Thanksgiving Package Surprise

Our family hasn't been doing the greatest at having regular family home evenings and scripture study/come follow me lessons, so finally Curtis made up a chart and we scheduled Mondays for FHE nights (to do an activity) and the other nights each person will take a turn doing lessons. We also have another chart for who says the family prayer on each night. Since we have an extra day, Thursday is a volunteer day for prayer. Curtis also made a rotating chore chart for our family. That's something we've needed to do for a long time. Anyway, Jack was in charge of FHE for this week and on Monday after Charlotte and I got back from basketball practice we all headed to the store to pick out a simplified Thanksgiving dinner to send in a package to Nikki since she can't come home for Thanksgiving. I loved the idea! I had been thinking about sending her a card and this is even better. However, we did send her a card as well and Charlotte drew her a picture. And we saw this ugly sweater with a cat on it and decided we had to get that for her too. I packed it all up the next morning and took it to the post office first thing. There are perishable items in there after all so we needed to send it as soon as possible. I was told it would get there by Thursday. It would have been about $62 to overnight the package versus $15 to wait one more day. Yeah, she can wait one more day. She didn't even know it was coming anyway.

Salt and vinegar potato chips for her potatoes, small rolls, green beans, turkey sticks, cherry pie, pumpkin roll and stuffing.

After we had picked out everything for her package the girls and I went to see if we could find ear muffs to help keep their ears warm in this winter cold weather. You used to see ear muffs everywhere when I was a kid but not now. These were the only ones we could find but thankfully they love them. And they came with gloves so that was a bonus.

My two little unicorns with their new ear muffs and gloves.

All ready to wear them to school the next morning.

Wednesday was our last basketball practice. Most of practice went well. It's not until we scrimmage or play a game that some tension arises. We played red light, green light first. Then we scrimmaged (played 3 on 3). That's where we had some disagreements and arguing, mostly from one player in particular. We then tried to play Lightning the last 5 minutes and Charlotte and this same girl were arguing over who got to go first. Charlotte thought I told her she could but all I did was hand her ball to her. I had them do rock, paper, scissors and the other girl won. Charlotte was upset and started to cry at the end of the line. We started the game and the girl who won got out almost immediately, so she wasn't happy either. At that point I was really running out of patience. It's not the way I wanted to end our final practice. Some girls mentioned (including Charlotte) that they wanted to have a pizza party after the game on Saturday. I wasn't sure I wanted to do it at first but now I'm thinking it would be fun and a good positive way to end the season. So I'm thinking I'll have a party at our house after the game and just pick up some cheap Little Caesar's Pizza and some pop. 

Thursday (yesterday) I had the opportunity to go to the temple again with my dad, grandma and great aunt Joyce. Laverne is still healing and wasn't ready to go yet. We all did one endowment session together and then Dad did another while us ladies did some initiatory. It was the first time I had done initiatory since getting my own done 20 years ago. It has changed some since I last did it. I had also decided to fast while going to the temple because I'm so worried about finding a good home in a good area with good schools that we can afford over in Washington. I want as much help as I can get. We will be heading over Sunday after church to look at houses over there on Monday. We'll be taking all of the kids (except Nikki of course) with us so that they all get to see what the area looks like and do some sight seeing. Thankfully, the company will be paying for our hotel and gas for this trip.

After the temple, Grandma offered to take us out to lunch. We dropped by to pick up Laverne so she could come with us and we ate at a burger place called The Habit. It was pretty good and my first time eating there. Going to the temple and lunch pretty much took up my whole day. I got home the same time school got out for the boys and actually saw Garrett walking on the way home so I picked him up. I'm so glad I had that opportunity to go to the temple and to do it with family.  

In our conversations that day we had talked about leaves. Well, I nearly forgot to say that on Tuesday our lawn mowing guy showed up again. Yay! I wasn't sure we would see him anymore because it had been 3 weeks since he last came. I was so relieved too! I was worrying about how I was going to get around to cleaning up the yard when everyone was so busy and we spent last Saturday helping grandma. Heavenly Father blessed us in sending this man just when we needed him. He used his big sit down mower and was able to get most of the leaves and pine needles. He also put lawn food on afterwards.

I forgot to take a picture that day but here's what it looks like 2 days later. So much better!

Unfortunately, this big tree and other smaller trees still have a lot of leaves left on them. We're hoping the lawn guy comes back again to get more later.

I was anxiously waiting all day yesterday from a message or phone call from Nikki when she got her package. Well, it was about 6:15pm and I couldn't wait any longer. I finally started texting her. She had asked for pictures of the cats so I sent her some, which she loved. Since she still didn't mention anything about the package I finally had to ask if she had received it yet. After all, there are some perishable items in there that she needs to eat soon! She went to go check her mail and she did receive it. Needless to say, she loved it and said she wanted to cry. She got a kick out of the sweater and said I finally got her sense of style.

It says "Nice But Naughty"

This just cracked me up. We sent her the green beans more as a joke because we knew she didn't like them. She said "what kind of a sick joke is this" and "now I have to eat vegetables". I told her she could donate it but she said "I'll eat it, just like old times". Aww 💗

It was so great to be texting her last night. Charlotte and Alice got on my phone and sent her pictures and other fun smiley faces, etc. Nikki loved the package and I'm so glad we did it.

Here are some of those fun cat pictures we sent her.

Feeding them chicken pieces.

Charlotte wanted a selfie with Sage. I had to help by holding Sage because she wouldn't cooperate, ha ha.

Nikki said she's going to have Thanksgiving dinner with two of her roommates. I'm so thankful she won't be alone. She also told me that she bought a turkey and is going to cook it herself. Apparently she told Curtis that she was going to "out turkey him" since he is cooking a turkey for us. I'm so proud of Nikki. She has had some struggles with her car, depression, worrying about money but we are helping her to work through it and she's doing great. She says she'll be coming home for Christmas so we can't wait to see her!