A Busy Week

Wow! It's only been a week since I last posted but it seems like it's been forever because we've had a very busy house this week.

On Monday Mara decided that she was ready to start potty training and she has been doing great!! She only had 2 accidents on Monday and has been accident free since!!! We have had the little potty chair in the kitchen to make it easier, but now she is liking the big potty :) She has even gone at other houses too!! She will go back and forth between underwear and pull ups, but is doing a great job. It's been a lot easier then I thought it would be. And it all started because my mom put her in underwear on Monday and she loved it! We have a sticker chart for her and she loves to pick them out and put them in the boxes.

Tuesday night I was able to go to see 'Twilight" for a girls night out with Tammy (mom in law), Lana, Liza, Gwen (all sisters in law) and Ashley (cousin in law). I really liked the movie and am going to see it again tomorrow!! Ashley took a quick picture after the movie, but Gwen had already left :(

It was great to get together with the girls. Thanks again!!

On Wednesday Pat put up the lights on the house. The kids loved seeing him on the roof :)

While he was doing that, Mara and I ran an errand and she insisted sitting in Xander's booster seat!! She is totally big enough to have one of her own, but she still fits in our 5-point harness seat, so we haven't upgraded her (because we really don't need to yet). She is just getting so big this week. Where did my baby go???

Then it was Thanksgiving, as you all know. My assignment was homemade rolls (my grandma's recipe, which I love) So I spent Wednesday afternoon making the dough and getting them ready. When we put the first batch in the oven to bake, about 10 minutes in, the heating element burnt out!! We still had another batch to bake and my mom had to cook a turkey too! Pat and I were heading to his parents house anyway, so we took the half baked rolls with us and were able to finish baking them there. I was so worried that they would be ruined, but they were fine :) But now we have to wait until next week to have the new element delivered. So we will be having a lot of crock pot dinners for a while.

Anyway, we ate with Pat's family this year and all went to his sister Gwen's house. It was great to have everyone there, even Ben & his family came from Boise!!
Here is a third of the grandkids: Addi, Bryton, Aubrey, Xander, & Mara.

We got a little group picture of the girls: Me, Amber, Tammy, Lana, Gwen. & Liza.

Then a pic of the boys: Morri, Roger, Pat, Ben, Doug & JR.

Then some of the kids wanted to get in the pic, so we got ALL of them in it :)

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving. It's always nice to have family so close that we can get together for the holidays.

Then this morning my mom and I went to Walmart in the CHAOS of Black Friday to get this:

They had it for $200 (which is half price if you get it at a craft store) My mom and sister both have one, but it's always nice to have your own, and when I saw that price I couldn't pass it up. So this is an early Christmas present for me (and whatever cash I get for Christmas is going towards this) It was a little crazy trying to get it. We got there about 4 am (the sale started at 5 am) and there were only about 14 machines with that many people standing around them saying that they were already claimed. One woman actually told me to try another Walmart!! (Like it would be different there) We decided to stay and it's a good thing too. The machine that was in the add had 2 cartridges with it for $200. Like I said, they only had 14 of them. But they had about 18 of the same machine, but with only 1 cartridge, but they weren't on the sale. Luckily there was an Assistant Manager that made the smart decision to price match the other machines to the $200 price. So that is what I got :) I really didn't care about the cartridges because Karri has them already. I'm just glad that it wasn't a bust. My mom was so cool and ran to get a register. Which was awesome because we got in our car at 5:03!! I'm so glad that it was an easy morning and we were able to get what we came for and get out of there fast!! It's officially the holiday season!! So where's the snow??? (just kidding, I don't want it to snow)