What we are thankful for

Jarom is thankful for a brother who comes up with silly athletically themed ideas. You would think that Jarom would be the one coming up with these ideas himself, but it seems like Nate always proposes them and then Jarom makes them happen. I guess it is a good system. Last year it was the half marathon. This year Nate decided that he would like to play basketball in a local rec league. So Jarom got signed up and put a team together and they have started playing. The first game they played was a seeding game. They were matched up against a team that was noticeably darker in the ‘skin pigment’ category and significantly superior in the ‘ability to dunk a basketball’ category. It was a fun game, but they lost badly, which sent them to the bottom division. That’s probably a good thing. After a disappointing last-minute loss to open their regular season they have run off a couple of solid victories and are having a good time doing it. Alixa even came to watch one of the games and got some mediocre footage of each Winn scoring a basket.

Bo is thankful to be potty trained. We are approaching the two-week mark and he has been amazing. On day 1 he had a couple little dribbles in his awesome new unders, but was able to stop and hold it until he got to the potty. It took a few days before he figured out going #2, but on day 3 he got it and he hasn’t looked back. It was a pretty easy process with Jenna, although there were a few ‘cold bath’ incidents along the way. I don’t want to jinx it too strongly, but it looks like Bo has figured this thing out and will be even easier than Jenna was. He has some awesome sticker charts with all his favorite characters (Lightning McQueen, Mater, Dusty Crophopper, Raphael, and Guido) and he is very aware of the treats that he gets when he successfully uses the bathroom.

Emmy is thankful to not have to share diapers any more. That’s right, our ½ year old is so fat she is using the same size diapers as her 30-pound 2.5 year-old brother. She is also very thankful for visiting family, because it is always nice to have someone new fawning all over your cuteness. The crew celebrated Thanksgiving over at Nate and Kenzie’s, and were joined by Mikah, Mimi, Opa, Grandpa Brig and Grandma Dawnene. That’s a lot of aunts and grandparents to take turns holding a kid that sometimes resembles a wrapped butterball. She is starting to move herself around now. She spends a lot of time sitting up in whatever room Lix and the kids are in, and sometimes you leave the room and come back to find her a few feet away wedged under a piece of furniture. I’m sure she’ll be crawling soon.

Jenna is thankful for an Opa that takes her to see fun movies like Free Birds and Frozen. She has been really into arts and crafts lately. She has done a lot of neat things with her preschool group and loves learning. Mimi bought her an art class a few weeks ago and she painted some pretty cool things. She and Bo have also started to decorate my cage with pictures drawn on post it notes. It started with a picture of a worm (don’t ask me why) and grew to some more abstract images. But I am working on my art appreciation, and it gives me something to look at when things are slow.

Alixa is thankful for a husband that gets yard work done. It usually takes about 6 months longer than she would like, but you can’t have everything, can you? Recently she asked him to trim the trees in the front yard because the branches were too low and were blocking the view of house from the street. So Jarom spent a few hours one Saturday up on the ladder cutting down branches. Then he spent another Saturday cutting up those branches into smaller, manageable pieces. This also gave Alixa a reason to invite some friends over to enjoy a bonfire. For the first time ever, the weather cooperated. It wasn’t raining and it wasn’t hot. It was a chilly evening that was just perfect for sitting around a nice warm fire and roasting some marshmallows. Alixa is also very thankful for the gym. She continues to work very hard at her classes and is still losing weight and looks great. Jarom is going to feel very badly about himself when they go on their cruise at the end of January.

We are all thankful for each other and the wonderful blessings that our family has. We are thankful to be living in Texas and for the great friends that we have made here over the past few years. And I hope that each of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving like we did.