Thanksgiving 2015

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Every year we switch off what side of the family we spend Thanksgiving with and this year was a Buckholts Thanksgiving. 

My amazing sister Krista is a *nurse at a hospital and had to work from noon until 6pm but I got there in time to give her a hug and see her off. We waited until she got off to have dinner which meant we had the whole day to pamper her girls on her behalf and spend the day playing together and making fun crafts.

*Is there anything more Christlike than a nurse? I don't think so. She takes care of people when they are most vulnerable. She helps them live and helps them as they die. She's there for them when she'd rather be with her kids even on weekends and holidays. She lifts them, washes them, talks to them, has spent long nights by their sides when they are all alone, and is constantly looking out for their best interest. She's one of my greatest heroes. 

My dad took my awesome husby out to the garage to teach him how to cast lead bullets and they were both pretty giddy about it. Chris has been loving reloading bullets in our basement lately and my dad is thrilled to finally have a son to whom he can pass on his decades of reloading bullet knowledge to. It made my heart so happy to see them spending time together in that way.

My mom took some of the girls aside to have them help her mix up our favorite pistachio salad in their Great Grandma Madsen's bowl. That's my mom's yearly Thanksgiving tradition.

Heidi brought crafts galore to keep us busy with our kiddos. We spent the day knitting hats on looms and making wreaths with what each person was thankful for written on each leaf. Marilyn especially loved working on the hat craft and she and I worked together as a team on it all day long. It was fun to chat with my mom and sisters as we worked.

It was a good pie year, opposed to last year when we had the "pie curse" and had forgotten to put sugar in the pumpkin pies and the lemon meringue had gotten sloshed around in the back of Linda's car. My awesome husby had experimented with making his own pumpkin pies this year in the style of his mom's and we all declared him the Pumpkin Pie King. My mom, sisters, and I had spent the day before together going to the Jordan River Temple for an early morning session together and then spent the rest of the day making pies together.

It was a great Thanksgiving! (We really missed Megan and her family who needed to stay in San Diego but were glad that Joel's family got to go out and spend Thanksgiving with them. Love you Meg!)


Princess In Black

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One of the things I love very most is reading with my kids. (Don't worry moms - I'm TERRIBLE at other things that you are fantastic at.) What gets me out of bed in the morning is that I know I'm going to get to read to them while they eat breakfast, that I'm going to be able to listen to Max read to me, and maybe Noah will read out loud to me if I'm really lucky. It's rewarding to hear the kids groan when I announce, "That's all for today!" and I adore hearing Noah tell me what all his predictions are for what will happen next in the story.

I love trying to make reading exciting for them like it is for me. When I heard that Shannon Hale, one of my favorite authors, was having a book release party for the 2nd Princess in Black book that she co-authored with her husband Dean I knew I had to take them. I talked it up for weeks before we went but they didn't need any encouragement to be excited to attend. They'd been to one other book signing with me and they loved it so much that they shouted hooray when I told them we had another one to go to. The Princess in Black series is very cleverly written and illustrated and is about a princess who goes undercover in her black ninja outfit to fight monsters.

My sister Krista and her kiddos Gwen and Emily met us at Millie's before the book signing. Millie's was one of the favorite hamburger places that we went to in our childhood because it was near our Grandpa's house. We ordered a ton of food but they were so happy to see each other that we had a hard time getting them to sit down and eat. Oh well! 

The book signing was extra fun because so many kids had come in their princess attire. Dean and Shannon were both wearing capes and black masks and he carried her in on his shoulder while she pretended she was flying through the air. They told us all about what it was like to write a book together, to work with such a fantastic illustrator, and they told us the first part of their new story. Then they finished up by taking questions from all the kids. Marilyn, Max, and Emily all had interesting questions to ask them.

Max especially loved this night. I'd checked out the first PIB book at the library and he was so excited about going to the event that he read more than half of it to us on the car ride down. He was so into the story that, even though it was dark in the car and he had to lift the pages up high so he could read by the lights on the freeway, he insisted on finishing it on the way home. It was the very first real chapter book he'd ever read and we were both so proud of him. The next day he spent over an hour reading the next one.

Hooray for literacy and hooray for my little readers!



My New Nephew Emerson!

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I look a little happy in these pictures, don't I? I was. SO happy. So happy I could have exploded into little blue sparkles and helium balloons with "It's a BOY!" written all over them. Oh, how I love my new little nephew Emerson.

Last week I got to spend three heavenly days visiting my sister Megan and her precious little muchkins Paisley and Emerson. The trip happened in a very happy serendipitous way because awesome husby just happened to have some business meeting he had to go to in San Diego scheduled for a week after Emerson was born. I begged my wonderful Mother and Father-In-Law to take care of my munchkins and I tagged along on husby's work trip. My other sister, Heidi, and her family also had a different reason to be in San Diego at the exact same time so we met up, helped Megan as much as we could, held Emerson as much as we could, and played with Paisley as much as we could.

I had such a wonderful time and loved being close to my sister and "niecephews" so much that I bawled, sobbed, and sniffed the whole way to the airport. I'm really lucky that 3 of my 4 sisters live nearby and hate that Megan lives more than just a short car ride away. She needs to though so I just hop on an airplane as often as I can.

