Pilgrims and Indians

Cutest Pilgrims and Indian ever!

Christmas time! Christmas time! Christmas time is here! :) I can't believe that it's almost December - woohoo! This is my favorite time of the year. Parties, desserts, family time, traditions, presents... etc, etc.... there's just so much I love about the holidays. Thanksgiving is definitely one of them and we had a great one. I was sooo happy because Ben ended up getting Thanksgiving Day off (hooray!). I was bummed at first because he was supposed to go in on Friday to work, so he headed off Friday morning around 6:30 and much to my surprise was home shortly after 9am. I guess they got through with their patients and Ben got to have a super short day! And he had Saturday and Sunday off as well, so easy peasy. :) I was just so relieved and happy to have Ben home with us for Thanksgiving. What a blessing! We headed to Gilbert on Wednesday evening to spend a couple nights at Ben's parents house. We spent that night making my mother-in-law's famous potato rolls (love them!). On Thursday we cooked most of the day and somehow it wasn't chaotic and was actually relaxing. It was probably due to the fact that we were a small group and we weren't having tons of extended family come visit, so there wasn't much pressure to have stuff done at a certain time or anything. The menu was yummy and Ben and I did lots of our favorite Thanksgiving recipes: chestnut apple stuffing (THE best!!), cranberry sauce, green beans with tomatoes, maple glazed turkey, cider gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and of course mashed potatoes, pie, and all the yummy potato rolls (you'll notice from the links that we're a little obsessed with martha recipes). It was quite the feast and we enjoyed plenty of leftovers later. That evening Ben's parents were super nice and sent us off to the movies to see Bond while they stayed with the kids and cleaned up dinner. Awesome! Aren't they the coolest?! :) I love this new James Bond, btw... way cooler than Pierce Brosnan! On Friday some of the family did Black Friday shopping - I avoided that this year, but Ben did go run a quick errand to Walmart during all the craziness and happened to get Kung Fu Panda for 9 dollars. Good deal! :) The girls started up work on a new sewing project - we're making Happy Birthday banners - we got a good chunk of the work done over the weekend and they're going to be super cute when they're all done! We also all went and saw Bolt - cute movie... the hamster is hillarious! Friday evening we went to the Mesa Temple to see them turn on the Christmas lights - it was a lovely evening - just cold enough to need a sweater but we weren't freezing our hiney's off (not that I don't LOVE seeing the temple lights in Salt Lake, but that's always part of the experience... watching the lights while feeling like your appendages are going to fall off... but it's a great excuse for hot chocolate!). Saturday morning we went to the zoo and once again, the weather was great! The kids really loved the carousel and we even got to pet the sting rays. We also did some shopping and ate out for dinner and soon we headed back to our neglected house. Today we got started decorating for Christmas, but we still need to hang the ornaments on the tree. It's a lot of work to decorate for Christmas! But I sure to love the end result. Hooray for the holidays!

Pre-Thanksgiving Fun!

Is everyone excited for turkey and mashed potatoes?!! I am!! This morning Emma had her Thanksgiving Feast at preschool. She was VERY excited for her ride to come this morning! I'm kind of wishing I would have gone too, because I'm sure all the kids in their pilgrim and Indian attire were very cute. Emma wore her pilgrim outfit (the one her Grandma Dangerfield made for her last Thanksgiving). She was very happy when she got home and told me she ate lots of yummy food! I'll be sure to post pictures of Emma in her pilgrim dress in a future Thanksgiving post - the plan is to have Becca dress up as an Indian, so that should be fun! :)

While Emma was celebrating Thanksgiving at preschool, Becca and I had fun too! I signed her up to take a FREE class (amazing! it was actually free!!) at the Gymboree Play and Music center. Becca was seriously in heaven - they have tons of fun indoor play equipment, squishy mats, balls, slides, climbers, etc to play on. It's a 45 minute class with an instructor who bases the activities on a theme (the theme for our class today was "up and down") - they play and sing songs and Becca was just so happy. Becca's favorite part was the parachute activities. Anyway - it was a fun morning. After the class, they told me about what you get when you enroll in a monthly membership. I'm considering it for a Christmas present for Becca, but I was glad that they didn't harass me into enrolling just because I took advantage of their free class. :) The best part for Becca was it was a fun activity for just me and mommy, while Emma was at school. She definitely liked the attention! :)

Saturdays should be for playing...

I was so happy to have Ben home this past weekend! His rotation this month has been pretty busy and he hasn't had weekends off, but since he was between rotations over the weekend, we had him home to play! We spent Saturday morning hiking, eating lunch, and doing a little shopping. We hiked at Thunderbird Park and the weather was lovely! Becca wanted to walk the entire thing without holding hands, but we made her hold hands through a few places so she wouldn't collide into jagged rocks. She's such an independent little girl. :) Emma toted around her little backpack for most of the hike - it held snacks and her fisher-price camera... it wasn't until she started adding "rock treasures" to her pack that she decided it was too heavy and handed it over to mommy and daddy to carry. We later ate lunch at Whole Foods and then browsed through the Container Store (it just opened over the summer) - they had a lot of unique stocking stuffers, btw. In the next store, Ben was so kind as to watch the kids while I tried on some maternity clothes. Somehow I got out of there with just a much-needed pair of pants. :) Later in the afternoon we left the kiddos with a sitter and we went to see Twilight! Ben and I both really enjoyed it... it's definitely been getting relatively poor reviews, but it was worth seeing in our opinion. We ended our night going out to dinner at the Elephant Bar. Mmmmm... I recommend the chocolate lava cake. Here's to fun weekends with our hubby's! :)

Look what I did!

Look Jodi! I did it! And it wasn't even hard. Becca's hair took a lot longer to do though - it's just so short and fine and I needed to use 8 bands instead of 6. But I'm so proud of myself. :)

Number 200

Hey cool! This is my 200th post! Too bad the only thing this post will be about is in response to getting tagged.

8 Favorite TV Shows


1. Office

2. Jon and Kate plus 8 (does anyone else watch that show? I love it!)

3. Dancing shows! (Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance)

4. Medium (I'm sad they're not showing episodes right now)

5. Iron Chef America

6. Good Eats

7. Top Chef

8. I can't think of an 8th


8 Favorite Restaurants


1. Macaroni Grill

2. Oreganos

3. P.F. Changs (LOVE the lettuce wraps and the Great Wall of Chocolate!)

4. Charleston's (especially their bread pudding - we say that it tastes like Christmas)

5. Lon's (only been there once, but LOVED it!)

6. Cheesecake Factory (never actually eaten any cheesecake there, but love their orange chicken) :)

7. Z Tejas

8. the Tree Room at Sundance


8 Books You'd Recommend
(I'm pretty sure I'm the last person someone would come to for book recommendations, because I have a reputation for never finishing books I start... but nonetheless, the following are my favorites)

1. Harry Potter series

2. Narnia series

3. Twilight series

4. The Hobbit

5. Holes

6. The Book of Three (and the other books in that series)

7. Angels and Demons

8. The Book of Mormon :)


8 Things that happened yesterday


1. Saw Emma off to preschool (and was happy I didn't have to do the driving)

2. Went grocery shopping with Becca

3. Took a detour into the Walmart McDonald's for a mid-morning snack. :)

4. Talked with my mom on the phone

5. Put away the laundry (that was a big accomplishment for me!)

6. Enjoyed having Ben home early from work

7. Baked rolls all afternoon just to have them not turn out well... :(

8. Took Emma to Dance class


8 Things to look forward to


1. Thanksgiving! I'm actually looking forward to cooking - and I'm just crossing my fingers that Ben doesn't have to work that day.

2. Disneyland with my family at Christmas - can't wait!!

3. Going to Tucson with Ben this weekend

4. Being 20 weeks along this Friday! Half way!!

5. Having Ben be done with interviews and hopefully successfully matching with a residency we want come March

6. Getting a van (I can't believe I'm actually excited about that!)

7. Buying our first home (have NO IDEA when that day will finally come, but I'm definitely looking forward to it!)

8. April 10th - the due date for our little boy


8 Things on my wish list


1. A new mattress

2. Double jogging stroller

3. A getaway vacation with Ben (and without the kids)

4. More energy

5. A shopping spree at Target to get more clothes for myself and the kids

6. To see Emma and Becca both get hugs from Mickey at Disneyland

7. Cooler weather (it has cooled down a bit, but I would love it to be a little more brisk)

8. A Wii


8 Things I love about Fall

1. Cooler weather! (See above)

2. Changing leaves (I'm glad I got to go to Utah in September and see some of that)

3. Wearing sweaters (oh! look at how cute 7 month old Becca is in a sweater!)

4. Having the kids play outside without getting all sweaty

5. Halloween and Thanksgiving

6. Lower electricity bills (I'm with you on that Amanda!)

7. Starting to think about Christmas

8. Pie!


8 People I tag


1. Mom

2. Dad

3. Sarah

4. Jodi

5. Lacy

6. Katie

7. Leah

8. Aaron

The verdict is in...

I had my ultrasound today!!! Ben had to be at a residency interview during the appointment, but he gave me the go-ahead to find out without him. I tried to make it fun for him with a little treasure hunt when he got home (thank goodness he got done early today - I couldn't have waited any longer to tell him!!)













I almost fooled Ben with the pink envelope. :) We're soooo excited to be having a boy - I was honestly surprised! I don't know why, but I went into that ultrasound thinking "well, this has got to be another girl". I was wrong and I'm so happy to be having a boy - I'm also a little freaked out - never had a boy before... I don't know what to do with a boy!!

Ready or not... it's holiday time!

Can you believe that it's Thanksgiving time?! So fun! With Halloween over, I'm already getting hungry for turkey and mashed potatoes! :) Even though I'm ready to move on to the next holiday, Halloween was a lot of fun. Emma had her preschool Halloween party in the morning - it was great to be able to go and see her cute class and help out a little. She has the greatest teachers and she sure loves it! In the evening we went to Ben's parents neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Emma and Becca both got so much candy, and Becca in particular loved going door to door.

BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.


At one point Becca was literally dragging her pumpkin of candy behind her because it was getting so heavy. We all tried helping to carry it, but she outright refused any assistance - maybe because she was afraid we would take all her candy and never give it back. Anyway, we were getting a kick out of watching her devotedly carry that load of candy around. This girl loves her sweets!