Happy Thanksgiving!

Howdy all!  I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We had a wonderful time here, and we even started our morning off with a 5k!  We took both the kids with us, and this was Winry's first run without crying!  I guess feeding her right before we started probably helped!  It was a cold morning, but we bundled up the kids and everyone had a wonderful time, and we ran the whole way!  It was a little rough at times as this is the biggest race of the year, and they funneled us onto a sidewalk, which made passing people quite bumpy in the grass, but we all made it through.

I wasn't home for this, but Monica may add some details when she reads through this.  But I would guess that in this video Brooke is being a penguin!  I know Brooke will stick things in between her legs and waddle walk like a penguin with an egg, so that's my guess, but the dress definitely enhances things!

Also, Brooke has been loving her bike.  We've gone for rides a few times, and she's still very cautious and hasn't tried to take both feet of the ground, but she loves it and has a great time every time we go!

On Wednesday I went to grab the last of our Thanksgiving supplies, and as you'd guess it was nuts at the store.  There were super longs lines at all the checkouts... except for the self checkout.  I'm not sure why people fear this so much, but there was literally an open register to walk up and use while all the other lines were at least 6 people long...  I won't complain though, it was great to get out quick.

I spent most of the day Wednesday playing with the kids.  We were in the back yard a lot doing bubbles, popping them with a stick, and swinging.  Winry joined Brooke and me out there, and Brooke just loves to swing Winry.  Winry really loves when Brooke swings her too!  We had a whole bunch of fun all day long!

Winry has also started to pull herself up to standing!  She does this mostly on the couches, and I know you cant see her legs, but this picture was too cute to not be the example.  She is very different than Brooke, and she's definitely much more of a risk taker.

Thursday morning as mentioned we ran the Parker 5k!  It was a lot of fun, and we got these cool... things.  I don't know what they're called, but they were nice for keeping our faces warm, and they're also nice for running on dusty roads too!

We had a Friends-giving and had a bunch of other people who were staying in town over to our house.  In total we had 18 people, and it was pretty crazy, but a ton of fun!  I tried to get a panorama with everyone, but I apparently turned my phone too fast and it's a little blurry... Oh well, it is what it is.  Thanks everyone who came over, and thanks for the food you brought!  I think everyone had a great time, and the food was wonderful!

Also, Winry has started drinking from a cup recently.  I don't know if Thursday was actually the first time (it wasn't), but it's when I got a video.  She'll just drink and drink and drink and then suddenly come off and take super deep breaths!  I think it's so cute!!

Friday we headed out for some black Friday shopping.  We just went to Target, and we found some great hats right inside the door!  Winry really wanted it over her whole face so she could look like the Grinch.

Brooke was satisfied wearing her hat normally, and sure loves Rudolph!

Shopping was fine, nothing special or amazing.  I did get my shopping done for sub for Santa, so now I just need to see if work does it again this year!

Friday night was also the tree lighting downtown!  We went last year and really liked it, so we had to go again this year.  While we were there Brooke spied a Santa cutout to take a picture in, and then she made us get pictures in it too!  I'm glad she saw it.

The lights were very pretty, but I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of them.  Maybe we'll go back sometime so we can get some pictures.  The lights were very similar to last year, so if you look at those pictures it was probably about the same.  Oh, there was also Olaf and Elsa there, but the guy that was Olaf was like... 7 feet tall, so Brooke didn't want to go by them because he was too tall and scary...

This past week I've been reading in Alma when Ammon and his brothers/friends go on their mission to the Lamanites.  What has really stuck out to me was the righteousness of the Lamanites after they were converted.  As new converts to the Gospel it is easy to see that they were examples to all others.  They were true followers and disciples of Christ.  As I thought about their example I definitely spent time pondering how I could be more like them, and thinking about where their deep conversion came from.  I would encourage everyone to read about them (Alma ~20s).  I know that as we align our wills with God's, and strive to learn more about Him and follow his commandments that we will be able to have greater peace in this life.  Our doubts and troubles can be swallowed up in our joy in Christ, and our knowledge that through Him all things are possible.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Security, Mystery, St. Nicholas, and Krast-mit

Hey all!  I hope you're all doing great!  We had a pretty crazy week out here!  Brooke turned 3 and had a wonderful birthday!  And my phone just suddenly froze, died, and wouldn't turn back on again...  Here's Brooke with her cake, and she even blew out the candles all by herself!

