Thanksgiving!

I would like to announce that I actually made my FIRST Thanksgiving spread! I am the youngest of my family and have been married for 8 years, but with family living nearby I have never had to make Thanksgiving dinner. (Sad, I know.) But this year my in-laws went to Utah to visit their daughter! Since my parents live in Payson we weren't planning on having dinner until Saturday! I told Gordon I wanted to try to fix Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday! We went to the store and bought all of the things we wanted and went home to start defrosting the turkey. Little did we know after defrosting for awhile that our turkey was Cajun spiced! We decided to go ahead and cook the turkey to see how it tasted. After about 4 to 4&1/2 hours of filling our house with a great smell, it was done with all the fixings! I was very pleased with how everything looked. We tasted the dark meat first and MAN was it spicy! I had to drink a glass of milk afterward and it didn't really help. We decided to taste the white meat to see if it was any better. It was still pretty spicy. After everything was put on the table we ate the turkey smothered with gravy and mashed potatoes (rice for Gordon). It was bearable that way but you could still taste the kick it had! Anyway, I still had fun and I am definitely going to try again next year!

Turkey Trot!

Every year at school they line the kids up and have them race for fun! Of course they don't give prizes or ribbons or things like that until 3rd grade. Here is a video of David running with his blue jacket on and his orange pants. I counted and he came in 10th place, I think. (Sorry, I'm pretty competitive!) Hope you like it!

Halloween

Okay, I know it's late. But, better late than never, right? Here is a picture of the kids in their costumes. I actually took them around the neighborhood this year!A couple of days earlier we carved pumpkins! Actually Gordon did the carving, the kids did the drawing. Matthew and Hailey colored a small pumpkin that David got from school. David got to color a bigger one we bought at the store.

Building Vocabulary!

I love the fact that Hailey is starting to have more personality! Here is a clip that David says, "Hailey, say dog?" and then she barks! It is totally cute!

Fall!

I love the Fall! It's my favorite time of year! Not only because of the holidays, but when you live in Arizona it actually starts to cool down! The kids can play outside for more than 10 minutes and not keep coming in and out saying, "I'm thirsty!" I thought I'd share a picture that I thought was very cute with Matthew as a bucket-head!

February

Where to start! How about with the all adventurous 2yr old, Matthew. We had Matthew's birthday party on the 3rd. It was great! Lots of people came and we got to show off our new house! As for what happened after that...let's just say Matthew is the daredevil of the family. On the 5th of February Gordon decided that he was going to take the boys shopping. Gordon turned around for a second and Matthew had fallen out of the cart onto the floor. He picked him up and looked at him and decided it was time to go home. By the time they had gotten to the car Matthew's head had started to swell. Gordon looked for signs of concussion but didn't find any. When they got home we iced and gave Tylenol. The next day, my mom urged me to take him to the doctor to make sure nothing was wrong. Boy, am I glad she did! The doctor took one look at him and said, "Oh my Gosh!" Needless to say, I knew exactly what he was going to tell me next. So off to the emergency room to wait longer. When we were finally seen they sent for a CT Scan. Sure enough there was a fracture in his skull and they were going to transport him to Phx Children's Hospital for further analysis from a Pediatric Neurosurgeon. I went home that night and cried myself to sleep praying that they wouldn't have to do surgery on my poor little Matthew. They ordered another CT Scan in the morning and decided they would let us know what the options were. The Pediatric Neurosurgeon, Dr. Moss, sat down with us and showed us the CT Scan and told us everything we needed to know. We cried and nodded and cried some more. We knew from what he was telling us that there were too many what-ifs to not do surgery. As I held my baby we gave Matthew another blessing and the SPIRIT immediately told me he would be okay. The blessing said that he would have a fast recovery and he did! The Dr. told us after surgery that the average recovery time was 4 days. We left within 24hours of surgery! How I love the power of prayer! The only complaint that Matthew had afterwards was that he was stuck,(talking about the IV in his arm) not about the pain from his head. The swelling got worse when we got home and David decided to call his little brother a pirate because he could only see out of one eye! ARGH! He has recovered very nicely! He will have a scar, but it is already as thin as a paper cut! I doubt you will be able to see it at all when his hair grows back.
His Aunt Jill has decided that he needs to advertise how adventurous he is and bought him a shirt to help. David was, of course, jealous of all the attention Matthew was getting. So, Gordon and I took just David with us on Date night to dinner and a movie. He loved it!
He still loves his Matthew too!
Hailey is doing great, with more of a real crawl than military style. She's starting to get into more stuff though. We love it!
In other news, I have decided to take on cooking! I have joined The Pampered Chef Team! I have only had 2 shows so far but I am hoping that my family and I will benefit greatly from it. I also hope that March will not be quite as packed with excitement as February!

January 2007

This truly will be a happy new year for us. We finally bought a house! We will be moving at the end of January to the beginning of February. We have been waiting 7 1/2 years for this! Gordon is still doing great at his job and loving it. We will both be turning 30 this year and are not planning to have any mid-life crisis'. I've been tending to the kids occasionally(I like my quiet time too.). David has had a break from Preschool but will be returning on the 9th. He will be 5 in June and starting Kindergarten in the Fall! Matthew will have his 2nd birthday on the 30th and boy does he have those tantrums down pat! When he's not frustrated he's constantly smiling and in a good mood. Hailey has been rolling and rolling and rolling all around the house. Still no crawling yet though. The rolling does not keep her out of trouble by any means. Just the other day I found her next to the fridge when she started in the Living Room. I have also found her under her crib. She was happy and kicking both times I found her! I think she might be more mischievous than Matthew (HELP!). She will be a year old in April. Although we have no other plans for 2007 I'm hoping it will be as good as it has been so far!