A little over a week ago I ran an 8-mile race with my friend Lisa. Here we are before the race.
There are no actual race pictures because the Rocket Scientist forgot to bring the camera. And I didn't post sooner because I was waiting on Lisa to send me her pictures but unfortunately she got the stomach flu that night.
It was a lot fun. The race trail wound through the pecan groves that surround our town. It was really pretty and so much fun to be among so much green. Cactus and tumbleweeds just aren't that green.
We ran together for about the first mile and a quarter and then when I looked back I couldn't see her anymore. I felt kind of bad about that but I got to cheer her on to the finish line!
My goal was not lofty - I only wanted to keep up 10-minute miles - but I did it! I finished in an hour and twenty-four minutes. See, what they didn't tell us at the beginning was that our 8-mile race was actually an 8 and a HALF mile race. I got to the eight mile marker and the finish line wasn't even in sight!
The kids came just in time to cheer me on to the finish line and to eat my orange. Then we cheered for Lisa 20 or 30 minutes later. Afterwards we let the kids go to the jumping castles at the pecan festival next door. Here they are on the train with their daddy.

I was just sitting here checking my blogs and email while the kids ate lunch when they started giggling a little too much. So I headed over to the table to discover applesauce piled on top of their heads. I give myself much credit that instead of yelling I just took a deep breath and turned away.
And then Cute Girl says, "You should be happy. It's the holidays."

Classic.

Things that made me happy yesterday

Finding a way to use the spinach and tomato I had sitting in the fridge when I was out of lettuce

My pretty Christmas table

Homemade bread, even if Jacie didn't come help me make it ;)

My Little Monkey

I'm impressed that he could get his leg up there.

Baby Entertainment

I'm a horrible mother. I spent the entire week of Thanksgiving in the kitchen cooking or washing dishes and I took a total of three pictures of one of my children. Awful, awful. So if anyone has pictures of my kids that week, send'em my way.
Handsome Face and Cute Girl were enraptured with their cousin Lucas. They LOVE babies. From these pictures of Cute Girl entertaining him, you'd think they got along great. Wrong. My kids tortured the poor boy. They were a little too rambunctious for his taste and he quite often dissolved into tears. Oh well. Someday there will be a cousin or sibling smaller than him that he can bug and make cry. The puppet show

Let the wild rumpus start!

Who doesn't need a little Max at Thanksgiving?

Blast Off

On Wednesday, after a very lazy morning, most of the Crapo clan went to the Air and Space Museum. I was planning on staying home with my kiddos but at the last minute Cute Girl got permission to go. Handsome Face was soooooo sad that he had to stay home and take a nap. But boy did he need it. He slept all afternoon.

This one is my absolute favorite!

While they were away, my sweet mother-in-law Karen helped clean up the kitchen and even went out for the last minute groceries (my fridge just won't hold enough food for 17 people for a week). I decided to get the dinner going. The Rocket Scientist was supposed to be in charge of homemade bread and coq au vin for dinner but I knew that if I waited until he got home we wouldn't be eating until 10pm! And it's a good thing I started too, because in true Neil Crapo Thanksgiving fashion, he injured himself the moment he came home. In some weird freak accident, a sliver of metal from his belt buckle pierced his nail and became embedded in his nail bed. Ouch. He spent the rest of the night trying to get it out while I made his fancy dinner and peeled the apples for his pie, a tradition that started on our second Thanksgiving. He has seriously been injured EVERY holiday since then, although it's usually happened during the Turkey Bowl. Next year he can plan on making spaghetti and a frozen pie because I'm done!!!

Another Tree

The day before Grandma and Grandpa left we let the kids decorate their own little tree. It has all their own ornaments on it. Seeing as they haven't been alive but six years in total, it didn't take too long. Supposedly they get to keep it upstairs by their rooms but everyday I find ornaments all over the place so I think it might soon make its way to the family room.

The little tree is from my childhood. We had a tiny tree we would keep upstairs in our one giant bedroom. It was fun having a little bit of Christmas to sleep by.

