Up in the Air

 Chris came home a little after one in the afternoon yesterday and told me he was laid off. I felt it in my bones all morning that it was going to happen but I didn't think it would come a few hours later. The only way I can describe the blow is the moment you first heard about September 11th. Shock. Sadness. Epicness (yeah, its a word) What does this mean? What are we going to do now? Why did this happen? Thinking about Chris being home with me was awesome, and then I would remember why, and my heart would sting. The only thing worse than Chris telling me he was laid off was thinking about him sitting in the chair across from his boss as he read the letter, "your position with University of Phoenix is being eliminated in order to align expenses with revenue projections and organizational goal."

5 years. His work anniversary was the same as our anniversary. It was a roller coaster ride of good and bad times but overall I loved UOP. Chris went to Top Performers 3 times in a row. Paid tuition. Health benefits. 401k contributions. Vacation and sick days... JOB SECURITY! That's always what I said before when I would tick off all the reasons we've stayed with the company so long.

We're staying positive and realistic. This is a great opportunity for us, and Chris has so much experience and talents we know and have faith that we will be just fine. We've already contacted our ward employment specialist and he's a fantastic resource. Even though our move to Colorado was the nail in our UOP coffin I'm so grateful to be living here. Without UOP my dream of living somewhere other than Arizona would never have happened. We have so much to be grateful for. 4 healthy kids. An amazing marriage. A kick-trash-awesome family and friends. The gospel. Facebook. My life is good. My heart and prayers are with the other 700ish laid off employees.

I was planning on blogging about the amazing Thanksgiving we had yesterday but it (blogging) just didn't seem so important anymore. Then today I kept debating should I blog? Should I continue on blogging and not mention this? Why is blogging even on my mind right now anyway?! So I decided to carry on and not to let this weigh me down (as much as I want to eat chocolate cake and watch movies all day).

Anyway, here's a couple pictures from our "We Rocked it like Plymouth Thanksgiving" just to hold you over till I report on the whole thing.

DAY ONE

 

DAY TWO

DAY THREE

 

DAY FOUR

Thank you Molly and Beth for bringing your families to visit us. It was such a blast being with you again. Our basement is always open. Miss you!

At 3:43pm, 7 years ago, I gave birth to my first baby. It was a LOOOONG 13 hour natural labor, with 3 hours of pushing. I was so grateful when she was finally here! We were 90% sure of naming her Cecily but when she came out blond we I thought she wasn't Cecily but a Jocelyn. She's been a joy in our life and makes me laugh every day with her whitty sense of humor (just like her daddy).

I've been a naughty blogger this week. I've been getting the house ready for Thanksgiving visitors, planning and executing a Relief Society Activity, and planning Jocelyn's birthday. We had such a busy weekend with an even busier couple more days as I work on school and clean the house. So I probably won't be blogging till the 29th.

Happy Katerans' Day!

Last year it snowed 10 days after moving here to Colorado. So since the beginning of October we have been waiting for it to snow. We waited, then Halloween came and we were still waiting. We kept checking the 10-day weather forecast and it said it would snow on our anniversary and then it changed to my birthday! I couldn't wait! Then it said it was supposed to snow on Tuesday and I said, nope only on my birthday. Well, 8ish Wednesday night it started to snow and I was just fine with that cause I was hoping it would snow so much I would get a snow day with Chris and the kids. (side story: growing up my mom always told me we had no school because everyone was celebrating my birthday. I always loved that!) Snow Day didn't happen but let me tell you coming downstairs and looking out the window and seeing this....

...my day was already awesome!

I was in a rush getting the kids off to school and Jocelyn told me I needed to check my desk. I had a dozen roses and a couple cards waiting for me. Cecily was ever singing Happy Birthday to me, all sorts of creative versions of the song. At 11:11am Chris sent me a bunch of happy birthday emails.

Chris came home early and we hung out and played in the snow till we went to dinner. 

