A Decade

 

To get the full value of joy

You must have someone to divide it with.

Mark Twain

10 years ago we married.  

 And we started out like this.

and then we were given not one...

 

But two...

 and then three...

Children to love.  

Image

And this is what it did to us...

HA HA just kidding...sort of.

All joking aside. 

We have a beautiful home, a beautiful family and a beautiful life!

I considered myself high blessed to have made it together this far in our journey into eternity.  

Happy 10th Anniversary Mr. Giovannoni.

I thank you for your love and commitment. 

I thank you for being the other half in which I get to divide my joy with.  

Thank you for staying with me and loving me even when I find it hard to love myself. 

And last but certainly not least thank you for three terroristic yet wonderful children, it was having them that made me understand our Heavenly Fathers love for his children, faults and all. 

A decade of lessons, love, joy, sorrow, frustration, patience and growth. 

Here's to many many more. 

Sunday Snippets

Our Week in Review

• Dylan's been working on similes at school. He was given a fill in the blank question to fill out, this is what he came up with.  The Kamodo Dragon is lazy just like my mom.   When I got upset with him about it, he said, "What? My teacher thought it was really funny!"  That's my boy!  Always keeping me humble.
• The kids and I met up with an old friend from Utah who lives down here in Houston now. It was good to see some one familiar.  I'm looking forward to doing it again. 
•  We had the missionaries over for supper on Saturday night.  They did a really cute object lesson that the kids loved.  I think we'll make it a monthly tradition. 
• I thought our sprinkler system was broke and I was slightly panicked over not being able to get them running. Thanks to google and hours of reading sprinkler system forums, I discovered someone had shut off our water at the backflow valve.  Once I turned the water back on everything worked just fine. 
• Mr. Giovannoni and I both received callings this week. I was called to be the CTR 5 Sunday school teacher.  Mr. Giovannoni received 2 callings, the first was to be nursery leader and the second was to be a cub scout den leader for the 9 year olds.  May the spirit be with us...Especially Mr. Giovannoni!

Sunday Snippets

 Our Week in Review

• Dylan started tutoring this week.  The gap between what he learned in Utah and what they are teaching out here is pretty significant, so we are hoping this will help him to be more comfortable and familiar with what is being taught to him now.  With that being said he is bringing home lots of homework and test where he is getting 100 percent.  I'm proud of how well he is doing and the hard work he is doing that is getting him there.
• Alivia lives for Fridays, it's when we get together with all her new friends in playgroup.
• Isaac still fills his days with terrorizing. We lost 2 and a half dozen eggs to the kitchen floor and the amount of wall art he has created is astounding. 
• I spent an enormous amount of time this week driving around buying things so I could try to be crafty. I finally finished my apothecary jars, and I love them.  I also finished making a Digital TV antenna, so we get TV now!
• Mr. Giovannoni is working long and late hours, I sure miss having him home, but I'm grateful for all that he does for our family. 

Sunday Snippets

Our Week in Review

• Church starts at 11:00 am this year and I'm loving it!
• Just in case any one is curious, even though a marker states it is "washable", it will not come off of flat paint at least I can't get it off my flat paint, I know I shouldn't come all unglued and someday I'll miss my children's wall art, but right now all I want to do is scream and cry, our home is not even 2 months old! 
• I decided to deep clean the house this week.  I started by scrubbing the carpet in our front room and then I filled up a bucket full of hot soapy water and began to scrub the kitchen cupboards.  Sometime in my cleaning frenzy sweet little Isaac got himself in the fridge and proceeded to dump and smear the entire content of a brand new jar of Parmesan cheese on my newly scrubbed carpet. Bless his little heart!
• Hot wet Parmesan STINKS in a vacuum, so I disassembled, washed and scrubbed my vacuum out.  Mean while Isaac managed to smear shampoo and conditioner all throughout the upstairs hallway, and then proceeded to drizzle it off our stair balcony onto the couches below.  He dumped both containers of fish pellets and fish flakes all over the kitchen floor and then topped off the afternoon by chucking a glass jar of expensive and tasty chipotle ranch across the tile where it shattered and splattered everywhere. 
• I write these things simply to remind myself that this will not last forever...The terrorizing and destroying of everything we own.  But until it does stop, I'm investing in a fridge lock, a wig (because I've literally just about pulled all my own hair out), and I'm banishing any kind of writing tool or liquids of any sort!  Maybe then I can go 5 minutes without something being destroyed. 
• We did in fact invest in a refrigerator lock.  I clean up a lot less (food) messes now.
• We had one of Mr. Giovannoni's co-worker and his family over on Saturday night.  It's the first time we've done something with other people since we moved here.  I need to work on my social skills I felt really awkward the entire time.  But the kids LOVED having friends over, even though their children were twice as old as ours. 
• I'm starting to feel more at home in our new ward, and there have been a couple of sisters that have really taken me in under their wings.  Alivia thanked Heavenly Father for our new church friends so I think she's feeling more at home as well. 
  