While in San Diego I rented a fancy car and reveled in my independence.  I drove from our hotel in downtown San Diego to La Jolla, where my sister lives, every day to kiss, hold, snuggle, and squeeze Emerson as much as I could in the short time I had. Then I'd run off to play with Paisley , Sam, Jami, Heidi, and Glen at the Safari Park, or go out to a fancy dinner with husby. Husby and I also fit in a trip to one of my favorite beaches. He went surfing and my feet went exploring. 

Sigh. It was SO wonderful.

Sam, Jami, and Paisley. Paisley loved, loved having her cousins to play with. Notice that she and Jami both chose to wear My Little Pony shirts.

Oh, how I love that smile and the girl who goes with it.

La Jolla Shores...this is my natural habitat. I adore how the sand sparkles gold in the sunshine.

A Night for Doing Things We Normally Wouldn't

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My BFTSF (Best Friend Twin Sister Forever) and I spoiled ourselves like crazy last night. We see each other all the time, but always with our kids, so delight #1 was going out together just by ourselves. The night was filled with things we normally wouldn't have done.

First off was Linda's treat for me: Joe's Crab Shack to eat crabs - something I've never done before. Linda and her husband have made a hobby out of eating crab legs and they are now her favorite food. I love seafood and she decided that I couldn't really say that having never eaten crab legs so we rectified that. I also had sea scallops, another first, and mussels. We talked over all the seasons of Deadliest Catch that we'd seen and cracked and pried our food out of small crevices to our heart's content. I felt like a sea bird. I've never eaten anything so messy in my entire life! It was great.

Isn't she beautiful? I can say that about her even though I'm her identical twin because when I look at her I don't see me, I see her.

Next stop, my treat for Linda: a book-signing for one of our favorite authors - something she hadn't ever done properly. This was the giddy part for me; we were going to see Maggie Stiefvater who I adore in a very huge fan-girl way. Linda has *a track record for being with me when I make a fool out of myself in-front of semi-famous people I adore. This went much better than normal.

Linda, Me and Maggie Stiefvater!!!

During her question and answer session we got to stand about 5 feet away from where she was and everything she had to say was so funny and interesting. I even asked her a question that didn't come out sounding obviously lame and **got to tell her which of the characters in her books I loved the most. Then we waited in a really long line and got our books signed, picture taken and all without sticking my foot in my mouth. It was so much fun!

*Once when we were at the ballet together we saw Beckanne Sisk and Chase O'Connell (Breaking Pointe) sitting a row in front and kitti-corner to us and I couldn't help myself from talking to them. I introduced myself and then gushed about them while giggling incessantly about how much I adored Beckanne's dancing and how Chase was "pretty good too" (cringe) and how my twin sister also loved them (insert embarrassing point of mine to my sister still wisely in her seat and her meek wave back). Then came more incoherent giggle-speech on my part and more head-nodding on their part and I practically skipped back to where I belonged.

**Why when I meet someone that I admire do I feel the urge to sputter everything I ever thought about them as quick as possible like if they don't hear it in the next 3 seconds they and I will spontaneously combust?

Our Grandparent's house pre-remodel

Finally after an awesome time at the book-signing we decided to take a little detour to drive by the houses our parents grew up in because we were in the neighborhood. The whole way there we reminisced about memories we shared of our Grandparents from when we were really little and how much we loved our maternal Grandpa, who died at 96 years old only 4 years ago. 

We pulled up in-front of my maternal Grandparent's old house to see how the newly remodeled windows glowed a comforting yellow in the twilight. We noticed that a blue paper stork announcing the arrival of the newest member in their family was stuck in a flower pot. Our eyes drank in all the familiar goodness of that place and I pulled around and parked. "What do you think you're doing?" Linda asked. "I'm getting out and talking to the people who live here! Are you coming with?" Once again, I couldn't help myself.

Memories and love flooded back. We touched the old concrete path that leads to the front door, stared longingly at the side porch where Grandma used to always wave good-bye to us as we drove away, and marveled at the very tiny mound created by the roots of a neighboring tree that  used to feel like a march up a big hill. Then Linda said, "Well, we better go knock on their door before they call the cops," and we got our brave on. 

I knocked softly, because of the new baby, and within a few seconds a beautiful young mom holding that baby answered the door and Linda and I both started to bawl. We explained who we were and how our Grandparents had been the original owners and only ones to live in this house until she and her family moved in.  We talked about how much we loved our Grandparents, how they had raised their family here, and how much it meant to us that a new family was raising their's here. She talked about how much she loved the neighborhood, and the trees lining the street, and how they wanted to live there forever. We recounted how we had trick-or-treated under those same trees when we were tiny and all of us smiled, two of us through our tears. So, so many memories stuck in our throats as we stood there: visiting my Grandpa as he sat in his recliner and told us the same old stories, sleeping over after unexpectedly falling asleep in front of their TV,  playing with Grandma in the back yard, the way we smelled one of the closets as 4 year olds after my Grandma died because it still held her jacket and smelled like her.

"We just hope that the people living around here can feel the spirits of the people who used to live here because they were so wonderful," Linda sobbed.

We said our good-byes as her baby started to fuss and we cried in silence inside our dark car.

It was a good night for doing things we normally wouldn't.