was before. You'd think nothing had ever happened. The only thing getting in her little way was a sling. But not for long.

Monday morning Reagan and I went to see the Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon. That is a lot of words for very, very expensive. After questioning me in several different ways about how Reagan got this "very, very severe" broken arm, he cast Reagan's arm in a permanent cast. I got to pick the beautiful purple color.


Of course I was trying to get a picture of Reagan's cast, but since Cydnee feels bad that I cut off most of her face, I should publicly apologize. And since my loving sister has publicly decried my babysitting skills, perhaps Cyd will have to find something else to do in the evenings besides shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Vacation in So. California

We had so much fun last week! I love to travel and go on vacation and this was the first week long trip we've done in a while. It was also really fun to do it with all my sisters and their families as well as my parents. We didn't try to stick together at the amusement parks as that would have been impossible with everyone's different potty schedules! Not to mention the different age groups involved. Nevertheless, we did find ourselves hanging out with at least one of the families most of the time. That made it more fun for my kids to be able to ride the rides with their cousins.

We stayed in Anaheim Sunday-Thursday and Oceanside Thursday-Sunday. We went to Disneyland (and California Adventures) on Monday, Tuesday; Universal Studios on Wednesday, Disneyland again on Thursday and Sea World on Friday. Saturday we went to the beach and just relaxed for the day. We had planned on going to the San Diego Zoo but we just got too burned out. Now we have another excuse to go back to So. Cal. Its so close there is no reason we can't go down just for a weekend getaway.



Taylor and Will anticipating their first ride on the "Finding Nemo" submarines.






Reagan having lunch. We bought about 3 of these turkey legs to feed our family one day. They were yummy!































































































































On Tuesday while in California Adventures, we ate lunch at Ariel's Ghrotto and got to meet a bunch of the Disney princesses. Mary's family and Nana and Papa joined us. I love the picture of Will with Ariel because while all the girls are smiling for the picture, he can't keep his eyes off of Ariel. He was totally smitten! Will's favorite ride was the train and his least favorite was Monsters Inc.. He is afraid of the movie so I knew he might have a problem with the ride but being the mean mom I am I made him go on it anyway. Taylor's favorite was the Peter Pan ride. Taylor was very brave and went on all the ride's she was tall enough for including Tower of Terror twice! Will fell just under 40 inches so wasn't able to do many of the older kid rides unlike his best buddy and cousin Kyle who did make the 40 inch mark for a lot of the rides. He wasn't in the first picture with Mickey because he was a little afraid of the big mouse but by the third day when we went to Mickey's house, he was all smiles and more than happy to give Mickey a hug and pose for a picture. It was the sweetest thing to watch him go in for the hug with Mickey. My kids both really enjoyed exploring all of Toon Town.

Universal Studios had some things for kids including the Curious George playground. We enjoyed this part of our trip mainly because we got to hang out more with the Murphy family. Some of the other families took a break on this day. We took the back lot tour of Universal and though I really enjoyed it and thought it fun and interesting, my kids were a little apprehensive and we had to keep telling them that everything was pretend. We were able to ride a couple of big kid rides due to the fact the Universal has great switch off plans for families and the lines were non- existent.

Reagan did really well considering she didn't get any good naps in most of the week. She wasn't much for the rides but did enjoy all that their is to look at in the magical kingdom and just hanging out with Mommy and Daddy in general.

We learned some things about Disneyland and their inability to keep their posted hours and that was a little frustrating when we arrived at Disney our first day geared up and ready to go only to find out we were there a couple of hours early! But it didn't ruin our trip and we really had such a fun time.

One thing that is really nice about living in Las Vegas, is that we are a lot closer to the beach and all the fun things of So California so we hope to go back many more times while living here. Let us know when you go and we might just go with you!