20 Things

Taking another slight break from the updates. Saw this on a message board and thought I would try it. Who knows - maybe I'll learn something about myself if I can make it through the whole list.


20 THINGS ABOUT MYSELF THAT DON'T INCLUDE KIDS


1. I LOVE to read. Love, love, love it. I constantly am reading 4 or 5 books at a time. We purposely moved right next door to a library so I always have a supply of books. I sometimes worry about going blind because then I wouldn't be able to read.

2. I finally turned 30 this year. It was very welcome as I have felt on the edge of 30 forever.

3. I once performed in a circus at a Club Med in Ixtapa, Mexico. My act was the Spanish Web. I also was on the trapeze and rode a bike with 7 or 8 people on it at once.

4. I collect pitchers and pottery. I'm looking right now at old pottery on ebay to bid on. No idea why I love it so much - just do.

5. I feel a strong connection to Italy - maybe I lived there in a past life (j/k). Italy is my dream vacation.

6. I am a closet hippy.

7. I miss dancing. When I was in highschool I performed with two different folk dance groups. I miss it all the time. As soon as we are not so busy, Lance will be taking folk lessons so we can dance together (he doesn't know this yet).

8. I really like to find good deals and then tell everyone how much I paid for everything.

9. I am extremely shy but I think I hide it well.

10. My dream job would be teaching seminary or high school English. I love working with teenagers.

11. I am psychic - no REALLY I am!

12. I loathe myself for the amount of TV I watch but don't do anything to change it.

13. I am 15 lbs overweight but refuse to do anything to change that. I blame the weight on my medications and am fine with that :)

14. I am trying to buy a 1/4 of a cow right now. I only want my family to eat grass fed, free range beef. Along the same lines, I am excited for the farmer's markets this year. I am going to try and only buy our produce from them all season, not from a grocery store. I feel passionately about supporting local farmers.

15. I am terrified of starting the next round of medications the doctors have for me so I have been putting it off. I know it would help but I am afraid of even more weight gain - which is just silly.

16. I love being busy. I turn into a nasty mean grouch while I'm busy but I love projects, deadlines, and stress. Go figure.

17. I have recently learned to knit. I am currently making a very "interesting" scarf.

18. I have terrible insomnia. 2 to 3 hours of sleep a night has been the norm for quite some time now.

19. I really want to take Tae Kwon Do or Karate.

20. I have minor OCD which drives everyone crazy except me :)

So Proud of My Son

I had to take a break from updating my blog to mention how proud I am of Spencer. If I don't do it now, by the time I've caught up I will have forgotten to post this. I am impressed by Spencer on a daily basis. The other day he told me his friends in the neighborhood were having a Nintendo DS Wi-Fi party and they were playing a game that was rated "teen" for a lot of violence. He told the boys he wouldn't play that game and his friend told him to not bother coming then. I felt bad for him and offered to look at the game and see if I felt it was okay for him to play. He told me he knew it wasn't right and he would rather miss the party than do something wrong. He has so much integrity. I am very proud of the person he is becoming.

The Perfect Gingerbread House

Check out Ella's gingerbread house. If you look closely you'll see that everything was placed symmetrically on both sides. She had free reign when decorating and impressed us all. The only part I helped on was the icing. She is so like me - we both love order!

Tiny (And Not So Tiny) Racers

After Nascar, we decided to get in on the action ourselves and take the kids racing. Maddi and Ella were so cute riding around the track. We didn't purposely dress them in matching outfits, it just ended up that way.

Lance, Spencer, Scott, and Michael got to race the real Go Karts. Here are the promised pics:

Nascar

What a fun time! While in North Carolina we took the kids to the speedway to see where they race the cars. The kids had a blast!

We look like we were airbrushed into this photo but we really were there - I promise!

Thanksgiving

Top 5 things I am grateful for this year:

5. Ella being potty trained. The thought of not having to buy diapers anymore makes me giddy with joy!

4. Family support. This has been such a hard year in so many ways, but my family has really helped me through it. A combination of me, chronic pain, and medication side effects, does not make for a very good time. Luckily they have laughed, (and cried!) right along with me.

3. Lance being done with school. Yes, he has been done with school for well over a year now but this will be on my top 5 for many a year to come.

2. My husband. Yes, so incredibly cheesy - I know. We hit the big 10 year mark this year and I couldn't imagine anyone more wonderful to experience life with.

