I made the first year of my blog into a book. It's totally epic! I did most of it while I was on bedrest but I had to put the finishing touches on it recently. One night I was working on it and Davis asked, "Are you finished putting your blog on your Facebook yet?" Haha. Not entirely correct Davis but good try :)

I had a great time doing it too. It was awesome re-reading all the things we did and seeing how cute my kids were when they were a little bit littler. 2008 was a hard year for me though and some of the posts brought back so many strong memories. It was hard reliving those days. Sometimes it boggles my mind what I've experienced in my short little life, the good and the bad. One thing I've learned is that motherhood keeps me on my toes... and yet at the same time seems to turn my brain to mush :)

"Lets eat the turkey in my big brown shoe"

-"Turkey Song" by Adam Sandler

Thanksgiving this year was delicious... and fun... and crazy. I'll try to condense it but as Jeff can tell ya I like to talk haha.

Last Thanksgiving was hard. We were on an elimination diet but trying to eat at the Leavitt's with everyone else. I knew it would take a lot of energy for me to prepare my family's food before hand, bring it to the party and convince my kids it's just as good as what everyone else is eating, but for some reason I didn't have that energy. Turns out I was pregnant and I didn't know it! Anyways, the children ate all sorts of allergens and I felt bad.

I was determined to do better this year. And I had hope because Amber was going to be there and she's a super great cook and doesn't mind trying new things. She pretty much came up with all the recipes and was able to either make the recipe according to Gray's restrictions or take some out for him before the other stuff was added in. It worked great! The other thing that worked out was we fed Grayson his food FIRST. He was happily munching on his special plate and didn't notice the other food. It was a far cry from the Saturday before when we had dinner at Rod & Cindy's and he cried the whole time!

After dinner we went on a hay ride (down a ditch bank, how's that for small town!) and tried to find the goodie bags that were hidden earlier. It was super fun! The weather was so amazing. We went after sunset so I took jackets for my whole family but we didn't even need them! That's one benefit of living in the desert :)

We stayed in Blythe four days and ate Amaploa twice, haha. My cousins's daughters Marlena, Shiloh, Victoria and Angelique came over and kept up busy playing Sardines, Uno, Hide-and-Go-Seek and the like. Also Meema bought a trampoline on Black Friday and that kept the little kids from getting bored... Grayson only fell of once so that was good!

All the Tippit women together makes for a lot of drama. I swear I try to be patient with my mother it's just really difficult. She hounded me the entire trip to wash the dishes. Even when I was nursing the baby, changing diapers, putting PJs on or putting someone down for bed all I'd hear was, "Why aren't you doing the dishes?" or "Don't you want to do the dishes?". Frustrating.

The Sunday we left Amber wanted Thrifty ice cream so the boys went to get some. They ended up getting eight flavors! It was like a Thrifty ice shop or something. We thought about charging 15 cents a scoop to be just like old times ;)

On the hay ride:

What, you didn't have foot races on a ditch bank this Thanksgiving!?
You're missing out.

"We're gonna party like it's 1999"

- Prince

My 10 year high school reunion was a trip! It was fun/interesting seeing so many of my classmates again. I'm a horrible long-distance-realtionshiper so there weren't many I'd kept in close contact with and there were soooo many people who I'd love to have seen but didn't come :( And it was surprisingly cliquish, go figure. But the funniest thing was when some guy told Jeff they remebered him...uh, he didn't go here haha, and then someone (I can't remember who!) referred to him as Mr. Autumn Tippit, good one!

Another thing the weekend offered was a chance to ask myself "What HAVE you done with the last 10 years of your life!?". I can't even explain how overwhelming that question became. It seems like so much of my doings won't be considered an accomplishment for a long time. Parenting is the biggest one. I've spent so much time learning and growing in this endeavor but do I really have anything tangible to show for it? Well, except for my children's apparent cuteness of course ;)

And, since I'm being honest here, I was also concerned with how I would look at the reunion. I did just have a baby but I didn't want people to think I'd let myself go haha. One thing I'd tell my teenage self is, "you're not fat, not even a little". The thing I miss the most about high school is the opportunity to play sports all the time. I totally did not appreciate that at the time.

Unfortunately my camera's battery was dead and I hadn't found the cord to recharge it yet so don't have any pictures of my own from the reunion. Can you tell I'm still completely disorganized from the recent move?

