The Mr and I and some friends The Wrights (from our Ward) spent the evening at the drive-in. It was pretty cold, but lots of fun. They have a little play area for the kids to run around until the movie starts, which makes it really nice. We saw Big Hero Six and Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Both movies ended up being fairly enjoyable. I'm glad there's a drive-in to go to down here, it's about the only fun affordable thing I've found to do as a family down here.
Our beautiful Miss Alivia turned 8!
She requested to have her ears pierced as her birthday gift, so the Mr and I obliged.
We kept her birthday pretty low key since we figured we'd do the partying when my sister and mom came down for Alivia's baptism. She did get her favorite dinner (Burrito Casserole) and cake and ice cream though.
My sweet and talented friend Jessica Steveson offered to take some
picture of Alivia for her baptism invitations. They turned out just beautiful! I was so grateful she shared her talents and gave us such a wonderful act of service.
I spent an enormous amount of time trying to get my house in order for guests. I painted rooms and refinished furniture. I swore I'd never make our font room into a dining room because it's just silly to me to have two separate dining spaces in one house. That my friends is why you never say never. The table I built for our kitchen was just too big for the space, and I got tired of bumping into walls and squishing guests into the itty bitty space we do have in there. So I bit my tongue and my pride and decided to go ahead and make our front room a dining room. I refinished the old oval oak table and brought it back inside into the Kitchen (it was on our back patio) and shifted the dining table and chairs I built into the newly designated dining room. The problem I had was the chairs that came with the old oak table all rotted and fell apart when they were exposed to the outside, so I needed new chairs. I was more than excited when the Mr. called me and said a neighbor of ours was throwing out an old dining table and chairs. I ran/drove as fast as I could and threw those babies into my car. Free is always AWESOME!
I sanded and repainted them all white. Now I have three dining tables, one for the kitchen, one for the dining room and one for the back patio for me to wood work on. Here's a before and after of our old oak table and the chairs I sort of dumspter dived for and refinished.
Aunt Cozette and Braxton flew out to Texas to visit us for 10 days!
I was beside myself for joy in being able to spend some time with my sister and Braxton and my kids loved, loved, loved having them to play and tease and laugh with. Cousin sleepovers are the best!
We visited Galveston one day, gotta love still being able to play in the ocean in your undies in mid November.
We didn't stay long since we had to be back to feed the missionaries, but we did get to enjoy a ride on the ferry as well. I always love taking that silly little ferry ride.
We put Aunt Cozy to work beautifying everyone since we have no access to a trusted hairstylist down here (and lash extentionist to boot)! Livie and I went for short cuts. Nothing like wanting to get rid of all that sweaty hair plastered to your neck nine months of the year.
I had my sister do an asymmetrical cut on me. It's probably one of my favorite haircuts ever! Alivia pulled me aside afterwards and kindly pointed out that Aunt Cozette had cut one side of my head much shorter than the other. Gave us a good laugh.
She was even nice enough to take a few hours of her time and give me this beautiful set of lash extensions!
She gave my boys cuts too, but for some reason I can't find any photos.
Thanks Cozy for being our beautician, you are the best!
My mom flew in for a few days to visit us and be there for Alivia's baptism. Having family in town was so
much fun. Time just flew!
I had another funny little "Mormon" moment at my local grocery store. I was chit chatting with my checker and telling him my mom was here visiting from Utah, I told him Utah will always be home to me. He got a real funny look on his face and asked me If I was a "uh uh uh uh"... he obviously needed a little help spitting it out, so I helped him out a little by exclaiming that "Yes indeed I was a Mormon". He threw his hands in the air rather dramatically and insisted that he wasn't judging me! Made me laugh so hard. Most of the time it's just heart breaking to see how misinformed people are about my faith, but this time around I couldn't help but laugh that he was so worried that I thought he was judging me for being one.
Some of my relatives on my dad's side live here in Texas. They are all about three and a half hours out so we don't see each other much, but Cozette helped change that for me by inviting them to come down and hang with us for the day. It was a lot of fun visiting with them.
We hit the Blue Bell Ice cream Factory too. Best Ice Cream Ever!
Alivia's baptism day finally arrived. Aunt Cozette and Grandma Ward did a beautiful job with their talks! Alivia had so many friends and family there to support and love her. My Uncle Bob and Aunt Wanda drove in from Del Rio, Grandma and Cozy flew in from Utah, we had friends drive an hour each way to be there!
What a lucky girl to be surrounded by such great support. Alivia was glowing the whole time. I pray she will strive to keep her baptismal promises and to listen to the Holy Ghost everyday and cherish the gift she was given. I know the gift of having Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and The holy ghost as part of my life is the best thing I have! The Gospel gives me hope in my darkest hours and makes everything good in my life better!
After Alivia's baptism Cozette and I drove to the Houston Temple to see if we could do some work together. We decided on doing some sealings since we thought it would be short and sweet and we could get back home to everyone. We were terribly mistaken. Two and a half hours later we finished up. I know our intent was to be there for just a short while but I really did enjoy just being there with my sister!
We finished up the evening by going to dinner at Lupe's (one of our favorite Tex-Mex places down here). Ironically enough Mexican food is one of Alivia's favorites, but she refused to order anything but Mac-N-Cheese. We kept trying to convince her of the errors of her way but she was insistent she'd hate everything there. This is the comment card she left after we had finished dinner and she finally decided to stop being stubborn and admit the Mexican food we ordered was far better than her mac-N-Cheese!
*Mac-N-Cheese is for sissies!
And just like that it was time for everyone to pack up and go back home. Saying goodbye just stinks! I really really hate being so far away from my family! My heart was so full of gratitude for the efforts everyone made to be down here and spend time with us. I wish I could have been with my entire family and I wish we could have had less errands to run and more time for adventures, even still I'm so glad we had this time together to make memories.
Thanksgiving was a quiet one for the Giovannoni family this year. We stayed at home by ourselves. I cooked the whole traditional thanksgiving dinner from scratch, with a little help from my kids. This year I put Alivia in charge of the rolls, Dylan was the stuffing man, and Isaac ..Whoops I can't remember what I put Isaac in charge of, and Derik made the Cranberry drink.
I even attempted pie! I'm not sure what it is with me and desserts, they just never turn out! The pie filling was AWESOME but the crust was just terrible! Always something with me...
I'm pretty sure I lost our Annual Giovannoni Thanksgiving thanks list too. How sad, I guess there is always next year right?
