Three wonderful Weekends at Home

I've mentioned this before, but ever since we finished our summer in Yellowstone we haven't gone anywhere.  Well we did go to Idaho Falls a handful of times, and we went to Utah for a Halloween party, but other than those small trips we haven't done much.  It's been kind of weird.  I mean usually we love going places. In Alabama we went somewhere at least every other weekend.  In Utah we tried to go somewhere every weekend.  And in Yellowstone we were on a different adventure just about every day.  I even have a whole other blog dedicated the amazing places we've discovered over the years. But I guess all that travelling caught up to us because now we are content to just stay at home.  

Another reason that we are content to stay home on the weekends is that we aren't really home much during the day.  Brandon is at school, I'm at work, and the kids are in various combinations of school. So we all really like the chance to stay home on the weekend.  That's a big change from just a few years ago when I was home with the kids all day and we HAD to get away from the house every weekend. 

So what have we been up to every weekend?  Let's do a little run down. 

Saturday November 4th was the day of the Party for the Twins Seventh Birthday.  Back when we were hiking in Yellowstone we would talk about what the girls wanted to do for their birthday.  We all decided that a Cowgirl themed party sounded really fun. 

The key word here is Sounded.  

Because when it actually came time to plan the party I wasn't so excited about doing it.  Remember, my job search left me completely drained.  I didn't want to do anything.  Least of all plan and host a party for a bunch of seven year olds.  

But I'd promised the girls. And I realized I didn't have to make it that big of a deal anyway.  

I always tell the girls that they can invite as many friends as their age.  So this year they could invite seven friends.  This was a little tricky since we are still relatively new.  But they thought of five girls and two boys that they wanted to invite.  I was happy to hear that their teachers were fine with helping deliver the invitations to the correct kids.  (This was a huge No-no at the Fort Rucker school.)  

Charlotte and Lydia helped me put together the invitations.  We printed out the text on white paper and then glued it to crumpled paper.  We had some cowboy and cowgirl stickers from our friend Pat in Yellowstone and so we added those to the invitations.  The girls loved helping. 

Another project that we all worked together on was the birthday cake.  On Pioneer Day we'd put together some cute little covered wagons made out of graham crackers, marshmallows, pretzels, and life savers.  The girls really wanted to make more and put them on their birthday cake.  So we made sure to do that. 

I made the cake out of chocolate cake and stacked the layers to look like a mountain of sorts.  I wanted it to look more desert-y so I crushed up graham crackers and sprinkled them all over.  The cake instantly looked like a desert. 

Here are the girls with the wagons before we put them on the cake.

And here are the wagons on the cake.  I made cacti with pretzels and white baking chocolate that I turned green with food coloring.  We also added animal cracker horses to each wagon.  The animal crackers were shaped like American mammals so there were also sheep and buffalo.  So we added those around the cake.

As a final touch we put one of Charlotte's cowboy toys on the cake.  We even added mini chocolate chip "poop" to various parts of the cake.

Charlotte wanted to pose with the cake. We were all super happy with how it turned out. 

This is the third birthday party the girls have had and so we knew the basic template for what we would do.  We would do a little craft, decorate pizzas, eat the pizzas, have cake, open presents and then let the kids play.  Veronica helped me get the pizza dough ready.

Earlier in the week Derrick had helped me put balloons into clusters of three and put them up on around the living room.

Since this was a cowboy themed party we decided it would be fun to have the Lincoln Logs out.

We also found cowboy hats at the Dollar Store for the kids to decorate.

Charlotte and Lydia found all their horses and put them on display.  But when I went to take a picture there were only a few on the table.

The rest were corralled in the corner.

I put out some healthy snacks in case anyone (me) got hungary.

Oh and all the horses magically appeared back on the table.

Friends started arriving and we decorated hats.  Brandon took Derrick with him to run errands.  He was going to take Veronica too, but the girls decided that she was old enough to stay this year.  She was pretty happy about that.

