thankful for...........

lots of things.

but right now blogging isn't one of them.

see ya!

thankful for my jobs

teaching eng 101, sec 2 is a special little hobby of mine. a time where i can reconnect with the old geeky literary version of myself and enjoy helping my students see how they can find themselves in the pieces we are reading. i feel like the lord knew that waiting for the apartment to be done would be an exercise in patience for little-old-impatient-me and so he gave me a little treat to help keep life moving and busy in the form of this teaching opportunity.

when it is done on december 16th i will be sad because i truly have enjoyed it, but there will be some relief too. i have another job, i think you know what i am referring to, the one that involves the raising of two little pups named ambrose and asher. i am looking forward to slowing down and dedicating even more time to these two and not having anything extra to distract me. this fleeting time with my babies is precious.

admittedly the extra money each month has been pretty awesome and we have set it aside for purchases like these:

glad to be able to have it through such enjoyable means, but i must say, given the choice i would take the chubby toddler in the middle over the fancy rug surrounding him any day of the week.

today i am thankful for my jobs: one for now and the other for eternity.

thankful for good friends

and not just good, but thoughtful and generous.

i wrote a VERY long post about all my wonderful friends that have really been kind, supportive, giving, understanding, and fun to be around and i named a bunch of people by name. don't worry, you made the list.

and then i got to thinking that what if i missed someone reeeeeal important and so i deleted that monster of a post and soooooo-

if you are my friend, and a good one at that, i hope you know how very grateful i am for you. even if we don't get to see each other very often - i hope you know that you mean a lot to me.

and speaking of generous friends:

check out this!


today i am thankful for good friends.

thankful for bedrooms and a new bathroom too!

oh yessiree framing is coming right along, roofing put on, plumbing being worked on as i type this, and i just found some charming possible bedspreads and rugs on target.com. this is so much fun. wanna see?

here are some pictures of the framing of the stairs and the addition. you can get a good idea of what the house will look like once those stairs are actually in...etc.


the painter came and did everything he could do at this stage of construction so a good portion of the house is now a lovely green color.


the rest will of course be painted green as soon as it exists. :)
ambrose and asher's room is the front bedroom with a big window that gives them an upclose view of that ulu tree you can see in this picture:

my sister-in-law saw this picture and commented that she likes thinking of them looking out at the ulu tree and feeling like they live in a tree house- i love that! so fun!
here is the bathroom, not much to look at now, but a little bigger than the old one and boy do we have some fun plans for in there.... just you wait!

and finally, the master bedroom:

isn't she a beauty? i feel ready to move in today. i won't mind the draft.

yesterday i braved the ladder and went up there for the first time since the stairs were knocked down and i just had to take deep breaths i was so excited. i could just see it all organzied like we have been planning. the paint colors, the wall hangings, all the finishing touches (yep, both of those) we have been gathering and working on.

i looked at the little kitchen that i have already cooked so much in and pictured myself whipping up a nice sunday dinner with the apron melissa made me. :) and the rug i found today would compliment the sewing cabinet so well- right next to the "keep calm and carry on" poster i just got in the mail (thank you good day sunshine ladies!) i want to move in NOW!

it's nice to live with my in-laws because they help me out a lot and they are very gracious, but it will be so wonderful to just be our own little family again and in a very stylish new little place too!

today i am thankful for my in-laws for letting us be their first tenants in a most awesome new living space. i can't wait!

thankful for his cheery disposition

poor poor asher has been having really high fevers the last few days and since he was drooling and chewing on his fingers along with it i just chalked it up to teething.

lesson learned.

yesterday he barfed all over (and i mean ALL OVER) at ambrose's preschool.... we promptly left and no one complained.

he is such a cheerful child that it's hard to know when he is really sick, but i am still thankful for his cheery disposition.

here's a picture of him tonight with his 101.5 temperature: which is a welcome relief from his 102.7 he has been sporting most of the day.

his cheery disposition saw him through being poked and prodded at the doctors all afternoon and having an adhesive bag urine sample test, lots of breathing exercises, and a drawn-out (pun intended) blood test.... it took so long to get his blood squeezed out of his poor little heel and he was making the same face in the above picture for most of it.

the nurse kept saying it was too bad he wasn't crying since that usually gets the blood flowing and pumping more. ha.

so, the blood test came back ok and now we are just waiting on the urine test and monitoring him closely. if the fevers keep spiking he will be visiting the ER tonight (oh please no).

