Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Okay, so I guess I just took a whole month off of my blog. I don't know why I keep thinking that things will slow down - especially around the holidays. This is probably going to be another novel about the happenings of the O'Gwin Clan. So here we go. First of all you'll see that we finally got some corn on the cob! It never quite recovered after being blown over and replanted, so most of the ears are only like 3" long. But it still tasted yummy!

This time we're going to start with . . . ME! The primary program is finally done - hooray! - and it went very well. The kids sang their hearts out and only a couple of the Sunbeams were unintelligible because they were eating the mike. The only crazy thing was that a few people were sick and we ended up going 15 minutes under and so I got up and gave an impromptu bearing of my testimony to fill up some time. I'm not opposed to bearing my testimony, but I think that next year I'll try to make the program a little longer. :) Everyone keeps asking me if I feel so much better now that the program is over and I am like, "Not really." I think I'll feel better once I get everything squared away for the new year - there's 10 new sunbeams coming in, teachers to call, classrooms to assign, etc. Hopefully we can take a little breather in January, but I'm not holding my breath. Life hasn't been all primary though. I went out with a group of ladies from the ward and saw New Moon. Everyone was just raving about how much better the acting was than the first one . . . I guess I don't remember the first one very well. There were a whole bunch of teenage girls screaming down in the front, which was hilarious. It was a fun movie though and a fun night out - I'm glad I went. But I must say I've also been on a couple of dates with Chris this month - much better than a girl's night out! Plus we have dates at our house reading or watching "V". That's the new series we've gotten into off of itunes. And speaking of Chris, I also spent a large portion of the Thanksgiving Holiday editing his 120 page thesis. Which leads me to his exciting news: Chris submitted his thesis yesterday!! Hooray! Go Chris! (I just can't stop the cheerleader in me from coming out, no matter how hard I try.) His paper was excellent and Chris put a lot of himself into it (and a lot of hours at the library!). He definitely deserves and A. Chris has about a week and a half more of stress this quarter and then he can relax a little bit over the holidays. No one deserves it more.
Okay, so now let's talk about the kids. I was able to go to the girl's parent teacher conferences this month and it was very nice to hear how much the teachers like my girls. Having them well adjusted in school is such a load off, I can't even tell you. Lise even told me over Thanksgiving that she doesn't like being out of school because she misses Mrs. Shugars. She's a cutie. Anyhoo, over the craziness that was going on during Halloween (though I can't remember exactly what that was at the moment), I totally fell off the "good mommy bandwagon" and didn't make it to any of the school's Halloween celebrations: parade, class parties, pumpkin patch field trip, or dance. So a couple of weeks ago Lise said to me, "Mom, next time all the parents get to come to something, will you please come?" It nearly broke my heart and I vowed to do my best to attend the girl's special days at school. So I went with Aly's class on their field trip to the lighthouse, museum, and butterfly sanctuary. It was a lot of fun. I also went to Analise's Thanksgiving Feast they had in their classroom where they recited some poems and sang some songs - very cute.

Aly has had a very exciting month (as Novembers usually are for her). First of all, she made the Christmas Chorus Group at school that will be performing in an assembly and at various rest homes and what not in the area. She has been practicing hard and even gets to sing her french Christmas song, "Petit Papa Noel", by herself! The main event for Aly, however, was her birthday. First of all, this was a special birthday for Aly because she turned 8, so she gets to be baptized! For her party, she made it low stress for me, which was extremely kind, by saying that all she wanted was to take her friends swimming at the community pool and back to the house for brownies and ice cream. And she said she didn't even need presents! What a sweetheart. Thanks for reducing my stress, Aly!

And finally, Thanksgiving. We had another family over which was awesome because it reduced the cooking in half. They aren't big turkey people (the wife is from Japan), so they brought over this yummy steak. We did have turkey too, just more food to stuff our faces with. We hung out and played games and then one of our neighbors invited everyone over for desserts later in the evening. It was a very relaxing day, which was nice. And I would like to say that I was most grateful to Chris who helped with the turkeys and cutting up the apples for the apple pies. He helped keep my stress to a bare minimum so that I was able to enjoy the day with my family. Aly was a huge help peeling vegetables as well and Analise helped by playing with Kate to keep her out of the area. I am truly blessed with a wonderful family. I love you guys!

Happy Hula Wieners!

