Extremely Thankful

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break like I did!  I wish it was a little longer, but Christmas break is right around the corner and the next few weeks will fly by.

I am extremely thankful for so many things in my life-most I will share with you now, but there's a big change coming in my life that I'm very thankful for, but in due time I will spill the beans.

For now, here is a lot of what I'm thankful for in a photo stream:

Friday, November 20

On my way back to my office, I really enjoyed the sight of fall in the trees but with a backdrop of towering palm trees.  I miss Washington but I'm thankful for really nice weather in the fall/winter here in CA.  It was a tad cold that day, but nothing compared to most of the United States right now!

Hubs and Leif met up with me at work so that we could go grab dinner for Leif then see a little bit of the Wind Ensemble concert Michael was conducting.  We ended up at the mall where Leif nibbled on french fries and hummus (didn't touch the delicious chicken nuggets for some weird reason!).  

 The concert was great...for the two songs we listened to.  On the second song, Leif started acting up and Hubs had to take him to the Narthex of the chapel while I waited until the end.

Here he is in action, courtesy of our campus photographer.  Go Michael! I'm definitely thankful to have him as a friend/coworker-I think I'd go insane without him.

Saturday, November 21

While I cooked breakfast, Leif did his sensory play, er, threw flour, steel cut oats and colored sprinkles all over the floor.  I'm fine with it-easy to clean up and keeps him occupied.  :)

We decided to get lunch at one of my favorite Greek places.  To keep Leif from going crazy/squirm overload, he played on daddy's phone.  Lunch was SO delicious, and Leif actually loved our gyro meat over the chicken we got him.  Definitely takes after his daddy.

Afterwards Leif got a haircut since we wanted to take Santa photos in a week or two...

He's generally well-behaved when getting his hair cut!  There was a little girl older than him who never got her hair cut, and she had to sit on her mom's lap.  Leif, you're awesome.

Ta-da!

While I checked out at Old Navy, Hubs took Leif on a little stroll outside.  Leif actually bit Hubs' nose pretty hard!  But I think he didn't mind, spending quality time with Leif is priceless.

That night Leif let daddy read to him instead of mama...it was precious.

Sunday, November 22

Backstory: in order to get back in time for football, we took off to the Dollar Tree to look for Christmas decorations early; Leif wasn't looking that great, but we thought he was just sleepy.  When we arrived, he was passed out and we debated whether to take turns in the store or to carry him while he slept...and we chose the latter.  We chose poorly.  As we were checking out, Leif puked all over himself and daddy.  It was so stinky that while I was cleaning it up off the ground, it made a customer gag and the cashier ill.  Whoops.  Leif had a moment of clarity that day, but he threw up one more time and slept the rest of the day.  Poor guy.

Tuesday, November 24

After shopping with my folks for Thanksgiving food, I came home and played with Leif and his busy box.  He actually built this!  Sorry, doesn't seem like much, but to us it's a big deal.  Our little architect!

Thursday, Thanksgiving!, November 26

I wanted to make a tradition of doing something active Thanksgiving morning (last year I ran a 5K with Michael and Alan).  Hubs had an aching back after sleeping with Leif, so my Pa, Leif and I took a hike close to our house.  It was a little hard at first (it just goes up for the first 1/4 mile!), but I'm glad we did it.  I carried Leif the whole way!

Leif eventually fell asleep towards the end of the hike. ;)

Since Miles was being a pain and no one was around, we let him off leash and he was actually good and stayed close to us!  He definitely enjoyed himself.

After the hike, my pa went back to his hotel to pick up my mom while Hubs and I played with some of our Christmas stuff...Miles hated the reindeer antlers, but seemed just fine in his Santa gear.  He even laid down on top of the couch with it on!  Haha...

