Crazy Cat Lady, P-shaw, as if!

So yesterday was my middle sons birthday. He turned 3. Since he was adopted and his birth mother wasn't forth coming we didn't know his actual birthday. But we put his birthday in the Wii Fit about as best as we could figure based on what the doctors told me and all. So November 26th he turned 3 years old. He joined our family when he was only a few months old in February 2010. He was pretty much abandoned and covered in oil and grime. He was as small as a mouse. He needed us. He picked us. Me.  Yesterday we had a party for him. I think he was a little surprised. He was a bit too cool for it. After all if you do the conversion he is really 21. But what ever, I know he liked the attention!  It was a great party!

We hung balloons.

 I made a game.

 The kids and I made him some presents and even made our own wrapping paper.

I made themed snacks. 

Edible Kitty Liter, Catnip Balls, Goldfishes Squared , Swedish fish with Rainbow baby fish egg balls

Cody lil' would not touch the "kitty liter" pudding with tootsie rolls. Ha! 

The birthday boy, Mouse with his sister Stephanie and brother Caden

Mouses older brother Cody & B

Giving Mouse his toy Cody made him

We wore party hats and took some photos!  Happy birthday Mousey my boy!

A lot to be thankful for

Here is a summary/list of our thankful tree thankful leaves in no particular order. I hope your November was as full of gratitude and love as ours was.

Mine (Mom)

Second Chances

Stephanie & Mariana

music

My Minivan Butters

Sleep

Water

Changing Weather

Cats

My Husband

My Sons Cody & Caden

Funny Stuff lil Cody Says

Prayer

My Talents

My Grandparents

My phone

Movies

Lists

Laughter

My mom & dad & siblings

Pictures

Amusement Parks

Thanksgiving

Dad

My home

The Love of Heavenly Father

My phone & technology

the church

my God Given talents

my Children

Lil Cody

The Gospel

Jesus

Cookie Dough

Mickey Mouse

Play-doh

Teddy

Hercules

Caden

My Cats

My Sunbeam Teacher

T-O-Y Toys

Learning to Pee in the Potty

Me

My Mom

my Friends

Hot Chocolate

Candy

My dad

Bad Duck aka twinney

Stephanie

Exercise

Living here

The Rain

trees

having a place to live

pajamas

my parents

the internet

Grandparents

flowers

You

fireplaces

family

Fairy Tales

Caden's Face

Earth

Books

Caden

My brothers & Sisters

Mommy's Milk

Daddy

There is so much more I could add, too. My health, my house, my husbands job, popcorn, the gospel as my family members put, there is so very much. Be thankful! Muah!! 

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for Thanksgiving. I love holiday's especially ones that are about eating. And get-togethers and family. As I previously mentioned I love my family. I love getting together and visiting and spending time together and eating. 3 Years ago around this time Cody and I got engaged! (01.02.10 is our wedding date.) He came to meet my family. We had a fun thanksgiving, then. I love my memories of Thanksgiving from when I was a kid and we went to my Grandma & Grandpa Kerns house. All the cousins and Aunts and uncles. I loved it! It was amazing. Mmmm. Turkey! I love reflecting on all I am thankful for. We have so many blessing in our lives. So much to be thankful for! 

Our empty Thankful tree with no leaves. Made from brown paper bags.

With our daily thankful leaves

Closeup on some of our leaves

 At the last day here before the holiday our craft for daycare was for the kids to take their leaves and make their own trees. B got to take hers home. Here are some of our other Thanksgiving crafts, too!

So much to be thankful for

Turkey with hand and shoe print and a poem. (This was a gift to grandma) 

Indian feather for a Thanksgiving at the park with church play group. There were pilgrims there, too! 

Paper plate Turkey

My Parents & Siblings

I love my mom. I love her so much. She is so good to me. I am so proud of her and her example she has set at over coming adversity. She is so loving and thoughtful. She loves unconditionally. She helps others (me) with a sincere heart. She is honest. She is creative. She is a great mom. I never have to go through things alone. I know my mom will always be there for me.

This Thanksgiving I am so happy to have the family I have and the family I grew up with. I wish I lived closer so I could see my family more often.  All those holiday's with the families are hard jokes; I don't get them. They don't apply to me. I love being with my family.  I know there were some rough years in the past, but that is not now. I am so thankful for my family.

My brothers and sisters are pretty awesome, too. Ryan is so funny. Much to the dismay of some, his photo shopping and sense of humor crack me up.  Abe is so smart and great with the money. He is the master at yard saleing. Who makes a living off of yard sales? That guy. Can I get a what wha? that is A-may-za-zing! Ben is a doctor. That is nuts and so rad. I have not seen him for so long. I can't wait to meet his wife and daughter and for him to meet my family. My husband will love him. My husband thinks I have the coolest family ever.

