A freshly cut tree...

The day before Thanksgiving, we headed out to cut down a Christmas tree. Anticipating being out of town for the whole Thanksgiving weekend, we wanted to get our tree cut down early. Then we could decorate it after we got back. (I'm against putting up Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving, a curse from a guy I dated.) So we headed out with our snow gear. It was quite pleasant outside, but the kids still got decked out in full gear. They were so happy to play in the snow.




Merril found a fabulous tree and cut it down. It was located at the bottom of a hill and the Tahoe was at the top. So I helped him drag it up the steep parts and then let him do the rest. It was the first year we've tied the tree to the top of the car. (We've always had a truck or trailer or something.)

I was there too, sipping hot chocolate. This picture is wiggy, but everything else the kids took was out of focus or too dark to enhance.

After cutting and playing, we sipped hot chocolate or apple cider and ate ginger spice cookies. It was a wonderful time!

The kids wanted me to take a picture of them sleeping. FYI: They're all awake and posing for a picture.

On the way home, we had to make a quick fix because the wind gusted and blew the tree sideways on the roof. Luckily it didn't fall off, just turned sideways.

It was righted and we continued on our way. During this trip, I thought about the tradition of cutting down a fresh tree for Christmas. Merril only started cutting trees when we got married, but I can't remember a single Christmas in my whole life that I didn't go cut a tree. I thought that was pretty darn great.

Loving technology...

I love YouTube.

I spend more time than I should there. I watch old movies broken into 9 minute segments, trailers, music videos, etc. I think YouTube is great. However, I've lately come to despise the comments people make about videos. If people don't like the video, they can swear in the comment and it rarely gets removed. So I turned to my old friend, the internet, to see what could be done to rid myself of expletive-ridden comments. :)

We use Google Chrome for our internet browser and an extension for Chrome can be downloaded to simply eliminate YouTube comments. Can you believe that awesomeness??! After downloading the extension, my YouTube pages load totally void of annoying comments replaced by beautiful blank white space. I love techology.

Wahoo we didn't all die!

So today is November 11, 2011, otherwise known as 11.11.11. It's pretty catchy. If I could've planned it, I would've had our 4th kid today. (I don't need it to come 3 months early so we're just going to let it cook a little bit longer.) I'm glad I wasn't in Egypt today because the great pyramid of Giza was closed because of 11-11-11. (Because of the crazy people) Merril and I were just glad that bombs didn't drop and the world didn't come to an end. Merril did, however, go to the Verizon store, which opened at 11:11 a.m., to purchase a new phone. Maybe it'll be good luck and he won't go through this phone in a matter of months. (He's hard on phones.)

We should've done something fun but we just went through the whole day doing normal Friday things. Tomorrow I'm making blueberry muffins for breakfast. Doesn't that sound good?

Isn't that a lot of oatmeal?

Jack really likes oatmeal for breakfast. He probably eats it almost every single day, something that I think is nuts but whatever. I used to buy oatmeal at places like Wal-Mart but in the last year or so, I decided to buy it at the LDS cannery in 25 lbs. bags.

(This is not my picture, nor my kitchen.)

It's cheaper to buy it at the cannery but I feel silly with so much oatmeal for some reason. In my pantry, I have a 5-gallon bucket of flour, sugar, and oatmeal. Who keeps oatmeal in a 5-gallon container in their pantry? It just seems ridiculously excessive. However, the amount of oatmeal diminishes in the bucket at such an alarming rate, I really can't see any other alternative. I just think it's weird.

P.S. Less than 100 days to go until bambino...yikes!

Jack lost his first tooth...

So Jack lost his first tooth on Wednesday! He was really excited to get a gold dollar coin from the tooth fairy!

Unrelated: I'm 25 weeks along. Only 3 1/2 months to go!

Storytelling Festival...

Maxine's school holds a storytelling festival for grades 3-5. Kids compete in 4 different categories: adventure, mystery, folk tale, and fairy tale. Maxine competed with kids in the upper grades but still placed 1st in the folk tale category! She was really excited to get a trophy.

Halloween 2011...

It seems like last week was super busy. There was Halloween events and Red Ribbon Week at the school. Merril and I had Halloween parties on Friday. We dressed up as Napolean Dynamite and Pedro. I had originally wanted to be Napolean's girl friend but my hair is too short for the side ponytail and I'm too pregnant not to notice. I thought it'd just be weird.

Juliet was a black cat, Maxine was a mean witch, and Jack was a stitched up race car driver.

The kids went to Halloween parties, costume parades and trunk or treating before actually going house to house for real trick or treating.

They have soooo much candy.....that I'll be eating.