Thanksgiving Pics

I realized this morning that I never posted any pics from our great Thanksgiving! We had our dinner with the Tanners and the Jolleys. It was relaxed and really enjoyable!

With all the crazy children! :)

Our family.

Myles, the goofiest kid in town! What would we do without him??

April and Brad with Janie. They always feed her the stuff she wants, instead of the stuff I give her, which is great :)

Quote of the Day:

"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie." ~Jim Davis

My 100th Post!

So we're pretty cheap and this year we decided to try to take our own picture of the girls for Christmas cards. Well, um, most of the pictures we took turned out like this...

Is this considered a "headlock" or a "half nelson" ??

We put Reagan between them so they couldn't reach each other to pinch, poke, punch, pull, strangle, or otherwise maime each other. He just added to the rediculous mix. It was definitely an "experience" that we'll remember for many years to come.

Quote of the Day:

"What is a home without children? Quiet." -Henny Youngman

Gobble 'Till You Wobble!

Today's the day! We're having a nice, relaxing turkey day this year, which is desperately needed in our little family. I flat-out refused to cook this year, (last year we had OVER 30 people at OUR house, so I don't feel bad about it, okay?) so we're going up to the Inn on the Creek in Midway for a yummy buffet. We get to enjoy the company of the Tanners (whom we've never had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with!!) and the Jolleys (whom we love more than meat loves salt) so we are excited, thankful, and very blessed this year!

The Tanners have this cool tradition where each Thanksgiving they draw a picture of the thing that they're most thankful for. While I've decided that my drawing will be a book with wings (because reading takes me away from the everyday demands of being a mom/wife), the thing that I'm truly most thankful for are the everyday demands of being a mom/wife. My family is the most special, tender, integral, wonderful part of me. They're my soul. I thank the Lord every day (even the really hard ones) that I have been blessed with a soul mate and children of my own. There is no greater blessing than that of a family. I truly believe that.

Here's Gracie sporting her pilgrim hat she made at preschool!

We're thankful that we've gotten to spend so much time with Dennis this year. I have missed my big brother so much over the last few years. We got to see him in August before Torrey, in October when we went to visit him in Sparks, and in November when he came to spend time with mom while she was in the hospital. Dennis' girlfriend Tawny has become a close friend and part of the family, too, which has made this year even better. Blessings, blessings, blessings...

Quote of the Day:

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." - Thornton Wilder

"Smittens"

I was browsing through one of the millions of catalogs we get daily, when I came across these "smittens." They're for people who need to hold hands, but also need mittens. LOL. Is that hilarious, or what? I'm totally going to order some of these and make Joey wear them with me around BYU campus so people can be jealous. (I'm not sure why these tickled my funny bone, but I haven't stopped laughing for about two weeks about them.) Anywho - I hope you all have someone you're "smittens" with these days...

Quote of the Day:
"The lover is a monotheist who knows that other people worship different gods but cannot himself imagine that there could be other gods." ~Theodor Reik, Of Love and Lust, 1957

Dance, Dance, Dance, All Night Long...

My sister April is the best Auntie on the planet :) She comes and rescues Gracie and Janie when they are in imminent danger of losing digits or limbs, and she buys them cute treats all the time! She has been begging me to post some pictures of Gracie at her weekly ballet class, but I haven't been able to take any because the parents aren't allowed to stay and watch! However, last week was a "parent watch day" at her class, so I finally got to tote along my camera and watch my little blooming beauty getting jiggy with it! I was the only mom there with a camera...isn't that strange? Anywho - here she is!

All the other girls flitted across the room and back at mach speed, but Gracie took her time and did her exercises slow and steady. (She's looking in the mirror as she goes along...)

With her prop for the "teddy bear" dance. Oh...My...Cute!

This is her teacher Brandi. Gracie loves her :)

Quote of the Day:

"Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels." ~Faith Whittlesey

song dance, steve miller band

The Jersey Worm

Gracie woke up in the middle of the night going, "Ahhh! Ahhh! There's a jersey worm on my arm! Daddy! Ahhh!" I was actually the one to answer her summons, and when I went into her room she was sitting on her bed brushing at her arm. She kept saying that she was scared of her "jersey worm" so I "plucked" it off her sleeve and put it in the "garden" on the floor. She was very releived. :)

Quote of the Day:
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia." -Charles Schulz

song, kung fu fighting, carl douglas

The Perfect Storm

Usually, the title of this post could completely describe Gracie's day-to-day mood/activities, but this week, it applies to the whole fam damily!

