The most wonderful time of the year

It had been a little while since that storm blew down our fence in the back yard and Bo and Jenna would frequently remind Jarom that it was still broken while sitting at the kitchen table. So a few weeks ago Jarom enlisted the help of his brother Nate to put in some new fence posts and reattach the segments that had come down. Putting stuff up was actually the easy part of the task. The difficult part was digging up the old posts that were set in about 2 feet of concrete. It took several hours of digging to finally get them out. There are still a couple of slats that need to go back up, but at least it is repaired enough to keep the HOA off our backs.

Emmy isn't as excited about this as Bo is 

Sometimes Bo wants an applesauce and nobody is around to help him get it

Our friend and occasional babysitter Kelsie Ogden has started to take up photography so we decided to be her subjects for a school project and get some low cost family pictures at the same time. You may have noticed some of them on the sidebar. At one point during the photoshoot it became apparent that Jarom was really bringing the picture quality down, so he was asked to simply turn around. That way he was still technically in the photo without having the chance to ruin it. Apparently that is his good side.

To complement the new fence and family photos, Jarom decided to get a new job. Well, he didn’t so much decide to get a new job as much as he was forced out of his old one by his jerkface brother. A few months ago Jarom and Nate were working happily side by side as coworkers on the same team. But then their manager left for another position. Nate applied for it and was offered the job. Good for him, but unfortunately Parkland has a corporate policy that prohibits anyone from directly reporting to a family member, which means that Nate’s first act as team manager was to fire Jarom. Bad for Jarom, but it should keep all the other employees in line. They did actually try to figure out a way to keep him around through some convoluted reporting scenario, but HR wouldn’t have any of it. So in the end Jarom got moved to the Health Information Management team, where he will continue working on some of the projects that he is in the middle of and will start to learn some new things as well. Jarom is handling the transition pretty well. Alixa is currently holding a little bit of resentment towards Nate, but that should dissipate over time.

 All set for a long car ride

The trip was worth it for this alone 

And she didn’t have much time to feel bad for herself, because while all this was happening there was a very tragic passing of an old family friend in Atlanta, the man who was Alixa’s bishop while she was growing up. Alixa and her mom decided to make the 12-hour drive to Atlanta for the weekend to attend the funeral. While nobody was happy about the circumstances surrounding the visit, it was nonetheless good to get back and see so many of her friends from the past. They took Bo and Jenna with them, leaving Emily and Jarom. They split the drive into two days because Jarom wasn’t with them and the ladies are sissies when it comes to driving. While in Georgia they got to stay at the Brooks’ house, which is a nice house built in front of an amazing back yard. There is a putting green, sand trap, a big hill, and lots of grass and trees to run around. Jenna and Bo could have stayed there for the rest of the year and still not get tired of it. They were great hosts and we are all very grateful for their kindness and generosity. While in town Lix took the kids to the house she grew up in, and the current owners were even nice enough to let them come in and take a tour. It is no longer pink and there were some other changes, like the removal of the beer that was hidden in the basement ceiling where Alixa’s older brother had his room. She also drove by her high school on the way to the funeral, where she ran into a concrete barrier on the side of the road and blew out a tire. A nice man who was jogging by helped her get the spare on, but she still missed the majority of the service. She got to attend her old ward on Sunday and see lots of familiar faces. On Monday before they packed up the van to head home Alixa dipped her toes into the CrossFit waters at a friend’s gym and loved it. The workout didn’t last very long, but she was sore for a few days after, and has since taken to doing the occasional Workout Of the Day here in Frisco.

 This is where Alixa grew up

 Donna Robbins, one of Alixa's favorite people

 Doing Crossfit with Lindsey

The best part of travelling? Continental breakfasts where you can have as many things as you want

When the plan to go to Atlanta was first hatched, the biggest problem was what to do with Emmy. Jarom would have to work on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, so some babysitting was needed. And in stepped Christie Halverson, who has been bugging Alixa for months to watch Emmy. The Halversons have some teenage kids, and they seemed to all fall in love with Emmy immediately. She took her baths in the hot tub, enjoyed hanging out in a house nicer than her own, and was only put down when it was time for her to sleep. The original plan was for Jarom to pick her up for the weekend, but when he called to make arrangements they asked if they could just hold on to her. Since Jarom isn’t great with the babysitting anyway, he was happy to oblige, although he did at least head over for some supervised visitation. He ended up picking Emmy up on Monday evening and working from home on Tuesday while he watched her. In his family’s absence he was able to get a few things done around the house. At the top of that list was Alixa’s request that he unclog the drain in her bathroom sink. It has been clogged since we moved in, but Alixa has never been able to muster the courage to deal with it, because it is clogged with other people’s hair and junk. She was wise to ask Jarom to do it while she was away, because it may have been the most disgusting thing he has ever done. He took apart the pipes under the sink, and had to pull/scrape out a whole lot of deteriorating, stinky clumps of hair and unidentifiable goop. But he didn’t throw up, and now the sink drains as it should.

October ended as it always does, with one of our favorite holidays and a bonfire with some friends. As usual here in Dallas on October 31, the weather was very warm during the day and cooled down to just about perfect by trick-or-treating time. This year Jenna went as Merida from Brave, complete with a functional bow and arrows and fire-red super curly hair. She looked perfect. Bo went as one of her little brothers that was transformed into a bear. It was a simple brown sweatsuit and a cute hat with ears. Lix tried to paint his nose, but he had a violent reaction to that. Emmy was a ballerina, although for trick-or-treating purposes she was just a passenger in a stroller. Alixa cut up and sewed a few shirts together and went as a rainbow. Before going out we had hotdogs and chips and roasted marshmallows in the firepit out back to make smores. This is the first year that Bo has really seemed to understand Halloween, and it is a lot of fun to watch. He couldn’t get over how awesome it was that everyone would just give him candy. And as is the case with any cute two-year old, they don’t just give you one candy but tell you to get as much as you want. In about half a block his bag was already too heavy for him to carry. So Jarom helped him out. All night he kept saying to Jarom “It’s such a nice night outside!” and he couldn’t have been more right. After getting more candy than they could ever eat Jenna and Jarom  went through the haunted house that our neighbors set up in their garage each year and then went back home to regift some of their haul to the trick-or-treaters who rang our door.

 Ballerina

 Rainbow

 Merida

 The whole crew

 A little brown bear

The kids got to bed late that night, although that didn’t change the time that Bo woke up and came into Mom and Dad’s room in the morning. He asked for breakfast and was told by Lix that he would have to wait until Jenna got up. He walked away, and Lix assumed he was going into the toy room to play as he usually does. A minute later she started to hear yelling from the kids’ room. “Jenna, wake up!! Jenna, time to wake up!! Wake up, Jenna!!!” She hustled in there and found Bo at the top of the ladder, driving a car on Jenna’s back and yelling at her. Jenna was still asleep. I guess that’s what happens when you tell a little boy that breakfast will be served as soon as his sister is awake. Those two have the most hilarious interactions these days. They are the best of friends, but fight often. They love each other, but try hard to annoy each other as much as they can. Today after church they were playing in the other room while Jarom and Alixa sat at the kitchen table. Both parents’ heads perked up when they heard this exchange, and they just looked at each other and laughed.

Bo: Jenna Marie, you put this headband on right now!

Jenna: You’re not my dad, you can’t tell me what to do!

It went on for a few minutes, but was just more of the same. Mostly it was funny that Bo middle-named Jenna. It sure isn’t dull having these three hoodlums around here and watching them grow up. 

 Carving pumpkins (unsuccessfully) and eating apples (even less successfully)