November

 November was a VERY busy month, so busy in fact that I hardly had time to photograph any of it.  So here are the highlights that I was barely able to capture.

 The day finally came for Lydia to have her tonsils removed.  I was very nervous, she is just so little and sweet and I felt like taking a lamb to the slaughter. 

 As you can see, she was very excited about this whole adventure.  The tonsil and adenoid removal took less than thirty minutes.  Lydia came back to the room and went right back to sleep, the nurses said they had never even seen that before and we were all thrilled we didn't have to go through the hysteria that kids experience coming out of anesthesia.

Lydia has LOADS of visitors.  I was very touched how many family members, ward members and neighbors popped by to bring her cold treats or a gift.  I got her that gigantic piggy, called Ziggy the Piggy, it was part of her enthusiasm for having the surgery.  

On about day two of Lydia's recovery I came down with THE WORST flu bug I've ever had in my life.  No joke, I thought I was going to die.  I had to be quarantined from the kids and Ryan did an amazing job of playing Doctor and FORCING me to eat and drink, even though I couldn't even keep it down.  Miserable week, miserable!!  Especially when your four year old daughter shows you up in the resilient category. 

 

My mom came and took Lydia with her for a night so I could just sleep my life away and start to recover.  I am so thankful to have a mother who knows just what I need and when. 

My birthday rolled around and I turned 33.  I know I should do a post about the joys in my life and how much I love getting older and having some REAL life experience under my belt....buuuuuuuuuut....I honestly don't have time, so let me just say that I spent a great birthday with my parents and my husband at Elements and then I washed it all down by being responsible and working that night at Buffalo. 

 The Jensens came in and brought me gifts and balloons, and it was mucho, mucho appreciated.  I am one lucky girl to have such an amazing family.

 We finally made it to Thanksgiving.  We drove to Oregon for a four day visit to see all of the Bundys.  Day one we loaded up 8 of the kids and headed off to Cannon Beach.

We absolutely ADORE our nieces and nephews.  We ate at Pizza A Fetta and these kids had never even been here before!!!

Then we capped it off with a visit to Bruce's Candy Kitchen for some salt water taffy. 

Here's Lydia with Kendyl, who stayed with us last summer.

 The weather was UNREAL!  Not a single breeze and one of the most beautiful days I've seen before, especially for November. 

To say the sunset was magical is an understatement.  These are my most favorite things all together in one....a beautiful sunset, the ocean waves, and my most precious baby girl.  If this isn't a reflection of Heaven then I don't know what is.  

 We had Thanksgiving in the church house with all the Bundys...all 31 of us.  The meal was absolutely amazing.  The Bundys are all incredible cooks, I think it stems from nobody in this family being a picky eater.  So the recipes are just chuck full of a variety of ingredients.  

  We ate, visited, left to go see Frozen, and then came back and played games until 1:30 a.m.!!!!  Lydia was BEGGING me to take her home to bed. I left by myself and headed to the Washington Square mall for some of my favorite store brands, black Friday deals, and no tax shopping!!

 After my shopping jaunt I crawled in bed at 4:30 a.m. just to get up at 7:00 a.m. to load everybody up for the train ride downtown Portland for the Macey's Day Parade.  Look how tired we all are.

There were 3 highlights.  1. Seeing llamas dressed like reindeer.

 2.  Santa's arrival for the Christmas Season to officially begin.

 3.  Bumping into my sister Stacey and her darling kids.

We went back home and I had a nice long nap.  The rolled out of bed and headed out for sushi with Ryan and the newlyweds, Julie and Scott. 

 This is our favorite sushi restaurant.  The sushi comes around on a conveyor belt and when something looks yummy you just grab it and eat it right then on the spot.  Later they count the amount of plates you have, and the plates are color coded according to price, and then they charge you based on that.  Look at our stack in the reflection of the mirror.

 I had a very happy bearded man by the time we left.

 On the last day of our trip the girls and I headed out to Camas to visit Stacey and her family.  The girls stayed and played while Stacey and I did some of my favorite shopping out at Camas Antiques, I got some real treasures for the Christmas season, thanks to my in-laws birthday money.

 We all met at Mad Greek Deli on our last night and then went to Greg and Becky's with the whole famdamily for a late night of games and chatting.  This was a very fun filled trip and we're so happy that our girls got in some great cousin time.