Matt was told that he can work remotely up to two days each week, so today, he worked from home. I'm super excited about being able to have the car two days a week. Today, Henlie wanted to go to school. She got dressed; socks, shoes, and coat! She wanted me to drop her off. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a school, so we convinced her to go to Grandma's School. I was able to drop Henlie off (and visit for a minute :)) then go to Wells Fargo to change the PIN on my debit card and go to Walmart with only Andrew. Andrew napped from Grandma's until a few minutes into Walmart, but he was quiet and content even after waking up in his car seat. :) I got to see my cousin Casey at Walmart as well, so that was fun.

Henlie has been begging to play with Play-Doh since she found the two pots we had from before we moved to Peru. I didn't let her play with them for awhile because I didn't want it on the carpet, and we didn't have anywhere in the dining room to play with it. I finally pulled the card table and folding chairs out a few days ago (because we sold our dining table), and while we've been eating there, I still didn't get out the Play-Doh. Well Tuesday, the 24th, I finally let her play with it. I love my hardwood floors. I hate Play-Doh less with hardwood floors haha. And she loved the Play-Doh. She contentedly played for quite awhile by herself. In fact, the first thing she made was a birthday cake, complete with candles. 

I love her creativity and am glad I let her finally play with the Play-Doh for a bit. It gave me a break and let her exercise her mind a bit :)

Shutterfly had their free calendar offer that expired Monday. While I had set up a calendar folder to sort through pictures and find them so they were all ready to go, I did not do that until....the calendar offer was announced. So my biggest blessing on Monday was actually finishing my calendar and getting it ordered while it was still free! I'm super excited. I also love that you can now add your own events in and add pictures to the days if you so desire. I added pictures to a few holidays and our birthdays. Added birthdays and conferences. It was more time-consuming, but I love to customize things, so it all worked out :)

Sunday - we had our favorite caramel cinnamon rolls from Rhodes. I love Rhodes rolls. So simple! Matt also made scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast. Benefits of 1pm church :)

Matt actually ended up staying home sick from church, so it was me and the kids. Andrew slept for the first two hours. Even though I forgot the church bag, Henlie did fairly well staying quiet during sacrament meeting. Even when she wasn't exactly being reverent and smacked her head (loudly) on the wooden back of the bench, she didn't wail and just sobbed quietly in my lap for a little while. That never happens.

Other awesomeness was catching up with my new bff Deanna before Relief Society. Un-awesomeness was finding out she's moving soon! It's okay, though. Kara is still in the ward, so that's cool. Now we just need to find condo friends again since they all moved while we were in Peru :(

Saturday morning, we took Cinco into the vet. I'm glad we did since Friday he started having blood in his urine. The vet informed us he likely had a dental infection along with a bladder infection. Poor kitty had to stay pretty much all day because he didn't have enough urine for them to get a sample. We got him back around closing time for the vet with some antibiotics, special food, and an appointment to check on him in a week. He also ended up having struvite crystals in his urine, which the food is supposed to help with. While we aren't wholly successful getting him to eat the new food and nothing else (hard when you have another cat around), he does seem to be doing better. Hopefully things are still looking up at his next appointment!

Matt also went with Jason after Cinco's appointment to help paint their new house, which gave Henlie and I some time to hang out and play with Camile, Charlie, and Danica. It's nice to have them so close by. While we're excited for their new house in Layton, it'll be sad when they are so far away. I'm glad Henlie has been able to get in some good cousin time because Charlie is one of her favorite people in the world. (Everett and Grandma Biggs are the others :))

We had a pretty lazy day on the 20th. Usually, I don't let Henlie watch TV until after lunch, but she was looking at all of the DVDs and kept wanting to watch a show, so I turned on Netflix. I love having Netflix on the TV (it means I can keep using the computer!). I love having the Xbox back. (Voice commands!) I love that Netflix has a crap ton of shows on it haha. Even though we own The Last Unicorn, AristoCats, and The Fox and the Hound, I didn't have to get up to put discs in (until The Lion King, anyway).

