Happy Birthday April!

30! 

Mark did a great job making my 30th birthday really nice.  I love ice cream cakes and he MADE me a delicious one and I made sure he put 30 candles in it. (imagine picture of me here with my cake: see Thanksgiving post if that line confuses you) We went out to see the Nutcracker with my Mom the night of my birthday and a few days before we went out to lunch together.  30 doesn't seem too old to me.  As I like to say to people who say they are old "people live to be 90, you have a long way to go." The only thing I am sad about is that I now have to say I am in my 30's not my 20's and that is not really that sad. I feel like I have been really fortunate and have had some awesome life experiences in the last 30 years.  My 20s were awesome, a great decade and I am sure my 30's will be full of good things too. 

Some of my favorite moments from my 20"s include:
 Graduating College
 Marrying Mark (I am pretty sure I was still 19 when we met)
 Going through the Temple
 Traveling! (more then I ever thought I would, can't wait to do some more)
 Living overseas
 Jared
 Lydia

This is a very broad list but really I have an amazing life.  When we talked about the things we were grateful for on Thanksgiving that was my big thing.  My life.  I am so grateful for the life I am living.  It is really close to what I thought it would be only so much better then I imagined. All the good and all the annoying. I am so very blessed to have all I need and opportunities to plan and prepare for more good or tough things. (But I would prefer good things, just to clarify).

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

We had a delicious Thanksgiving. All the usual foods (minus sweet potatoes and green bean casserole because we are not huge fans of them here at our house) which all turned out great. We have so many blessings and so very much to be thankful for. This year we did a thankful tree with Jared. I have wanted to do one since he was born but figured 3 was a good age to start. I had him tell me one thing he was thankful for each morning and wrote it on a leaf. We read them all today while we ate dinner.

Jared's is thankful for:

 

CARS, Food, Sunglasses, Pumpkins, Leaves, Phones, Muffins, Mommy and Daddy, Lights, Pancakes, Trees, Tennis balls and racquet's, Ice Cream, Water, Cups, Basketball Hoop, Trains, Lydia, Pillows, Toilet Paper, Chairs, Houses, Blankets.

 

Our Turkey counting activity

 

 

Lydia thought the turkey was pretty great.

 

My mom came out for Thanksgiving and we had a lot of fun while she was here. We had amazing weather and enjoyed going to the park, the zoo, Black Friday shopping and seeing the Nutcracker. I had never really gone Black Friday shopping and it was better then I thought it would be and a lot longer! We went to Toys R Us, Kohl's, and Old Navy. I would probably not go to Toys R US again (Not enough things on sale to make it worth the wait) but Kohl's was amazing, so efficient. I was impressed and would totally go there next year.  Old Navy was super slow but the deals were good so its a toss up. But really we were by really nice people in line and it was a lot better then I thought it would be. We went out around 8:30 Thursday and didn't get back until 4:25 Friday morning.  We did find some great sales and now I am done not only Christmas shopping but wrapping all our presents too.  They are going to be pretty dusty by the time Christmas gets here.  So far Jared and Lydia are doing great not touching them or the tree. I think they will be fine.

I am so glad that my Mom could come out and play with us.  Jared is at a really fun age for visitors. We set up an air mattress (because we got rid of our spare bed to set up Lydia's room) and Jared loves it.  Every afternoon he would say to Marmee (or whoever is visiting and using that room) "You're tired, we should go lay on your bed." He loved laying on the mattress and reading books. I am so glad that my Mom and Mark's mom could come out to visit this fall and make lots of memories with Jared. 

Often when we go to the zoo we ask Jared if he wants to feed the giraffes and he says no.  But this time he really wanted to and said he would be really brave so we went to feed them and he was really brave, he loved it. I love this picture!

 

Here are the kids with the blankets Marmee made them.  Jared's is double sided with Lightning McQueen and Thomas. He loves it.

Pictrues added December 16