White Christmas

I have been berated for not posting in a week and a half but when your house is invaded by hungry holiday guests, computer time seems to disappear. More on those lovely people later.
Saturday we picked up a Douglas Fir to adorn our living room. Cute Girl loved picking it out. We set it up that evening in our new tree stand (which was $5 at Wal-Mart vs. $25 at Lowes - Score!). Then Sunday evening we set about decorating it. Cute Girl was beside herself with impatience. Here is Handsome Face in time-out for some type of misbehavior. He was probably touching something he wasn't supposed to.Unfortunately my camera kept wanting to set off the flash which made awful pictures. But when the flash is turned off on my camera the auto-focus doesn't work. And since I don't have a tripod I have blurry pictures. So sad!This one is especially cute. Too bad it's not in focus.

See the three red balls? This is typical of Crapo children decorating. The Rocket Scientist did his best to redistribute when their backs were turned.

While we were sipping hot chocolate and listening to carols we heard a loud blast of wind. This is what came with it.Lovely, lovely hail. It's not exactly snow but we'll take what we can get.

And just to prove I was there, here is a not so lovely picture of me unpacking ornaments. I think Handsome Face took this picture.

And now is where I put up a lovely picture of the finished product. Except that while we were upstairs putting the kids to bed we heard a huge crash. Apparently once all the ornaments went on the tree became front heavy and crashed to the floor. We got a wet carpet and three broken ornaments. Luckily the penguins were fixed with a little super glue. We adjusted the tree and the next day I redecorated the tree (I guess the Rocket Scientist didn't really need to redistribute the ornaments after all!). So I'll post a picture of the new and improved tree soon.

Day 20

I originally started my gratitude posts in an effort not to get caught up in all of the stress of the holidays. But in trying to get ready for Thanksgiving I actually haven't had time to post much. Oh well. But today I will make a long list.
I am grateful for the Tylenol and ibuprofen that are keeping what was a 104.1 degree fever yesterday down around 102 degrees today. And for the space heater and humidifier that meant Handsome Face woke only once last night instead of four times.
I am grateful that everyone ate breakfast without complaint, that there weren't too many fits when the cartoons went off (sick = lots of cartoons), and that I haven't yelled once today.
I am grateful that the kids are happily making soup for dinner in the toy room so that I can do laundry since Cute Girl has no clean pants.
I am grateful for hot chocolate. I'm on my second cup.

Day 18

Today I'm grateful that I have a husband who is GREAT with kids. He's one of those guys that all the kids gravitate towards on the playground.

To see pictures of my lovely backyard you can go to nerdcare.blogspot.com

Day 15

There were a lot of things that bothered me today, so I'm going to be extra grateful.

My husband is an excellent cook. Like really, REALLY good. And that is good because once I had kids, cooking became a chore for me. Today he made an apple pie and baguettes for our dinner tomorrow (we're having company). That way all I will have to make is the coq au vin (sans vin). And there's even a mini pie for me to eat right now with all natural vanilla ice cream!

Yesterday we finished the field stone path in the backyard. Yay!

I got my oil paints out today. I love all the different brushes I have. It was fun and now there's more artwork for Cute Girl's room.

I didn't have to stay after church for choir because we won't be here for the Christmas program. Instead I came home and my husband made me fried rice while I read on the couch.

I didn't have to teach in YW and our Sunday School lesson was excellent. I love good teachers.

I made white enchiladas for dinner that didn't use creamed soup as the base. They were yum! And that is good because I keep looking for a whole-foods-only recipe for them but Cute Girl keeps telling me she likes the old ones better.

I need a recipe

I have been wanting lasagna all week. Funny, because my oven is actually broken at the moment. But tomorrow it should be fixed! So I need your recipes. I've never made a lasagna that I have just loved but I'm sure someone who reads this has a great recipe. So share, please!

