T-1 day and counting.

We are very excited to be heading down to Sacramento to spend time with our family for the holiday this week!  I can hardly believe that it's already Thanksgiving week!!!  It has been a crazy and (at most times) stressful couple of weeks but OH so worth it!  I am ready!!!  It is a good feeling.  It will still be a busy day today, getting our bags packed and hopefully baking a treat or two to take on the road trip.  :)

I just want to take a minute to express my gratitude.  We are so blessed.  I am so grateful for all the good things in my life, but here are a few specifics:

• My husband.  He is so patient, loving, and kind.  He is a great daddy and my very best friend.  I don't care where we are, as long as I'm with him.  I'm so grateful that we will be together forever, because anything short of that will not be long enough.
• My girls.  They are so different and unique, but they are so perfect for us.  Each brings their own special spirit to our home and lives and we love them so much.  I love watching them grow, learn, and become the beautiful girls that they are.
• Ryan's job.  We are so blessed that during this time of economic hardship, Ryan has a good job that provides good benefits and a good income.  We are blessed that I can stay home with our girls without struggling financially.  And we are blessed that he is in the position that he is so he can have more flexibility with his time, allowing him to be home with us more than he used to be.
• My car.  I really do love my car, even though it is getting old.  I love we were able to do some maintenance on it so it will be even more reliable for many more years.  And for that matter, I'm grateful for Ryan's car that gets him to and from work safely everyday.
• My friends.  I have such good friends that I consider them family.  I love knowing that if I need anything, I can make a quick phone call (or just run through my backyard) and they will be there for me.  Living so far from parents/siblings, it is so comforting to have such great friends and support here.
• Music.  I love music so much.  And I love that my girls love music, too.  :"Music speaks the words that beauty cannot express."  Often, it is music that moves me the most, calms me the most, energizes me the most. 
• My senses.  It sounds silly, but I've often wondered if I had to lose a sense which would I want it to be?  I don't know!  I don't want to lose any!  (I think I've decided though, that if I had to, I would rather it be smell.)  I don't want to ever not be able to see the beauty around me, or hear music or my children laughing, or feel the touch of a loved one, or even taste delicious treats.
• The lessons I've learned.  Sometimes I look back and wish I could redo some things, knowing what I know now, but that's not how it works.  We learn line upon line and it's necessary to go through the process this way.  I'm grateful to realize that in a few more years, I'll be wishing I knew things now that I'll know then, even.  It's humbling to realize that I have so much more to learn and understand.  But I'm grateful for what I have learned so far.  I'm grateful for the opportunities to learn, even when they are difficult to got through.
• My freedom and my country.  Our government is not perfect and I feel frustrated at times, but this is still the greatest nation on earth and it is such a blessing to live here.  To have freedom to be and do what we want; to be able to vote, travel, worship, and live how we choose.
• The gospel of Jesus Christ.  By far, this is my greatest treasure.  I am so grateful for the gospel, for my Savior, for the guidance of the Holy Ghost, for a loving Father in Heaven that I can turn to in prayer at any moment, for scriptures to study, a prophet to lead us, and the oppurtunity to learn and grow closer to the Lord continually.  I am most grateful for the Atonement, that through my Savior's loving sacrifice, I can be forgiven and made clean even though I make mistakes.  Without it, there would be no hope.  But with it, there is always hope.

The list could go on and on, as I'm sure yours would, too.  I hope we all take a few moments as we celebrate this great time of year, to remember the things we are thankful for.  If you feel so inclined, leave a comment about what you are thankful for this week, or post it on your blog and leave a link to it in a comment.  Reading what others are thankful for helpse me to remember more things I am thankful for, too.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, full of good food, good company, and good feelings!

Was SO MUCH BETTER than Twilight!!  :)

The movies will just not be as good as the books, that's a given, but this one was pretty close.  They didn't deviate very much and I thought the directing was so much better!  There were still a couple of things I would have done differently.  Like, they tweaked the look of most of the Cullens and I'm not a fan of how they did it.  I liked how they looked in Twilight, they were less attractive to me this time.  But they were hardly even in this one so that's okay.

