Turkey Day and Random Pics

See! I'm ever so slowly getting caught back up.   

This past Thanksgiving we kept it very low key. In the morning we ran our 2nd annual Turkey Trot that us and our friends put on.

 There were only about a dozen or so that joined in on the fun, but I'm hoping that if we keep doing it each year, that eventually we can get people from the community to join in and make it a big thing. It's just a fun 5k on the morning of Thanksgiving and then hot chocolate/apple cider afterwards. It's a great way to start Thanksgiving!
Chad was kind enough to be the photographer for the race. Here are a couple of fun ones.

After the race, we went home and made some dishes to bring over to Chad's parent's house for the feast. Chad's brother lives about 5 minutes away, so we were all able to get together at his parent's house and enjoy the day together. The kids made crafts and played together while the guys and I went out shooting and then later played some card games. It was a great day!

***

While going through my pictures from the turkey trot, I found a few of them that I forgot to put on the blog. Here are a few of the girls that I took back in September. I told them I'd do a fun photoshoot with them, and I think they enjoyed it. I ended up printing out some of them and blowing them up really big for the girls' room (pictures to come soon.....)

And last but not least, here is our annual family picture. We only had about 10 minutes to get any kind of shot since it was during Chad's lunch break, but my sweet friend Natalie was kind enough to be the eyes behind the camera and snap a great shot of us. I just love these guys!

UPDATE EXPLOSION

I keep promising that I will start updating on the blog, but I get so overwhelmed with everything that I need to post about, that I never end up doing it. So, I hate to do it, but I've got to combined a bunch of missed stuff into one post. I will do other posts about some of the bigger things (as well as updates on the house), but here's a bit of what ya missed over the Summer up to now.

We sold our old house and are in our new one.

  You knew that, but I thought we'd get that out of the way. It took a little over a month from the day we put it on the market to the day the buyers signed the papers. It didn't finalize until a few months later, but it was nice to have things work out so quickly and so well. Prayers were definitely answered and the new family loves all the work that we put into the old house.

There were a million other things going on over the Summer that I did not catch on camera, but suffice it to say, we were busy. In August I got to run in the Hood to Coast Relay again. I did it last year, if you remember this post and this post, but this year it was A MILLION times better. I loved it. In fact, I loved it so much  that it deserves it's own post. That will be coming soon, I promise!

The girls started school the day after we got back from H2C. It was a little chaotic, but it worked out fine. Jayden's now in 2nd and Ry's in Kindergarten. They are both loving their teachers and having a blast being at the same school together.

October was a busy month with 2 birthdays, a baptism and Halloween to prepare for. First we had Jayden's 8th birthday. It was a fun one because her cousins from Utah were able to come out and surprise her. Jayden was in total shock as you can see from this video I captured below. I had her cousin, Emma get inside a giant box and my sister and her son hide in our van. While they waited, I told Jayden I had an early birthday present for her in the garage...

 We all had a blast having my sister and 2 of her kids out here. My parents even came out to celebrate Jayden's special day. We had a couple of days before the party, so we thought it would be a good idea to show my family some of the fun things we like to do around here. We ended up taking them to Bill's Berry Farm. It's a fun family farm that holds lots of activities. 

At last, the big day was here, and we threw together a fun Rockstar birthday for her.

When it was time for everyone to go home, we were sad, but thrilled that they were able to make it out.

The next weekend we had Jayden's baptism. It was such a special day! My parent's were able to come out again and they brought my other niece, Leila. Both my mom and dad were asked by Jayden to be a part of her baptismal program as well as Chad's parents, so it was really neat to have them all there.

With all of the craziness going on, we opted out of throwing a big party for Baleigh, which was fine since she's only 2 and doesn't know the difference. Instead she got a much needed haircut (darn those baby mullets) and lots of hugs and kisses.

