Happy Holidays from us to you.

Happy Holidays.

As our year comes quickly to a close we are overwhelmed with the blessings and growth opportunities we’ve received daily.  We are so grateful for our blessings this year, including all of you.

Kevin: Loves his relationship with our boys as they are getting old enough to realize that Papa is the “fun” one, he also loves getting to know his first daughter. He is enjoying feeling more confident in is work as he started his 2^nd year in his work as a Petroleum Geologist.  Loves being active, as always, has enjoyed competing competitively in a couple of races and a triathlon this year.

Michelle:  Happy (and busy) to be a mother of three babies. (Our oldest turns 3 the end of April) Loves having an outlet to create and make art with the opening of an Etsy shop this year. Has fallen in love with running. Is completely loving having our baby GIRL join our family just in time for Thanksgiving this year.

Lee (32 months): Loves organizing everything and fixing things. (With his pretend tools.) He soaks up new information like a sponge and wants to learn about everything. He loves his experience attending an AMAZING preschool twice a week.

Drew (18 months): Talks constantly, and some of what he says is intelligible now. :) He is stubborn as an ox, with a heart of gold.  He shows love very openly, often randomly coming up and giving hugs around our legs and asking for kisses.  He has the greatest chuckle and has a naturally happy temperament.

Annalise (1 month): This sweet girl has changed our family dynamic drastically; she has brought a tangible and special feeling into our home. She is adored and gently loved by both her brothers. (quite a feat) She is calm and sweet in the midst of the loudness and busyness of a house with toddler brothers.

We are most especially grateful for our Savior and His incredible Atonement that makes our progress and our family’s eternal potential possible.

Love, The McGuire Family

pumpkins, costumes and treats galore.

We had so much fun this Halloween, mostly because our oldest is finally old enough to be excited by the activities involved. (and to actually say "trick or treat")

We "partied" more for Halloween this year than we ever have, which for some isn't say a whole lot... but we had so much fun. I think Halloween really was meant to be enjoyed with little kids.

We had a pumpkin party with a couple of our friends with pumpkin carving or decorating and pumpkin themed treats. Such a blast.  Lee LOVED his jack-o-lantern so much, if it was up to him we would have kept a candle going in it all day every day the entire week.

Lee had his own pumpkin decorating techniques...

Lee had an awesome Fall Festival at his preschool the week of Halloween. He had a parade and trick or treating, crafting and treats AND Papa took a little bit of time off work to be the one there with him, so Lee was in absolute heaven.
(That school, man, everyone that I've interacted with from their staff truly LOVES working with these sweet young kids and it makes all the difference.  I'm so glad that Lee gets to interact with all of them.)

when he spotted Papa.

That same night we had a Trunk or Treat and chili cook off with our church congregation, such a fun idea, I haven't been to one since I was a little kid and living in Texas.
We really lucked out and got to borrow some awesome costumes from my brother and SIL, again, Halloween was meant to be enjoyed with little kids, not much cuter than a baby or toddler all dressed up in something adorable or hilarious.

trunk or treat fun with their cute little friend Ryan

We took the boys trick or treating with some friends and cousins around our neighborhood, So much fun.  Most everyone in our neighborhood goes pretty all out in the Halloween decoration department so there are fun lights and decor everywhere.  Many are even dressed up and out enjoying the night in their driveways.  And goodness, this year the weather could not have been more perfect.  Just crisp enough to feel amazing. I can't say I miss the layers of sweats we always had to wear under our costumes growing up in Utah or the occasional snow...

Lee was hilariously intent on racing from house to house and when someone wasn't home he'd tell us "that house not working" and run to the next house.

Lee and his cousins the pirate fairies.

We finished off the holiday with an evening of Phase 10, too much food and lots of laughing with my brother and SIL once the kids were in bed. Happiest Halloween to date.

live thankfully.

As you all know I've been doing a lot of thinking and planning about the coming weeks, events and holidays as I try to prepare as much as possible now so that I have as little as possible to do after our baby girl comes in the coming days or weeks.  (yes, I am ridiculously excited and sometimes equal parts nervous, but that's normal, right?) 

Anyway as I was thinking about Thanksgiving I knew I wanted something more to remind me of gratitude throughout the month, at the very least, if not all year long. 

Last year I had some cards we could write daily "thankfuls" on each day of November but I never got a cute branch to stick them on like I'd seen on Pinterest, so they sat in a sad little pile on our mantle. Of course the most important part was the daily thanks but still...let down.  

I think I'll do the traditional Thankful Tom Turkey my Momma always did, as Lee is actually at a age where that kind of thing will be SO FUN for him.  

(Thankful Tom is a simple turkey body that you add a thankful feather to each day after everyone in the family writes something they are thankful for that day on it.)

Well as it happens my thankful ponderings coincided with preparing a lesson for the 14-15 year old girls in our church congregation about why gratitude is important. 

I was so grateful for all the beautiful reminders of what gratitude brings to our lives and what we have to be grateful for. 

Here are just a few that stood out to me from this talk from Dieter F. Uchtdorf:

"Our loving Heavenly Father knows that 

choosing to develop a spirit of gratitude 

will bring us true joy and great happiness."

"When we are grateful to God in our circumstances, we can experience gentle peace in the midst of tribulation. 

