Thanksgiving 2012

The more Thanksgivings I experience the more I love the holiday. It is all about family and food, how can you not love that? I have always had the good ol' fashioned Thanksgiving with tons of food, surrounded by all the people I love. My mom always decorates the table with candles and Thanksgiving themed decor.  All the food goes in beautiful dishes. It is picture perfect. I just don't get this once in a while but every Thanksgiving. Whether with my family or the Strobelts the day turns out perfect every time. I consider myself blessed to have so many wonderful Thanksgiving memories.


Of course no Thanksgiving is complete without a little... BLACK FRIDAY. I have been planning since September. Checking out ads online and getting so excited. When Emily came over on Thanksgiving (she celebrated with her Flake family) to get ready to go and we both started screaming. Giddy excited! Then we ran around the house doing a happy dance. We LOVE Black Friday. I love the crowds and the hype and the adrenaline and the crazy people. I love everything. We even talked Caity and Clarah into going and being our "driver" and "line waiter". It seriously cut the time in half, more than half actually. We were in and out of Walmart in 45 minutes. Oh, it was crazy and I was yelling and running around grabbing everything and yelling at people with small children and taking things from peoples cart. I go crazy, do not mess with me when I am in Black Friday mode. Emily somehow managed to get right up front in line and boom we were out of there with a trampoline, bike, tons of toys, scooter, books, play tables, and toothpaste (I needed some). Oh, it was crazy. Then we did Target, ran home and nursed some babies, and finally Kohls. We crashed at 2 am and up at 7:30 to do some serious damage at Gymboree. I got every size 3T and 12month pair of jammies in the store! It is the best 12 hours of my year! Next year we are doing it and Brady and Kim are going to be there, so mark it on your calendars! It will be epic

Photos of bowling with the Strobelt/Camp family. We started this tradition a couple years back. We meet up Thanksgiving morning and have some fun before dinner. It gives the women some quiet time to cook:)

Alice is famous

Yes, Ron Strobelt is a pretty good bowler

She loved putting the ball on this contraption and watching it roll off and hit the pins. She also like to use it as a slide:)

 My favorite: sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and apple/pomegranate salad

The amazing chef

Black Friday planing. It was intense. I would periodically scream with excitement.

 She got so messy eating dinner that I just striped her down and plopped her in the sink

My love! She adores this baby and would hug it all day if Scarlett did not rip it from her baby hands

Saturday morning Nick and I took the girls on a very small hike. The end had gorgeous views of the city and tables for lunch, how convenient. Scarlett was in heaven climbing on all the rocks and being dangerous. She did not whine or complain once and refused to be held when she got tired. Miss independent

At Grandmas

Scarlett begs to go to grandmas all day, every day. I tell her "maybe later". Then she always says "when I wake up from my nap?" The way she says it is adorable. She looks right at me with big eyes and moves her hands up and down, very matter of factly.  It melts my mommy heart. 

Grandpa came in the room and made them all giggly

 Alice gets kiss A LOT!

Alice 9 Months

Still delicious, still adorable, and still full of energy. She does have 4 new teeth though. Wow, those were some tough days getting those in. She also had roseola and her first ear infection. But we survived. I love watching this girl get around. Nothing gets in her way. When she wants something she will get it! I took some toilet paper away from her and threw it in the trash. Two seconds later she was in the trash can getting it back. I put some toys up on our landing but she wanted those toys. So she climbed the stairs and then slide back down with them. Yes, you read that right. This baby of mine goes up and down stairs now. Determination is the word of the month for Alice. But to make up for all this craziness she loves to give me slobbery kiss. That and clapping her chubby hands melt my heart. 

It was my birthday last week. The big 27. It was a great day and to celebrate Nick totally surprised me and got me a new camera lens. I am so excited to learn to use. These pics of Ali were taken with it. Thanks Nick for totally spoiling me!!

