Dancy Pants

A wonderful thing happened again. Ella's school threw another dance!!! Hooray!!! Remember last years? Watching kids dance to Michael Jackson is so entertaining, they should make a TV show about it. I would watch that on hulu (and not just because I've run out of things to watch and have moved onto teen Korean soap operas.)



And yes, there was another Conga Line. Woot!





With staying up dancing till the crack of 8:30 pm, you'd think Gretchen would want to sleep in a little. But no. She woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning. Which means I got to take a SUPER CRABBY KID with me on a DAY OF FUN! Ella's girl scout troop had gathered supplies for the animal shelter. We dropped all the donations off and got a grand tour. Usually the shelter is full of an overwhelming amount of pitbulls, pitbulls and more pitbulls, but this time there was an actual variety! There was even a weiner dog (that had lost 21 lbs since being rescued. Dude! That was one fat weiner dog!) and a dalmation. Awwww! (Nothing against pitbulls. They just seem to be the dog that needs the most rescuing. Poor things.) Here's Gretchen communing with the puppies:



And Ella literally jumping up and down, she's so excited about the dogs. (I made her stop, don't worry.)


After the shelter tour, we went to an indoor inflatable toy place. (Does that even make sense? You know what I mean, don't you?) Gretchen really enjoyed the ball pool. It was just a baby pool filled with balls, so it wasn't as scary as the 3' deep ones where nasty grossness can get lost there. Just after I took this picture, guess what she said:

"Mom! Where's my gum!"

Don't worry, we found it. And I made sure all gum was properly disposed of. (I didn't even REALIZE she had gum in her mouth! Surprise!)

It snowed on Friday night. The weather reports had prepared me for a foot of snow on the valley floor. I think we may have gotten two inches. It was nice. Pretty, but quickly melting. We got to walk around in it a bit. Ella observed that when you walk on snow it, "...sounds like someone is farting." That's right, sweetheart. Now lets go make some hot chocolate.

This week we're making the trek out to Grandma & Grandpa's house. I'm attempting to finish all the Utah Stott Christmas Presents before we leave. Part of that is my annual Christmas Photo Ornament gift for Grandma & Grandpa. I'm not going to show the REAL one, just the ones that didn't make the cut:



Oh for cute.



So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Movin' On Up

Hello Friends!

Remember how we moved and I had to scrounge around for kitchen supplies because ours were buried in the back of the storage unit? And how we've been eating with plastic silverware for eight months? WE NOW HAVE SILVERWARE!!! I know. Don't be intimidated by our awesomeness. I threw away all the plastic knives and most the plastic forks (you served us well, but now you must leave). But I kept the spoons. They are at a premium. We always run out of spoons. And, get this, we have a SILVERWARE DRAWER ORGANIZER! I know, we are so fancy. No more kitchen towel-lined drawer full of random plasticware. Ella opened the drawer in search of a spoon and said, "Wow!!!" Yeah. It is pretty great. Every time I eat cereal I get a little thrill now.

A couple months ago Auntie Amber & Uncle Dan gave us their old TV. And by old TV, I mean 62" flat screen behemoth. It wasn't completely working, but rather than throwing it out they offered it to us if we wanted to deal with fixing it. It's finally fixed (Colby is awesome), and it literally takes up half our living room. It is MASSIVE. But let me tell you, I've never had so much fun watching TV. Who says that things can't bring you happiness. TV has totally brought our family together this week. Ella & Colby were bonding over the 4-wheeler racing game. We watched the first four episodes of Doctor Who, Season Five. It is lovely.

Our little apartment just keeps getting fancier and fancier.

So what are you excited about? Thanksgiving is so soon, can you even believe it? I know!

Fire Station Private Tour

Hello family and friends! How was your week? Ours was pretty good. The obvious highlight in our lives was the fire station. Julie, mother of John John, set up a Private Tour for us. (Does that sound exciting? Oh yes, it WAS exciting. And Gretchen was doing a lot of flirting. What can I say, she likes a man in uniform. Especially a super friendly man who can cook her mac&cheese in his Fire Station Kitchen.)

I took over 150 photos, but edited it down to about 80. One thing you may know about me, I am EXTREMELY picture happy. But I can't help it. Cause look at how cute they were. Awwwwwwww! (Aren't Gretchen & John John the sweetest thing ever when she's not trying to sever one of his fingers with her teeth? I know! His fireman outfit is classic.) (Don't worry, I'm only going to make you look at 4/80 fire station pictures.)



Oh yeah. She liked driving that engine.



The firemen were so great with our loud, rambunctious children. They let each one "drive" an engine, put the headphones on them and talked to them through the mouthpiece (until Gretchen & Cora thought it'd be fun to scream in it. That game didn't last long...), dressed up in all their gear and had the kids hug them. So sweet. (Did you know that we're supposed to tell our kids to give fire men hugs if they see them in a fire? Kids get scared of the firemen when they're decked out in all their gear & will hide in a burning house to get away from them. That makes me want to cry just thinking about it. That's why they do so many tours and school visits, to teach kids that they're not Darth-Vader-Breathing-Monsters when they have their masks on.) Turns out that TWO of the firemen were single. We're totally sending Auntie Krista over there with a plate of Thank-You-Cookies from us. (You can thank Becky for finding that tidbit out. She casually asked, "Y'all are so great with kids! Do you have kids of your own?" That sneaky, clever Becky... Krista, get on it.)

Here's the whole group getting cute with the fire fighters. Gretchen was really into making that awesome face.



See? She did it in every group picture I took of her.



It's not that she doesn't want me to see her face...



It's that she thinks she's hilarious.



Lest you think we ignored our other child this week, I will share that Ella had a sleepover with her BFF while her parents went to something called "Fantasies In Chocolate". I don't know what exactly that is, but I want to go to there. We didn't go to there, but we still had fun. But we were too busy painting nails and watching movies to take any pictures.

Colby and I finally sat down and made some decisions on local issues so we could vote on Tuesday. It made me so proud when we left the junior high with our "I Voted" stickers. I've been reading "Little Bee" for my online book club and that's put some things into perspective. We are really lucky to live in a democratic country. What a blessing. Even if things aren't overwhelmingly great right now, and by no means is our country perfect, it's still pretty much amazing. And no matter how crazy I think my life is sometimes, it could be SO MUCH WORSE! (I'm not sure if I can recommend Little Bee to you yet or not. I have to finish it first. It's given me two nightmares already. It is intense. Beautifully written, but intense.)

Can you believe Thanksgiving is in a few weeks? Did you remember to change your clocks this morning? Share with us! We want to hear!

xoxo