Thankful

It would take me hours to list all of the things I'm grateful for, so I'll just mention a few that have been on my mind lately. First is my Savior and the Gospel in my life. I can't imagine not having that anchor in my life to help me make decisions - both big decisions and little, every day decisions. Second, is family. Alan and I both have such supportive and loving families. I've been blessed with a wonderful husband who treats me like a queen and the sweetest, funniest little boy in the world. And third, I'm so grateful to be a stay-at-home mom. I ache for little kids who spend every day at day care and only see their parents for a couple of hours at night. Of course, there are times when that is necessary. I'm just so grateful that it's not necessary for us.

We spent a very nice Thanksgiving with some of Alan's family and some good friends this year. Alan and I started out the day with a race. We ran the Give n' Gobble 10k here in Sherwood. It was cold for here (32 degrees), but that didn't stop about 1,500 of us from getting out there. At least Alan and I weren't like the crazies who pushed their poor, little kids in strollers in the cold. It was a hard, hilly course and neither of us got awesome times. Racing is fun though and it was a good way to start out a holiday.




Spencer got to stay nice and warm at Grandma's. Thanks Debbie! He helped put the marshmallows in the frog-eye salad and got to eat his favorite snack - fruit snacks!







After Alan and I got cleaned up, we headed back over to his parent's house. Spencer loves jumping off this step, especially if he can convince someone to jump with him.




Our friends Todd, Nicole, Haley and James got to join us for Thanksgiving this year. We were so glad they came and brought the best pumpkin pie I've ever tasted! Spencer and Haley got their own table. I think Spencer was too thrilled to eat. He hardly touched his dinner.




Here are most of us after eating a delicious feast. I didn't even catch the sweet potatoes on fire this year! Starting from the left and going around the table are Teri, Clara, Grandpa Larsen, Grandma Larsen, Maren, Todd, Nicole and Debbie. Missing are Darwin, Alan's Uncle Jim and Alan who were starting the dishes. Alan's family has an awesome tradition of the guys doing the dishes after big dinners.




We had planned to leave for Lincoln City after dinner, but decided to visit Alan's other Grandma in the hospital instead. She's very sick and probably won't be around much longer. She loved Spencer and seemed so touched that we came. I'm really glad we went.

We left for the coast first thing Friday morning. I hit the sales at the outlet mall while Alan and Spencer hung out and watched football at the beach house. Spencer thought this Uno Attack game was the coolest game ever. He got so surprised every time the cards shot out.




This is what Alan looks like after watching too much football. :)




Friday was quite rainy and we spent most of the day relaxing at the house, but Saturday morning was gorgeous. It was much warmer at the coast than in Portland. We went down to the beach for a little while. Spencer was a little disappointed that it was too cool for a picnic, but had a fun time playing in the sand anyway. For some reason, Spencer has never liked towers. He crashes every block tower I try to build before I get more than 4 or 5 blocks stacked and he smashed Alan's sandcastles as soon as Alan took the bucket off. I thought little boys were supposed to like building towers?




Notice the shadows. The sun was out! (For a few minutes. We had a hail storm as we were leaving town a couple of ours later.)







It didn't take long before he was sitting in the cold, wet sand. His silly mom didn't pack him an extra pair of pants, so it was a good thing I had found a good deal on some new ones at Old Navy the day before.




Thanksgiving was such a nice, little vacation and a reminder of all of the blessings we have. Spencer and I LOVE having Alan around all day! I do have to say that I'll be somewhat glad to get back to our normal routine tomorrow. Spencer gets pretty grouchy when his routine is all out of whack. He was mad about having to get ready for bed tonight and told us in a grumpy voice, "I want to be a mean monster!" I had to turn away and bite my lip to keep from laughing in his face. Hopefully he'll wake up a cute, little boy instead of a mean monster!

