Thanksgiving, continued.

I love this time of year, where holidays are stretched out, we get to see lots of family, and eat lots of delicious food.

The kids have had this whole week off school, and Joe took the week off work. It was like heaven. We played and worked and cleaned and shopped and ate and played some more.

Tuesday, we kept hearing on the news that the Big One was coming. They were calling it Blizzard 2010. Lots of hype, lots of preparation, lots of hullaballoo. Schools and businesses and freeways were closed. Because of this, my Mom and Dad stayed the night. They are living in Midway right now and were afraid the roads would be closed…since my dad was performing my nephew’s wedding on Wednesday morning, they decided to stay here and not risk being stuck on the mountain.

We had dinner together, then watched “A Christmas Carol” with Jim Carrey. I think we’ll be adding that one to the library, it was so good!

The snow started to fall with a vengeance, but it was actually not as bad as the storm we had on Saturday. No matter, it was a good reason to be together.

Wednesday morning, we left most of the kids with our sitters and took Annie downtown to the Salt Lake Temple. My nieces watched her as Joe and I attended the wedding of Brian and Sarah. My dad performed the ceremony and I couldn’t get over how lucky I felt to be able to watch my dad use his authority to create a new family in the house of the Lord. I was touched by the power of marriage and of it’s part in God’s plan. The family unit is central to our existence on earth and marriage is so sacred and valuable. I wish with all my heart that the world would understand marriage the way that it is intended to be. For time and all eternity. Husband and wife. Selfless and giving and rewarding. It was a good day.

Thursday, we cooked our ham and yams and headed down to Orem to Cheryl’s house. We saw Dad, Mom, Kevin, Lorchin, Jessica, Camille, Cheryl, Jon, Jake, J’Nell, Maddie, Connor, Kristi, Anthony, Sami, Brad, Emily, and Tanner. I love my family so much! We missed those who weren’t there! We ate and talked and laughed, oh, how we laughed!!

The kids played together all day and Tanner was trying to get to know Annie :) Yummy desserts… Gracious hosts… Fun cousins… Grandma and Grandpa time…And Doctors Pulsipher took some time to adjust any willing participants. Yeeouch, that hurts so good! Thanks Kev! “What are you doing to my mom???” I love my family! Have I said that yet? I got a kick out this sign hanging up at Cheryl’s house. So true. Gorgeous day, gorgeous drive home. I’m thankful for the mountains. We stopped by to say hello to Grandma and Grandpa Heugly and Justin…and to have some more dessert of course. Annie loves Justin. He is the baby whisperer, I’ve never seen a baby that doesn’t adore him. A little playing and sleeping and our Thanksgiving was complete. I have so much to be grateful for! Happy Thanksgiving week everybody!

Eagles and Roomies and Beau, oh my!

Sunday, we went to the first-ever-Heugly Eagle Scout Court of Honor. Andrew, we are so proud of you! What a great example you are to your cousins. We love you so much! Christian also got his tenderfoot that night. We are proud of our handsome nephews! Monday, I met two of my former BYU roommates for lunch. Erika was in town from California, so Jules and I met her at Cafe Rio for a fun lunch of catching up after (gulp) twelve years. I met Erika when we were randomly assigned to the same room at Heritage Halls our freshman year. We were meant to be roomies, so we lived together for two years after that. She was even one of my bridesmaids. Then life took it’s course and we haven’t seen each other since, until today. I’ve known Jules since I was five. We stay in touch, our kids are friends, and I count her as one of my dearest friends to this day. It was a fantastic lunch where the friendships picked up right where they left off. I love these ladies and I’m grateful for such wonderful, strong women in my life! Now, we just need to get Dana, Julie, and Kristen for a complete reunion! :) And Beau, is, well, just being Beau. He wanted to be like Mom I guess. Yeah, that’s mascara. It really brings out his eyes, don’tcha think?

