Venting

So I just saw a post on facebook that this sunday is LDS wear pants to Church for equality day.  And this is their reasoning and what their purpose is

LDS Women Unite: Wear pants to church in solidarity for women's equality. If you already wear pants to church (we're talking to you men!), we invite you to show your support by wearing a purple shirt, tie, socks, or ribbon, purple being a color historically associated with the suffrage movement. This is the first act of All Enlisted, a direct action group for Mormon women to advocate for equality within our faith. “The Church has not attempted to indicate just how long women’s or girls’ dresses shoul d be nor whether they should wear pant suits or other types of clothing.”--LDS Church Presidency (1971) We are feminists. We do not seek to eradicate the differences between women and men, but we do want the LDS church to acknowledge the similarities. We believe that much of the cultural, structural, and even doctrinal inequality that persists in the LDS church today stems from the church's reliance on – and enforcement of – rigid gender roles that bear no relationship to reality. We subscribe to the Book of Mormon teaching that “all are alike unto God,” and hope that our choice to wear pants to our Sunday worship services (a choice sanctioned by our spiritual leaders over 40 years ago!) reminds our families, congregations, and leaders that we have not forgotten this gospel truth. Please refer to this link for a comprehensive list of the doctrinally unnecessary gender inequities that exist within the church: http://www.ldswave.org/?p=402 I feel like these women are missing the bigger picture. Don't get me wrong, I don't care what you wear to church, you being there is the important part. However, I think there comes a point where you wear your Sunday best out of respect. Wear a dress, and if you are really, truly concerned with how other women feel (being left out or isolated) put your arm around them, get to know them, become their friend. 1:Church is not the place to make political stands. 2: The church may take a political stand (Gay marriage, abortion) but that's not something done inside of the actual three hour block. 3:The roles between men and women ARE DIFFERENT. Period. Some of the things are set up with the intention of having Priesthood holders lead, that's not going to change. And in the end you or the people following you may fall away from the church because they become blinded by things that don't matter. I don't know about you, but I have NEVER ONCE felt put down, or unequal as a woman in the Church. I have felt the opposite. When I think about it, I feel that the roles we have as women and men in the Church are divinely inspired to help us refine and use the qualities and traits we have/need to develop . I just don't understand why people get hung up on things that are so meaningless and/or things that are not going to change (Women giving blessings). Am I alone in thinking that this "protest" is disrespectful and walking that slippery slope?

Thanksgiving on Tuesday.

They don't have Thanksgiving in England (obviously) so we decided to take a trip over Thanksgiving and have the traditional meal on Tuesday instead of Thursday. It was my first attempt at doing the entire thing by myself, and when I say the entire thing, I mean the basics. 

I discovered Turkey is something that is a bit tricky to find here, but Thanks to Costco I found not only a turkey, one that was stuffed with stuffing already, and not so much the entire bird, as just the part you want to eat. Gotta love Costco! 

I also made garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted asparagus, green beans,  brown sugar sweet potatoes with marshmallows and a pumpkin cake for dessert. 

And I did all of this with a screaming Maddie clinging to my legs the entire time. 

 

 We had Dallin over since Daniella went back to Utah a few days before. 

 They have a drink over here that we LOVE called J20. Boston drank three of them. 

 Maddie loved every bite of her meal! I can always count on her to make me feel good about my cooking.

 Not sure what this face is about. 

 When she eats it gets everywhere! Hair, ears, bottom of her pants, toes, seriously everywhere! 

 The potatoes were a hit! I used an entire bag, and we cleaned them up! To be fair, the potatoes are much smaller here so we were lucky that we had enough. 

 Here's the turkey with the stuffing. Normally I think stuffing is the worst part of the meal, but this was actually very good. I don't know if I'll ever be able to make a regular turkey after this one. 

Here we are completely satisfied and ridiculously full. We didn't even touch the pumpkin cake. Which worked out because I ate it for basically every meal for the next 48 hours. :) 

This Thanksgiving I'm incredibly thankful for all the usual stuff (family, gospel, etc.) but I'm incredibly thankful to be an American! I know it sounds cheesy, but it's completely true. I feel so blessed to have been born in America!  

What's on your face?

(I'm having a hard time hearing the sound on these, so if you can't hear them either come back because you've got to hear it for the first video)

Holy cow! I'm pretty behind. I have so much I'd like to catch you up on, but barely any time with the laptop to actually do anything about it. Even now, I've only got 5 minutes before Chris leaves for work and takes the lap top with him. So I grabbed it and thought I'd put a little something on here.

These are my kids and this is what happens when I think they're playing quietly by themselves. Notice how innocent Boston sounds at the end. 

And here's a very short one of Maddie that I thought you'd all enjoy. I wish I could have gotten more but I ran out of room on my phone. 

Halloween

Oh Halloween. It was just not quite the same this year, but it was still a blast! In fact, I think I'm going to have to start having a Halloween party every year. I seriously LOVE Halloween!

 I was going to let Maddie be a BYU Cheerleader for Halloween this year, but then right before we left I found this little number, and I couldn't resist! I was just too cute! It had a hat, but the only time Maddie would wear it was when we were outside and it was raining. 

 Year three of this Dragon Costume! Talk about getting your moneys worth! He wears this ALL the time! People at Chris's work half expect to see Boston in this costume whenever they see us together, regardless of the time of year. If I had really pushed it, I'm sure he would have been Spiderman this year, but since I didn't, and since he still LOVES to dress up as a dragon, I let him.  You'll see it's getting a little small on him, but after three years of growing it's surprising that it still fits! 

 This is Gabe, the cutest (and best I might add) baby ever! He seriously makes me baby hungry! If only our kids came out as well behaved! 