It snowed on Monday, and Brooke and I took some time to go play together in the backyard in the morning.  While we were out the neighbors saw us out the window and got really excited, and I saw them pulling on snow clothes so I figured they'd come bursting out into the back yard any second.  However, when I left for work they'd shoveled our driveway!  Thanks Carruths!  I hope my kids love helping others that much!  Brooke really liked that idea, so she decided to finish shoveling our front walk way!

It's started to become Brooke's and my bedtime ritual to have her ride on my back everywhere we go, including from one side of her room to the other.  Winry really liked this, and decided to take her moosie pacifier around on her back too!  Ok, maybe I really put it there. 

Also, I think somewhere in here was when my phone died.  I was using it and the screen froze, so I held the power button and turned it off, and it never turned back on.  This meant I was back to my previous phone, and without a SIM card, so I was WiFi only...  Also, you'll probably be able to tell what pictures I took with that phone because they just don't look as nice.

Wednesday we had dentist appointments, and we brought Brooke and Winry along.  The dentist looked in Brooke's mouth and counted her teeth, and we even set up her own appointment for May!  She's really excited.  Also, they had a huge stuffed tooth brush in the kids waiting area, so she quickly brushed her teeth before going back.

On Thursday the kids had to get flu shots, and they did great.  Brooke didn't cry at all, and she was very excited to go to the doctor.  We've been doing checkups and giving each other flu shots for a month or more!  Winry cried when we laid her down before anything happened, so she did as good as expected.  Also on Thursday my new phone came!  Here it is!  Also, it's an international phone, so it came with a UK charger... but it also came with an adapter and it works great!

Thursday was also our house-iversary!  We've lived here for 4 years already!! Wow how the time has flown!  In typical celebration fashion we got Japanese take out, and I like to branch out and try a new sushi each time.  I'm slowly getting more adventurous.  We got these salmon sushi this time, and I think this might be as far as I go, and in fact, I might step back to rolls for a while.  It was fine, but I didn't like it as much.  Also, one of these got a bunch of ginger on it or something, and I don't really like the taste of ginger...  I'm still glad I tried it though! (P.S. it was smoked salmon, so this isn't actually raw)

Thursday night when we were getting ready for bed I was helping to keep Winry happy.  I was blowing on her toes.  She'd lift her feet up and wait for me, and once I blew on her toes she'd kick her legs down and kick me in the face.  She LOVED it!!

On Friday Brooke decided she wanted to make some Thanksgiving turkey cookies for our next door neighbors!  What a sweetie!  We tried to take them over, but they weren't home when we went by, so we saved them to try again later.  We ended up taking them over as soon as we got home from church today. She may have also eaten some in the process!

On Friday night after Brooke went to sleep we blew up a bunch of balloons for her birthday.  We threw them all into her room.  In the middle of the night we woke up to hearing her breathing really heavy/laughing with excitement over the monitor.  Then she started to say "It's so exciting, it's so exciting!!"  Fortunately she also went back to sleep on her own! She did tell us in the morning that she got up and kicked and kicked a balloon!

Saturday morning Brooke woke and came down the stairs to see PRESENTS!!  First and foremost being her new, awesome bike!  She even got to ride it around in the house a little.

Brooke really enjoyed opening presents, and I feel like this gif is a pretty good representation.

We let Brooke pick what she wanted to eat for all of her meals on her birthday to make it as special as possible.  For breakfast, fruit loop pancakes!  They were pretty good really, but the fruit loops get a little weird when cooked.  Brooke really liked it, and that's what was most important.  I liked them too, and I'm sure Monica loved them.

Brooke got a Sophia the first princess dress, as well as a book reader thing that can read the books it came with out loud.  She was having a lot of fun with them all morning.

In the early afternoon we had a birthday party!  It was Goldie and Bear themed!  We made fruit loops necklaces, did a ring toss, played pin the bow on goldie, had macaroni and cheese sandwiches, played a fishing game, sang happy birthday, and had cake and ice cream.  All very Goldie and Bear things!  Thank you everyone who came, Brooke had a wonderful time!

Winry was also having a great time during the party, and even donned a party hat!

And here we all are as a family right before we went to dinner!