1. Having family live close enough that we can invade them on Holidays. We have lived so far from family most of our marriage that is has been really nice for our kids to have a chance to get to know their cousins.

This year we went to North Carolina for Thanksgiving and spent it with Lance's brother Scott and his family. The kids had a BLAST (and us adults had fun too). After the Thanksgiving meal we played a couple games of croquet. Thanks Scott and Michelle for letting us visit with you guys!

I LOVE this last picture of the kids. Scott reminds me of the Pied Piper - I think he could have made them do anything. Could Ella's smile in the third picture be any more fake?

Happy Halloween

Halloween was awesome this year. Spencer went as Mario with Ella as Princess Peach. We are so lucky to be in a neighborhood full of kids. The kids had a blast running around with their friends. Once Ella realized that candy was given to her at every door, there was no stopping her!

Cox Farms

Every year our family goes to Cox Farms in early October. They have so much for the kids to do - a hayride, slides, rope swing, goats, etc. This is the first year Ella wasn't afraid of the goats. Here are some pics of our fun day . . .

It Took Months . . .

. . . for me to finally sit down and play with updating my blog. I don't love it, but I don't hate it, so it might stick around for awhile before I change it. At any rate, I now have a ton of pictures to add to cover the last couple of months. I really want to get caught up this week!

Blog Facelift

If you noticed things seem different - they are. I am changing the look of the blog over the next couple of days. It is something that I've been meaning to do forever.

"Uncle Shoe and Question"

My brother Aaron and his friend Christian are visiting from Seattle. "Uncle Shoe" is what Spencer called Aaron forever and it has just stuck. We are finally starting to say Uncle Aaron more but "Uncle Shoe" still pops out from time to time. Whenever Ella says Christian, it sounds like "Question." She adores both of them and always asks where they are and what they are doing. We have had a lot of fun having them here. Lucky for me they are painting the house for us - which is a complete lifesaver (or should I say lucky for Lance)??

Game Ball

Fall baseball has been quite something else. Every year Spencer has played baseball in the spring, soccer in the fall, and Tae Kwon Do year round. We stopped TKD after our move (he has his jr. black belt) and Spencer decided he wanted to play baseball year round. In the past he has been one of the better players on his team. We had no idea when we signed up for fall baseball that these kids meant serious business. We went from a team who spent their pre-game time tickling each other to a team who has hour long drills before each game and SUPER intense parents who are living vicariously through their kids. One mom even kicks, screams, and completely loses it if her kid misses a ball. Seriously. Anyway, at the start of the season Spencer was definitely behind. We talked to him about it and he said he didn't care he just wanted to play ball. He has worked very very hard this season and has improved tremendously. Last Saturday he was the first kid to get a second "game ball." If you don't know what that is, at the end of the game the coach picks the kid he thinks deserves the ball. I am so proud of Spencer for perservering and never giving up. It has been a good season.

New Calling

This past Sunday I was called to be the Young Women's Secretary. It is kind of bittersweet. While I absolutely LOVE being in YW, if I hadn't gotten sick I would be teaching seminary right now. I just stayed for opening exercises this Sunday (the pain has started again - so I had to go home), but it seems like a wonderful bunch of girls. I am excited to get to know them all.

Toilet Water Anyone?

Ella has been sneaking into my bathroom at night and getting into my makeup. We know she is up to no good when the door is locked. Two nights ago, she was in there being very quiet with the door locked. We were expecting a huge mess but when we got in there it was clean except for a few paper cups on the floor. I moved her into bed and talked to her for a few moments. This is how our conversation went:

Me: You can't go into mommy's bathroom and lock the door.
Ella: I got a cup and drank, and drank, and drank.
Me: What did you drink?
Ella: Water.
Me: Oh, did daddy get you water?
Ella: No I got it.
Me: Did you get water from the sink?
Ella: No.
Me: Where did you get the water from?
Ella: The toilet - it has lots of water. I drank, and drank, and drank.

Fun, huh?

BEAUTIFUL NATALIE

My cousin April had her baby!!! (It has been awhile since I last posted). Natalie Elizabeth Taylor was born on September 28th. It was amazing at the hospital how many different generations of my family I could see in her face. We all thought she was going to be tiny since April gained hardly any weight during the pregnancy - but she was 8 lbs. 4 oz. April looked beautiful as always at the hospital - I'm a little bitter about it since I looked like a train wreck when both my kids were born :)