What a difference a year makes....

So one year ago I was sitting around feeling pretty awful everyday...tired and sore.  I thought to myself - it's probably because you work too much and have four kids that you feel like this.  But I decided I would try and give up sugar and carbs to see if I felt any better.  12 months and 30 pounds later - my pains are all but gone, my sciatica no longer throbs, my knees don't swell and I don't fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon everyday.  The only downsize I can see - is that I can never go back to eating the way I was...primarily because the couple of times I have had sugar in the last year I have broke out in hives.  D'Oh!

I had the kiddos recreate one of my least favorite pictures from a year ago to look at the difference in the size of me and subsequently them too. :-)

Dropping off pictures here.

What a fantastic time of year...the holidays and Joe and Jackson's birthdays.

Christmas trees and lights.

November 25 - Today I am thankful for our Christmas tree.  It is a pre-lit 12 foot behemoth that ALL of the lights are burnt out on so we have string lights on it but none the less it makes me increasingly happy when I see it up.

November 26 - Today I am thankful for Class Dojo.  It's an app on my phone that the girls teachers post to so I can see what they are doing and what announcements are coming up.  I love feeling connected to the girls when they are at school.

November 27 - Today I am thankful for insurance.  It's an odd thing to be thankful for unless you know what it's like to not have it.  Joe was able to go to the dentist this morning without issues or payment...it's an weirdly satisfying feeling to know that I can take care of my family's insurance and health needs.

November 28 - Today I am thankful for Luna - or I call her Luna Belle.  She's a magnificent cat and plays so well with the kids.  I had forgotten what it was like to have a younger cat around Christmas - until I heard rustling in the tree half way up. :-)


November 29 - Today I am thankful for the Holiday Shoppe.  The PTO at the girls school puts on this amazing holiday shop where the kiddos can go in and shop for their friends and family. Everything has a sticker on it and is color coded for the price - the items are all super cute and I cannot imagine how long it takes to shop for them, store them all year and then set it all up.  As in most of life you can tell when someone loves what they do by the amount of effort they put forth.  I am forever grateful for the awesome PTO.

November 30 - Today I am thankful for 30 days of Thanks and the breath of fresh air that it has been for me.  Can you believe November is over - and more importantly and shocking 2018 is nearly over.  Whew!  If time flew any faster I would need a DeLorean. :-D

See how awesome Class Dojo is (well and really Tyler's teacher for posting so much)?!?!?!  We get videos and pictures.

Oh yeah and a few weeks ago they had the National Guard show up in a helicopter.  Of course Tyler's amazing teacher caught it on her phone for all of us parents.

Anne - I thought of Charles when I first saw these!!!

And Miss Luna Belle in our tree. :-D

Thanksgiving!

Today felt like work.  Which I know is a crazy thing to say - with four kiddos and everything else everyday should feel like work...but some days flow easier than others.  So I decided what a better way to come here and write down some thankful posts (even though between me and you...this is feeling like work too).

November 20 - Today I am thankful that my craft is IT.  I could have picked any number of careers and nearly did...but settled on IT.  I am thankful that I did because I use it on almost a daily basis for things that are not my job (like today when Joe's email wouldn't work) and I am not sure I could say the same about other careers.

November 21 - Today I am thankful for Click List.  I can order all of my groceries on line at 6AM while everyone else is sleeping and choose when to pick them up, I cannot tell you what a life saver this has felt like.  I know that teaching my kiddos to behave in public is one of my many duties but boy is it nice to skip just this one trip and have them load the already bagged groceries into the back of the car.

November 22 - Today I am thankful for Thanksgiving!  My all time favorite.  We had the amazing dinner and great company and Tadd and I laughing about something that no one else gets until we're bent over drooling.  It's just a magical time and I would not trade it.

November 23 - Today I am thankful for the fact that we live so close to my brother and Carri.  I know there's a chance that our life will take us to other locations but for now when they call and ask if they can drop off the girls while they go out to eat...it's wonderful that it is that easy.

