For the Love of Nie and Pumpkin Carving

"I'm tired of your post." Amy declared this morning. I agree. I can't explain why I haven't posted - I just haven't really thought about it (and, no, I'm NOT pregnant). That must be why she came and took Savy and London for the afternoon. . .

All I can say is that Mommy Waller (Savannah's new name for me) is tired. In case you are wondering how to spell Mommy Waller, here it is:
Reagan is almost 7 months and has no teeth and yet she has been teething for the past four months! She's a mini-vampire with all the intense sucking that girl does! I think one is about to break out and she and I are both suffering from lack of sleep due to the discomfort. Poor girl.

So Saturday night, I went to the NieNie Benefits Concert. I am so glad I did. I really liked Mindy's music and this song simply made me bawl (only watch this video if you're prepared to cry - I just watched it again and couldn't help it). The whole time I just thought how they must be missing having a mom right now. They are loved and surrounded by loving people, no doubt, but nobody can replace a mom. My heart just ached for them as they stood up there, sisters, hand-in-hand. It made me even more grateful for my three little girls.
Not the best picture, but they were so dang cute! Other news from the concert - I actually went up on stage and won this t-shirt .

Anyone who knows me, knows that I wouldn't just go up on stage in front of a thousand people - and you're right. I was talking to Jill about something and not paying attention when Amy nudged me and said - you know what a chupacabra is, raise your hand. So I did. And all of a sudden, next thing I know, I'm on stage next to Chup, explaining something lame about how he's named after some mystery monster who comes and sucks the blood out of your animals at night. I probably looked like a dork up there, but oh well - I really wouldn't have raised my hand so enthusiastically if I had known. Honestly, though, I was quite shocked that NOBODY in Mormon Mesa knew what that meant -- where were all the South American RMs???? I couldn't have been the only one! At least I got a t-shirt!

Sisters - Amy, Me and Jill (Nate's sister, but I claim her as my own now)
Amy, Stacey and I.


Last night we carved pumpkins.
It was the beginning of the Halloween Festivities.
I'm learning that Halloween is not just one night. With kids it gets stretched out and out and out. Pumpkins last night, ward trunk or treat tonight, preschool party tomorrow, kindergarten party Friday and then the big night.
All in all, I will have to dress them up 3 times!
What ever happened to just Halloween night???

Pumpkin carving is serious business in Nate's book. I had to contain super-hyper-excited girls all afternoon. Their excitement is infectious and we all had a blast. And don't you just love those lovely toes in the left-hand corner? Delectable.
Reagan didn't last the whole time in the bouncy seat - Miss Independent demanded to sit smack in the middle of the island for a better view. Luckily, I was already done with my pumpkin. She's got those amazing blue eyes. . . London refused to put her hands in the pumpkins, but Savy loved the dirty work. Nate likes scary.I like traditional.

Which do you like?

Nate's older brother sent his kids down for the week to stay with Pat and Norma. My girlies were very exited to see Emma whom they haven't seen since Thanksgiving -- that is, after I convinced them that it wasn't Elli and Xandi coming from Paris. They have an obsession with Elli and Xandi even though they have yet to meet Xandi and have meet Elli only once, I think. Mail and pictures are our way of knowing them.

Back to Emma and Ethan -- my girls LOVE their older cousins -- Emma, Andersyn, and Madalyn. So this was a real treat. Poor Pat and Norma, though, their house was bursting at the seams with excited, yelling, hyper cousins. We finally rounded them up for a group picture:

London, Emma, Reagan, Savannah, Luke, Ethan, Dallin, and Ryan.

Luke loves Reagan. He's always getting bottles for her and handing them to me.

Sweet little Emma brought gifts for all the kids.

The girls each got a necklace with their name in beads and some jewels which Ethan claimed were stolen by Emma from his pirate stash. . . She made baby Paige a blanket. That girl is a blur of pink! I'm so glad Jill finally has her girl after three boys! Paige should always be surrounded by pink!!!

Reagan got a doll, stuffed personally by Emma. Ready for bed, Reagan wasn't too tired to check out her gift.
First she looked at it, felt it and then embraced it with true love as it went into the mouth.

cookies 'n cousins

So Amy and I made pumpkin cookies today.
(this is an October must for Hendrix girls)

(note: London did have frosting on her cookie when I gave it to her)

The kids enjoyed the cookies, but time flew and all of a sudden, we realized it was 2:00 and the kids hadn't eaten. Amy had made a quick grocery run before coming over and bought a store-cooked chicken. We had picked at it a little and the kids asked for some. In our laziness - I mean busyness in frosting cookies - and wanting our kids to have a fun barbarian experience (Nate would have loved this), we let them go at it finger-style.

