Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving! Corbie thought it was hilarious to wear the hat that Arden made in preschool, and she looked pretty cute:
This year was the very first year that we had Thanksgiving at my house. Preston's parents are on a mission in India and my mom had surgery last week, so we felt like it would be good to just have it here. My two sisters, brother, brother in law, and parents came over, and luckily they helped with the food a TON. But it was the first time we were in charge of the turkey.

We got a head start on the pies the night before. I was not too smart and picked a couple of pies that had directions like "stir constantly." Stirring constantly is almost impossible with three little kids! But luckily Preston and i tagged teamed and someone was almost always stirring constantly, but I must admit that things went a lot faster once we got everyone in bed. Here is Corbie helping me stir:
(Corbie is taking after Arden and LOVES to hang out in the Baby Bjorn. Dax was never a fan, but Arden used to live in it, and Corbie can spend hours in it as well. I love it!)

Anyway, the next day we cooked the Turkey, stuffing, rolls and all of that good stuff. Arden was a great helper, and also was excited to help set the table:
She did a great job helping with the plates, but after that things got a little confusing :) I had to help one of the other kids with something before we got to the cups, so she got started on those herself (notice the big snowman mug and the sports bottle....heee.)

We tried so hard to have everything done at the same time, but of course the turkey gave us trouble. We ended up cooking it an hour longer than the longest time the recipe said we would, so everyone had to wait a little longer than we had hoped to start dinner, but other than that everything turned out great! I was too busy trying to get food for everyone so I have no pictures of the actual dinner. After dinner everyone was too full to do anything but lay around and watch football for a while, but after an hour or so, we were feeling like maybe we could shove some pie in:
My, my, my! I love pie! Here are some more pie-eaters and Grandpa providing some after dinner entertainment for the kids:
It was nice to have it at our house because we didn't have to leave early to put the kids in bed! I was starting to think that maybe we should have Thanksgiving at our house every year....until I looked around the kitchen! I wish I would have taken a picture of it before we started cleaning, but here is a picture of what we couldn't fit in the dishwasher:
Overall it was a great day, and as far as I know no one has food poisining! I love Thanksgiving!!

Thankful

With Thanksgiving coming up, I have noticed a lot of people doing posts about what they are thankful for. I am thankful for so many things that I am not sure where to start. I am thankful for my three beautiful kids, my wonderful husband, my nice warm house, my two hot water heaters, my treadmill, Cherry Coke Zero, online shopping....I could go on and on. But this week I am mostly thankful for my mom.



It has been a rough week for my poor mommy. She had to have surgery. A short while ago she went in for her physical and the doctor decided he wanted to do an ultrasound to check something out. The ultrasound quickly turned into a CT scan, which turned into a referral which led to another referral, and before long she ended up at the Huntsman Cancer Institute (where no one really wants to end up).
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She had a tumor in her uterus, but the doctors weren't sure whether it was benign or malignant. The oncologist decided it would be safest to do a hysterectomy and also check her lymph nodes while they were in there looking around. So, she checked in to the HCI and had her surgery on Tuesday. After the operation, the doctor said that the tumor "looked benign" whatever that means...we are still waiting for the official results of the biopsy. (How come on TV the results of biopsies come back in like 20 minutes, but in real life it takes DAYS? Just sayin'). They also said her lymph nodes "looked" clean too. It was a huge relief to hear that things looked good after the surgery, and we are hoping that the doctors are right and that this is the end of this little adventure.

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This week has made me realize how much I still need my mom. Even though I am an old woman myself now, I still need my mommy! I have no idea what I would do without her.
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My mom is THEE perfect mom. She was and is so patient and unselfish. She is such a great example to me. I can only hope to try to be a fraction of the mother that she has been. Even today she still takes such good care of me. She and my dad are always ready and willing to help me with whatever I need. She has taught me so much and having my own kids has made me realize how much she has really done for me. She is also an amazing grandma, and all of my kids adore her. I hope that my mom stays around for at least the next 30 or 40 years or so! :)
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I love you, mom!

Sick Days

This October was so crazy for us with all of the Halloween parties and other Halloween stuff, Corbie's court date, Corbie's temple date, Corbie's blessing, etc. etc. etc. that I was really amazed that we all made it through without anyone getting sick and having to miss out on something. So when Arden and Dax started getting runny noses right after the blessing day I was so worried they were coming down with the swine flu or something and then....WHAM! All of the sudden I was the one who was sick. It was just a head cold but it was a BAD HEAD COLD. Blech. I woke up one morning and I swear my head had swollen to four times its regular size and I think it must have weighed about 60 pounds. I was fuzzily wondering how I was going to get out of bed and face the day when Preston (my knight in shining armor) must have noticed my giant head and volunteered to stay home from work and help with the kids! I was so happy that I think I kind of smiled and rolled my huge head back over and tried to breathe.