For dinner Brooke wanted mac and cheese, and picked to go to Panera bread.  The food all comes with a baguette, and Brooke was really excited that Winry was eating a "bag-it."  Brooke has been "teaching" Winry about bag-its a lot lately.  This means that she says "I"m going to teach Winry about bag-it!", goes around a corner, then runs around right up to Winry and yells "BAG-IT" and then runs back behind the corner.  Winry LOVES this.

Also Brooke kept getting "cold" in the restaurant and had to go over the the fireplace to get warm.  She did this a lot.

You may have been wondering what the title of the post means.  Well, it's finally story time.  So Brooke has been calling Winry security for some time now.  We're not sure where it's come from, but it's her nick name I guess.  Sometime during dinner she decided to call me mystery and after dinner while we were walking to the car she decided that an appropriate nick name for Monica would be St. Nicholas.  So we asked her what her nick name was, and she said "Krast-mit..."  We were laughing so hard.  We're guessing she was shooting for Christmas, but that's not what she said.

Today Jelly took full advantage of all of the tissue paper from the presents.  She tried to dig in and sleep in the middle of it all, but knocked all of the paper above her off the table.  I wanted to clean up the tissue... but... nap time.

Also, today at church I set Winry down and she escaped!  She crawled straight over to another family we're friends with, and quickly found the phone!  What a sneak!

This past week being Brooke's birthday I've been thinking a bunch about how grateful I am to have her!  She is such a wonderful little girl!  I love her so much!  I'm so grateful for how helpful she always is, and how much fun we always have together.  I'm grateful to be, in her own words from today, her "best friend!"  I love her so much, and as sad as it is to see her grow up, I am so excited to watch her continue to grow and develop and can't wait to see where life takes her!  Thank you for being so wonderful Brooke!  I love you most, I love you more!

Uhh... We made sushi!!

Hey all!  Hope you're doing grand.  It's been a pretty nuts week, and I guess not picture-intense week.  We do have several cute pictures of our kids, but no real story to go with them, like this one of Winry, she's just being a cutie and playing in Brooke's room!  Also, this girl is (hopefully) mass teething this week!  I think both of her teeth broke through today, and I kinda hope we get a break before the next few come in.  She's been really sad and crying a bunch, mostly at night (also during the day, Alex just isn't home for it!!).  She'll get happy at various times during the day, but we haven't slept well for about 4 days now, and it's really starting to add up...  or maybe subtract down, I don't think this ends as a positive!  Anyway, she's doing great, and she went to bed no problem tonight, so hopefully her teeth pain is over for now.

Tuesday was election day, and Monica and I did our darndest to figure out who to vote for.  I think Monica said we lost all the big elections, but I don't actually remember, but at least we voiced our opinions.  Ah democracy, it's rather complicated, everyone seems to have something weird going on, and as soon as you feel good about someone, they lose... JUSTICE!  ;)

So, this past week Brooke put flamingo to bed in her bed, which you can see here, but really I got a picture of Brooke's new bed because I forgot to take a picture for like the last month!  I made this for her, and Monica painted and decorated it!  She loves her new bed!

On Friday night we had over some couples in the ward and made sushi!  It was a lot of fun!  Here's a caterpillar roll that Monica made!  I think everyone had a great time, and I think Monica and I definitely need to make sushi more, and probably experiment more with different kinds, etc.  After we'd all eaten our fill we then played Sushi Go Party!  Super great night!  Thanks for coming Cammacks and Dubois!

And that's basically the week.  Yeah, it was a pretty down week.  Lots of stuff happened.  Oh! I built a TV stand and wall mounted our TV to it to go in front of the treadmill.  That's been nice this past week as I did 3 of my runs down there at night.  Maybe I'll take a picture of that this next week.

Today was a little crazy at church.  Monica taught Gospel Principles because it was about family history (and that's her calling) and we had Winry and Brooke in there for a while.  Eventually I got Brooke to try out nursery if I stayed in there with her, and eventually I even got out too.  Anyway, in addition to all of that I don't know if my metabolism has been going crazy or what, but fasting is SO hard right now.  By 11-11:30 this morning I had no energy and even got dizzy a few times and had to sit down.  I was able to make it through church, but I had a pocket full of almonds just in case.  Anyway, with all the running around with kids and lack of energy church was kind of a blur this week, so I unfortunately don't really have something to report. 