Here are some pics of the weekend from Meema's camera:

Poor Grayson had a fever the whole time :(

"It was a graveyard smash"

-"Monster Mash"

Grayson as "Dark Vader"

Leah as "Princess Jasmine"

Davis with his two-ended "light saver" that went with the Darth Maul costume he chose not to wear.

Whitney in her cute Halloween onesie her Meema bought her.

We had fun Friday night at the ward Trunk-or-Treat. You know I have a love/hate relationship with candy, and with Grayson's food allergies there aren't a lot of candies he can eat, so I chose to pass out glow-in-the-dark necklaces instead. It was fun and festive! The kids went around and collected some candy, not too much but enough.

Then Saturday our neighbors told us there are some fun activities set up in front of the Bishop's house and invited us to go. Jeff was pretty tired from working on the house stuff (and told me he didn't want to go) but we all ended up going and it was fun. They had a bouncy castle and a Plinko board the kids could play for candy and a homemade "train" the kids could ride. It was like a carnival :)

And now, my favorite part of Halloween...the candy! Leah and Davis both had bags to collect candy as they trick-or-treated. I did not let Grayson have one which allowed him to only have as much candy as he could hold and I went up with him to every house and picked out his "allowed" candy for him. This part of the story makes me sound like a control freak but trust me, my kids don't handle candy well just like their momma! Anyways, Leah was pretty happy with her haul but Davis was unsatisfied. He wanted more, more, more!
I had already told them that if you put your candy out The Great Pumpkin will trade it for a toy in the night. Leah was all giggly over the prospect but Davis wasn't having it! He said, "I'm going to wait and see what kind of toy he brings Leah". Always the bargainer that one. I told him it's only that one night so he had to decide before he went to bed. Well, not only did he NOT want to leave his candy out he convinced Leah to keep hers too!

Turns out The Great Pumpkin can find your hidden candy and trade it for a toy anyways :) Luckily they were cool toys and the kids were more than happy. "He" left Leah some Littlest Pet shop animals that had costumes and Davis got a light saber.
Now I have to start planning on how to make Thanksgiving allergy friendly...

"Count Your Blessings"

Last Sunday Jeff was able to give Whitney her baby blessing. It was wonderful. My mom and dad were able to come into town so in the circle were Jeff, his dad, my dad, and Jeff's two brothers Jeric and Tyson. We really are so blessed to have our little Whitney Sue as part of our family! **Whitney wore the same dress Leah did on her blessing day, as well as Leah's cute baby bracelet my friend Crystal had made for her. Leah and I just love when Whitney wears something of hers. Sisters are so special!**

More camping pictures!
Grayson stood waaaayyyy back to roast his marshmallow. He would "check" it and say all proud, "It's warm!". We all got a good laugh out of that :)
Whitney slept awesome! A little wiggly. I think she could feel the small rocks under her "matress", a princess for sure!

"Bees were humming, sweet birds singing"

-"Joseph Smith's First Prayer" hymn #26

We don't have our office set up so I don't blog in real time anymore :( And these pictures are all from my Mom's camera, I haven't even uploaded the few Jeff took yet! Moving into a new house is hard ha ha.

Anyways, over General Conference weekend Jeff and I took our kids camping on the Colorado River. We camped two nights, Friday and Saturday, to get the real camping experience. I had so much fun. It was like a snapshot of my childhood :)


The biggest challenge of the weekend was the potty situation. Grayson was wearing underwear but still having accidents and Davis DID NOT want to "go" in the bushes. I had brought the "potty chair" for Gray but Davis didn't want to use that either. He even asked if we could drive back to Papa's to go potty! After a little while both of them got the hang of the situation. Whew, crisis averted ;)

And then there was the skunk situation...
My parents came to camp with us Saturday night. As we ALL sat around the campfire out comes this skunk. She is not afraid of us and keeps coming back even though we keep throwing rocks at her. My dad has the brilliant idea that he's going to shot the skunk! After materializing a gun, getting all gangsta making sure it's still usable, realizing his 56 year old eyes can't see that good in the dark, encouraging me to shoot it even though it was scrounging for food on a big pile of ROCKS! and A LOT of laughter, I'm happy to report the skunk was not harmed. We even left some food out for her to eat. Okay, that was an accident :)