Sunday night I went to an InstaCare clinic because I had a painful rash on my chest and back and Mom said it looked like Shingles...which it turned out to be. I feel like a gross leper or something. However, my blisters are all healing up quickly and I've had almost no time to think about it, so it wasn't too bad! Thank goodness for medicine. The chickenpox virus is the one that, once you've had it, can give you shingles. Gracie has already been immunized for chickenpox, but Janie hadn't, so she had to be rushed to the pediatrician on Monday morning for 3 shots of her own :( I was so afraid she'd get sick, but I think the vaccination did it's job and she's just got a cold.

Monday morning, my dad went into the hopsital for a total knee replacement! Yay Dad!

Wednesday, I had to call an ambulance to come and get my mom because she was so sick that she couldn't move anymore. She went into the ER with basically NO blood pressure, bad fever and chills, NO oxygen in her blood, oh, and um, basically no blood...as she's been recovering from a round of chemotherapy. As it turns out, she has pneumonia! Who knew? Definitely not her doctors! (Even though she sees them multiple times a week.) It looks like she has pneumonia for several weeks now. Poor thing. The good news is, it's treatable and she's on the mend! Yay Mom!

Gracie's recovering from a bad cold and still has the smoker's hack, but other than that she's my same old fireball...seriously, I wonder why God didn't send her down here with RED hair?

Janie was recovering from the same bad cold, but got sick again and so she's still on cough medicine and the humidifier at night. She's slowly getting better, but each night is kind of tough for her still.

Joe has been my rock through all this...no colds, no knee replacements, no pneumonia, until Thursday when he had his first migraine on his drive home from work and threw up all over his car :( Isn't that horrible? I hope he wont get mad that I'm posting about it. Poor guy. He was really really sick for the second half of that day, but he's feeling better today. I've never seen him in so much physical pain. His mom gets horrible migraines and I think that subconsciously, I've been waiting for them to hit him too...I sure hope they're few and far between.

So, basically that's the recipe for my perfect storm. Here are some pics to lighten the mood...


Gracie is a daddy's girl. He's the one she calls for in the middle of the night, and when she gets hurt or sad. I don't blame her. I feel the same way about him. (I heart you, Joe.)


He lets her listen to music on his Blackberry...a classic!

I loved this picture when I saw it. Isn't he a cutie pie? I think Davey is up in heaven, looking just like his daddy these days...

Quote of the Day:

"Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young, Who loved thee so fondly as he? He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue, And joined in thy innocent glee." -- Margaret Courtney

song, in my life, the beatles

Serenity Now!

So I learned something new about myself today. What I want more than anything today is "Serenity Now" (think Mr. Costanza from Seinfeld and you've about got the tone.) So I decided to look up a picture that symbolized serenity. Here's what I came up with...Sea Oats! Aren't they so beautiful? Maybe you have to imagine them in motion, on the beach in Pensacola, surrounded by white sand, and being 10 years old like I was when I first saw them...Yeah, that helps somewhat.

My Favorite Scripture: (now you learned something new about me today, too!)

2 Nephi 31:20 "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life."

song: the wind, cat stevens

Halloween Fun

I know, these are SOOOO late in coming, but at least they're here now! Halloween pics!

Joe's pumpkin was HUGE! At the pumpkin patch, the lady said that it was the biggest one they sold that year!! Joe is an awesome pumpkin carver. He has really cool ideas (check out the eyeballs) and is super talented! This pumpkin was so big that he had to go pretty simple on his design though. I thought it was awesome!!

As I said, Joe's super talented at carving...here's Gracie's pumpkin. Cool, huh? (I love the ears!)

I, on the other hand, am your standars, run-of-the-mill carver and all my jack-o-lanterns look practically identical. :)

Janie was unlucky enough to have ME carving her pumpkin this year and this is what we came up with :) She seemed to like it though.

Preschool friends! Mitchell, Dayton and Gracie.

Gracie's preschool class. (She's dressed up as a doctor, by the way.)

My cute cousin Meg and her daughter Lexie! (Dayton's mom).

Janie got to wear a hand-me-down pumpkin costume from the Tanners :) Poor thing hardly gets anything new of her own. Oh well :) So goes the life of a "little sister." She was really happy though because she got to eat Dum Dums all night long!

Quote of the Day:

"Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble." ~ Shakespeare "Macbeth"

song: baby mine, alison kraus

A Seriously Long Nap

This little beauty slept for 15, yes, FIFTEEN hours last night. Can you imagine?? We put her down for her second nap yesterday at 3:30pm and she never woke up for dinner! She slept until about 6:00am! I just had to document this crazy abnormality so one day I could read over this and wonder how that was humanly possible!

