Life in the dark

This last week the great state of CT, where we live, was in darkness, quite literally. Due to a very heavy, wet and fast falling snow we lost power around 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 29th. Fortunately we had a few moments warning as our lights were flickering to get a meal on the table before they went out. Now the first night wasn't bad because we all piled into our room and cuddled on the bed while watching a movie on the computer. We aren't strangers to having our power out since it went out 2 months ago when Hurricane Irene hit our town, however it was only for 24 hours. Looking back that was nothing! On Sunday morning when we woke up my daughter said the cutest thing, "mom, look we have power!" She thought since the room was bright (from the sun) that we had our power back, no luck though, it was out and it was worse than we thought. Church was cancelled and we had no cell phone signals except for on the husband's blackberry. With no electricity we had to be creative with the activities for the kids to keep them entertained, sad but true. At one point our daughter asked if we could put 2 batteries in the TV to make it work since everything else that had batteries worked, it was so cute. We ended up pulling games out of the closet that we had never played before and having a lot of fun. Our second night of no power we decided to sleep downstairs near our gas fireplace (a great blessing) since the upstairs was freezing cold. Now the trick was finding a way to blow up our air mattress since the pump needed to be plugged in. Again, another blessing was remembering that our car had an outlet and so we were able to blow the mattress up and set up camp by the fireplace. Not knowing when the power would be back up was the hardest part of it all and knowing that we weren't completely prepared. We did not own a camp stove which would have made life a lot easier and pleasant during this experience. Fortunately we have awesome friends who brought us hot food one night, a home teacher who ended up letting us borrow his camp stove so that we could boil water to wash dishes, make a meal and bathe the girls, which we did one night. All of us girls piled into the bathtub with about 2 inches of warm water and cleaned up. There were days that the girls and I would get in the car to drive around to charge the cell phone, listen to music and to stay warm. During all of this I was able to see and experience true charity, the pure love of Christ. People who had power opened up their homes to feed us, let us take hot showers, do a load of laundry and just be in a place where there was light, heat and good company. It was a very stressful time but I actually really enjoyed being with all of our friends and growing closer as a family. Life was a bit simpler in that nobody cared what anyone looked like (I was sporting my sweats and snow boots and a hat for a couple of days before getting to shower), we were entertained by good conversation, games and watching the kids play, and everyone was going through the same trial and learning from it together. This Saturday, November 5th we still didn't have power and so the girls and I flew to CO to be with my family while my husband flew out of the country on business. He wasn't about to leave his girls alone with no power while he was gone, what an awesome husband I have! I needed to get away and wanted to be with family after such a stressful and emotional time. Mentally I was able to handle the situation and did what was needed to be done to care for my family, but after a week of no power and still not knowing when we would get it back my emotions surfaced and I was exhausted and wanted someone to take care of me. This seemed to be a mutual feeling among many of my friends. I believe as of this morning our power is on! What a humbling yet strengthening experience. We truly need to be prepared for the unexpected and listen to what we have been taught over and over by the living prophet. One thing this has taught me is that I never what to live in the dark again, literally or spiritually. Each day I need to strengthen and prepare myself both physically and spiritually so I can help those around me if necessary. The people who helped us will forever be remembered and blessed for what they did for us. We are all here on this earth to help one another and we have been taught by the greatest of them all, our Savior, he taught by example as well as by word. We are to love our neighbors and to lift one another's burdens and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. This experience has changed me and I hope to be able to always remember what I have been taught and what I have felt through it all.

Our little "monkey"

Can you believe our beautiful daughter is all grown up? I can't, and I can't believe I actually have a moment to blog. Life has been busy but wonderful with our newest addition. She is full of love for her family, especially her big sister. She loves to smile and cuddle and play all day long. She is rolling around everywhere and will probably be crawling before I know it. I hope to be able to blog more but for now this is what you are going to get.

Lots of love between sisters

All smiles

Drooling is permitted

Don't you just want to gobble these up? I had to do a post on the delicious crescent rolls that I made from scratch today with some amazing women/friends to show my sisters and mom what I did. The best part is that these rolls turned out so well and now I have two huge ziploc bags full of them in my freezer for me to use whenever I want or need to. Ok, so actually the best part was spending time with my friends who make life in Connecticut absolutely wonderful. I don't know what I would do without them, I truly treasure their friendship! Delicious rolls + friendship = priceless

30 weeks and counting...

