I love you!

You are all so sweet. Thank you for your helpful words. :) I love you guys! Seriously! Even Danner commented on here.

I do have one more stress to add. After I picked Emma up from school we went out to lunch with Ian(YAY!!!) and when we got back home I took David out of his car seat and he was burning up!! I rushed him inside and took his temp: 104.6 degrees!!! I ripped of his clothes, gave him Tylenol, put him in the bath, nursed him, and put him to bed. Once I calmed down I remembered that Mckenna always had high fevers. Before she had her adnoids and tonsils out she would go up to 105 almost every time she had a cold. I did call the doctor but she said the same thing they say every time(alternate tylenol with ibuprofen, if it doesnt bring it down or if it doesn't go away in 3 days bring him in). I just didn't know if being 9 months old would have any effect on what they would say because Mckenna's fevers were when she was older. Anyway, add that to the list. :)

My day is better, though. We've been de-junking which I LOVE. I love getting rid of stuff lately. So the girls are going through their room with me. I love their reasons for wanting to get rid of stuff or keep stuff. "This baby's eyes are too big so we need to get rid of her." "Mommy this toy is too too special. We can't give it away because it's from Chris." "But I want to keep that backpack for 6th grade!" And Mckenna had the best. I was putting all of the Little People Toys in a tub and I told the girls they could play with them again when we get to AZ and Ken said, "Mommy, you're going to put the lid on that and then we're going to GO TO ARIZONA!!!" It just about broke my heart to tell her we're not going for a while(at least I think so). I just want them out of the way!

So with my new updated blog - I somehow lost my list of everyone's blogs! If you haven't commented on my last post, please just go and write something so that I can link to your blog and copy the url so I can make my list again. I don't care what you write so long as I have a way to find you again. I'll make my list with the ones I know and if you're not on there - drop me a line.

Can you PMS without really PMSing??

Ian has decided I'm depressed. OK so he was joking, but I have no other explanation other than maybe I'm going through menopause. (I'm certainly not PMSing...I'm still nursing.) I threw a huge hissy fit last night at no one in particular(at one point I told Ian I felt like punching a wall). At least once a day for the past week I've felt overwhelmingly frustrated.

Most of it is just the stress of this whole Arizona thing. I know we're moving. I know we're moving to AZ. There are lots of beautiful houses in AZ that I would love to go look at and possibly move into. But I have no idea when and no idea where. So that was frustrating me.

Plus Ian's calling takes up a lot of his time lately, and now that he's in the Stake play, he has practices 3 times a week. Starting next week he has practices every day except Monday. Except he'll be out of town on Monday for work. Oh and did I mention he's performing in our ward's Christmas nativity(which includes songs) on Saturday? So there are practices for that. Oh and one of his young men is being baptised on Saturday - so he's been out with the missionaries teaching him. And another girl in our ward. And my birthday is next week...and Ian's gone most of the week. All I can hope is that we find out this week where and when we're moving because then Ian will have to cancel some of that so we can drive to AZ and look at homes. So then he'll be stuck in the car with me for 5 hours. That sounds nice - even though I loathe road trips.

Ian went to Uhaul yesterday and bought boxes. I SOO want to pack them up but I refuse to pack anything until I know when and where. I have slowly been going through our stuff and either throwing a bunch away or putting it in piles for charity. That's one nice thing abotu moving - de-junking.

Ian put up our Christmas lights last weekend but, once again... I refuse to break out the Christmas decorations because I just might have to turn around and pack them up the second I unpack them. I think this will be the first Christmas in my entire life that I haven't had a Christmas tree.

Well now that I've vented for a bit I went back and read it and maybe I'm not having hormonal issues. I think I'm just stressed and missing my husband. If you've been a common reader of my blog you'll know I like to vent on here. Sometimes I delete my ventings the next day and only a select few get to read them. But it's always nice to get my thoughts out, so in my opinion it doesn't really matter if you get to read my rantings, so long as I get to write them. :)

No News is NOT Good News...

No news yet. :) However I am now 95.67% sure we're moving to AZ sometime in the next month. Still don't know the exacts.
So...enough of that! Picture time(I just love pictures...sorry if you get bored looking at my kids!):

Here's the best video I could get from Emma's Kindergarten Thanksgiving presentation. Most of the time she just zoned and stared out into space. I think she was just so interested in all of the parents looking at her that she forgot to pay attention. She was supposed to clasp her hands to her cheeks and say "Mercy me!" everytime the teacher said, "the Puritan women." So here is the video at the very end when she kind of came back to reality for a minute. And check out the dude on the left. :)


At least Emma remembered to bow!

After the presentation, all of the kindergarteners had their Thanksgiving Feast. On Emma's placemat was a handprint turkey and it said, "I'm thankful for my puppies and my dog." The day before she made that we had been at Auntie Chris's house where they were "dogsitting" a sweet little puppy named Miracle, (she was the only puppy in the litter that survived) and Emma just loved her.
Emma's Thanksgiving Feast: grapes and carrots.
Mckenna got to have some grub too.