November 24 - Today I am thankful for Shop Small Saturday.  My Mom met us at the usual restaurant and we had a delicious meal followed by ornament shopping and naps.  What a great way to thank the local shop owners.

Hey I bet from these pictures you can't tell who normally needs the most amount of correcting at a dinner table?!?!!?  You can almost sense his energy level through the pictures.

Ooopps got behind.

November 12 - Today I am thankful for snow days.  We didn't have one snow day all last year and we were super excited to get one this year.  What a great day for hanging out in a warm house and playing all day long.

November 13 - Today I am thankful for family dinners.  We don't get together every birthday like we used to...only because our schedules all pull us in different directions, but when we do it is still so much fun.  Like this night for Papa, Carri and Emily's birthday (Dane's girlfriend).

November 14 - Today I am thankful for Carri.  She is such a great addition to Tadd's life and the wonderful mother to my amazing nieces...oh yeah and SHE SAID YES!  I don't think anything will ever show up on Facebook being as though they are both so quiet - but Carri showed up sporting a heck of an ice skating rink on a very important finger.  No official plans yet on date and what not but exciting none the less.

November 15 - Today I am thankful for Grandparents day.  Even though I am positive last year was even more magical to have both Grandmas in town - this year I got to be there.  So I was very thankful for that.

November 16 - Today I am thankful for steam cleaners.  The whole family got the stomach flu and since we have so many little people that don't quite know how to clean up after themselves I had a lot of laundry and a lot of steam cleaning to do over the next four days.

November 17 - Today I am thankful for Summer - she just cracks me up and I was so bummed to cancel going to her birthday party - but I thought it best not to pass the stomach flu around.

November 18 - Today I am thankful for board games on a Sunday.  Chewy and Joe were sick on Sunday so while the littles were sleeping the bigs and I were able to play a couple of rounds of games.  They always seem to love it so much.

November 19 - Today I am thankful for my perfect job - or more importantly the perfect geographic location of my job.  Since Hunter can wake at her leisure and walk into my office for a morning hug before venturing into the living room to watch cartoons with her older siblings.

Warmth & Chili

November 10 - Today I am thankful for Colorado's ever changing weather...it was 55 degrees today and GORGEOUS!  So we were in full swing outside getting ready for the Chili cook off.

November 11 - Today I am thankful for great friends and family.  I was not my usual excited self about our 12th annual Chili Cook Off this year, it was hard for me to even schedule it.  With the stress of the sale of the business and what not everything just felt like too much.  But then I couldn't bring myself to cancel it.  So we scheduled it out and it ended up snowing a good 8 inches yesterday - which made me fearful after all of the hesitation that then no one would show up due to weather.  But when the party started everyone started piling in the warm house carrying crock pots full of chili - we had a total of 13 chilis to pick from and a ton of laughter to go around.

We will call this one - Yeah right Tadd.  I love the look on Rob's face.

Ahhh….my Mom what a great smile.

And someone actually got Tadd and I to hold still long enough to snap this one where I was trying desperately to be as tall as him. ;-)

Marmee

November 9 - Today I am thankful for Marmee/Mom/Carole.  Talk about a woman who has helped and supported my whole family for so long now.  Words cannot sum up how much her love has meant to all of us...today we are especially thankful for her.

Woodstoves and Stepdads

November 7 - Today I am thankful for woodstoves.  We have a wood burning stove in the living room and on nights like last night when it is 20 degrees and foggy it sure is nice to sit by a fire and warm up for a bit.

November 8 - Today I am thankful for Papa/George/my stepdad.  It's tough for me to call him my stepdad to most people, I feel like it implies that he would mean significantly less to me than my dad did - which is just not the case.  I have been supported by this man for more years now than I was by my own father and it's an honor to call him family.  Today is his birthday and I am forever grateful for the energy that he brings to my family.

