Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend around here. Allen's sister Laurie and her new husband Adam came down to Phoenix for the holiday.

On Thursday, Allen and Carter left bright and early to play football with some guys in our ward. Both of them were in heaven - Al got to play football and Carter got to hang out with the little boys from our ward. While they were gone I caught snippets of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It is a tradition from my childhood to watch it and I remember loving it. I don't remember SO MANY commercials though and I only lasted about 30 minutes before getting annoyed (next year maybe I'll DVR it). We spent the rest of the morning preparing our parts of our feast and just enjoyed being together.

My greatest blessings:
In the afternoon we got together with several of our friends for dinner at the Higgins' home. We joined with the Higgins, Jeppsons, Headricks and Smiths for dinner. It was the best of both worlds having Thanksgiving with friends AND family this year. The food was incredible! After dinner, Becky turned on the hot tub so the kids could swim. It was unseasonably cool this year so we didn't think the kids would last long. How wrong we were! The kids swam, in the unheated pool, with occasional warm ups in the hot tub for a LONG time (probably a couple hours). We were shocked. The water was freezing but they didn't seem fazed by it at all.



After we drug them out kicking and screaming (literally), we had a fire in the fire pit and enjoyed dessert. The Pace's and Baird's joined in on the fun for dessert. It was such a great day. We're so thankful for amazing friends and for Adam and Laurie for coming down.

We went home and got the kiddos to bed and then I hooked up with some of my girlfriends for a little midnight madness shopping at the outlet mall. It was absolutely insane. We got up there around midnight and the line of cars to get off the exit was at least a mile long. The crowds were astounding and we stood in line for a long time. We ended up getting home at about 3:30 a.m. It wasn't worth it for the shopping but I had so much fun being with my friends!

Allen, Laurie and Adam decided to hit a few stores early Friday morning for some BF deals. They hit Target and were in and out very quickly. Al decided to drag them to Toys R Us to check out some bikes for the big kids. And ended up being in line for 2 1/2 hours. Never again. He saved us about $40 but it wasn't really worth it.

The rest of Friday we hung out as a family. We took the kids to lunch and to see Bolt and we LOVED it. Such a cute, cute movie. We will definitely be purchasing that one! After naps we took a late afternoon hike and finished up the day with some board games. It was such a fun and relaxing day (although very sleep deprived for us crazy shoppers).

Saturday was my 33rd birthday! Allen, my family and friends TOTALLY spoiled me. Last year, I had a horrible birthday. Chalk it up to pregnancy hormones or something but I was in such a bad mood last year. Having a bday right after Thanksgiving totally gets lost in the shuffle. So this year Allen went over the top making sure I had a great day. I got breakfast in bed, got a pedicure with a cute friend, did not lift a finger ALL day (seriously, I did not change a diaper, get any kids ready, clean anything, prepare any food - the best gift of all!!), got a nap, had free time to read my book, had laundry washed, folded and ironed for me, had my car decorated by the kids, got sweet notes left all over the house for me and got to go on a date with my awesome hubby last night. I also heard from lots of my dear friends. Thank you all for making my day special. Laurie made me a delicious pear pie (oh my gosh, soooo good) for a treat and then joined us for dinner/shopping last night. It was an awesome birthday!

My car:
At dinner:

I am really going to have to pick up the pace to make up for my extremely relaxed weekend. I have lots to get caught up on and except for having my shopping done, I have not done a single thing for Christmas. I've got to get going. This week the holiday busyness kicks off in full swing!

9 Months!

I am so pathetically far behind in my blogging. Addie will be 10 months old on Friday and here I am just blogging about her at 9 months!

Addie is just a ray of sunshine in our family. She is SUCH a happy little girl and smiles and giggles for just about anyone who pays attention to her. She especially loves Carter and Makenna. Makenna can make her laugh like nobodies business and she loves to crawl all over Carter. Their favorite thing is to get her up in the morning and snuggle with her. And sometimes they fight over her, which is pretty funny too.

Here's Lulu's stats for the month per the doctor about 3 weeks ago:
Weight: 16 lb. 3 oz (25th percentile and a full pound more than she weighed at the ER the previous week)
Height: 27.75 inches (50th)

Head 17.25 inches (50th)

I swear she's gained at least a pound since she was last weighed. She is chubbying up quite a bit now that she is chowing down on table food. She is the only child we've had that LOVES baby cereal. It's probably her favorite thing and if I skip it at a meal she acts hungry until she gets her bowl of cereal. She has developed a fondness for yogurt and gets that at least once a day and has started to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and quesadillas along with all her other foods.
She still has no teeth so she just gums everything up.

She is crawling all over everything. A few days ago she was in her chair eating breakfast. I turned around and she had crawled out and was precariously perched on top of her tray peering over the side. Shudder. Scared the heck out of me. Here she is on the dishwasher a last week:

LOOOOVES bath time and kicks and splashes for as long as we'll let her (Aunt Laurie calls this her Sylvester Stallone/Rocky smile):

Loves getting in tight spots, until she wants to get out and then she gets mad:

Is infatuated with the Christmas tree (this is from the day we were decorating our downstairs tree last week)

She has been moved upstairs and is sleeping better at night. She's been getting up around 4:00 a.m. to eat but we're hoping to break her of it this week (which will include breaking my heart into a million pieces each and every night)

She is the love of all of our lives and we can't imagine our family without her!

Happy Birthday, My Hottie!

Monique's 33rd Birthday is 11/29/08. A huge shout-out to Dad and Mom Baldwin for representing in the gene pool and producing and raising such a beautiful, talented girl. We love you, Monique, aka Mom, aka The Better Half!

Disclaimer: This post was written by Allen (the lesser half).

Won't you Join Us?

This year Al and I have decided to forgo Christmas gifts for each other. Like many we are cutting back, and, in all honesty, there is not a single thing that we really want or need. It's frankly, quite a relief. BUT, we still wanted to do something for each other and know there are so so many in need this year.

So, instead of gifts, we are each taking an allotted amount and donating it to the charity of our choice. On Christmas morning we will reveal to the other the charity we chose and the reason we picked it. I'm so excited! There are no other restrictions except that it must go to someone (or an organization) in need.

Want to join us? I'm challenging all my friends and family to forgo one gift this year and make the difference in someone else's life instead. It feels SO good!!! I'll post sometime after Christmas and ask you to share your stories. And please, pass the idea along! *This* is the true meaning of the season!

The day before the Turkey

1. Did my grocery shopping at Target. Irresponsible and expensive? Yes. Sanity saving? HECK yes. I could not stomach the thought of taking all 3 kids to Wal Mart to grocery shop today. Nightmare.

2. Went to the mall to pick out my post Thanksgiving Gymboree sale items. To be told they're not doing presale holds this year. WHAT?!?!? I've done this Gymbo sale for years and have never had this happen. They will NOT be getting my business this year because I'm so ticked. Dumb move Gymbo, and in a bad economy {shaking my head}

3. Decorated the downstairs tree and most of the main floor. I'll tackle the rest this weekend. Decorating is helping get me in a more festive mood. I'm so not feeling it this year (and that makes me so sad).

4. Have a slowly healing toe. I stayed off it most of the day on Monday. It felt great yesterday and then both kids have stomped on it today and I'm in lots of pain again.

I have some cleaning to finish and then I'll start dinner prep for tomorrow! Yay!

I'll be back with Miss A's 9 month post!

Are you kidding me?

So this morning I was rushing around trying to get my kids out the door for school. And I caught my baby toe on the moulding of one of the doors. I hear a crunch and felt a shooting pain go straight up my leg. Yep, I'm pretty sure I broke my toe. So. Much. Pain.

I've been hobbling around all day and finally had to pop a post-baby pain pill since the Motrin wasn't touching the pain. It is killing me - it's sore all the way through my foot and into my shin. You've got to be kidding me. I have WAY too much to do this week to be down with a broken toe. Activity days tomorrow, Shopping/Cleaning/Preparing for company, Black Friday shopping... hello, this could not be any more inconvenient. And really, I'm trying not to be a baby here but it hurts BAD!!

Maybe I will actually get caught up on some blogging since I've got to stay off my foot!

Birthday Week

I have become such a total blogging slacker! I have stuff to blog about but find myself getting busier as the holidays get closer. It's gotten put on the back burner.

So without further ado, here's a recap of Allen's birthday week. Let me explain that Bdays were not such a huge deal in Al's family, but they were in mine. So it's taken us awhile to get a good birthday groove on. It does not help matters that my husband is SO low maintenance that he's virtually impossible to buy a gift for. Anyway, I digress.


So, the morning of Allen's bday, I got up early and made him hot breakfast. That is his dream in life, to have hot breakfast every morning. He married the wrong girl for that.. especially since he leaves the house at 6:15. So I got up and whipped up some pina colada pancakes and sausage.

A few of his work colleagues took him out for lunch at one of his favorite places... In n Out Burger. After I picked up Carter from school we ran over to Al's office to decorate his car. The kids had the best time decorating the windows and we filled his car up with balloons. He was very surprised and got a big kick out of it. It was fun for the kids to be really involved with something for his birthday.

That night one of our friends offered to watch our kids so we had a nice night out at one of our favorite places, Gardunos. The food was fabulous and the company was even better. We finished the night by hitting the grocery store together (the romance never dies) but were too full to pick up dessert on the way home.

Since we went out on Tuesday, I told Al I would make his birthday dinner later in the week. I ran out of time on Wednesday but did manage to get his cake made. He requested the amazing Pear cake with caramel sauce. I ended up having to borrow a cake mix from a friend at the last second, because, despite having 27 mixes in my food storage, I did not have a single white one. I did have funfetti mix but didn't think it would be quite the same :)

Thursday night I finally got it together and made his birthday dinner. He requested his usual - chicken cordon blue, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, etc. We really stretched out the birthday celebrating this year!

I'm so grateful for my amazing husband!

Check this out

I found the BEST source for Food Storage information. You should definitely check it out if you're working on building up/maintaining your food storage (PLEASE!! I hope everyone is working on this)

Safely Gathered In

My favorite thing is the printable lists she has for various FS goals. She makes it very manageable to build a food storage with a small budget.

Here's my favorite: 3 Month Supply Ingredient List
The meals are very basic but very affordable for anyone to accumulate the ingredients for.

A few more of my favorite websites/blogs:

Everyday food storage (lots of recipes to use items in your FS)
Organized Mom (lots of good categories but this is a link to the preparedness category)
My food storage Deals (this girl lives in UT and has a business to help you get great grocery deals. I would so be subscribing to her service if I lived there - only $8 per month! But she also has tons of ideas/tips on her blog)
Totally Ready

Provident Living (of course no list would be complete without the official LDS guide)

{PS Thanks for all your SWEET comments about our pictures!}

More Family Pictures

Yesterday I got the disk with the rest of our family pictures! I'm sooooo thrilled with how they turned out. I can hardly narrow down the ones I like the best. Here are a few more for your viewing pleasure :)
Finally, something to replace our engagement pictures that are still in the frames:The guysMe with my girls. I love this picture so much, I could cry!This is one of my favorites. The original idea was to get Al and I kissing and the kids blurry in the background. Totally off the cuff, Carter leaned over and kissed Makenna and Erin captured it on film. It cracks me up. You can't make this stuff up!
Does this not just scream, we live in AZ?

Busy doing...nothing

You know what I mean? Life is just busy, but not necessarily note worthy. I'm enjoying the calm before the December holiday storm and just trying to get a few things done around here...

* My kids are all better so that makes me incredibly happy!! Carter has a lingering cough but that is it.

* Sterilizing all the bedding and toys to get the last of the germies out

* Hiking with my Activity Day girls yesterday - I am old and out of shape compared to them. They kicked my trash but I was able to keep up.

* Going to the movies with my kiddos (twice in the last week :). Hiking with my kids - we've found a new love. Crafting with my kids - all things Thanksgiving and Turkeys.

* Lots of bike riding and playing outdoors. We've got to live it up while we can around here. We've been loving the temps in the low to mid 70s

* Christmas shopping

* Ignoring all the emails for the fabulous sales that are happening right now. We must be in a recession because there are lots of stores doing great shopping perks. I'm in anti spend mode though and have to remind myself, "we have enough"

* Cleaning out cabinets/ organizing and dejunking toys

* Attending book club, girls night and dinner group exchange

And really, that is about it. Like I said, busy but not noteworthy. I like to have a record of what we've been up to. I'll have to add some pictures later!

The Turkey Hill Divide

Allen and I are connoisseurs of ice cream. It's almost my favorite treat in the world. Yesterday, Al was dishing up a bowl and said, "Man, I really miss Turkey Hill ice cream." I haven't thought about TH for at least two years, since we left the east coast.

We were gloriously introduced to TH when we were invited to the Coons' house for dinner our first Sunday living in CT (do you remember that Amy?). A love affair was born that lasted for the entire 4 years we lived in CT. It's the best ice cream I've ever had (and even better since it was almost always on sale somewhere for about $2 per half gallon).

So... here's the question. Since we have friends living all over the country, I'm curious if you can get Turkey Hill where YOU live. Just how far east would we have to travel to find some deliciousness? Forget about the great divide, the Mason Dixon line, etc. Where is the Turkey Hill divide?

Weigh in please!

{Isn't it so much more fun to talk about food than politics?}

How I'm feeling today...

vowing to keep my mouth shut. I will say three things:

1. I'm buckling up for what I believe will be a very bumpy ride. I think it is very interesting that he is already back pedaling on some of his campaign promises.

2. I am happy that America has embraced diversity in it's presidential candidate. It speaks volumes for how far this country has come and for that I am grateful. I hope this inspires people of every ethnicity to do and be better.

3. After watching John McCain's speech last night, I have even more respect for him. Eloquent and gracious.

That is all.

Day 13

I am on Day 13 of having sick kids! Which also means it has been 13 days since I've had any sort of break. It's been a long (almost) two weeks.

