Uncle Matt was handing out stuff he got from his trip to Thailand
Emily and Dessie dancing
Rebecca was thrilled to get her own camera for Christmas and she put it to good use capturing plenty of candid Christmas pictures which I'll be posting soon.
In November we traveled down to join my sister Kara and her family as their sweet adopted baby Rachel was sealed to them in the temple. It was such a neat spiritual experience.
Rebecca's favorite class this year in school is choir. One night after prayer she led us in the "Baby Shark" song that she learned in choir. I love hearing her sing around the house!
The kids took their turns on Santa's lap at the Ward Christmas Party. Jacob said all he wanted was a candy cane........... and his wish was granted immediately. That was really his only motivation for waiting in the long line in the first place.
Emily was pretty excited to wear her "Been Good All Year" Shirt that she inherited from a friend when she went to sit on Santa's lap.
Jacob decorated this fun train for scouts. I was lucky to capture a photo before he devoured it!
The kids had a great time enjoying the snow during the first few days of Christmas break.
One of the sweet "candy bar moments" I had while preparing this lesson and studying these passages in the Book of Mormon about Nephi and Alma. I love how you can read the same passages over and over and yet glean different inspiration each time. As I was looking for principles relating to how Nephi and Alma dealt with their own feelings of inadequacy or unmet desires I compiled some notes for me to refer to in the future when I am struggling to appreciate the good things in life.
2 Nephi 4:17-35
1. v 20-23 Remember God’s blessings from the past (My God has been my support, filled me with love, confounded mine enemy, heard my cry, given me knowledge
2. v 24/30-34 Say a prayer of thanks and ask for God’s help
3. v 34-35 Write down your testimony
Alma 29:1-17
1. v 3 Recognize when our desires are off balance or are creating unhappiness for us ( I ought to be content)
2. v 4 Refocus on eternal perspective/big picture (salvation or destruction)
3. v 8 Trust in God’s will (Lord doth grant… all that he seeth fit that they should have)
4. v 9 Refocus on current callings/blessings (I may be an instrument in the hands of God)
5. v 10 Count your blessings (then do I remember what the Lord has done for me)
6. v 11 Draw strength from the past ( I also remember the captivity of my fathers…God did deliver them out of bondage.)
7. v 14 Focus outside of yourself (my joy is more full because of the success of my brethren)
Good Things:
Emily was not to enthused about participating in her school fun run, so I told her I would run it with her.
At the start I reminded her that if you sprint to hard at the beginning you'll lose energy to quickly and struggle at the end. Slow and steady wins the race. But as I struggled to keep up with her on the first lap, I could see that my SLOW pregnant pace was not going to help her win the race. So thankfully Jared took over to run the rest with her and she ended up being the 2nd place girl to finish in her grade.
The next day Jacob & Dan ran and Jared joined both of them 2 races in a row. It's obvious that their daily backyard football is keeping them in a lot better shape than me.
Alyssa's vocabulary has exploded lately. Some of her first words were the traditional....Mommy, Daddy, Cheese, Dano (Daniel), Shoe, Baby and BahBah (Bottle) and No (of course). But now that her repertoire has expanded her siblings favorite form of entertainment is getting her to snort like a piggy or woof like a dog.
More of Alyssa's Favorites:
Mr. Potato Head - We let the kids plant half of the garden this year so we grew plenty of red potatoes and (too many) pumpkins. So despite the mounds of weeds, it was nice to find some gems like this beneath the soil.
Emily had a nursery rhyme celebration at her school and chose to dress up as a pumpkin from "Five Little Pumpkins." It was so fun to watch her singing and acting out all the nursery rhymes and alpha character songs with so much expression. Her teacher says she is a model student. She loves school and gets a little frustrated on her "off" days that I can't spend all day doing learning activities with her like her teacher does!
For Red Ribbon week Jacob tried a new 'do for Crazy Hair Day,
Jared and I actually got (borrowed) a real costume this year for the couples party we went to. He was a little embarrassed after last year when everyone kept asking him what he was with his homemade "Daddy Long Legs" costume.
Rebecca's Halloween Costume Experiment
On the first day of November Rebecca, our food blog enthusiast lamented, "I'm so sad that October is over. We didn't make enough fun foods." But on Halloween night I did try to make some "Candy Corn Pizza" from my sister Kara's blog-which ended up being candy corn garlic bread instead.................oh so yummy!
