Chow Time!

On Thanksgiving I tried giving Will rice cereal again, this time with a much warmer reception. In fact, I left for a second to get a burp cloth and he started crying. He was fine once the food resumed. I gave him more today and he ate it...but didn't love it. Funny baby.

Mom?

Yesterday we got to church and realized that for the second week in a row, Katie and I were wearing the same thing (last Sunday was white and brown). Last week we thought it was funny. This week our husbands made fun of us. We also had our hair done the same way, so I hope we didn't confuse Will too much. We had the Fishers come over for dinner and games, only Mike and Dan wanted cookies, so games lasted about five minutes. Now I have a bag of cookies I'm going to have to pawn off on neighbors.

I am Thankful

Another Thanksgiving under our belts (literally), and there are so many things for which I am grateful. A small random sampling of things at the tip of my brain include:

• My amazing husband, who works so hard for us


• Our beautiful boys, the joy of our lives


• Washing machines


• Good health


• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints


• Wonderful family


• Thanksgiving dinner wasn't at my house


• My comfortable bed


• Good food, especially when I can eat it


• Soap

This was my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner this year: 3 dozen rolls, a pan of breadtwists (minus four, Mike was hungry and they were hot out of the oven), stuffing, apple crisp, caramely nutty brownies, and butterscotch & spice cookies. And whipping cream that wasn't whipped yet. I spent many hours baking, but it's only once a year. I love good food. Every item I made had something off limits in it, but I ate it anyway. In fact, the only thing on the table that was fine to eat was the turkey.

The Garden Center's new Sandy store is open today! New pictures of the exterior are posted on the garden center blog, and as soon as I get new pics of the interior, I'll post those too. Check it out!

GNO

Tonight was girls night out. We went to Rib City for dinner, and then a few of us went and got an Italian Gellato. Why we got a frozen treat when it was freezing outside is still undetermined, but it was yummy.

I've been working at the Garden Center this week helping to get the new store ready to open on Friday! It's an awesome new building (check out the WGC blog for pics, link to the right), and everything is looking good. There's an insane amount of work to, but I'll put my 3 hours in tomorrow, so I'm sure everything will be fine. I also need to do as much Thanksgiving cooking as I can. It's a bit of a relief that I don't have a YW activity tomorrow, there so much to do!

I went to bed at 2:00 this morning for several reasons. 1) I had to stay up to finish reading Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (Austenland). Guilty pleasure. 2) As soon as I was done with my book I heard a terrible cough coming from Sam's room. He was coughing and whimpering in his sleep, and it took 5 minutes to get some cough medicine in him. Poor kid. 3) As soon as I had Sam settled back in bed Will started fussing, probably woken up by Sam's cough attack. I had to feed him, and then settle him back in bed. Mike left before I wanted to get out of bed this morning (7:30), but he told me to stay in bed and sleep as much as I could. Ten minutes later Will was awake and hungry. I got about 5.5 hours of sleep last night, and I've been running around like crazy today. I'm getting tired. It's 9:40 PM right now and Sam is still out with Emily. Not sure what they're doing, but I'm sure he's having a blast.

This is the chair I bought for Mike today for Christmas. It was a bit of an ordeal. The box was huge, but I got it into my cart and carried Will in his car seat while pushing the cart one-handed to the checkout counter (with Sam in tow). The huge box was just barely too big to fit in my trunk, and the front seat. I had to take it out of the box to fit it. I would have taken another car to get it, but I had a raincheck for the sale price (which was 1/3 off the regular price), and they only had one left. Since we were married Mike has wanted an armless chair for playing the guitar. After all my drama picking it up, I hope he likes it.

Cookie Day

Sam helped me make cookies the other day. I turned around to put a pan in the oven, and when I turned back around Sam had already started on the second pan.
When he was done helping (and anxiously waiting for a warm cookie) he practiced his numbers. He traced those all by himself.
A few minutes later we heard Will waking up from his nap, so Sam went into his room. A second later I heard both of them laughing. This is what they were doing when I went in. So cute.


Mary Jane is at our house right now. She was downstairs playing with Sam, but decided she was hungry. She came up and asked for breakfast. She saw the picture of Will and wanted to look at it while she ate her healthy pumpkin muffin. She said, "Look at those tiny, little pictures! They're so cute!" She'll be in the same grade as Sam (and they'll be in preschool together), but she's about 9 months younger and at least a head shorter.

