October 29- I got my official acceptance letter to the Texas Women's University Nursing College at the T. Boone Pickens Dallas campus. What a relief to finally stop obsessing about getting in! Now that panic can be replaced with the panic of getting all the required steps finished before the semester begins in January.
Sunday November 3rd: Cindy had been planning on hosting a Hinckley dinner at her house for several birthdays. By the time she let me know it needed to be canceled because of conflicting schedules, I had already baked an entire Caramel Apple Crisp Cheesecake. We just switched venues to our house and invited everyone who could come. It was a really fun night!
-Tuesday Nov 5: Tyler and I were both sick all week. Our local elections were held on the 5th, and McKay was determined to vote in it after the government shutdown (normally we are terrible citizens and only vote the fun elections). He wasn't able to vote in the end because his registration didn't begin until a week after the election. I hadn't been planning on voting because I had been sleeping all day, but I went out and voted for him. It was pretty uneventful. I didn't have any strong feelings about the elections except disappointment that I didn't get an "I Voted!" sticker.
-Friday Nov 8: Jamie spent the evening at Grandma and Grandpa's house watching Monster's University with them while McKay, Tyler and I went to the Plano-Allen high school football game. My high school football program was sort of a joke, and no one cared even a little about it. Here, it's pretty darn imperative that you know your stuff. We had a pretty good time with our hot chocolates and our Wildcat signs. McKay introduced me to his old band director, who was still hard at work directing the marching band that night.
Monday Nov 11-Friday Nov 15: My dad flew into Dallas on business. We got to see quite a bit of him over the week. We took him to Legoland, and he treated us to a whole bunch of food nearly every night, but we would have loved seeing him even without his corporate credit card :) We went to the Golden Corral, and the kids were just freaking out over the chocolate fondue fountains and cotton candy. My dad was pretty pleased with himself, and he kept secretly dishing up more desserts for Tyler and Jamie.
I also got word that my Pathophysiology professor had gone in for emergency surgery, and would be in recovery for the rest of the semester. We would be getting a brand new professor for the rest of the semester, with new material, new notes, and new tests. No one in the class was happy with this. It's a crazy hard class already, and this just throws another wrench in. Sigh.
-Tuesday November 21: To start clinicals next semester, I absolutely have to be up to date with my immunizations, so on this day, McKay and I dropped Jamie off at her preschool and then went up to Plano to get my six (six!) shots. I have much more compassion for my kids' bad tempers on shot days now. I was so sore and grumpy all day. McKay and I had lunch with Cindy while we were in Plano at this burger place called Shady's, which was right next door to the cutest Christmas boutique. McKay had to practically drag Cindy and me out of there to go eat. Lunch was delicious, and when I got home, my new visiting teacher, Barbara came over. She's a fellow Pinterest addict, and she had fun looking at all my projects around the house.
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| I cut my hair a few days after this. This is a lot of hair! |
Wednesday, November 20: With my Dad in town again, we made plans to meet Kevin and Cindy for dinner at Love and War in Texas (that's the real restaurant name). It was a really fun night, and Jamie and Tyler were so pleased to have nearly all their grandparents all to themselves for a night.
-Thursday, November 21: My dad had one more night in Dallas, and he came over to our house for Papa John's pizza. We had a lovely feast, and then the kids made him read Pinkalicious, their current book of choice over and over. I don't think he minded too much :)
Sunday, November 24: Our stake conference was on this day, and we got to hear from Elder Tom Perry, which was pretty cool. He seemed to spend a lot of time lamenting Black Friday's existence, but I loved his message about spending the holidays with your families, and making family traditions. He also made a point to tell the youth, "You are always fiddling with your iPhones and gadgets, just put them away! Young man! Put your phone away!" He said that last part to an actual kid in the congregation, who I assumed was playing with his phone during the meeting. It was pretty hilarious. Tyler and Jamie were so cute:
Monday, November 25: McKay had a work potluck, and he brought our signature Sweet Potato Souffle. In the middle of the day, he called to tell me he had accidentally left some of it covered during the luncheon, so he had some leftovers to bring home. I am sad to say that I was more excited about that than I had been about anything for quite a while. Is that a sign of old age? In my defense, we had run out of vanilla extract, so he substituted rum extract instead and it was amazing. McKay watched Star Wars V with the kids that night. They've been watching it together while I study, and it's fun to see another generation converted. Tyler gets really into it with a ton of questions, but sometimes he has to hide behind the couch during tense moments, basically every scene with Darth Vader. Jamie is mildly interested in the movies, but mostly just the scenes with the droids. Otherwise she just asks, "Where's R2D2?" over and over.