 Chris told me I had to wear this feather boa and party hat. Chris had given me my present a month before (a trip away to Mesa for a visit). The kids got me pajama pants, slippers, necklace and fuzzy toy thing.

When we got home we had pumpkin pie (tradition started by my mom to give me pumpkin pie instead of cake on my birthday) and called it good.

 Thank you Chris for making my birthday so special! Next year my birthday will be 11 11 11 so we're trying to think of some cool things to do as a family for the awesome date/birthday celebration.

weekend recap

Chris and I had a fabulous weekend! Chris surprised me with a back massage at massage envy. It was amazing and I was so grateful for it. Then we spent the rest of the day organizing, hanging curtains, and cleaning. Here's my transformed front room. I'm pretty much in love with it. I'm working on my master bedroom right now. We're still trying to decide how to arrange the girls. If we want them to continue to share a room or if they each will have their own room.

Chris took me to the fanciest restaurant I have ever been to in my life. We had Macaroni and Cheese with Lobster (I could have eaten a bucket of it, so buttery and delicious!) Then I got a steak with grits and spinich and Chris got some sampler with red deer, steak and lamb. Everything was so tasty!

Then after ordering dessert (chocolate raviolis and pumpkin bread pudding) I checked my phone and saw I had a text from Fiona's babysitter. She had texted me almost an hour before saying that Fiona hadn't stopped crying since we dropped her off. It was not 7pm and we dropped her off at 5:30pm so I called and she was still crying! We told them to wrap up the dessert so we could rescue our sitter from our little princess. (We stopped to get a picture with the beautiful lights already up in Downtown).

Looks like Fiona is determined to ruin every date. The time we did have alone and out of the house was fantastic and thanks Alyssa for taking care of Fiona!

Sunday before Church we noticed that it was stormy in the front yard and in the back it was still calm. By the time I got the photo of the back yard the wind was picking up and you can see the line of the storm making it over. Still, this is the perfect example of how weather in Colorado is.

Fiona is getting pretty good at crawling. She's attracted to anything black (she got that from me) and will follow the cable cord as far as she can. She always feels betrayed when it leads her to a dead end and she can't get out.

Ocho anos

The part I remember the most about my wedding day was when my bridesmaid Elisa was doing my hair and Chris called me. He was getting ready to go drop his truck off to get fixed up before we headed off on our honeymoon. He called just to tell me he couldn't wait to marry me, he wasn't nervous, and he knew he was making the best decision of his life.

It was a beautiful day, filled with great people, autumn decor, and lots of kisses.

Random Friday

- I am addicted to amazon! I spent all weekend organizing the basement and going through stuff to give away, and stuff to try to sell. I got it all listed and guess what...?! I've sold everything but 1 thing. I decided to try some bigger items so wish me luck! So far I've sold over $100 worth of stuff.

-This may be under the category of TMI but when Fiona is done eating she used to start doing raspberries. So cute! And her face of concentration while she blew spit/milk everywhere was endearing. Now she just bites down and then I say, "You're done!!!!" She may get bottle fed sooner than I had planned.

-We made THESE for dinner last night. Turned out pretty dang awesome. I added banana and pecans to mine and it was yummy!

- The girls school had a family movie night at their school. They sold concessions and everyone wore pjs and brought pillows and sleeping bags to the gym and watched toy story 3. It was a lot of fun! I love my girls school!

-Here's a photo from our ward's trunk-or-treat. Remember that awesome haunted house I told you about? They took this photo of my group at the beginning. This is me trying to look like a scared pirate... actually I don't know what I'm doing but check out Fiona, she's looking at me like "Mom!? You're the only one making a face!!!! How embarrassing!" Get used to it Finn. But that's our bishop in the pirate outfit and one of the counselors in jail behind me. Good times!

-This weekend I have plans of finishing up organizing the basement and getting it ready for our Thanksgiving visitors. {Super giddy face!!!}

-Fiona is a professional army crawler now. She's getting pretty fast too. Today she crawled between a shelf and basket and couldn't back out of it. Her toys aren't fun anymore now that she can go after funner (oh wait, that's not a word...) stuff we don't want her to play with.

