Pictures From Thanksgiving By Bryce (Per Kelli, this listing is posted by Bryce)!!!

Ewan after the festivities.

Fynn after the festivities.

Keith going for a cold one.

Brady getting a tutorial on how to stand on beds and still look innocent.

Corgan giving a fart smile.

Snippets

Ewan's take on Thanksgiving:

"Mommy, I thought Thanksgiving was more fun stuff instead of just eating."

and

"Mommy, you don't know how to make stuffing."

The holiday was good, we had the Bowers over for Thanksgiving, and seriously, all the food we made was some of the best food I've ever eaten (even the stuffing.)  Then I took a nice, long nap with the baby and afterwards we visited with my parents and my brother with his girlfriend.  Then we headed over to Bryce's parents' house and saw his uncle from L.A., some cousins, and Bryce's brother D.J. and girlfriend.  Ewan loves D.J., and he's such a great uncle.  Now Bryce has gone to San Angelo with Ewan and Fynn for his great uncle's funeral.  I've had the house to myself since yesterday at 9:30.  I haven't done  much:  watched movies, eaten pie and bonded with Corgan.  Then I did a TINY bit of shopping and lunch with Sarah.  It was a lot of fun.  The best part was finding GOOD movies at Target for only $3.98.  Can't beat that.  I'll be alone all day today, too, probably until 6:00.  More movies are in store for me.  Oh, and naps.

Side note:  Can anyone tell me why the addition of one wee baby to a family makes laundry shift from manageable to nearly impossible to keep up with?

Go, Team

Thanks, Uncle David.

An Illustrated List of Unconventional Thankfulness

I am not a person who can get sappy publicly. Trust me, I have nothing against sap, I just can't express it. It makes me squirm and fidget. Needless to say, I am extremely thankful for my family and our home and all the things I discuss with Heavenly Father. I love my family more than anything in the world and am beyond grateful for my life. I'll leave it at that. But there are other things I am thankful for, like:

Creative solutions.

Winning contests:

"Dear Lucky Reader, CONGRATULATIONS! Just in time for the Holidays, you have won a selection of Crabtree & Evelyn’s NEW Aromatherapy Distillations Relaxing body care collection... We hope you enjoy the Relaxing Floral Body Smoother, Relaxing Skin Softening Milk Bath, Relaxing Gentle Cram Body Wash , and Relaxing Soothing Body Lotion..."

Vacuums and mops.

Therapy.

Cats. Most of the time. This picture was not taken during one of those times.

Okay, I'll get as sappy as I can, if you insist:

I am thankful for pictures of my squishy, sweet baby by a great, talented friend.

Carpet picnics with these guys (heck, for that matter, I'm thankful for McDonalds):

And even this guy. He takes good care of me. Even if he did skin Elmo.

And I'm thankful for many more things, including all of you. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Eyelashes for sale

How much do you think we could make off of these bad boys?  (Click on picture for full effect.)

*Sigh*

Okay, yes, I am totally busy, shouldn't be on the computer, but I couldn't let this go undocumented for one second. I looked over at Fynn a little bit ago, and he had put Corgan's newborn hat from the hospital on Elmo's head. He held him up against his shoulder and started patting Elmo's back. Then he took him to his room and said he was "night night" and he shut the door.

Which reminds me, have you ever seen the following video from Sesame Street? Totally worth the time.

See, Bryce, he DOES smile!

Forgive the shadow my thumb made over this picture; I have no clue how to fix it.  But this is proof for Bryce that Corgan does smile for me.  Every time I call him into the room to witness it, the baby stops.  So here is the tail end of a total eye-crinkling grin, captured for all time.

Notes on the Day

A poorly written, random, in-no-particular-order post about what's on my mind right now:


Corgan is one month old today. I never did monthly pictures with Ewan or Fynn because I just didn't think of it, but I want to with Corgan. It will make up for the fact that as the third kid, the number of pictures of him will be far outnumbered by pictures of Ewan The Firstborn. I think the look on his face in the first picture is a peek at the look he'll give me frequently as a teenager.

We took the kids to a Primary party today, and when we got there, they told us we could just drop Ewan off. He wasn't totally thrilled with that, but we went grocery shopping with Fynn and Corgan. When we got back, they let Fynn have some pizza and a cookie as we were leaving. He really enjoyed that cookie, as you can tell. Before we left the party, Ewan came to me and said, "Mommy, what if a monster ate me when Fynn and Corgan were still in your belly? You would say, 'Oh, Ewan is my only son!' and you would cry and cry."

