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.