Our first Thanksgiving here

Mmmm Margarita

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

Im going to apologize now for any errors you may come across i dont catch to fix.  Thanksgiving cooking is done at my place and i've started on my margarita's :)  Since this is our first Thanksgiving in a whole new state with no family/friends.  I've taken it apon myself to cook the traditional feast.  I wanted to take this time "alone" as a chance to see if i could do it, but also to took a whole turkey on my own.  Maybe if i learn how to cook a great turkey, having Thanksgiving at my house wont be such a big deal someday :)  I think it turned out great!!  The turkey was a little dry, but throwing some gravy on it, fixed that lol  The girls ate great~  And since it was finished early and eaten for lunch, we will have the left overs for dinner, followed by some pumpkin pie.  YUM!

My first turkey~

Looks great to me!

The girls made us some place settings :) 

aww i love my place setting :)

Good job girls!

 

We've been busy like usual since my last post.  Ella is doing great with her potty training and has moved up from the every 20 min. potty trip, to hourly or a little over an hour.  We are getting there!  She is mostly dry and has anything from no peepee accidents, to only one or two.  What we are working on is #2 in the potty and also telling us when she needs to pee.   She comes up to me AFTER she pees or poo's her pants, but hasnt said anything before hand yet.  She stays dry at nap already though! :)  I started in her in underwear almost 2 weeks ago.  Such a big girl!! 

Aubrey is getting so big, and such a smart girl!!  Ive been working on crib training her.  She has gotten better.  And i think i'll be packing up the co-sleeper tonight or tomorrow.  Her crib is in our room on my side of the bed anyways, so she wont be far.  But she needs her own space that is bigger than the co-sleeper.   I would keep her there forever if i could.  But i want the transition to the crib to be easy on her, even if its hard on me cause shes my baby.  I'd rather her get used to it now when its no big deal, than to have her scream and cry later just because i wanted her with me.  Makes me kinda sad though that she is already gonna be 4 months old on Dec.1st.  She is taking a really good nap in her crib as i type this.  Shes gotten on the schedule of taking a good 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day.  Such a good baby!!

While Ella took her hour nap or so.  Usually longer, but since potty training, she will wake after an hour or so, to use the potty.  The other night she slept for 2 hours and woke dry.  So eventually she will train her bladder to hold it longer and hopefully her naps will increase in time too.  But since we are talking about Ella, who has always been a cat napper.  They probably wont get longer lol

Julia's girl scout meeting went good.  They made ornaments to sell at the holiday bizarre the school puts on.  Ive signed her up for soccer that will start here for their winter season of Jan-Mar.  She's excited!!  Madie is still in ballet and will be until June, when it ends the term or whatever.  She must of had a growth spurt cause her ballet shoes fit a few weeks ago, and then last week were soooooo tight.  So i ordered her another pair that are bigger, and some new tights.  

Yesterday was the Thanksgiving feast at Julia schools for all of the 1st graders.  I showed up early to help for that, and i stayed late to help clean up.  I know her teacher has 3 kids of her own and prob. wanted to leave when school was out.  As i was done doing some dishes and cleaning up, i went back to Julia's room to grab my coffee and over heard her (during circle time) say "today was the best day ever"!  hehe so cute! I got to eat next to her for lunch and the kids thought it was so cool to eat in the courtyard with some parents.  They've eaten out there before, but with the teacher, so this was new for them :)    They also got their shirts.  I guess every year the school lets the teacher make class room shirts that all the kids get.  They say the teacher's name, whatever design she or the class chooses, color, and the school mascots.  

She wore this hat ALL day! lol Insisted on wearing it to Costco and Target after school too :)
I made some Thanksgiving day crafts with the kids the other day too.  Used their foot prints for the turkey's body and their hand prints for the turkey feathers.  It turned out sooooo cute!  Something for me to keep, thats for sure!

getting ready to work on our turkey craft :)

The mornings are pretty cool here.  For a about a week it was in the 30s overnight.  Now its been in the 40's and by the time the girls and i walk Julia to school. Its in the high 40's or low 50's.  So we need coats, and the girls in the stroller need a blanket, coat and hat.  I LOVE IT! lol  Its usually sunny, and by the end of the day has been in the 70/80s with a chill in the air. So its perfect!!  I miss the fall colors though, and since im Oregon born and raised.  I do miss the rain.  I miss the stormy days when a fire and movies is on the agenda :)   While this time of year is PERFECT here, it wont be long until the heat returns.  Im told by locals that it starts getting hot again in March.  Since its October by the time it cools down, thats 6-7 months of heat.  Way to hot, HEAT.  Half the year perfect, to be ruined by the other half of the year heat.  Something that would get old, pretty fast.  Especially with no extra car and no in-ground pool.  

My beautiful girls!

 Football is on, the weather is great and we have tons to be Thankful for!  We made the girls say what they are thankful for before we ate tonight.  So cute!  Julia said she was thankful for being born, etc.  And Madie said she was thankful for food.  This is kinda funny cause she is our most difficult eater. haha.  The baby has woken from her 3 hour nap in her crib, so we are going to take advantage of going to the park for a bit before the sun sets and then its dinner time (again)! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!
Until next time....

