I am thankful for. . .

I couldn't let the month of November pass without writing at least in part some of the things that I am grateful for.

1. I am grateful to have had safe travels this Thanksgiving season. We did a lot of driving and on our way home today realized that we had driven 10,000 miles since our last oil change. Oops. We added a quart of oil and even then it was barely at the minimum line. Oops again.

2. I am grateful that the roofers started to work on our unit the day AFTER we left. I am not sure but I think that they are finished.

3. I am thankful that I got to meet my new sister-in-law Lissette and her daughter Sofia. They are both very sweet. Among that list of new acquaintances I got to meet my niece Charity's husband Patrick and their daughter Addison. (Yes. That is my Great-Niece).

4. I am thankful for the gospel. My sister-in-law Amy was diagnosed with leukemia the day before Thanksgiving and our family fasted for my brother and her and their family to have faith and comfort in this time of trial and heartache. I was very special for me to see my family come together and coordinate to hold a special fast for them.

5. I am thankful for the temple. This weekend my Jeff and I got to go the temple together to do an endowment session. My sister Alissa and my Dad came too. I was happy to be there to feel the spirit.

6. I am thankful for friends. Old friends and new friends. While we were in Nebraska we were able to visit with some of our friends in Omaha and after we left I realized that they felt more like family to me than just friends. Hopefully soon my new friends will feel like old friends.

7. I am grateful for my very large, very loud family. There was lots of laughs and lots of good food. (I usually am assigned the task of setting tables and napkin folding, but this year I was in the kitchen helping with food and boy was that a chaotic place to be. I think next year I will opt for table duty). I wish that more of us could have been at my parents house for Thanksgiving and be able see some of my family I haven't seen for a while.

Girl Scout Cookies

Jeff and I wanted Lauren to feel a part of something. A something that didn't cost a lot of money. A something that wasn't too time consuming. So when we heard about Lauren's school having a girl scout troop we decided to jump on board. After all, they only meet once a month and all you have to pay for is the smock and the book. SOLD.

So Lauren and I went to the first meeting where we were informed that cookie sales would start the next week. WHAT? I guess they just throw you into the deep end. So last Saturday while the weather was so nice we packed all of our cookies into our little wagon and went out as a family to sell Girl Scout cookies. It was really fun. Lauren would handle the money and Kenna would handle the cookies. They made a pretty efficient little team.

And, with that we still have a lot of Mango Creme left. Anybody want to buy any cookies from this cute little Daisy Girl Scout, and her adorable assistant?????????

BuSy BuSy

I am not even sure what to blog about first. There have been so many things happen since I last blogged.

1. Jeff's parents came to visit. We went to the zoo and the World Circus Museum. Saw a magic show and graced the Dells with our presence. We spent the night so that we could go to the indoor water parks and went down awesome water slides. I love that about Jeff's parents. When we went to Sea World with them I didn't go on any roller coasters until they did and they convinced me to. Same thing happened with the water slides.

2. Halloween

3. Post Halloween stomach flu

4. Callum's first haircut

5. Lauren joining Girl Scouts

Callum wasn't crazy about the merry-go-round

For some reason I love this polar bear. He walks with a funny waddle. 

Kenna had a field trip for her preschool while Jeff's parents were here
and Grandpa Bill came with us. Kenna got to dig up carrots. I wish I would
have gotten a picture of how muddy everyone was. It had rained for like a week
straight. 

Kenna looks less than impressed, doesn't she? 

There was also a pumpkin patch at this farm and we
brought home a few. Not this one though. 

These next pictures are from the circus museum. These mirrors were hilarious.
I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

Another Carousel. Someone who worked at the museum offered to
turn it on for us. The kids were excited. I was less inclined as they
make me a little nauseated. And this one was a particularly rickety one.  

The museum has the largest collection of circus cars. They were
amazing. And they were from all over the world.

