November Randoms

I think this is one of my shortest random posts ever.  Not sure if that is good or bad.

one of my favorite quotes from
Elder Nelson
(I used this in a lesson)

With my new calling (serving with the young women in our church, specifically the 16-18 year old girls), the busy-ness has stepped up a notch.  Or a few notches.  George has been a great support and I admit, sometimes it's nice to have an evening away.  They are sweet girls and already I've been impressed with their testimonies.  And I've also been reminded of the hard things about being a teenager.  One of our first Laurel activities was a "College Chopped" game.  I gave them a basket of required items (ramen noodles, fig newtons, celery, and $3 in quarters (to spend at the "store" - a bunch of food with a cost associated with each item). They had 20 minutes to make dinner for their friends (the "judges") who were coming over.  They were in teams of 2.  It was pretty fun and funny.  One of the great things about working with the youth is that it keeps you young.  ;)

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Elise (talking to Geo):  So, I am going to marry someone with no beard, no mustache, no bald and no tattoos.

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First day of snow brought the neighborhood kids together in our backyard for sledding and a fort snowball fight.  Even with that much snow, they had a great time!

But it was even better when Geo came around the corner and surprised them with a few snowballs.  He's a fun dad!

Lucy with a cute double bun.
This will be the only time she
wears this.  Not her fav.

When Cole has trouble wiping. *sigh*
This "painting" happens more often than I'd like.

Austin:  "My teacher told us if we were done with our work, we should turn it over and draw a Thanksgiving picture.  So I drew four ways to kill a turkey:  rocket blaster, machine gun, sniper, and a pistol."  Ummm....not quite sure if that's what she had in mind.

redo of our circle after less than a year.  Lame.
But it looks (and functions) much better.

I helped with Lucy and Elise's class Thanksgiving parties.  Lucy's was a Colonial Day Celebration that lasted all morning.  I was there from 8:30-11:30 helping the kids make bread.  They rotated stations and by the end, we were pretty good.  The lunch ladies baked the bread and the kids ate it after lunch.  Too bad I missed the eating part.  The kids were in groups of 4 or 5.  I think we made 30 loaves of bread total... wow! The whole 5th grade rotated through stations of bread making, candle making, yarn making with some weaving, and a milking "cow" relay.  Fun stuff!  I ran home for a few minutes and then headed over to Elise's class from 12:30-1:30.  We did some leather pouch weaving.  They had done a similar thing as the 5th grade in the morning of rotation stations.  However the 2nd graders made Native American stuff - rain sticks, bead necklace, and Native American artwork with "bear skin soft paper."   They made cute corn husk dolls earlier in the month.

Since it was Austin's birthday on Thanksgiving, he brought treats for the class - some of his favorite things go-go squeeze applesauce and ding-dongs.  George covered that his all-about-me day.  He told some fun facts about Austin and Austin read a story about cranberries to the class.

Favorite pictures of the month... I walked into the den to find this.  Cole told me he wanted to be a Piano Guy.  (video)

So of course, Erik did too.  And since Cole already knew how, he tried to coach a bit.

Thanks and Giving

For the month of November, we tried to focus on the "giving" part of Thanksgiving.  We had a little FHE lesson about one way to show Heavenly Father how grateful we are is to give to others.  One week, we cleaned out some clothes closets and gathered toys to give away.  One week we wrote thank you cards.  I had a goal to write a thank you note a day... failed miserably, but I did get a few done.  We made churro cheesecake for the teachers and the kids wrote notes to them.

part of the nail party crew

Another week, we tried to serve our family and friends.  I was especially impressed with how well the girls did.  I felt like Lucy was more willing to help me and her sibs.  Elise planned a salon day after school to serve her friends.  She still LOVES to paint nails so she invited about 10 of her friends over to have their nails done after school.  She set everything up and made a laminated "nail chart" (traced her hands and colored each nail with a different design so they could choose).  I thought it was pretty cute but I was glad we have an unfinished basement so I could just let her go wild. ;)

Can you see the "nail map" behind?
Clients also got a "hair blow" while they were waiting for nail painting.  

And they had to get Clara in on the fun

Some of the giving naturally spilled into December, but we tried to involve our kids as much as we could in the giving part.  George was in charge of thank you gifts for the pediatric nurses at Davis Hospital so we put together 50 "warm bowls" - soup, hot choc, cider, hand warmers, etc.  The girls were bowl fillers, I was the wrapper, and Geo was the packer.  Austin was content to watch and we were smart enough to do the whole project while the littles were asleep.  We donated toys and food to the Morgan Food bank, old towels to the Morgan Animal Shelter (Elise especially loved this), and blankets and warm clothes to the Ogden Shelter.  I went with the young women and donated necessity baskets to two refugee families in SLC, so I tried to explain a bit of that to the kids... not sure they really understood refugees but I gave it a shot.  (That was a great experience, btw.  We visited two families - one from Africa {just the kids spoke English} and one from Iraq.  Both great families, but the couple from Iraq was especially chatty and gave us homemade baklava and sodas.  It was great.)  Lucy tied fleece quilts in activity days for this same group of families.  Austin made a "service elf" in school and put it under people's pillows to remind us to do something nice for someone in the family.  It was good.  So many good people have giving projects already going so we mostly support those, but I like it when the kids see how their "giving" can help others.  Of course, we love to give to our kids but sometimes I worry about what we are teaching them.  And it feels sorta funny writing this service down... but I want to remember so we can repeat some of these things next year and hopefully add a few more.

