Thankful

With Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I have been thinking a lot about what I am grateful for. Sometimes it is easy to look past all of our blessings because there is so much going on each day. Today I took it easy, played with my kids, and tried to only think about what blessings I have. I am so grateful for my family and friends. Each and every day someone I love makes me smile, no matter what is happening. Whether it is one of my kids doing something funny or one of my friends telling me a funny story I am grateful for the smiles and laughter I share with these people. I really love our home and our neighborhood and I feel like this is where we are suppose to be. I am so thankful to those people who have sacrificed so much so that my life can be what it is; pilgrims, pioneers, soldiers, prophets, parents, and the list can go on and on. I feel so blessed to have the gospel in my life, the reassurance and peace it brings is priceless. I love the holidays and the happiness that comes from celebrating this wonderful season with the ones we love.

I went to the movie

For the last year or longer, I have heard from everyone and their dog that I have to read Twilight. I am not much of a reader these days because if I have extra time I want to play with my kids or take a nap. I have not read the books yet, so when I heard that the movie was coming out I was pretty excited. I knew that I would not be disappointed in the movie like all of you who have read the book. Books are always so much better that the movies, for example: Da Vinci Code, A Walk to Remember, and The Notebook. If you haven't read those books, I highly recommend them. But anyhow, I went to the movie Twilight today with some of my family. And needless to say, I was not one bit disappointed and now I am intrigued and I want to read the books. So the question is, Do I wait to read the books until I have seen the rest of the movies, or just go ahead and read the books and risk the chance of being disappointed with the rest of the movies?

Eight

I have been tagged by many people to do this one. So here I go.

8 favorite TV shows:
It will be a stretch for me to even name eight shows that are on TV, I don't have time to watch anything.
1. Dancing with the stars
2. One Tree Hill
3. American Idol
4. Super Nanny
5. King of Queens
6. Friends
7. So You think you can Dance
8. The Office

8 Favorite Restraunts:
This shouldn't be hard, If I had the money I would eat out all the time.
1. Cafe Rio
2. Bajio
3. Tepanyaki
4. Carrabas
5. California Pizza Kitchen
6. Brick Oven
7. Pizza Factory
8. Chilis

8 Things that happened yesterday:
This will be hard, I can barely remember what happened this morning. I think I need to buy some Ginko Biloba
1. Dropped Calvin off at Preschool
2. Cleaned out the 2 disastrous primary closets at the church
3. Read books to the kids
4. Pushed the kids on the swings
5. Took the kids on a walk
6. Watched the Office
7. Made chicken salad for dinner
8. Kissed Jon goodnight

8 Things that I look forward to:
1. Getting paid one day!
2. Thanksgiving
3. Christmas
4. Going to the movies with sisters and mom next week
5. Being done with the end of year primary stuff
6. Playing games with friends again
7. Lily talking more
8. Going to the temple with Jon tomorrow

8 Things on my wish list:
This is kind of the same as above.
1. I would love a set of miracle blades, you know the knives on the infomercials.
2. Seeing Kenny Chesney in concert again.
3. 2 closings in the next month
4. To win the lottery :)
5. I don't know. I am not really a wanty person. Jon could put a hundred things on a wish list but I think I am pretty content with what I have. But I will keep trying to think of stuff.
6. An hour massage
7. A professional decorator to decorate my house.
8. World peace

8 people That I tag:
1. Bambie
2. Wendi
3. Jenna
4. Shawna
5. Jana
6. Marybeth
7. Chelsey
8. Jeri
Sorry if you are one of the 8 that tagged me, just ignore the tag.

Today

Today was different from the same old, same old stuff. I took the kids up to my grandma's house to make cookies and visit for a while. It was fun hanging out with Great-Grandma Stevens. We made a whole bunch of odd shaped sugar cookies and and helped grandma learn how to use her digital camera. The kids loved seeing her, we will have to do that more often.

She also watched the kids while I went to an AllPro meeting. A group of agents are banning together and suing Allpro. I went to see what it is all about. I will probably put in $150 in hopes of recovering some of my commission. It is now estimated that there are 80 agents and $800,000 in commissions that AllPro stole. It is sicking when I think about all of the work I put into those transactions and how all of my closing landed in a certain time frame of not getting paid and how another broker did this to me! Ahhhhhhh! Okay, there is my ranting and raving. You should of heard these agents, they were so furious. I hope I get something at the end of all of this. My other broker didn't even get a slap on the hand when she screwed me out of money. This deal is a little different becasue there are so many of us. Cross your fingers for us!

Then I came home to find out that someone made an offer on my Santaquin listing. Yeah!!! And I will hopefully have 2 things under contract tomorrow. Oh man, I hope this works out. I would love to end the year on a half way decent note!!

Decorations

I added a few decorations to the house this last month. I am not much of a designer but it was fun thinking up some of the stuff.

These tiles will go on the ledge between the living room and kitchen. Jon is making easels for them to sit on.These next 4 pictures are the additions to the family room.

I couldn't avoid getting my reflection in this.

I love Dr. Seuss, Calvin and Hobbes, and the prophets. I had a hard time choosing what to put here. If you can't read it, it says "Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one." Dr. Seuss

I love vases and ceramic things, and I had a lot of these just sitting in the basement, so I decided to put them in the kitchen. My neighbor helped me put them up this way because the way I did it originally looked silly. A lot of the things up there are things that Jon made in his college ceramics class. There is no better way to show off his work.

Jon inherited his Grandma's spoon collection, so we hung them up in the office and we hope to add our own spoons to it. It is amazing how many places she had been.

The joys of motherhood

I think that the time change has made my sweet little Lily a lunatic. All week she has been soooo whiny. She takes toys away from Calvin and scratches him and holds on to my leg all day. She throws food everywhere, she wakes up at 6 am and won't take good naps. This morning she was very pleasant and she didn't wake up until 8 am and I thought she had adjusted to the time change. She ate all of her breakfast, played quietly while I made a couple of phone calls and she was being very good. Then she comes into the office a little whiny, so I pick her up and give her a hug and she throws up everywhere. I mean 3 or 4 times, it was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, chunks everywhere. My pregnant friend, Jenna, was on the phone and heard everything. Sorry, Jenna. I get stuff cleaned up, not without gagging 100 times. And Lily is happy as can be, she just goes on playing. How is that for random. No fever, no mood problems, no laying around, just throw up. Maybe the time change did that too!

Calvin is being a little angel. He has been on a cleaning kick lately. He cleans up everything, his room, the family room, the toy room, he puts his dishes in the sink. It is so nice. He is also doing this wierd thing where all the doors in the house have to be shut. I'll go upstairs and every door is shut, he won't let Lily go in any room because he says she will mess it up. It is kind of funny but sad for Lily.

This is all I am going to say

I think our country has a very scary future. However, I will try to keep faith and not fear and think of these words from President Hinckley, "It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us,...if we put our trust in Him, if we pray to Him, if we live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers."

Leaves, leaves everywhere

I love fall time and believe it or not, I love raking leaves. It was so fun to watch Calvin run and jump through all of the piles. We had a great time.

Here are the highlights

- 2 people: Chrissy and Calvin
- 2 1/2 trees raked
- 1 neighbor who held 3 bags open for me
-2 afternoons while Lily napped
-20 times I had to re-rake leaves that Calvin had scattered
-14 large black garbage bags
-1 boy who said "It's cold and dark I'm going in" at 4 o'clock.
- 1 very sore back because I did Turbo Jam both days before raking
-4 1/2 trees left to rake