It all started two Wednesdays ago when M started to complain about her ear hurting. A day later A was pulling on her ear and getting more fussy. I was able to get them both on antibiotics the next day and hoped for the best. By Sunday M was a disaster - hoarse, coughing, feverish. We went to Sacrament Mtg. so we could see the primary program and then I brought the girls home from church. M missed school on Monday and only attended for the last hour on Wednesday so she wouldn't miss the Halloween party. By Thurs. she seemed to be pulling out of it and mostly just had a cough. I thought maybe we were out of the woods.

Friday (Halloween) morning I noticed that A was getting hoarse. Uh, oh. If you've never heard a hoarse baby, it's pretty cute (but sad nonetheless). At first she seemed ok and was having fun discovering her new "voice." By the time we hit the ward party, I could tell she was actually sick. She had a fever and was stuffed up. Saturday I kept M home from dance and let Al handle the soccer game alone since A was really sick. By the afternoon she was having a hard time breathing. We kept taking her into the steamy bathroom to try to clear her out but it wasn't helping.

I ended up at the ER with her on Saturday evening because her breathing was getting more labored and the steam wasn't helping. Luckily we have a pediatric ER close to our house so they were able to get her right in. She received two breathing treatments and some steroids and was breathing a ton better almost immediately. They kept us for several hours to observe her (have you ever been in the ER with a tired/sick/hungry baby? Miserable!) and then sent us home. She has been a lot better since but is still clearly sick.

On Sunday morning Carter woke up with a fever. Al kept all the kids home from church while I attended stake conference by myself. He has all the symptoms of the other kids and is now home from school for the 2nd day. This is a slooooow moving illness. It's been 2 weeks since M showed her first signs and she's still coughing a lot.

I'm burned out of being cooped up in the house. We haven't been much of anywhere except for a few errands. Today I might take the kids out to lunch just for a break. Anyway, this isn't particularly exciting for anyone to read but it's what we've been up to around here.

On a related note, our little bruiser has finally broken the 15 lb. mark at nearly 9 months. She was 15 lb. 2 oz. when she was weighed at the ER. I was stunned that she is still so tiny. She seriously eats like a horse. She must have inherited my super stellar metabolism that I enjoyed once upon a time! {Both other kids were around 15 lbs. at 2 months}. The weight range for most 6-12 month clothes starts at 17 lbs. She's our peanut!

And since this post is going on and on anyway (and I'm complaining a bit), can I just say how tired I am of my older two fighting these last few days. They've gotten the teasing/bugging each other bit down to a science. I've had to split them up more than once! Ugh.

Halloween Recap

Instead of doing a bunch of Halloween posts, I decided to just highlight what we've been up to this month. All of my kids are pretty sick this week so we've laid more low than we normally would during a holiday week but we've managed to have some fun too!

A few weeks ago we made our traditional spooky gingerbread house for FHE.


We BOO'd our neighbors - the kids ate this up and wanted to do more neighbors. We'll have to do more people next year.On Wednesday, even though she was deathly ill, Makenna attended her preschool Halloween bash. It was cute. They decorated pumpkins, played games, decorated cookies and shared treats.

On Wednesday night, we had our traditional dinner in a pumpkin dinner (I usually do this on Halloween night but this year our ward Trunk or Treat and dinner was on Halloween so we did it earlier in the week).

It looks kind of gross but it is really good and the kids loved it.

We also had mummy dogs:We carved our pumpkins:(you can tell how sick M is in these pics by looking at her eyes)

Finished pumpkins:

Thursday: Had a big Activity Days Daddy Daughter Halloween party that I was in charge of. I have no pictures but it turned out to be really fun! (Have I mentioned that I'm BACK in AD again? - hooray!!!)

Friday: Yesterday after school in an attempt to distract the kids from wanting to ToT too early, we made and decorated sugar cookies. Apparently we are no respecter of holidays as many of these are decorated with Christmas and valentine sprinkles. Finally, my little ToTers. Carter's school does not celebrate Halloween in any way (no fall festival or anything), which really makes me sad for him. So last night was his one and only time in his costume this year.

My cute astronaut (forgive the glare of his helmet, he wouldn't take it off):

Ariel (she and Addie were supposed to be dressed alike but at the last second (Monday) she decided she wanted to be Ariel. I preferred the other costume but want her to dress up as she wants. I really had to scrounge to find a costume on time):Monarch butterfly (you would never know that she was so sick here):The crew before ToT and the ward party (Allen had dressed up for work):We had a great holiday season despite having the sickies around here. Hope you did too!

(Usually I'm really ready to move on to Christmas once Halloween is over. Not so much this year. We were out having lunch today, sitting on the patio and the restaurant was blaring Chrismtas music. Strange since it's still 95 degrees out.)