I just hit 30 weeks and can't believe it. This pregnancy has flown by so fast, probably because I am chasing after a toddler. We are excited for this one to come join our family especially her BIG sister!

Winter Wonderland

What a crazy winter so far here in the Northeast. I feel like I am back in Colorado; our neighbors have blamed us for all the snow we have received and said we must have brought it with us! Maybe we did :) I think this is the most snow they have seen here in years and I am loving it. It is fun to wake up every morning after a storm to see how much has fallen. Last night another storm hit and I swear we have another foot of snow but I don't know because I haven't attempted to step outside to measure yet. The crazy thing about the snow here is that it hasn't been warm enough to melt it, we still have about 3 feet of snow that fell a few weeks ago along with what just fell last night which makes it difficult to see when driving around corners, you can't see anything because the plows have made mountains out of the snow! I am definitely going to be ready for the warm sunshine come Spring but in the meantime we will enjoy making snow angels, sitting by the fireplace and sipping hot chocolate!

Beautiful Winter Wonderland

What we woke up to this morning

Snow halfway up our light pole

We are so blessed

I missed out on posting something around Thanksgiving expressing how thankful I am for ALL that I have, therefore I am doing it now. For two weeks we were able to visit beautiful Colorado and spend time with our families and friends. We were reminded how important families are and how fortunate we have been to have had the love and support they have given us in our transitional years. We miss being close enough to visit more often but it made this visit sweeter than ever. I am grateful for the pampering and Cap'n Crunch party, helping hands for the Princess Party, the hugs and laughter, a girls' lunch, dinner with "D", staying up late watching movies and playing games and having ALL of the family together.

I am grateful for a husband who works hard to take care of his girls; we are so proud of him and for all that he has accomplished. I am grateful for a beautiful daughter who makes me laugh and smile every day and reminds me of why I love being a mother. I am grateful for the good health we have had this year and the blessing of being pregnant and being able to bring another "princess" into this world. I know that all of these things are made possible because of the love of a Heavenly Father who watches over us and blesses us with those things that we need, and sometimes with those things we don't even know that we need.Swimming with daddy

Cuddling with uncle "D"

Best Buddies Family Picture Day My beautiful sisters
Princess/Prince Birthday Party Baby bumps

Halloween Fun

I don't know what it is about Halloween, but I love this holiday especially now that I have a child of my own; it brings out the child in me. We enjoyed a couple of activities this Halloween and made sure that we collected plenty of candy...for daddy. On Friday we went with our friends to an outdoor mall that was passing out treats to all the ghosts and goblins that visited them. I didn't want to ruin the costume we had planned to wear for the Fall Festival at the church on Satuday so we dressed the little one up in a Japanese dress we received from a friend of ours and attempted a bun with "pencils" instead of chopsticks. Because it was so cold all you can see is the jacket and good ol' Pooh bear. Oh well, it was a blast and we had a great first experience in getting candy and saying Trick-or-Treat.
On Saturday we dressed up for the Fall festival/Trunk-or-Treat at the church and enjoyed every moment even though my feet were killing me. I wore high heel boots with my costume, they looked good, but I paid the price. We were going for a family theme again this year but keeping it low budget so I was the witch, and E was my black cat and not pictured is my husband who was my broom. Well at least he held my broom for me! The festival included games situated in rooms around the church and you had to use tickets to play each game, which E loved giving to the people in charge of the games. One of the favorites was the cupcake walk because E loved running around on the colored pumpkins and dancing to the music until it stopped, and you can't go wrong when everyone ones a cupcake. We also loved watching E at the bowling game, she had great aim but not enough gusto so we had her kick the ball at the pins instead. The cutest part was her helping pick up the pins after she knocked them over which earned her a second prize, we have taught her well. The next best game was the winning of the goldfish or 3 goldfish in our case (we gave one away so we ended up with 2). The hubby wasn't too excited about it but I was so proud of her for winning them and knew she would love her first pets! They are still alive just so you all know and are being fed my "special" food until we get to the pet store to buy fish food.
On Halloween daddy carved E's pumpkin and we played games and colored Halloween pictures we got from the library. It was such a fun weekend and I already know what the family is going to be next year...all four of us!