Thanksgiving Day Essay

Written by Logan Scheele:

On Thacksgiving. First, my famly kame over for thacksgiving. Next when thay got ther we ate our fest. Then, we played a game that was called spoons and I won five times. In a rowe! Finally, we had desert and it was god (good).

Logan did an awesome job, drawing a picture of our dinner table on Thanksgiving day. He might grow up and be an artist!

Lara

Ten on Tuesday

1.  The holiday season is in full swing, I'm so glad to be done with Halloween and Thanksgiving. I feel like my life is a giant checklist and I'm trying to mark everything off my list as fast as possible. It's worth it but it's soooooo time consuming.

2. Thanksgiving ended up being a little bit crazy but it all work out at the end. Leroy's mom oven stop working two days before Thanksgiving. Crazy timing but we decided to move Thanksgiving back to our house. I prefer to have gatherings at Leroy's mom house because she has a nice big table that we can all fit around but we somehow managed to squeeze everyone around our small breakfast table in the kitchen. We were in charge of preparing all of the food, we haven't cook a turkey in a couple of years. So, when I couldn't find the giblets anywhere and was scratching my head in wonder. Well, it turns out, they were under the neck flap...gross and I ended up cooking them with the turkey. Yikes, it was pretty funny after all but we didn't have any giblets to go with the stuffing.

3. This year, my hubby suggested that we all go around the table and say two things that we are thankful for this year. Every one went around the table and said their thanks and we dug right into the meal. My friend Emily brought over a pumpkin pie and it was delicious. I need to get her pie crust recipe and give it a try. It's good to know that I have so many wonderful friends. Thanks, again...Emily!

4. This year, we have learned that nothing ever stays the same. Life is always changing. Thanksgiving wasn't the same without Leroy's Dad and Uncle. We will miss them and hopefully we can move forward but still remember them.

5. Well, Thanksgiving is out of the way....check....done! Now, I'm busy working on Leah's party plus Logan's class party. Leah wants a slumber party. I decided to be lazy and print up some photo invites from Walmart. She's holding a big number six and its' a princess theme card. It turned out really cute except when I went to the store to pick up the invites to only discover that they were out of envelopes. So, the girl called me back last night to tell me that they found the box of envelopes back in the storage room. So, I had to drive back to Walmart to pick up the envelopes. Super annoying, I should of ask for my money back.

6. I know a lot of people don't do sleep overs, so I'm not expecting to many girls to actually sleep over. I'm planning on most people dropping off their daughters in their jammies for the party and pick them back up before the sleep over starts which is fine with me. I know for a fact that four of the girls will be staying for the sleep over. Leah has already had sleep overs with two of the girls and I already spoken to the other girls mom about the sleep over. She's going to keep my boys at her house for a sleep over and I wouldn't have to worry about the boys trying to crash the party like they did last year.

7. Logan's class party is going to be "All Aboard The Polar Express", which will include book exchange. I'm currently working on the letter to parents. I hate to write but somehow I agreed to write up the letter again. I'm really bad about not seeing my mistakes. I can read it over a couple of times before I catch my mistakes. So, I'm working on the letter and it's almost done. I have to get in touch with Logan's long term sub because his teacher had her baby today! Oh, we're going to have the kids come in their jammies, drink hot chocolate, play bingo, make reindeer cookies, and book exchange at the end.

8. Christmas is coming soon as well. We will be traveling to Tennessee for Christmas but if that wasn't bad enough we also have to plan Logan's baptism that will be in Tennessee as well. We have most of the program planned but we still need to type it up. We also have to go to the stake building tonight to get our temple recommends done.

9. Leroy is having surgery in the morning, we have to leave like super early in the morning. I'm hoping the neighbor can keep the kids for a sleepover tonight and have her get the kids up and out the door to catch the bus. Don't worry, Leroy's surgery is very minor but he can't drive himself home so I will have to take him.

10.  I barely work out at all, last week. So far this week, I'm doing really good. I managed to run six miles on my treadmill. Today, I managed to workout to weights plus turbo fire for 15 minutes. I keep the baby's pack n play in the family room but I have it position right in front of the window. It's a good set up, she can sleep and I can keep an eye on her plus she can't hear me working out. Plus, it was really hard to be good during Thanksgiving. I'm using the timer to tell me when I'm allowed to eat meals and snacks. It's really helping...I have seem to have lost all self control. I'm feeling stronger plus I'm trying to reteach myself to eat when I'm hungry not out of boredom. It's hard when your home all day with the baby. It's so easy to mindless snack on food all day long.

Right Choices Corn Maze

The best thing about having a baby, is you get to do all the fun kid things all over again. Everything is a brand new experience for baby Leilani and it's so much fun doing it again with all the kids together. She really liked the corn maze and fit right in at the pumpkin patch. Leilani is sitting in the spot that Logan got his pumpkin.

 

Ten on Wed

1.  Leilani just turned four month olds. She's already eating baby oatmeal and baby food. Leroy had the joys of her diaper leaking poop. He managed somehow not to get it on himself but it found it's away up and down her body. Seriously, so gross...the joys of having a baby.

