Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a ridiculously busy week (thanks to us!!). In our church we give babies a name and a blessing in their first few months of life (and then when children turn 8 they are baptized). So we decided to hold off giving Kenzington her blessing until we could have family join us if they wanted to. We opted for Thanksgiving since it seemed to be the best time for most to come. We had an awesome turn out and a fun week with everyone.

Greg's sister Kim lives a few miles from us and she agreed to host all of Greg's side that came. Greg's parents, his sister Katie and her husband Spencer, Greg's brother Jeff and his wife Karen and daughter Camille all came and stayed with Kim. Greg's brother Brad and his family live here so they were here also. The only one we missed was Melanie because she is on a mission to the Dominican Republic. They all arrived by Wednesday.

Thanksgiving morning the men went and played football bright and early. Greg dislocated his shoulder which made the next activity fun to watch with him. We (meaning his sister Kim and everyone else agreed!) decided we should start a family tradition of playing kickball anytime we are all together since we have enough people to make it fun, especially once the grandkids are a little older.

The teams were the "Original Leavitts" vs "the in-laws". Needless to say us "in-laws" got our butts spanked. It was a ton of fun though and brought out my competitive side. Greg had never seen me play "sports" like this and I think he was pleasantly surprised that I could hold my own.



While we played the "triplets" were good and sat in their seats. They lasted about an hour before they called the game quits for us.
Kenzington, Charlotte (Kim's), and Camille (Karen's)
Charlotte and Camille are only a day apart and poor Kenzington is 5 months behind them!


After kickball we went back to Kim's house where we enjoyed Thanksgiving with all of them. We had to leave a little early from their festivities because my family was on their way.

My mom and step dad, along with my brother Brantley and his wife Tasha all flew in Thanksgiving afternoon. My brother Theron and his wife Hiedi and kiddos Logan and Lydia made the awesome 14 hour drive and arrived within minutes of the others. Unfortunately my brother Derek and his family couldn't make it. We opted to do carne asada burritos for dinner and have the big Thanksgiving meal on Friday.

Friday morning Greg decided to go hit up some really early sales and instead of buying some great bargains, we got to fix a couple of cars!


He didn't remember that my brother was parked in our driveway so he ended up side swiping them around 5 in the morning. AWESOME!! Luckily it was easily fixed and relatively inexpensive. Gotta love it!

The rest of Friday was uneventful. We made our first turkey, on the grill, and it was awesome. After we ate we all just "bummed" around. It wouldn't be a true get together without someone wrestling someone.






I didn't get any pictures from Saturday but we decided to get together with Greg's family at the park again and play another game of kickball. This time it was the Leavitt's (minus Greg) against the Shattucks. There was some smack talk going on between the two teams but I am proud to say that despite all of us being out of shape the Shattucks whooped the Leavitts big time!! I however over-did it in my competitiveness and tore a leg muscle while trying to dodge getting hit (which I succeeded in) and ended up sitting out for the last half or so. It was a good day.

Halloween?

Yep I'm still going to try and play catch up as I organize my pictures. Hopefully it will be a fast catch up and I can finally get on top of this blog thing. I almost gave up and then heard from a few people that they look at it regularly so I guess I'll try to be more diligent. Plus it should help me as I scrapbook months down the line with remembering what, where, when, etc.

So on to HALLOWEEN!!

We carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening (like everyone else)!



Getting ready for our first, of many, halloween functions.
Kenzington getting dressed. Her shirt says "I've been inside for 9 months", thank you pinterest! I got the idea from a friend. I decided to wear my "jail" shirt (as Greg likes to call it) to match her, that was as far as my creativity went this year!

Axton got to be a pirate, no he didn't have a say in the matter, but fortunately he loved it.

We went to our ward trunk or treat. Our ward puts on amazing parties. This year it was at a neighborhood park so all in our little community, LDS and nonLDS alike, could attend and not feel awkward or out of place. We had a couple of bounce houses, different carnaval games, cupcake walk, etc. The best part though is definitely the line to get candy from everyone. We rope off an area and then everyone sits around the outline of the rope and hands out candy. We handed out at least 500 pieces of candy and we ran out before it was over. Needless to say Axton had enough candy that we didn't need to go do the real deal (although we still did!!). Unfortunately I didn't bring the camera and I have yet to ask my sister-in-law if she got any pics from the ward party.

All of us heading out on the actual night. And yes I am wearing SHORTS in OCTOBER!

We were able to go trick-or-treating with Greg's sister Kim and her family. They were much more creative and prepared seeings that they were The Incredibles.

It was a fun night and the kiddos scored big time. One plus to AZ and there super close together homes is definitely trick or treating. It doesn't take long to hit 50 or so houses and be done for the night, maybe an hour.

San Diego Pumpkin Patch

After Disneyland we stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's house in San Diego. Grandma wanted to take everyone to a pumpkin patch that she had visited a week or so before.
They had lots of activities for the kids: a playground, hayride, trucks, cotton seed slope, petting area, hay maze, etc. It was a fun place to visit and all the kids got to pick out a pumpkin and take it home.

Disneyland

Axton has been asking to go to Disneyland for about a year and I refused to go while I was pregnant because I really wanted to enjoy the "big kid" rides. So now that Kenzington is here, we decided to go while he was out of school for fall break.

It turned into an extended family trip, which made it fun because we had people to trade the kids off with so everyone could ride all day, and Axton had cousins to help him not be afraid to try new rides. Aunt Katie and Uncle Spencer, and Uncle Brad and Aunt Corina with Vanessa, Daniela, and Talia all came. Grandma and Grandpa Leavitt were going to come but Grandpa had meetings that night and Grandma hurt her knee :( so hopefully next time they can come.

We started off ok with pictures but then we got way too interested in the rides to care. Axton didn't like the Haunted Mansion or Space Mountain because they had it all set up for Halloween and he has never like creepy things. He loved the Matterhorn (he begged to go on it repeatedly and we made it the last ride of the night) and all other roller coasters. The day went by way too fast and hopefully next time we can make it for a few days instead of just one.








A very common expression (for both the kids) that would be repeated throughout the entire day, but he only whimpered at the beginning of the Haunted Mansion, and she nevere made a peep on the rides just took it all in, or slept through them.



We got stuck in the Haunted Mansion for a while which was lame, and poor Axton was already scared. The plus side was that everytime we stopped we were able to point out the things in the room and he could really look at them so he'd calm down, but then we'd move onto another room. Our only rule was that he had to try every ride once.




The boat ride was so fun because of Axton. He loved seeing all the "animals" and it was nice to sit and relax without worrying about him running off to the next ride.

Kenzington didn't quite know what to think but that was the story all day.

Showing off his Lightning McQueen/Mickey ears hat that was his souvenir


Axton is sitting with Aunt Katie but he's so little that you can't see him!


Axton was drenched from going down Splash Mountain 3-4 times. He always looked so scared when they took the picture, it was priceless, so we bought one of the pictures but I can't find it to download, so instead this is him afterwards. He loved it though.

Both kids were exhausted by 10pm so the drive to Grandma and Grandpa's was very peaceful! They both did so well, I don't think we had any real melt downs and Axton was a champ at waiting in line which was my biggest fear. Definitely excited for the next trip but that will probably be a while.

The Truly Awesome Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies

So today while I was in the middle of my workout my doorbell rang and interrupted me. And what should I find but a package from bzzagent with my newest product to rate and spread the word about. There's nothing like sabatoging the last 1/2 hour of working out in a matter of seconds than eating a couple of chocolate chip cookies that are 120 calories each, ouch!

My disclaimer on this one: I don't like hard cookies, I don't buy the prepackaged kind unless specifically asked to by Greg which isn't often. I don't care much for chocolate. And store made chocolate chip cookies always have too many chocolate chips in them for my taste (when I make them myself I always reduce the amount of chips called for by at least half if not 3/4). So for me these were doomed from the beginning, for others who like chocolate and chips ahoy type cookies you might really enjoy them.



Back to the product. The Kroger brand has come out with a new line of products called "The Truly Awesome..." and the one I received for free from bzzagent to try was obviously chocolate chip cookies. The ironic thing, other than them being hand delivered in the middle of working out, is that since having Kenzington I can't stop craving chocolate chip cookies, and normally I don't really care for them!

