This one's for you Jen!

I woke up at 9:30, after Madison had
her first 9 1/2 hour no waking up,
no crying, night!! It was heavenly.

You'll notice the blog isn't private anymore. When we decided to go private, we didn't realize how much work it was. Instead, we're going to moderate the comments, that sounds like a lot less work!!

A very unflattering picture of myself if I do say so. However, my friend Jen wanted to know if I could at least try to get fat this season. So, I'm giving it my best shot! (p.s. Stephanie wanted to remind Jen how hot Ricky Martin is.) Here is a picture of my plate of food before and after. I think I did very well. Not to mention I ate most of the skin off the turkey, had Steph not come over, I would have eaten it all by myself! I also had a big bowl of icecream afterwards!

Before we get into the Thanksgiving dinner bit, here is what Alexis took to preschool for her Thanksgiving party. I had completely forgotten about it until about 11 the night before, oops!! So, here's what we came up with: graham crackers with frosting in the middle and colored frosting on the top so they somewhat, with a good imagination, resemble turkeys! I must admit, the idea of graham crackers and frosting came from my sister-in-law Angie. We just added the turkey looking part.

Drew LOVED the frosting, I was unaware of how much he loved the frosting though. After we had finished, he snuck back in and was licking the bowl clean! Not with his fingers, but with his entire face in the bowl!

Madison was so helpful during the turkey making that as soon as we were done, she was too tired to stay awake! Too bad it was so fun, it would've been nice to have two hands to decorate with!

Now for the Thanksgiving Dinner: For Thanksgiving this year, we decided we were going to have our very own Thanksgiving. We've never done this, and every year because of late dinner starts or what have you, we always ended up separated so that we could visit both families. This has always bugged me beyond belief, so this year we decided to not deal with it. Can I tell you how wonderful it was?

My dad was kind enough to deep fry our turkey for us, it tasted heavenly! I cooked everything else, there wasn't any stress and we just enjoyed being together. Right before we ate, Stephanie and fiancee Ikani came over, and had dinner with us. It was such a nice relaxing day! John hung the lights on the house after dinner and then we drove the kids around to see the few houses that had theirs turned on. We also stopped and saw Grandpa Hakes and Max, they are always lots of fun!

As a side note, it's always amazing to me to see what the kids come up with. The other day they were using these straws as whistles. When they got bored with that, Alexis decided that the door needed a longer door stop.

For John's Birthday present, I bought him two pairs of Jazz tickets. The first of the two was Wednesday night against Memphis. Our seats were pretty high up, but we had a great time!! Everybody there loved seeing Madison. She was the center of attention. It was hilarious because she was being fussy, so we gave her a little taste of popcorn and she LOVED it! She kept whining until we gave her more, then she would hurry and down it and expect more.

Funny Dialogue

Alexis: "Do you know where Cinderella went after they got married?"
Dad: "Where?"
Alexis: "On their honeymoon."
Dad: "I want to go on a honeymoon too."
Alexis: "You already did silly! With Mommy!"
Dad: "Oh how do you know? Were you there?"
Alexis: "No."
Dad: "Where were you?"
Alexis: "Grandma was watching us."

Drew's Nephrologist

We went to see the Nephrologist today and . . . Drew is just fine! Again. They didn't do anything with him that we haven't done at the regular doctors. He looked at him, listened to his lungs, felt his tummy and looked at his pee. And, he decided that Drew is fine, he could have done all this minus the pee by looking at his file. Too bad they couldn't just tell us that over the phone and without charging us an arm and a leg. So, when there is more blood in the urine, he starts to swell up or some other catastrophic type of thing, then we should worry. Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited that Drew doesn't have a kidney problem, I'm just frustrated that no one has been able to figure out what is wrong with my poor kid.
On a better note, today John learned that OCD is something that is just in you. Drew was sitting on his chair at the doctors and John was kicking his little feet. First one foot then the other. After a while, John started kicking just one foot. Drew started moving his little feet so that his other foot would be the one in position to be kicked. John, being fun kept kicking the same foot. Drew finally said: "this one, this one". So, John obliged and started kicking that one. After a few kicks, Drew was moving so John would get the other. You get the idea, it went on for a few minutes, and John and I were just laughing. Drew decided to take his turn kicking daddy's feet, it was just as funny. Drew kicked John's foot with his right foot, then he kicked the same foot with his left foot. Then he moved over to John's other foot and did the same thing. He kept going back and forth and John and I were just giggling like little school girls. It was very cute.
Madison learned how to grab her little feet the same time she started rolling over. Today, she finally got those pesky socks off!! She was so excited, she was able to eat the socks and breathe at the same time! :)
Alexis' friends taught her that first you get married, then you go on a honeymoon and then you have a baby. She was telling me about how she was going to do this, hopefully in like 25 years, and she made sure to tell me that it would be with someone other than daddy, because he was already married. What an observant little girl. While Drew has slight OCD tendencies like his mother, Alexis is left brained like her mother. The other day she found a toy magazine. She sat down with it and a pen and started circling everything that she wanted. I do have to say, she didn't circle everything, she really only circled the things she wanted. After a couple of minutes she said: "Mom, I don't want this one, but I think Drew would want it. So I'm going to put an X on all the things that I think Drew wants for Christmas." Honestly, what three year old comes up with things like that?