Only two little girls were able to make it to the party. That was just fine with me because I really didn't want to deal with a bunch of kids.  Instead this was more like a glorified play date.  At one point every one was playing so well I considered pulling out a book a reading. (I didn't, but it was still a nice thought.)  Here are the girls decorating their popcycle stick picture frames.  I'd put these together the night before.  I'd had my craft bag out at the kids had fun working on little projects.  We'd enjoyed that evening together so much that we decided that our Family Home Evenings should really just be family craft nights.

The kids also decorated their own pizza's (I joke that I make kids work at these birthday parties)  Here's Charlotte with some of the personal pizza's and the big one I made for me and Brandon.

Here's everyone eating.

And then it was time for cake.  Derrick and Brandon made it back from their errands and we sang happy birthday and cut the cake.

Overall the party was good.  But I was so happy when it was over.  It was one less thing to worry about.

The next week was when I finally started work with the Treasurer's Office.  And I'm so happy to say that I LOVE MY JOB!!!!!  When I first read the job description I knew, absolutely knew, that I was perfect for this job.  When I interviewed for it I felt like I belonged in the department.  And as soon as I had my first day of work I knew I had been right.  I work with six amazing women who are so competent.  They know how to do their jobs and they are always happy to answer my questions.  They have worked together for years so they treat eachother like family.  And they have accepted me into their family. I'm the youngest person in the office and they think it's hilarious that I graduated in "only" 2003.  I'm fine being the baby.  I absolutely love what I do. The highlight of my day is when I count the money for the deposit. 

The kids are all handling the change very well.  We have a babysitter who watched the kids after school and Derrick goes to "Veronica's school" on the days he doesn't have Kindergarten. So far it's working out well.

We tried out our craft night family home evening on the night of my first day of work.  We've had those little beads that you make shaped out of and then melt together.  We've had them forever, but we haven't ever got them out.  So I pulled those out and the kids LOVED them.  Even Derrick sat down and patiently put the little beads onto the little holder.

These pictures are actually from the next night when the kids all wanted to do more beads.  I'm so glad they are getting older.

Thanks to Veteran's Day I didn't have work on Friday November 10th and the elementary didn't have school either.  I could have sent Derrick and Veronica to their school, but Derrick had had a rough night and ended up sleeping in until 9:30.  So no school for them. 

We went grocery shopping and then came home.  I was a little worried about how we would fill the day, when I realized that the weather was amazing and I remembered that we have a back yard.  So we went outside to rake leaves. I raked a path through the leaves and the kids loved running on that.

I decided to dig out the garden beds next to the patio. I wanted to add the leaves to the soil in the garden beds.  The kids loved playing in the freshly turned dirt.

Here's a before picture of one of the beds.

Charlotte and Lydia built this "dirt castle."

Here's the bed after I'd dug a trench for the leaves.  Veronica liked taking a turn with the shovel.

Everyone loved the dirt.  I loved this chance to dig.  I love gardening, but it's been over a year since I could do it.  There was something very therapeutic about shoveling all that dirt.  I'd been feeling very homesick for Alabama, but this day made me feel like I was building a home here in Idaho.

The girls jumping into the dirt.

We raked leaves into the trenches and then covered them with dirt. 

On Saturday, we cleaned the house and then got out the kids Kiwi Crate. This month's theme was "Rainbow Optics."  There were little red, green, and blue lights that the kids used to make a TV projector type thing.  Brandon joked, "Our kids are so TV deprived that they started making their own."

And then it was back outside to play in the rest of the leaves.

I love this little video that I took.

The kids even pulled me into the pile a few times.

It's been a long time since we had a chance to play with real fall leaves.  This weekend made me so happy.

Oh and as if our weekend wasn't complete Brandon and the kids made this lamp shade that rotates with the heat from the light bulb.  They saw this on a Curious George episode and Charlotte wanted to make it for real.  In case you can't tell, hands on science is very important in our family.