Jeff's Dad trying the uni-cycle

The cabin. Apparently this was the best place to sit. 

Callum hated the water park. He basically snuggled up to me
the entire time not moving. Here we are floating down the lazy river. Kenna
was too busy going down the baby slide to join us. 

This is a picture of the slide Kenna went down approximately
1,000 times. 

I'm not sure what is happening in this picture. I was home napping
with Callum, but I thought I would share it anyway. They are
exploring Goth Park. 

I forgot to mention that we went to the Capitol building and took
the tour. Lauren always had a question to ask the tour guide. 

Since it was so cold outside we went to a nursing home across the street from
our house. We did have one incident with the matching costumes when
an old lady wouldn't give Kenna a piece of candy because she
had just given her one. Kenna started crying because it was
Lauren who got the candy and not her. 

Our potato head family.

Family tradition of donuts on a string. We had a party with
some friends from our ward. I love Joe's and Jeff's postures. 

Eliza, never even touched her donut. 

Round 2. Husband/wife competition. He totally beat her. 

Kenna, I see you cheating

Before the haircut

After the haircut. I always feel that once they get their haircut
they don't look like babies anymore. 

Sick Lauren

Sick McKenna. And yes that is the hardwood floor she is asleep on.

Thanks to everyone's illness and everyone sleeping so much, I got three  books read in a week. 

 We have had a fun month of October and we are sure that November will not disappoint us either. Jeff has vacation this month over Thanksgiving so we will be going back to Nebraska. Lots of fun to look forward to.

The Mostly Finished Product

 So here are a couple of projects that I have been working on that are now finished, or mostly finished, you never really can be sure with me.

I did this one a while ago, and sometimes I love the color and sometimes
I really hate it. And Mom, the poem is for you. 

This is the much talked about and anticipated headboard.  The room is mostly done. I'm going to take the lamps back and get something different because I don't want to have to incorporate the teal color throughout the room. 

I had to collect art work for all of two days to have enough saved
up to make this gallery wall on the stairs up to Callum and Kenna's room.
This is the project that required spray paint. Turns out I have just enough in
my box of spray paint to finish the frames. Believe it or not, I had all of these
frames sitting in a box in the garage. 

If you can't tell, I totally into chalkboards. There is one in every room in the house except Lauren's. They are so versatile. Just erase and write something different on it. I have one above my mantel that I write a scripture on in sort of a subway art look and when I memorize it I erase it and write a new one. 

Moving Again? What?

So Jeff is probably 85% sure that he is switching to anesthesia. Anesthesia is a four year residency that requires a prelimnary year, so this year in internal medicine won't go to waste thankfully. I am happy about it because it is a more relaxed lifestyle and personally the work sounds like it would suite Jeff's personality better anyway. He met with the person in charge of anesthesia and said that there would be a place for him here at Wisconsin, although he will still have to go through the "match" process again. So this morning Jeff asked if we wanted to move back to Nebraska to do the rest of his residency. WHAT??? I don't mind the actually moving or packing or anything, its the major life decisions that I don't like to make. We just made the decision to move here eight months ago after tons of prayers and Jeff's never ending pros and cons lists that he insists on making. I'm not ready to go through all of that again. So wish us luck. We probably have a month to decide what we want to do. We may possibly be swayed by bribes. Just sayin'.

My family was here visiting last week, my parents, and my sister Alissa and her daughter Rebekah. Well actually they left a week ago and I am just now getting around to blogging about the fun we had when they were here. It was kind of fun being the tour guide and showing them some of the cool things we have discovered since being in Madison. There wasn't however enough days for them to try all the food we wanted to them to have so some things had to be left out. For example  Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream and the Old Fashioned's fried cheese curds.

One morning we went to the zoo. The zoo here is free. And it is really nice. Not corny or bad. They have really beautiful animals and it is small enough that you can see it all in an hour or two. My Dad spoiled McKenna and Rebekah by paying for them to ride the train AND the carousel. Callum stayed home with Jeff so they could both nap and it was a relaxing morning with no strollers to push. Just two girls and four adults. That is the way the zoo should always be.

