I am actually feeling nice and Christmasy as opposed to last year. Tonight we put the tree and some light's up, plus the advent calendar Nate's mom made for us. We have some yummy candles and it just feels festive. Yay! Not much to report around here, just doing stuff, living and readying for the holiday.
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At the last general conference, Elder Bednar gave
I realized that when I prayed, I often asked for more than I said that I was grateful for. So for about a month, I kept thinking about it and finally, a couple weeks ago, I thought that I would take him up on this challenge. I have been praying mostly without asking God for anything, unless there was something that was very essential I needed.
It has actually made me feel much happier and far less stressed. Stress and worry seem to be a big force in my life. I have been grateful, and I have been given some of the things that I usually pray for. Just the spirit of gratitude in my life has improved it.
It really is just coincidence that I am writing this the day before Thanksgiving. But, I hope that I carry this spirit of gratitude throughout the year. I also challenge you to pray with gratitude. Let this holiday be the starting point.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Can you believe it? My darling Cecily is 3 yars old today! It has gone by crazy fast. We still don't know when we are having her party, but today we just had a cake and Cecily loved it. That was the highlight of having a birthday. I don't think she even realizes about presents yet!
Cecily is so much fun, but can be quite a pill at times, just as any toddler. Sh is very caring and extremely empathetic. That is always something that I have loves about her. She wants to make people happy and is always wanting to mend a problem when she sees it. She has a wonderful imagination is starting to come up with fun stories and scenarios. She still loves to dance and wearing pretty dresses. She also believes that she is a princess. She also loves superheroes and reading books. She certainly is a multifaceted little girl!
I love watching her grow and become such a big girl. I just have to keep up!
Time may tell if I am crazy or not. We have new members of the family! My sister's cat, Yoda, got a neighborhood kitty pregnant (he has since been neutered). The mommy cat is such a sweet pretty thing, that I might have taken her myself. Unfortunately that wouldn't work as she is an outside cat.
So, sh had 5 kittens at the end of August. Hannah had been very insistent that we take one. (I think her ulterior motive was that she could visit it later). Nate and I thought about it and we thought we might get one. When the time came, we both thought that we should get two so that they could have a friend and playmate.
We wanted two girls. Originally, Hannah had determined that there were 4 boys and one girl. As it is rather difficult to determine the sex of kittens before they are two months old, three of them were seemingly incorrect. So the count went to 4 girls and one boy. It was under that assumption that we got "Socks" and "Button" both girls. I thought after a day or two that I should double check. One was a girl and the other a boy. Hannah turned out to be right on most of the kittens!
So, in the tradition of Princess Victoria Cherries, here is Sir Louis Buttons "Louie" (Formerly Louisa)
And Duchess Georgiana Socks "Gigi" (Cecily came up with the name Gigi!)
They are settling in well and have thus avoided death by child love! The girls are getting much better at handling them, there's a lot less neck grabbing and such! We have only had them a week and they are already bigger!
It is lots of fun watching them play and explore! It's great entertainment!
OK, these pictures are not great by any stretch of the imagination. But hre are is an idea of our Halloween!
Nate was Wolverine (Huge nerd!), I was Rogue (slightly less nerdy!)
Cecily was the witch Kiki from "Kiki's Delivery Service"
Cordelia was a pumpkin. She has a bit of an obsession with them now!
Kiki, Little Devil, Draco Malfoy, The Joker, and a Pumpkin
We went to the trunk or treat downtown. It was loud and crazy. Cordelia loved it. She thrives on craziness!
Cecily had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction. Her tights kept falling down.
We also did one street of trick or treating. Both girls loved it! Even Cordelia banged on some doors. She would bang the door going, "Open, open!" When someone cam to the door, she would hold out her hands and said, "pease" and then "dey do!" She is so polite.
Then we had dinner at Maren's and Cecily smacked her nose on the stairs. She got a nice bruise for that, poor thing! That was basically our Halloween. Thrilling, eh?
Yesterday, we went to P.F. Chang's for our November birthday dinner. Actually, it was a lunch and my dad wasn't there, so it was more like the 3 girls and Cecily birthday lunch. November is our big birthday month. The 7th is my Dad and Kirsten's birthday, the 10th is my grandma's, the 16th is Cecily's, 17th Maren's and 19th is mine, etc, etc...
When we were younger, we'd have two birthday celebrations. One for Dad and Kirsten and another for Maren and I. This has been condensed into one, if any birthday celebration.
So, back to the food! We made an attempt two years ago for our November celebration to be at P.F Chang's. It had opened recently and we were not able to get in. So we had China Bistro out in the cold, on one of the few cold days in Bakersfield. Haha!
This year was to make up for it. I like the food there, but upon opening the menu, I discovered that their prices had gone up significantly, averaging around $13-14 per entree as compared to $9-10 that they were a few years ago. I mean, the food isn't that great. It certainly isn't worth $20+ a person. I mean, we can go to Panda Express (my family's favorite) for less than half and quite honestly, their food is more than half the flavor of P.F. Chang's. Of course, you pay for the service and all of that, but I am still not feeling it.
Some restaurants are worth it, but is P.F. Chang's? Meh, I am thinking not.
Happy Birthday to my Grandma! I will not say how old she is, but it is her birthday, nonetheless! I love you!
Read more...(I will do a Halloween post soon, I promise!)
I know that these are somewhat dismal times in a lot of ways considering the economy and the war and people like the thought of the most wonderful time of the year. ESPECIALLY for retailers, and boy do they have to get going early. I shouldn't be stressing about Christmas presents before Thanksgiving, but I am! And advertisements are telling me I ought to be!
I mean, I love Christmas as much as the next guy and have been known to watch a Christmas movie in July. But that is my choice. But with some radio stations playing Christmas music and the bombardment of advertisers, it is hard to avoid, even for me, who barely watches TV and hardly listens to the radio.
And then we wonder why we feel such a letdown come January. So much build up for just a day. (Hmm, sort of reminds me of our election!) If only it were just a little less stressful a more enjoyable. Simple and special. It makes Thanksgiving feel like just a warm up to Christmas.
One of my favorite movies is "About A Boy" and there is a moment where Will is at the market and he hears the Christmas song his father wrote. "November the sodding nineteenth they were playing it..." Of course, I love that because that is my birthday! Growing up, I never thought about Christmas until it was actually December. We had a little tradition of putting up some decorations on the first. Three or four weeks of Christmas is plenty. Enough to enjoy, not so much that you are exhausted with the idea by the time December 25th comes around.
So, that will be my mantra. No Christmas until December. Yes, I will be shopping, but there will be no carols and no decorations until then
Viva la revolucion de Navidad!
Well, I am excited and happy! Obama won! Woohoo! I am so thrilled by all of the people who went out to make their voice heard.
Plus, just about every other thing on the ballot went the way I voted. It is awesome!
So, I braved the rain and the cold this morning to go vote! Nate had already voted by absentee voting, so I got to go by myself and cast my very first vote for president! Yay! It is exciting. I could have voted last time, but somehow with moving, name changing and switching parties, I got lost. Ah well, I guess it was one vote less for John Kerry in California. Hardly significant, I know, but still I felt like I had neglected my duty.
If you haven't done so already, get out there and vote! That is where the power is. I am so thrilled that there have been a record number of voters all over the country already today. Awesome!
I am on pins and needles waiting for the results!
I put off going through pictures for almost a month. That's really bad because it makes me procrastinate and put it off further. At any rate, here are some pictures from the last couple months. Mostly of the kids playing at the park and at Grammie and Poppa's. Halloween pictures coming soon, but sadly, there are only a handful of those. Enjoy!
Oh, and PS: Here's our presidential candidates in costume! 
Vote Obama on Tuesday! Even though most of my readers will not!
