Oh To Be Thankful....

I must say that this week has been a different one. It has been eventful, to say the least, but I've experienced a lot in the last few days and it has made me do a lot of thinking. It has reminded me of just how thankful I am. It started out with a trip to Albertsons to get my stuff for the dessert I was making for Thanksgiving with my family. When I left the store, I came out without the jars that I needed (because they were out of stock and didn't know when they'd get them in) and I realized I'd been overcharged $2 for pudding mixes that were supposed to be on sale. I mean we are all watching our pennies these days, but I didn't want to go through the trouble to go back into the store since the boys were already locked in their seats. So, I decided to go to McDonalds to get an iced coffee (why not spend more $$, right)? As I was sitting in the drive-thru, this man was trying to get my attention. Well, I was trying to avoid it because I sat there KNOWING that he wanted money and I just didn't have the heart to deal with it. I ended up rolling my window down and after conversing with him for a moment, realized he was really, honestly hungry. I asked him what he wanted and he said "Anything!!" So for $2 I got him a hamburger and coke and met him at the other side of the drive-thru. $2 fed him....and I was obsessing about being overcharged that much for pudding.....I was humbled.

Later that evening I made (for the first time ever) Pork Buns. They are a Chinese Dish with pork inside of a breaded steamed bun. I was impressed with myself and so I had to take a picture of the finished product. It was the prettiest thing, but it worked! I don't have a huge steamer to do it in so they all stuck together. It tasted good though.....but I saw parts of it the next morning when Ethan came down with the stomach flu. I'm trying not to have negative thoughts about this dish now. OH - and I woke up with the other part of the flu. SOOOoooo...I had to call my parents and we had to postpone Thanksgiving till Saturday. I was so upset that of ALL days it had to happen right before the holidays.... not to mention I had to clean everything up AGAIN....and the smell. UGH.

But do you ever have times where you receive something from someone that you just don't know what to say to ever thank them enough? That's happened several times even in the last few months for me and since I need people to understand me, I desperately want them to know how much what they've done means in my life. Well, when Bryan ran into our neighbor down the street on Thanksgiving afternoon, he asked Bryan why we weren't with family. Bryan said Ethan and I were recovering from the flu so we had to postpone. I almost cried when 10 minutes later, our neighbor Jeff came to our house with 4 HUGE plates of turkey, stuffing, gravy, yams, and green beans along with rolls for us for dinner. I still don't have the words. I just don't. To be that giving..... it still has me speechless. I just am amazed at the thoughfulness of people....it makes me emotional just thinking about it. And MAN was that meal good. It was really good...

So this was what we did for the holiday. This was the day AFTER we watched so many movies I think my butt was glued to the sofa. Who knew balloons could be so much fun? Unless you're a boy and you like to have weapons to pummel anyone least suspecting of it. All in all, I'm so thankful for everything God has given me in my life - and especially to our HEALTH (finally) and our friends and family. That's the most important. I love you all!

The Finer Things....???

Let's start this post on Thursday when I went to the doctor with Ethan for his 4 year old checkup (and a scheduled 5 shots). Let's just say that he didn't stop crying all morning BEFORE the appt (just the thought of the doctor was too much), and then I managed to whittle down the shots to 3 since he's not going to kindergarten any time soon. I got both the boys their flu shots also, and it was just crying everywhere in that exam room. WHEW...I tell ya - stress!! The next morning I had my ladies from AMP over for a Christmas/Harvest party and we had so much fun. I had a total of about 18 women there and we had great food and fellowship. We played this game where we brought pretty platters with cookies and goodies on them, then by number picked/stole platters from the table and each other until there were no platters left. Let's just say that there were only about 2 platters that hadn't been stolen the maximum amount of times. I made these chocolate gingerbread cookies from a Martha Stewart cookbook that are now one of my favorite holiday cookies for the fall!! YUM... That and fudge went on my platter.

Marcie, Ryan and Lori were a few of the ladies at the party. Here they are around the table of platters. We were all drooling over the sugary goodness on the different platters in front of us.