Emma's table:

My cute little Indian girl:

The week of Thanksgiving the Bennetts came for a short visit. We went to Bate's Nut Farm on Tuesday(love that place).

Porter and Emma collecting leaves to feed to the goats(even though we bought the corn to feed them):
Isn't this a sweet picture?

Emma and the turkey "Gobble-gobbling" back and forth.

And if you've ever wondered what a turkey really sounds like...here you go!

David is much more mobile now. He's officially a crawler - up on his hands and knees with his belly off the floor. He's the only one of my kids to do that before the age of 1. Emma did a slight variation once she finally got her belly up, but she was mostly a belly crawler. Mckenna stayed on her belly till about 1 and then didn't walk until she was almost 15 months. But David's up! He's also been pulling himself up to stand on anything he can find...and we've had to block off the stairs... he fell right into my hands the second after I took this picture:

Thanksgiving day - Mission beach:

Tired after turkey:

Peekaboo!

Sad News (for some)

With the mortgage industry being what it is, Ian's company has been closing a ton of offices. We thought he would be safe but just last Monday he got a call from the regional manager asking him how interested he would be in moving to...Arizona. (Of course, the Bennetts were here that day and that is why I said said sad news for some...) We're pretty sure they wouldn't be offering this position to Ian if he still had a job here in California. He told his regional manager he was highly interested and since then we've just been sitting on pins and needles waiting for more news.

We really don't know much of anything except for the fact that the job would be in Arizona. We don't know what part, we don't know when, we don't know the salary, and I hate the unknown!!! We were hoping to get more news last Friday because this week all of the managers are in a conference and they probably won't be discussing or deciding Ian's job. But all they told him on Friday was what they thought the relocation package would be...but who knows.

He's done some sleuthing around and figured out who's position he thinks he'll be taking, but we don't know how many offices in Arizona they're closing, so that's still an unknown. But at this point I don't think they're going to change their minds about sending him there and I don't think we'll change our minds about moving there because if we don't, he most likely won't have a job here.

So here are the positives:
We'd get to be closer to family(the Bennetts and my aunt) and friends(Kelli and Amber). We'd most likely get a bigger home and a bigger yard. The winters aren't cold. Moving always causes you to clean out junk and get rid of all the things you don't need. And most importantly: Ian would still have a job.

And the negatives:
We LOVE this area!! We've never been in an area that we've loved more. We have the best friends, the best ward, everything is nearby(shopping and restaurants). We love our neighborhood: the pool and park are just down the street, it's gated, I can walk Emma to school, and many of our best friends are just down the street. I don't want to leave any of it!

We'd be leaving my sister, which is one of the main reasons we bought a house in California. Not only will she and I be sad, but the girls just love Shan and Jed.

There's no way we'll sell our house. We'd have to sell it for much less than we paid for it, and we're not going to do that. So we'll rent it out - ugh. But I love this house! We've only been here a year. We've been making it our own, little by little, and I love it more and more each time we do something new. We moved 8 times in the first five years of our marriage so we said when we moved into this house that we wouldn't be moving again for the next 5. Here we are 1 year later and talking about moving again.

We're both in new callings at church and we just got a new bishopric that Ian and I were both so excited about.

You know, there are too many negatives, I think I'll just stop now. I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that this is going to happen, so I've been focusing on the positives anyway...like a bigger house with rooms for each of my kids so Emma and Mckenna don't keep each other awake...and a yard the kids can really play in, instead of stepping one way and running into a fence and then stepping the other way and running into the other fence... or getting clobbered by our dogs since they don't have enough room to play. Although - I don't know that we'd be able to take them to AZ anyway because of the heat.

Anyway, I know that whatever happens it will be bittersweet and we'll just have to be happy. I think the hardest part for me is all of the people we will leave behind. But we'll be coming closer to many people too. Ah well...wish us luck and I'll be sure to post as soon as I know more. :)

My amazing Mckenna

On Shan's blog.

Almost 9 Months!

What a big boy!! I've always agreed with my mom that the best baby age is from 9 months to 18 months. David is just entering that age and it is so much fun!! He's starting to imitate sounds and he's crawling all over the house. He's also been pulling himself up to sit and stand...which means lots more bumps and bruises. The other day I walked into his room after his nap to see him kneeling up in his crib. I asked Emma to bring me the camera and by the time she brought it, David had pulled himself up to standing.

Big Boy!!

Needless to say we'll be lowering his mattress...

One night I was getting ready to give David a bath. He was playing on my bathroom floor next to the folded up pack 'n play. I walked into my closet and when I came back out, he was kneeling, holding on to the pack 'n play for support. I realized that if he put any more weight on it, the pack 'n play would roll and David would roll with it and faceplant on the hard floor. So as I was lunging toward him...he and the pack 'n play did just what I thought they would do: they rolled...and he faceplanted. He bonked his chin and his lips, splitting his frenulum(the little piece of skin connecting his upper lip to his gums). If you have ever had a child split this...keep in mind: it bleeds alot. We were really scared for a bit because we couldn't tell where the bleeding was coming from. Anyway, he is perfectly fine now but here are his fat lip pictures.