My Dad was a little disappointed that this train wasn't real. 

Pope Farm Conservatory was on the list of must-sees. I was trying to describe it to them "basically it is farm where you can walk around." Needless to say I pretty much had to drag them there. But I don't think that is disappointed anyone. It has beautiful views as it is up on a hill and all the trees surrounding were changing colors. It is a very peaceful place to just enjoy nature. There are a bunch of plaques talking about the ice age and the rocks that are surrounding, how the Native Americans would stand on the same hill and be able to see travelers for miles. It is just really neat.

I have been telling my family about Woodman's since we moved here. So of course I had to take them, and let them experience the terror and frantic-ness that is Woodman's, our local grocery store. It is about the size of a super Wal-Mart but it is just groceries. Even if you just have a couple of things on your list you will be there for 45 minutes because it is just that big. My sister was unimpressed. The fact that they carried Dorthy Lynch (a Nebraska brand salad dressing) and the feat that Ghiradelli chocolate chips were cheaper at Woodman's than at Wal-Mart made her somewhat more akin to it, but not much.

The next day was Alissa's 29th birthday. So we decorated and My Mom made her her favorite breakfast. We then went to dinner that night at Villa Dolce which I find fabulous and she did not. It is an Italian pizza place. Their Pear Gorgonzola pizza is amazing. I drool just thinking about it. So I did feel bad that I forced them to go there on Alissa's birthday and she didn't like it.

Saturday was lucky because Jeff got the day off. He doesn't really have a day off ever. The days that he works overnight he doesn't go in to the hospital until 7:00pm and so that day that he spends sleeping to be ready to work all night is considered his "day off." It is really lame and I know I shouldn't complain because it used to be sooo much worse for first year residents. Anyway, every once in awhile they will give him a random day off. So we made the most of it and drove up to the Dells and rode the Ducks. It is a tour of the lakes and some of the hills surrounding it. We were supposed to go on the "Full Moon Paddle" that they do on lake Wingra on the full moon nights during the summer. I had our boats payed for, but the Nebraska-Wisconsin game was on at the same time, so we decided to ride the Ducks and cancelled our Full Moon boat ride.

We got a babysitter and we went to Tanners to watch the game. Normally there is a group of people that get together to watch the Nebraska game there called the "Mad-City Huskers,"  but apparently they sent out an e-mail saying that they weren't going to pick a venue for this game, and we found ourselves amongst a restaurant full of Wisconsin fans. It was an awesome game to watch. There were a couple of other Husker fans there as well and one of the bad things about watching a game at a bar and grill is that three hours of game time equals three hours of steady drinking. There was one guy who took a liking to Jeff and came over every few minutes and clap Jeff on the arm. He was so drunk and he kept saying the same thing over and over. My parents thought it was kind of funny. Anytime Nebraska would do something good this guy would call over and say "Jeff" really loud from his chair. He asked for our number after the game and invited us to go boating with him and his wife sometime. So Jeff being polite gave him his number and as we were leaving whispered to me "I really hope he loses that."

Somewhere between the Dells and the game Jeff managed to make a caramel apple pie. We were too full after the game to eat it, but we did save room on  Sunday and it was really good. I don't if I have ever mentioned on the blog that Jeff is quite the pastry chef. I am a lucky girl.

Sunday was church and Jeff worked all day so it was fairly uneventful in terms of sight-seeing and then the left on Monday. I totally realized that they were gone when I came down the stairs after taking a nap and saw that Kenna's lunch was still just sitting on the table. I am not a dish doer, but while my parents were here my table was always cleaned off and wiped and the dishes were always done.

I'm so glad that they came to visit. It was nice to see my parents and my sister, and we'll see them next month when we go back for Thanksgiving.