Happy Halloween and Happy Thanksgiving!

So I'm combining a couple holidays, since I'm a couple months behind! As you can see in the terrible picture to your left, I've been a little crippled for a few months. Actually, it all started in June, when my back randomly started hurting and I was forced to be a "couch potato" for two months. Then it got better for about a month or two, and then got really bad again and I was again on the couch for a couple more months. (I know my timeline isn't perfect, but I really had no concept of time while trying to be a mom and wife from the same seat for weeks and weeks...) Anyway, I'm happy, no, let's say I'm ecstatic to report that my back is feeling MUCH better, and I'm optimistic that it'll stay that way! I found a good chiropractor that closer resembles my wonderful brother's methods, and he's done a lot to help my back heal. From his x-rays, he says my spine was fused to the left on the bottom. He thinks it was from pregnancy and childbirth. Regardless of what has caused me such pain, I know it's been an extremely difficult trial that me and my family have thankfully survived! I knew it was a test of my faith when I received a blessing from my loving husband that said that it would take a long time, but eventually I would heal. (Ugh!) Not what I wanted to hear, but the Lord has blessed me. I'm so thankful for the gospel and for the wonderful people in my ward who have selflessly served me and my family for months, especially my visiting teacher who came to our house every day for weeks and helped me clean and cook and take care of the kids. She's an angel! Thankfully, I can do pretty much everything again, and, besides being a little sore, my back feels great!  

And now on to more fun things! We had a fun Halloween with the kids. Man, it's fun having two boys that I can dress in matching outfits! I love it! They of course dressed as pirates, and I'm going to enjoy it until next year when I'm sure Connell will have his own ideas about what he wants to be. We had a ward chili cookoff and then a Trunk or Treat, and that was it for us. I went out in public for the first time in months, as you can see in the first picture, (besides doctor and chiropractor visits) so it was an adventure with my walker! The boys had lots of fun and we got just enough candy to satisfy our cravings. :)

Callister enjoying some corn bread. He's such a good eater!

 Then, on November 17th, was JayC's 31st birthday! We celebrated pretty low key with his favorite, a cherry pie, and I'm sure we also included some video games and movies! He also bought himself a lovely gold pocket watch. He uses it at work, and he says everyone thinks it's very cool!

 And then we celebrated Thanksgiving at our house this year. We had planned on going home to Almo to celebrate with the Lloyd family, but we found out that JayC had a lot less leave then we had thought. (I misread his pay stubb; imagine that!) So he only had 4 or 5 days of leave at the time, and we decided we didn't want to make a big trip to Idaho unless we had at least 2 weeks to be able to play and visit both sides of the family. We missed everyone! We were pretty pathetic in our attempt at a Thanksgiving meal, since I was still in a lot of pain, but we managed to put a few things together.
Above is Callister eating some yummy stuffing and a roll. And below is Connell cheesing it. He's very happy, since we had bought him an angry bird board game he had wanted pretty badly. (Yep, he's obsessed with Angry Birds.) Funny kid!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well! Next year, we hope it'll be with at least some of our family and friends. :)