When it all goes haywire

It's after 10 p.m. so honestly I should either be quilting or in bed but I figured I would kind've update before doing our thankful post tomorrow.  That will be a fun one but more on that later right?

Anyway, things have been haywire around here.  I have 2 weeks (well less than now) to make a quilt for my brother for Christmas (per his request) so I can send it home with my dad rather than shipping it (hello saving money!) and all the usual chaos that goes with 3 children, my calling, and the holiday season.  Unfortunately I am feeling very stressed by everything and would rather have a quiet holiday.  But apparently the Relief Society gets to be in charge of all holiday related events on a stake AND a ward level.  Sheesh.

Then on Saturday I was baking massive amounts of mini loaves of pumpkin bread to take to sisters and the oven dies.  No drama though -- just a slow death that resulted in several half-baked loaves.  Chopper starts searching the internet for cause of death when the computer is hit by some awful virus that's also trying to extort money ($200 or we won't release your computer!!!).  Fortunately I have an awesome friend whose oven works and who is home for the holidays!!  Hooray!!!  I was over there again tonight for a few hours doing our pies (gluten and dairy free -- I will eat pie on Thanksgiving!) and rolls (not gluten and dairy free so every time I want a roll, I will eat pie).

Chopper is amazing and pulled 8th grade computer class out of his head and destroyed the virus through DOS and while he tried to use his magical powers on the oven, no go.

In the meantime, we relieve stress by:

playing lots of dress-up

getting our pictures for the Gasser family calendar taken care of (this is our Flowbie parody)

practicing our tummy time

taking more flowbie pictures

visiting the Arboretum and having faces painted like cats and dogs and then crawling around in the mud because we are cats and dogs and then fighting like cats and dogs on the way home . . .

and drawing pictures -- the middle one is me when I'm angry.  I've had a short fuse this week.

I think this comes off as a pretty negative post but we are thankful around here (and we have some great stories about that for tomorrow) and I'm excited about tomorrow and the girls are REALLY excited about pie.  Chopper's excited to be smoking a turkey.  And it's 80 degrees.  I love Texas in the fall / winter.

4 Months!

Happy boy!  Happy, chunky, short-limbed, small-headed boy!  And the results are:

Weight -- 16 pounds, 9 ounces (81%)

Length -- 25 inches (54%)

Head -- 41 centimeters (19%)

William has really gotten good at grabbing things this month.  He's constantly reaching and tackling the hanging toys in his gym and grabbing onto his blankets and burp cloths and shoving them in his mouth.  He still DOES NOT suck a thumb or finger but he does like to gnaw his fist or anything cloth that happens to be near his face.  When he's on his back he's rolling onto his side and back again and shimmying himself around a little bit.  He's super ticklish under his arms and loves to smile.  Megan still treats him very well except today she was popping out at him and making some kind of growly noise and it scared him to the point where he started to cry.  Megan sent herself to her room.  Abby same old same old so he doesn't smile so much when she's around.

Megan went a little overboard and covered him with toys the other day . . .  

When he falls asleep in your arms he puts his hand over his face.  It's the cutest thing and he just looks so sweet!  Then when he's in his crib he's still doing the flat on his back, arms thrown up like a touchdown pose.

Red cheeked because he's running a mild fever after shots today but still happy!

He will eat it eventually!!

Just like I did with the girls, I'm waiting until 6 months to introduce him to food.  He's not suffering from only having breast milk, that's for sure!  But we're going to start him on oats and fruits and vegetables since we still seem to be having some issues with dairy and gluten.  Although I think those issues have improved a little bit so I'm hopeful that he'll grow out of them.

Oh and Megan was the first in her class to be able to bring home Skippyjon Jones and his book this week.  We enjoyed having a visitor from preschool!

What Doesn't Get Done

The other day a good friend of mine posted a massive list of things that she accomplished between 5 a.m. and lunch time.  It was awe-inspiring.  But she really is a good friend and so I didn't feel envious over that list because I have seen her house when it's under destruction (not construction) and when the floors are sticky and she's apologizing about the bathroom or the laundry on the couch.  And of course we all have good days and bad days right?  So today I'm celebrating what I did NOT do:

1.  I did not do the laundry.  This means that I have procrastinated one more day until I also will not do the ironing.  I'll probably regret it when the piles slightly resemble Mt. Rushmore (only with princess faces instead of president faces) but right now I'm quite enjoying browsing through blogs and reading my latest book.

2.  I did not bathe the kids.  I am celebrating this in particular because it means I have a fantastic husband who did it for me!

3.  I did not plan dinner and remember to take meat out of the freezer in advance.  But the last minute meal still turned out pretty good.  I also did not make something that Megan would eat, but then I'm beginning to wonder if anyone could make something that Megan would eat . . . 

4.  I did not spend too much money on Halloween clearance items at Target.  I put the cute pumpkin pillow BACK, I avoided the costumes, and I only bought one small box of Halloween foam stickers -- hey I have to think about General Conference bags for next year!

5.  I did not make pancakes for breakfast.  This is a big deal because I make them maybe 3 or 4 times a week and right now it's pure torture because I can't eat them.  And then I have to make myself my own breakfast too.  Ick on double the cooking.

6.  I did not abandon my children to the television screen so that I could finish reading that book -- when I'm only halfway through.  I do this a lot I think and really probably shouldn't but reading is a serious addiction for me and has been for as long as I can remember.