 The whole crew before we went Trick or Treating in our apartment. I should have taken pictures, but I didn't think about it. I put the grown ups in each room connected to our hallway with three treats each. Then we got our grocery bags and went "trick or treating". At Maddie's room we got glow sticks, at Boston's room we got halloween bubbles, at our room Chris gave them Glow necklaces and at the living room they got Halloween balloons. It was really ingenious actually. 

 The glow sticks were a big hit. I took the kids in the hallway and we closed all the doors which makes it pitch black and we had a blast with the glow sticks! This is just Boston, Maddie, and Ally. 

 Notice the Green apparition on the left? What could be more Halloween than a ghostly appearance while playing in the dark? 

 After playing with the glow sticks the big kids decorated Halloween cookies, which somehow I didn't get any pictures of. Poor Maddie wants to be so much like them but isn't quite big enough yet so she gets left out a lot of the time. Luckily she was pretty entertained by the glow stick jewelry we made. At one point she had three glow necklaces and at least four glow bracelets. 

 We then carved/painted our halloween pumpkins! The kids thought this was the coolest thing ever and had a blast! 

 Boston and Maddie's pumpkin, hers didn't get painted, but we probably should have let her...oh well. Next year. 

 Morgan always makes Ally some kind of cool pumpkin each Halloween. Last year was Cinderella, the year before was Dora the Explorer. This year Peppa Pig made an appearance. It was seriously impressive. The kids thought he was quite the artist. 

 Isn't she the cutest witch EVER?

 Boston decided a plain old dragon wasn't cool enough, so he threw his super hero costume on over it. I I ask you what's more awesome than a super hero dragon?

 A super hero dragon and a super hero princess! 

 Here's Maddie with the witch hat. You can see she's thrilled about wearing it! 

Maddie loves to hang out in her super hero costume! She brings this to me most mornings and then runs around the house. 

Halloween night we went to the BletchlyWard's trunk or treat. It was pretty rainy, and we were positive it would be moved inside, but it wasn't. We all trick or treated in the rain and froze. Actually it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The rain went from pouring to a drizzle and the wind died down so it was bearable. This kids didn't care. They got Candy. Not good candy, but to kids sugar is sugar. I guess it worked out because with their candy being so gross, Chris and I didn't eat any. :)

Windsor Castle

Two Saturdays ago we woke up with the intention of going to a stunning castle (forgot the name) and a few Pride and Prejudice spots, but turns out the castle was super expensive, like $150 for three of us. So we decided to print off some vouchers and try again another week. Instead we went to Windsor, and Windsor Castle. 

 The gate at Windsor. 

 Just a small part of this castle. I was seriously huge! It was also 35 pounds a person to get it, or close to $60 per person, so We decided to skip it. Not to mention the line to get in super long, and the kids, nor the adults, were in the mood to stand. 

 So we let them just run. 

 Probably not the proper thing to do in front of the Royal Family's castle, but what do you do, blame it on the Americans. 

 Family Picture in front of the castle. 

 I wish we could have done the tour. But it already feels like we're hemorrhaging money so we are going to pick the castles we want to go in very wisely. 

 Can you see the gun this guy is carying? 

 More castle

 Alongside the castle walls there is a fantastic little street and we stopped to take some quick portraits. My kids, however, basically wanted nothing to do with it, and we really didn't get many good ones. But they're still cute, so I'm still posting them. 

Can you believe this is the best one I got of just Boston? 

  

Then there's my little girl. Look at those blue eyes. I usually try to keep a bow on her head since whenever we seem to forget it everybody thinks she's a boy. But her hair is coming in so hopefully that won't be the case for much longer. She has quite the fiery little personality. Sometimes I don't know where she gets it from. :D 

 This is Boston and Ally. They are basically inseparable here. Ally came over with her family who also came with qualtrics and happens to live above us. If he didn't have her, life would be so boring. Aren't they so adorable? She's four, so a year older than Boston, but you know his got went after an older woman, and it worked out well for him. *Wouldn't it be awesome if the got married and you could use these on their wedding video? haha. Just a thought. :D

 I told you you'd see a lot of these. 

 Here's a guy repelling off the side of a church building. Apparently it was a big deal There were All sorts of News camera's there and people wearing that same red shirt. I just took a quick picture and kept walking. 

 Look closely at this picture. Does anything seem odd to you? If you feel like something is off, you are quite right. This house is crooked. It's literally leaning to the left. I have no idea how or why, but That's the way it is. It's actually a small cafe now. Odd. 

 There was a fantastic shopping district at Windsor. I could have spent all day there, but the kids were less than impressed so we had to quickly move on. 

 This little girl seriously ADORES her daddy. He can do no wrong in her eyes. Her mother on the other hand...

 Do you see the plane right over the castle? This picture doesn't do it justice. I had Maddie in one arm and my camera wrapped around my shoulder so I couldn't quick maneuver the way I would have like to for this. The planes flew so low to the castle, it was pretty cool. Boston was in heaven every time one passed over head. 

Here's our little group (most of it) finishing up the day at a Kabob shop. Chris loves Kabobs and was so excited for us to try them. He got a lamb and I got a chicken. I tasted his lamb and was immediately grateful I didn't get the lamb for myself. It tasted like sweaty armpits. I honestly didn't think I was going to be able to swallow. I can't remember the last time I tasted something so terrible. I don't know if it was just the place, or lamb that I don't like. I'd be willing to try it again. Chris thought it tasted fine, but the lamb had almost ruined the entire kabob experience for me I couldn't even eat much of my chicken kabob. Chris says I have to try it again, so I'm sure I will, as long as I can get the taste of attempt one out of my head.