Thanksgiving 2012

Some times I wish I was a better story teller. I have always wanted to be that lady that tells the stories of her life. Well here is my story of Thanksgiving 2012.

I just love Thanksgiving. It is my most favorite holiday. I just love getting together with family and friends to cook a huge meal and eat too much food and talk about the things we are thankful for. So fun.

On November 22, 2012

I woke up early before anyone else made me some coffee to enjoy in the quiet morning before my boys got up. I was so excited to get the day going and of course I had some serious cleaning to do. Who would not have that kind of cleaning with 2 1/2 year old twins. I have serious cleaning daily. but oh well I love them.

First we had my Mom and Dads dog Tubby over for the weekend. The night before he had a hard time getting comfortable. You know how it is staying over at someones home. I voiced my concern to Patrick and he said he will figure it out. Thanksgiving morning I found him in bed with the boys. He is a huge tubby black lab I think he took up 2/3rds of the bed. The boys were squished up top but did not seem to mind.

The second thing that happened and was fun to watch, the neighbors whom have a billion horses. Had a break out 4 horses running free as the wind right through our front yard. It is great to see horses in full gallop. I watched for a bit to see if neighbors  knew they were out and no movement and the horses made it back to there home to eat the food that was out for them. I got dressed and headed out in the blistery cold and windy morning. Well as windy as it gets in our little town and really it is never too cold the snow only stays for a day, but if I want to be a good story teller I am going to have to exaggerate a little. Right?

Third Mom and Dad were out of town for Thanksgiving this year so I had to take care of her animals so I headed down to their house to feed. things were good there. Except that they were not home oh and the  fridge stunk like who knows what and there  was nothing in it to skife witch is part of the fun when taking care of the animals.

When I got back home I got started on my cleaning project to get ready for when everyone was coming over. In the process of cleaning the bathroom I realized that the spare bath toilet did not flush well. Now at this time I have to give you a back story so that you understand my demise when finding a slow toilet. The week before Thanksgiving we has the same problem but it was little worse the tub was backing up and so was the sink. Yuck and it stunk too. Well we had the idea to snake the pipe and when we did this it caused both the bathrooms to have this problem. So the next day I had my father-in-law come and help me and with brain storming and process of elimination we decided we needed to cut a pipe under the house because snaking was making the problem worse. Well you know how little kids are when your potty training they just love to flush the toilet and see the water go down. Then they figure out all the things they should not be flushing down the toilet. well after having my husband and father-in-law crawl under the house to decide where to cut the pipe and get the clog out. Yep you guessed it it had a wad of treasure's that do not belong in the toilet. I was worried that we were going to have to do this all over again on my favorite holiday Thanksgiving day. Well my husband came to the rescue and took the toilet off and started to dig in the toilet itself we found a toy train, a sock, a half used bar of soap and of course the things that come out of our rear ends and what you use to clean your rear end. Oh what a fun way to start thanksgiving.

Turkey turned out beautiful so I had to take a picture.

 

 

We got the turkey in and things were going good we were getting the food out and moving in good time as if we do this daily, it was moving so smooth. Patrick turned on the kitchen sink to wash off his hands and asked if we had water on somewhere. I told him no. He headed off to get in the shower. And would you know it my father-in-law comes in the house to tell me we have a broken pipe. I headed out to investigate. You remember the beautiful horses. Yup they broke a pipe and we did not realise it until it was just about time to eat. I told Patrick as he was getting out of the shower so off went the water in the middle of cooking. Now how inconvenient is that?

Well while Patrick and his dad were fixing the pipe he needed to go to my Mom and Dads house to borrow pipe glue. He took Gabriel, Katie and Tubby with him. They got it done and we had dinner done by the time they were finished. We all sat down and ate yummy food and talked about what we were thankful for. I am thankful for so much I have to do a whole other post for that. I was wondering where the dogs were while we were eating out yummy dinner and why they were not right there with us. Well my nephew Jordan pointed out that Katie was hanging out under the table. Where was tubby? I was so stressed because my Mom just lost a dog not long ago that just wandered off. So I finished my candy yams and headed off to find him. I walk out hollered for him. There was no sign so I got the keys to the car and was headed down to my Moms to see if he was there. I got in the car rolled down the window. Put the car in reverse to back out a looked over my shoulder to make sure I did not hit anything and there he was napping in the back seat of the car. He informed me the best way a dog knows how that Patrick did not open the door for him and let him out when they got home. He came right into the house and joined in on the festivities.

I do have to say it was a great and memorable Thanksgiving. THE BEST HOLIDAY EVER!

Save-A-Sister

Another 5K. We did The Save-a-Sister 5K last year and it was fun but kinda hard. This year it was so fun and I am so glad we did it again. This year Jamie had a headache. I am pretty sure she had one last year too. But last year we walked it. We were given a tag that states who you run for. We ran for Great Aunt Donna, she passed away from breast cancer. 2 survivors Aunt Colleen and my Step-Mom Bonnie.

Before. Todd, Jamie, Mom, Me and Julie.