It is a true blizzard outside this morning. When Gracie woke up and looked out our big window, she exclaimed, "It's Christmas!!" I wish that Joe didn't have to drive to work today. It rained all day yesterday and then snowed all night, so there's a thick layer of ice under the frost, I'm sure. Icy roads are my numero uno complaint about winter. It is so dangerous, and I just hate it.

Quote of the day:
"Consciousness: that annoying time between naps." ~Author Unknown

song: forever young, alphaville

Makin' Cookies With Grandma

What do kids love more than making cookies with their Grandma? Nothin'! (Except maybe eating said cookies with their Grandma.) Here are some pics of the girls and their Grandma making peanut butter cookies. They were so delicious...we devoured them ALL in one night :)

My mom has been through a lot these last six months or so and I'm so glad that she is all done with Chemo and is on the mend now. She's had over 12 units of blood, who knows how many bags of plasma, and has clocked many an hour at the hospital infusion clinic. It's no fun!! I love you Mom, and I'm glad that you're strong and stubborn because it's getting you through this hard time. You're the bee's knees!!! Hooray for the Red Cross and people who donate blood!

Quote of the Day:

"The reason grandchildren and grandparents get along so well is that they have a common enemy." ~Sam Levenson

song: love divine, seal

Me...Um, All the Time

The angle of this picture is really strange, but you get the general idea...me...reading. I'm actually reading Brisingr in this pic. It was great! And I'm in post-good-book letdown, where once again, I'm sad that the story is over and I have to do other things in my spare time like sweep the floor and shuck the mail. :( Rats!

Joey says he's in middle-of-boring-book letdown :) He's reading Founding Brothers.

Anywho - just wanted to post even though I haven't uploaded any Halloween pictures yet. I'm actually avoiding it, I think. We took so many pictures that I really don't want to sort through them all, ya know?



Quote of the Day:
"She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain." (1873) ~ Louisa May Alcott ~

Song: Supermassive Black Hole, Muse

A Mosaic About ME!

I got this idea from a friend of a friend's blog. Here is a photo mosaic about me! Can you guess what each picture means?

1. What is your first name? Heather
2. What is your favorite food? Coffee Lover's ice cream from Cold Stone
3. What school did you go to? Utah Valley University
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. What is your favorite animal? Polar Bear
6. Favorite Drink? Vanilla Coke
7. Dream Vacation? Scotland
8. Favorite Dessert? Creme Brulee
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? Book critic
10. What do you love most in life? Family
11. One word to describe you? Comfortable
12. Your nickname? Mama

The Concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

Oh, and be careful because I ran across some racy pics. Don't search for anything with a kinky double meaning, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean??

(Another) Quote of the Day:
"We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves." ~Mark Twain

song: Operator, Jim Croce

Sisters, Sisters

Janie absolutely loves to push around this walker. It belongs to Dayton and Lexie, but Gracie borrowed it when she was learning how to walk and Janie did the same, just recently! Janie is a pro walker nowadays, but she still loves pushing it around and Gracie decided to cash in on that fact. She sat down in it right as Janie was tootling along and Janie pushed her all the way across the room! It was pretty funny to watch :) I'm still in shock that I had my camera at the ready and got a good picture of the goings on!

Quote of the Day:

"If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child." ~Linda Sunshine

A Pumpkin's A Pumpkin, No Matter How Small

It's that time of year again, so we took the girls to the pumpkin patch to pick out some good lookin' gourds for our front porch! I LOVE pumpkins, Halloween and all the warm fuzzy things that go with fall. Maybe it's the prospect of wearing sweatshirts in the evenings, drinking hot chocolate for breakfast and using our fireplace that warm the cockles of my little heart...who knows? I have been mourning the fact that I'll be putting away my mirrorball flipflops soon. Those have been my favorite shoes ever. I haven't given them a final farewell yet...it's just too sad! But I do love breakin' out my old coats and putting the duvet on the bed. Ahhhhh...toasty. Here are some pics from our jaunt to the Patch...

This was about the biggest pumpkin that Janie could hold :)

Rare, yes. The sisters share a moment of parent-dictated affection.

I love this picture because it's so Janie. She is still such a mini-mite and her walk has a swagger that is adorable :)

Gracie pointed out every pumpkin that had any green on it and called it "Silly!!" Apparently, green is a very funny color for a pumpkin :)

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." -Albert Camus

Song: Come Monday, Jimmy Buffet

A Tough Week To Be Jane...

This has definitely been a bad week for little people named Jane Eleanor Alexander. She fought a fever of 103 for three days, got pushed into a door frame by her "loving" sister, and never gets to go to dance class or preschool! Life just isn't fair! Here are some pictures from her "week O fun."

Schweaty hair and a really high fever...at least Daddy's cuddling her :)

Gracie's "I don't know what you're talking about" face. Little devil.

