Thanksgiving and cousins and Christmas

Thursday morning Davyn asked, "so when does Thanksgiving start?"  Well, the whole day is Thanksgiving, so it already started.  The answer clearly did not satisfy.  So he asked again.  And again.  And with each repeated explanation, he grew more and more annoyed.

The boy finally found satisfaction when I changed my answer to:  Thanksgiving starts when we get to Grandma's house. 

Perfect. 

Grandma Kay and Papa definitely know how to entertain kids.  With chickens and turtles, climbing trees and a huge backyard, it's one of my boys' favorite places to be. With a quiet backroom for sleeping babies and a napping couch for tired moms in the upstairs theatre room, I wasn't complaining either. 

The food was delicious, and we enjoyed a relaxing day with Jim's family.

I never think to take family shots, but saw this on Shanon's blog and stole it (thanks!) because it perfectly encapsulates my biggest Gratitude.  I love these four humans I get to call mine!

On Saturday we enjoyed all of the Hendrix cousins.  Since JoDee was visiting from Utah, Megs came up from Tucson and we had a cousins party/Christmas gift exchange.  Imagine 17 cousins ages 16 to 1 (but mostly 5-8) in my house.  What you're imagining is Chaos.  But I still love seeing them all together.  Andersyn helped me make the decorations for this cake we made for that night.

I love spending time with my sisters and mom.  The only humans in the world who can get me to wake up at 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning to shop.  They not only make me laugh, but they always manage to inspire me with ideas that make my life better.  

After writing this, here's my vow for Christmas/December:  more pictures! 

perfect chaos.

I picked up my phone and snapped this picture while I was elbow deep in icings and food color last Friday.  Five fat flies were buzzing through the house by the time Jim got home, but the open door policy of the late afternoon was a worthwhile Bliss.  The boys ran to & fro, while the girl watched in delight, while the mom piped and Enjoyed.

Lately I feel like my life is pretty near perfect. 

I have zero free time, a DVR full of unviewed shows, a stack of unread books, and a mess of laundry to be done.  Every morning we patch Aidan's pants, dig for matching socks, and sweep more cereal crumbs to the floor.  But every morning we also pray, hug, kiss and hold. 

It's the only kind of perfection I expect to attain. 

Someday the house will be spotless.  Someday I'll get to my book pile.  Much of the chaos will vanish, but I can't imagine life will feel quite so crazily perfect without these Three.  These are definitely years to Enjoy.

why I love my husband

There are hundreds of reasons. 

But this one has stood out to me most lately: 

He is a phenomenal dad.

I was irretrievably smitten when I married the man. But I do remember having moments of lucidity during the courting.  And in those moments I'd always worry about just that - Jim as a dad.  He didn't like children much and expressed no interest in having any of his own.

But this was one area where I have been most surprised and most grateful. 

He spends time and energy with each of these lucky three.  And he teaches them.  

On Monday he taught us a simplified lesson on Jacob 5, which is anything but simple.  It was a chapter we had only skimmed over in our morning scripture study, and he wanted his boys to understand more.  So he came home from work fully prepared with handouts and enthusiasm.  Of course, the boys didn't understand the allegory fully, but they did understand that it was important to their dad.  And the lesson ended with Aidan saying, "that was really interesting". 

That night when Davyn knelt with me to pray, he said, "Bless us all so we can be good fruits." 

Amen.

Coming from the branch of my Jim, they have a good chance of being just that.

happy halloweening

from us.

Tonight we'll spend another 30 minutes wrapping this guy up so that he can be completely worn out to the borderline of tears by the time we're ready to hit the big party.

And then I'll spend two minutes make-uping this guy so that he can embrace the vampire persona and drive me batty by insisting to speak through oversized fangs all night. The boy may as well be speaking Transylvanian.

Oh the joy of candy and costumes and hyped little humans.  Are you feeling the sarcasm?  I don't think I'd feel this way if Halloween hadn't somehow recently become a week-(or month?!)-long holiday...what's up with that?!

But I did get a welcome bonus this year.  Of the cake kind.  Melissa is letting me bake for her party.  She is my good friend and my Nie Nie cake auction winner.  So my kitchen is some kind of spooky mess right about now. And I'm liking it.

I'll post pictures when I finish.

a mummy's brew

This year Davyn said he wanted to be something "pooky" for Halloween.  And the big brother quickly agreed.  And the mom was well-pleased. 

Until the horrifying experience of looking at price tags. One child-sized mummy costume at the Halloween store: $50. Ya, it was cool. But, $50??! A vampire came with a much lighter $20 tag. But my dander was up after the first, and I decided to make & make do.  

Plus, it was well past time to get over my first homemade Halloween costume fiasco.  Aidan was one, and  I had zero sewing experience (unless you count 8th grade Home Ec, which I don't), complete & unfounded confidence (a dangerous combo), and visions of a turtle shell dancing in my head.

This is what happened:Yes, he had a cute little body.  But the costume screamed "homemade", and not in the good way. 

So I've stuck to the store bought in shame and am finally ready to change my spendy ways (okay, Jim is definitely rolling his eyes right now). 

Vampire costume: $4 for make-up, fake blood & fangs; tuxedo pants and black bow tiefrom Jenna's wedding; white button up shirt from Sunday wardrobe; black cape borrowed from Mandi; bloodsucking stances provided by D.

Mummy costume: $8 long johns (which I can probably claim as free since I've yet to repay Cyn for buying them in Utah...have you ever tried to buy long johns in the valley in the fall?); one king sized tattered white sheet from Kay.

I'm thinking $12 beats $70.  And how.

As I write, the mummy rags are steeping in a tea bath.  Because I have a boy who insists that the wraps "needs to look old".  And I'm wondering about their attaching...pretty positive it won't involve a sewing machine.  My own sewing surety may be shattered, but he has complete confidence in my costuming capacity. 

We'll see how it all wraps up tomorrow.