Thanksgiving Part II

On Thanksgiving day, we spent the day with Kris' family. We had dinner with his parents and his brother and family came over later for pie. It was a very nice day, except the morning started out very stressful.

I started dinner at 8:00am. The internet said the turkey would take 4 hours in a roaster, so I went safe and put it in 5 hours early. The plan was to eat at 1:00. This wouldn't have been a problem if Kris had been home to watch the kids while I worked on dinner, but due to circumstances out of our control, he was unavailable the entire time. I sent him at 8:00 to go get a newspaper from Smith's and he waited there a while, but it wasn't arriving. He called me and said he was going to go to Maverick and see if it was there. Two hours later, he called me from Walmart and said, "No one has a paper. Walmart was going to call their distributor and find out where it is." So he came home and by this point it was 10:30.

Although much of the morning had passed, it was still okay, because the real work begins an hour or two before dinner. He left again to go to my parents to get the paper from them. They have a subscription and said we could have their ads. While he was there, he was snatched up to hook up their new televeision and he didn't get back until noon. While he was gone, Kyson leaked through his pants and got two couches dirty, and Kodi spit up all over her chair. I had to pull up the little Spot Bot cleaner to get it all out. It took a lot of my time and I was getting nervous about getting dinner finished. When he arrived at noon, I thought, "Yea, at least I have the last hour to get this dinner done, without trying to take care of the kids." I thought wrong. He hadn't been able to shower because he was gone all morning, and he went up to shower. Needless to say, we didn't eat on time. I didn't get food on the table until close to 2.

The meal was good, even though it was late. And I'm grateful our company was understanding. We ate at 2 and had plans for Rusty and his family to come over at 4 for pie. By the time 4:00 came around, we were still cleaning up dinner and not hungry enough for pie, so we called Rusty and relaxed on the couch while the kids were sleeping. We watched The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I'd never seen it before, and I have to admit, it was really good. It was such a nice and relaxing afternoon.

The real fun began when Rusty and the fam arrived. They came close to 5, and all the kids started playing immediately. Kyson loves his cousins, but sometimes it gets a little difficult because Kyson knows not to hit or push, but his oldest cousin is six and is in Karate. Although he does kick and hit for fun, Kyson doesn't know the difference, and then he starts doing it too, to be like his cousin. All four of the little boys were running around, playing rough, and being little boys. Kyson really enjoyed it. I did too, but was worried about someone getting hurt. Worries aside, it was a wonderful evening. It's nice when we get all the family together.

Thanksgiving Part I

Last year my family had Thanks- giving in the middle of December because my mom had just had a hip replacement and couldn't get out of the house. This year, my family decided to have Thanksgiving early because my mom had choir practice on Wednesday night before the big day and wouldn't be able to prepare. This opened up Thanksgiving day to invite Kris' parents over for dinner.

So Thanks- giving was the Sunday before Thanks-giving and I was a little leary about it especially when my dad called to say that we were going to go bowling after dinner. I thought bowling sounded fun, I just didn't know how fun it would be when I have small children who need naps. I have to say, the day was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed everything.


We had dinner at 1-ish and Kodi slept while we ate. Kyson said the prayer for the big dinner. It wasn't as entertaining as his typical prayer. Half way through it he tried to have a conversation with me. I whispered to him to say "Amen" and when he did, we started passing the food. It was nice that we didn't have to play the "Not it" game about who was going to say the prayer.

Dinner was so fantastic! I loved everything about it. I thought that Kyson might eat a few things, but I was wrong. He really liked one thing in particular - ranch. He asked for some on his plate and I thought it would be to dip his roll or something, but no, it became an entree on his plate that he ate it by the spoonfuls. I was so disgusted I had to take a picture.

Next came bowling. Kodi woke up just as we were getting ready to leave so the timing was perfect, but Kyson still hadn't gone down for a nap. He'd never been bowling before, he ate a lunch that consisted of Ranch, and he hadn't had a nap. This could have been a lethal combination, but it turned out well enough. He wasn't an angel, but he could have been worse. He did pretty well at first, but lost interest quickly when he saw a game room at the bowling alley with rides. He could be bribed to throw the first ball, but that second ball he wanted nothing to do with it.

