Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, I must admit that I've been slacking on this the last couple of weeks. I've been having a lot of fun writing for Amy and I's new website and that takes up a lot of my time. If you want to take a peek at it, it's http://www.raisingafamily.net. It has been so nice for me to have a creative and academic outlet on a daily basis. I've really missed the writing I did in college, so it's been a blast.

You know, you hear people talk about peaks and valleys in life. I really feel like we are having a great peak time here at the Mitchell household. Sure, we have our issues, but things are going really well. We're really loving Arizona and the routine we've gotten our little family into. Everyone is doing well except for some little colds. With the weather cooling off here, we've all caught a bit of a bug.

Porter is loving Kindergarten. He's doing so well and we really are proud of him. He's become quite the little reader. He's constantly looking at words in books and on signs and sounding them out. I think he's gotten his mommy's love of reading early on! He loves to do his homework and recently asked me what a nerd was. I'm not sure where he had heard the term. So, I explained to him that a nerd is someone who is really smart and loves to do homework all day, everyday - so his reply was - "Well, then, I'm a nerd!!!" It was really cute. He had a little Thanksgiving play at school and he was a pilgrim. He looked so cute in his little costume.

Tess is doing well. She's getting more inquisitive everyday. She's really starting to pay attention to her letters and pointing them out as she sees them. She loves working on her colors and doing little coloring projects at home with me. Her vocabulary is growing like crazy too. She's constantly surprising us with new sentences. She has finally gotten confident to go to nursery or have a sitter without crying, so that's a HUGE step for her. It's been really nice for us too!

Baby Owen is just too darn cute! He finally cut his front two teeth this last week and that was a chore to say the least. He has taken the term "blowout diaper" to a whole new level. It's been a lot of fun cleaning up after him! He was in seventh heaven this last week as we went to my grandparents for Thanksgiving. If he's near his Punkin, then he's a happy camper!

Thanksgiving was a wonderful day. Punkin and I spent the day cooking and then we all spent the evening eating! Everything turned out way yummy. The next day we took the kids to Agua Caliente Park again to feed the ducks. We love it there and the kids had a ball. Last time we went Owen was much younger, so this time was fun to see him try to talk to the ducks. His eyes were huge the whole time! Tess has gotten gutsy with the ducks as well. I swear, she was soooo lucky none of them bit her little fingers. She'll hold the bread in her hand and have the ducks walk right up to her and then she barely throws the bread! I think she likes having them get close to her.

We hope everyone had a great holiday and are doing well. I promise to not take so many weeks in between posts again!

Happy Halloween from the Land of Sun!!!

Well, I must say, after having Halloween in the rain or snow my whole life, it was nice to have it sunny! Owen dressed up as Julius Caesar, toga and all, and he fit right in with the weather! Our ward had a huge trunk or treating activity and the kids had a ball and came home with a ton of candy. On Halloween night, we got maybe 20 trick or treaters, so we ended up with a whole slew of candy. Now, a few days later, the candy has been handed to a friend who is a school teacher and the rest hit the trash this morning after the millionth sugar high. I had had it, and chucked the rest!

We let the kids dress up again yesterday morning before we headed to Tucson. They wanted to show Fafa and Punkin their costumes. We had a great day with my grandparents and even went swimming! It's so weird to do that in November, but we certainly aren't complaining. We moved here for the sun and intend to enjoy it! We're headed back there for Thanksgiving and I'm looking forward to cooking with Punkin. The kids sure love it there and we feel fortunate that our children have such a unique relationship with their great-grandparents. Not many children get that. I sure didn't.

We had Porter's first parent/teacher conference a week ago. That went really well. He loves school and his teacher said he takes his schoolwork very seriously. He's one of the top 3 kids in his class and she told us he's one of her favorites too! As a parent, that was really fun to hear.

Tess is still running the castle here. She is defintely in charge and will come tell me even if she thinks daddy is "bossing" her. She loves making Owen laugh and wrestling with him. I think she's really enjoyed that he's gotten more playful. She loved being a cowgirl for Halloween and now I have to plan all of her outfits around her new pink boots!

Owen is doing really well. He's on the verge of cutting two more teeth. He absolutely LOVES playing with Porter and Tess. They constantly have him laughing. He's really trying to lift up his body in a crawling stance, but he's just so darn heavy it might take awhile! So, he just scoots backwards or rolls all over the place.

Well, we'll think warm thoughts to pass out to everyone! Enjoy bundling up and scraping snow off your cars.....I'll think about you while I put on my sunglasses to drive!

We love you all!