So it's been a pretty good day I think.

A Letter To My Father

Dear Dad,

It took Megan 45 minutes to get dressed on Thursday morning and then she threw a fit about needing to eat her breakfast before preschool.  And I'm repeating over and over to: eat, put on  your clothes, find your shoes, etc. etc. and yelling to get out the door on time.  And then I was hit by a very powerful memory, or rather series of memories, involving my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning and a very frustrated and angry dad voice telling me to get out of bed or I was in big trouble.  And I realized that Megan is only 4 so I must have a long road ahead of me.

I know that apologizing won't make it better for me, but I'm sorry.

And you can stop laughing now.

Love, Kristy

All Treats!!

Halloween ended up really being all about the treats this year!

Our first treat was that my brother and his wife were able to spend Halloween with us!  They're in the middle of their drive moving from the west coast to the east coast and took a breather for the day.  We had a fantastic time and decided they probably needed some walking . . . can you guess where we went?

Arboretum!  Good guess! 

 The advantage of being little is that Abby still gets shoulder rides from uncle Mark.

 Somehow we have missed this sculpture every time we've been there and I really think it's my favorite -- it's also in the middle of my favorite place: The Poetry Garden (we like to call it the Secret Garden).

 Awww, sisters.  In reality, Megan is actually being controlling and bringing Abby back to us, not holding her hand out of sisterly love.  But it looks so promising!

 For some reason in this picture Abby looks EXACTLY like Chopper to me!

The girls practiced their sniper cover skills in the hay.  Do you see Megan?  Neither did the little girl standing there . . . 

Ta-da!

Afterwards it was home for dinner -- pulled pork and coleslaw, octopus dogs for the girls and root beer.  Nice root beer.  That Abby loves.  

I love this picture and I swear it's root beer!  Plus it's empty because it's really good root beer and so she's not getting that much!  Megan was giving Chopper lots of kisses.  

At the last minute Abby decided she wanted to be a butterfly.  Thank goodness we have wings and pipe cleaners for antenna.  She was cute!

Chopper painted their faces -- cheap Halloween paint from Walmart is not nearly as nice as professional face paint by the way.  I should have bought the face paint crayons -- this was pretty thick and goopy.

Aunt Adri applied glitter . . . 

 And they were ready to go!!

Mark and Adri and Chopper all went trick or treating and I stayed behind to hand out candy.  I think I must've gotten the better end of the deal since we only had our doorbell rung maybe 5 times -- where was everyone?  But the girls didn't suffer.  They had plenty of treats in their bucket.  Chopper and I are enjoying that!  Happy Halloween!!

Laughter is the Best Medicine

All the videos are essentially the same but I couldn't resist posting them all because it's so darn cute!

Oh and I almost forgot this picture of Grandpa giving horseback rides.  The girls miss him already -- they keep asking me if we can go to Grandma and Grandpa's in Michigan next week.  

Last night we had the same idea as probably just about everyone else: carve pumpkins for Family Home Evening!  We tried glow sticks inside, not the greatest effect but the girls love glow sticks.

Cowboy Day!

It's nice to do something fun with everyone when the grandparents (both) are around but it's always hard to find something that's also fun for 3 children under the age of 5.  I think we hit the jackpot yesterday!

There is a small area in Frisco with a heritage museum and several old buildings that hosted Cowboy Day yesterday.  The cost was $5 per person (over age 2) and included everything!  The price was nice, the activities were so kid friendly, and it was small -- we saw everything in about 2 and 1/2 hours and left feeling like we had had a great morning but also that we didn't run the girls into the ground.  The only downside is that it was surprisingly cold -- for Texas anyway.  This is now going on our list of fun things to do in the fall.

We started with pony rides.  Abby only of course.  Megan refused.  The ponies kept stopping for a snack too but Abby had a great time.

We went for a ride in a stagecoach -- again Megan refused -- is there a theme here?

We watched a cowboy shootout show by the Texas Legends.  It was a great little show with a sheriff and his bumbling deputy: 

And the bad guys:

Who got killed.  The shooting was LOUD and Megan didn't want to watch but once the "bad guys" got up again and they realized it was pretend, both girls were fine.

A quilt show -- Hooray!  Quilts by the Frisco Quilt Guild.  There were a lot of really pretty ones but I didn't take many pictures this time.

Armadillo races!!!  Apparently you blow on their tails and they run from you.  It was fun to watch and they brought the armadillos up close.  I think that was the first time I had seen one up close that wasn't dead on the side of the road!

They had some people with dress up clothes taking pictures.  My parents did a great job -- mom demanded a gun too!

This is ours in the poster format that they printed.  Megan refused (again) but Abby wanted to be in it too (but no costume).  She's the only one who really looks dangerous in this picture I think . . .

They had a "life skills" area with everything from toys to cooking and cleaning

Animal skins and hunting

Spinning ("hey that's Sleeping Beauty's spindle!"  Apparently we have too much Disney and not enough history in our house!)

A schoolhouse with a yearbook of all the original schoolhouses in the area -- that was cool.

And a petting zoo.

Plus a church handing out snacks, a cupcake walk, blacksmith demonstrations.  It was a great, great little festival and a really nice last hurrah with my parents since I'm pretty sure they won't be back for a little while.  And we miss them already.