Santa . . . yes, Santa

I know it's only November and Thanksgiving hasn't even come and gone yet, but we went to see Santa on Wednesday. We figured that Drew wasn't sick and we had better take advantage of it and let him see Santa this year. Santa was a little late in arriving, and they had the beginning of the line right next to the candy display. Bet you can't guess what happens next... Drew grabbed a Rolo and was opening it behind my back. A nice lady came and offered the kids some brownies they had out, so the kids were sitting next to his chair eating brownies and waiting. When Santa arrived their little faces lit up and they got the biggest grins, it was priceless!! The pictures aren't that great, but it was so fun. They also had some great booths set up for the kids to do crafts and they loved it. Santa looked real too, what a great bonus!

Going private

Because of special spirits on the internet, we are going to go private. Please email us your address or leave a comment so we can add you to the list. To clarify, we have been getting spam on our blog and we would like to avoid this in the future.

"Disneyland" (Disney on ice)

So we finally got to go to our "big event" we've been looking forward to for so long. This time around, we made sure we had the right date, the right time, right venue just so we didn't have a repeat performance of last weekend. However, as much as you try to plan and re-plan there will always be kinks in your plans that sneak up at the last minute. Yesterday Alexis got a huge fever like 103.9 at one point. We figured she just had what Drew had which was a 24 hour bug. Sure enough, she was feeling much better by today though not 100%. Since we had dropped a good chunk of change on these non-refundable, non-transferrable tickets, we all decided to go anyway. It all went pretty well except at the end Alexis was just so exhausted and tired she threw a HUGE tantrum in the parking lot. It was so embarrassing! Everyone probably thought we were horrible parents, but we somehow convinced her to let Daddy carry her to the car. Once we got in the car, Madison screamed non-stop from SLC to about North Orem. I don't know how these things end up being more stressful than fun, but hopefully the kids will have good memories. Alexis loved the little Belle doll we got her and Drew loved the Mickey Mouse doll that he got. (Shouldn't there be a more manly name for doll, when it's for a boy?) That was the highlight of the evening for them. I worry sometimes that we spoil them too much. Oh well, it's once a year and Alexis' adoration of princesses may only last a few more years. She seems to be growing up too fast!

My great husband

John is going to roll his eyes when he sees this post, but that's too bad. I decided I had to let everyone know what a fabulous husband I have, he's so amazing. Not only does he do lunch with the kids four days a week, but he watches them at night three days a week so I can go to school. He surprised me with a box of See's Cherry Cordials last week because I was having a day listening to Drew whining again. This week he's cleaned the house, the car (it was almost ready to be dropped off at the dump it was so bad), done laundry and dishes and given me foot massages. (He cleans the house on a weekly basis, and he hired Steph to come and help once a week to do deep cleaning for me!) But the best part of this week was when I bombed a test, and I don't mean "oh I didn't do well", I mean I BOMBED it in full glory. I was so frustrated because I just hadn't had time to study and I really did deserve what I got, but it still stunk. When I got home, John opened two little bottles of sparkling cider and we drank to celebrate my imperfectness. It was so fun to be so bummed and yet to be having such a fun moment with him. What a perfect husband for me, I couldn't have asked for anyone better!
As a side note, Madison rolled over for the first time today. It would have happened sooner I'm sure, but I'm the type that loves to hold the baby. Only recently have I begun to put her on the floor to play and only because I've had sick little kids who need my arms as well, and because she's becoming a tank, both John and I are having immense back pain.