During our run my friend Todd Wilson was there. We saw him last year also. He is a funny man. He did pretty good at running the save-a-sister. He won his entry on the radio. When we finished we looked to see how we did and he came in 3rd for the 10k. Too funny he only ran the 5k so he had to go tell them he did not win. But we had fun joking about a fit young guy being mad that a FAT guy beat him in the 10K.

after, Jamie, Mom, Me, Todd and Julie

This year not a lot of people ran it. I sure enjoyed it. Jamie has been running and she is quite competitive even though she says she is not. Well she ran and was doing well she was way ahead of me. When I got toward the end I got a second wind. I saw her ahead of me and I thought I can do this. So I caught  her and PASSED her right before the finish. I yelled WAHOOOOOOO!!!! as I passed her and laughed. I loved it. I would share that picture if I could figure how to rotate them.

Color Me Rad

Oh my this was such a fun run. I do have to say I made my goal I ran the whole thing. Very slow! We started the race in white shirts and clean and when we were done we were covered with color. It was so fun. AND I DID IT! I made my new years resolution for 2012. I ran without taking a walk break a full 5K. I think this was a good one to do this on because I will not for get it because it is a different one. I will always remember the first 5K I ran from start to finish was this VERY RAD race!

Ginny, Emily, Jamie, Ruth, ?, Janet, Heidi, Me and up front Madi

Halloween 2012

The weekend before Halloween Patrick helped the boys carve the pumpkins. The boys colored on them first. Patrick cut the tops off and the boys helped get all the inners out out. I roasted the seeds for the first time. They turned out good and the boys loved eating them.

 

This year we decided that we would use the costumes we already owned and  borrow some from Jamie. It was so fun taking the boys trick-or-treating with Jamie and her family. At first Gabriel did not want to get all dressed up. It took some convincing but he finally put on the costume. Foster costume was a little small but cute anyway. They quickly got the hang of it. I took the opportunity to have them say thank you to everyone and learn to only take one. When it started to get dark Gabriel was afraid. He did not like the Halloween decorations. We went for about an hour then the boys were done.

 

Fitness

My mom gave me a Fitness Magazine. I love to read magazines from start to finish. I saw this contest in this magazine on how to win a car. Called The Face of Fitness. Fun I thought. I am entering this and I am going to tell Jamie to enter also. So I entered it and a week later the voting started.I asked all my Facebook friends to vote for me and very unexpectedly before voting started but after I had entered Patrick was in a car accident, a roll over, our car that has been paid off for years and has been a good car is now a total loss.
I think it would have been so awesome to have won this contest to replace the car. My mom always say you can not win if you do not play. It was fun to enter the contest and asked people to vote for me. I enjoyed checking on my place I was in. I fell behind for only a day then people upped and I moved forward. It was so exciting. In  final I took 25th place. You know that not too bad if compared to some of the healthy women that entered the contest. They are awesome and inspiring. I enjoyed reading the different contestants entries as well. Here is mine below.

5K in love

Submitted by: Jennie
In 2011 my sister introduced me to 5K races. After walking my first race I fell in love. I love to sign up and do the races. It gives me motivation to continue to stay fit and healthy. I have recently been getting my friend and their friends to join me by signing up for races that are a little different like the mud runs and color runs. I enjoy them all large, small, dirty or clean just getting together with a bunch of people who are working toward a goal in being fit is so much fun for me. I have just finished 2 races for great causes I did the Save-a-sister and the Big Brother Big Sister races. My next race is in 2 weeks I have been able to get a team together of 16 people of varied fitness levels we have walkers all they way to avid runners. It is going to be so much fun. 5ks are about getting together and fitness not winning for me.

Rocket Ship

Gabriel and Foster are obsessed with rocket ships. They play with one at their Nana and Papas house. It is a water toy. Because of their obsession Patrick decided he wanted to buy them the real ones from the hobby store. The model rocket. Patrick stayed up all night putting the little model rockets together. We really lucked out because the next day the weather was perfect for launching rockets.
At first Gabriel was excited but when it is launched the sound it makes kinda scared him.
We counted down from 10 to 1 and the boys loved that. When Patrick was setting up the last one to launch Gabriel was saying I am not afraid, I am not afraid. silly little boy.

Foster just loved every min of it. He even was way excited when Patrick said he could push the button for launch.

3rd NICU Reunion

I have to say that when my boys were born at 28.5 weeks I was strangely relieved. I had a hard time getting pregnant and when I finally did through IVF I bleed through most of my 6 month long pregnancy. Gabriel's water broke. I went in and delivered 6 hours later. Foster was born via c-section 14 min after Gabriel. We were lucky enough that our town has a NICU and in it we have some of THE best Doctors and Nurses. The team was and still is outstanding.
They throw a reunion every year for their graduates to come to, so that they can see their progression into normal life after such a difficult start in this world.
We are the lucky ones. My boys were strong right off the bat. Only minor set backs. Today you would never even know they were early. They are healthy, strong, smart, and very active little boys.
I am forever grateful for the NICU staff. We go to the reunion every year so that we can express our gratitude for what they did for us.


This year we only got a picture with the Doctor who helped save my boys life from the beginning. The rest was from the fun activities they have for them to participate in.

Dr. Ridout and a very Thankful Family.