So much to be thankful for...

I have so much to be thankful for. Derrick and I were talking the other day about humility. Derrick is currently unemployed and both of us have been having one heck of a time finding a job. The unemployment office is always so full and who knows how many applicants there are for every job but it has to be a whole lot. Derrick and I were talking about how a year ago there would have been no way that we would have applied for jobs such as being a janitor or ringing the salvation army bell (those are jobs that we have looked at recently) There is nothing wrong with those jobs,nothing, we were just too prideful to even consider them. How ugly that pride must have been on us. So even though we are jobless and it's scary, we are both greatful to have been knocked down a bunch of notches.

Here are 28 blessings that I am thankful for... a blessing for every year that I have been blessed to live.

1♥ I am thankful for a husband who loves me dearly and who is not afraid to show it no matter where we are.

2♥ I am thankful for 3 healthy kids who love me.

3♥ I am thankful for knowledge and for the ability that I have to read to my kids for 30 minutes before bed on every week night.

4♥ I am thankful for a warm home to call my own.

5♥ I am thankful for my church calling and the things that my Beehives teach me.

6♥ I am thankful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and for the life that I live because of that membership.

7♥ I am thankul for my Savior and for the sacrifice that was made so that I can continue to have hope.

8♥ I am thankful for my Mom and for the amazing person that she is. I regret that I didn't realize who and what she was and is until the last decade but am so thankful that I do now.

9♥ I am thankful for my Stepdad and for the great man that he is. I am thankful for the example that he is and for the friend that he is to my husband.

10♥ I am thankful for a father who has passed on and with all of the memories and love that he left me with.

11♥ I am thankful for my siblings... "real" and "step" They are all something special to me.

12♥ I am thankful for my sister in law Amy and my brother in law Ben and for the fact that they are family and for the fact that they love my siblings like they do.

13♥ I am thankful to live in Sandpoint and for the beauty that surrounds me every day.

14♥ I am thankful for the tough times that make me stronger.

15♥ I am thankful for anything that sparkles.

16♥ I am thankful for the chance and opportunity to change and the chance to make self improvements every day.

17♥ I am thankful for good food.... just ask my figure. haha

18♥ I am thankful for friends, like the Tills and the Ramsay's and for the joy they bring to our family.

Shoot- Valeri really needs to finish her report so I have to sign of before I finish my 28, but I really do have so much to be thankful for and I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

♥

Pretty Shayli

Shayli is so much fun. She's such a sweet girl. She's growing up so fast and my heart has been full of a ton of love for her lately. I'm very lucky to be her Stepmom. ♥

Raddle Daddle

Rad has been a ton of fun lately. He says something new and hilarious every day. Derrick and I took him to a movie a couple of weekends ago. We went to see Madagascar II and he loved it. He had popcorn and pop and got really into the movie. It was fun to see him having so much fun at the "Big Move".

Cadle Ladle

Cade had his 2 month check up this week. He weighed in at 13 pounds and 1 ounce. He only had two vaccinations. We are following in Heidi's footsteps and doing an alternate vaccine schedule with Cade. The doc actually thought it was a great idea. I was afraid that he would frown on the idea. Cade really did great during the whole appointment. He smiled and "talked" to the nurse and the doc. The doc was telling us that the only thing that Cade is behind in as far as development goes is that he doesn't squeal yet. Cade's response to that was to let out his first loud squeal. It was funny.

Cade Solomon

He is growing like a weed and smile's and sleep's and rarely ever cries! We are so blessed with this handsome little man.

