November Crafts

These are some fun, random crafts that we did during the month of November.

We had a family night about Thanksgiving and did a little craft decorating an ear of corn with kernels. Shelby and Shasta both enjoyed doing it!

 For Joy School we made Thankful Trees. They turned out pretty darn cute!

This is our clothes line display of Shasta's crafts. For Joy School she made a Thankful Turkey which turned out adorable!

And this one is just a little tree she made for Joy School. She got to color the tree and then glue cereal to it. And looking at this picture I'm realizing I took a picture of the sample I made and not of the one Shasta made. Whoops! Oh well.

Our First Thanksgiving Home Alone

We were supposed to go to Arizona for Thanksgiving this year, but due to some unexpected expenses and a boat load of homework, we decided we shouldn't go. Of course we had some amazing people offer to pay our way, but I didn't feel good about letting anyone else do that. It's not cheap to go and it shouldn't be anyone else's expense. Plus, I was drowning in homework and housework and the thought of going anywhere added to my stress.

The nice thing about staying home was that we got to experience our first Thanksgiving where we prepared the entire meal from start to finish. Bonus, Nick's work gives him a turkey every year so we didn't have to buy one.

We had two mishaps in the process that were pretty frustrating. The first was when Nick went to pull the turkey out of the oven he spilled a large amount of turkey juice inside the oven in the process. The problem with that is the turkey was the first of many dishes that needed to be baked in the oven. Every time we opened the oven after that, the house filled with smoke and it killed my eyes. It was like a fresh cut onion was chopped over and over again. Because of this mishap it made the whole process feel a little more chaotic and for sure less enjoyable.

Then at the end of the meal when we were cleaning up, I was helping Nick throw the remaining turkey parts and drippings into a garbage bag when once again Nick spilled turkey juice everywhere. Only this time it wasn't inside the oven; it was all over the floor and our feet. It was basically like dumping half a bottle of vegetable oil all over the floor. Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but pretty close. I felt pretty dirty after all was said and done. You know how when you go camping your hair and clothes wreak of campfire smoke? I felt like that only I wreaked of turkey smoke. 

But overall the food turned out pretty good. Everything that was baked in the oven had a slight smoked turkey taste to it, but it wasn't bad. It was a little anticlimactic when we sat down to eat. It felt a little like any other day only with a much larger selection of food to eat. Shelby ate a little of everything on her plate. Shasta tasted everything, but she only filled up on salad. That girl loves salad and ranch "dress-up" as she calls it!

Our meal consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade rolls, salad, and homemade dressing.

Then of course for dessert we had chocolate cream pie with Kit Kats and homemade pumpkin pie. Don't ask why Nick cut the pie that way... I have no idea either! I forgot to take a picture of the pumpkin roll. I prefer cake over pie so pumpkin roll is something I make every year.

After lunch we went to Nick's Aunt Lori's house for dessert and games. Nick's parents were there along with a lot of other relatives. We were invited to come for Thanksgiving dinner too, but we wanted to take advantage of doing our own this year. Although I'm glad we got to experience doing our own after being married and having NINE Thanksgivings together, I didn't want to miss out completely on seeing family for the holiday. That's kind of the more important part of the day. And now that we've done our own Thanksgiving together, I think it's okay to wait a good nine or so years before we do it again!

Broken Toe

As if my life wasn't already feeling stressful and crazy, I had to add a broken toe to the mix. And the way that it happened was so ridiculous that I felt the most upset about that part of it. I was simply walking down the hall and caught my toe in the door frame of the laundry room. It hurt like none other to walk on it, but I had enough adrenaline to at least walk back to the couch to look at it. When I sat down, this is what I saw: 

Can you tell which toe is broken?! (Left, middle in case it isn't clear.) As soon as I saw it I was certain it was broken. Nick was sitting in the room next to wear I was so I ever so calmly said out loud, "I think I just broke my toe". "WHAT?" he said as he hurried in to see. He thought it was so strange that I said it so matter of fact and wasn't more upset about it. The tears came a little while later when I realized the possibilities of how this was going to impact my convenient life. It was throbbing like crazy and I knew we needed to wrap it, but I didn't want anyone to touch it. There was no way I was going to the ER for a broken toe and Instacare had just closed about thirty minutes prior to this happening so I wanted to wait until the morning. I let Nick wrap it, but we didn't have any medical tape so this was the result:

Being that it happened on a Sunday night, we just made due with what we had. It looked ridiculous, but whatever. We read online to prop it and ice it for twenty minutes at a time around the clock. And thankfully my mom works for a podiatrist so I sent her some pictures and asked her opinion. She thought it was broken too and told me to see a doctor because sometimes broken toes lead to surgery. Oh good. One more thing to worry about. 