So, when I was younger I had a friend who lived in New York. One day she sent me a card in the mail with a picture of two hot dogs with grass skirts around them on the front. Inside it read, "Happy Hula-wieners!" My mom and I laughed so hard we cried and it has been a Halloween inside joke between us ever since. So Happy Hula-Wieners everybody! I hope you had a good one! I've got two Halloween related stories for you. First of all, the Halloween Candy Bandits. I had purchased our Halloween candy about a month ago and was storing it in our garage with our food storage. Well, one night the garage door didn't get closed. The next morning I woke up to a discovery - Raccoons like Butterfingers! Every bag of candy was opened and there was one of each type of candy opened, but all of the Butterfingers were gone. Craziness. I'm just grateful they didn't get into any of the food storage! The second story occurred last night after we put the girls in bed. I went to put a hair clip on the counter and saw that one of the girls had left one of their spider rings on the counter . . . except it wasn't a ring! Augh! I almost grabbed the thing!! Here are my little "ghouls" on Halloween. Aly was Hannah Montana, of course, Lise was a Fairy-Princess-Butterfly thingy, and Kate was a pink dragon. Aly and Lise got to wear their costumes to school so they actually wore their costumes two days in a row - lucky ducks! There have been tons and tons of festivities over here. Chris and I have been asking ourselves, "Is Halloween the new Christmas?" There were festivities up the ying-yang and so we had to decide what to go to. At school the girls had class parties, a parade, and a dance - yes, a dance in elementary school. It was full of the funky chicken and a bunch of Hannah Montana Songs that Aly lip synced to beautifully.
We hit our ward's trunk or treat/chili cook-off and then came back to our house for more trick-or-treating. After the girls were done and our candy was all gone I had them empty out their candy and put anything they didn't like (or that Aly couldn't have with her braces) into a bowl and then we gave that out the rest of the night. It was a very nice system. No bit-o-honeys, sour patch kids, or fireballs left in the bottom of our candy buckets this year, nosiree. :)

Besides Halloween, we have stayed as busy as ever with doctor's appointments/Ortho appointments, visiting teaching, sharing time, scout camps, etc. I have recommitted myself to exercising (again) and have actually found a buddy to go walking around the neighborhood with, which will definitely improve my chances of staying with it. Last week was the book fair at school, and, well, children's books are one of my weaknesses - enough said. Chris and I were able to go on a date, which was a well needed break from my day-to-day running around. We ended up in a bookstore on our date - another dangerous thing, since Chris loves books like I do. If only we had time to read them . . .

Today was our first Primary Program Practice. For some crazy, unknown reason, I am totally not stressed about the program. I think my counselors are more worried about it than I am; a first, since I usually feel that I'm the one stressed over everything. It must be a blessing from Heavenly Father that I am feeling so calm, and I need to enjoy it for what it is. I think the kids will do the best that they can, if they don't memorize their parts it's not the end of the world, there will be some funny mishaps that everyone will think is darling/hilarious, and it will all be over in an hour and ten minutes. As Aly would say, "easy peasy, mac 'n' cheesy". No worries, right?

Another Halloween activity that I forgot to mention was that Chris took Aly on an awesome hike that he had done with the scouts. Chris said Aly did better than some of the scouts! It looks like it was gorgeous!

This is Aly sitting on a Redwood tree stump that was taller than Chris. Dang! When do I get a hiking date?

Besides hiking, Aly also tried out for the Holiday Chorus Group at her school this last week. I really hope she makes it - she would be awesome! Aly is still loving school, continues to make more and more friends, likes being outside to build forts, ride bikes, climb trees, and swinging from a rope swing in our backyard, and has recently become a little bookworm. She has to read out loud to me for 20 minutes every day and it is so neat to see how she is advancing and grasping the joy of reading. I love it! Oh, one more thing that I love is a little saying/chant that Aly brought home from school that goes like this, "you get what you get, and you don't throw a fit!" It is a lovely saying that comes in quite handy at our house.

Analise has been blossoming in Kindergarten as well. She is now sounding out words and reading! It is awesome! She is also an art genius, according to one of the substitutes she had in school. It's amazing though, as your kids get smarter, how much dumber they think you are. Like, how many years have I been telling Lise to wash her hands, but suddenly she learns it in school, and now it's "really important" and she's always reminding me to do it. Or, the other day, I was cleaning ear wax out of my ear with a Q-tip and Lise told me, "mom, we learned in school that you're not supposed to put things in your ears." Thanks, Lise. Lise has all-of-the-sudden turned into a comedian at the dinner table with knock knock jokes as well. She thinks that she is hilarious and will say, "Now this is gonna be good" and then say something like the following:

-knock, knock

-who's there?

-pineapple

-pineapple who?

-pineapple curly!! (fits of laughter)

-Get it? It's like a curly pineapple?!? (Um, sure we get it, Lise)

Lise is also very thoughtful. Ever since President Monson's talk in conference we have started asking "What did you do for someone else today?" at the dinner table. Lise is always so excited about this and is usually the one who reminds us to do it. She is always giving Kate the prizes that she earns at school or making pictures or crafts for her sisters. One day she even told us that she spent all recess picking up trash to make the playground clean. She is such a sweetie. Oh, and if you're wondering about the picture, there was face painting at a birthday party Lise went to and she chose to be a pink kitty.
Kate has also caught the excitement of being helpful - as long as it's convenient for her. She loves to help set the table and can say the food prayer by herself, which she will do even without being asked. One night after she did this, Chris sarcastically said, "Kate, would you like to say the prayer?" to which she replied, "I just barely did, Dad!" Kate has recently discovered that she likes puzzles (which has been a good discovery for me in keeping her reverent at church as well!), loves play-doh, likes going for walks, being outside, and is getting the hang of the bouncy ball. She still likes pretending she is a cat/dog most of the time and especially enjoys howling (especially into cups where she can hear herself better, even sacrament cups) and licking everyone's clothing. One of these days she's going to huck up a hair ball. We are working with Kate on asking for things nicely and saying please, instead of just demanding things and bossing people around. However, she is always very grateful once you give her what she wants and the other day she even said to me, "thank you mama chica rica!"
Oh, and P.S. The girls have rediscovered bubble baths as of late. They've had loads of fun.