We had a great group going together last night.  I think when all was said and done we had 19 or 20 people!  And all but two came over afterwards for ice cream.  It was fun to go with friends, even though it was so crazy-crowded in the theater we couldn't get seats all together.  We all sat with someone, no one was alone. :)

One of the best parts for me was that I was able to surprise Acadia and let her come with us.  My friend saw it Thursday night and told me on Friday that it was "clean" (no make out scenes in her underwear - hello, where is that in the book????) and there were still tickets left, so I grabbed one for her right away.  She was so excited when I told her!  And she liked it a lot, a couple of her friends were there and she got to sit with them, which made it even more fun for her. :)

Even though Twilight was SO not how *I* would have made it, I liked it a lot and went to see it in the theater FIVE times.  Makes me wonder how many times we'll be going to see New Moon. lol

For the last week, as I've been editing our home videos to turn into our annual dvd, Rori has had a lot of fun looking at the video we have.  EVERY TIME, she wants to go out and do whatever she is watching us do on the movie.  So, she has been wanting to play in the snow, go to the beach, have a birthday party, etc. lol

Now that we have our Christmas decorations up, Rori has been asking repeatedly if we can "go to Christmas."  I'm not sure what she means.  lol 

Yeah, remember when I said that I was done stressing because I think I had everything under control?  Uh... well that was before my computer REFUSED to burn the dvd I made!  I've tried several times today, all were big, fat, FAILS. 

But I'm trying again and I have one more trick up my sleeve if it doesn't work this time, so I'm not completely devoid of hope quite yet.  Just nervous. 

Is it silly to pray for a software program?  Cause I just did. ;)

And my halls are all decked.  Yay! 

Okay, I think I can finally stop stressing.  I'm pretty much done with my presents (just have to wrap them), done with our annual dvd (just have to burn them), my house is decorated, it's even almost clean.  Tomorrow I will take care of the last of the church stuff I need to do before I leave.  And then all that will be left is to see New Moon with about 17 of my friends, host an ice cream party after it, then pack our suitcases over the weekend.

These two weeks (last week and this week) are by far my most stressful of the year but it is so worth it when I'm at the end of it and have it all done.  Now I can fully enjoy my holidays, stress-free.  :)

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?
* LOTR Leatherbound copy
* Sienna Ricchi handbag
* Amethyst ring
* Psych Season DVDs (any or all)
* New Nativities

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
Probably the nativity that Acadia made me last year.

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
Before last year, it was making a cd of piano music but now that Cadi and I have done that... I wish I could sew so I could make quilts.

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
One of my favorites was my Cabbage Patch kid.

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?
For Cadi - Littlest Pet Shops, gift cards, books
For Rori - Littlest Pet Shops, My Little Ponies, anything Princess

6. What is your favorite holiday food?
Pie!  Oooh, and Ryan's homemade Cheesecakes. :)

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
I cannot tell you yet! lol  But I will say that I'm done with most of what I'm making and will be completely done by the end of this week. :)

Oh, and I can tell you the *non-surprise* gift (because I do it every year so they already know it's coming)... I'm compiling our home video from the past year onto a dvd to give to family members.  (We don't live near them so they miss a lot of the fun things we do, including many holidays and birthdays.)

8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
White Christmas

9. Favorite holiday song?
It is too hard to choose one favorite!

10. Favorite holiday pastime?
All of it!  I love visiting family, I love having our quiet Christmas Eve at home, I love giving gifts, I love decorating, I love the first snowfall, I love all the nativities, I love the Christmas music... I just LOVE the holiday entirely! :)

I'm pretty peeved right now.  So frustrated I can hardly talk.  That was one of THE WORST calls I have ever seen.  LAME!!!  And those refs are gonna feel like crud when they see the replay and realize that they totally blew the game. 

GGGGGAAAAAHHHH!!!!  

I need some Lord of the Rings.

We tried something a little different this year.  It's kinda embarrassing, but we have decided that we just don't care.  We all LOVE this song, it makes us all want to jump around and dance!

I come from a big family, and we're all growing up, and some of us now have families of our own, so recently we've started doing a couple of gift exchanges for Christmas instead of getting a present for every single person.  We have two exchanges: store bought and homemade.  Acadia even participates in the homemade exchange because she is old enough to be able to create a meaningful gift.

We use a great website Elfster.com to organize our exchange.  Since we don't all live in one place, this makes it easy to "draw" a name without anyone else knowing who has who.  Elfster assigns it to us and e-mails us privately.  We can put our wishlists on Elfster, ask each other questions annonymously and even shop for gift ideas. 

Recently, someone annonymously asked me to post pictures of Acadia's room on my blog.  Sadly, this is what her room looks like right now, AFTER she "cleaned" it.  lol  I'm sorry the first pic is a little blurry.  The last couple of pics are just a couple of things she has in her room, probably not even necessary for what you're doing. 

She used to have a horse poster over her bed but you can see that it has come down. 

I've known for several months that we would be using "Headstrong" for Rori's montage song.  I'm pretty sure the reason is obvious. lol  She can be a real sweetie sometimes, but usually she chooses to be HEADSTRONG!  lol

YouTube isn't letting me upload the audio for this one, for copyright reasons, so I'm using Photobucket this time: