We Give Thanks

The Holidays this year brought a whole new experience for the Ladwig family. Every year up until now Landon and I have done Thanksgiving and Christmas with family. We have swapped between Kunz and Ladwig and have been willing to travel to be with the rest of the family. That has caused some problems, especially with Thanksgiving, since the holidays are peak season at FedEx. The last few years Landon has only been able to be wherever we were celebrating the holiday at for less than 24 hours. So, this year, we decided to stay home and do it on our own.

I called my mom and got advice on the Turkey, we planned all our favorite food, and when the day came we were excited and ready.

Kat got tuckered out fairly quickly. She loved getting to watch mama cook dinner, but a baby can only take so much excitement in one day. She helped me cook dinner by falling asleep in the Bumbo.

Ellen spent the preparation time makng a Thanksgiving Bingo. The boys played with the decorations and watched some movies. Landon helped the most by constantly keeping up with me and my dishes.

After her nap Kat was good to go!

My first Thanksgiving Spread! We had Turkey, stuffing, stuffed mushrooms, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, egg nog, and my homemade rolls. We even broke out the fine china. :)

Kat loved her first Thanksgiving as well.

For Thanksgivng night we headed in to Herriman to our friends, the Maynards, house for pie. At Ben and Becky’s we had Pumpkin Pie and Banana Cream Pie. Yummy pie and a few fabulous games of Wii Just Dance made for the end to a great holiday.

The things we are most grateful for.

The next day we were happy to have Grandpa and Grandma Ladwig come visit us. They got here just in time to eat left overs with us and share a few gifts.

Grandma got her Christmas present from last year. (Yes, that is correct. I was 11 months late in getting her gift to her.)

Grandpa and Grandma brought gifts for Trevor’s 5th Birthday. He was sooooo excited to get to start his birthday early.

They got him some new pants as well as a play tent with a rolling tube. He LOVED it!

After opening gifts Grandpa and Grandma Ladwig treated us to a movie. We went to see “Arthur Christmas.” We got snacks and were totally spoiled. We loved this movie (a definite one for us to buy) and the kids talked about it all during the rest of Christmas.

It was a short visit but with lots of hugs and kisses from Grandma and Grandpa. Even though we didn’t get to spend time with our families on the holiday it was nice to get to spend a little bit of time with Grandma and Grandpa right after it. It was a fabulous Thanksgiving where we had the chance to really focus on all the blessings the Lord has poured out upon us this year.

William's Baptism

In the middle of November we had the opportunity to go to Boise for my nephew William's baptism. We almost didn't make it since that week my boys had come down with a case of the croup. (This was our first experience with it....whoopi!) Landon had taken the time off and I was really looking forward to being able to go spend a weekend with him before Peak season really, really took off and of course I missed my family like crazy so we really wanted to go. After doing a little research on how long croup is contagious for we found out that Levi no longer was contagious and Trevor was only contagious until the next morning. So, with this new found information we rearranged some sleeping plans and headed for Boise.

Friday night we were able to stay at my parents house. We split up into boys and girls and thanks to Landon I was able to get a good nights sleep for the first time all week. (He on the other hand did not.) By the next morning we were still medicating Trevor, but he was on the mend. Luckily the baptism wasn't until later in the afternoon, so we were able to just relax at Grandma and Grandpa's house and help them clean up and disinfect for the next guests to be arriving that night.
William was baptized by his dad, Joey, and it was so much fun to watch. William is only the 2nd Kunz cousin to get baptized so my kids were really excited to see it. There was only Will and one other little girl so it was a small group which was nice. Just as Will and Joe entered the baptismal font William's little brother Sam, almost 3, saw his father in the water and was very loudly insistent that he join them. So loud, in fact, that he had to be escorted out of the room by a ward member so that Will could be baptized.

Then came the confirmation where Sam tried to steal Will's thunder again. After the confirmation was finished and William was shaking every one's hand Sam ran to the chair sat down and pronounced, "My turn!." So stinking cute!

After the baptism we headed to Joe and Gretchen's house for yummy food and even yummier pumpkin pie. We got to sit and let the cousins play and relax a little with my family. We loved it!!!!

That night we had the opportunity to stay at Landon's brother Steven's house. Steven and Lindsay just bought a new house in Nampa about 2 weeks prior to us visiting. Since we wanted to steer clear of kids as much as we could because of the croup Lindsay and Steven were nice enough to open up their lovely home for us to stay at. We were really impressed with the purchase! It is a great starter home and their yard is HUGE! Ripley had a fun time running around in the back and getting to play a little with their newest addition, Kyle (Steven and Lindsay's dog.) Sad to say, but we weren't able to get any pictures with them. We really appreciated getting to stay there and loved getting to really have some good, while short, time with them.

On Sunday we headed to Caldwell again to Joe and Gretchen's ward to see their boys in their Primary Program. The boys did fabulous! After sacrament we headed out to Homedale to visit one of Landon's good friends who moved there last year. What was supposed to be a quick visit ended up being a half an hour drive each way (through very beautiful country) and then an almost 45 minute visit (even though we left the kids in the car with a movie...Landon said it wouldn't be very long, but of course, how do you keep a visit with someone you haven't seen in a year short.) After Homedale we headed back in to Boise for my nephew Tyler's 2nd Birthday party.

The kids were really, really, excited for this party. Aunt CharEl does awesome birthday parties and my kids still remembered the Blue's Clues party that was thrown for Tyler's first birthday. Again, she didn't disappoint and had a bunch of crafts for the kids to do as well as watching Cars 2. We ate good food, had fabulous yummy cake and cupcakes and got to chat and let kids play again.



Kat and Grandpa Kunz were able to spend some good quality time getting to know each other.

Right before we left we tried to get a family picture. I realized that even though Kat was 3 months old we did not have any pictures of our entire family together yet. So, we attempted one....with attempted being the key word.

Neither of our boys were really happy about having their picture taken, especially Levi.

With both my Mom and brother Buddy snapping pictures every couple of seconds, this is the best that we could do.

But hey, now we have proof that we are a family of six.

Shortly after taking the picture we loaded up the kids and headed back on the six hour drive to Tooele. The kids vegged out in the back with movies...

...and Landon and I attempted to get a little further on reading Lord of the Rings. (This is currently in it's third or fourth year. We are in the middle of the second book.)

All in all it was a whirlwind busy weekend of visiting friends and family, but we loved every single minute of it!

November in a Nutshell

November flew by for us this year. This was our first year with Landon working full time for FedEx and it really did make a difference. We have come accustomed to knowing that peak season starts at Thanksgiving and goes through the end of December. What we didn't account for was that he has a new job and was full time this year. This made his peak season start even earlier. So, by the beginning of November he was pretty much in full swing.

I kept busy being mom and trying to stay up on my teaching. I have had a really hard time focusing since Kat was born. (I think it may be the anti-depressant I am taking.) Landon thinks it is kind of funny because it is what he feels all the time. Never-the-less I am learning to deal being a little disorganized and crazy.

Levi has gotten really in to helping me with some of my motherly tasks. He likes to help put the dishes away, and he loves to help me make dinner.

Another really fun thing for November was that we got our first really big snow fall. It started snowing one Friday night and didn't stop all night. The kids woke up so incredibly excited to play in it. Sadly our yard is still lacking grass so the areas for them to play are are limited. They made do with a part of the unfinished fence that we had to take down so that the wind didn't knock it down. (Did I mention that the wind in Tooele is insane! I will have to make a post on that later.)

The neighbors were also nice enough to let them make snow angels in their yard and play in their snow.

This is a picture of the kids being Phineas & Ferb. Phineas & Ferb is a Disney Channel television show that we got really in to during November. Not only do the kids like it and are totally entertained by it, but Landon and I love it as well. There have been a few times that we have chosen to watch it without the kids. Cute show, if you haven't seen it, check it out!

Besides playing in the snow the kids were kept busy with the usual preschool and school. Trevor and Ellen were also able to take another round of swim lessons. They are both getting pretty good. They can each swim about 10-15 strokes by themselves across the pool. We are lucky enough to be able to have a really fun and fantastic pool that they can continue to take lessons all through the winter. That way we will be ready to go when the summer comes.

That was the everyday happenings for us in November. There were a couple of noteworthy events, but I will get to those in the next couple of posts.