I really wish I took photos of all the food we prepared, but alas, I did not.  I made a turkey with a new recipe that was guaranteed to make it really moist and flavorful.  I bought fresh herbs and didn't realize you have to basically shuck thyme off the stem...by the time I was finished with that, my fingers were brown.  UGH!  But, it turned out to be the best turkey I have ever made.  I really enjoyed all the food we cooked, it was delicious!  And Leif loved the turkey and ham.  It was cute.

My pa didn't realize that our garbage disposal is cheap, and it clogged from the potato skins (and, haha, uh, we didn't realize a bib was stuck down there!  He pulled out the majority of it, but some plastic probably got stuck in there too).  So I washed all the dishes after dinner in one sink.  It took a while, but I managed.  Overall, it was a really nice Thanksgiving, and I was happy to have my folks there.

Friday, November 27

Leif is now 23 months old!  We're going to have a 2 year-old on our hands soon, holy smokes...

That morning Leif had a blast rolling Hubs back and forth.  :)

We decided to brave the mall on Black Friday of all days...but turned out the mall we went to (close to my work) was actually fairly empty!  So we grabbed some lunch then walked around.  Since Santa was there, we were going to take photos with him but when we finally were ready, he was on a break and wouldn't be back for another 40 minutes.  So we walked around some more, and my Pa shared his ice cream with Leif who loved it...

By the time Santa came back, there was a line and my folks were tired.  So was Leif.  We decided to come back another time.  But I was able to pick up Christmas presents for my niece and Hubs got a few things.

 Saturday, November 28

Friday night I FINALLY received the title to my Mazda, so I called State Farm right away to get the paperwork started to receive my check.  When he mentioned that a rep will visit that following Monday or Tuesday, I figured it would be a good idea to do some car shopping on Saturday since we had my folks in town to watch Leif-car shopping with a toddler would be a nightmare!!!

My friend's mom works at a Nissan dealership close to our previous townhome, so we spent two hours looking at 2016 Rogues and going over prices.  It was just too expensive.  We went to lunch, searched online for used Rogues, and of course they had a few at the dealership but for some reason failed to mention them to us.  So we went back after lunch, and I fell in love with a 2013 model that had some really cool features and drove well...

I'm thankful to have a new car!!!

Photos to follow, but I think the process just took so long we wanted to get out of there once I finished signing all the paperwork.  Once I started driving it on the freeway though, I noticed some vibrations...uh oh.  I made an appointment for next Saturday just to have it checked out.  Hopefully it's something they can fix.

Sunday, November 29

We ended up back at the mall to take photos with Santa!  It took forever, but we did it.  He didn't cry as hard as last time, but he still put up a good fight.  I'll show you what I mean in the next blog post!

That evening Leif decided to try on Hubs' Seahawks hat.  Too cute.

Monday, November 30

Leif loves dressing up in his Buzz Lightyear costume all the time.  I'm thankful for an imaginative, happy kid.  :)

Tuesday, December 1

The tow guy showed up early Tuesday morning at my work to pick up my Mazda.  It was bittersweet to see it go-this car took me to Bellingham and back to Seattle for almost four years; I was proposed to in this car; and it drove me from Washington to California.  Bye bye Mazda!

I told Hubs how bittersweet it was to see it go, and he texted me "Hello from the other side"...I started laughing at my desk.  If you haven't heard Adele's new song, you should but I warn you, it will get stuck in your head.

And here's my new car!  Looks like my old one sort of, just on steroids.  :)

He's a beauty, and I named him Bosley.    

So there you have it.  As I said before, I'm very happy and thankful for everything right now.  I've had some rough patches the last few months, and they really affected me; but currently I'm in a really good place.  Sure, I'm not super happy with how I'm growing fast (I definitely haven't worked out like I did with Leif), but baby #2 is growing just fine and is probably more active than Leif was.  Besides all that I've mentioned so far, I'm thankful to have a growing family, a super supportive, loving husband, roof over my head, food to eat, and my health.  And of course, all my loving family and friends.  Let's hope December brings more joy and happiness!