The hugest, most alien goose egg of all time was brought into existence on Janie's forhead. Grace pushed her down and she hit her bedroom door frame on the way. I was so freaked out I ran downstairs and woke up mom and dad to look at it too. I almost took her to the doctor's, but she fell asleep after I held ice on it for a while and so I just let her take a long nap. Poor thing. It was truly sickening to see. It has healed really quickly and all that's left is a greenish bruise that's fading each day.A much happier girl...she loves to hang out and "help" me do the dishes. It's kind of like a race to see how many dishes she can pull out while I'm putting more in! (Usually she wins and I just give up on the dishes altogether :) She can't resist all the sippy cups...that's why she's reaching up into the top basket. Maybe she's experimenting with fermentation and I keep jacking up all the test results!

Quote of the Day:

"For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked." - Bill Cosby

Song: Satellite, Guster

Home Again, Home Again

We got home last night from our trip to Reno...eight hours in the car with my two kids and I was about to go Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on their...butts. It was totally worth it though because we had such a great time with Dennis and Tawny! They made us feel so welcome and their house is so clean and comfortable that we felt right at home. We played Loaded Questions and Chicken Bones (at which Denny will proudly tell you his winning score of 4 points! I think it's some kind of a record...especially for a first timer! Yeah, he schooled us all.) And we had tacos and steaks and Round Table pizza! Them's the makings of a great few days! We even drove up to lake Tahoe and were amazed at how very beautiful it was. Sunlight glittering on a lake (or the ocean) is one of Heavenly Father's most beautiful works of art. We're glad to be home though so I don't have to worry about the girls pulling down D's curtains anymore...don't ask :)

Question of the day...
What can you find at home that you find nowhere else?

Over the river and through the woods...

We're heading to Nevada in the morning to visit Dennis and Tawny! Joe has to give a work presentation in Reno on Tuesday night, so the girls and I are tagging along so we can kick it with our homies! JK We are so excited to go and see their new digs and play some games with them. I wish they lived closer so we could hang out more often. Oh well. We'll just take advantage of mileage reimbursement from Joe's work :)

Quote of the Day:

"In America, there are two classes of travel: First class, and with children." -- Robert Benchley

MNF

Monday Night Football = lots of reading time for Heather! I seriously do love football season, but for me, background noise is usually the way I prefer to take it. It gives me lots of time to do things that I don't have time to do during the off season. For example, today we bought our very own copy of Loaded Questions. It's a great game that we play every time we're with the Alexander clan. I found it at Target and got one. So, while Joe was occupied with kickoff, I cleaned out our game cabinet and got rid of a bag of garbage and a few games that we never play. I took out all the girls' games to be stored elsewhere so that I can make it the RULE that in order to open the game cabinet you have to know what a maxi pad is for. Grace, the Queen of Chaos can make quick work of a game cabinet, leaving destruction and despair in her wake so next time she's at su casa, lock it up! You think I'm joking.

Have you ever read a book that was so great that you just didn't want to put it away on your bookshelf? I finished reading Dune a couple of weeks ago and it was so good. Just SO, SO GOOD! I do love a hefty dose of Sci Fi every now and again, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I liked it so much, but Dang! It was GREAT! If you like that genre, I highly recommend it. I'm sad that I had to update my widget to show that I had moved on to another book :( LOL.

"Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends."
~ Dawn Adams ~

We Are Family

Here's the last installment of pictures from our fun family get-together. We were so sad that we didn't get to stay and have fun in Torrey, so we were glad to have another family fling that we got to participate in.

The Fam...minus one angel who's making sure Gracie and Janie are hiking safely :)

The cousins all played dress up and this outfit was by far the favorite :) It was Zoe's halloween costume a few years back but on this trip it was a cat AND a horse for all to enjoy!

Here he comes...the zulu chief, cheif, chief!

Dad rocked everybody at pool!

There was a nice walking path along the back of the condo, next to the golf course. Pretty~

Grandpa and Janie (and IceBat).

Grandpa and Gracie in the "gondol" - that's what the kids called it :)

Check out that view behind them! It was quite spectacular! Somehow though, with kids running around you can't spend much time looking at the view...you're fixing skinned knees, rocks in shoes, cries of "carry me, carry me!" etc.

We played lots of games at night and Joe and I even learned a few new ones that are keepers! Speed Scrabble was fun, so was Chicken Bones...Andrea and Ryck's domino game creation that is complicated and pretty hilarious ;) We're eagerly awaiting the Chicken Bones blog unveiling sometime soon :) All in all, GREAT times! We missed the Pope family though and hope they're settling into their new abode in Washington. Love you guys!