2. Leilani is hitting her milestones. Every single time she see me, her little face lights right up. I always feel bad, when I walk right pass her and she's smiling at me like crazy. She also recognizes my voice, as soon as she hears me talking, she will turn her head to look for me. Plus, she loves to play with her toys. She will lay on the ground and grab for her toys. She's either pulling on them or kicking them with her feet.

3. The kids are still super sweet with her. They all have to say good bye to her in the morning before they leave for school. After school, the kids are practically fighting each other over who gets to hold her first.

4.  Leroy is on his way to Colorado Springs for work, he will be back in about a week and half. We will miss him and I'm hoping the time will go by fast. The baby is still not sleeping well at night. It's going to be hard to get the kids off to school by myself but we will manage it.

5. The ticket system is still working great with the kids. The kids can complete chores or read for 30 minutes to earn tickets which they can turn in for screen time. Logan has surprisingly turned into a reader from this ticket system. Everyday, he loves to lay down on the floor and read his chapter books. He never seemed too interested  in reading before but now we can't keep the books away from him. On Saturday, Logan picked out four chapter books at a garage sale and has been reading them non-stop since then.

6. Landon is almost done with Tennis lessons. He is hoping to join the Tennis Team and start competing against other tennis teams in the area. Logan will be playing basketball starting in January. Hopefully, he will stick it out and not want to quit. He has a bad habit of not sticking to things.

7.  Leah's soccer season for Fall, is almost over. Her last game was schedule for last weekend but it was cancelled due to rain. Her game is now reschedule for this weekend. She's had a great season but I'm ready to be done with it. It's hard, because I have to drive the kids to all of their games and practices.

8. Leroy is finally done teaching at NWACC but he will be teaching again in January, March, and June. If you have never thought of teaching at the college before it's a great way to earn a lot of extra money. I'm thinking about taking the kids for four weeks on a big road trip because Leroy will not be home in the month of June. We might as well go somewhere fun. My mom wants us to go to Yellowstone and Idaho to visit my grandparents but Leroy wants to come join us at Yellowstone but I'm not sure how that would work out. I really wanted to visit my sister in Maryland. The two places are in completely opposite directions. So, we will have to sit down and figure out something soon.

9.  I'm all signed up for my first real 5k, which is going to be the Halloween 5k. I'm so out of shape. I took off last week from working out and I'm paying for it. I'm so tired from the baby not sleeping well, it's been hard to have the motivation to work out. I'm hoping to finish the course in under 35 minute but we will see.

10. Everything is ready for Halloween but I need to start working on Logan's class party. I have to make a bean bag toss game plus I'm in charge of Carmel apple activity. Nothing to crazy but I need to sit down and start working on it.

100%

I know, I said that I was completely done but I'm now official done with all of the Halloween costumes. I decided to go ahead and make a mermaid wand to go with Leah's costume. I found this really neat idea on Pinterest but my wand didn't look anything like it. I hate when you find something and instructions are not too clear. Anyway, it turn out cute and Leah loves it.

Plus, we managed to hit up a couple of garage sales and found some awesome costume jewelry to go with her outfit!

Halloween Costumes!

The fun thing about having two girls, somewhat matching costumes. Not an easy thing to do, when you're talking about 5 1/2 year ago gap but I figured out a way to make it work. My sewing partner, gave me her unfinished mermaid pattern from last year. She started to cut out some of the pattern pieces but never made any further then that. She passed it off to me. The pattern wasn't easy to figure or follow but she came over and we made it work. I decided to go back and take off the tail of Leah's costume because it was fraying too much and I was worried it would come off completely plus the mermaid costume was a little bit too long. So, this afternoon...I managed to take off the old tail and replaced it with a stronger and better tail. She can walk around in it without tripping over it. I just finished the crown plus the matching seashell pendant.

 

Baby Leilani costume is 100% my creation...no pattern...just me! I really love the way it turned out. The sea shell top is super cute. I'm going to get the kids pictures done together! I'm still blown away, how well they turned out!

 

The boys are going as Army men and I just bought them off Amazon. It's more fun to sew for little girls than boys.

 

 

 

Pumpkin Blocks

My hubby is gone in the evenings, I'm stuck at home with the kids. What to do, it's getting darker outside earlier and I decided it would be fun to work on some crafts with the kids. I haven't done anything like this in a very long time. The kids loved it. I even had to get out my jig saw and cut up some wood to make the pumpkins. The kids did a great job. The painting was a blast but the clean up is a real pain in the butt. Leah even made her a pumpkin for her teacher at school. She loves Mrs. E. She's always talking about how she has the best teacher ever. Melts my heart...anyways, it felt like a blast from the past. I feel bad that I haven't really done much with my kids lately with the new baby and all. I'm going to work on doing more crafts and science projects with the kids. Leroy still has about one and half weeks of teaching and he will be gone for two full weeks. Plus, the kids never go to bed early. So, I will be on top of things and hopefully it will make for some fun memories with the kids.