He likes to wear Bryce's hats. Oh, my gosh - look at this boy's face! He's a work of art!

What it looks like most of the time at our house now: a blur of rowdy boys. Fynn is old enough now to really be friends with Ewan. They wrestle and scream all day. Can't wait to have THREE of them wrestling and playing together. (Forgive the crumbs and canned goods on the floor. It was cleaning day. I was reorganizing.)

Lastly, um... I'm totally addicted to Facebook. It's a good thing I can browse the Internet on my iPod and that 80% of my time is spent sitting and nursing. It allows me to feed the addiction. Waiting for the novelty to wear off, but I can't believe some of the old friends I've found.

Pathetic

I don't need to tell anyone how pitiful men are when it comes to getting sick, do I?  I mean, most of us have seen  "Man Cold," right?  Well, Bryce is no exception and when he gets a sore throat, he has a habit of wrapping it up in a scarf or whatever he can get his hands on.  Tonight he used a scarf I received as a gift a few years ago.  He walked into the living room, Ewan took one look at him and asked, "What is that?!"  Without missing a beat, I told him it was Elmo skin.

So the question is...

... should I tell Ewan the truth or use it to get him to obey me...? - 

Shopping for socks at Target, standing in front of a huge wall full of them.  Ewan pulls one of the empty metal hanging rods off and says, "Uh-oh, Mommy, this came off."  Having my hands full with all three boys and not being able to go hang it back up, I said, "Well, um, just lay it nicely on the floor under the shelf."  Panic washed over his face as he frantically tried to get it back up and he said, "No, Mommy!  If I leave it there, someone will find it and they will call the police and the police will come looking for who did it and then they will get me!"

People disgust me...

... and maybe I'll disgust you with my cheesiness, but this kitty is an amazing little guy, despite some brats' efforts at playing football with him.

Okay, here goes: The Great Jeans Countdown

This post is really for me, so obviously feel free to read, but forgive me if your brain starts to melt out of your head from boredom.

This morning, my one pair of jeans that fit me - maternity jeans - were dirty and I was frantically searching for something to wear.  I looked at my pile of pre-pregnancy jeans and decided to try on the biggest pair, even though they didn't fit me one week ago.  But they fit!  Now, I'm going to be humble here and admit it:  they are a size 17, Mossimo from Target.  They aren't my favorite, but by gosh, they fit.  I have four more pairs of jeans from before baby that I want to fit into, and their sizes start at 15 and go down to size 11.  Two pairs, both 12s, I have never even worn.  Bryce had told me I could buy me some jeans, but I decided not to in what may be a misguided attempt to lose the weight required to fit into the others.  

Now, Ashley has had some weight-loss success by counting calories and all that good stuff, but I am not good at that.  I get overwhelmed by numbers and give up.  So my plan is to replace the bad things I eat with good things - one at a time.  I'm also not good at major overhauls, I have to do it step by step.  To get started with a bang, I will tackle my two worst habits.  You all know about my rabid Coke addiction, so I will replace all Cokes with water (unless I go out to eat, I just can't commit to giving up Coke with my fajitas.  And I can't do diet drinks.  Sorry, Missy, I tried).  My other worst habit is BAKED GOODS!!!  Oh, my goodness, especially if there is good TV, I will kill a batch of chocolate chip cookies before the oven is done preheating.  

I was supposed to start this plan this past Monday, but it was a stressful day and I drank some Coke, then Shannon came by with my favorite shortbread cookies - which are basically pure butter.  (Thanks, Shannon!  They were yummy.  And at the same time, DARN IT!)  My plan also requires a trip to the grocery store as we are low on any fruit, so I will be starting on Saturday.  So hopefully by giving myself a realistic goal, i.e. fitting into the next size down, as opposed to declaring I'll be size 8 by a certain date, I can have some success.  So today I fit into my size 17 Mossimos and a pair of size 14 Old Navy.  Yay for me!  Next up:  a pair of size 15 Mossimos (which are inexplicably smaller than the 14s).  Wish me luck.

OH. MY. GOSH.

Wanted:  a person as my lookout while I rush Anthropologie and steal this dress.  Obviously, I'm kidding.  But you'd understand if I did do it.  Just see how it looks on the model, on the last page of the November catalogue.  It's not often that something stops me in my tracks and makes me freeze in admiration.  

Grrrr....

This has me quite upset.

Notice anything...

