Which was followed by Thanksgiving

Sheesh I should have caught up on my blog.  I started this month and had the thought, "What did we do for Thanksgiving this year?"  It took me a LONG time to remember.  Embarrassingly long time.

But then I remembered and I am determined to write it down so I don't forget again!  Cause we had a really fun Thanksgiving!  We took off for Prescott, AZ to hang out with the Stouts.  They had just bought a new house they were remodeling and Jon came down with some guys to help them get a few of the big projects done.

Ashley and the kids and I played.  We had a great week.  We ate lots of good food, our kids played like they did when they saw each other every day.  Our babies tolerated each other, occasionally stealing a toy or two but generally getting along.  And we talked away in the non stop way we are always able to do together.

We had to take off Thursday for Phoenix because my parents were coming in town and we were going to hang with them for Owen's blessing.  So the Stouts changed Thanksgiving to Wednesday just for us.  Ashley made a killer, Martha Stewart beautiful turkey and it was all seriously delicious.

There was one part of the trip that was not so fun and its definitely embarrassing to admit out loud but it is combined with a part I would like to remember, so I feel like it needs to be recorded.  Please don't judge me too harshly.  So to get around, we would all pile into their Excursion and head around.  All of the babies were in car seats, and with a little double buckling, all 11 of us fit.  It was an official clown car.

One afternoon we ran several errands in a row.  By the time we got back in town from the new house, the kids were pretty hungry.  So we stopped by McDonalds to feed them all.  A few dozen chicken nuggets later we threw them back into the car and headed to Lowes to go find some paint samples for the new house.  We had been in Lowes for about 10 minutes when Ashley turned to me and said, "Where's Asher?"

We looked around, he wasn't there.  We went back to the previous section we had just been in.  He wasn't there.  At this point a store employee got word that a kid was missing and they called a Code Adam and shut down the whole store.  It was then I had the clear thought, he's not in the store.  I grabbed the keys and headed out to the car to see if he hadn't gotten out with us.  The minute I reached the car, I had the distinct impression that he was all the way back at McDonalds.  I was pretty doubtful, thinking someone would have noticed if he had been missing that whole time, but I hopped in the car and headed straight to McDonalds.  Then I saw a police car in the parking lot.

I just started crying as I walked into the store.  He was sitting on a bench, surrounded by McDonald employees eating an ice cream sundae.  He looked up at me when I walked into the store and said, "Mom!  I couldn't find you!"  The policeman asked me a lot of questions (super embarrassing by the way for your brain to choose that moment to really have to dig to remember your child's birthday).  He told me CPS was on their way and if they had beat me there they would have taken him away.  Oh my goodness I just can't even imagine what that would have been like.

I asked Asher where he was when we left the store and he told me he was hiding from the kids.  I told him that I had prayed to find out where he was and Heavenly Father had told me that he was at McDonalds.  We had a very sweet talk about the Spirit and how much God loves him and how much I love him.  It was a very sweet moment after a very terrible on preceeding it.

Asher still gets really nervous if I am heading to the car ahead of him.  "Don't leave me mom!"  About a month after it happened, he was putting on his shoes and I walked out to go load things in the car and he said, "Mom!  Don't forget Asher!  Remember that time you forgot me?  Don't do it again!"  That stung.  But all is well and a lesson was learned.

Then we got to head to Phoenix.  I remember so little about the order of things on this trip and I am sure I will screw something up.  But when we first got there Thursday night it turns out my family had decided to do a little Thanksgiving cooking so we got Thanksgiving two days in a row.  That I didn't have to cook.  Talk about a sweet holiday.

At one point, I took my kids for a walk around the Mesa, Arizona temple grounds.  I don't really remember what everyone else was doing but it was beautiful and a lot of fun.  I think the boys were golfing...

We got to visit some distant family from my mom's side.  A lot of people I barely remember but we had a great time visiting and eating.  Hey, I remembered way more than I thought I did!