Thankful.

I am so thankful for my life, for my family and for all of my many, many blessings.  I have a good life.  I live in a peaceful, safe, happy place.  I have a warm home to live in and plenty of healthy food to eat.  I have a seemingly unlimited supply of clean water to drink.  I have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life, the Priesthood and the many blessings available to me through that, temples and the covenants made there, the Holy Ghost as my companion, and a family that has been sealed for eternity.  I am especially thankful for eternity as this month I have lost a couple of people I love.  I have friends that love me and entertain me and support me, a job that I  genuinely love, and money and means to take care of our family and myself.  I have a good life.  I do.  This Thanksgiving season, I am especially thankful.

One of the apps on my phone that I enjoy fooling around with is Instagram.  Mostly, I enjoy the sneak peeks into my friends' and family's lives and the interaction I have with them through this medium.  In June, I participated in a Photo a Day June challenge on Instagram, and it was really fun to have an excuse to take at least one photo a day for the entire month, and to see others' photos that they took.  This month, I decided to do something similar: a personal challenge, I suppose, that I called "Thankvember."  These are the photos (as well as the commentary) that were included.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

Day 25

Day 26

Day 27

Day 28

Day 29

Day 30

Thankvember Day 1: I'm thankful that today is warm, enough so that I can air out my house after going crazy with a new room spray!

Thankvember Day 2: I'm thankful that we live nearby (some) family... so we can play with darling little cuties like this one!

Thankvember Day 3: I am thankful for [Brittney Pack] and a spectacularly fun girls' night out! Woooo! ;)

Thankvember Day 4: Thankful for the chaos... it means I have two beautiful, healthy, energetic children in the house.

Thankvember Day 5: I'm thankful for the education/awareness/knowledge I have regarding health and nutrition, and the tools/resources/support I have that help me implement said knowledge into my life.

Thankvember Day 6: I'm so thankful for children with correctly formed, intelligent minds.  It's amazing to see James absorb so much knowledge and develop so many skills.  Kindergarten is awesome!

Thankvember Day 7: I'm thankful for a good, hard run.  And for beautiful fall weather that makes it pleasant!

Thankvember Day 8: I'm thankful for my children's friendships.

Thankvember Day 9: Today I'm especially thankful for a warm home.

Thankvember Day 10: Thankful for the awesome and often hilarious men in my life. :D

Thankvember Day 11: I'm thankful for the ever-rare (and now nonexistent, ha) excess money that allows us to buy fun and frivolous things.

Thankvember Day 12: I'm so thankful for the amazing father of my children.  There's no one I'd rather go through the rest of my crazy life with.

Thankvember Day 13: I'm thankful for the energy and motivation that resulted in a nice, clean house!

Thankvember Day 14: I'm so grateful for the abundance that we have.  That I can feed my family, and that I can provide healthy, delicious meals.

Thankvember Day 15: I'm thankful for my job.  For the money of it for sure, but more so for the amazing and inspiring people that come into my life because of it!

Thankvember Day 16: Thankful for wonderful little boys who will someday be amazing men.  You're welcome, world.

Thankvember Day 17: Sooo thankful for a husband who let me sleep in and cleaned my house while I slept!! Sorry, ladies, but my husband is more amazing than yours! ;)

Thankvember Day 18: So, so thankful for the Book of Mormon and the inspiration, comfort, and guidance that I find within its pages.

Thankvember Day 19: Thankful for late night snacks... and that my metabolism hasn't entirely crashed and burned just yet. :)

Thankvember Day 20: I'm so thankful that I'm able to be a Stay at Home Mom.  Especially on days like this when one or both of my kids needs extra attention from mommy.  I'm glad I've got it to give to them.

Thankvember Day 21: I'm thankful for the incredible power of imagination!

Thankvember Day 22: Thankful for good traditions, even the small ones.

Thankvember Day 23: Thankful for family movie night(s)!

Thankvember Day 24: Thankful that my in-laws are not my outlaws! So many people can't stand their in-laws, but I really quite love mine!

Thankvember Day 25: So thankful that I "chose wisely" a husband who loves God and the Gospel and honors his Priesthood and church responsibilities.

Thankvember Day 26: Lousy picture demonstration, but I'm thankful for modern medicine and the quality (and quantity) of life it allows me and so many others.

Thankvember Day 27: Thankful that my potty trainee is cooperative... today.

Thankvember Day 28: I am thankful for good books.

Thankvember Day 29: Thankful for quality entertainment.

Thankvember Day 30: There's not much better than a cozy evening at home as a family.  I'm thankful that this evening was one of them.  It was much needed and much appreciated.

And because the whole reason for thinking such thankful thoughts was Thanksgiving (say that five times fast), here are a couple of pictures of my darling kidlets on Thanksgiving.  My gosh, I love these two.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!  I hope your November was as wonderful and filled with thanks as mine was!  Love you all.  xo

Happy Halloweeeeeen!

Better late than never, eh?  :)  This year the children both chose their own costumes- with no prompting or inspiration by me.  This is a fairly big deal as I am fairly controlling.  But it was fun.  James changed his mind about a million times (he had been looking forward to Halloween since last November... the kid's obsessed), but he settled on one by October 1st and stuck with it.  First he wanted to be Frankenstein.  Then a super hero of sorts (I cannot for the life of me remember for some reason).  Then back to Frankenstein.  Then a mummy.  He settled on the mummy.  Jolie decided on what she wanted to be and never changed.  Pinkalicious.  A character from her favorite book.  A very girly, very non-scary, very pink costume.  I shouldn't have been surprised.  She is a major fan of pink.  I bought the fabric to make James' costume at the first of the month (possibly in September, even), and the suspense was killing him.  He could. Not. Wait. for Halloween! Kinda cute.  So finally, a few days before Halloween, we had a Halloween party with our neighbor friends, and I cut the material into strips and made him into a mummy.  At long last.  He looked good but not great.  Trial runs on costumes and make up are good for that reason.  Then, on Halloween, he looked awesome.  They both did.  James' mummy costume was a hit and got lots of compliments from fellow trick-or-treaters, and Jolie was possibly the most beautiful girl on the block!  I love my babies and am partial, of course, but seriously.  So cute.

It was a fun Halloween.  We got ready for trick-or-treating pretty quickly after James got home from school and Jolie got up from her nap.  We went out while it was still light, as it was just getting dark (which, sadly, is way too early nowadays). We went up and down our street, and up and down maybe one more.  My student and her husband and little boy met up with us and went around with us, which was fun.  After an hour or two of roaming the streets and collecting candy and having way too much kid-oriented fun, we came inside.  Aida and her family joined us.  We had pulled pork in the crockpot and invited them to stay for past-bedtime dinner.  They did.  The kids had so much fun playing with her baby, and we had a good time chatting and getting to know one another.  Although there was no dance party this year (bummer), it was still a great Halloween and a wonderful evening.

After our friends had left, we got the kids ready for bed.  But instead of zipping them off to bed asap as we often (try to) do, we sort of took our time and enjoyed one another.  Derek had bought dry ice earlier that afternoon to make a spooooky witches' brew, and he got the rest out to play with the kids.  It was really cute to watch.  He was teaching them, entertaining them, and bonding with them, and I just sat by and watched.  I could never see enough of that; it made me so happy.  Finally, way past bedtime and fully satisfied with our wonderful Halloween, we all hit the sack.  The next day, James was itchin' for Christmas! :)  

Happy {belated} Halloween.  I hope it was spoooooooktacularly fun!\