Thankful!

As you can tell, our kids were not excited to get their pictures taken. (They were REALLY tired.) This was at the Christmas party last night for our ward (church). They had the bishop and his counselors dress up as the three wise men instead of having Santa come--which I thought was great! It was really cute. Well, I realized last night how thankful I am for being able to work with the Young Women in our ward. I thought we were going to be released because of some of the rumors that have been circulating. Well, I spoke to the president and she said we were going to add not replace the leaders in YW. I knew I enjoyed being in it, but when I was faced with thinking my time was done, I really was so sad about it! Our girls are great! Really sweet and down to earth from really good families here. And the leaders that I work with are great also!! This little experience has helped me count my blessings. :) Yesterday, I cut all of our kids' hair. You can probably tell from recent pictures that they have needed it for SO long. Charlie's Superman curl was getting longer and longer. In the past I've tried to bribe them to sit still with a sucker, but this time I let them watch a movie and it was AMAZING how long they were patient. Even though Derek has been the one asking for a haircut, he was working until the party so he didn't get one until today. (So it's my fault that he had long hair for our picture.) Everyone ready for Christmas????

Emma's Quote

Emma came up to me with a book and was pretending to read to me from it. She said very seriously, "And the Prophet says...No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" I laughed SO hard, which caused her to repeat the phrase over and over all day. So much has happened since I wrote last, but now that I sit down to write it...I'm having writer's block. I'm so very excited that my mom will be here on Monday! She will be visiting for two weeks during Christmas. Right now we're in the middle of a snow, sleet and freezing rain storm, but I think it will all calm down by Monday.

Joseph's Tooth

Emma reprogrammed our laptop while I was helping one of our other kids, so I have to "borrow" our neighbor's internet signal (which isn't always on). This morning I had my first parent-teacher conference, which was a good thing and it went very well. Also, Joseph lost his first tooth last night. I will probably post a picture of it soon. I went in to give him some water at about 1 am 'cause he was coughing and he said in a very calm voice, "Mom, my tooth is over there." It cracked me up that he woke up, pulled his tooth out, and threw it across the room.


So, this picture is on Monday morning right after we took Derek to work. (That's why they still have their footed pj's on.) When we got home, it was snowing just a little and they wouldn't go inside 'cause they were having fun running around in it. Well, it was one year ago that we visited New York with NO intention of moving here. In fact, Derek bought our plane tickets when he was out of state on a different rotation. I told him I would rather have gone with him to a different interview to some other place and he said he bought them because it would be our only chance to visit New York, since we would never move there. Now look at us---------I love it here!!

Snow, Snow, Snow!!

This morning we woke up to LOTS of snow! I went to all the trouble of taking video of the kids as they came down stairs and discovered the snow, but then Derek reminded me that the boys all saw snow on the fathers and sons outing last year. Oh well, the footage is still cute! Emma was excited to see the snow though. I must say, it's a lot funner for me to drive around in a car in it, than to be cycling through it like on my mission!! I was talking with the kids and we just happened to start talking about future brothers and sisters. Well, Joseph and Charlie decided it would be fun for us to have 2 more baby sisters and 2 more baby brothers at the same time. I told them they would have to come visit me in the mental hospital. Well, Joseph doesn't know what a "mental" hospital is, but he caught what I was saying and said, "Okay, mom. We will only have one baby girl and one baby boy and you don't have to worry because Charlie and me will hold them all of the time!" This morning at church was fun, too because I lost my keys out in the snow on our way in. Well, I didn't realize they were lost until a good friend of ours went up to bear his testimony and showed my keys to the congregation and announced that if the owner wanted their keys back they would have to bear their testimony. He left them up on the pulpit. Yes, humiliating, but pretty funny!! I had wanted to bear my testimony, so it helped motivate me. The day before Thanksgiving we discovered our heater/furnace had stopped working. When the repairman looked at it, he told us he was surprised it didn't burn our house down when it burnt itself up inside. I have been thinking of that a lot over the past week and I feel like more than at any other time of my life, Heavenly Father is leading and guiding me and our family and protecting us. I feel that He loves our children SO much and their future is VERY important to Him. Even though I'm not studying the scriptures and teaching the gospel for hours everyday, like on my mission, Heavenly Father is still using me to help my kids and He gives me guidance to help them. To me it's a similar feeling to helping someone learn about the gospel, but a little different. I'm so grateful for the guidance of the Holy Ghost. I also have more empathy for my parents now that I'm trying to do what they did. I feel I fall so short, but that if I'm trying my hardest and ask for His help, he will help my kids in the ways I wasn't able to. WOW!! Okay, I'm done. If you've read all the way to the end I should give you a prize or something!! :) Have a great day!

We've decided to adopt 7 more!!