Wednesday, November 27th- We started our annual Christmas tradition (unwrapping a new children's book each night until Christmas Eve) a little early this year. I had found this awesome book called Balloons Over Broadway all about the history of the Macy's Day Parade. It was a pretty cool book, and I wanted Tyler and Jamie to read about the parade before they watched it the next morning. They were just excited to start opening "book presents" again :)
-Thursday, November 28: Thankgiving! As usual, our assignment was all the appetizers, and to bring a few desserts since Kendy (our normal pie maker) and her family were flying in just in time to eat. McKay and I spent the whole morning in the kitchen baking, and it was seriously a wonderful morning. I love just spending time with him. We just have a really fun time together laughing and being silly. We made our Brie en Croute, Gorgonzola Bites, Crab Stuffed Mushrooms, Figgy Pudding, and apple pie. The food was appropriately oohed and ahhed over, and we all had a fun fun night. I then braved the crowds and went Black Friday shopping (sorry, Elder Perry!) and got 90% of our Christmas shopping finished.
-Friday, November 29- My Black Friday purchases were in the house less than six hours before one of them broke. Jamie smashed the Joseph of our new Willow Tree - esque nativity scene. I had to put her in the backyard for a bit so I could calm down :) Our niece Evelyn was baptized, and we actually missed it! There was an accident on 75 on the way up, and I was stuck in stand still traffic for a good 25 minutes, and then in slow moving traffic for another 30 minutes, just enough to make me miss the whole thing. We got there in time for refreshments, and then I got in my car and cried. I felt like such an awful aunt. (It may or may not have been because of the three hours of sleep.) The kids and I stopped by the grocery store and picked up balloons and flowers for Evelyn, and her huge smile and "WOW!" made me feel slightly better :)
That night we had our Hinckley Turkey Trot which my kids happily ignored, and hamburgers after.
-Saturday, November 30 - We hosted the last Hinckley dinner with everyone in town. We took family pictures at the park (thanks Reid!), and then everyone came over to our house for pizza. We had our White Elephant gift exchange, Grandma and Grandpa's fishing game, and the cousin gift exchange. It was such a great night, and we were so glad to see everyone one more time.
Funny things:
- Jamie was running away from me while I was trying to wrestle her into her shoes while Tyler watched from the couch. In a very amused voice, he told me "she's like the gingerbread man!"
- Jamie has been having a hard time staying in bed after being put to bed. She will keep sneaking out with various excuses, like needing to go potty, or needing another drink, or needing another toy, or she's just "scared of the Hulkie". One night McKay and I started to lose our tempers with her, and started telling her sternly that she needed to stop playing with her toys and lay down, or we'd take the toys away. The next time we had to come in her room, she looked up from her lap full of toys and said in a defeated sort of voice, "Here, take my Legos," and promptly handed them over.
- McKay brought home a carton of eggnog, which Jamie has been calling "igloo".
- Tyler has been writing and taping notes up all around the house. Many of them are handwritten letters to his cousins that he plans to send in the mail. So all around our house are papers that are addressed to "Worin and Mafyou" (Lauren and Matthew)
- Jamie and her little friends head straight for the dress-up corner in Tyler's room when they come over, and they spend the rest of the playdate like this:
- Tyler wrote a little snowman song that I found in his desk:(I am a little snowman, luc (look) at me)
(Ves (these) or (are) my butins (buttons). 1, 2, 3.)
See you next...whenever!
See you next...whenever!