Early Thanksgiving…

We can hardly wait!This year, the Heugly side decided to Thanksgiving on the Saturday before the real deal. This was perfect because it was 1) Mark and Sue’s 41st wedding anniversary and 2) Sue celebrated her anniversary by making ALL the food (it was fabulous and abundant) and 3) We were able to spend the day with our Heugly loved ones.

There was yummy food, lots of games, dress-ups, football, a little crying, and a little sleeping. Jeopardy-style game. I’m pretty sure the girls won :) Handsome faces, Even the baby’s gotta eat, Ethan, what’d you do? Oh, my heart, Lucky Mommy, Lots of yummy desserts and yummy little kiddos, What a great big brother! Playing with Grandma’s ipad…

It was such a fun day! After the festivities, we drove home in this: And woke up to this:

Lovely, wonderful snow!

Thanks Mark and Sue for a Wonderful Heugly Thanksgiving!!

Emergency Preparedness

It’s always nice to add to your food storage. You never know when an emergency will force you to use food, water, and supplies that you have stored at home.

But let’s not forget…

Candy. My sister-in-law introduced me to the idea of vacuum-sealing candy in jars to keep it fresh. She brought some gum drops to a party that she had vacuum-sealed. They were soft and fresh and yummy and I was sold on the idea.

We got SO much candy from Halloween this year. It’s not good to eat it all at once and it seemed wasteful to throw it away….so, now it’s in our pantry. 14 quarts of it. Movie night in February? How ‘bout some Halloween candy? 4th of July? How ‘bout some Halloween candy?

Thanks Heather, for a great idea!

2 Days

Joe has no sisters and before we got married, he received some very wise counsel from some married co-workers:

“Give her two days.”

Joe explained to me that I get two days a month…to say whatever and do whatever with no consequence. No matter how strange or mean or irrational I may be, he will excuse it for two days. I do NOT get more then two days a month, anything I say or do after the two days are over can and will be held against me. I do not have to use both days, but they don’t accrue, so if I don’t use them, I lose them.

This counsel has spared us a lot of grief the past 12 years. It’s especially helpful when I’m pregnant or just had a baby, which has pretty much been always. Or feels like it at least. There are days when my hormones or fatigue get the best of me and he’ll say, “I’ll just chalk it up to one of your two days” and he forgives me, just like that. Sometimes that’s not an easy thing to do.

So, forgive my last post. It was one of my two days this month. It was a big rant over a small event. In fact, maybe just to spite me, we spent the night in the Emergency Room after I wrote that. I got less sleep then I had all week and it was as if karma was saying, “You think that was bad, just check this out!”

By the way, we were there for Joe and he is feeling better today. We will know more about what caused his pain on Monday after his doctor runs a few more tests.

The good news is that everybody slept really well last night. I got at least 7 hours (in a row), and then 2 more hours after that. The weekend is here, we will be seeing lots of family and friends over the next week, and life is good. Who knows, maybe I won’t even need both days this month!

Caution:

I’m in a foul mood.

Maybe I shouldn’t be blogging with a dark cloud over my head, but I’m gonna anyway.

The kids are sick. Between the six of them, we’ve had the “sickness” at our house for over a month now. This includes aches, pains, tummy aches, runny noses, coughing, nausea, asthma, general whininess and complaining, not much sleep, and now the baby’s got it. This means, I am not sleeping.

This is not an exaggeration. I literally did not fall asleep until about 5:00 this morning for about an hour and a half. Then I had to get up and do the morning routine while baby slept, well, like a baby. Not good, but especially not great since it was like that the night before, too.

So, I’m in a foul mood. My tolerance is low. I’m giving myself major doses of Christmas music and dark chocolate peanut M&M’s, but those only take the edge off. What I need is sleep.

Knowing this, my kids have been great. They’ve been extra helpful (the healthy ones), and they understand that Mommy’s gonna crack if they don’t tread lightly.

I have carpool this week, plus Dakota has safety patrol. This means that my mornings are crowned by the joy of getting all my kids in the car to pick up the others, then my afternoons consist of picking up, dropping off, then going back to pick up Dakota. It’s her civic duty, it helps her become a better citizen, blah, blah, blah….it’s tough during carpool week.

Today, her friends asked if they could have a ride home after safety patrol was over. Of course, they can! It’s chilly today and their house is on our way home. So they hop in and I head to their house. When I get to their street, I come to a rolling stop because there is a biker crossing at that moment. I UNINTENTIONALLY jerked the car forward. My foot slipped off the brake and I moved about 1/4 of an inch. I startled the biker, but waved my hand and mouthed “Sorry!” No harm, no foul.

I cross the street to the girl’s house and dropped them off. I talked to their mom for a second and she said, “You have a biker that wants to talk to you.” I turn around and here’s Mr. Biker in his expensive biker clothes, helmet, fancy sunglasses and hip little earbuds staring at me through the driver’s side window.

I roll down the window and said, “I’m so sorry.” He said, “You inched toward me as I rode past you.” And I said, “I’m so sorry.” Then I rolled up my window and he rode away.

But what I really wanted to say was, “Seriously, is this the best use of your time or mine? You have come to make sure I feel bad about INCHING towards you? I didn’t even hit you, not even close! Do you know what kind of week I’ve had? Go away on your expensive bike and leave me alone! I’ve got dinner to make, laundry to fold, a baby to feed, homework to check, a house to finish cleaning and it’s already 3:30 and I’m wearing slippers! Slippers!! So finish your leisurely bike ride and GO AWAY you big baby!!”

I’m tired.

I’m not complaining, don’t get me wrong. I love what I do. But tired is tired and I have no time for silly men with silly accusations. I try not to judge when I see someone on the brink. My old college roommate used to say, “Maybe their cat died today” as the reason that the person is persnickety. So, maybe that guy’s cat died today. Or maybe mine did. Either way, I need some sleep.

Sunday is for Family!

Annie Ba-nannie

Did you know that a diaper makes a perfect Pilgrim bonnet?

Let’s celebrate Thanksgiving…

Did you know we have already decorated our house for Christmas? It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

The End

of Halloween, I promise.

Saturday was Koko’s birthday and we were still running a full sprint to get through this week. We had a fun breakfast with two of her friends that ended up sleeping over from the party the night before.

Then we got all ready and went to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa Heugly to Cinegrill. This restaurant is so yummy and has been a Heugly family tradition since Grandpa was a little boy. We saw some bikers getting into the Halloween spirit… I love this kid… Birthday girl, waiting for her gifts: She got some great stuff that brothers and sisters picked out: a movie, a shirt, a book, some shoes. And a little something to welcome her into the tween-age years, every 11-year-old needs a Caboodle!! It was full of hair stuff, jewelry, lotion, etc. Even her own flat iron. Good grief, where did the days of Barbie dolls and Polly Pockets go? One year for Christmas, my awesome sister-in-law gave us birthday boards. The coolest part is that she transferred the information from the original birthday board that Joe and his brothers grew up with. So, this is part of our own birthday tradition and we can see how the kids measure up to Dad! That night was our last big Halloween Hurrah. We started at Grandma and Grandpa’s Ward Trunk-or-Treat. This was the ward we lived in when we first got married, so it was fun to see old friends. Plus, lots of family came so we got to see their cute costumes.

Lookin’ good McKenna…er….Napoleon Dynamite.

Mr. and Mr. Heugly :)

Then we went to Jake and Liz’s Annual Family Party with the best Navajo tacos you’ve ever tasted. I look forward to this every year, because they sure know how to throw a party!!!This totally wins the Clever Costume Award. Brilliant!! Love the hair! So there you have it. Our Halloween memories in three fun-filled posts.

On to the next holiday, please!!!!