Prayers

I love listening to my kids now that they have learned to pray all by themselves. At dinner last night Trinity asked a special blessing for Dad, "to not get his toes black at work". The last time he had drill they did a 6 mile ruck march (which means they went hiking with a HUGE bag of all their stuff strappon their backs) and earned a few nasty blood blisters on his toes that turned really dark. He is at drill again this weekend & I see that she is very concerned for his feet! :) She also includes in almost every prayer, "we love everyone", and peeks quickly to reprimand anyone who isn't sitting with eyes closed and arms folded.

Tonight at dinner Brinley said something in her prayer like, "please help us not to be sad because we miss our friends, and please help our friends not to be sad when they think of us and miss us so much because we moved so far away." (this move has been a lot harder on her than I expected. She talks about "our friends" almost EVERY day) she continues with, "Please help Grayden to stop hitting us," (I peeked at this point to see if her eyes were still closed, and found her with her arms folded, raised up to her for-head staring at Grayden. She continued), "help everyone to keep their arms folded, and be quiet when someone else is saying the prayer." (This whole time Grayden has his eyes open, but squinted, as he pushes his plastic bowl to his face flattening his nose and lips for anyone else, who happens to be peaking, to see) Near the end she says, "we bless the food again" (making it a total of 3 blessings on the food for this prayer) and ends quickly looking to me for praise on her fantastic prayer.

Which I happily gave.

P.S. Grayden's version of saying the prayer is as follows:

"Dear Henly Fader, dank-ful dis day. Bess a food... Je-us K-I-st........AMEN!" (most of the time he tries to sneak a bite of food or a drink in while he is saying his very long prayer)

I am so lucky

It's so hard to say Goodbye

Leaving Denver was so much harder than I had ever imagined it would be. Leaving the people I met there was harder than leaving my own flesh and blood when we moved from UT. (OK, that sounds bad so I'll explain) Leaving family is hard and sad, but they are family, I KNOW I will see them again in the future. Leaving friends who became as important in my life as your family is was near depressing. There is no assurance that I will ever see many of these people again, and saying goodbye to them after church on the Sunday we left brought many tears. (Just like I was afraid of!) To all my Denver friends: I miss you so much! As I meet new people here I can't help but think to myself, "there is no way I will like them as much as my other friends". You have all made me a potential friend-finding snob! :)

*There were no tears shed on the men's side of goodbyes, but I know that the friendships Matt made while there are also missed.

Awesome Give Away!!

Check out this blog http://shanty2chic.blogspot.com/ for an awesome give away! I SOOO want one of these babies!!!

We Have an Address People!

We pretty much left Denver with just faith and a prayer (well, and a giant 26ft Penske truck!) that we would be able to find somewhere to live once we reached Kansas. There seemed to be more than a few things that wanted to get in the way of us having a smooth transition. We knew right from the start that we would be doing a DITY move (Do IT Yourself) rather than have the military move us. (I don't like the idea of strangers packing & moving all my stuff, and the money that they give us is also a very nice incentive!) So we were working on a time line to get the moving truck returned or face paying $100.00 extra each day past our promised return date.

We had been looking at places on the Internet a few weeks before-hand, but couldn't seem to find one that was good enough. We had also found that there was one home available on base and the only picture they claimed to have was one of the front of the house. I didn't want to get into some crusty old dump & the only info we had on it was that it was built in the 50's, had 4 bedrooms, & hardwood floors. I don't think of myself as a pessimist, but rather an "overly pre-pared for the worst-imist" So of course all I could picture was the worst :)

When we got there Matt and I left the kids at a nearby park with my parents while we went to check out the house. I was super nervous & got even more worried when we walked up to a house that was completely different than the one in the picture that I had been sent! Luckily it turned out to be a perfect fit for us. The house had been renovated in 2003, has nice hardwood floors throughout, a fully fenced backyard with a mature tree, a 650 sq foot basement (no tornado riding for us), and makes Matt's commute to work only about 5 minutes. ....deep breath....followed by...huge sigh of relief!

I haven't taken pics of the inside yet (I will when we get everything unpacked & in its place), but I did take pics of Brinley & Grayden enjoying the back yard. A picture of the front of the house will also have to wait until we get rid of the huge pile of empty boxes that are currently giving all the neighbors a great first impression of us as "white trash" :)

The look on Grayden's face pretty much sums up how excited the whole fam is to be in a HOUSE! Here is our nice big tree! I love opening the windows and hearing the dry leaves crunching in the wind!

Before we moved Brinley asked me if we could live in a house that had a backyard. That way she could have a garden "to plant vegetables in". I was so excited to see that her dream can become a reality (even if it ends up being a pretend garden).

I am so spoiled & now have my mail delivered to my doorstep. I don't even have to go outside!

