Thanksgiving Day

What a beautiful day to celebrate our blessings!

I am so grateful for my kind in-laws who hosted us. 

Grateful for my little crew, grateful for their various personalities strengths and challenges. Marriage and motherhood have challenged me to my core but other than being born into a loving family, they are my greatest blessings.

Grateful for Soren's fun expressiveness, and enthusiasm. He makes life so fun.

Grateful for Byron's curiosity and appreciation for the simple wonders of life.
He helps me notice things.

 He makes life so interesting.

Grateful for Miriam's empathetic heart and determination to make a difference in this world.  I think she inherited both Grandma Ray's sensitive heart, and Grandma Rasmussen's grit and work ethic.

She pushes me to be a better person.

Just as we sat down to eat, Cameron and Danielle showed up which we were so happy about! We don't get to see them very often. Darin's parents gave up their seats at the "big people table" and joined the kids.  The conversation that ensued from that table was so sweet.  I am so grateful for the loving and kind grandparents my kids get to have. My mother-in-law is the best at stopping to really listen to all her grandchildren.  She asks questions and softly encourages them.  She inspires me to be a more patient loving mother.  My father-in-law makes every trip to visit so interesting.  He shares his talents and hobbies with us, plays unique music, and makes us all laugh with his grandpa jokes. They give us the gift of time and attention which I am realizing more and more is a precious commodity.

I am determined to play more games with my kids. I am so good at getting my kids out to be active; parks riding bikes, hiking.... that is my gig, I love doing that.  Playing card and board games though....that is rough for me, I am not patient with it, and it always seems to take so much energy to get going.  I do believe that it is good for families to play together though.  Also, my kiddos have inherited big emotions from both sides of the family that they need to learn how to manage.  

This was a good first attempt.  Miriam wasn't interested, and poor little B got sick after dinner but Cameron, Soren, Darin and I had a good time learning a new game. 

So grateful for the dessert selections, and a little dose of caffeine to power through the evening. 

The kids found lots of fun toys games and creative way to entertain themselves over the 2 days we were there. Grateful for the memories that were made.

Grateful to have a date night with my favorite blessing. 

It is a wonderful life.  It's not an easy life, but it is wonderful.

Thanksgiving Eve

Thanksgiving is off to a good start because we have already enjoyed pumpkin pie! I signed up to bring a pie for Soren's class party and my own class feast...then there were left overs.  

Hooray for school parties!

Cousins shared some of their BYU football tickets with the boys last week, gotta be grateful about that.  So kind of them to share!

While the boys were getting some male bonding time, Miriam and I went to my Uncle Damon and Aunt Gwen's Charlie Brown Christmas celebration.  This is where they unveil their Christmas village and train set.  Really should have stopped eating treats for a second to get my phone out but between chatting with Jared and Julia and eating treats it just didn't happen. 

I am so looking forward to a relaxed Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow.  So grateful for family, and time to be together.

The In-Between Weeks

Darin and I met up with some friends to see the documentary Embrace. It's a film about body acceptance for women, but so good for men to see it as well...especially fathers of daughters.   I will be for ever grateful for friends who are such a inspiration and strength to me. I don't think it's any coincidence that they have very cool husbands as well.

 

I am not going to lie, this whole job thing is hard.  I know, I know, I know...I shouldn't complain because there are women who actually work whole 8 hour days (and longer) but my reality is that it is hard. I get immense satisfaction from my job and am happy I found it, but it's still hard. I am tired. The silver lining is that when the kids get grumpy on Sunday night and say they don't want to go back to school I can commiserate right along with them "me either!! Nevertheless we will go!".  I am already so attached to my classroom kids though...I don't know if I could bear not to go to work.

I love seeing my boys at first recess and again at lunch.  Soren has this darling ritual of waiting for a little girl named Sloan to get through the line (he always has home lunch, she gets school) he makes sure she sits down and then he opens her milk for her. At recess Soren, Byron and B's friend Weston run over to see what my classroom kids and I are doing.  Sometimes they play basketball with some of my students.  I feel so lucky to see these moments first hand.