I can't remember why, but Veronica was very proud of this "wagon."  For a long time I was a little worried about her because she wasn't pretending.  Well that worrying was for nothing.  Now she talks my ear off with little stories she makes up.  School has been very good for her.  She's started talking about the other kids in her class and her teacher says she's even playing with a few kids.  Yay for interaction.

Our third wonderful weekend at home started on Thursday November 16.  This is the day my parents came to visit us. 

My parents have been on a mission in Brazil for nearly two years.  They came back to the US in early October and have spent their time roaming the country visiting their kids.  First they visited Emily in North Carolina, then they drove to New York to visit Billy.  Then they flew to Utah.  They arrived and spent a day with my sister Hillary.  The next day Hillary went into labor and had her baby, Walter. It's kind of ironic because Hillary got engaged to Joe a day or two before my parents went into the MTC and she had her first baby a day after they got back. Anyway, my parents spent about 2 weeks in Utah for doctors appointments.  Then they were free to come up to Idaho to visit us. 

Here are the kids anxiously waiting for my parents to arrive.

They showed up and we all had dinner together.  On Friday they watched Charlotte and Lydia after school while I was at work and Brandon was at school.  I came home from work and found Veronica sitting with my dad telling him all about her day.

My parents and Brandon took the kids to the store and let them each pick out their own ice cream treat.

We all enjoyed that.

My parents like to stay in hotels so they stayed at one and each night and came back to our house every morning.  This is how they were greeted when they arrived on Saturday.

We took them over to the model train museum.  Derrick has been asking to go here for a month.  He was so excited.

I love this picture of Derrick and my dad looking at trains together.

My mom likes miniature things so she had a lot of fun looking at the models.

We pulled the kids away from the trains with the promise of McDonalds. 

Next we took my parents around the ISU campus.  Or really just around the student union building.  (That's the only part of campus we go to)

Then we went out to Brandon's building at the airport.  I like this picture of Veronica and my dad looking at airplanes.

And finally we went to my parent's hotel to swim in the pool there.  This is the same hotel we stayed at when we checked out ISU and pocatello back in February.  The kids remembered this pool well.  Veronica wanted to jump into the water over and over again.  At first she wanted me to catch her, but then she had me back up a little bit more each time.  Finally she was jumping in by herself.  She's so brave. 

Here's all three girls jumping together.

Derrick didn't want to jump in the water. He stayed close to the edge and splashed a lot.

On Sunday we didn't have regular church. Instead we had the Meridian Idaho Temple Dedication.  My parents watched the kids while Brandon and I went.  Since the kids didn't have to go to church they naturally wanted to wear their Halloween Costumes.  They were all wearing their costumes when my parents showed up.

Later my parents gave some presents from Brazil to the kids.  The girls got Kitty ear head bands.  Derrick got a soccer uniform.  (He wanted to wear ears too so he's wearing some in this picture.)

Lydia got really excited about the kitty ears and ended up making a mask and claw hands.  She's so creative.  She reminds me of my sister Lindsey who can make anything out of paper. 

Brandon and various combinations of children were out of school every day this week.  (I literally had to make a chart to keep track of who did and who didn't have school each day this week.)  My parents were able to come over and spend time with their grandkids.  And I was able to see them every day after work.  It's been so good to have them visiting.  I've been trying to convince them that the cost of living in Idaho makes it a great place to live while they work on figuring out the details of post-mission life.  We'll see how that pans out. 

So as you can see we are really loving our home in Idaho.  However, our love for home wasn't enough to keep us there for Thanksgiving.  We're spending the weekend down in Utah with Brandon's parents.  This is our first overnight trip since we moved to Idaho.  Brandon was a champ and did most of the packing. So after I got done with work today we were able to hop in the car and head on down. 

So expect another post soon all about our Thanksgiving activities.

Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!