thanksgiving time

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. Brigg & Hava came up for a couple of days and we had some friends, the Curtis & Wintch families from our ward, come over for dinner on Thursday. And it still hasn't snowed yet! I forgot to take a picture of our dinner & everyone there.

But I did capture the aftermath

Just one of the many conveniences of a super size gut

(don't worry, just sparkling cider in my cup)

First original Hyrum pillow house

Said he was being a spider

Our cute Hunterbug

Friday we ventured out into the Blackness & went to Frankenmuth to enjoy the Christmas festivities there

Smooch

Hmmm...

1.5 hours into our walking tour of the world's largest Christmas store Brigg got me a wheelchair. I felt super wimpy but it made for a good stroller for 3/4ths of our family

First time Hyrum sat on Santa's lap willingly (all for a candy cane) and without any crying involved. He told Santa he wanted a chair to sit in and a car that drives. Whew! We have both of those so Christmas should be simple this year.

Downtown

Our cheesy Twilight/gazebo pose-Jeremy chose not to turn me into a vampire that night; maybe another time if I'm lucky

Rotation Complete!

This handsome man finished his eighth and final rotation for school last week!

So while he went to beautiful (and cold) places like this

And this

I got to stay home with these two stinkers

I have been dreading these rotations since I learned about them. Eight, week long rotations without my husband from Sunday afternoon to late Friday night. How would I do it? I classify myself among the needy wives of the world. I love my husband, I love spending time with him one on one and I love to watch him play with our boys every day and to have family time. And he helps tremendously with everything.

But I must say that this has been really good for me. It showed me I could take care of our family and home by myself if I had to. But what also helped was knowing this was temporary, so I admire you lovely women out there whose husbands are gone a lot, a lot, a lot on a regular basis. I don't know how you do it but you are amazing! It's so great to have Jeremy home.

TWIN UPDATE

1. We decided on names-sweet! (They're not Hazel and/or Howard)

2. We bought and own two new infant car seats

3. Best news ever-I had an ultrasound last week, they measured them and they each weigh exactly the same (very uncommon esp. for boy/girl twins) at 3 lb 13 oz! They're 90th percentile HUGE for babies and looked super healthy and active in there. So we will for sure make our goal of 6 pounds each, hopefully even 7. The bigger, the better.

4. I'm now constantly enjoying super puffy calves, ankles and feet :)

29 hours

We left Friday at 2pm to go to Brimley and Sault Sainte Marie in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. It takes five long hours to drive there. We got back this evening at 7pm and out of the 29 hours we were gone we spent probably 13 or more hours in the car.

Jeremy has had over half of his rotations up there and we wanted to see it too.

The boys love sleeping in hotels and eating in restaurants so despite the long hours in the car they had fun

Scenic overlook

This is what Hyrum thinks of throwing rocks in Lake Superior in 40 degree weather and horridly cold wind

Hunter didn't want to leave despite the rest of us feeling slightly frost-bitten

Tree-climbing

I love, love, love this picture of Hyrum. I love his goofy faces and goofy smiles but I can't ever seem to get a "normal" picture of him where he actually looks like himself - today I did.

Speaking of goofy...

Happy HALLOWEEN!!!