Thursday, November 19th, was a bit of a rough day. Henlie was playing with the Bumbo (up-side down) and broke the picture frame (which was leaning against the piano) that held our family photo. Fortunately, the glass didn't brake and she was okay. Perhaps it was even a blessing as one corner wasn't so attached very well anymore. (It went to Peru and back with us.) So now I have no excuse to not buy a new frame lol. 

She also played with Matt's signature stamp and got ink all over her hands. Fortunately, most of it washed off. 


We all needed a bit of a break, so for Mocha's afternoon walk, we went to the playground at our complex. Henlie was excited to play, and it was good for all of us to get out of the house.



I'm grateful the weather was sunny (not warm, but sunny lol). I'm grateful our complex has a playground. I'm grateful it's close by. (Makes it easier to go than when I had to haul both kids a few blocks in Peru :)) I'm grateful we have Mocha so we have to get out of the house at least once a day. (Don't worry, Mocha goes out more than that, we just don't always go for a walk.) I'm grateful the monkey bars are close to the ledge. Henlie thinks she should play on them, but she always needs to be held. This time, she could try them for herself! (She didn't get past the first bar :))

Wednesday, November 18th, we got Henlie in for her 3 year well check. She got an eye exam this time, too. She tested at 20/30, which is expected in 3 year olds. Dr. Fullmer says she probably sees better than that, and it was just a limitation of the test. Her stats are weight: 32.2 lbs (66%) and height: 38.25 in (79%). Everything shows as perfectly healthy. 

Dr. Fullmer says she's grown like 6 inches over the last year. I just said, "I believe it." When we moved to Peru, she couldn't reach the elevator call button in our building. When we left, she didn't even need to stretch to push it. Her height and her hair have done a lot of growing over the last year. 

People tend to think she is older than she is because she speaks so well. I'd say in most areas, she's advanced for her age. The biggest thing that gives pause is potty training. She's still in diapers, but she has recently told us she needs to go to the potty. Maybe soon I'll have a house put back together and can dedicate some time to helping her finally get trained. We shall see.

Matt just laughs because she drives me crazy, but apparently it's over things that I also do. She and I are too similar. My mom and I were the same way. :)

She does say some pretty funny things, sometimes, though. Example, in the tub before going to the doctor, she said, "Mom, there's hair on my chest!" Her hair had come over her shoulder onto her chest. :) It is interesting to hear the way her mind works sometimes :)

We sure do love our Henlie Boo. She is a great big sister and almost always wants to help with Andrew, the animals, and whatever else I'm doing around the house.

November 17th is World Prematurity Day to raise awareness of premature birth and care for preemie babies. Technically, Henlie was premature at 3 weeks 2 days early, and Andrew was definitely premature at 11 weeks 5 days early. :) I am so grateful that both were (relatively) healthy and have had no lasting issues so far as a result of their prematurity. I know of friends and see stories on the internet of people who have had much greater trials, and I just know my Heavenly Father knows me because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't handle such trials as well.

Monday, November 16th, we enjoyed dinner at Matt's parents' house. Shawn and Roxanne were over to see Jackie and Curtis one last time since they flew out for Korea the next morning. It's always so fun to spend time with family. And it's always nice to not have to prepare dinner. Since moving back to Utah, we've had a lot of dinners at Larry and Carrie's house! I'm glad they don't mind :) 

Sunday November 15th, we had our first Sunday back in our old ward. It was so good to see old faces, and have the meeting in English :) 

Another blessing was finally finding our silverware!

It was also Andrew's 8 month birthday! We sure love having him in our family. He loves Henlie, and she loves him, too.

Saturday, November 14th, we had an early Thanksgiving dinner with Matt's family while we were all in the same place still. Thanks to Curtis and Jackie's visas for Korea, they ended up still being in Utah for a couple weeks after we moved back from Peru. Originally, we were just going to miss them, so for once, a government worked in our favor so we could see them again :)

Mom had us all make pies. We decided to combine Henlie's birthday with dinner, so I let her choose what pie we made. She picked apple. That was a fun adventure as neither Matt nor I had made an apple pie before. It turned out yummy, though. Fun story, at dinner, there were also some chocolate options....and so Henlie had chocolate and no apple pie...


