Since Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, Chris and I have decided to right down 1 thing we are thankful for each day until Thanksgiving.  So here goes:

November 1: I am thankful for my husband.  We have been together forever, and I am thankful for his hard work to get us to where we are today.  His love for me and our kids, that I know I can always count on.  I am thankful for his work ethic, persistence, drive to always be his best and to succeed in life, love for his family, hard headedness, strength, and his obsessiveness..  

November 2:  I am thankful for my children.  My life became complete with the addition of each one to our family.  Being a mother is my greatest accomplishment and means the world to me.  

November 3:  I am thankful for my family.  I have the best family.  Living near my parents and occasionally my brother has been the best thing.  My children love having their grandparents near by, and love being able to see them when ever we want.  Dinners are so nice to share together, and of course the help is wonderful.  This is the first time, I've had the luxuary to have my mom help me with the kids here and there, and I love it and the kids love it.  And I would do anything  if I could also get my sister to live down the street.  We would have the best time.  (and our husbands may get a break from all the phone calls)

November 4:I am thankful for Sunday's when we actually get to spend quality family time together.  Chris is so busy with work and we always have things to do here and there that it is nice to take a day to regroup and enjoy being with each other.  I love taking walks with our family.  Do enjoy it a little better when it isn't so cold outside, but am getting used to living in the north.

November 5:  I am thankful that everything healed and doing better from having surgery.  Post op today went well, and can start to return to normal.  I can start picking up my babies again and loving on them more.  

November 6:  I am thankful that my first day to work went smooth today and everyone did well with a sitter today.  I love that I have a job where I can work very little, make good money, keep up my nursing license and get to be part of people's most memorable moments in their life to welcome a child.  It is very rewarding what I get to do and I do love it.  I do love that if I have to be away from my family that I am also making good money to contribute to our family.  And I miss them when I'm gone and love seeing them when I get home.

November 7:  So thankful for my mom that watched the kids all day while I had my 2nd day of work.   The kids love being with her and she is able to make the day special while they are getting used to me being gone.  And I am thankful that they were good for her.  The snow storm on the way home, and the ticket on the way to work, not so thankful for, but the good always outweighs the bad.

November 8:  So thankful that all my children slept through the night.  This is so rare at my house, that I wake up feeling like I need to do room checks.  Lilly usually wakes up a minimum of 2 and sometimes 4, on top of Alex and Julian occasionally.  Sleep is a wonderful thing.

November 9:  I am thankfull that I found a nice babysitter for the kids after we had a run in with a sitter that was definitely not a match for our family.  The kids are doing great adjusting to me going back to work, and am thankful that I can be secure with them being happy when I am away and well taken care of.

November 10:  Today, I am thankful for my wonderful extended family.  I am reminded that not everyone is as lucky as I am to have an extended family that you feel love from and wonderful relationships with.  

November 11:  Today, I am thankful for the warm weather after our recent snow storm, to help this southerner out.   We enjoyed a wonderful family day in essex and lunch at the yacht club (thank you mom and dad for letting us utilize this).  It was a great day.

November 12:  Thankful to my husband for helping the kids when our babysitter fell through for the day so I could go to work.  We have amazing kids that have rolled with the punches and are so good.  We are also so thankful today, on Veteran's day, for all the men and women that have served our country to protect us.  

November 13:  Today, I am incredibly thankful for my mom, (I am usually thankful for her daily, but especially today).  She came over to watch the kids for me after a few hours sleep, and also had dinner all fixed for us when I got home.   And fixing dinner is not something I really like doing so it was a nice treat to the end of the day!  My kids are very lucky to have her.  She is able to step in and take over as I would when I'm not home.  

November 14:  Nothing specific, next 2 days, but I am always thankful for my husband, my children, my parents, my brother and sister, and Chris's family.  I have a wonderful supportive family that I know will always be there for me.  

November 15:  

November 16:  Not very meaningful today, but thankful I have help to clean my house.  Especially when Chris is out of town a lot.  It helps me stay in control of things and devote more time to my kids.

November 17:  I am thankful on this world Premature Awareness day for the health of my premature twins.  I look at them every day and am in awe from where they started to who they have grown to be today.  They are strong, healthy, happy, thriving 3 year olds.  They are still a little delayed, but very minimal, and to what could have happened, we are truly blessed.  And thinking back to those days in the NICU, I am also very grateful to my parents that helped me keep vigil over the twins for almost 8 weeks, while helping me continue to take care of our 5 year old little boy whose world had once again been turned upside down, and he continued to roll with the punches as our sweet boy. 

November 18:  I am thankful that my husband is finally home after a very long time away.  I love it when he is home to help me with our children, and just having a partner to be with me for all our ups and downs.