After talking to her is when the tears came. I felt so frustrated that it happened at all and with only a few weeks of school left to go. If it was going to happen, at least let it happen after the semester was over. I was drowning in homework and projects and lived on campus four days a week. At one point I tried to get up to use the bathroom and couldn't put any weight on it. I almost fell to the floor trying. So then of course my imagination ran wild thinking about needing crutches or one of those nifty little scooters that I see people with broken legs using on campus. I dreaded the thought of either since two of the buildings I had classes in were split level so right as you enter the building you either go up or down stairs to get where you need to go. I'm sure both buildings have elevators, but I didn't know where or how to get to them without first climbing stairs. I had a third class in a building with stairs too, but not as many so I wasn't too worried about that, but my practicum was in a classroom with two year olds that were behind in their development and preparing for preschool. How in the world was I going to function there on crutches?

Thankfully, the next morning I was able to walk on it; barely, but I knew it meant I wouldn't have to deal with crutches. Instacare confirmed that it was broken, said the bone was displaced, gave me a walking shoe, and told me to follow up with a foot doctor. I called the podiatrist and they couldn't get me in for another week which was frustrating because I was worried it was causing more damage. And of course I played it up in my mind what they would have to do to undo the damage.

All that worry for nothing. Going to the foot doctor was basically a waste of time. I sat down and waited for the doctor. He finally came in and chatted about all things unrelated to my toe. He asked me to take my sock off. He looked at it from a distance. Didn't touch my foot. Didn't remove the tape holding my two toes together. Told me to keep wearing the walking shoe for five more weeks and come back for a follow up appointment. Really? He didn't have to take x-rays because they were in the system from when I had them done at Instacare, but I thought it was strange that he didn't do anything else. I was relieved that he didn't have to reset the bone or anything crazy, but at the same time I was annoyed that I spent all that time worrying about what he might do and then he didn't do anything. Literally. I didn't even have to get up and sit in the big, goofy exam chair. I guess I'll find out at my next appointment if it all healed how it should.

Sorry these pictures are all so bad. They were all taken on my phone and my phone camera is having issues. In these two pictures you can kind of see the bruising and swelling. It bruised clear up to the middle of my foot. Then the bruising went away and my toe wasn't hurting anymore. Then about a week later my toe was hurting again and the bruising came back. Of course I was worried that I did some more damage to it, but since then it stopped hurting and the bruising wasn't as bad so who knows.

One thing I learned is that a broken toe is a lot more inconvenient than it seems. Whenever I hear someone has a broken finger or toe I always think it's no big deal. Now I know better. Pain wise it wasn't too bad after I had the walking shoe, but it sure made my life less convenient. If I had to choose between a broken finger and a broken toe though I would definitely go with the broken toe. The broken finger would be easier in some ways since I don't have to walk on it, but it would make sign language pretty impossible! And I have now broken three bones. My arm twice and now my toe. Good times.

Bucket List #55: Find out what's eating Gilbert Grape

This past August Nick and I started doing an at-home-date-night every Friday night. It's not very easy to come up with new and unique things to do at home, but I imagine it would be the same if we did an out of home date every week. The nice thing is we made a bucket list last year and there are a few things we can check off without spending any money or leaving the comfort of our own home. Tonight we took the opportunity to find out what's been eating Gilbert Grape by watching the movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". Clever eh?!

Nick and I neither one had seen the movie before which is why it made the bucket list. And now that we have seen it we both feel it's not one we ever need to watch again. It's kind of a downer. But hey, we got to have a date and check something off our bucket list at the same time so we can't complain. 

These are all the attempts we made trying to take a picture of ourselves with the movie in the background. They all tie for last place so I couldn't decide which one to keep. That's why they all made the cut. Good logic, right?!

Thankful Tree

This year for our Thankful Tree, I decided to try something different. Since this is only the second year running I figure it's okay to tweak our tradition to figure out what works best for our family. Last year our Tree was made of paper; flat and taped to the wall. This year I wanted to try a 3D Tree. On Saturday we went to 2nd Dam and gathered a bunch of sticks. Then on Sunday we compiled our sticks to make a tree and put them in a pot. We also cut out a bunch of leaves to prepare for the activity.

Last year's tradition was spread out during the whole month of November. Everyday Shasta got to hang a new leaf on her tree. This year I decided to do it all in one day. For Family Night we had a lesson about what it means to be thankful. Then we tried making a list of the things we are thankful for, but Shasta was having a hard time staying focused and Shelby was being a pill. After we had about 10 things written on our list I decided to start writing them on the leaves and gave them to Shasta to hang on the tree. Once she started taping them to the tree she was much more interested in listing things she is thankful for.

I tried to include Shelby in the activity, but I was really nervous about her falling off the table. And I couldn't move the tree to the floor because I needed to be able to write the information on the leaves and didn't want to constantly be battling Shelby over keeping the rocks in the pot. Plus she wasn't quite understanding how to put the tape on the branches so it was just me doing hand over hand with her anyway and she didn't seem very interested in doing that. 

Side note: right now we do family night without Nick because of his work schedule. We talked about doing it on Saturday or Sunday night so he could do it with us, but Saturdays are filled with running errands and doing other important things that it's hard to commit to being home by a certain time in the evening for FHE. Sundays are filled with church, church callings, visiting teachers, home teachers, and the like, plus church is right through nap time so our girls are little she-devils by the time evening rolls around so adding another "church" related thing to the day sounded anything but appealing. Plus all the times we're with family on Saturdays and Sundays meant FHE would constantly be interrupted and it would be hard to be consistent. We even considered doing it earlier in the day during the week, before Nick leaves for work, but between my school schedule and the girls' naps, it was too complicated. So I decided to go ahead and do it Monday nights even though Nick can't do it with us because this way we're making it a habit so that one day when Nick doesn't work swing shift anymore it'll be second nature to already be doing it. So far it's working well for us, but tonight it would have been nice to have a second set of adult hands to help!

Anyway. Shasta understood what we were doing a lot better this year. She was better at coming up with things she's thankful for... or rather, things that make us happy, which is how I approached explaining to her what being thankful meant. But she also kept looking around the room and naming things she saw. I was more picky about writing down every single thing she named this year because I wanted her to really think about what she's thankful for and not just name things around the room. Instead, I helped her come up with some by describing things (ie. a place we go with tons of books to read) to help her come up with other things. But I was pretty pleased with some of the things she came up with all on her own!

Since Shelby doesn't talk, she didn't contribute anything to the tree, so all the leaves were things that Shasta came up with. Next year it will be fun to hear what Shelby has to say too!

The List (in no particular order; I literally took the leaves and typed up the list based on what I pulled from the pile):
Being together forever
Food
Joy school
Lizzy and Robyn (her friends)
Thankful tree
Shasta
Getting married in the temple
Family night
Family
Toys
Mom
Rocks
Camera
Library
Shelby
Branches
Playing with friends
Being with Jesus and Heavenly Father forever
The movie store (Hastings... where Nick likes to take her when he rents movies)
Moon
Sacrament
Reading books
Shelby not to be angry at us
Slippers
Daniel Tiger (the television show)
Water that we drink
Sky
Leaves
Pictures
Phones
Dad
Chloe and Naomi (her friends next door)
Grammy and Papa
Earth
Daisy (her baby doll)
Everything
Blankets
Wedge
Grandma and Grandpa
Giraffes because they don't bite
Church
My Little Pony "the scary one" (Equestria girls-the movie)
Kisses
Painting our toes
Crayons
Bo on the Go (television show)
Milk and Juice

Halloween Festivities

Halloween was a bit of a let down this year. We had to miss out on several fun activities because Shasta was sick. I finally decided to take her to the doctor and found out she had Fifth Disease. And on top of that a stomach bug was passed through our entire family during the week and happened to hit me Halloween morning. Thankfully by late afternoon I was feeling better, but I was sure bummed that so much of the day was wasted since Halloween is my favorite holiday.

