RIP

I've decided that I hate getting older. Well...I don't mind the aging, but things really hit home the older I get. I finally realize how fragile life really is. I realize that I'll probably never have the chance to go everywhere and do everything I want to do. And I realize how important and precious the memories we make are. I had an email friend die last week and my neighbor passed away last night. Both were quite young and left young children behind. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and I know and believe what we believe (life after death; being with loved ones again), but it's still hard to think of these families being without their loved ones during the holidays and for the rest of their earthly lives. I think of myself in their positions and my heart just aches and breaks. May these sweet individuals rest in peace and may the Lord be with their loved ones and comfort them at this difficult time.

O Christmas Tree

For the last few years, we've purchase a "real" Christmas tree. We have mismatched ornaments and the kids go to town. Two years ago, Kendall was really bothered by it. He wanted a fancy tree, so, since we were just finishing our basement, I went to Target after Christmas and got a tree and matching ornaments (all on clearance I might add) for us to put in the basement. Funny---our basement is the pretty, fancy decor and the upstairs (where most people see) isn't. Anyway...he thinks of it as his tree. My idea of the decorating is to just put the red and gold bows and glass ornaments on in a mixed up array, but Kendall's idea was to put all the red bows in one section, all the gold bows in a section, all the red balls in a section, and all the gold balls in a section. NOT what I would've done, but I left it and he directed the other kids on where to put what. I think we all love it! Jenna loves to turn off all the lights and just sit by the glow of the tree.

Zoo

I took the kids to the zoo last Wednesday. I heard it was free and I figured since it was the day before Thanksgiving, it wouldn't be too crowded. Boy, was I wrong!!! We got there early and it wasn't too bad, but by the time we left, there was hardly a parking spot in the lot. I had 3 people waiting for my spot! All that aside, we had a very nice time! I think we all enjoyed the new babies the best--a baby elephant, baby giraffe, 3 baby tiger cubs, a baby crocodile, a baby langur monkey, and a couple of other babies. The only thing is, what kind of zoo has no lions or hippos?! Apparently ours. :)

13

Jon and I celebrated our 13 year anniversary last Sunday. It's so amazing how quickly time flies by. A lot of superstitious people say that 13 is an unlucky number. I think this year will be a great one, even if it did start out unlucky.

Jon and I decided to go out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary on Saturday night. Just before we left, I was playing the game Perfection with Jenna (the one that you have to put the shapes in the right spot before it pops). She wanted to put all the pieces in and then set the timer. So we did. My mind started wandering as we were waiting for it to pop and when it did, it scared me to death and I jumped, accidentally smacking Jenna right in the mouth! It made her mouth bleed and it got really swollen, since it was just operated on. I felt sooooooooooooooooooooooo bad!!!! About 24 hours later, she got a fever over 101 and I just knew she had an infection, since that was her only symptom. The fever lasted for 24 hours and was gone *just like that*. She's had a couple of weird fevers like that this year.

Anyway....hopefully the rest of our 13th year is better!!

Jenna's Surgery

Jenna had her surgery done this morning. They called yesterday and said that we needed to be there at 7:30 am and they'd do the surgery at 8:30. They said it would take about 30 minutes and then we'd have a recovery time before she could go home. Let me just say---this is a brand new hospital--they just opened up on November 2 and they said they aren't doing many surgies in this children's unit yet, so she's one of the first. Everything was sooooo new and clean! Anyway...this little girl is Sleeping Beauty--it's not often that she gets up in time to be somewhere by 7:30 am. But...last night she went to bed early and so she got up early--that part was easy. The hard part--she was thirsty and hungry and I couldn't let her have anything. She was soooooooooo mad at me! We got to the hospital and she was being so cute with everyone and they all made such a fuss over her. They told me they only had a few surgeries scheduled, but one canceled last night, so they got her in 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We seriously just whipped right through everything, with hardly a waiting time for any of it. The surgery only took 20 minutes and she woke up fast afterward. They gave her some apple juice and she downed half of it before I even got to her. They wanted her to drink 3/4 of it before she could go home. Well...then the drama started. She wanted to go back to the pre-op waiting area to play with those toys, not the toys they had in recovery. So...she put on her best mad face, refused to drink any more, and started crying. After about 30 minutes, the nurse let us go back to that room and let Jenna play. She was happy again and finished off her juice. We got home and she was dying to eat, so she had some cereal, but it really hurt her mouth--they said she can eat and drink whatever she wants to and will have about 3 days of pain. The doctor said both her tongue and upper lip were really tight, but things went well. What a trooper!

'Tis the Season....

A week ago, we were freezing cold and had snow on the ground. And now? Close to 70 degrees. I guess that's how fall works. It's still crazy that our first snowfall was on October 27---Jenna kept talking about Christmas!! We ended up with 4 inches in all and it stuck around for awhile. The trees were still so full of leaves that the heavy snow lowered some of the branches down to the ground. Speaking of trees, our trees are usually done dropping leaves by now--we have 12 trees in all. Five of them are just barely turning colors and when I look up at all the leaves still in the trees, I cringe, because I know what I'll be doing soon. I just hope they're all dropped and raked up by the time Thanksgiving is over with, because I don't want to be out raking during the Christmas season!

Halloween Continued...

The kids had a lot of fun scooping out the guts of the pumpkin---Jon did most of the carving this year. And here's Kendall's Black Rider costume---from Lord of the Rings. I thought the costume turned out to be pretty good--he wanted to use a scary mask that we had with the costume, which worked out fine. At least the kids have options, right?The kids all had a great time trick-or-treating! Kendall went with friends; Kristen went with a friend; and Jon took the other two out. We had really nice weather, so Jenna decided to be a ballerina this time around.