Thanksgiving festivities

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Since my family won't be together for Christmas this year, my parents thought it would be nice to get everyone together over Thanksgiving. So my parents, my brother's family, and my sister's family all came down to Houston to see me and Kirk.

My parents came on Tuesday. We went, as did every other Houstonian, to the grocery store to stock up on Thanksgiving necessities.

Wednesday was a trip to the park, a few trips to the airport, dessert baking, and secret santa shopping.

Thursday we cooked and baked and ate way too much delicious food. It was our first time hosting Thanksgiving in 7 years of marriage. Sam slept through most of the meal. After dinner we opened our secret santa gifts and played Celebrity.

Friday morning we held our first ever Cheney Family Turkey Trot. Seven of us ran a 2.9 (approximately) mile loop around our neighborhood. Craig won. Here he is with his trophy - the coveted Golden Squirrel.

As a sidenote, it's really fun to buy ordinary objects and spraypaint them gold. It really adds a little extra pizazz.

Later we went downtown to Discovery Green to ice skate, but the rink was closed due to warm weather. So the kids played in the splash pad. After naps we got together for dinner and played Celebrity again.

Saturday we went to Kemah Boardwalk which is really fun. The little kids loved the smaller rides and the adults all rode the Boardwalk Bullet - a fast wooden rollercoaster.

Saturday night, Gretchen coaxed Charlotte into taking some of her first steps.

 (You gotta love Gretchen's face.)

Then we attempted a family picture. Thanks, Kirk.

The house has been pretty quiet this week. Come back soon, everyone!

What's in a Name?

I know not everyone has heard the name Afton before. In fact, the nurses at the hospital where she was born acted like it was the weirdest name they'd ever heard. One nurse told us we should name her Donna. No offense to anyone out there named Donna, but why in the world would I go from Afton to Donna just because a nurse told me to?

We get a local paper every week. In the paper, they list the names of babies born at the same hospital where Afton was born. You tell me if the names of some of this week's babies are more normal than Afton:

Kaison, D'Yanna, Xavi, Ta'Heaven, KeShawn, Jewelian, Ke'Onna, Zyion, Geraldo, and Isik.

I guess we needed to work an apostrophe in there or something...

And since no post is complete without a picture, here she is after church in one of my old dresses.

Handyman Dan

Dan decided to make a coffee table. He is amazing. He started last Saturday and yesterday he finished (minus staining it). Since he won't have time to stain it until next weekend, he brought it in so we could enjoy it in the meantime. I think it's awesome!

Sam-isms

Sam: "Hey Mom, people who aren't nice are mean."
Me: "Uh, huh."
Sam: "And people who are nice... are cute."

It was raining today and Sam said, "Heavenly Father makes the most beautiful rain in the whole earth."

He's a sweetie and a cute kid.

Halloween

We started our Halloween festivities with a trip to the Houston Zoo for Zoo Boo on Friday morning with Gretchen and the crew. For Zoo Boo they have little stations set up with different activities, trick-or-treating, a pumpkin patch, etc. This year they also had actors from the Renaissance Festival passing out candy. Sam was totally weirded out by that. Of course that also happened to be the coldest morning of the past 7 months or something. But that actually worked to my advantage in getting Afton to keep her hat and mittens on, but she had to wear a jacket. Some people asked if she was Shrek. Does Shrek have three eyes? No.

 Carter really loved the lions.

I think the kids caught colds at the zoo. Friday night was the church Trunk-or-treat. Dan and I got in on the costume action. Dan was Bob Wiley from "What About Bob?" and I was Tony Perkis from "Heavyweights." No one knew who I was, but everyone was telling Dan that his costume was the ultimate in awesomeness. Not that I'm jealous or anything...

Our outfits were going to be a little better (Dan in shorts w/ tall socks, me in workout pants) but it was a little too chilly, unfortunately.

After our church party we headed to Kirk and Gretchen's to watch BYU get whomped by TCU. Someday I will have my revenge! (I went to the BYU/TCU game two years ago and it was terrible. I want to beat them!) But Riley Nelson high-fiving the ref was pretty awesome if you didn't see that. Here's a clip.

Sunday the kids were sick. Dan carved a happy pumpkin.

Yesterday (Halloween) around 5, Sam started crying and saying that his ear hurt really bad so we spent the actual Halloween holiday at home trying the help him feel better. I asked him if he wanted to go and get candy or stay home and he said stay home. I'm sad he missed out on trick-or-treating, but he was a pretty sad dude. And I'm sad I didn't get a better picture of Afton in her alien outfit, so I may dress her up again today and take some more pictures.

One last story. This morning Dan was eating breakfast with Sam. Sam let out a huge toot and Dan said, "Sam, was that a toot?" And Sam looked at him and said, "No, that was a goofy toot!"