Melissa & Jeaniece are pretty. And they are pretty awesome themselves. I love talking baby with Melissa. Her daughter is 3 months older than Caden. I want to live closer. We could hang out and the cousins could grow up bff's!  Jeaniece is my best friend. She is funny and sensitive. She takes my crap and cries and then tells me I am mean and loves me anyways and calls back the next day, too. She is sweet and wouldn't ever hurt any one on purpose. She is loving and friendly. People are just drawn to her.

I love my dad. He is where my super hilarious brother and sisters and I derived our sense of humor. (Now he blushes at some of the things most of us still find funny.)  My husband thinks my dad is the best father in law he could ever get. He loves talking to him and visiting with him. My dad loves the out doors, hiking, fishing, camping, swimming, boating. I love the memories I have of camping, roughing it style with my family. I love how is such a great example of a caring loving husband and father.

In little ways we all change so much. I love my family and I think that as we get older for the most part we are really getting better with age. Ha. We are like cheese.  Yummm, cheese.

Talking with the Big Guy

I am thankful I get to talk to my Heavenly Father.  It is a lot less crazy than talking to myself and it helps a lot more. Haha. But really, in all seriousness I am thankful for prayer and the power it has.  I have always believed in prayer. I know prayers can be answered and so many of mine have. When I really need a strong prayer that I know will get through I call my grandma and ask her to help me out and say a prayer, too. Her and the Man Up Stairs are pretty tight and her sincere pray really helps.  Growing up I remember a saying grandma had in her bath room. "Before you go to bed give all you troubles to God. He'll be up all night any way."  I do. I know my Heavenly Father loves me and hears my prayers. I am thankful I am able to communicate with Him this way.

Me and lil Cody Oct 2009 ~ Prayers answered 

January 2009 ~ Cody & Cody meet ~ Prayer answered  

My sons ~ Prayers answered

Brawhahaha!

I love to laugh. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I love to laugh, so long and loud and clear. Hahahahaha.

I am thankful for humor, laughter, and jokes. I love the entertainment that makes me laugh. I love making my family laugh. Through the years I've had some good friends that just "got me" and we laughed all the time. I am thankful for all of those laughs.

I love the happy feeling I get when I look at my sons. Little Cody makes me laugh all the time. Partly because he is trying to be funny and partly because he is just so cute and amazing! I think he is so smart. The stuff he says I never realized 4 year olds would say.  He warms my heart and makes me laugh all the time!

Why didn't the skelaton cross the road?  He didn't have any guts! Hahaha!

How do ducks learn to fly? We just wing it! Hahaha!

A Song in my Heart

What is a movie with out a soundtrack?
How would we ever know the bad guy was coming with out music? Or that this was a moment of suspense?
Would I have been sucked into SYTYCD or the first 2 season of Grey's Anatomy with out the music I enjoy?

I am seriously musically challenged.  I do not know artists or songs. I can't feel the beat. I am pretty much tone deaf.  I love music. I am thankful for music despite my disability. I can't still hear it and feel it.

Much like a movie I walk around with a sound track, although it is mostly only in my head. Music is such a big part of my life even though I am seriously the least musically knowledgeable person I have ever met.  I sing to my baby when  I am  he is upset. Little Cody sings to me. The other day Lil Cody was in the shower (Yes a stand up shower!) and I was at the sink and he was totally singing in the shower! My baby sings in the shower! I love it! That warmed my heart. I looked in the mirror and I had the goofiest proud momma look on my face.

I am thankful for the music and the musical people in my life.

It's Wet; It's Clear; It's Amazing

It's Water! Yes, I am thankful for water. I am adding I am thankful for running water, and hot water. But in the just water catagory I am thankful for water and for all that I use it for and am able to do. I mean, duh water. We all need it to live. We use it to clean (ourselves, our clothes, our dishes, floors, cars, kids, pets, driveways, what ever, so much!) We use it for entertainment (swimming, skiiing, fishing, splash pads, water balloon fights, squirt guns, water parks, and more.)  I know it is easy to say, really, Shawndel, water? But think about it, if the plumbing stopped and you had no running water what would you do? Some times we take the smallest things for granted. This is a huge one. Thanks God for the water.

I have a Teenager

Have I mentioned how happy I am Stephanie is living with us now? I am. So happy. So thankful! She is so wonderful. She is a great help. She works for me and the daycare 2 hours a day. It gives me a lil break. She is so good with the boys. They love their sisters so much. She is really great about trying to learn the way we do things here verses they way of her mom's house. She turns 18 at the end of December. She is finishing her last semester and a half of high school here. It is so exciting! We love you Stephanie!

The Weather, She's A-Changing

 I am thankful for the cooler weather.  I think being too hot makes people angry.  Cooling off is nice. Being too cold just makes people quieter. (The are saving their enegry to be warm, I guess.) I am thankful for changing weather. I like it when the weather changes. Makes me happy.

My Sons; Changed my Life; Sealed my Destiny

Did you ever have that moment in your life that you knew was the one that was going to change your life forever?  I did. The morning I found out I was pregnant with lil Cody. Before him I thought I was happy and I thought I had a life I wanted. After him I found out how wrong I was.

As a kid when ever some one asked what I wanted to be when I grew up my answer was always "A Mom." In young women's when asked about our goals mine was to be a mom. I didn't care about college or even getting married then. I knew with out a doubt I wanted to be a mom. I needed a guy to get me there but he wasn't as important to me (then) as getting to be a mom. I got married young to a man who was not a member of the church. We tried to have kids. Turned out I couldn't get pregnant (then.) We started seeing a specialist and I started doing the tests and all. Started taking some of the pills, etc when we separated. I got a divorce thinking I couldn't have kids. In the years that followed I fell further and further away from the church. I gave up my goal of being a mom. I put myself in the mind frame that it was not to be for me. That I made bad decisions that in turn made it so I was not to get this dream. So I changed my dream. I found happiness in my friends, in my jobs, in spending time with my grandparents and family.  Then I got pregnant. Little Cody changed my life. He was the answer to a very old prayer and plea with my Heavenly Father. See how my life change by clicking here. Click

I was finally a mom! Who knew?! As I changed there was a man in process of changing him self. We met when my sweet Cody was 8 months old. They met the first time when he was almost 1. It was love. Big Cody and I fell for each other a while after that. In July of 2010 Cody was sealed to Big Cody and I.

Flash forward some years. Lil Cody is 3 1/2. We've been married almost 2 years. I am sick. Just got out of a nine day stay in a nice hospital. Some stomach problems, blah blah. All kinds of medicine and such to regulate it. Then I find out I am pregnant with Caden. I have to stop taking the medicines. The stomach issues pretty much cease. The kidney troubles are gone, too. Perfect. I love being pregnant! Thank you baby Caden!!  

Caden brought Team Mantor even more together. We are all united. I love that he was born sealed to my husband and I for time and eternity. When the going seems tough I just look into the faces of these little people. These souls the Lord has trusted me with to raise and love and teach. I worry I am not good enough for them, they make me want to be a better person. I love these boys. They changed my life.

Lists

My list of Lists 

To do lists

Food I consumed today list

Crafts to make with the kids lists

Grocery Lists

Budget lists

Christmas card lists

Thank you note list

Genealogy List

Favorites lists

List of funny things Cody says

Listing my mom's order for favorite thing

Daily activities / Daily Schedule list

List of movies I am going to see each season (in the movies theather, on DVD, etc) 

I am thankful for lists. They help my mile a minute mind slow down enough to remember things I want to do and things I want to remember. They help me be more organized and they have me feel a sense of accomplishment when I get to check off things that are done. They help me stay on track at the store and during the day.  Am thankful for my list making. I like lists. 

Grandma & Grandpa Kern

The quintessential grandparents. My friend once told me my grandma was the quintessential grandma. From her hair to her home decor.  If you lined up 10 or even 100 grandma's mine would be the one you'd pick as the image of the perfect grandma.  My grandparents are so cute. But, they are so much more than that. I know with out a doubt I am so lucky and blessed to have them in my life. For 35 years I have looked up to my grandparents. For 35 years I have been thankful that I am their granddaughter. 

On lil Cody's 1st trip to Disneyland. May 2008

I am thankful for all the times my grandparents took me to Disneyland when I was a kid. (Each year for my birthday.) And for all the times they they went with me after I was an adult. They taught me you are never to old to have fun. You are never to old to see the world through child like eyes. 

Later in 2008

I am thankful that when ever I call them with a problem my grandma gives me advice. Real thoughts. Then always ends with the advice I never think to remember when I am most upset. Pray. Pray about it. 

At the Riverwalk December 2009

I am thankful for the example they have been to me. They are strong. Strong in their Faith, strong in their Love, strong in their Knowledge of the gospel. They are funny. So funny.  If you ever have the privilege to play Phase 10 or Apples to Apples with them when they are tired you will know this. I love that my grandma & grandpa each have great a sense of humor. 

Grandpa, Me, Lil Cody, Big Cody & my Dad

I am thankful for the giggle fits grandma & I have had. There have been several occasions I remember us laughing so hard tears were coming out of our eyes.  

This was one of those times! 

I am so very thankful for all I have learned from them. For having someone to look up to my whole life. For being able to get to know them on an adult level as I have gotten older. For being able to hear their testimonies of the gospel time and again. For the example of righteous living I have had from them. And for the unconditional love they have always given me. 

My Grandma & Stephanie

I can't express how much they mean to me. I have so many great memories of our times together and things they have taught me. I love that I feel like I am their favorite grand daughter even though I am so far away from them and they insist they don't have a "favorite." (I know it's me!) I know they are awesome enough that all of their grand kids probably feel like they are loved and the fave! (Sorry cousins & sisters; it's me. Ha! Just kidding, sort of!)