I did forget to do several days, but it was a good exercise to write down what I am thankful for.  As a general rule, I have so much to be thankful for.  I am healthy as are my family members, we have a nice house, always have plenty of food, wonderful relationships, good jobs, friends, ability to work hard for anything we need in life.  

Thanksgiving was wonderful this year.  We had Jess and Patrick come to join us and my brother got away from work for just the day, and we had both of my 90 year old grandmothers fly to Connecticut to join us.  It was a nice week together and loved being home as a family.  Here are a few pics from our week.

 

Weekend fun

We were enjoying a rare, quiet weekend home alone this past weekend.  That doesn't happen often around here.  And after the snow storm, we had a few days of nice weather so all the snow melted and we could once again get these southern bodies outside to play, (we've adopted the twins as southerners).

 This is my attempt to get a picture with all three of them.  It's pretty hard with my busy 3 kids.

 My sweet Alex, always will give me a "cheese".

 We were babysitting my parents dogs.  This is great to let my kids get to give some love to the dogs but then we get to give them back.  (Isn't that what grandparents say?).  I feel bad, they would love another dog, but life is still a little too hectic for me to have something else to take care of.  

 We went to Essex to grab some lunch and were really excited when we got there to see that they were having a boat race.  It gave us something else to look at and it was a great day.  Essex is a great town and the kids love it there.   Here are some pictures from the day.

Love this picture with me and my babies walking by the water.  The only thing that would be better is if we were in  our bathing suits and we were walking the beaches of Seabrook.  Very soon I hope.  

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 It was Veteran's day weekend.  Thought I would try to get a picture of the flag with the water in the background.  From living in another Country, we know how special it is to live in America and all the freedoms we get that other do not.  It was amazing how comforting our flag looked as we would come home.  

 We think this funny.  Lilly is actually a really good eater, just she doesn't grow very much.  She eats so much variety, just not as much quantity.  She loves clam chowder (very new england of her).  

 Lilly also picked out her outfit.  Usually she does really good, and has to match.  Thsi is what she picked out, and it only matched because it was all purple.

 So Carefree!

 And we have to have ice cream every time we go down there.  Look at Lilly's hands on hips.  For a 3 year old, she has soooooo much personality.  Can't wait to see how this develops.

November snow storm

Well, what would you expect to follow a hurricaine in Connecticut less than a week apart.  A snow storm is just what I thought was coming.  I only work 1-2 times a week usually, and I think in the 2 past years, I have been at work each time we have had a snow storm.  That means that I have to get home, and still not a fan of driving in the snow storm.  Luckily, my mom was home with the kids so I didn't have to worry about them.

 This is pulling into my neighborhood, had just started to snow only a few hours before and already was completely snow covered.  

 Our house in the first snow storm.  Very new England looking.  

 The kids couldn't wait to get out and play in the snow.  This fascination wears off by the end of winter, but they haven't seen snow in awhile.  

 Lilly's snow suit was extremely too small, looks like highwater pants, and no boots fit this year.  This means off to spend lots of money on new winter clothes.  

halloween

This year was an awesome halloween.  The twins were so aware and into this year.  They learned how to say "trick or treat" and would run up to the doors with Julian to take turn ringing the doorbell.  Julian was great with them, waiting for them to keep up with him and taking turns with the doorbell.  Another first for us, that is for the first time in the past 9 Halloweens, we had family here to see the kids in their costumes and to walk with us door to door.  Another perk for living near family.  

All the kids picked their own costumes, and were very opinionated about what they wanted to be.

Lilly- was a bad witch.
Alex- was a spider (which he was last year but he wanted to be it again. )  He wanted to be a fireman, until Lilly's costume had spiders on it.  And since Lilly was a bad witch, he was a bad spider.

Julian- was a skeleton.  This was a little more difficult.  Chris took Julian shopping for a costume after I had my gallbladder out and was resting.  A simple task.  They didn't have much to pick from so Julian got a spiderman costume.  Well the day before Halloween, I learn that Julian doesn't like it and he is embarrased to wear it to school for the parade the next day.  This is not very much notice that he doesn't like it.  So, I go searching around the house for an alternative for school the next morning.  We came up with a baseball player with his old uniform from baseball season last spring in PA.  Then, while everyone was at school, I went to target to find a not embarrassing costume.  And came up with the skeleton.  What we do for our kids to be happy.

 I love my mommy's boy!!!! (and pretty sure he loves me)

 My bad witch and bad spider

 My skeleton

 Even Uncle Blake was here to see the kids off for trick or treating.

 Our next door neighbors.  

 Hard to get all 3 looking at the same time.  But worth a try.

 Looking at all our goodies