Keep Her in Your Prayers

I found out yesterday that my good friend Brenna from highschool was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. She is in her mid twenties and is 24 weeks pregnant with her first baby. The good news is they caught the cancer in the early stage and she was given a high survival rate, but the pregnancy make things more complicated. The baby has not be affected by the cancer and is healthy.

Please keep Brenna, her baby boy and her Husband in your prayers this week.

And I said unto them, that it should be granted unto them according to their faith in their prayers....
Doctrine and Covenants 10:47

The Thanksgiving Saga

Ahh, finally the Holiday is over. We actually had a good Thanksgiving day, we spent it with good friends and gathered for our annual orphan dinner, as we all lack family here. Jared's sister came down from the city and stayed a few days, as always it was fun to have her here.
Our saga started two days before Turkey Day. I was at the store getting food for Thanksgiving Dinner and some shopping Nazi chart-checked Erin. She completely plowed Erin over and didn't even say she was sorry. We got home that night and Erin said her leg was a bit sore when we put her to bed. When she woke up the next morning she couldn't put weight on her left leg. Being the day before Thanksgiving we couldn't get into the pediatricians until 4pm. In the meantime I took her to see "Enchanted" at the theater and carried her around all day. We spend Thanksgiving eve in the E.R. waiting for x-rays.

But Thanksgiving morning she made a miraculous recovery. She severely bruised the muscle, but no breaks. We spend most of Thanksgiving day at Anderson's. We had a fantastic meal and even better desserts.

Friday Jared got up at 5 a.m to shop the black Friday deals. He got a really nice laptop and a bunch of things to deck it out with. He got everything he needed by 6 a.m and then Brittany and I ventured out. Best Buy and LNT were a nightmare and I don't do crowds, they make me want to curl up in a ball and hyperventilate. So we went to Half Price Books for free canvas book bags and donuts. They were giving out $5.00 gift cards so we each got a free book.

Then we stopped at Hobby Lobby and picked up supplies to build our own wreaths. We were really happy with how they turned out, both being wreath building novices. We put up our tree, which finally looks decent this year, thanks to a 50% off sale on ornaments and called it a weekend.And it actually felt like Thanksgiving, we had temperature in the mid 50's this week, yuppie!

Party Hardy

Erin turned three on Saturday and had a "princess party." You forget what its like to anticipate your birthday. For a week all I heard was how she wanted a pink party and how she would wear pink socks, and pink shorts, and pink shirt, and pink underwear (we are still working on the sidell rule of, just because its the same color does not mean it matches). And that everyone would bring her beautiful presents (vain eh?). By the way, Erin is madly in love with the boy in the photo above. Their family moved here a few months ago and he swept Erin off her feet with his dashing good looks and kindergarten maturity.

So Saturday came and she jumped out of bed to open her presents.
We got her an art easel, grandma and grandpa got her light up LED butterflies for the garden, Uncle Max got her a farm set and she got lots of princess dress up things and jewelry.



We had a good sized party (9 kids and 17 adults) at the house Saturday night for friends and parents of friends. Just good old fashioned cake and ice cream, none of this spend $500.00 and rent out the zoo crap.

And I am happy to say all the kids survived, as did my furniture and walls.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the night, except for Eliza who just kept getting dressed up by the girls.

Beggars Night Gone Dixie

This was really our first Halloween we celebrated down South. Our first year we didn't know anyone and lived in an apartment and last year Erin and I were home for my uncle's funeral. Last year it was about 30 degrees in Iowa and Erin was freezing cold (and probably a little young to understand the concept) and didn't enjoy herself too much.

Last Friday we went down to the Kemah boardwalk. You could go trick-or-treating in the shop stores. There is nothing more nerve-racking then attempting to herd a dozen kids though a glass specialty shop without them breaking a $200.00 vase just to get a tootsie roll.
This year she showed little fear. She would run up to a door, ring the bell three or four times, knock on the door, ring the bell again, get her stash and run to the next house. We went with a group of friends and we all have little girls - they were fun to watch.
When we moved here it kind of surprised me that a lot of Christians down here don't celebrate Halloween at all because its a pagan holiday. I just thought, hello, do you put up a Christmas tree? But the ones that do take it pretty seriously. The weather is still warm here and so a lot of people set up a few chairs and a table with candy in their driveway and just sit outside their houses and chat with people as they come and go to trick-or-treat. Its a great tradition, I really enjoyed talking to people.