Snow Canyon Half

Last weekend (11/3) I ran my third half marathon. It was by far my favorite. My favorite to train for and my favorite to run. Way back in August my sister Emily and I decided it was time to get in shape, lose our baby weight, and start our half marathon training. But... we have babies to nurse and soccer games and husbands who work early and houses to clean and other kids to feed and school to get to and the list goes on. So we ran at 5:30 almost everyday, no body can bother us at that gosh awful hour. Oh, but that was when we met to start our run. I woke up at 5 am to get ready and Emily would wake earlier to feed her little one before she left. I write that and I want to cry. Emily worked so hard for the run. You see, her little boy would also wake up at 2ish to eat. So thats going to bed at 10 pm waking up at 2am to feed the baby and again at 4:50ish and then being up for the day. She never made any excuses! But it was worth it. We would run and have the best time talking and watching the sunrise. There is something about being up to see the start of a new and fresh day that cleanses the soul. I feel it made our sisterly relationship even stronger. Oh, but it gets even better. We talked our 3 other sisters and my dad into running as well. That's all the Camp girls training and running for a half marathon. It was awesome! We would call each other to make sure the training was going good and keep each other motivated. Caity and Clarah had to run some days in snow and rain. Clarah had never even run a mile before August. What?! She survived though. I even drove up to St. George to do a "long run" with Kim in St. George. I love having an excuse to see and call my sisters.

The run down Snow Canyon was gorgeous and being with people I love made it even better. We talked about life and babies and boys and kissing and boys and kissing some more. What else to you talk about with single 20 year olds?  And who do think came in first out of us... the one with six kids. Way to show us all up Kim!  My sisters are my best friends and greatest example. I would do this again in a heart beat and we just might have to make it a tradition.

Just about to start. I was drinking my half of a 5 Hour Energy and Caity was super pumped. That didn't last long. She said on mile 9 "Jill, I will literally slit your throat and kill your children if you make me keep running" She finished like she always does. No run is complete without a little tantrum from Caity. I am alive and the children are too. 

My sweet mom watched these two kiddos while we ran. Alice is a mommy's girl and started to cry when she saw me at the finish. Spencer was trying to comfort her, how sweet.

 Water down my shirt at the finish. Thanks Abe!

Love this picture. Us girls with our babies that were all born this year. That's right, we are awesome! Between the 3 of us we have 12 kids (Kim might take up half of those).

Celebration/relaxing post run in the hot tub. That's how we roll

Thanks guys for such a great memory!

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween. Emily and I did dinner at my parent's house and went trick or treating in their neighborhood. It is always fun to trick or treat in Hillsboro, the same place Nick and I used celebrate Halloween. We knock on the same doors with many of the same faces. This is a definite perk or growing up neighbors and having our parents still in live there. Scarlett of course loved walking up to doors and asking for candy. Have you met this child? She lives, breaths, and screams for candy. It took her days to get all the sugar she ate out of her system. I can not even have it in my house. She will find it and she will eat every last piece in one sitting. She is dangerous. But we love her and she loved Halloween. She is still talking about pumkins and spooky spiders. We tried to talk about Thanksgiving but she is stuck on Halloween. 

Adorable cupcake #1

Every pumpkin is called a "bumpy little pumpkin". It makes me smile every time she says it.

Adorable cupcake #2

pumpkin carving 

I look at this picture and just want to cry, with joy of course. Here is my beautiful family. Ali wanting to eat my earring and Scarlett singing a little song. They mean everything to me. I woke up today with a pit in my stomach. Mitt Romney lost the presidency election yesterday. I knew he would. America is changing and "good ol' fashion values" may be a thing of the past. It breaks my heart to see such a great man lose, he would have done a lot of good for this country. More than that, it would have reaffirmed my belief that Americans value hard work, family, and fear God. Maybe that is also a thing of the past as well. But then I looked at this picture and realized I can not think that. I must hope for a bright future for my children and be willing to always look for the good. This country is my home and it is filled with people that are righteous and willing to fight the good fight.  What peace it brings me to know that I have my family forever and a belief in the true gospel, a gospel that will never fail!