A little here, a little there...Stitches at 3

Ah, i felt awful this morning.  I hate telling people no, even if it inconveniences me, i end up doing it anyways and saying yes.  I must have gotten that from my mom and my nana.  Anyways, i did say no, but still felt bad about it as i was saying it.  My daughters 1st grade teacher came up to me this morning during drop off and asked if i would be willing to organize her thanksgiving feast she has every year.  I had to kindly decline.  I said i really want to, and i will be there to help on the day they have it, even make or bring something, which im sure is what its all about anyways.  But i had to remind her i still have little ones at home and just dont want to take on the responsibility of being the one that puts all that together.  Funny thing, though, is last year i think i would have totally done it. No problem.  But i was more comfortable there, and knew most of the other moms in my child's class.  Plus i got pretty close with her teacher and we are now still friends and talk all the time.  So it wouldnt have been that big of deal for me, last year.  This year though, having just moved here, and really only knowing one other mom.  Ok, i know 3 other kids moms in Julia's class, but only talk to one of them daily.  Plus i dont really know this teacher well.  She is very nice, and i like her, but just havent gotten the level where we communicate much.  And from talking to the other moms, thats how she is.  Thats ok though, i know being a teacher is a lot of work and shes busy.  But anyways, like i said, i will be there on whatever friday she has the feast and i will help! :)

Went to the Chiropractor this morning.  Not sure if we are going to keep this one.  He is a really nice guy and he does the technique that our old Chiro used to use, but i just dont feel cleared when we leave.  He cant get my wrists to feel better, and my neck is still kinda off.  Jeremy says the same thing after this appointment, so i think we will look for one closer to use.  Maybe we have to go through a couple of them to find the one we like the best.  Something i really am not looking forward to!  I hate filling out all that paperwork with kids trying to run around get into things.  Plus, just that first meeting of a new dr. and what not, ugh..i get so nervous and clammy, i hate it!  I miss my old chiropractor!!  We had him since Julia was 6 months old.  So for over 6 years.  When we move back, we are heading straight back to him! lol

Well, Aubrey cat napped in her crib again this morning.  About 15 min. or so.  Then woke up and was awake for awhile.  Ella woke up at 5:30 this morning.  I have no idea why, she is still so tired when she wakes up, but she just wont fall back asleep.  I blame it on her not being a binkie baby.  I got her to lay in her bed until 6 by playing her classical music CD and hoping she would fall back asleep, but she didnt.  Joy!  The baby decided she was going to get up at 1am and again at 5 am.  And she was WIDE awake after her 5 am feeding.  She is just so darn happy and adorable though, how can it not make me smile when she is just beaming up at me :)  Looooong day ahead!

Madisen comes to me with a paper cut from the book "Are you my Mother?" that she was trying to read.  Of course she blames the book and says she is no longer going to read that one lol.  I explained to her its not the book, its how she changes the pages.  Not sure if she believed me or not.  She refuses a band-aid.  She always freaks about them, i think its the taking them off part later that gets her so freaked out.  I usually took them off in the bath anyways when they were less painful, but she can be a drama queen about them.  She was so tough and strong though when she busted her eye- brow open in June 2011, she was 3 years old.  We were playing at a fountain in Oregon that had cement steps and she tends to be a little slow on steps, so her friend, completely by accident, kinda pushed her out of the way to catch up to speedy Julia who was already at the bottom.  And so madie fell and hit her head on the edge of the stair below her.  It was so scary for me!  And of course her!  lol  She was crying and i lifted her up and her face was covered in blood already, man those eye brows can burst open easy!  Luckily we were only a couple blocks from her doctors.  So i had to load up Julia, baby Ella at the time, and a crying scared Madisen, into the car.  This of course happened with in 10 min. of getting there :(  Fountain day was cut short.  We get to her doctors and they cleaned it out but said they dont give stitches there and i had to take her to ER.  GREAT!  I had to call my husband at work, he had to take the rest of the day off, i had to go pick him up so i could leave the other kids at home with him.  I know how long ER visits can take and there was NO way i was bringing other kids to that.  So then we dropped him, Julia and Ella off at home, while i took Madie to the ER.  She had already stopped crying long before that and was being sooooo good.  She hadnt even had any pain reliever and had to keep her bandage on her eyebrow while we did all that driving.  Get to the ER and it must have been a slow day because they pretty much took us right back.  Then a nurse and a doctor come back to look at it and the doc decides that the glue would be better than stitches.  WHEW!  Fine with me! :)  But he still had to get in there and clean it out, which meant pulling it apart a little bit and squirting saline in it to get the dirt out.  Not one tear from Madie.  She just layed there so good.  He had even brought in 2 other nurses to hold her down because he said he usually has to do that when cleaning it out.  He was very impressed with her, and so was I.  What a big brave girl!  She then got a couple otter pops while we waited to get discharged.  But not until i was questioned about how she got hurt like 6 times by many different people.  Ok, i know they have to be thorough to make sure i wasnt abusing her, but it got really OLD explaining it everytime.   Finally after about 3 hours, we got to leave.

At her doc. office shortly after it happened

Not cleaned up yet

Bandage with some numbing cream on it

They glued it and she was all better :)

 Thank goodness that is all that happened to her and it wasnt much worse. I am so grateful for that!  

On a different note, i made some awesome chicken last night.  This was the 3rd or 4th time making this particular kind from a recipe i found on Pinterest.   Its supposed to be like Chick-fil-a chicken nuggets, and it surely was!   Like i said, i had made them before, but last nights were the best.  Ella gobbled them up, and she doesnt even really like the real ones from Chick-fil-a!  Madisen kept saying how much she liked them and she must have because she actually ate them with out having to be reminded to take a bite, chew, and swallow...REPEAT lol.  Julia said they were good too, but shes never really gets excited about meat.  Just like i was as a kid.  Anyways here is the picture and link if you want to make it for dinner too! :) (thats for you mom! i know you're missing it )

                                                         

Home made Chick-fil-a Chicken bites

 

Well until next time...