Renee (my sis-in-law living with us) loves Will. She told me he isn't a birth control baby (meaning he's not the kind of baby that makes you want to stay childless). He's such a happy, good-natured baby...and pretty much irresistable when he sleeps with his hands like that. His allergy seems to be lessening a little bit too. Lucky for him, I've been so naughty the last couple of days. Although, last night I avoided all salad dressings, creamy soups, and desserts at a baby shower because I ate things earlier like pumpkin cookies and a sandwich bun. The only thing I could eat was salad...dry. It actually wasn't that bad though.

Time to go, the kids want to go outside to play!

Greetings and Salutations

Grandpa Gar's funeral service was yesterday, and it was really nice. We had a small family service, so it was intimate and personal. There were several musical numbers by my sister-in-law Kimbur and two of my cousins. There is some amazing talent in our family! If you've never heard Kimbur sing, you should. My cousins Mike and Celestia are incredible too. Grandpa served in WWII, so some people from the Navy came and did their flag folding ceremony. It was really neat. Grandpa was born in 1914 and was the youngest of many (10 or 11 I believe) siblings. He outlived everyone by many years (I can't remember ever having met any of them), so I think he had a warm welcome by them and by Grandma Georgia when he crossed to the other side.

Grandpa Gar passed away early this morning. He was 93.

Finally!

I traded in my computer for a new one, so I'm back after nearly 3 days of an empty computer desk. The last few days haven't been terribly eventful. Probably the most important thing was that I finished Twilight (loved it). I put the next book on hold, but I was the 587th person to have that idea. I decided that with the holidays coming up it might be a good thing, seeing that it will likely be 2-3 months before I get it. When I read a good book I get tunnel vision, I have to keep reading until I'm done. I finished Twilight in 2 or 3 days (thank goodness for naptime and quiet time!)

Tonight we went to dinner with the Fishers. We left the kids (except for Will, he was having a really weird night...refused to nurse) with Eric & Renee and headed to Johnny Carino's. I think our server hated me, I kept asking for bread. We had a really good time though. Plus Katie is in love with Will, so she insisted on holding him while I ate.

Sam wanted to snuggle with Will. This is about as snuggly as Sam gets, and he's been that way since the day he was born. Will doesn't necessarily like to cuddle, but he doesn't fight and push away like Sam always did, so it's almost like he's a snuggler.
A momentous occasion. Will took a binky long enough for me to get a picture. I think his record is 20 seconds. My babies just don't like binkies. Sad in some ways, but so nice in other ways.
Will is now 5 months old (as of Sunday), and we tried to start him on rice cereal. After 2 more attempts he started crying, so we gave up. He stares at us when we eat and he always tries to grab our food, so I thought for sure he'd love starting solids. Wrong. He better start liking it soon, I'm cutting him off eventually. He's been totally unsupplemented (won't even take of bottle of mommy milk), so he probably can't fathom food coming from another source.

Halloween!

We had a very exciting Halloween. Sam finally got to go to LaRae's house. We saw her about a month ago and she told Sam to go to her house on Halloween. All month long he talked about going. She is one of the cutest, sweetest people I've ever met. Plus she gave us 3 king size snickers. We love LaRae! Sheriff Jane is one of the most photogenic people I've ever known.

We mostly just trick or treated in our neighborhood, and we met up with our friends the Fishers. Now we have a large stash of candy, and I can't eat it :( I think Will is improving though. He's been spitting up a more normal amount the last couple of weeks. Some days he doesn't spit up at all! His eczema is also getting less severe. There's hope!

Tonight was our Stake Women's Conference, and I'm glad I went. Our Stake RS goal was to read the Book of Mormon in 6 months (which goal I didn't make, but at least I started!), and tonight was the culmination of all that. One woman was telling about some of the trials she's gone through, and she had me in tears. She was unexpectedly divorced with 5 small children, one of which is multiple-disabled (he's 14 years old but has the physical and mental capacity of a 3 month old). She's had to work full time to support her family. She's been fighting breast cancer for 10 years, and it recently spread to her bones, lungs, and liver. And she's grateful for these trials because they've made her turn to the scriptures and the Lord. Wow.