Happy Thanksgiving!

As I made food preparations this holiday I had time to think about my blessings. I am thankful for many things, especially my family. I am grateful for Johannah's helpful hands in the kitchen, for Jacob's drive to put up holiday lights, for Kate's never ending energy and Scott's helpful clean up of the kitchen. And those thankful things were just for one day. I have many other reasons to give thanks continually. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that loves and protects my children. I am thankful for the ability to most of the time to see challenges as blessings. I am grateful for the opportunities and blessings that come into my life regularly. I try to keep my eyes open and see the blessings around me. I am surrounded by my family who continually make me stretch to see beyond what I think I know. Most of all I am grateful for my savior who saved me with his own blood.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was Sunday. Nathan called me in the morning. It was so nice to hear from him! Scott gave me special foot massage lotion. The kids took turns rubbing my feet. I love to have my feet rubbed. :) The kids gave me a new set of dishes I wanted. Tyra & Caleb came for dinner. The only thing missing was a game night.

I am so happy to be a mother and have eight wonderful children!

St. Patrick's Day

We began the day with cinnamon rolls and sent the kids off to school. I had planned to make a green dinner with "monster soup" (split pea soup), but some of the kids made a fuss. I suppose this is expected when there are teenagers around. A leprechaun brought gold coins for the kids at dinnertime.

The weather has been so beautiful. I hope it lasts! On Sunday I was released from the Young Woman's as Laurel Advisor and given the calling of Visiting Teaching Supervisor. There is about a month left of school and I am looking forward to completing the semester. I have a list of projects I would like to work on during the summer.

In the last few weeks I have read the Eragon series. The series begins with the book Eragon which is about a boy who by an odd chain of events hatches a dragons egg and becomes a dragon rider. There is a movie about this book, but as always there is much more to the book than the movie. The second book in the series is Eldest. This book is filled with magical creatures and battles. The third book in the series is Brisinger. The journey continues and the confrontation of good and evil takes place. These books are written by Christopher Paolini and each is about 500 to 700+ pages long. I enjoyed the story but now have to wait for the fourth and final book in the series to be published.

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's is on its way! We have a tradition of cutting out hearts and writing nice things on them. Some years I buy gel pens and glitter so we can decorate them and post them on the wall in the dinning room. That is how it is suppose to work. To encourage nice thoughts and actions I fill a jar with candy and offer one piece for every nice note. I soon had to limit the notes to 10 a day, per person. That makes it so you can write one for each family member per day. If everybody does that its 100 notes. Some how we always run out of candy before we run out of heart notes to write on.

Since Valentine's Day arrives on a Saturday this year I am planning a fun breakfast. Better than the Denny's breakfast some of us had earlier in the month. I will serve cinnamon rolls, eggs and sausage and maybe pancakes. Fun, fun!

Chinese New Year

Yesterday, we celebrated Chinese New Year. Jacob and I prepared orange chicken, beef & broccoli, egg rolls, stir fry veggies, rice and panda express sauce. Pillows were set in the living room and the coffee table was covered in a red table cloth with chopsticks at every place. Nate, Tyra & Caleb came to eat with us. We couldn't just begin because kids were arguing over who got to sit where. Specifically, Andrew (11) and Nate (21) were fighting over the same spot. Nate wouldn't move. Andrew told him he had to move because Andrew had already licked his plate. Who licks their plate before there is any food on it? Well, I guess Andrew does. Dinner was great! We ate so much food.

December 1st

It's December 1st! I love the Christmas holiday! Over the weekend we put up the Christmas tree and put lights on it. The children are excited to begin reading stories around the tree tonight. A tradition we began when they were tiny. We read short stories and a few longer stories like "A Christmas Carol". I like to add to our collection every year.

Every year, I look for ways to bring "Christ" into our Christmas celebration. For this reason I am irritated by the "greedy gimmies" that seem to infect our family. I try to encourage the children to think of others (like their siblings) and what they would like to do for them, rather than what they want for themselves.