Thanksgiving

What a perfectly wonderful Thanksgiving we had this year!

After a nice warm breakfast,
Marty took the girls over to their grandma's
to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving parade
while I set to work on the turkey and veggies.
Can you tell this girl is excited to have some papa time?

We did a Thanksgiving lunch instead of dinner
and shared it with some friends and family.
It was one of the best tasting Thanksgiving's I've ever had--
thanks to some wonderful sides and desserts from our guests!

Of course the turkey took longer to cook than expected
and it was pushing into nap time by the time we got to eat,
(a few mini-meltdowns made that fact clear)
but the glitches were outweighed by the warmth of the atmosphere.
I had such a nice time I forgot to take pictures of the actual feast.

I did, however, get a picture of the outfits
Dorothy picked out for herself and her sister.
My favorite part is that she insisted on squeezing into
the 12 month sweater and letting Lucy drown in the 2T size.
They were happy.
Who can argue with that?

I have been grateful for the chance to reflect all week
on the many blessings we have been given.
I feel this sweet little baby boy kicking inside me;
I have a beautiful, healthy family;
we have a warm home and good job;
we have freedoms many others do not.
I love how this holiday reminds us of all that we DO have
as we now enter a holiday season that too often
tries to remind us of what we feel we don't have--
and should put on our "wish list."

May we continue in the spirit of gratitude and Thanksgiving
as we now turn our thoughts to the miracle of our Savior.

Dot's latest artwork

I love watching my daughter create.
The other day
we were able to sit down and do several
water colors together before Lucy woke up from her nap.

These were the result:

My favorite part was her narration of each picture as she painted.
Every stroke and color had meaning.
She has gone from just smudging paints around
to creating a story with shapes and colors.

I may have to commission her to do a few
for our empty walls.

belly shot

Proof that I am, indeed, carrying our third child.

Greenery

We have this awesome family in our ward.
They throw great parties;
their son passes the sacrament to us each week;
they bring us plates full of chocolate-dipped goodies;
they are just good people with HUGE hearts.
And we love them.

Well,
a few years ago they brought us one of their famous
chocolate-dipped variety platters
and it was all wrapped up with a beautiful passion flower
tied on top like a bow.
At first I actually thought the flower was fake--
it just looked so ridiculously perfect and beautiful.
We thought it was so neat we made sure to thank them
for the treats AND the flower the next time we saw them.

Being the awesome people they are,
they didn't forget how much we liked that flower.
A few weeks ago they told us they had transplanted
a portion of their passion flower plant for us to pick up.
So my husband came home from mutual last week with the plant
and now I have THESE flowers to greet me:

This plant will definitely brighten up and beautify
our house in the cold months ahead.

Thank you, Vigus family!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee're Off.....

To get some candy!

While we are still a family of four
we decided (or mostly I decided and everyone else went along)
to go as the Wizard of Oz friends this year.
It was our first year actually doing costumes and trick-or-treating
with the girls, and we had a great time!

Here is our beautiful Dorothy as Dorothy Gale:)
She kept asking where the Dorothy face
part of her costume was.
We had to explain that she already has a little girl face
and she just needed the clothes.

And here is our sweet Lucy as the Cowardly Lion.
I didn't dare try to paint a nose and whiskers on her,
but we thought she still did the part justice with her
lion mane and patch of chest hair.

We made a deal that it would all be homemade--
minus the ruby slippers.
We made enough time to get the girls' costumes done
and then spent the hour or two before trick-or-treating
running around to pull together costumes for ourselves.
But we had a great time!

Here is the whole gang!
Marty was our Tin man
and I rounded out the group (literally)
as the Scarecrow.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Upstaged

Poor Autumn.

This season is having a rough time this year.
If you will recall,
the first week of October brought us 84 degree weather!
Apparently summer was not ready to let go quite yet.
If you look closely enough,
you can see a whole beach full of swimmers--
in October!
Crazy.

And then
apparently winter was a little jealous
and decided to get started early.
We woke up the other morning to this:

Luckily ours was just a dusting that melted by the afternoon.
There are a lot of people in the state that got several feet
and won't have power restored until at least Friday.
We will be praying for them.

Sheesh.
I love the seasons,
but I really love when they come at the
RIGHT TIME!

I can handle more snow now that we've entered November,
but if we pull another 80 degree day this month
I may start believing in flying pigs.