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(Sidenote: Shouldn't there be some sort of sick-day program for moms? Maybe the government should supply a pool of highly-qualified and trained nannies that you could call to come over and take over when you are sick...for free of course. Maybe they could add that to the new health care legislation! Lets all call our senators...)

Anyway, soon after I was starting to feel better, Daxton started coughing. As yucky as it was, I would so much rather have me be sick than one of the kids. Nothing is sadder than a sick baby. Dax was tough and didn't act sick or lose his appetite, he just coughed on and off a little at night for a couple of days. Then one day he got a lot worse and was coughing constantly all day so I took him to the doctor who said he was starting to get the croup. Blech again. Poor little guy. Luckily we got him some medication which we had to grind up and hide in Halloween candy to get him to eat. But it was effective and he quickly started feeling better.

Than as soon as Dax started to sleep well at night again, Corbie got a runny nose. She has had it for a few days now, and luckily that is all she has (no coughing or fever or anything else thank goodness). But her runny nose has been WAY harder than either my head cold or Daxton's croup. Here is why: Corbie NEEDS her binky to sleep. NEEDS. And so when she can't breathe through her nose, she has to spit out her binky so she can breathe through her mouth to prevent....well, death. And really nothing short of the threat of iminent death would make her spit out her binky at night. And as soon as her mouth communicates to her brain that there is no longer a binky present, the brain sends a signal back to the mouth telling it to start SCREAMING. So down the hall runs mom or dad who tries to hold her upright for a while until she can breathe again, or (if worst comes to worst) uses the dreaded BABY NOSE SUCKING THING (sorry, I don't know what those are really called).

I think that the baby nose sucking thing is Corbie's LEAST favorite thing in all of the world. I am amazed that the cops haven't shown up at our house one of these nights because everyone within a 2-mile radius must wake up and wonder who is torturing a baby somewhere. It is the loudest I have ever heard her scream, and Corbie is by far the loudest screamer we have had. Anyway, we get her nose cleared out, we calm her down and plug the binky back in and go back to bed and wait for our ears to stop ringing. This repeats about 20 times a night.

Corbie seems perfectly happy (other than a little runny nose) during the day, but Preston and I are EXHAUSTED! We have elevated her head and humidified her room and all of that good stuff, but it doesn't seem to help...anyone have any brilliant ideas? I am sleepwalking. Last night was a little better so I am hoping and praying we are almost done.

Here are some pictures of our cute little screamer:





She is so cute, and is seven months old tomorrow. We love her so much and hope she feels better soon! Wish us luck!

Corbie Foreverized

We took Corbie to the temple on the Saturday after her court date. Both Daxton and Arden got to come into the temple too. It was really exciting to be able have all three of our kids with us in the temple, but also more than a little terrifying. I had visions of Corbie giving everyone a sample of her "supersonic" screams in one corner while Daxton had a melt down in the other corner with Arden helpfully yelling for them both to "BE QUIET!!" at the top of her lungs as she frequently does at home.

But everything actually went amazingly well! Corbie was really quiet and sweet the whole time. She wore the same dress Arden wore to the temple when she was sealed to us. We put the same shoes on her too, but she didn't even make it out of the car with those still one. Corbie's feet are constantly kicking almost all of the time she is awake. She rubs them together all the time and it is impossible to keep shoes or even socks on her little feet for long. But luckily her dress was long enough that no one could really tell she was barefoot. Plus, she is so dang cute, who cares?

Daxton ran around a little, but was pretty quiet...until one of the temple workers tried to pick him up. Dax isn't too happy when strangers LOOK at him, as anyone who has seen his "stranger scowl" can tell you. So needless to say he really doesn't enjoy strangers picking him up. Luckily he calmed down pretty quickly and was quiet during the rest of the ceremony. He was a little less than excited to go back to the youth center while we changed, but luckily, they were able to quiet him down with some chocolate chip Teddy Grahams (see brown slobber on Daxton's jacket):

(Sidenote: I am thinking maybe they should give white treats at the temple? Maybe marshmallows? or white bread? Just a thought. Anyway....)

Arden was an angel through the whole thing, and she looked the part:

We are so happy to have Corbie as part of our family...legalized and foreverized!

Thanks to all of our family who came, it meant a lot!