-Here's a weird question to ponder on. If you were to be cremated, where would you have your ashes scattered? Chris's friend manager's mother-in-law passed away two weeks ago. We were talking about going to Italy together but they are going next year with friend's father-in-law to scatter her ashes there for what would have been their 10th anniversary and they had plans on going. I thought this was very romantic (in an Anne Shirley way).  Sooooo... where would I scatter mine? I would have mine scattered at my family cabin in Heber. That's what I decided.

-The other part that's awesome about this weekend is it's our 8th anniversary! I told Chris he didn't have to get me anything but just to plan the date. I can't wait! I'll post more of our anniversary later.;)

-Fiona plopped out of her bumbo the other day. Right out onto the counter. I was cooking dinner and next thing I hear is a thump! and turn around and she's already on her belly and getting ready to crawl. It took Asher till he was 8months to figure out how to get out of it! It was nice while it lasted. So I went and got a high chair today. I got it off craigslist and when I told the people I had 4 kids they FLIPPED OUT! Seriously, you would have thought I told these people I won the lottery. They were totally nice about it, it was really funny! So goodbye bumbo, you've been good to us.

-Did I tell you I decided to keep the couch? Yeah, we're keeping it. I arranged the room and we're hanging up some curtains tomorrow (that I should have hung up last year). I found a set of 3 rugs at Big Lots for $60 bucks and the room looks awesome! I just need to paint the mirror that's been sitting on the ground in there for the past year. It feels good to be settling into the house a bit more now that we decided to stay here awhile.

Welp... that's it folks! Have a great weekend. I know I will. (wink wink)

Tylenol PM

I have been called many things but recently I've been called a "tylenol pm pusher". Which I totally am! It saved me during my last two pregnancies. After having Fiona I've been too scared to go off it, just taking one pill a night. I've got 4 kids, and I'm a B&#%*! when I don't get a full nights sleep so I never wanted to risk going a night without it. I could lay in bed till 2am and be tired out of my mind but my brain will not relax. I don't know what made me do it but I went one night with no pm. I went RIGHT to sleep. I've now been 3 nights sober and it feels good. I don't wake up groggy like I do when I take it. And I have been able to go right to sleep every night. {Fiona waking up every hour the past month probably helps.}

well.... that's really all I got today. Oh I tried THIS recipe and we liked it. I recommend it cause it's good AND easy!

And remember to give your loved ones a hug and tell them you love them cause you never know... life is too fragile. 

NOVEMBER!!!!

It is officially my favorite month of the year. What's crazy is it seems I just got the hang of remembering to write 2010 on everything instead of 2009 and I only have 2 months left before I have to remember that it's 2011. This is my month. The month my scorpio is in full force. The month I was born, the month I got married, the month I had my first baby, the month with my favorite holiday.... I LOVE NOVEMBER!

It didn't snow on Halloween like it usually does here. In fact it's sunny days for at least the next week and 60ish degrees. It's beautiful here! We celebrated Halloween on Saturday. We took pictures (which were later ruined due to a bad card) and went to our wards super-di-duper trunk-or-treat! Chris stayed home with the boy because he's too stressful at these type of functions and he has more fun having man-time than anything else anyway. (we did wake up to him yelling "gogchlet!" at our bedroom door Sunday morning though.)

Cecily did awesome at the balloon dart game. She popped 4 balloons with 3 darts. Everyone was impressed. And I was really impressed with how awesome a trunk-or-treat is! It's so easy and little walking. I loved it! (didn't get any pictures though!) And my Relief Society put together an AWESOME haunted house. (Remember me mentioning how fantastic my RS president is?!) I wish I took photos but it was just the right amount of scary for my girls.

Since the memory card got ruined after church we dressed the kids up again and took photos.

Today has been a crazy day, full of school and broken dryers. I spent an hour at a laundry mat here and I'm hoping to never do it again.

Hope you have a GREAT week!

ps: for those who want to print this for their records...