... other than the insanely cute toddler holding the insanely cute baby? Notice that Fynn's cast is no more! YAY! Celebratory margaritas and fajitas at On the Border! On me!*

* Disclaimer: by margaritas I mean Coke and by fajitas at On the Border I mean hot dogs in my kitchen.

So sue me...

...I didn't vote.  I don't like to get into political things on here, or anywhere really, because I am largely ignorant of many of the key issues and can't seem to cram the knowledge into my head.  All I am going to say that although I would not have voted for Obama - I am not devastated as many of my friends are.  I am extremely interested to see what's going to happen.  And although I don't usually wax poetic about this sort of thing - it really is amazing how far America has come that we will now have a half-black president.

Jar Glove

Okay, this is way too many posts for me in one day, but we loved this segment on Saturday Night Live, and I've told several people about it.  Now here it is: Jar Glove.

"HOW-WEEN!!!"

*The title above is from how Ewan would say "Happy Halloween" when he was about 18 months old.* Unfortunately, our Halloween this year turned out to be a bit of a bust for the boys. Since I'm still recovering, and since Corgan is still so tiny, we decided I would just stay home and not pass out candy this year. So he and I sat on the couch and I watched several episodes of "How I Met Your Mother." Bryce and Keith met up to take the kids trick-or-treating in another neighborhood. Apparently, Ewan should have taken a nap that day because he threw so many fits and was acting rude and ungrateful to the homeowners, that Bryce snatched him up and brought him home. I couldn't believe it when they walked in the door and only had about ten pieces of candy between the two of them. Bryce felt a little bad, but we can't and won't tolerate Ewan acting that way. We made up for it a bit the next night, but before that, some pictures from Halloween:

Corgan wearing the t-shirt I thought he'd be wearing in the hospital.

And later in his "costume" that Aunt Ashley bought. The cutest kitty I've ever seen, and I've seen some cute kitty-cats.

All three boys in their costumes: Optimus Prime, Giraffe, and Kitty-cat.

I still need to get this on video, because it's hilarious, but here is a still of Ewan "transforming." Sound effects and everything.

The next night, we were suffering from cabin fever but couldn't really take the baby anywhere, and we still had our intact pumpkin, so we decided to carve it. I made cookies and we watched the Incredibles with all the lights out while our Jack-o-Lantern shone from the table in the living room. We had tons of fun and the boys don't even realize they missed real trick-or-treating.

Fynn wanted nothing to do with cleaning out the seeds, so...

...I let him color on his mini-pumpkin we bought at the pumpking patch.

Ewan's hands were covered in Halloween "guts" and he kept cracking us up by asking Bryce every few minutes to scratch his cheek or forehead. He ended up carving most of the pumpkin himself with special safe tools.

The final product.

The difference a neighbor makes

We have this neighbor across the street, a single guy who works as a flight attendant.  When we first moved in, he was very nice and brought us a big cheesecake (which we lived off of for three days) and he takes care of the elderly woman who lives next door, taking her to her doctor's appointments and grocery shopping.  So you know, nice guy, right?  Well... yes and no.  I want to give credit where credit is due, but he's quite judgmental and has said some very rude things on several occasions, usually about our kids and pets.  And he once refused to let Bryce borrow his lawn mower because he "saved for a long time to buy a $400 mower" and didn't want Bryce to break it.  I really believe he thinks of us as "breeders."  A few days ago, Bryce was leaving the house with Fynn and this man saw him and asked if I'd had the baby.  Bryce told him yes, and he asked Bryce, "So, are y'all done?"  Bryce said, "Well, for now for sure."  And this man said, "For the next six weeks, anyway."  I usually can get offended, but Bryce can calm me down with a shrug when I have no reason to be, so when something bothers or offends him, I know I'm justified.  And that comment even bothered Bryce.

Now, on our left lives another single man, one who has lived in our neighborhood his entire life.  He lives in the house that he was raised in, bought from his mother.  He's always very kind, checking on me when Bryce works nights, he brought bears for the boys when Fynn was born, bringing them Halloween candy because he's not home on Halloween, etc.  (And he's not creepy or anything, I promise.)  Now, I don't need people to buy us things to show they can be neighborly, but he's just a world away from the man across the street, and he went above and beyond the day before Halloween.  He stopped by with the yearly stash of candy for the boys, and he also had these little gifts for them.  They are Christmas ornaments, and the tiny one on the left is for Corgan, the medium one is for Fynn and the Jack-o-Lantern "snowman" is for Ewan.

I just hate how every time the man across the street is outside, I feel scrutinized and judged, and I am grateful having a neighbor next to us who looks out for us and believes in families.