Overwhelmed and Understaffed

Once again I find myself behind but I am learning to accept that I live my life being overwhelmed and understaffed.  Since the last time I wrote it seems like I've been running, so....lets start off where I left off in October.  Let me take you back, back, back.....(you can laugh because I am trying to be funny)
October brings cooler weather, although not so much this year and of course Halloween.  The kids  were all excited and I did my best to decorate even though it was hard to with the weather still being so warm and Ryan not wanting to dig up the flowers to put in our grave yard, which we never seemed to get put in.
The beginning of October we had family pictures taken with Ryan's family at the Utah State capital.  It was the first real family pictures we have had since Ethan was little so it was nice.  I just got the final pictures and they turned out pretty good.  I say that because I don't like the way I look but love everything else about them, but that's a topic for another day.  I'm just happy to have a family portrait to put up in my house.
Ryan's sister Liz and her family bought a house just down the road from us in Kaysville a couple of weeks before Halloween so we tried to help them move the best we could.  Boy, did they have A LOT of stuff but their house is beautiful and Ethan is very happy that his cousin Mikey, who is just a few months older than him, is living so much closer.  It only takes us about 10 to 15 minutes to get there, compared to the 45 minutes to an hour like before.
The kids had all of their Halloween parties at school, Holly had her Halloween program and then there was the big Halloween Fund-raising Carnival, which was fun.  Holly did such a great job in her Kindergarten Halloween program, here is a video of her singing. (Isn't she just so cute!!)

We spent Halloween at home and had Liz & her family over for dinner and trick or treating.  The kids where not out long as it was raining.  Mason was the one child that did NOT want to come in because he figured out that you could just knock on peoples door and in his case say "Give me candy, NOW!!" and grown-ups would laugh and give him candy.  The bigger kids where trying to keep up with him and he had a major melt down when the rain/cold forced them inside.  He just couldn't understand why you would ever want to come home when there was still candy to be had. 
At the beginning of October I started getting the feeling we needed to look into refinancing our home mortgage.  When we bought this house we only qualified for an adjustable rate mortgage, which we got with the mind set of refinancing before the 5 years where up.  Well we have only been here 3 years but it was always in the back of our mind.  So we started the process to refinance into a fixed rate and with all we had to go through to get our first mortgage on this house I was dreading the process, making my stress level go sky high.  During this process we had Halloween, then American Thanksgiving and Ethan's birthday, which took place on the same day, but in the end we were approved.  On December 6th we closed.  What a relief that was to get over with!  We now have a fixed, low rate on our mortgage and it no longer is a worry in the back of our minds.  The added bonus was that because of when we closed we were able to skip not only Decembers mortgage payment but January's as well.  Now we have the money to pay cash for Christmas and even have some left over to renew my Green Card, other headache which I am not going to get into here.
As I said Ethan's birthday was November 25th, which was also Thanksgiving.  We went to Liz's for Thanksgiving dinner and then back to our house with everyone to have desert and presents for Ethan and Shawn, Liz's husband, who also had a birthday that same week.  Ethan loved the whole thing with the big meal and all of his presents.  We didn't get a good picture of Ethan with his cake because I had left my camera on video mode and Ryan didn't know how to work my camera.  So the video didn't turn out very good, besides you really wouldn't want to hear how the Granquist family sings Happy Birthday to someone.  I did manage to get some pictures of him opening his presents though.
Ethan started Scout's the next week, although I just got his shirt, neckerchief, patches and guild book this morning. He has been looking forward to starting Scouts all year and has hated watching all his friend go without him.  But now he gets to join and couldn't be happier.
Then on December 4th he was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was a great day, the week before was a little crazy for me because I had to get it all planned, invitations sent out, etc., but Ethan did decide one thing that I was so thankful for in the end.  He decided that he didn't want a luncheon at our house afterwards, but wanted to have everyone go to Golden Coral Buffet afterward instead.  So no food to buy and prepare or clean up for me, yeah!!!   We had all of Ryan's immediate family with their families, Ryan's parents and our family friends the Ropers there to share in Ethan's spacial day.  Ethan asked his Grandpa Granquist to give a talk on baptism and his cousin Anna to give a talk on the Holy Ghost.  No one could play the piano so we had recorded accompaniment but all in all it was a great program.  We are so happy and proud of Ethan for making the choice to be baptized.

Ethan was so excited all day and just glowed after he came out of the water.  Ethan told us afterward that he never felt so happy and wanted to know if he could get baptized again.  So we explained that we only get baptized for ourselves once but when he received the priesthood he would be able to go to the temple and be baptized for those who didn't get a chance to be in this life.  He was so excited, he wanted to hurry up and turn 12 so he could go to the temple to do baptism's, and could have that same happy feeling again.  How cute is that?
Finally just a couple of days ago, we took a quick trip up to Idaho Falls for my cousin Brad's wedding.  Yes this is the same one who just got home from his mission not too long ago, but his new wife was his girl friend for sometime before his mission and waited for him.  So I think she deserved to have a ring on her finger and a new husband without having to wait any longer.  It was a beautiful wedding, Brad looked so happy and it was great to see some of my family.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home so I didn't get any pictures.  I am totally bummed about it.  
That brings me up to date and now I get to start my Christmas shopping as I only have one gift so far, which proves just how much I have been overwhelmed and understaffed.  ;)