He is still such a good baby. He's so happy and calm! He loves his sisters and is so entertained by them. He's still our floor cleaner, putting anything in his mouth that he can find and still crawling on his belly, sweeping the floor with his shirts. I am just so excited for when his balance improves and he can start walking(and get up off the floor!). We love our sweet David!!

Craft Fair Pics

Here are a couple of pics from my mostly unsuccessful craft fair. Because of the fires it was postponed and I think with the schedule change, they lost a lot of their vendors. So there weren't a lot of people. I did sell some bows and one of Megan B's adorable bow boards, but with the cost of the booth and the cost of the babysitting, I was in the hole. :) It's ok though, I was invited to a semi-annual boutique next week and I'm hoping to do well there...plus I've got more bows now!

Yes, I am alive.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately... And I wish I could say I'm going to be better, but things are just so busy busy lately. We were house-sitting this past weekend, which was great. It was nice to go somewhere and not have a million projects staring at me.
I'm so excited for the Bennetts to come next week, and also excited to not have to drag Emma out of bed every morning for school. And Turkey! Yay!! Anyway, I'll find time...sometime...and try to blog something exciting.

Cinnamon FHE

We had the Aslett family over for Family Home Evening on Monday night last week. After our lesson, while we were dipping apples in caramel and then cinnamon and sugar(thanks for the great idea, Dawn!) Ian told us about something he'd heard on the radio that morning. Apparently it's impossible to eat a spoonful of cinnamon. One of the guys on a morning radio show was going to try it the next morning. So we watched a few YouTube videos of people trying it and not succeeding. It's too powdery to swallow and spicey too. And if you open your mouth and it mixes with the air, it makes it hard to breathe. So what do Sereena and Kindrick decide to do??
Sereena wouldn't let us take a video of her doing it, but she didn't last very long because she coughed, and then started gagging, so she ran to the sink. But, here's Kindrick's attempt:

BOO!

Finally!! Sorry! We've been so insanely busy lately and I haven't had time to do laundry, let alone blog! But today I'm doing both! Here are all of our pumpkin patch/trunk or treat/halloween pictures. On the Friday before Halloween Ian took the day off from work and we went to a great pumpkin patch. We'd planned to go to Bates Nut Farm, but the fires were still burning in Valley Center and they'd come awfully close to Bates so I wasn't sure they'd even be open. We went, instead, to a place about 30 minutes north of us, called Tom's Farms. There was still smoke everywhere but we were so sick of being stuck in the house all week(literally...we didn't go anywhere, they cancelled Emma's school Wed-Fri), that we went anyway. I was so glad we did! They usually have all sorts of stuff going on at Tom's Farms during the weekend, but we went on a Friday and I'm sure we saved lots of money because of that. But we still got some pumpkins, walked through all of the stores, got some yummy candy, and took some fun pictures. There was a bird flying around like crazy in the bathroom! We ducked the whole time!

Mckenna was scared to go in their little blow up "haunted house." Emma was pretty convincing, but she still wouldn't go in until Ian went with her, holding her hand.

Once she was in, she was a happy camper.

Even with all the smoke in the air, the sun was pretty bright...as you can tell from Ian's squinty eyes. :)

Wishing well.

__________________________________

Shannon and Jed came over Saturday night for our church's "Trunk or Treat." Usually everyone parks in the parking lot, opens their trunks and the kids go around from car to car, "Trunk" or Treating, but because of the smoke, we went around the inside of the church. Before that, though, there was dinner, a costume contest, a costume parade, and a few games for the kids. Ian spent all afternoon making a dessert to submit for the spooky dessert contest, but he spent so much time on it that we were a bit late and he only got second place...

Bootlegger Jed:

Pirate Mckenna and Alice in Wonderland Emma(who thought her name was Allison Wonderland).

20's Shan and a very distressed David Mickey

Ian's graveyard:

Shannon and Jed spent the night and came to church with us in the morning to watch our Primary Program(At church the kids from 3-11 have a presentation every year on all of the things they've been learning about all year. There are a few short talks and lots of songs. I'm the Primary Chorister, so I was in charge of all of the songs, and Emma had a small solo.). The presentation went great! I was much more nervous than I thought I should be...after all, it's not like I had any solos! The kids did really well. No one fell asleep, but I did have one sweet girl forget the words and start to cry. Overall it went really well and I was SO proud of those kids!!

________________________

Halloween neighborhood trick or treating:

(Ian's a mummy)

Sorry for such a long post, but I had to get it all done before I switch the laundry! And, one more video for Jed...

The kids enjoyed the mattress we had out for Shan and Jed so we didn't put it away until Monday. Here's Mckenna enjoying it: