Thankful Theodore

One of my friends does this at her house (thanks Jocelyn) and so we copied her this year and I am pretty sure this will be a tradition from now on. I want my kids to understand all the many blessings we have. Some small and some so big even at a time when we are out of work and may have a little more stress than usual. So I found this little turkey on line and printed him off. His name is Theodore. He is so fun. On every feather for FHE we note all the things we are thankful for. Some are family members, our house, soccer. Landons are ALWAYS food related. But we filled it up pretty fast. Then I am cutting out more feathers and everytime they think of something they are thankful for they can give Theodore more feathers. I am hoping we will have a big fun turkey by the end.

Brenten is 7

I can't believe Brenten is so big...7...am I really that old? In one year we will be baptizing our first kid. So crazy. We had a low key birthday for him but I think he loved it. He got his first pet, Shelly, the hermit crab. He is doing a good job of taking care of her but we realized she is missing one of her legs when we got her so she may have to get traded in. Brenten says he wants to buy another one because Shelly is lonely. So he will probably have another one soon. Our friend, Melinda, and her boys came out to enjoy the fun. Coop and Brenten have been best buddies forever. Or at least about 6 1/2 years. This year Brenten said he wanted a cheese cake for his birthday. I was like are you kidding me. I have never made one so I was a little nervous. So he got online and looked at different picts/recipes and decided he wanted a white chocolate raspberry cheese cake. I don't know if he could have found a harder one. But it turned out delicious. I am thankful for the frozen raspberries in my freezer. that really helped. Thanks Mom.

I love my Brenten. He is growing into the sweetest of boys. I love that he will wink at me when I help in his class and isn't embarrassed (yet) if I say I love you in front of his friends. And more times than not will repeat it. He is so adventurous and love to play any game. He is such a little joker and thinks that he is the funniest kid around. I don't want him to grow up any more.

October Candids

Brenten loves the climbing wall and now that is colder we just run a space heater in the garage when they climb. He is getting too brave.

I got this bean bag for my sis and her hubby. Well they left money for me and I went and picked it up for them. We get to use it until they come get it from me. It is so huge. It took me another lady a teen age boy a random stranger and 40 min to get it in my car. My seat was all the way up and I looked ridiculous driving home. The kids are enjoying it while they can. It is HUGE.
Cait and the boys decided to empty out some flower boxes and make my front porch a sand box. YUK!!! That is what she said when she came to me after trying to eat it.

Landon loves jerky. I love his face when he tries to eat it. Caits hair will finally go into one pony tail instead of piggys. And she will keep flowers in unless she is napping and then out the come.

Bikes

I need to get a better picture. But since Christian has been home, he took off Landon's training wheels and his pedals. This is what we do to get them coasting and learning to balance. He went out with him every day for a little bit and practiced. We were amazed with in a week he was ready to have his pedals back on. We continue to work with him. He likes to go really fast down hills and stop at the last possible second. It is so scary. But maybe that is why I am glad Christian is working with him mostly. He still needs to work on going up hill. For this reason I wish we had more flat areas here. But soon we can move his seat up so he doesn't look like a monkey on a tiny trike. He loves that he is getting so big.

Halloween Fun!!!

I love Halloween. I love when the little one finally realizes all they have to do is say "trick or treat" and they get candy. Cait cheered after every house. The boys loved everything about it. Decorating cookies. Carving pumpkins with power tools. Seeing friends and lots of parties. I really lucked out this year. All the kids were costumes we already had or a hand me down. Brenten was a fire fighter for the 3rd year in a row. Finally his costume fits. Landon was Nemo. he was so excited when he saw it in our Halloween box. Cait was a cute fat monkey our friend let us borrow. She was so cute and loved her slippers.

Laid Off

Christian gets some unexpected time at home. A little over a week ago he got laid off. YUK!!!! I love having him home and actually we are so busy we don't really see each other that much. Like today, he is at a networking/job search group thing until 4pm. And I believe he has it again on Wednesday. Lets just say it has been a crazy 1 1/2 weeks.

In this time I have had migraines or the lingering effects of the last one, we have lost our insurance and found out COBRA is $1000.00 a month. Okay if you are out of work how can you afford that much $$$ for insurance. Our computer ended up with like 98 viruses or something insane like that. I have had a bout of kidney stones. Probably the hardest was when Brenten asked us on Sunday when we get to go to Christian's super cool work Christmas party and Christian had to remind him that he doesn't work there anymore. Brenten was trying to be big but he was obviously sad and Christian felt so awful.

Even with all the stress of zero income we there are some definite positives. My brother was telling me that he doesn't know anyone who hasn't been laid off. And they have similar comments of enjoy the time off. We are trying. Christian is working so hard to find work. I am glad I don't have to nag him and I am trying to find work also.

That being said.......

Landon is now riding a bike with out training wheels. We think by the end of the week he will be cruising all over on his own. Christian has been going out with him every day to work on it. And then he and Brenten have been going over to the bike park to work on their skills. Unfortunately when it is too wet they can't go. Cait has had a lot of snuggle and one on one time. She loves it. I even got Christian's help to do a little photo shoot of the kiddos.

Aside from not knowing when we will get work, we are excited to see what the future holds for us. Christian has not been enjoying his job for about a year now. I am hoping he can find a job that he can enjoy and will help our family for the future.