dear sweet asher. we love you. you are sitting on my lap as i type this gurgling and cooing.

today i am tired and worried, but thankful for my cheerful asher boy.

thankful for my two sidekicks

when i was thinking about what i am thankful for most today i looked around me and saw a two year old piling up couch cushions and pillows-"makin' a mountain!" and continued to snuggle the baby in my arms who wasn't feeling well. we were entertained by his brother's diligent building skills and even though i was worried for the baby i was holding and dreading all the clean-up that usually follows these giant pillow mountains i thought, "what a great day!"

i've got my two babes: close by night and day to teach me patience and deep, eternal love

even when it's hard to put others first and especially when your poor little one is sick

today i'm thankful that these precious boys belong to me.

thankful i didn't marry a neanderthal

cuz i don't know what made me think of this today, but i thought of a girl i once knew who did. we were both newly weds and were supposed to have a meeting at her house one afternoon and her husband happened to be home in between classes around the same time as the meeting. some other group members and i waited in stunned silence as she hurriedly chopped some tomatoes to complete the tacos she had made for her husbands lunch. not even her lunch. just his lunch. her baffling devotion would have been somewhat touching if it weren't for the fact that her neanderthal of a husband was exasperated that it was taking so long (mere seconds) for her to chop his tomatoes. he was hungry dash it all. he kept shrugging his shoulders and huffing and puffing. i wanted to barf.

actually, i wanted to smack his plate out of his hand and scream, "are you KIDDING ME???? make your own damn lunch! a simple sandwich shouldn't threaten your manhood too terribly much."

hehe

but anyway, i think i've mentioned my husband is very extremely awesomely helpful on here before. he has never once treated me like that. not once.

if i can't muster up the energy to make dinner thomas always offers to or says, "let's just scavenge tonight!" and we still eat together, but just heat up saimen, leftovers, sandwiches or whatever sounds good and easy.

thanks thomas. i'm pretty sure you know i adore you.

i'm thankful for a helpful, hardworking, and understanding husband.

here he is looking cool at a show they played last week :)

thankful for great weekends

looking through my camera phone photo album this evening makes me start out this month of gratitude with a smile.

getting creative with the man i love most on behalf of our two adorable children, camping in one of the most beautiful places on earth with some good friends, celebrating a happy holiday with an imaginative and enthusiastic two year old, trick-or-treating with loving, patient long-time friends who were kind about the fact that our sons robot costume was making him move in slow motion, and soaking in all the creative, happy, and chaotic moments in between.

i am grateful that this month started out on a sunday. i felt gladness in my heart all day for the blessings in our life and the happiness we have enjoyed. i hope you don't mind if i share them with you again this year. i am looking forward to it. it's easy to dwell on all that irritates us or makes us feel unsatisfied about life. it is more fulfilling and fun to be thankful for all that we have been gifted and blessed with.

overall, this weekend was sublime.

i'm thankful for great weekends:

we love to camp

We had a nice, rainless, delicious, and adventure filled camping trip.

I haven't gotten my camera out with the couple pictures we took, but here are some from Thomas' cell phone and from Liko:





It was really fun! I think next time we will try a different spot. Hoomaluhia is AWESOME so we will definitely go back sometime, but we want to try other places too.

And I am officially retiring from my self-appointed position as group camping trip organizer! This trip started out as a lot of people saying they wanted to go so Liko and I getting things set up and then people being in, out, and in between.

Next camping trip is gonna be simple- maybe just our family and one other. We will see. Camping is just fun- period.

boy were they ever cute!

We had a ward trunk-or-treat tonight so it was do or die with the costumes. I worked hard the last couple of days and was happy with the results.

Thomas created the AWESOME robot costume and I created the adorable (if I do say so myself) Pinocchio costume. I wasn't sure I was going to make the hat until the last minute when I suddenly thought of a way I could do it. So glad. It made the outfit complete. I also made Ambrose's trick-or-treat bag.

All the hard work paid off because Ambrose was so happy to be a robot and had a blast running around proclaiming "TRICK OR TREAT!!!!!!!" all night long. I think he's saying it in just about every picture I have of him on here. He knew it meant "GIVE ME CANDY!!!!!" and that is something he is VERY enthusiastic about.

I got the trick or treat bag fabric LAST YEAR and since I didn't really know how to sew back then it sat in a bin. I was happy to be able to use it this year- yahoo!








Thanks to Liko for the bag pattern and Ashley for the Pinocchio ribbon!