After the party, the boys took their naps, and later I went with Bryan on a DATE to an awesome BBQ restaurant that my parents recommended. My wonderful parents watched the kiddos and let Bryan and I have some much needed alone time. I could go on about the food because it was fantastic, but the best part was that we were able to sit there and enjoy ourselves just the two of us.

Saturday morning after running 9 miles at 6am....yes, I looked outside and thought, "NOW?? NoOOOOoooo...." but did it anyway... my friend Sonja treated me to a massage at a spa in Orange. Now I've never BEEN in a spa before, so it was definitely a different experience. The massage was wonderful and very relaxing (except for the fact that my masseuse worked on atheletes and did deep tissue as well which isn't so relaxing, but does take out the knots). She was strong and definitely got my ligaments nice and relaxed. Now I'm so new at the spa thing. It's odd for me to have on a robe and slippers (that other people have worn) and be walking around with nothing underneath it but my underwear, and having a couple women around me be without ANYTHING on. It's not the most comfortable thing in the world, but at least it was all women....I guess?? The stuff they have there for you is incredible. Not only can you go in the steam room, the sauna, the mist room, the jacuzzi or take a shower, but they also have hair products, makeup chairs, blow dryers and curling irons for when you're done!! They have tea and water everywhere and various fruits, iced towels, and amenities galore. It was a treat that went beyond what I would have even known existed. Thank you to Sonja for treating me to that new experience! We left well rested and went and had sushi. Thank you also to Bryan for watching the boys all morning and into the afternoon...where Austin....

....proceeded to wake up barfing all over his sheets, floor and pillow. I literally walked in the door after being at the spa and shopping to hear Austin puking into the kitchen sink and crying. Glorious entrance!! I got the amazing job of retrieving the chunk-laden linens from upstairs and bringing them downstairs to clean them off. So much for the relaxation! God knew I needed that morning to make up for the evening. Austin threw up for the rest of the evening, then went down and slept through the night. Well, Bryan and the boys didn't go to church, but since I'm part of the choir, I went and did my thing. When I came home, Austin was awake and feeling a lot better. So much better, in fact, that wearing my church shoes was not out of the question. And my son got a flu shot on Thursday??? I'm not even GOING there. So that's my weekend. I this sweet chunky novel wasn't too long for you all.

What a Weekend!

Lately it seems I've been avoiding the computer - probably because I have so many other things that I'd rather be doing, so I'm sorry that I have not been updating as much as I should. Amazingly enough, I also haven't been taking that many pictures. **gasp!!** I've been alone a lot lately since Bryan has had classes two nights a week, and this last week he also had to go on a small trip into LA for two days, so I've been trying to find my sanity (it's there somewhere) and haven't really had the heart to blog.

One of the extracurricular activities I did on Friday was gardening! Amazingly I sort of felt up to it so I hacked off the branches of a few bushes, then cleaned up our pomegranate tree in the backyard. We also made our way to Will and Riva's this weekend, and ended up sitting on the freeway watching one of the wildfires for about an hour since it was very close to jumping the freeway that we were on. My heart goes out to all those who lost their homes. It's not like fires normally affect the areas that they were burning this weekend.

I took this picture to show you just how far I can get up this bush (or tree since I hardly cut it). It almost looks like it has surfer hair. I can shave the ends, but it's got a mohawk going on upstairs. The rest is Bryan's job.

Bryan said our pomegranate looked pathetic after my hack job (he can cut it if he'd like...ha ha!). I left the only branches that still had fruit on them. Poor guy - I didn't want to take off the goods when they weren't ready. Then when I went to pull up one of the sagging branches out of our neighbor's yard, there was a pomegranate the size of a small cantaloupe on the other side, bursting with seeds. I taped a note on it telling our neighbor to take all the poms on their side. It was so sweet because the next day we got a little brown bag with avocados from her mom's yard in it. I sent over the rest of our poms. We were having a little mail going on there without the stamps! Ahh, the feel-good factor of loving our neighbors. Now that I've filled the garbage can with all the branches, I have to wait till this week to do the rest of the yard by the pond.