It was so fun to be able to celebrate with the whole family. Michelle and Jennifer also brought their boyfriends, who are both named Braden lol. Michelle's Braden actually is a friend of mine from work, so that's fun. Jennifer's Braden was such a doll playing with the kids. Both of the girls probably read this, as does my mother-in-law, but I'm just going to throw it out there that if they both stick, I'm totally okay with this ;)


I am so grateful for the family I married into. They are wonderful and warm. I love them all so much. Really, I don't think a girl could ask for better in-laws :)

Friday the 13th. We didn't really have an unlucky day, though :) We picked Matt up at the airport (my first time using the park and wait area :)) and visited Matt's old boss and an old colleague. Aside from the waiting (we didn't go in the first stop), it wasn't too bad. It just took forever :) We went with him into Rustico, though. Those guys are pretty chill, and they loved Henlie. She appreciated the colored pencils and paper while we talked too haha.

Since we were out and about, we opted to eat out for dinner. Henlie chose Peruvian ("Purple drink!"), so we went to La Carreta in Orem. Sadly, Peruvian food is better in Peru. Darn crappy produce in this country :) Also a downer, the TV on our side of the restaurant doesn't work, so we couldn't even watch the Peru game :) 

We were happy to have Daddy come home and happy to go out for dinner. I also cracked open some Double Stuf Oreos after Henlie was in bed. They're HUGE lol Also, I'm grateful for drinkable milk in which to dunk my Oreos. I haven't really been able to do that for a year, and it has been sad.

I seem to recall not having a very productive day on Thursday, but I did make it to the store. I was happy to go without Matt. A - he hates Walmart. B - I could wander up and down aisles to my heart's content :) Andrew was so good while we shopped, too. Henlie didn't complain, either. I love that I can stick them both in a cart currently, even if the car seat does take up most of the cart space :) I am also grateful for the space at the bottom of the cart when I run out of room haha. Another bonus to our trip was discovering Walmart offers self-service bakery donuts. We totally got a half dozen and enjoyed some after lunch....which was from Costa Vida. I am so happy there is a Costa Vida in Payson now, too!

I'm thankful we came home with Matt having a new job. It is nice to know we still have income :) On Wednesday, November 11th, we had to drop him off at the airport for a couple of days training in San Francisco. Not gonna lie, it was really nice having the car available when I wanted it :) I also had a super productive day Wednesday and got way more house stuff done than I had hoped for. I love productive days. They make me happy :)

The 10th was a magical day thanks to my kids. I could have done with a little bit more time before our first snow, but that's okay. Henlie was so excited. Whenever it snows, she asks if there's enough snow to build a snowman. (There hasn't been yet.) I quickly got over my romanticized notion of snow and fondly thought back on the weather in Lima right now haha. It was also Andrew's first snow. Even though snow may be less than pleasant, it's always fun to experience baby's first.

It was also magical for Henlie because she woke up to discover Mocha was back. She missed Mocha more than the cats and had been anxiously awaiting her return. She sure loves her puppy, although Mocha has had to get used to Henlie's vastly increased mobility and noise haha. Matt was also happy she woke up so he could see her reaction before he had to leave. A pretty good day, overall :)

Matt still hadn't started his new job yet, so we were able to run some errands and do some more house-putting-together. During this whole ordeal, I've been very glad we have somewhere to go for some normalcy and a home-cooked meal. (Thank you Carrie, Camile, and Jackie! I never know who made dinner what day :))

Henlie has loved having her cousins around to play with, too. She was super excited to move back to "Mutah," and I'm happy to report she is still pleased with the decision a few weeks later. haha

Monday night, we also got Mocha back. Thank you so much to Natalie and Tashina for watching her, taking care of her, and loving on her for the last year for us! She clearly did very well there. I'm also grateful that Mocha remembers how things used to work at our house fairly well. I was a little worried there'd be a bit of a learning curve again or maybe some regression since she hadn't been crated in awhile, but she has done awesome. The other good thing to having the dog back? I have to get out of the house at least once a day to walk her :)

Sunday morning dawned and we got ready to leave while everyone else got ready for church. We didn't quite make it back in time for our church, but I was glad to have a day to recuperate a bit.

It was also nice to come home and see the Payson temple waiting for us, and knowing that it is open now. One day we'll actually make it over for a session. :)