Mid-November, I set up a "serve at the Bountiful Food Pantry" night.  We were in SLC that afternoon and Grandma Liz was serving us that day by watching our kids so we met up in Bountiful for dinner and headed over to the pantry afterwards.  We were glad Uncle Jake joined in the fun too.  We were told to bring the whole family and that the activity would last an hour.  We put together "weekend food packets" for the kids who need lunch help during the week.  It was an assembly line thing and the kids loved it!  We switched places throughout the night and the kids really did a great job.  Erik was done after an hour, but we weren't done and I felt funny leaving them with so much work to do.  So we stayed another hour (Gma helped entertain Erik) and finished the job.  I think we put together 300+ packets if I remember right.  Lucy said she wanted to do it every year. Austin said over and over how fun it was.  And Elise loved chatting with our volunteer lady, Lisa.  She is a natural friend-maker.  Lisa gave a little spiritual thought beforehand about Jesus helping to feed hungry people and this was an opportunity to be like him.  The activity was kind of a gamble... never did it before myself, but the people were so sweet with the kids and it was a good experience for all of us.  On the way home, we talked a bit about families not being able to go to the pantry and pull out whatever they want to eat.

We also had a FHE lesson based on "Grateful in any Circumstance" by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.  I found this idea on lds.org (using General Conference in Family Home Evening) and it was one of our better lessons!  The kids were really involved and remembered it really well.  We started off passing around a Bottle of Bitterness (lemon juice) to take a sip of and then the Goblet of Gratitude (apple juice).  Oh how I chuckled at the "sour" faces.  ha!  And I loved how Cole says "Bwidaness." We watched this little snip (below) from President Uchtdorf's talk and discussed how we could look for the good in situations.  Even Cole could repeat the story President Uchtdorf told about the man complaining he only got two slices of bread. I left the empty bottle and goblet on our mantle for a while hoping it would help with some Christmas time whining.  I'm not sure how much it helped, but it was still a good reminder of our lesson.  Every once in a while, the FHE lesson goes well and it must be recorded!  ;)




We also did a nightly "Count our Blessings" jar - an idea I modified from here.  The kids and I made the sticks (they all thought that washi tape was the coolest) and Geo and I came up with ideas of things to write on the stick to "count" each night.  Some of them were easy to count but our biggest blessings (like each family member, or aunts/uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc).  Some of them were harder to count (like blankets and pillows, light fixtures, DVD's, fresh fruits and vegetables, etc).  We put a bead in a jar for each thing we counted and by the end we had quite a collection.  I thought this was a fun way to look at some blessings we maybe overlook.

It was a great month, but I missed our big gratitude wall.  I still made my yearly gratitude list in my journal on Thanksgiving and the kids always make some lists in school, but it wasn't quite the same as looking at all that artwork everyday.  I think we'll have to bring that back next year.

Thanksgiving in St. Gizzy & CMM__

We spent Thanksgiving at Grandpa Merle's place this year.  He invited everyone last Christmas and was really excited about the whole thing.  We were too!  We were thinking we'd escape the cold and enjoy some heat!  It didn't quite turn out that way, but it WAS warmer... just pretty windy.  Here's a recap:

One of our favorite afternoons was some impromptu red rock hiking.  Mark is a local so he took us to the cool spots. We found all sorts of neat stuff... caves, some sort of dwelling thing, rocks to jump off, holes to climb in, etc.  All of that = kid heaven.  The only thing we didn't see much of were animals but I think that was because our animal spotter (Geo) was in the car asleep with Clara.  Both of them were wiped out from a long night before.

hmmm... I guess I am the only fully enlightened one

Erik was so funny when it was time to go home.  He kept finding "rock beds".  I was happy when we passed the "holes" section so we could actually make some progress toward the car.  But... he just layed on the ground instead.  It wasn't a minute or two in the car before he was out cold!  Whew... busy day!  

Turkey bowl at the Dave Cole family condo

I brought these great ;) hats for people to wear.  The kids especially thought they were fun.  Austin just received a bow and arrow from Grammy and Grandpa and was thrilled with the thing.  I'm playing football (MVP for sure) and I look over and see the kids hiding the turkey hats in the bushes and Austin running around shooting them.  I was too slow for a picture, but I laughed so hard at the scene.

Thanksgiving dinner - delicious!!!

Afterwards, we joined up for our Christmas gift exchange... a little early so the kids could wear their PJ's from grammy all month and Mark and Lacey could join in the fun.

Benji picked the theme for the sibling gifts... superhero related and wearable.  There were some mighty fine gifts!

watched USU loose bad to BYU.  boo!
Kids were really interested, can you tell?

We spent a good long morning in the pool... Lucy as Emma Smith.  ;)
Lacey and I swam laps and it felt great!

I REALLY wanted to go to Tuachan to see the live nativity, train ride, lights.  I'm not sure if anyone else was that excited about it, but once we got there, I think they all enjoyed it...kinda.  It WAS pretty cold.  George and I did this the first Christmas we were married.  I sat there waiting for the nativity to start, thinking about life these past 14 years and was grateful we were back with a "quiver full" to enjoy it with us...even if "enjoy" best applied to me.  ;)

We forgot poor Clara's hat so she wore pants on her head.
Good improvising, Geo.

I thought the live nativity was touching and especially loved hearing the David Archuletta recording.  Man, that guy can sing!

Christmas lighting at the St. George temple.  I had such a migraine that night.  I skipped dinner but came to this part and was glad to go back to bed.  Gratefully, after a super long shower, the medicine finally kicked in and I joined in on a few games.  

Benji was in charge of the extra activities.  We had a good time playing tennis and pickleball, lots of games, some hot-tubbing, football watching, TONS of eating, and a whole bunch of laughing.  Great trip!