It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Yay Christmas! Although I always loved Christmas as a kid, as I got older I became sort of a Scrooge. Christmas just started to stress me out! All the money being spent, the zillions of family get-togethers, and the unavoidable let down when it was all over. But this year something is different, I am so excited for Christmas and I'm having so much fun with my kids! They are at a good age, Christmas is so magical and fun and they are starting to remember our family's traditions and are excited to start new ones. Yay! We have jumped right into the season with some fun stuff! The day after Thanksgiving we went to the annual Christmas Lights Parade here in Spanish Fork. We have gone for the past few years and it's awesome! It has this very small town feel with homemade floats, inflatable Frosty the Snowman tied to a Jazzy, and a Elk head dressed up like Rudolph attached to the front of a truck pulling a trailer full of snowmobiles wrapped in Christmas lights. Like I said, awesome! The kids loooove it! One of the floats was a trailer that had a light up Nativity on it. When it passed us Miles shouted out "Bye Baby Jesus!" After the parade we went home and set up the Christmas tree. We pretty much let the kids do it all and we have such a mish mosh collection of ornaments that it looks a little like Christmas throw-up, but it's cute. The next week I took the kids to see Santa at Macey's grocery store. I am too much of a wuss to brave the malls at Christmas time so I thought it was a good option. He was a very convincing looking Santa I thought and both Savanna and Miles sat on his lap for the first time. Avery was too shy, maybe next year. The next day my mom came down and we baked and decorated Christmas cookies. This was really fun, the kids really got into it! Avery loved rolling the dough with the rolling pin. We also made ginger bread men. I don't know why I thought to make them so big, they puffed up so much in the oven! And finally, my oh-so-creative daughter made herself a crown and skirt out of wrapping paper. 'Tis the season!

What I'm Thankful For This Thanksgiving

My husband, Savanna, Miles, and Avery. My home, my car, food on my table, Savanna's school and teacher. My mom, dad, Charles and Trish and Asher. James' family and the two new sister's we got this year. James' ability to work like a mad man everyday and be able to pay every bill that is thrown at us. The great gift I have to be home raising my kids. My Heavenly Father and Jesus, my church and all the people in my ward who teach me and my children the gospel. My best friends' baby girl that she is being blessed with after four sons. My health and my family's health. My exercising buddies and the motivation I get from them to stay in shape. In addition to these and many, many more, I am utterly and extremely grateful that I am not going shopping on Black Friday. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

My 3 Ducks

For memory sake I wanted to post the pics of each of my kids as The Duck for Halloween. So Cute!

Seasonal Festivities

I would have titled this post "Halloween!!!", but that would be so unoriginal. Is that a word? Anyway, Halloween!!!. Every year we go to Vineyard Nursery Pumpkinland. They have a corn maze, different farm animals to see, bouncy houses, a playground and a kid friendly spook alley. The kids love it! My mom came with me and she is still talking about how well behaved the kids were. I think it was the only time we have done an activity with no fits or fighting, my kids are getting older I guess.
This year for Halloween I really wanted to make the kids' costumes. Neither James or I could remember a time when we were kids that we had a store bought costume. Our mom's always made one or we scrounged something up and put one together ourselves. So I wanted to be creative this year and make something. Now, when I say make I mean I will hot glue or safety pin anything and farm out the rest of the work to more talented people. Savanna wanted to be a Lady Bug, easy! We got a red sweatshirt and wings at DI, felt, headband, pipe cleaners and pom poms at Joann's, and she owns a pair of red pants. A little glue, some pins and, voila! The sweetest Lady Bug ever! Miles' was little more challenging, he wanted to be the Eon Kid. Has anyone ever heard of it? My kids are Netflix experts and can log-in, search for and start their movies themselves. The Eon Kid was something they found, an animated super hero/slash robot awesome kid that Miles' loves. I tried to steer him towards something else for awhile because it looked hard, but he was set on it. We found the suit at DI, (the tag said Shadow Ninja) and an old bike helmet. The "Iron Fist" is my old ski glove with felt hot glued to it. The leg armor are soda boxes painted red. Oh the sacrifice I made for him, all those Vanilla Cokes I had to drink. My brother painted the helmet to match the Eon Kids' and I think it turned out very cool! Miles was so happy and excited! Avery wore a duck costume we already had, both Savanna and Miles have worn it. All in all I spent $16! I was proud, and they were happy! Trick-or-treating was awesome. They were all well behaved and very friendly, telling everyone thank you and Happy Halloween and Avery would say "quack quack" when she got her candy. Fun Holiday!

