#GiveThanks Day 7

 My Family

#GiveThanks Day 6

 Friends

#GiveThanks Day 5

 My membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

#GiveThanks Day 4

 I am grateful for Jesus Christ.

#GiveThanks Day 3

 I am thankful for Clara, John, Margaret, Eliza, Marie.

#GiveThanks Day 2

 I am thankful for Kelly. The best thing in my life.

#GiveThanks Day 1

 I am thankful for President Nelson!

Halloween

    It has been so fun to think about the costumes this Halloween. Clara cowardinted with her friend Mylee and were hippies. The trick or treated together and watched fun movies. It took a while to figure out Sherlock for John but when we landed on it was a great moment! Margaret wore my old junior high school cheerleading uniform. We were all surprised when it fit. I told her that I kept it all these years thinking that maybe one of my children would want to wear it for a halloween costume and it happened! It was so fun for me. Eliza picked out her dress and wanted to coordinate with Marie. She was Little Miss Muffet and Marie was the spider. Marie started out not liking her costume but Kelly was sweet, perfect, and persuasive and she grew very happy.  It was nice to go to a trunk or treat and hit homes of our friends. Total success! 

Little Girls in PJ's

 

Puzzle Time

 

Fall

The biggest apples we have gotten from our tree.

I have personally discovered what people have known for a long time. Sweet peas are amazing!

Carrot tops on my counter.

After School

    

    I am so happy. I feel like we have finally landed on some things that work so well for our family. Currently we do this on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  We say a prayer in the car and before the kids can have a snack, they have to finish their daily jobs. I have really been trying to make it so so fun. I bought this fabulous pitcher that is in the shape of a fish and it glugs when you pour it. It makes the experience just a little more sensory.   Margaret's favorite snack is the mummies. Eliza and mine has been the pumpkin shaped cheese ball. Marie really liked the pumpkin cuties. 

        After snack we head into the living room for read aloud time. Inspired by a comment Aunt Rhonda made back when we lived in Pocatello and Sarah McKenzie with Read Aloud Revival. The children sometimes work on projects or color. But mostly just sit and listen. We are currently reading Wind and the Willow but over the last long while we have read, The Secret Garden, The Bronze Bow, Heidi, The Little Princess. There are still a lot of unnecessary interruptions but it is mostly Marie. She is two so I am cutting her and me some slack. For a while I wondered if Eliza was getting anything out of it. But, in the car one day, she pulled out of no where a comment about the "bit of earth" part of The Secret Garden. I was so pleased and proud. 

    Because we have eaten and rested a bit, the kids are ready to do their music. The routine was a long  time in coming. And I am sure it will change again and sooner than expected. But for right now this is what is working for us and it give me a lot of pleasure. 

Volleyball

    Margaret did volleyball this fall. It was so fun and interesting to watch her play. from her first game she improved so much. In one really really close game, her team was down one point. Margaret got to go up and scored one to tie, and a second to win the game! It was a fun fun surprise. We love Margaret's fun and genuine way. 
 

Eliza is Five

 

   

     Eliza is bright and funny! She always likes to look beautiful and sometimes takes offence when she might be considered cute.  She can read and has started the violin. She is really imaginative and makes up stories and plays with the blocks and animals. She is self aware and perceptive. She adores preschool and her teacher Mrs. Janee. She is so so special to our family. We couldn't do without her.

Staycation

     We sure have a good time having fires in our backyard. We roast hotdogs and marshmallows then sing some songs. After, we go inside and sleep in our comfortable beds! Perfect!

The Second Coming

    In march, like many people,  I idly wondered if we were going to experience a bubonic plague of epic proportion. Where two thirds of the population die and it will be the end of western civilization as we know it!

 Turns out, that what I didn't know was that, in a way, our worrying and overreaction WOULD be an end. Plus a start of something different  in a way that was unforeseeable.

    I watched an old TV series by Kenneth Clark called Civilization. In it he talked about what makes a civilization. He also touched a little on how they start and end. At the end of the series he quoted a poem by Yeats called "The Second Coming." It captured a little of what I think and feel about all that has happened recently.       

                                       

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.


    It is doom and gloom but professes a truth that was easy to see expressed in the "cancel everything  idea" and riots and looting.

    Not long after hearing this poem Clara and I came to the epilogue of president Hinckley's "Standing for Something" . It was a message of hope and conviction. In it he quoted Paul. "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;"

    That is where President Hinckley stopped but Paul goes on to say,

    "For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worked for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;"

    President Hinckley and Paul are so uplifting to my spirit. I love the wes, ours, and uses. The message that everything is for my good and our good, that gratitude contributes greatly to any situation.

That the Lord has conquered all, has given, and continues to give me, significant and uplifting hope. 

    

    My dahlias are not quite tucked away for winter. I will get it done. I have ordered some more for next year and I am already looking forward to it.

Lunch

     With the big kids at school Eliza, Marie and me have been making the most out of lunch.We take the time to learn about flowers, butterflies, and paintings on picture cards. Right now we are doing bugs! Also, Eliza and I read a book about a little girl that would visit her Grandmother after school and drink milk from a china cow. She just had to have one too! So we made it happen. Now it is a fun ritual in addition to the cards. I am grateful to have this time with the little girls

Sunday Twirling

 

Rose and Dry Aged Beef

Kelly has been dry aging some beef and it was finally ready for my birthday. He is so so kind. We loved the flavor and are excited to eat some more.