Sunday Snippets

Our Week in Review

• Dylan burst in the door Monday after school, saying, "Mom, did you hear we had a tornado down here"?  I was like, "yeah right Dylan"! But I had to eat my words because Houston experienced a tornado (indeed) and heavy flooding this week.  I've never seen rain like this before.  It's hard to believe that the 4.5 inches of rain we got on Monday will do little to help the severe drought Texas is in.  There was so much water falling from the sky!
• I finally met with Dylan's school teachers, they were very nice and had nice things to say about Dylan.  I went in thinking our meeting was going to be a negative experience, but came out feeling much better about the school situation.  
• I went to "Lunch Bunch" (a gathering of stay at home moms for ladies in our church ward) it was fun.  I'm finding lots and lots of friendly women in our ward and I'm feeling so much better about finding friends.  
• Mr. Giovannoni squeaked out of work a little earlier than usual on Thursday for me, so I could go to Ladies Game Night.  It was so nice to get out without my kids and make new friends.  I came home pretty late but I had a great time.  
• After a month of searching (and driving to every store imaginable) for a particular spice, I finally found it at a little Indian Grocery store just up the road from my house.  Now I finally make more Tikka Masala for dinner.  
• The Mr. and I were asked to give talks at church in a few weeks. I'm glad we have time to really prepare these talks, because the subject and talk I was given to focus on is a difficult one for me. 
• A very sweet couple from our ward had us over for dinner.  It was nice for all of us to get out and make friends, I am glad there are people willing to reach outside of their comfort zone and welcome us into their homes. 

Sea World

The Mr. and I have long discussed buying a pass to Sea World once we moved out here, after all we need something to do with all our free time, so we took the plunge and bought our family a season pass.
We headed out the door a little late, so we didn't arrive in San Antonio until almost 4 in the afternoon. The weather was perfect! Have I mentioned how much I'm digging winters here in Houston, it was 70 degrees and nothing but blue skies.
We watched the dolphin feedings first and then wandered around getting familiar with the set up of the park.  At first I was a little concerned because it seemed to me that there was not a whole lot to do.  But at the end of the night we still had plenty of uncharted territory to explore, we'll have to save that for the next time we head down.
All three kids really loved the aquarium part of Sea World.

The park was still doing it's Christmas shows, so we took the kids to see the Sesame Street Christmas show.  Alivia really enjoyed the show, and at the end they made it snow!

The dolphins, the seals, the killer whales, all of them reminded me of the beauty and endless creativity of a loving Heavenly Father, they are all amazing animals, and I'm glad I had the privilege of seeing them.

The rest of the night we enjoyed the other animal shows.  Between three kids and wanting to enjoy every minute of the shows myself, I didn't get any pictures or videos.
The very last show we watched was a mix of Dolphins and Divers and It was really neat.  It was a great way to end the night.
Mr. Giovannoni then drove us all the way home.   In all the weird stories we heard about Houston, no one warned us about the night fog. Thankfully the Mr. was at the wheel because we couldn't see 2 feet ahead in any direction, and stuff like that just freaks me right out.  It made the trip home extra long and despite my best intention to stay awake the whole way home, I gave into my two-ton eyelids and slept.  I'm so glad Mr. Giovannoni got us home safe and sound!

Sunday Snippets

Our Week in Review

• As I was cooking Christmas dinner I could hear Alivia singing (to the tune of Little Drummer Boy) "Do you smell what I smell"? "Do you smell what I smell"?  Sure made me laugh!
• I started updating our photo frames with current photo's of my kids and our family.  I feel so blessed that both my older siblings are talented photographers I have so many great photo's to choose from thanks to them!
• The Mr. and I took the kids to Sea World.  The weather was perfect and we all had a good time.
• I received a bread machine for Christmas so I kept myself busy making bread and rolls and all sorts of delicious things.  I find myself cooking a lot these days.  I made some pretty darn delicious Tikka Masala and Naan bread for New Years Day, Mmm, Mmm Good!
• Speaking of New Years, the folks down here go crazy with fireworks!  I did hear a few people mention at church that is not usually the norm, but it certainly made my first New Years down here a vivid memory.