Weekends and voting

November 3 - Today I am thankful for road trips, Joe's friend Adam moved just over 2 hours away and was hosting a Fall Fish Fry on Saturday.  We packed up the car and headed out to visit with him.  I am thankful that Joe and I agreed so long ago to not allow electronics in the car and limit movies to extended trips only...and one movie per trip.  Listening to our kids talk about the scenery and ask what things are, fall in and out of sleep...color and read.  All of these skills for a child - I feel - are so important for them to learn.  Just simply entertaining your self when you have no other option.

November 4 - Today I am thankful for Sunday, Sunday Fundays.  We still say that in our house even though our kids are getting older...on this Sunday we all stayed home and just hung out.  This is a true treat to us now days.  For the most part at least one of us has to leave the house each day, but on this glorious day no one did.

November 5 - Today I am thankful for the right to vote...while I know voting is actually tomorrow.  This night we sat down with Austin and talked through each ballot issue and looked up each person we voted for.  She was amazed to see one woman that we had ran into at a festival - and was so proud and happy that we were able to vote for her - exclaiming "boy I sure hope she wins, she was so nice".

Novmber 6 - Today I am thankful for Tierpoint.  Today marks my year anniversary with them - and while this time last year I was sitting in a hotel room crying because I missed my kids more than anything on the planet, I am forever grateful for the opportunity that they have provided me and my family.  I was moved over to another team roughly 6 months ago and completely love working with/for them.  They are a tenacious group that just gets things done - which are my type of people.

This just pulled into my office...boy do I love these little people.

The playroom and afternoon sunbeams

November 2 - Today I am thankful for the playroom and afternoon sunbeams.  While Hunter was feeling "sensitive" after her nap, we sat in on the couch in the playroom enjoying some shared sunbeams in the afternoon.  Since a majority of my peers live on the east coast, the afternoons are generally quiet and lend themselves quite well to sensitive little people. :-)  The playroom has always been my favorite room in the house, probably because it is so well lit with two large windows...coupled with the fact that I always wanted one when I was a kid.

30 Days of Thanks!

One of my absolute favorite times of the year - and the most attention I pay to this poor blog.

November 1- Today I am thankful for headsets and working from home.  While there are the obvious reasons why working from home is spectacular - I get to raise our children at home rather than carting them off to daycare every morning.  But then there are days like today, I am handling a migration for a teammate while they are off today and have been on a call, sharing out my screen for just over two hours.  Which means that I have not been able to even check my work email except for on my phone - but because I work from home I have taken care of the kids and other duties while the team watches the virtual machines on my laptop being cloned.  If I had to sit there at my desk without doing anything for hours on end it would crush me.

And some Halloween pictures.

Halloween 2018

As we have for so many years now we went over to Rob and Jelene's house for their annual Halloween party.  We show up early and leave early and with enough threatening in the car - the kids left on their gloves (getting four small sets of hands into gloves is no joke).

Poor Taylor was so scared of Tadd in his Captain Hook costume that we had to snap a few pictures and let him take off the wig, hat and mustache.

Marmee's Visit

I am so thankful for Marmee for so many reasons but one on the list definitely has to be her strive to photograph life.

Here's the picture drop that I literally just stole from her Facebook page so I could have a copy of them. :-D


The first night she got here we had volleyball and it was actually nice enough for the kids and her to join us.

We have been playing Qwirkle lately and having fun trying out new strategies.

We went bowling at Bass Pro shops which is this completely awesome underwater themed one.

Marmee brought Legos - which were a HUGE hit with Jackson.

I saved putting out the fall and Halloween decorations for when Marmee was here - it's magical for me to watch how excited the kids get putting everything up so I hope she felt the same way.

By the looks on the Bigs faces...maybe they were watching The History of Timeout?  Ha ha ha!

We got to go watch Smallfoot in the theaters - it was such a cute movie.

Joe and I got all dressed up and ventured south to a wedding - nice excuse to have a date night.