Pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, and more....

Well I have been wanting to update this for like 3 days but have just been tired and was really debating it tonight since my wrist hurts kinda bad after shoveling snow for 1 hr 40 min today.... we got a lot of snow. Mainly lake effect but my body which is not used to working that many muscles got quite the workout today. That's okay though.... I do love the snow.

Soooooooo.... first off.... I have some pics of Charlotte:

Starting at the top left going clockwise, she can climb into her seat if a chair is in the right position. This makes me nervous. I'm always afraid she's gonna fall but she's such a brave little bugger. Her new thing is helping me mop. Once I'm done she likes to come in and mop some more for me. I love the next one. Scott and I laugh when she points the remote at the tv. It's just cute. I don't know what face she is making but she had been running around and stopped and paused long enough to take the pic. She likes to try on my shoes and try to walk in them so this is her doing that at my parent's house. She also begged my dad and Scott for their coke cans and played with those a bit.... as well as the coke bottle toy.
Where to go next.... hopefully I don't jump around much. I'm really tired and hoping this makes sense. I think I'll do the snow pics next.

The top left is the "blizzard" moving in. We didn't get the snowfall like this last storm but it was pretty cold and came down pretty good at first. Toby loves the snow. I took some pics of our neighborhood. Most people had lots of leaves on their trees still which is bad when we get this amount of snow this early in the year. There were quite a few broken branches and trees pushing their flexibility. I also wrote Scott a note a couple days after and I didn't get a pic until it started to melt... Oh well... it was fun while it lasted.

This is our most recent snow. Once again.... Toby running in the snow and me trying to grab a quick pic. The other pics are everything I shoveled today and yesterday. We had to shovel 3 times for this storm. The first time I started while Scott was in a meeting. A couple of the kids down the street asked if they could help since they didn't want to start their own driveways yet. So I had them start on the sidewalks and I kept on going at the driveway. Then our neighbor across the street had his 4 wheeler and offered to help with the rest of the driveway and sidewalks. It was so nice. Then the kids and I built up a huge mound of snow on the side of the driveway and just fell back in it. I told them they were welcome to play there whenever since we have some large piles so they did today. I built those piles up today too. The one by the mailbox is as high as it. It was perfect timing too when I finished today because the plows came around and I was able to dig out the driveway entrance before I headed back in. I love the snow but the clean up can be tiring and the plows don't always help the clearing efforts of your driveway.
Alright....before I go on to Thanksgiving I have to put up these pics:

This is my parent's dog Jetta. She's a mutt. We're pretty sure she's got some red nosed pit bull in her but not sure what else. Either way she is such a sweetie. She's terrified of Charlotte for some reason but is really good with her. I just had to put up my most recent pics of her... so cute.







Okay..... now onto Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. "Why?" you might ask.....because what better way to spend the day than with family eating yummy food? I love spending time with family. Especially since I don't really have friends up here. I'm trying to do better at doing Relief Society stuff to get to know people better but its hard sometimes and its nice to know I've got family all around me. It's also a great time to remember all the things we have and how blessed we are. I try to always have an attitude of gratitude but I'm not perfect. I think the month of Nov. helps me to maintain that. I guess before I post more pics I want to list some things I'm thankful for.

Well first and foremost... the gospel. I love being LDS. I have always had a testimony growing up and knew I wanted to be married in the temple and wanted to raise a family in the church but I don't think I really understood things or really had a strong conviction about it until I was married in the temple. I loved going through the temple and I'm so thankful for those and the things we learn there and I'm so glad we've been able to go almost every month the last little while. Once I was sealed I think things were put into perspective for me. Even after having Charlotte I feel like I've changed so much. Scott and I have been making more of an effort to do things just a little bit better. Every night we either read from the scriptures (right now we're studying D&C with the institute manual) or from the Ensign that month. We have decided on trying to do better at family prayer. We used to have it ourselves but we want Charlotte to be involved now. We all kneel down together and try to get Charlotte to sit still just a little bit and keep her arms folded. I am so thankful for Scott and his inspiration to do things better. I love that we can go to church and get the same message out of what we heard and go home and talk about it and how we can do things in our family to be a little better. I could go on forever about the gospel. It is my life and without it I would be horribly lost.
I'm also thankful for our ward/neighborhood. Coming from CA you automatically think that all Utahns are the holier than thou type. Boy was I wrong! Of course there are gonna be people here and there that just don't make sense and maybe go overboard but I definitely don't feel that way about our ward. There are so many people with different situations and they've all done different things and come from different places. Some have been strong and faithful their whole lives and others maybe only after they were married. I haven't had any issues with anyone and we've been there over 2 1/2 yrs. Everyone has been so nice to us and they are all great families. We have amazing youth too. I'm so thankful I get to teach the 14 to 15 yr olds. I love my class and they are all so smart. I just want them to catch my excitement for the gospel so they can grow stronger spiritually at that age than I ever was. I am also thankful I was able to serve in the YW presidency for 2 yrs. Our ward has the best YW. They are incredible and so strong! Seriously... the best ward ever! (Note to all those who live outta state: we have quite a few homes available in our neighborhood and there are lots of kids if you have kids of your own! There is actually one right next to us that just went up which you can see here. Not sure what the inside looks like but they have a 3 car garage and a really nice yard and its all vinyl fencing!)
Something else I'm thankful for.....Scott's job. This is a tough economy. We have really struggled since I stayed home but have finally figures it out. We may not have a working dishwasher but I have some really cute gloves to use for washing dishes. Things should get a little easier this next year when we hopefully get rid of our credit card debt. The majority should go with the tax return and then have a bit more after that. It'll be so nice to only have a house payment and utilities. Although its been rough I'm thankful for learning how to handle money better and to be more frugal. I also just learned how to make these rolled cloth flowers. Yeah... I'm totally making my own jewelry and hair clips and headbands with them. Yahoo! I'll try to post those on my other blog tomorrow.
I'm so very very very thankful for our little family. I love Scott so much and I'm sure I've gone on a ton about him in the past but it never seems like enough. I'm thankful my family decided to move to UT and Tooele of all places. Had we not.... I would have never met Scott and never had my sweet Charlotte. It was just so perfect... how can it not be meant to be? I'm also excited because (I guess I'm officially saying this because I am getting so excited for it to come up) we're hoping to add another little one to our little Spence clan hopefully this next year. The soonest appt I could get in was Dec 29 to get my IUD out. I'm hoping things will go more smoothly since I'll be seeing the dr. I originally wanted to try in summer so that way all of Charlottes old clothes would fit if the next one was a girl. Well I guess Scott didn't really want another April baby or one in May so I'm going against what I said I'd never do. I have a chance to be pregnant in summer. Once its official I'll start stocking up on clothes and looking at a new stroller but in the meantime I'm just antsy. I didn't think I'd want another one this quick but the last month I've just felt like its time. So anyway... there it is. I can't keep secrets... you know how long you'll have to wait when/if I get pregnant... not long at all!
Well I could seriously go on forever about the many things I'm grateful for but its past midnight and I gotta finish this up. Onto pics:

My mom got Charlotte a personalized picture book for Christmas. We just need some pics to put in there. So she told me to make sure I get pics of Scott's family on Thanksgiving so we can have it ready by Christmas. So top left is the newest addition... little William. Then there is Ryan, Olivia and Mylee (All Charlotte's cousins). Charlotte didn't nap that day although we tried so she was crashing on her Grandpa Spence when we did pictures. The bottom far left is all the brothers and wives. Then everyone minus me and Scott (Mark and his wife Ashlee, Rick, then Aaron and his wife Malia). Then the last pic is Scott's parents and his Grandma Spence.

So I love to cook. I brought a veggie platter and dill dip for Thanksgiving. The little gap was for the pickles Scott's grandma had. One thing I love about Thanksgiving in leftovers. I had been talking to my mom and she mentioned this thing about turkey salad with the whole cranberry sauce. I had an idea. I cut up turkey, used the left over dill dip, add some celery, walnuts and whole cranberry sauce..... oh.....my.... GOODNESS!!! It was amazing. The best turkey salad I have ever made. I'm sure its not super healthy on that buttery croissant but it tasted sooooo good. It's all I've had for lunch. So yeah.... if your into that stuff, you should totally try that. For my dill mix I used 1 c sour cream, 1/2 c mayo, 1 tbsp. onion, 1 tbsp. dried parsley, 1 tbsp. dill, and 1 tsp. seasoned salt. Pretty much amazing.

So anyway... sorry this post was so long. I'm so tired and not sure what I posted. Hopefully there aren't too many misspellings and I hope it makes sense. Don't forge to check out my other blog soon for my post on those rolled cloth flowers. Super cute and so easy to make!