Shayli Lady... chicken pox... darned hot tub

So last Saturday Shayli woke up and told me that the inside of ear hurt. Not like an ear infection... more like a sore bump. So we diagnosed it as a zit and went about our day. When i picked her up from a friends house later she hopped in the car and said, "i found a lot more zits today." I automatically started to ask her where she had them and when she said that they were mostly on her belly and back I thought, "Oh know! Can't be good!" Then she said that they itched. I didn't think that it was chicken pox because she has already had a bad case AND she has been vaccinated but to make sure that she didn't have anything contagious I called an after hours nurse hot line and she told me to take her to an Urgen Care on Sunday morning. So I did and she was diagnosed with the Chicken Pox. Poor girl felt horrible that she may have exposed the boys and a bunch of other kids and of course felt horrible and uncomfortable with the itching. So we bought her some fun things to do in her room, called the school on Monday to let them know, Grameri picked up her school work on Tuesday afternoon and then on Tuesday evenging my friend Stacie called. Stacie's girl had spent the end of last week and most of the weekend with Shayli and they ended up with the "spots" too. But she took her girls to a different doc on Tuesday and he diagnosed them with a virus that you can contract from a hot tub. The girls had been hot tubbing so that made sense. So I took Shayli to the same doc that the other girls went to and sure enough... not Chicken Pox. Grrr... poor Shayli had to miss school, be in quarantine and take some sick medication for nothing. Not cool. Here are some pics of her and her friends playing, frosting cookies, Shayli in the docs office, one of the nasty bumps, hanging out in her room in quarantine and the blasted hot tub that caused the whole fiasco. Shayli was SUCH a trooper through the whole ordeal. LOVE YOU SHAYLI GIRL! ♥

Raddle Daddle

Rad is not a big fan of bath time. To clarify, he loves the bath but has a fear of getting water in his eyes. So now I have to give Cade a bath first to show Rad the Cade doesn't get water in his eyes and then Rad will take his bath after Cade gets through his. Here is a picture of them wrapped up in their towels after bath time.

I remember Mel telling me about Mr Bean and how he loved to line up trucks, I thought it was so cute and now here I am with my little guy that does the same thing.


Call me crazy... Rad loves to play in the dirt. The dirt outside is now mud so to give Rad something to do I took the flowers out of one of my in door flower pots and then put the pot full of dirt on a blanket in my living room so that he could get his dirt fix. It really didn't make as big of a mess as I thought it would.

Here he is after playing in the dirt.

We made some frosting so that the kid's could frost some sugar cookies and Rad had such a hard time holding himself back from the frosting. He wanted it SO bad!

Rad has been having a ton of fun with playdough. Shayli had some friends over last week and Rad wanted to be everywhere they were. So to give them some space we played all kinds of new games. His favorite playdough game is "snakes".

Rude Awakening

Over the weekend I was at my moms and she was showing me some of the cool toys that she had bought for the grandkids to play with. She had some really cool Disney princess dolls and Valeri and I were having so much fun playing with them. V had Snow White and I had Ariel and we were picking out their dresses and accesorizing and having so much fun with it. I look at my mom who had just walked in the living room and said, "Bet you never thought you'd be watching your teenage daughters playing with dolls huh?" Then it hit me... I'm closer to 30 then I am a teenager. Ah the reality. Above is a pick of us closer to being teenagers... taken in 2003.

Kidd Kid's

Here are the pics of the 6 of us kid's after Shane's football game a few weeks ago. I love my family!

PICS

Cade in his devil costume.

Shayli painting boxes.

Cade in his blessing outfit.

Derrick, D-Wayne, and Alex in ties.

Shayli, Heidi, Valeri and I went to Yokes for ice cream and left with a cart full of Cade, pastries, soda pop and ice cream. Didn't eat so healthy that weekend.

Here is a picture of Andrew, Samantha and Rad playing in Grameri's cat's water dish.

Grandma Wanda and Grandpa Wayne came over the other day. It was great to see them. Here is a picture I took while we were all gathered around watching Derrick take out the train set that they brought him. It's a train set that belonged to his great great grandpa. Very cool.

Oh I love the times where both boys sleep at the same time. It's even better when they snuggle with me to do so.

At Cade's last appointment he had a blowout and I didn't have any extra clothes. My midwifes did but only girly outfits. :)

More pics

Here are some camera pics that I have wanted to post...