First Snow

The first few snowflakes of the year fell last night during what the weather men are calling an "arctic storm." People certainly freak out about snowy weather a lot more in Oregon than in the two other more snowy places I've lived. This is all it took to get nearly every school district in the entire Portland area shut down for the day:



Pretty crazy that that little skiff of snow can shut down a city. Spencer and I still ventured out for story time this morning and the worst part was trying to get the frozen passenger side door open.

Apparently Spencer is over his anti-picture phase because he insisted on being included this morning. What a fake smile!




Of course, we had to get a picture with his race car too.

Turkeys

We've had fun doing a few Thanksgiving crafts for FHE this month. I know, shocking that I've been crafting. These little preschool crafts are right at my ability level though. :)

This was the standard paper hand turkey. Spencer's not much for gluing yet, but googly eyes make any project awesome.








We also made this apple turkey. I remember making these as a little girl. Spencer is a marshmallow fanatic, so this one was a hit.







Lastly, I made a Thanksgiving bingo game with cute clip art. That has been a fun way to teach Spencer a little about what Thanksgiving is about. He's really into games right now and loves to cheer, "BINGO!" when he wins.




Now we're ready for some real turkey. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Success!

After a week of sitting on the potty without anything happening, I was ready to call it quits until after Christmas. Then, I had a weird dream involving Spencer and a urinal that gave me an idea. The next day I asked Spencer if he wanted to do "wets" standing up. He said, "yes!" and marched right to his little potty and went! I wish I could have gotten a picture of the triumph on his face. He was SO proud of himself. We all jumped up and down and cheered. It was awesome! Spencer loves doing a potty dance and getting a fruit snack after every time he goes. He even shares a fruit snack with me once in a while. ;)

He has been doing well with it all week. Having him stand up is certainly messy, but I'd be dealing with that at some point anyway. Now, I have to figure out how to get him to wear a pull-ups or underwear so being wet won't be quite so comfortable. I think his diapers might just have to disappear after Thanksgiving.

Food Rules

This book was recommended to me by a chiropractor in our ward who specializes in diet and how it affects the body. I was skeptical starting out, but have to admit that this book has seriously changed the way I think about food. There are three parts:

Part I
What should I eat?
(Eat food - not just food products.)

Part II
What kind of food should I eat?
(Mostly plants.)

Part III
How should I eat?
(Not too much.)

Eating organic, whole foods is HUGE in Oregon. I thought it was rather silly when we first moved here, but am starting to get converted. I'm fortunate to live in a place where it's easy and inexpensive to find fresh, local produce. Organic food is also easy to find, but not inexpensive. Changing the way we eat is going to be a process - it won't happen very quickly. Now that I have these rules to go by, however, I can start making little changes. Starting with less sugar. It's sad that nearly every processed food, no matter what it is, has some form of sugar in it. I'm going to be buying less processed food and more produce.

I won't bore you with a lot of details about this book, but I highly recommend it if you want to start eating healthier. It's written as 64 food rules and is a very quick read without a lot of technical lingo.

A start

Last week I decided it was time to try potty training. I wasn't sure if Spencer was ready, but wanted to find out. We had a "potty party" with salty snacks, apple juice, big boy underwear, and pull-ups. Even though Spencer picked out the underwear and was so excited that Thomas the Train and Lightning McQueen were on them, when it came down to it, there was no way he was putting them on. We settled for letting two of his teddy bears wear some instead.

The success of the day was that I did get Spencer to sit on the potty about a billion times as long as he got a fruit snack each time. He'll do almost anything for fruit snacks. He's pretty adamant that he'll only do "wets" in his diaper though.

Today I pulled out the "Danny and Camden are big boys. They do wets in the potty. Don't you want to be a big boy too?" card. Spencer's reply was, "No, I want to be a little boy instead." I think we have a long way to go. :)

He did change his teddy's diapers and even let one sit on his potty the other day though. At least he's thinking about it.




Any ideas or advice on potty training is welcome!