Sneak Peek

Before deciding on Afton's costume for Halloween, I should have factored in that Afton hates having anything on her head...

Can you guess what she's going to be?

Annual fall pictures

We took the kids out to a little pumpkin patch to take their annual fall pictures. If you'll remember, last year's shoot didn't go so well.

This year things went slightly better.

(Dan was dressed up because he had to go to a church meeting afterwards.)

But we did get a few good ones before Afton lost her cool. She also got eaten alive by mosquitos the day before - hence the bites all over her face.

 "Get out of my face."

She Walks!

Yesterday, the twenty-first of October, 2011, Afton Marie Durst took her first witnessed steps. Three days shy of her fourteen-month birthday. The witness - her Aunt Gretchen Cheney. Of course, I was out of the room. I came back in the room and Gretchen said, "Afton just took three steps like it was no big deal." I was like, "Say what?!?" So we tried it again and she took four steps over to me no problem. Crazy!

I videotaped her walking, but for some reason the video isn't uploading. Any suggestions? It's been "uploading" for about ten hours...

Dan's Movie Corner

My review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Not as bad as X-Men: First Class.

Family pics

We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago. We love them! Most of you have probably seen these on facebook, but I thought I'd post them here for journaling purposes and those of you who aren't on facebook.

Next time I would do my hair differently and have a diaper cover for Afton, although next time we take family pics, hopefully she won't need one anymore.

For those who are curious, Afton's outfit is from Old Navy, Sam's is also from Old Navy, but shoes are from Target and I made his tie. My dress is from Gretchen's closet. Necklace from Charmin' Charlies and shoes from Ross. Dan's is a mix. And I wish you could tell the stripes on his shirt are purple!

And our photographer was Kelsey Call. She was great with the kids and great to work with!

This video brings me joy

I hope it brings you joy, too.

Books

I like to read. The problem is that I usually forget what I've read, though. So to remedy this issue, I decided to start writing down all my books. Here's what I've read so far this year:

For book club:
The Good Earth, Pearl Buck
Left to Tell, Immaculee Ilibagiza
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood, I don't even want to bother looking up who wrote this one
My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
Still Alice, Lisa Genova
A Town Like Alice, Nevil Schute
Sarah's Key, Tatiana de Rosnay
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, *Currently reading

On my own:
Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aaron Ralston (that guy who was stuck in the Utah wilderness and sawed off his arm)
Soul Surfer, Bethany something (that surfer who got her arm bit off by a shark)
The Help, Kathryn Stockett
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie
Ten Little Indians, Agatha Christie
The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin
The Big Year, Mark Obmascik
The Color of Water, James McBride
Gunn's Golden Rules, Tim Gunn (I've got a soft spot for Tim Gunn)
Masquerade, Nancy Moser
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen *reread
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Jamie Ford
Mao's Last Dancer, Li Cunxin
Saving Ceecee Honeycutt, Beth Hoffman
The Underachiever's Manifesto, Ray Bennett (don't know if that's technically a book. It was like 40 pages.)
The Lost City of Z, David Grann
Inconceivable, Carolyn and Sean Savage
A Long Fatal Love Chase, Louisa May Alcott
The Piano Tuner, Daniel Mason
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

The winner for worst book: Hands down, Ya-ya sisterhood. Terrible. Don't bother, please.

The winner for best book I've read this year: The Big Year. It's a book about birdwatching, which sounds boring, but I really liked it. It kept me interested the whole time and is based on real people. There's also a movie coming out this Friday based on the book and it stars Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and Steve Martin. I'm excited to see it soon!

I also liked Little Women a lot. I feel like maybe I read it a long time ago, but because I didn't write it down, I don't remember. So I read it again recently and loved it.

Any recommendations for me to add to my list?

Dan's Movie Corner

My review of X-Men: First Class

Sometimes you forget how lousy a movie can be.

Projects

A while ago, Candice sent me an email saying that Glidden paint was offering free quarts of a variety of colors. I ordered candy apple red. Not sure what I was going to do with it, but I thought it was a nice color. Fast forward a few months. I decided that a little side table we've had for 5 years or so needed some updating. First I bought a new knob from Hobby Lobby for $3. Then I decided to bite the bullet and try to paint it. If I ever try to do something like this again, someone please talk me out of it.

First I had to sand down everything. Dan helped with a few of the legs. That was nice. After that I spent the majority of the kids' nap times for a week sanding down everything else. It took FOREVER. And that was with an electric sander. Then I painted it. And painted it and painted it! I think the top part has six coats and the legs each have at least three. In the end, I think it's pretty cool. I wish the red were a little bit darker, but I still like it. It might not be to everyone's taste, but it brightens up the room more now.

Before: (But with the new knob. I put the old knob on top, just so you could see what it used to look like.)

After:

The other project was that flowery pillow on the light chair. I was trying to tie in the table a bit more.