::tender mercies::

We have had such an outpouring of support and love from friends in the community and in the ward since the baby was born. It's made life for me a lot easier. Relief society sisters have been bringing dinners to us, two of our patients families have brought us dinner, we've had calls and visits and offers of help. We were invited to Thanksgiving dinner and told we weren't to bring more than one item. It's been really amazing and taken a lot of pressure and stress off both Kris and I. We've had good food to eat (more than enough good food) every night and haven't had to think about it.

But the other day something happened that was kind of amazing to me.
One of my most favorite foods at Thanksgvingtime is pecan pie. I just love it. It's delicious and so bad for you and reminds me of home. I'm the only one in the family that really likes it. Max won't even try it (crazy kid) and Kris prefers pumpkin pie if he were given a choice.
So I wanted to make one for us this year even though we weren't having Thanksgiving dinner at home. I needed to make that, and a sweet potato casserole to take to dinner and something else I can't remember now. I sent Kris to the store for the ingredients and he wasn't able to get one of the things that I needed. Then he started getting worried about me and told me I was doing too much anyway. This was probably true. I keep thinking I'm fine and I do a bunch of stuff and then I wear myself totally out.

After Kris got back from the store I got a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. Turns out it was our neighbor across the street. I've never actually met her in person, though Kris and Max have a few times. She was calling because she wanted to make us a pie. She wanted to check and see if pecan was ok?

Uh, yeah! I told her pecan pie was my favorite thing in the world and we'd love one.

Wow, does that seem like a bizarre coincidence or what? So because of the kindness of a sweet neighbor who wanted to take care of us, I've been able to eat delicious homemade pecan pie without having to make it myself.
Is pecan pie really a blessing? Not to my hips probably, but to my soul? Yes.
It really did feel like a tender mercy. And it feels like the windows of heaven have been wide open with everyone's sweet generosity and there really isn't room enough to receive it all. Thanks to everyone and to our heavenly father that has blessed us with such good friends and such a great place for our little family to be.

::crazy halloween craziness::

Yesterday (saturday) was an insane day of halloween activities.
Having the holiday fall on a sunday is a bit of a pain because instead of just one fun day of festivities, it's basically the whole weekend. But oh well. It's just those of us whose backs get tired, and the little ones who get oversugared and overtired that suffer I guess.
Anyway, we started the day by taking Max to his karate class--a preliminary strike against the later sugar high. I was hoping a little exercise would do him good.
Then Kris and Max came home, got ready, and headed out to the school halloween carnival. I opted out of that activity and stayed home.


(yes, Max looks like he's wearing some of those hillbilly teeth--that would be a great part of his costume--but unfortunately no, that's his real mouth. He keeps making this weird nerdy smile these days.)
Luckily for me I got to find out we had a mouse in the kitchen while they were gone. I was trying to be productive and was hoping to whip up batter for our traditional cookies. I got into the utensil drawer and found that a bunch of them had been chewed up. Ewwwwwww. Then I got to clean everything in the drawer. It was really fun, and a truly lovely addition to the day.

Off they go--it really looks like they're headed off into the savannah for a safari, doesn't it?

Then after they came back from the school party we had the church trunk or treat. Our costumes were really built around this event--We were explorers in an awesome old land rover. We had africanish music playing from the car and a fun fuzzy dog that we caught on our adventures tied in the back of the car.
And the best part? Moustaches. (Except me--all I had was a hat, but it worked.)



"I say, where can I go to shoot some big game??"

Kris won 2nd place in the costume contest. It wasn't too hard, considering that he was one of three men that dressed up. Plus the mustache is awesome.

The explorer and his beast.
I think the following three photos are pretty funny--sorry if it's mustache overkill.



Max looks like he has a little mustache envy.

We bowed out of the ward party early because we had to go buy all sorts of mouse traps and stuff--the thought of a mouse running through my kitchen was not doing a lot for me.
Then we went to our last event--we have a family in our neighborhood whose kid is in Max's class, and they bring all three of their kids into our office. They're awesome people and we really like them, so we couldn't miss their party even though we were SO tired.
So we went for an hour. By the time we were done there Max was in full meltdown mode. He was a floppy, screaming, exhausted disaster. So we went home. And my back was glad to be home too.
It was a crazy day. Crazy halloweeniness. And we didn't even get our cookies made or our pumpkins carved........