My father was the most enter- taining. He and my mom used to bowl on a league back in the day, and they brought their own balls and shoes like regular pros. He wanted "competition" on his lane of bowlers so Kris, Josh, and I joined his team to try and give him a challenge, although, we weren't as experienced as my father. Well, my dad didn't disappoint, he got many gutter balls and was getting more and more disgusted with each frame. I don't think he even broke 100. We teased him mercilessly and we enjoyed every minute of it. Kris, surprisingly was very good. He nearly broke 200 and at one point got four strikes in a row. I had no idea he was such a talented bowler - it's a good thing he was bowling against my dad, he needed some competition.

The entire day was so much fun and even though my children weren't perfect, I'm grateful that my family loves them unconditionally.

Family Times

I rarely write about religious things but, this time I'm going to make an exception. In the month of October, our ward made a theme of Family and ways to improve your family. Essentially they wanted to teach about how we can keep our family on the straight and narrow. While there weren't any revelations about how to do this (pray together, family home evening, family scripture study, etc), lessons and talks gave me a lot of suggestions and things to think about.

There are a few things I've been doing differently since the lessons of October. One is the way I treat my children. Like most parents, I can get angry and lose my patience. When that happens, I yell. One day in Relief Society, they said something that really stuck with me. The way we react and treat others when we are frustrated is how we are teaching our children to deal with frustration. So if we yell and hit, that's what our children will do - and they'll think it's okay. I hadn't thought about the kind

of example I was setting. I was only thinking about dealing with the problem at the moment.

Even though I know that family prayer and family scripture study are really important, we often forget about family prayer and don't have time for family scripture study. In one talk last month, a speaker said that a friend of hers had done family scripture study by reading only one verse per person each day. When I heard this i thought, "I can do that." We decided after dinner while we're already together at the table, we'll read from the scriptures. We've been doing a good job with it and I'm quite proud of us. Since we've been doing these simple things, Kyson wants to pray more and he wants to read the scriptures.

Tonight we read about Nephi returning to Jerusalem to get the plates from Laban and how they were staying in tents in the wilderness. Kyson understood and even prayed for tents tonight in his prayer. Last night in his prayer he prayed for hot dogs, Avatar, Bear Lake, Bob the tomato, Babe the pig, the couch, and the singing wrestlers from Veggie Tales. He's really enjoying praying and to be honest, he never lets us pray anymore and I'm fine with that.

I feel like these small things are making us happier and making a difference.

Halloween

Every year I have high hopes for fun times, thinking that my children will have so much fun with the holidays, which in turn means they'll be fun for me. Well, I have a difficult son. Kyson refused to wear a costume last year, so I didn't take him trick-or-treating. This year I thought for sure he'd want to be a part of it all and he didn't. I didn't buy him a costume because every time I showed him one, he didn't want to wear it. He screams if I try and put it on anyway - you'd think I was beating the child.

I finally went to my sister's house because she has a big box of Halloween costumes that her children had worn in years past. I hoped I could find something he'd wear. Well, I kind of did. There was one costume that was supposed to be a grim reaper kind of thing with a robe and "exposed ribs." I believe the costume was size 12. Obviously, the robe wouldn't fit, but I could get him to wear the ribs for a minute or two at a time. I thought with a bit of training the weeks before Halloween, that maybe by the time the holiday came around I could get him to wear some ribs. It worked. he looked ridiculous and it really wasn't a costume, but it was something. I liked to believe he was an X-ray machine.

Wearing the "costume" was a success for both of his preschools, the ward party, and Halloween night. He went trick-or-treating with his friends the Holts and Kris told me that when he'd go to the door he'd say "Trick-or-treat! I have bones!" After he came home from trick-or-treating, he was so excited about all the little kids in costumes that he'd have to come to the door and babble incoherent interjections. It was fun.

Kodi, on the other hand, is too small to care. We put her in an adorable ladybug costume and she never compleained once. Next year she'll be more aware of what is going on and I truly hope that she isn't a fighter - I need a lover, not a fighter when it comes to Halloween costumes.