We finally got to see my cousin Lisa AND Ben. Last time we enjoyed Lisa's company, but Ben had to go home with health issues so we were excited to see them both this time. They picked a nice smoky time to visit Southern California. Thanks, guys, for taking the time to hang out. We loved seeing you and hope you don't get choked out of SoCal too soon! They are now living in Colorado - fun times!

During our family get-together, Austin found time to stroke Lynnea's hair. He loves doing that to her and I think it's the way he shows his affection. It's the only "baby" younger than him, and he likes giving her loves.

I had bought buttermilk the other day and when I have buttermilk on hand, I try to make banana bread. The boys have really started loving to help me cook (I didn't think that day would ever come) so we all made banana bread this morning. They fight about pretty much everything, and Ethan likes to be the boss, so it was a challenge, but we did it. Austin is like me, he likes to taste the dough. Ethan just wants the finished product. It turned out good and the boys did a great job stirring and dumping ingredients (only a little on the countertops).

Halloween - (No Comment)

And my sister says SHE posts late... So before Halloween, my friend Sonja and I decided to bring our kids to what we thought was a local pumpkin patch. Um...not really. Turns out that everything doesn't open until the weekends - and what was supposed to open at 10am - really didn't. So we managed to still keep the kids entertained while also sampling fudge at the local fudge shop there. Amazingly enough, we were there for quite a while (thanks to our packed lunches for the kids) and had a pretty good time.

This was a cool bulldozer they had there. For 50 cents you could operate it and drag the sand into mounds. Sounds fun, huh? Well by the time you got around to figuring out how it worked, your time was up. So that's why you see me trying to help Ethan work the thing. They both just enjoyed feeling the power of operating heavy machinery I think while I was trying to master the mechanics of the thing.

A picture of the boys enjoying their apples. What is it about keeping our kids happy by feeding them? Well, I mean they were happy before I gave them apples, but obviously Austin was REALLY happy when he got the apple. Tom's Farms has great produce, too, and I didn't leave empty handed in that department!

Bryan bought a pineapple for our family the other day (since he's allergic to melons) and when he went to cut it, Austin immediately pulled up a chair. He loves helping out in the kitchen even if he's forever in your way. Well, in this case he just wanted to help EAT the pineapple. Ethan wasn't sure if he wanted any, but when he saw how Austin was attacking the thing, he wanted in on the action. I'm not kidding when I say that Bryan would turn around to throw something away, and Austin would jam several pieces in his mouth by the time Bryan would turn back to the cutting board. He knows what he wants!! We actually had to physically remove him so he wouldn't eat so much.

THEN there's Halloween. We went to our church's Harvest festival, and I got several pictures, but they were all quite dark and you can't see too much. There's an entire candy room where you can fill your bag, then go outside and play any game you want to. Ethan had fun playing games (especially basketball) and Austin had fun picking what piece of candy he wanted next. We had a really fun time. This is a picture of the boys enjoying the Fun Dip candy back at home the next day. They were all excited that their tongues were turning blue and green. Austin would dip, lick, and then bite on his candy stick. Pretty soon he had no candy stick left to dip. He couldn't figure that one out.

We went to our friends' son, Blake's birthday party. He turned 2 and they had lots of really fattening food and candy there. As I was scarfing down Doritos, the boys had their fun with hockey sticks and fake swords. Swatting things (and each other) was the game of the night. Bryan ended up running into an old co-worker who (get this) left his work in Orange 4 years ago, got married, moved to AZ, moved back to CA and into the house next door to our friends that I've known forever who live in the Inland Empire. So we go to this party and she recognizes Bryan instantly. Small world. It's amazing to me.

The boys and their new slippers. Spiderman and Elmo. Two superheroes....right? ha ha. They were in heaven when we bought these fluffy things. At first I didn't think Austin would wear his. He just wanted to hold and snuggle Elmo, but when brother put his on, Austin had to do the same. Thank goodness I didn't listen to the fact that he didn't want them in the store, and bought them anyways. If one has a pair, the other must too. I guess that doesn't just happen with twins....