We have this funky little tree in our front yard & I am falling in love with how unique it is. I am already planning the pics I can take of the kids sitting in its bizarre bendy branches. (It totally reminds me of the little Bonsai trees)

This is the view from our front door step. There are two baseball diamonds, a tennis court, & a small "tot lot" (that is what all the playgrounds on base are called & there are tons of them!).

The speed limit in the entire base housing is 15mph & the radar is just outside of our house. I am so glad I don't have to worry about crazy speed demons on our streets!

After I had taken the pics out front I went to check on the kids and found Grayden with no shoes or socks. I told him to put them back on or he would have to come in the house. His reaction was one of a typical 2 yr old in desperate need of a nap.

He caved & decided to pick up the abandoned clothing and come in the house.

Look at that sad face!

Halloween 2010

As usual I had such great plans for our family's costumes this year. However, after having a baby mid August, a B-Day girl on the 28th of Oct to plan for, and preparing to move the week after Halloween I had to make some adjustments and let a few of my finishing touches slide. My original plan was to have our gang dress up as follows:

Toy Story Gang
Matt, Pasynne, & Myself= 3 eyed aliens (ooohh!)
Trinity=Woody
Brinley=Jesse
Grayden=Buzz

As the big day grew closer and closer I decided to take the easy way out & changed Matt, Pasynne, & my own costumes.

The older kids still went as planned (minus the finishing touches I mentioned before); Woody, Jesse, & Buzz. (Grayden had just woken up from a late nap and was so ornery!) Matt and I simply wore signs and went as "Andy's Mom" and "Andy", but our little Pasynne was in full costume as "Wheezy" the squeaky penguin who lost it's squeaker. (Yes, Grayden was still in a foul mood, and he refused to wear his purple hat without the cool buzz visor/glasses!) We went to our Ward's Halloween Party/Trunk or Treat & people were amazed at how different Trinity looked in "full make-up" Here are a few of the other (but not all :( I didn't manage to get a pic of every one's) great costumes that night:

McKay, Lindsey, & Lily as Wolverine, Hippie GF, & Ladybug. Amy, Austin, & Jeff as Eve, Plant, & Wall-e.The Chapman Family: the cast of Bolt (one of my all time fav movies)I got a tiny bit of your striped leggings Jess!!The Barrus Family: Characters from Disney's Imagination Movers Smitty, Nina, & Warehouse Mouse (Chelsea's husband could be Smitty's Twin-the resemblance was un-Canny!) Carissa and Jeff: Servant Patsy & Aurthur from Monty Python & the Holy Grail
"...It is I, Arthur,...And this my trusty servant Patsy. We have ridden the length and breadth of the land..."
Guard: "...ridden... You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em together."

I was laughing so hard at these two because not many people knew who they were & they just kept running through the cultural hall clapping the coconuts! AH...thank you Liz for having such hilarious family! :

The Wanberg Family (minus a very sick Daddy :( ): Dr. Seuss Characters SO creative!The Guercio Family: Super Woman, Skunk & Pest Control (hehe), Spidey Man, & Cinderella (I was hating Monae for looking so great in her costume!) :)The party had a few games & prizes that the kids definitely enjoyed! Grayden was happy running the full length of the basketball court over and over, but stopped long enough to toss a few bean bags and get a prize."Jesse" was very proud of the Witch Ring she won at the bean bag toss."Woody" loved that the Bobbing for Doughnuts game was a prize in itself!The Trunk or Treat/Car Decorating was a hit as always, but the kids weren't so sure they wanted to stick their arms into the mouth of this smoke breathing beast-even if it did get them another piece of candy!There was even a Storm Trooper & "Buzz" was mesmerized by his altered voice as he commented on how great Trinity's Woody costume was.

Trinity: Woody

(She was pretty shy from all the attention she got, but secretly adored every minute of it! I was worried the brown face paint wouldn't come out of her hair too well, but a little soak in the tub did the trick! We just had to get the huge brown ring around the tub cleaned off!)Brinley: Jesse

(she was done & had ripped her wig and hat off refusing to pose for anymore pics. I was pretty mad considering how much work I had put into making her wig, but I settled for a "body shot" and told myself to be grateful that she wore the wig as long as she did. I sometimes for get that she is only 4!)Grayden: Buzz Lightyear

(He started the evening in a bad mood, but came out of it long enough to fill his bucket with candy. The minute we got home he was out of his costume and in bed. Luckily I took this pic of him 5 months ago when he got the costume for his B-Day. Thanks Aunt Kim!)Pasynne: Wheezy

(she was the perfect baby all night-as usual-and decided to have a minor blow out just before we went home. No biggie...the extra trip back into the building to get a clean diaper scored us a box of doughnuts left over from the games!!)

It is always weird when Halloween falls on a Sunday & if we were in Utah it would have been no big deal to Trick or Treat on Saturday night. However, we might have gotten a few weird looks if we had tried it in Denver :( Thank goodness for Trunk or Treats-Hope your Halloween was fun!