Okay, the title was a ploy to get you to read this! Actually, since we have the habit of bringing lots of kids home and announcing shocking news, we thought when we moved to New York it would be fun to pay a few kids to stand in one of our family pictures and REALLY surprise everyone with our Christmas card pictures! However, we HAVE adopted 7 more...sugar gliders. Yes, you have to GOOGLE sugar gliders if you don't know what they are. I happen to love kangaroos and other fun things that come from Australia, so since I couldn't bring a kangaroo home, I settled for 7 sugar gliders. I think I was going through withdrawal since I don't have 4 kids in diapers anymore. Not only do I get to clean up after them, but I also get to buy them baby food from the baby aisle. (I was starting to miss all the baby stuff!) I actually have wanted to get a sugar glider since a guy in my office at Ohio Casualty told me about them (that was 7 years ago!) I wanted to buy one in Arizona, but they were too expensive and they had to ship them from across the country. Well, out here I was looking on Craigslist and someone wanted to get rid of all or none...so I took all 7! They are fun, but I want to give away at least 5 of them. We'll see. We had a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving!! Ann & Dave, Julia, Katie, Grant, Megan, Marissa, and Annie all came over for Thanksgiving. It was so wonderful to have them over. I'm so grateful they could come. Then the next day Chip & Dy, Dallin and AJ stayed the night. I can't believe how fun it was to see everyone. I really would have been homesick if we weren't surrounded by family. Oh, and it was the first time I cooked the Thanksgiving turkey! I followed this cooks recipe that I saw on BYU TV. When it was finished I told Derek I thought it was undercooked. He said it was really good and that I was just used to dried out turkey. :) I would've thrown it back in to make turkey jerky if it were up to me, but I hope it was okay. I had a nightmare the next night about ruining the whole thing. Derek told me it was now over and I could stop worrying about it. We love all of you so much!! Thank you for all of your WONDERFUL emails!! I really am glad I started this blog now that it's helping us keep in contact with everyone more. I'm SOOOOO grateful for all of you!

Emma Quote

Derek was working on all of the kids on Saturday and had them each up on his table one at a time. (Derek does Osteopathic Manipulation.) It was Emma's turn and when Derek started pushing on her back to fix one of the many strains from one of her millions of falls that week. She said, "Daddy...you're squishin' on me!!!" We miss having everyone over when you needed a tweak or two. He really felt good to be able to go work on Aaron in New Jersey a couple weeks ago. (Derek's nephew on a mission.)

Joshua Quote

We were on a walk and Josh was kinda being quiet, so I asked, "You okay, sweetheart?" He replied with a big smile on his face,"I not your HEART!" Our little skinny Josh!! We thought Charlie was skinny before we got Joshua. I told one of my friends from the ward about how I have to tell Joshua he can have more green beans if he will eat the rest of his chicken nuggets. She thought that was SO funny, but it's true!!

Rainy Days!!

Okay, today's a little too rainy and I can't upload the pictures from our camera that I want, so we're stuck with sunny beach pictures from a couple of months ago! This day was a lot of fun, actually. As we've mentioned to a few of you, we are closer to a beach (about 10 min) than we are to our church building (about 20 min). These pictures were from I was invited to go with a lady from our ward who practically lives at the beach. So, against my better judgment (which is mostly just paranoia) I took all the kids by MYSELF!! We were even playing at the edge of the water for quite a bit of them time. Afterward I was pretty proud of myself (and extremely happy that we got home with ALL of the kids). Everyone had a BLAST! And they were begging to go back for the rest of the week.

Tonight we are going to a muti-church Thanksgiving dinner held at a local Jewish temple. Our bishop is actually speaking there, so it will be interesting to see what it's like. They do this every year and they canceled YW so everyone could go. I'm in Young Women's again in this ward and I'm REALLY amazed at the youth in our ward. They are happy and sweet and really uplifting to be around. Derek is the Sunday School President, which is what he was doing before, also. I guess we have stamps on our heads--'cause we didn't tell anyone.

Derek's schedule just got a LOT better for the next 4 weeks starting today. YEAH!

The Higgins Bus

Since Joseph started school, the focus and sometimes obsession of our kids has been the buses that they see every day. Each one of them takes turns claiming the bus that they see. "That's Joshua's bus!!" or "There are 1, 2, 3 buses!" And along with that they have invented an insult that is SO terrible that it can even cause tears at times. The insult is, "YOUR BUS IS FAR AWAY!!" (I can't believe I wrote such a terrible thing in my blog, please don't judge me.) So every time they start shouting it back and forth I have to inform them that they are on their bus: The Higgins Bus! I tell them I am their bus driver. And then comes the natural progression to tell them all the fun stories of all my VW buses growing up--Gus Bus, ReBus, ThusBus, and more. This picture is from July, but I thought it was a fun one to share.