Last Friday, we took a little jaunt to Murray Farms to get pumpkins and we had a great time. We went to the petting zoo and the girls loved it. The goats were definitely a favorite, Cecily's still talking abut them! We then went to their little store. Cecily did steal (later purchased, no worries!) an apple from their store. Apparently it was a yummy apple! Then they picked out some pumpkins and played in the corn. I think we'll have to make this an annual trip!
So, I haven't written a blog in a month and I am sorry to the few that look here regularly! I don't know why, but I have sort of been avoiding it! At any rate. I figured I should get caught up with what is going on with us!
Nate's actually made money with his toy business! Yay! It seems to be picking up. Fingers crossed we will be able to live off of it in the future! Cha-Ching!
I have just been taking care of kids and not doing much that is super exciting! Kids are growing fast. Cecily and Cordelia are learning and improving their skills by leaps and bounds!
Last week, we had company in the form of Cecily's beloved Weeza. My mom had a meeting in Long Beach and Eliza needed to be picked up from Los Angeles, so we decided to make a trip of it. We went to The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.
I really loved the setup and it was really family friendly and easy to maneuver around in. Plus, it was a Tuesday and not very busy so that was a big positive. We got there around noon and the girls were excited and raring to go. They both like fish and so I thought that they would both love it! Cordelia immediately ran for the fishes and did not stop for anything! Cecily was a bit more reticent and was especially freaked out by the Great Sea Bass. Scary looking creatures!
Check this out:
Don't let this thing touch me!
Cordelia was much more hands on!
We took a break after the first floor out in the play area outside. Cecily loved the boat. Cordelia loved getting wet in the fountain area! She also touched the rays and some starfish. Cecily eventually touched an anemone inside, though, but she was too scared to at the beginning.
Here, birdie, birdie!
All Aboard!
Well hello!
I wanna play in the boat!
After lunch and looking at the "silly otters" Cecily got much more into it. Plus, I think the tropical fish were much more to her taste than the googly eyed cold water fish.
Both girls called these the "boing boings." You know in "Finding Nemo" when they bounce on the tops of the jellies?
Miss Cordelia presents... FISH!
Excuse the messy face!
They loved the divers! One even played peek-a-boo with Cordelia.
And yes, we found Nemo!
The frogs were cool:
And Dude, there was a turtle there. Totally!
The jackpot! Nemo and Dory heaven!
Can you spot the creature?
The kids participated in the animal parade. Basically, 5 kids with foam creatures, tambourines and music. Thrilling!
They got to see the sea lion up close and Cecily loved it and called the seal a tiger. You know you have to have lions and tigers, right?
That was our day. We had a brief venture to IKEA and then had to hunt for the Baja Fresh, then keep Cordelia entertained the ride home, but all was good and we had a great time!
So, last week, three of my five gorgeous nieces had their birthdays.
Wednesday was Hannah's and believe it or not she is 11 years old and in middle school. This is unfortunately an older picture of Hannah, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?
Aubrie's 10th birthday was on Thursday. She is growing up so fast.
Her one year younger sister, Emily celebrated her 9th birthday on Thursday as well!
Happy Birthday, Girls!
Guess What?
I am not pregnant!
That's not exactly surprising but the thought does make me happy. But, there are pregnant women everywhere. Three women who frequent playgroup all happen to be pregnant and due in the spring. This is a little scary for me, because pregnancy always seems to be contagious. Thankfully, non of my sisters or sisters in law happen to be pregnant. That would certainly be the kiss of death for my pregnancy free desires. I just can't seem to be pregnant on my own. So, I'll cross my fingers and keep my distance. Perhaps I'll take the pregnancy wave after next. Or the one after that. Maybe 12-18 months from now. Having two in close succession and one as attached as can be has taught me that there is only so much I can handle. Me being Fertile Myrtle, I guess we'll see how well that plan goes!
Maybe I'll have to wear that costume when the time comes, or have Nate wear this:
How ridiculous can these costumes be?
To all those pregger ladies, have a wonderful next several months. I will happily and gratefully watch from the side!
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