Day 10 and 11

Sometime I am grateful for the spontaneous things that come out of disasters. We got up first thing yesterday morning and ran to the store for milk because we were out. Since we were there anyways we picked out some doughnuts and chocolate milk for breakfast. This was a first for us. I think the only doughnuts my kids have ever had are the homemade yeast doughnuts we make every Christmas.

And today I'm grateful that my husband came home early enough that I could go run three miles. It even started to get cool on the way home!

Day 8

(This was taken yesterday. I got a new baby carrier for hiking at a garage sale and they all got strapped in.)

This afternoon I got to hang out in my living room with these goofballs. It was so nice to have no where to go and nothing that had to be done. We just rolled around on the floor and laughed. Such a sweet blessing for a Sunday afternoon.

Days 6 and 7

The past few days have been beyond busy and I've had no time to post. But yesterday I was thinking of how thankful I am for these gorgeous flowers that stare at me when I'm doing the dishes. I know they're not very original but I just love red roses.
And today I am thankful that I got to help my husband in the backyard. It helped him, it furthered our rock project, and I got to be outside doing real physical labor which doesn't happen too often.

Scenes from the kitchen yesterday

Chaos ensued as I prepped for the Daddy Daughter Dance yesterday. Thank goodness it's over!

Squishing all the leftover shortbread dough through my metal seive. I count it as one of the tender mercies of the Lord that it came clean by just rinsing.

Day 4

I have the most awesome friends in the world and today I am really grateful for them. They're always there to take my kids or clean my house or bring me cornstarch when I don't have enough to finish my shortbread cookies (Thanks Jacie!). I could go on about how wonderful they are and how much I love them but I think it's too late to do it justice. Just know, I've got the best friends in the world.

Day 3

Today I helped my little brother (who is twice as big as me) plan out his first semester at BYU. And so today I am thankful for my college education. I loved going to school (except when papers were due). I made great friends, took tons of interesting classes on all sorts of topics (Physics 122, anyone?), and of course I met my husband! I'm always thinking about when to go back to school and what I should study next. But for now I guess I'll just have to live vicariously through Trey. At least this way I don't have to wake up at 2 am to register!

Days 1 and 2

Thanksgiving is coming and I am so excited! Just 22 more days until my first guests arrive! We are going to be so busy in those 22 days but I want to make sure that I don't get caught up in all of the stress. To help with that, I've decided to post about something I'm thankful for everyday this month. Hopefully I won't miss too often. And since I already missed yesterday I'll post two things today.

First, I am thankful for the Atonement. I am grateful that Jesus Christ took it upon Himself to feel our every pain and atone for our every sin. I am thankful for forgiveness, repentance, and to be clean again with my mistakes forgotten.
Second, I am thankful for mail! Specifically the lovely greeting cards that we get from family for my darling children. It is a family tradition started by my mother that they always get holiday cards and we save them for when they are older. They love getting mail and will carry their cards around for days, asking me to read them over and over. Here's the fun card Aunt Abby sent us. She always sends the best cards. This one lights up and plays music.

Look out neighborhood...

There are dinosaurs on the loose!Several weeks ago I asked Cute Girl what she wanted to be for Halloween and she informed that both she AND her brother HAD to be dinosaur sharp-tooths. After finding that I couldn't cheaply buy TWO costumes and not feeling like I could easily and quickly make one I tried to change her mind for her. But she wouldn't have it. So I whipped these little things up out of thin air. Not too difficult or time consuming but still a pain. They liked them though.

We went trick-or-treating with friends. Here we are in the back of the truck: Cute Girl, Ainsley, Rand, Channing, me, and Handsome Face.The girls kept running ahead and hitting doors without us. We kept telling them to wait for the boys.After filling our buckets we came back to our house where the Rocket Scientist made us yummy hot chocolate.

Here's the great pumpkin carving.
Handsome Face wouldn't put his hand in.I had a cute scared ghost face all picked out but Cute Girl made me change it to a whole ghost. Oh well.
the kids' ghost and the Rocket Scientist's crazy face

TThe dinosaur is curious...