In grief, we can still lift up our hearts in praise.  

In pain, we can glory in Christ's Atonement. 

In the cold of bitter sorrow, 

we can experience the closeness of heaven's embrace."

"In any circumstance, 

our sense of gratitude is nourished by the many and sacred truths we do know; 

that our Father has given His children the great plan of happiness; that through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ, we can live forever with our loved ones; 

that in the end, we will have glorious, perfect, and immortal bodies, unburdened by sickness or disability; 

and that our tears of sadness and loss 

will be replaced 

with an abundance of happiness and joy, 

"good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over."

"Your testimony of Christ, born of the Holy Ghost, 

can help you look past the disappointing endings in mortality 

and see the bright future that the Redeemer of the world has prepared."

So with lots of thoughts of thankfulness bouncing around my head and being reminded of just how abundant my blessings are, I thought about how I just want to live thankfully; 

learn to see the good in hard moments, 

find the blessing in a situation, 

be grateful, 

be more quick to look to the things I know when something I don't understand happens, 

openly express gratitude better for all the incredible people I know, love, bump into and meet 

and especially show my gratitude for God who gave and gives me every thing and everyone in my life. 

I started this blog initially as part of my journey through infertility and as a way to record life, thoughts and experiences for myself and my family and along the way I've been bolstered, lifted up, cheered on, guided and celebrated by so many, so thank you for sharing your goodness with me.

some days are a little like a dream...

...This Valentine's Day was one of those days.
We've never been big celebrators in the more commercial ways, with fancy gifts, treats, flowers or dinners.  Actually this was the first time since we've know each other that we went out to eat and it was fun (and delicious) to do something out of the ordinary as a family even though there were moments when it was a bit stressful taking "two under two" out to lunch on the craziest restaurant day of the year. (We only had one couple request to sit somewhere else) But goodnight, it was such a perfect day.

It was full of all those things that make it hard to have anything go wrong; Kevin had the day off, the weather was sunny and warm,  the boys were both healthy and happy and everyone was pretty thrilled to be together.  We strolled around the city center where we live, Kevin went for a ride while I played with the boys outside, we walked to a park and just spent time together, without trying to get a million other things done, and it was just what I needed.  It was one of the best days I've had in a long time.  Talk about a perfectly love-ly (bah!) day.

love month: love my family traditions

As long as I can remember each year when the first Monday in February rolled around, my mom pulled out the same story complete with illustrations for our family-time night lesson.  The story tells of a family that gave each other homemade valentines throughout the month of February leading up to Valentine's Day. The Dad (telling the story) talks about how one of his daughters made sure everyone in the family got a valentine from her every single day.  He talks about how he starts to anxiously anticipate what she made him each evening on his drive home from work. With Valentine's Day only a day or two away, he talks about it with his wife one night who tells him that each night after making valentines for everyone else, this daughter checked her own bag and each night she found it empty.  No one had thought of her.  Of course the Dad in the story felt awful and ended up staying up all night making valentines for this daughter. I always felt determined to give a valentine to each member of my family each day. That simple story was such a good reminder to show our love for those closest to us not just expect it from them, which I find is so easy to do.

(Now that I'm a mom this story is a lot more emotional than I remembered....)

After the story we'd pull out construction paper, brown paper bags, markers, crayons, etc... and we'd make our own Valentine bags and hang them on the outside of each person's bedroom door.  Our family made and gave each other homemade valentines throughout the days leading up to Valentine's day, telling each other something we loved about each other or a strength we thought someone had.  This was Valentine's to me, I was actually pretty surprised when I got older and realized a lot of people had pretty bad feelings about the "day of love" if they didn't have a love interest. Valentine's, for me, was (and is) a day to celebrate everyone you love, not just a romantic interest. I'm so grateful too because at my schools people got chrysanthemums or heart-shaped suckers from classmates on Valentine's day and I was one of those kids that never got any.        
(man, there are some things about middle school and high school that are hard to miss, right?.)  

I took my love for the holiday the way I knew it with me when I moved from home and always got my roommates to participate in the brown bag valentines with me. I know that for me focusing on the good in people has never been a bad idea and I'm so grateful now that my mom had us do this each year.

This was the first year we made Valentine bags with kids.  And though sickness and craziness kept us from making as many valentines as we'd have liked, it was awesome for Lee to be so excited about the whole thing.  And it may or may not have melted my heart a little...

 

sunshine on Christmas morning.

I can't tell you how nice it was to experience Christmas morning after the sun was shining. Our boys both slept until a little after 8 am and I didn't mind getting more sleep at all. I know it will be exciting to have our kids anxiously anticipate the magic of Santa's visit at Christmas but I really enjoyed this year anyway.

Sweet Lee boy doesn't understand the gift concept, he got a little upset when we tried to have him open more than his initial gift.  (I guess we could have stuck with just the one.)

Drew was content to chew on whatever was in front of him.

We got to Facetime with grandparents and join in on a group call with Elder Tanner. And eat lots of Swedish bread and drink lots of egg nog and chocolate almond milk (have you ever tried it??)

outfits from Grandma Tanner.

It was such a nice relaxing morning and we quite enjoyed it. Merry Christmas indeed.