Warning: vegetarians and freaky sanitary people (like myself) may want to skip these pictures

Warning: I would NOT recommend letting your children do this - I didn't think about the grease factor and had to wash them all off with the hose. But all in all, I think they had a blast being barbarians! The pictures tell it all. . .

More cousins pictures coming up tomorrow!

cutie

What did I do for my birthday?

On my birthday, I woke up to Nate kneeling down beside me for morning prayer and then the girls came rushing in with excitement. Savannah had already prepared her gift the night before and presented it to me in homemade water-colored wrapping.

It was a lovely blueberry muffin from breakfast the day before. So sweet and thoughtful.

London presented me with a portrait of me and Nate.

I absolutely LOVE my sassy stance in this drawing.

It was just great to wake up to my girls being so excited and happy for it to be MY day. After breakfast, I sat down to tell them about how after they went to bed the night before, I was in bed watching tv and cutting out family home evening things when suddenly there was a loud knock. Daddy was zonked out and so I went down and opened the door to be greeted by this:

and this on the door

and this in the card

and this on my hunt for the cat and dog friends (read note)

and this hand-stapled-with-love garland

and then the prize at the end (up in the tree, I might add)

someone knows me quite well - - my favorite Hershey's bars!!!
A whole stash of them!

After telling the story and showing them the pictures on my camera, Savannah turned to me and said, "did that REALLY happen?" as if it was too cool to be real.

Yes, I got Tikki-torched for my birthday!
How cool is that???

The girls were thrilled to go and check out the birthday decorations. I was amused by these lovelies . . .

What exactly did my tikki-torchers mean by this? =)

The girls loved them, but you may ask what made London so upset?

this.
The broken cat.
I so graciously shared my birthday gifts with the girls. Savy got the dog and London the cat. I warned them that they would break easily, but you know four-year olds . . . it was broken within ten minutes. but big sisters always know how to make things better

don't they?

Miss Reagan was looking especially cute on my birthday.

After dropping off the kindergartners and preschoolers, Amy took me out to breakfast at Wildflower.

my fabulous frittata and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

(yes, I'm even documenting my food for the day)

After breakfast we went to Deseret Book where Amy bought me a book. I am so excited about it - Mormonism and Early Christianity by Hugh Nibley. I have been wanting to study the gospel more in depth and early Christianity fascinates me with St. Augustine and the Nicean Creed and how the apostasy came about and precious truths were lost which were then restored by Joseph Smith. The part I like best about this collection of essays is that he submitted and published them through non-LDS publications and put them up to the scrutiny of non-LDS scholars. I just like that idea that he was that researched and confident in his writings. I can't wait to delve into this one. Thank you, Amy.

Then we picked up the kindergartners and then the preschoolers (and a big THANK YOU to my neighbor, Megan, for keeping them an extra 1/2 hour!) and headed to Fry's and the UPS store. Brave Amy went to grab a few groceries with all four of the toddlers while Reagan and I went to make about 300 copies at the UPS store (lovely FHE once again). And then we went to Amy's.

The kids played fabulously all day while Amy and I worked on FHE while watching episodes of The Biggest Loser (which I've never seen) and the biography of Pres. Monson (which was FABULOUS!). Reagan was perfect (as usual) and just played on the floor, trying her darndest to crawl.

Oh, and Amy even managed to make me a birthday cake and dinner as well.
Big sisters DO know how to make things better, don't they? (thanks, Amy)
My favorite shrimp dish.
Go here to get the recipe.
Seriously, it's so tasty and so easy.

My cake.
Amy is amazing at just whipping up something.
Amazing.
The cake was delicious with it's cookies-n-cream filling.
And that was my fabulous minute-by-minute birthday. And I must say this is the winner of the post with the most pictures of me in it. I never post pictures of me.

The best part is that my birthday continued on to Friday when Nate and I went out on a date. I just love going to dinner where we can be alone and talk and not be disturbed by non-stop chatter. It was probably the best part of my birthday, being alone with him.