Pumpkin Party!

For my mom's birthday we had a pumpkin carving party! Halloween was always a big deal at our house growing up. My mom decorated the yard super scary like and she always dressed up and took us trick-or-treating, and we always carved pumpkins! So what better way to celebrate my Moms' October birthday then to carve pumpkins! We had a great time. My brother Charles brought his new puppy Asher (Trish was out of town), and of course, my mom came. We had pizza and treats and pumpkin birthday cake. The kids had so much fun. They love grandma and Uncle Charles and the newest family member, Asher. It got a little loud and crazy, but that's pretty normal around here. Happy Birthday Mom!

The Benefit of Blogging

Friday around lunch time I noticed at package on my front step. We get packages quite often, usually it's something for the business. James said he wasn't expecting anything and I knew I hadn't ordered anything so my first thought was it was something delivered to us accidentally. I picked up the box and saw that it was to Chevon Bayless from A. Bayless in PA! A package from my sister-in-law Amanda to me! Amanda is a notoriously great gift giver. She is one of the most thoughtful people when it comes to gift giving. She sends my kids birthday and Christmas gifts, she sent matching dresses for the girls when Avery was born. She sent my mother-in-law this awesome strawberry slicer and when I e-mailed her to see where she bought it, she sent me one too! One of my favorite sweaters was from her! She always remembers everyone's everything. So getting a package from her was exciting! Inside the box was some chocolate's, slippers, a CD, a magazine, a recipe book, popcorn, a cute tote bag, and the above note. I read the note and started to cry. As I mentioned in my previous post, things have been rough lately. It meant so much to me that someone was thinking of me and, as silly as it might sound, it's means a lot to me that people actually read this blog. I have always loved writing and blogging is such a convenient way to put my thoughts into words. I now know of two people who live out of my state that read my blog! Granted, they are both relatives, but still! I want to say thank you to Amanda, you are wonderful! I have been inspired by you to be more thoughtful and remember the people around me and what they might be going through. I really wish you lived closer so I could see you and your family more often. Us Bayless daughter-in-laws got to stick together, it's been rough out there for us lately! Thank you for reading and remembering me, I hope to see you soon!

When It Rains It Pours...And Then Snows

Why is it that this expression is so true? Doesn't it always happen like that? One thing goes wrong then a hundred come behind it? This seems to be our life lately. One thing after another. James has had so much stress at work with one job on top of another, he barely gets any sleep. My Aunt passed away. I had to go to the Emergency Room with an injured arm. The fuel pump in the truck went out. James cut his arm at work,but thankfully our nurse neighbor came and sealed up the cut so we didn't have to go the ER again. Our lovely tenant in Orem is, well, GRRR! Miles got lost at James' brothers wedding (we found him). I have had a cold for hmm, about a month. It's SNOWING! And to top it all off my Netflix Instant Streaming to my TV won't work! Ok, so maybe if you piece it all apart, it's not so much. However, considering the fact that all of this happened in a weeks time, it's tough. That's why I'm sitting here blogging and eating a huge piece of leftover wedding cake. At least the sun came out for the wedding, it really was beautiful. Everyone looked so nice dressed up. By the end of the night Miles' tux looked as though it had been to war and all three of them were covered in cake, but this picture was taken before all that. Even though things get tough and stay tough sometimes I am grateful for what I have, my husband and my three cuties.