Christmas Decorating

The day after Thanksgiving, (see Thanksgiving post below), we pulled out the Christmas stuff, put up the tree, & decorated it. The kids have to take all the credit. They put on every last ornament we own!

Thanksgiving

Well, I'll start this post with the Henderson Christmas party. We go to this every year, (it's my dad's family party). It's held at my uncle's house in Spanish Fork, usually in December. This year they held it on Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, all of my Dad's siblings were able to make it! That's never happened before. They came from all over the place, including Oregon, Wyoming, Idaho, & Washington.

And of course, Grandma Henderson was there too.

Now on to Thanksgiving.....

I wanted to do some sort of Turkey Trot 5k again. It just gives me a better appetite, and you just always feel better afterwards! But the ones I've done in the past have been in Draper or down at Memory Grove, and they start at 8:00 or 9:00 am, which means we'd have to get up pretty early, and drive kind of far to get there, so no sleeping in. Not to mention you have to pay to enter. I wanted Kevin to go with me, which would have doubled the cost.

So I decided this year to just have our own little family 5k. We slept in, stayed in bed until the kids came in bed with us, had a yummy breakfast, then headed out to brave the cold. It was only about 20 degrees. We just ran along my regular route around the neighborhood.

Then we headed home, cleaned up, made our salad and Oreo Pie, and headed over to Kevin's parents for our 1:00 meal!

I only took these 3 pictures of the food. I forgot to get pics of the yummy pies!

After we ate, we just hung out there for the rest of the day. We browsed the Black Friday ads, and even took a nap. :)

We played Nerts for a couple of hours, and went home around 9:30pm.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Uneventful

It seems like the only time I ever blog is when some exciting event happens. Today I was thinking the next big "event" is Thanksgiving. I don't want to wait until Thanksgiving, so I just took some pictures today to document a regular, non-eventful day.

My girls are both in school all day, which is so nice, since it gives me a LOT of alone time with my little Ryker man. I love to have little conversations with him. He's the light of my life.

Today, he went over to our neighbors house so I could go help out in Trinidee's class for an hour. I go every Tuesday and Thursday for an hour to help out. I love doing it, and I know Trin loves having me there too.

After I came home to pick up Ryker, his little friend came over to play for a while. I love how they both have red hair. They are around the same age too. It's fun to see them play together.

After the girls got home from school, I took Bailee to dance, and ran to the grocery store to buy the little biscuits to make little mini-pizzas, upon Bailee's request. After dance, we came home and made them. Kevin gets home late on Mondays and Tuesdays because of work and then school, so I'm all on my own those 2 days.

And I've been begging Kevin for one of these babies for a while now. Especially since the weather has gotten colder. Tonight, he brought one home to my surprise. :)

My parents have one, and I LOVE it! It's an electrical fireplace. With wheels. I can now wheel it into any room and have a nice heater, and a calming "fireplace" look. I love it. This one runs around $199 at Lowe's. Did I mention I LOVE it?

We have a wood-burning stove downstairs, which is awesome at heating up the house, but I love being able to have this look upstairs as well.

Oh, and the glass doesn't get hot to the touch. It's totally safe for kids!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go curl up by the "fire" and watch Amazing Race with Kevin. :)

Goodbye to an old friend

I've known this was coming for a long time now. My dog, Gidget, who I've had since I was about 19, was just getting so old. She was about 14 years old, and it was becoming more difficult for her to walk. She couldn't "play" anymore, and had lost her hearing.

Her quality of life wasn't good anymore, and I didn't want to keep her around just because she wasn't deathly ill. I felt like she had lived a good life, and I decided to have her put to sleep on Saturday, November 13. It was such a tough decision, especially since she didn't have some life-threatening illness. I went back & forth on the decision for months and months.

But since winter was coming, I decided now would be as good a time as any. It was so hard to say goodbye and feel the guilt, but I feel peace about it now. The vet brought her back to me wrapped in a blanket after they put her to sleep, and we brought her home and buried her in our back yard.

She was a wonderful pet. Like I said, I've had her since she was a puppy. I had her for a couple of years before I met my husband! She was accepting to all 3 of my babies when I brought them home from the hospital, and she never hurt them. She would sleep under their cribs/beds all the time.

She had 3 litters of puppies. One litter of 8 (or 9, I can't remember), one litter of 4, and one litter of 5.

She lived a good life.

This shot was taken in April of 2009.

And our "funeral services" in the back yard.

Hogle Zoo

On November 3, it was forecasted to be beautiful weather, in the high 60's. I hadn't taken my kids to the zoo yet this year, and my girls were about to go back on track until January, so I figured this was probably my last opportunity to go this year. So I called my mom & sister, and we all went and enjoyed a perfect day at the zoo!

He just looks sad. Doesn't he?

I love tigers! There were 3 of them all sleeping here in this corner.

I made some noise, and one of them opened his eyes and looked at me.

Bats!

After seeing all the animals and going on the train, we let the kids burn off some more energy at the playground.

I love the zoo. I just wish it was a little closer, and a little less expensive. Maybe I'll get a season pass next year. I hear they pay for themselves if you go 2 or 3 times.

We also saw the area where they are renovating and expanding. It looks like it's going to be pretty awesome! I think it will be done Spring 2012.