Biking in November!

After having a horribly hot summer, we got some beautiful weather, in November! A couple of weeks ago, the weather was so nice, we got the Christmas lights up (without coats on) and Ray took Kaden and Jackson on a bike ride around the neighborhood so I just wanted to share the cute pics of my boys (all of them)!

Sorry, no Thanksgiving pictures to share this year...it was very uneventful. We actually stuck around home this year. We had planned to have Thanksgiving dinner with our good friends, the Madsens, and their two boys but the night before Thanksgiving, their little boy, Ben (almost 18 months old) got a bad case of croup and ended up at Primary Children's Hospital overnight. Since Kaden is EXTREMELY prone to get croup and has already had it twice this year, we decided to have our own Thanksgiving (I was not mentally or physically prepared to pack for two kids at the last minute to head out of town...I need more planning time than a few hours). So, we had our own little Thanksgiving, complete with pumpkin pie (which I have to say was pretty good for my first time making it...thanks to Marie Calendar ready-made pie crusts!) I was wondering if staying at home was such a great idea and then when Jackson threw up both his lunch and dinner and started running a 102 degree fever, I was pretty grateful we stayed at home. Ahhhhh, the holidays...I swear kids always know when you've got something planned or there's a holiday, they ALWAYS get sick...at least ours do.

Ray finally talked me into buying a fake Christmas tree, especially since we weren't heading to Wyoming this year to pick out our own tree and haul it back (which would have been a chore anyway since we don't have the Jimmy anymore and Ray's Maxima and my Sonata don't have any racks to tie anything to. I have to admit that it was great to just have the lights already on, pull it out of the box, and start decorating. But, I am going to get a candle that smells like pine so at least my nose can think it's real. I'll post pics later of our decorated house, which I have to say I'm pretty impressed with, and our tree.

My Least Favorite Holiday...HALLOWEEN

Well, Halloween has come and gone. We were a pretty sad family this year...we didn't even really decorate our house this year for Halloween. But, we did do the obligatory Halloween dress up for the boys and went to a few houses in the neighborhood. Although the weather was great, Kaden was done after about a dozen houses. We did dress Jackson up just so we could get some pictures and show him his "first Halloween". Kaden has eaten so much Halloween junk the last couple of days that he literally threw up yesterday morning around 6:00 a.m. IT WAS EVERYWHERE! His bed and sheets were soaked and it was all down his wall too. He had mentioned the night before that his stomach hurt but we thought it was one of his many ploys to procrastinate going to bed...well, we were wrong.

Jackson and Kaden are starting at a new daycare tomorrow. Our previous provider had a family emergency and had to close her daycare indefinitely so after a week or so of intereviewing various providers, we finally found one that we both feel really good about and is really close to our house so Ray will be able to drop off in the mornings and I'll pick up in the evenings. Kaden is excited and really hit it off with her 6-year-old son.

Other than Halloween and interviewing daycare providers, it was a pretty uneventful week and we are looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Oh, I did have a short one-day training in our Seattle office on Monday and it was great to be back in Seattle. (Sorry Balls family, I flew in the night before and flew out the next day!) When I flew in and saw the city, the water, and bridges, and the clouds, I just felt like I was flying home. I think Ray and I both have thoughts that we want to move back someday...probably when the kids are out of daycare and we can afford it. Utah is great as far as cost of living, but we really miss the mild(er) weather up there and the beauty and sad to say, but being LDS up in Washington is better than being LDS here in Utah. For any of you who have lived in Utah, you know what I mean. Ray and I have found that being the majority is not always the best, when you're LDS up in Washington, you're definitely a minority and LDS people seem to stick together and really take care of each other more when they're not all around you. Anyway, Utah will do for now but don't be surprised if we're back up there someday. Ray has connections at Microsoft (a former boss) and I have great relationships with the Seattle EY office so I hope that they can find room for me again someday.

Here are some of our pictures from Halloween 2007. Enjoy!