Dad and Rad sleeping.


Shayli and Cade


Cade's first pic at the midwife's house.

Potty Pot

What's wrong with this pic? Notice what Rad is drinking out of? Yup- his potty pot. It has never been used though, and never will be. It is now a toy.

Ugh

So not having a computer at home, it's always an ordeal getting the kid's loaded up with enough things to do while I sit at Auto Haus to update my blog. I always forget something and this time, again, it was my camera with pics. I even bought a special downloading tool to help me do it faster. Grrr... So not a lot of pics but I'll give you an update on the Hanson's... although we all know that while it's fun to be updated, pics are the best. :)

Mostly just the same for the Hanson fam. We didn't have Shayli on Halloween this year, Cade was a cute little devil that I'll post pics of later but we didn't go trick or treating, we went to Uncle Shane's football game with Grameri. Rad would have been a dragon but he didn't want to wear the costume. He preferred to ride it around the house like it was a horse. So Derrick and Rad had a guys night at home. Not too exciting.

Last weekend was a fun one for sure. All of my brothers and sisters were here.

We all watched a great football game of Uncle Shane's on Friday night. We took a fun siblings pic afterward and I'll post that later too. It was so neat to have all of us there. On Saturday we hung out and then in the evening we went to Alex's baptism. What a neat experience that was. Derrick even wore a tie! Amazing... he looked amazing. :) Again- I'll post pics of that too, later. On Sunday we went to church as a family and blessed Cade, another neat experience. It was a great weekend all around. Relaxing and fun.

Jared, Amy and Tavin left on Saturday morning which was a bummer but it was so neat to have them here while they were able to be. They brought this funny jelly belly bean game that went something like this... Jared and Derrick were both given a black jelly belly. Jared ate his and it was black licorice. Derrick ate his and it was skunk. Valeri and Shane were each given a yellow and white jelly belly. Shane's was buttered popcorn and V's was rotten egg. It was hilarious to see faces made. Shayli ended up with black pepper... there were all kinds of random flavors. We played it a few times. All of the men gagged at least once. Funny stuff. Thanks for such a fun game Kidd's!

As individuals...

Shayli is growing so fast. Last week she had a tough experience and I hated having to see her so sad, but it's part of growing up and she's such a trooper. She is so much fun to have in our home. We have our craft table set up so we can start our holiday crafts. Last week we hand painted Christmas gift boxes. Shayli did a fantastic job... she's so creative. Next week we'll start making our gifts and then it will be LOTS more scrap booking. Shayli and I are excited for our artsy crafty plans. Her first quarter of six grade is officially over... I can't believe she's that much closer to middle school!

Rad is starting the potty training routine. He calls it the "big potty" and isn't afraid of it so it's a start. He also said his first prayer the other day. Aunt Amy had a medical emergency and I was really worried for her. Rad could tell and wanted to know why "Ma was sad". So I told him that Aunt Amy was sick, and we should pray. So we knelt down together and while I prayed he started his own prayer. So with his head bowed and his arms folded his prayer consisted of "Amy sick, Amy sick." Very sweet.

Cade is growing so fast. He likes to have his hand on our faces while he rests. I'll post some pics of that in this post. It's very cute, what's cuter is that Derrick is afraid to move once Cade gets situated with a hand on the face so he sits stone faced. Funny. Cade has started to smile and talk a bunch. Babies are so precious.

Derrick is still working hard, of course. We bought a second hand lawn mower that came with a snow plow. It's really nice only it doesn't work yet, but Derrick is determined to have it working by Monday. That's his current project. As I type he is out with Bob tearing down a shed and helping Bob take a load to the dump. I'm thankful for a hardworking man. We have started to plan our Spring vacation to Moab and he is really excited for that. We'll get to see some neat rock crawling events and hopefully some other events on the way.

I'm still loving being a mom.

On Monday I'll try to post a bunch of pics.

♥