ABBEY

Here I am, Proud Mama, and I just have to show off the fact that my little 3 1/2 year old girl can write her name.

She wrote this for me yesterday. I am so proud of this big accomplishment! Soon she'll be writing novels, right?

More Thanksgiving

There has been some bad news going around lately. I hate that. None of it is specifically happening to me, but it's happening to people I care about. Life doesn't seem fair sometimes.
I know we're all supposed to believe that all things happen for a reason. And I do in fact believe that. But it's hard to accept it as true all the time. How can it be that some things happen to help us learn a certain lesson, or to make us stronger, or to help us become better people? And when bad news is happening to you, I think it's nearly impossible to always say, "What positive thing can I take from this experience?" I suppose that thought process comes much later, at least for some people. If it's one of the first things you think about when bad news happens to  you, then you are a saint.
I've titled this post "More Thanksgiving". Why? Because out of all the bad news, I'm trying to remind myself that no matter what is happening to me, someone else has a much bigger plate of bad news. You know that saying, if we all put our problems in a big pile, and saw what everyone else had, we'd be taking ours back in a heartbeat (or something like that). It's quite true. So I am telling myself to give MORE thanks. To be sincerely thankful for ALL that I have. Unlike some people, I can say I have a job, and so does my husband. We can comfortably afford to live in a home, feed and clothe our family. We are surrounded by family and friends who love us.
I wish life could be easy-breezy for all my family and friends (and everybody else really), but I suppose it can't be. What kind of people would we be if everything went smoothly all the time? Would we really be happier? If everything were just good news all the time, how would we know it was good?
Still, it pains me to see people I know getting bad news. So I'm looking for the silver lining. I'm hoping those around me that are struggling through bad times get some positive news soon.
More often during this year we talk about the Thanksgiving spread. Lots of food right? Maybe we should take more time to Spread Thanksgiving.

Halloween Pictures & HOW is it NOVEMBER?!

Firstly, enjoy these pictures from  Halloween.

 Natalie says HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

 Trick or Treating

 Abbey as Belle from Beauty and the Beast

 At one of the many  houses we stopped at

 Me and Matt <3

 The whole family

Our pumpkins

I seriously don't know where the time is going. Wasn't it just September? How can Halloween have already come and gone? My favorite holiday, and I don't feel like it happened at all. But there are pictures, so it must have.

Christmas is mere 46 days away. I know I shouldn't skip right over Thanksgiving. I'm not trying to. That's another one of my favorite holidays. Mainly because there is so much EATING. I love eating. LOL Also, I am trying to be very conscious of things I am thankful for. Everyone always says family and friends. But with good reason. They really are the things we should be most thankful for, and that is very true with me. I have been extremely blessed with some of the best family members anyone could ask for. Step family and in-laws included! I can't tell you in words how thankful I am for my amazing husband (flaws and all). He does more for me and our daughters than we deserve and takes care of us in ways I never would have thought possible. So, among MANY other things (I could never list them all here), I am thankful for my husband who:

• Takes out the trash EVERY Monday
• Changes the oil in my car
• Takes care of paying all our bills on time
• Makes dinner nearly EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and takes care of most of our lunches on weekends too
• Does the grocery shopping
• Mows the lawn
• Handles our finances
• Helps give the girls baths every other night
• Gets Abbey into bed most nights and reads to her
• Does the dishes
• Cleans around the house (I am especially thankful that he cleans the bathtubs!!!)
• Takes the girls to daycare in the morning so I can get ready for work
• Takes my car to the shop when it needs to go
• Makes me laugh when I need it (or when I don't)
• Always makes sure to kiss me in the morning before I leave and in the evening when I get home and before we go to sleep at night
• Still holds my hand
• Pays attention to what I say (most of the time haha)
• Listens when I really need him to
• Still makes me giddy
• Is an AMAZING father

I feel like I have so much to do in the next couple months, but I need to remind myself to slow down and really soak up these holiday moments with my family. I'm looking to come up with some our own holiday traditions, but I'm hard-pressed to think of any. I'm sure they will come to me.

In other news, we had another person view our house this weekend. No news yet as to what they thought about it, but a viewing is always welcome. This weekend, Matt had just finished saying how he would love for someone else to come look at the house, and that his biggest Christmas Wish was for someone to buy our house. Then the phone rang not 2 minutes later, and it was the realtor saying someone wanted to see our house the next day. How's that for service? I do sincerely hope we're able to get the house sold in the next few months. It really would be something incredible to be in a new house by Christmas, but I'm not holding my breath for that one to happen. As always, I believe that this will all work out and happen as it is supposed to happen. There's no use in stressing about it.

I suppose Matt and I really do balance each other out in so many ways. One of them being, I stress about the little things and he stresses about the big things.

Just keep crossing those fingers that someone out there likes our house as much as we did when we bought it. And it isn't that it's not still a great home! We've just outgrown it a bit.

And that's all for today.