 2 days later, though, she needed those hugs and kisses more than ever. While we were getting ready for Halloween, she went to play on our jumpy horse and smashed her face on the metal bars. She ended up splitting her frenulum under her top lip and scraping up her face. Her lip immediately started to swell 3x's it's normal size. Poor thing looked like a duck! 

 She was doing okay by the time Trick-or-Treating rolled around, so we carried on.
This year was not a big costume year for us. Normally I like to go all out and do something really fun, but I was just too stressed out and the girls wanted to be their own thing, so I let them. In the end, Jayden was an angel, Ryleigh was a "dark fairy", and the rest of us dressed up as my favorite 'Portlandia' couple, Lisa and Bryce from the sketch "Put A Bird On It". Haven't seen it? Check it out HERE. Baleigh was decked out in bird silhouettes, because everything looks better with a bird on it.

And here we are, almost caught up. The only other news is house stuff (I WILL be posting pics, I promise on that as well)....oh, and I almost forgot. Poor miss Ryleigh has been losing her teeth like crazy. She is only 5 years old and has lost 6 teeth so far, 2 of them being molars. Yeah, not exactly normal. Last Friday she pulled a tooth out at school, Sunday morning she pulled one of her front teeth out (the other one is also loose), and by Sunday night she had a molar pop out after she bit into a peppermint. We called our dentist friends and they checked her out. Apparently her back molars are coming in too soon and they are not leaving any room for the new molars to come in. This is not normal for a kid so young, so Ry had to go in and get one of the molars yanked out. In a couple of months she will have to get spacers put in so that the new molars have room to grow in. After all of her baby teeth fall out, she will need braces as well. Ugh, the dollar signs are just racking up! The good thing, though is that she loved the dentist's office and didn't freak out at all. She smiled and laughed and wants to go back, so apparently getting a tooth yanked out of your face ain't so bad. 

She liked the glasses they gave her for the bright lights
 

UNTIL NEXT TIME......

A glimpse into the house

I figured that before all of the holidays start coming upon us and I get buried even more with posts that I should be doing, I'd finally get started on the ones I've been putting off for way too long. Let's start with the main reason why I have stopped hanging out with people, stopped blogging, stopped working out, stopped...being me! This darn, beautiful, horrible, awesome, stupid, wonderful house of ours! 

 It's been a project for the past 8 months and it's still a project. We have the house of our dreams, in the VERY...SLOW...process of being decorated (I'm taking my sweet time), on almost 2 acres of dirt and weeds. It's amazing, but it's a lot of work and takes up most of my time. We are also still in the process (albeit the very end of it) of selling our old house.

 

The young couple that are purchasing our old house have had to wait much longer than anticipated to figure out approval for loans and such, but the appraiser is going through it tomorrow and we will hand over the keys is 2 weeks. This has been such a stress on me with trying to keep it looking nice in order to sell, getting it sold, and all while building a new house, moving, kids starting school, etc. etc. Phew, now I can be done with it!

This new house of ours has been a dream since Chad and I met. For years Chad and I would spend our time together drawing up house plans and deciding every detail of this dream house. In reality, we were not able to build the gigantic, unrealistic house from our plans, and we had to cut back on some of the "nice things", but not by much. On our first night in the house, we laid in bed, looking up at our vaulted ceilings and said, "It feels like we are staying in a fancy hotel....at home." It's great. It's time consuming, and a lot of work, but it's still been great. 

Here are the pictures of the front of the house throughout the building process.

 Now we just need some green grass, trees, bushes. The dirt is filled with these painful weeds called goat heads.

It's a fast growing weed that spurts these tiny, horrible, spikey balls everywhere. Once the grass is in, the weed will go away because it's a non-competing type of weed. Thank goodness.

Alright, I will end this post now so I can have enough energy for the rest of my posts that are to come. BUT, before I go, I know that you are all wanting to see what the inside of the house looks like. Well, I'm not showing it yet because I haven't even scratched the surface on my decorating, and so it will have to wait. Instead, I will give you small glimpses in order to wet your appetite.