SEP's were so so so good, and again this year I am blown away in gratitude for my kids teachers.  I could feel Byron and Soren's self-esteem increasing as their teachers praised them in front of us.  Byron was SO nervous about the Chinese part, knowing he would need to present to us in Chinese.  His teacher just said she couldn't believe this was only his second year and told him he was a very bright kid. I was really worried about Soren's report but we got nothing but rave reviews about what kind of student he is.  He many not like school, but school seems to like him.
Whew! So we will keep on keeping on!

The best place to celebrate Veteran's Day is an elementary school. Wow, the feels. I usually celebrate by seeing all the patriotic posts on FB but this year there was music, a photo presentation, and real life experiences shared by a soldier.

Other than that nothing to note except a fun family hike up Holbrok Canyon

and an amazing sunset on Sunday night....

with a super moon to end the weekend with.

We didn't get a good photo of it....but we saw it! We experienced the super moon of 2016!

2016-2017

2016-2017 School Year

Our big bad Jr. Higher

Smack dab in the middle 3rd grader

Can't believe I have NO kids at home 1st grader.

Halloween Weekend 2016

Friday right after school was Miriam's first school dance (first that she attended).

She was so nervous but ended up having such a good time she says she will go to them all from now on.

On our way to ballroom and martial arts classes we met up with Craig and Lisa at Smokin' Bones.  Fantastic BBQ with the best possible people.  

Saturday we had our Ray Girls Witches Lunch/baby shower for Alicia. So fun to be with family, laughing and enjoying each other...plus meeting some of Alicia's friends.  The food was wonderful thanks to Kneaders and Cheryl, who treated us all.  I took photos for Alicia, but didn't snap any on my phone...so no photo documentation until that evening when we went to our favorite Indian restaurant. Too much laughter....too much good food but never enough time.

The boys, as per tradition went out to eat but also stopped by the Farmington Bay bird refuge. 

Sunday the above crew gathered again to finish off all of the left overs from the shower then everyone had to head back to real life.

Except for us, we needed to stay home to get Halloween taken care of!

We needed to carve pumpkins, alter Aunt Julia's genie costume for Miriam (my mom made it for her when she was in middle school), and although Soren had decided to go as Dracula (my brother Erik's childhood costume...again made by my mom) Byron hadn't even decided what he wanted to be!

Sunday, Halloween eve and we are still deciding what to be....now that is an old fashioned Halloween.

After an earlier Target run, Craig and Emily surprised Soren with some vampire makeup, blood and teeth.  I think that may have swayed the vote and eventually B decided to be a vampire as well.  That meant a bazillion safety pins on an adult cape, but easy peasy other than that. I am not going to lie though...all three of them cried at one point or another that day over costume or pumpkin crisis.  I almost called off Halloween...but then there would be no candy for me to sneak so we forged ahead.

Shazam...Jack-O-Lanterns finished!

I spent Halloween day dressed up as a crossing guard, but really actually being a crossing guard for a corporate trick-or-treat party. It was hard not to be helping my kiddos get ready, but I love working these parties.

Darin took over getting the boys vamped out and started them Trick-or-Treating around our hood.

They looked fantastic! I think they loved those capes more than anything...and the blood! 

One quick shoe change....

Perfection. 

Byron makes one happy blood sucker.

Miriam's friend's big sister stepped in to get M ready for the night (a little above Darin's skill level). The girls went trick-or-treating for half the night and then went to a party for the tail end.  

The haul!

Except for M's...when she got home it was straight to bed...no sorting or trading till Tuesday after school.

And man oh man that Tuesday was rough. None of us wanted to go back to school or work but, look at us...all doing hard things and pushing though it. Thank heavens it's a short week!