In ward council today, which was one of the earliest things I did, we talked about the new Come, Follow Me program that is starting next week.  It was really great to talk about, and I am really excited to start the new curriculum.  We've been trying to make some changes to prepare, and I've been telling Brooke scripture stories at night before bed.  For the most part this has been going well, but it did have a rocky start.  The first night I told her about Daniel and the Lions Den.  The next night she didn't want to say her prayer at bed and I just figured it was because she was really tired, so I let her skip for the night.  The next night she said she didn't want to, and I told her she had to and she started crying.  I asked why and she said it was because she didn't want to be thrown into the lions den!  I felt so bad for her!  She was so worried she'd get thrown in like Daniel!  At least she was paying attention.  I explained that we don't have lions dens anymore to throw people in, and she's happily praying every night again and I'm being more careful with my story telling!

That's all I've got for this week.  Have a great week and we'll try to do something interesting so long as Winry sleeps well at night!

Trick or Treat

"You're welcome!!"  The islands and seas are doing well.  This past week we did some star navigating and island hopping to collect treats!  Brooke wanted to be Moana for Halloween!  It's a little hard to see since it was about 30 degrees when we went out trick or treating!!  So Brooke was in her winter clothes to stay warm the whole time.

Rewinding a few days we were all ourselves, so we went to Casa Mariachi for dinner!  Winry got to observe and try some fajitas and salsa and bean dip!  We also clipped her moose on to try to keep it off the floor.

On Tuesday  morning I Was trying to do some exercises and attracted a little bit of attention...  Everyone was having a lot of fun, and it sure made things more difficult.  I am a little surprised Jelly only watched instead of joining in the fun.

On Tuesday night it was finally time to clean up our leaf pile, and Brooke came out to help!  We got out there just a little too late as it started to rain just a few minutes before we started.  It didn't rain hard, but it was enough to make all the leaves stick to us a ton.  Also, Brooke kept jumping into the pile right before I could starting putting it into the bag, but in the end we got them all cleaned up and Brooke got to help smash down the leaves in the bag.

Wednesday was Halloween, and I started off with a picture of our costumes.  It was cold but we had a lot of fun, and Winry only came out for maybe the first 10 houses we went to, then Monica took her home.  Brooke and I again only went around the short loop of our neighborhood, and we still got all of this!!  Brooke's bag was full all the way to the top!  Also, we ended going down our street which cuts a loop in half, and I guess most people DON'T go down our street, so people were just emptying their bowls into Brookes bag!  It was intense.  Oh, and we also skipped all of the scary houses.

Monica needed to put in an order with Norwex this past week, and decided to add a special something for Brooke.  There is a deal going right now with a pink pig towel, and every time Brooke sees Monica's specials ad for it she asks if we can get it, so Monica tacked one on, and Brooke was ecstatic!  So that's of course up in the bathroom now, though Brooke does worry about where her bear towel will go.

On Thursday when I got home from work I walked in and Brooke said "Hi, King dad!"  Turns out she was giving Winry a crown earlier (recreated below) and they were being princesses and queens!

In other big news I took Brooke to the park today, and she went down the twisty slide on her own!  I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, but the last time we came to this park she wouldn't go down the smallest slide by herself... and today she went on the biggest one!  She was having SOO much fun too.  It was awesome.

Today we had a stake conference, and they shared President Nelson's tweet from this past week.  If, like me, you missed that, he said "We are witnesses to the process of restoration. If you think the Church is fully restored, you’re just seeing the beginning. There’s much more to come. Wait until next year, and then the next year. Eat your vitamins, get your rest. It’s going to be exciting!" Wow... I just don't even know what to expect...  In our conference they talked a lot about the new changes, both the benefits that have been seen in ministering as well as the up and coming change to 2 hours of church.  Elder Holland made the point that there are 168 hours in a week, so if you're in church for 2 or 3, it's not much of a difference in the whole week.  What's more important is what you're doing with the 165 other hours.  Times are definitely changing, and it would appear there are more changes to come, so it's definitely time to step up and strive to make the most of every minute we have!  I encourage you to set a goal of something you will work on to better remember Christ and follow his gospel throughout the week.

Everyone have a great week!