So of course I ate one immediately, goodbye rest of my workout, goodbye calories burned, hello sugar! Conversation to myself, "Ummm these are ok. Wouldn't buy them though. Too crunchy for my taste, definitely tastes like a hard store bought cookie, doesn't live up to what I would consider a "homestyle" cookie that "tastes as if mom baked them herself" (or so the package says). What a waste of calories. I was hoping they'd taste better. But really there's nothing like a fresh homemade cookie that comes out soft and warm. They remind me of chips ahoy cookies, but they are a little bigger than those, but not very many to a package, only 8. Guess that's a good thing because if I ate all of them that's only about 1000 calories, better than several thousand from chips ahoy! Luckily they aren't that great so I won't be eating this whole box by myself, Axton and others will get to enjoy them."

Then I sat down to read the whole pamphlet on them and discovered their suggestion to throw one in the microwave to make it warm and soft. Of course I had to try that since that is how I like them, no crunchy cookies for me! BIG MISTAKE!!! It said to warm them for a few seconds, so after 10 I felt it and it was still hard but warm, umm no thanks. Decided what the heck and put it back in for 20 more seconds and .... we had warm and SOFT! It was so much better than eating it cold and hard! Who needs to share, bring on the calories baby!

So in the end, if you want a hard cookie, I'd still go with chips ahoy or whatever brand because for the money and size of the package these just aren't worth it to me, even if they are made with "quality" ingredients and "no preservatives" (unless those matter to you). But if you want a soft cookie, these are more tempting, but maybe because I never thought to try and stick one of the others in the microwave, and don't know how they would turn out. As for me though, I'll be sticking to homemade chocolate chip cookies because either way these store bought ones just aren't as good.

I have coupons though for a $1 off one package making them roughly $2 a box if anyone wants one, otherwise they'll be going in the trash can.

Burt's Bees Products

As I have posted in the past, I am a bzzagent, so they send me stuff to sample, spread the word, and report on. For the last month or so I have been using Burt's Bees Facial cleanser and moisturizer that they sent me for free to try out. I must say I am in LOVE with the cleanser, the moisturizer is ok.


Biggest disclaimer: I acknowledge that I'm not the aficionado when it comes to beauty products! I would like to learn more but for now, it's low on the priorities. But I can give you my opinion on the products I tested.

First of all these products are made from all natural ingredients, which I won't lie, I don't really care about, but I know others do! For me it matters how well they work. To be honest with everyone I rarely use anything but water to clean my face. Everytime I try a cleanser I break out, and when I use soap my face gets way too dried out that it drives me crazy. SO just plain water is what I have been using most of my life and I have very few breakouts, thank heavens! But there are things I love about this product that make me think maybe I should be come a regular facial cleanser user!

I LOVE the cleanser because it has NO soap in it. When I use it, it's like putting on lotion, it's so soft and silky. No bubbles, no drying out the skin, and best of all for me.... NO breakouts! The down side for me is the $10 price tag. Maybe that's because I have no idea what other cleansers cost since I don't buy them, and I know some people use the really fancy brand name stuff from department stores that costs a whole heck of a lot more than that, so maybe I'm just cheap. The bottle is a pretty good size though and so far has lasted me at least a month and is still going strong (but I forget to use it sometimes since I'm not in the habit) so it may not last that long for others, but a little goes a long ways!


Now on to the moisturizer. I do use moisturizer more often than I ever use facial cleanser, but I still don't use it that often, mostly when my face is feeling extra dry. This moisturizer isn't much different than others that I've used in the past. It works fine. But I feel like there are some downs that make me unlikely to buy it again. One pump from the bottle gives you more than you need and often times I pump it out without thinking because I'm used to my Aveeda. So I end up with way too much in my hands and end up washing half of it down the sink. The other thing, it feels to wet for me. I apply it and rub it in and it takes a while for it to stop being wet to the touch so I can put on my makeup (on the rare occasions that I wear it!). No matter how little I put on I always feel like there is too much because it doesn't get soaked up very quickly compared to Aveeda. And it's $15, which is about what I pay for Aveeda, and it's probably about the same amount of product, so I think I'll stick to Aveeda until I find something better.



Well that's my two cents on the subject. Can't wait to try out more free products and expand my horizons with bzzagent.com!