Joseph Quote

When we drove past the hospital where Derek works, Joseph pointed at it and said, "That is where Daddy lives!" This picture is actually Halloween night. The previous picture was of the night of the ward party. (Notice the different make-up.) Joseph is the cowboy and Charlie is the Indian. They are looking more and more alike as they get older.

Mamas Little Piggies!

These were some props I made for our skit in a road show for our stake. (And of course the kids begged and begged to play with them.)

It's finally getting pretty chilly back here. Last weekend it went from the 70's to the 30's in one weekend. On Friday, we went to the park after we picked up Joseph from school. When we got home the kids were asking to put on their footed pajamas because they were SO cold! Now I'm a little worried because it was only 50 degrees outside. We'll see if we make it through the winter.

Happy Thoughts

It's been a long week, so I am going to write about an experience that in my mind was a miracle: We were going to Stake Conference and arrived about 15 minutes early (no, that wasn't the miracle). I'm very grateful because even though Derek has to leave before we wake up in the morning and doesn't come home until after our kids go to sleep, he does have 2 out of 4 Sundays off for this rotation. So, we were looking for a seat--Derek was determined to get a soft seat--and found the 2nd row in the congregation was empty on the side. Okay, this had to be my biggest nightmare. Now it was our opportunity to preform for the WHOLE stake! I was terrified!

Inside myself I thought, "Okay, we have been reading the scriptures as a family and having Family Home Evening and saying family prayers. Maybe we will be blessed and our kids will be able to be calm throughout the meeting." But then I remembered Stake Conference is 2 hours and thought, "No way can they sit still for that long!"

Well, it just so happened that we sat behind the row for deaf people who had an interpreter doing sign language for them. My kids are really excited about sign language because of their "Signing Time" videos and a little sign language we do in our family. The choir was amazing and really got everyone's attention--including our kids. Then they played a violin solo that also impressed them very much. To make a long story not so long, they were quiet until the last 5 minutes when I had to take Josh out for throwing a fit in the aisle!! MIRACLE!!!! They were even quiet when a bee buzzed past the bench we were on and landed on the lady's shirt in front of us. Derek got a tissue from someone and grabbed the bee and put it in my scripture case. Still, not a peep from our kids!!

So I guess what I'm saying is that God will help us if we are trying our very hardest! Sometimes we want Him to help us the way WE want Him to help us, but other times we aren't expecting help and He surprises us with a MIRACLE.

Emma Quote

We got Frosty's today from Wendy's and while we were eating them Emma put her hand on her head and said, "Mommy, my head has a tummy ache."

Charlie Quote

One of my favorite things about my kids getting a little older is the funny things they say. So, bear with me if these aren't funny 'cause I think they are: Yesterday, Charlie was in the bathroom getting dressed after his bath. He called for me and when I went in he said, "I need your help!" I asked him why and he said, "'cause I can't stop the wiggles!!" He was shivering so badly he couldn't get dressed. :)

I'm Back

Two computer explosions later...I'm back and alive to tell about it. Without going into boring details, we've been having problems with the electricity in our home. This house is great because of all of the space for our kids, but there are a few things that could be improved. Despite my computer setbacks, I am going to rededicate myself to trying this blogging thing out. I also discovered the Higgins family website is no longer around, so I guess I'll give everyone the opportunity to read this boring stuff. My advice is to ignore the words and go straight to the pictures!! In less than four months since we moved from Arizona, we already missed out on FOUR nephews' births (2 on Derek's side and 2 on mine). What's going on guys?? You could've waited til we got back! :) Life here has been wonderful. Our neighbors are so kind. Our landlord and his wife are so sweet. They leave us fresh veggies every day and mow our yard for us. They also gave us the pumpkins in this picture for the kids. The ward we are in is incredible and very loving--we feel like we are a part of their family. Hey, I even went to a hurricane preparedness fireside and they said our house was at the highest spot on the island. (That helps one of my fears of New York out a little bit.) I'll stop there and keep some stories for future posts! We love you guys!

My first post on a blog--WOW!

Okay, I figured this blog would be able to take care of many birds with one BIG stone!

-My friends and family would be able to see what's going on in our lives.
-I can tell everyone to look at the new pictures on the blog.
-I can print out entries for my journal so Derek can't be mad at me anymore--he hates that I'm not great at keeping a journal! :)
-I can rant and rave about nothing and not bother anyone (does anyone really read these things anyway!)

Hopefully the advantages outweigh the risks!

RISKS
-No one will ever talk to me again.
-People will know how crazy I really am (if they actually read this thing).

I weigh the risks vs. the advantages thanks to good training by Derek. Whenever I used to have an anxiety attack about something, he would ask, "What's the worst possible thing that could happen?" He did have to change that question slightly because of my vivid imagination. His new question is, "What is the worst thing that would probably happen?" Thank you, Derek! :)

Now off to make lunch!