Nick took the girls trick or treating on Main Street that morning and I stayed home since I couldn't bring a toilet along. It was all I could do not to cry as they loaded up in the car and drove off. I wanted to go with them so bad and watch my girls enjoy their trick or treating experience. I guess there's always next year. By the way, Shasta went as a Bee and Shelby went as a Ladybug. I thought it would be fun for Nick and me to go as Entomologist (Scientists who study bugs) and Nick thought it would be funny to dress as giant flyswatters and/or bug spray, but we never pulled anything together. That's pretty much how every year goes. We think of clever costumes and then don't do anything about it. Oh well. I try to do Halloween on the cheapest budget possible so it's hard for me to put more money into it. I got Shasta and Shelby's costumes for $4 each. Woot woot! And I didn't buy a single bag of Halloween candy because I already had a massive bag of suckers from a different event. Go me!

I love doing a festive Halloween dinner, but since I had been sick most of the day I didn't have much of an appetite that evening so I decided to do it the next day. We attended a family Halloween party Saturday morning so I didn't think it would take away from the festive dinner to do it Saturday night instead of Friday night. But more on the dinner later.

Halloween night Nick and I took the girls trick or treating around our complex. It was really anticlimactic. The first four doors we knocked on (decorated and porch lights on) nobody answered the door. I felt really frustrated about it. I was worried my girls would be discouraged and confused about what we were even doing since this is the very first year we've taken either of them door to door to trick or treat. But really it was silly for me to worry about that since they were just happy to be outside on an adventure. I would say 50% of the houses in our development didn't have lights on. Then among those that did have lights on I would say about 10% didn't answer the door and at least half of them just had candy dishes sitting on the doorstep. Oh, and of those with candy dishes on the door step, 75% of them were empty. I wasn't worried about my girls not getting more candy, but it was kind of sad to see Shasta's disappointment as she looked into the bowl and announced, "it's empty". But we still had fun. Nick and Wedge went back home after a while because Nick was worried that we left our house unlocked and the blinds open and his precious Playstation sitting in view! Ha! So he decided he'd rather hand out candy. Yes, I know, we were one of the houses that had a bowl of candy sitting on the doorstep. But only for about half an hour.

Watching Shasta hand out candy to the trick or treaters that came to our door was probably my favorite part. She was so darn cute. She felt so proud to hold the bucket of candy and I loved hearing her tell them "you're welcome" when they said thank you and "Happy Halloween" as they walked away. She was completely content handing out candy that it never even dawned on her that she could knock on doors too. When I asked her if she wanted to go trick or treating she was worried about who would give the kids candy that came to our house. It took a little bit of convincing because she wanted to wait until after all the trick or treaters were done coming to our house, but once we started knocking on doors she was pretty excited. I wasn't sure she would ever want to go back home, but telling her she could hand out candy again helped!

(We put the baby gate across the door so Wedge couldn't run out and attack the kids!)

As for our festive Halloween Dinner. I wanted to do a pumpkin theme, but I was pretty unorganized. The day before Halloween I still hadn't even decided on a menu plan. I knew I wanted to have everyone eat out of a pumpkin, but I didn't know what to serve in them and I didn't know what else to do to go with the theme. I thought about making pumpkin shaped rice crispie treats, but I had just made a pan of rice crispie treats earlier in the week and I knew we would have them at the family Halloween party on Saturday so that didn't really appeal to me. That's pretty much where the pumpkin theme stopped. Although our dinner didn't end up having much of a theme, it was still fun and creative!

On the menu:

~ Pumpkin guts served in pumpkins (Broccoli cheese soup served in pumpkin shape bread bowls)

~ Eyeballs (grapes)

~ Werewolf Urine (lemonade)

~ Dirt and Worms (Pudding, cookies, and gummy worms)

Shasta loved helping set the table and prepare what she could with the meal. It was so fun to include her in on it too. And she was so willing to try her dinner. She didn't like the soup, but she tried it all on her own and that's all that matters to me! Who knew it was all in the presentation?

I love Halloween. It's so easy to be festive and make it fun. I think next year I'm going to make a rule that everyone has to come to the dinner table in costume. Nick may not like it, but the girls sure will!