No ordinary Day

This morning started off crazy and cranky.  I was in a mood.  It was my day to volunteer at the temple...and I love going...but I had tons I wanted to get done.  So I tried to be productive before I went and ended up being late.  And it was SUPER slow which makes for a very long day.  BUT, shortly after arriving, we found out one of our church leaders, President Deiter Uchtdorf was in the temple!  It was highly likely that he would  come down to the baptistery!  Well, he did!  I only got to see him walk past us.  Now, he looked at each one of the three of us and said hello, but I didn't reach out my hand.  It would have been slightly awkward.  But now I so regret it.  I wish I would have just done it.  Don't get me wrong, it's way cool to have a General Authority look you in the eyes and say hello, but a handshake would have been wonderful.  

After spending the day wishing I would have just done it, I had and experience as I was handing out towels to a man doing baptisms for his immediate family members.  He came out of the font in tears. Beautiful tears of joy.  I just wanted to hug him...but he was wet...and I'm a strange woman.  So I didn't.  But then I remembered my regret with the handshake.  This man needed a hug!  So when he came out dry, I made eye contact with him and told him I just wanted to hug him.  So I did!  And it wasn't weird at all.  We talked about the work he was doing and his family situation, it was nice.  As he was leaving, he came over to me and shook my hand and thanked me.  Not weird at all, perfect.  

So what started out as cranky and dumb, ended up being a beautiful day!  Plus, as I was heading home, this is what I saw.  I never tire of seeing that beautiful building glow.  God lives and He love us...all of us!  Even me. ♥

It's Fun Here

Random silliness at our house:

Kneeling for family prayer, it's Bo's turn and this is what we hear.... I pledge allegiance to the flag...

Driving to school and the kids are talking about how old their friend's mom is.  Well the Mom's birthday is on the 13th and the daughter's bday is 13 days later.  Cool right?  Bo says "hey, together you are a marathon!"

Eating dinner and some how (one never knows) how the subject of eating humans came up and Bo says "yah, that's carnivalism".

It's amazing how a wrong vowel can cause a serious case of the giggles.  You know..when reading a book and you accidentally read "snow fArt" instead of "snow fOrt".  Kinda ruins the story.

Or when you suggest to a 7 year old girl that we should cut her hair into a bob and she grabs her head yelling "noooooo!"  But then asks....what's a bob?  But then ends up looking like this:

It's pretty fun living with all these weird people.  I wouldn't have it any other way! ♥

Some days just feel Happy

Ya never see 'em coming and sometimes you may not even notice when they are here.  But then there are those days that just feel HAPPY.  Today is that day.  A day at home, no real obligations.  Cleaned up from the weekend first thing, then did a bit of "stock up" grocery shopping.  That does always make me happy! Filled my gas tank with the rewards I earned stocking up too.   Sat in my clean house watching a sweet Christmas movie with a diet coke and chocolate chip cookie.  Fed my chickens and saw 2 eggs!  Plus, I didn't sweat to death while doing it. All the while wearing comfy clothes.  It's all pretty simple, you see.  That's the beauty...feeling happy with the "mundane".  Doesn't happen often unfortunately, so it's pretty awesome when you can take  notice and appreciate just feeling HAPPY.  Now, it's only one in the afternoon......

Pre Christmas

Prepare for gush.  I don't know what it is about this year and Christmas, but I have just been so "touched" by my kids desire to love the holiday.  It's one thing when Mom sets the tone and they live here so I'm exposing them to it constantly.  They just sort of HAVE to go along.  But this year has been different.  Don't get me wrong, I've done plenty of exposing, but they've also just done things on their own.  Whitley who has always been adamant about waiting till after Thanksgiving has expressed her anticipation and excitement for Christmas already this year.  Chelsey is always excited and ready to go, so that's good.  Same with Mom...early isn't a problem.  But even Stephen in one of his letter expressed a "thought" he had about me and  Christmas a while ago.  Then one night, Rhett called me from work and put the phone to his music he had playing...Christmas music.  That's all on his own.  Then yesterday I got a text from Taylor, Stephen's friend, saying she can't stop wanting Christmas music and stuff.  She said we were rubbing off on her, lol.    My point is...I LOVE Christmas and now my children do as well.  For what ever reason, it makes my heart really happy.

So in an effort to extend the season without imposing on those around us, me, Mom, Chelsey and Whitley have decide to celebrate Pre Christmas. That means music, movies and crafting...all legal! Every Wednesday we are going to get together and do crafts and Christmas-y stuff. This week we put together some gift type things.  Mom made a pumpkin roll, I made pumpkin cookies and Chelsey  brought stuff for pumpkin bread.  I guess we were all on the same page!  I love sharing the holidays with people who love them like I do!!

Date with Katy

Katy is quite the Mama's girl and requires a certain amount of time and snuggles.  These past weeks we have been really busy with the play.  Though we are both there all the time, we don't actually spend it "together".  I could see this starting to wear on her as she became increasingly whiny and cried over the simplest of things.  She had a melt down over a tough math problem one day.  Every morning was a battle.  Just not herself.  So all the kids had practice one night except me and her.  So we went on a date!!  

She has been having problems with her ears so we stopped at Claire's to get her a few pair of better quality earrings.  Then we played on the playplace before heading to Dairy Queen for a blizzard. After, we went to Kohl's to get her some black shoes she needed for the performance.  We spent the whole night talking and holding hands and doing math problems (her request).  It was a good night together!  

Halloween 2014

Halloween came quickly this year.  We were ready with our costumes thanks to Grandma's genious sewing abilities.  We had a hard time finding a time when everyone could make it to carve pumpkins, but we finally settled on a Sunday evening.  Homemade pizza and pumpkin cookies.  We also spent an evening at Vertuccio Farms with 50 of our closest friends.  If you had a group of 30+, it was only $5 to get in.  The group just grew and grew!  The kids had a great time.  Bo and I entered the chili cook off for our ward Trunk or Treat.  He was so excited.  I don't think he realized my chili comes from a CAN.  But we gave it a shot and ended up with no trophy, but it was fun doing it together.  He never heard them announce the winner, so he assumed we probably won since ours was all gone.  Works for me!!  I had to volunteer in the temple that day, so it was a little crazy getting everyone ready to go in time, but we made it!  Glade even joined in this year and went as a pirate with me and Katy.  He has a soft spot for that girl.  Grandma came and eventually so did Chelsey, Spencer and Brynlee.  

Rhett had to work that night so after we collected all our goodies, we went to Taco Bell to say hi to him.  It was fun to just chill together as a family.  I was glad it was over though, I like it less and less each year.  Probably because my kids are just older now.  But it was a good month and we all had a fun holiday! 

F for Blogging

You know where the road paved with good intentions leads.....well I wish I could say there was much to report on, but there just isn't.  The last month has just been all the normal stuff..busy busy busy.  Flag football finally ended.  That was killer for me.  XC came to an abrupt end when Rhett got "demoted" from the varsity team which made him ineligible to go to state, because he over slept and missed practice.  Can't say I'm too sad about that either.  Other than he just wasted an entire season not really putting in much effort.  The play is this weekend so that will be over as well.  I'm seriously ready to do NOTHING.  Both Rhett and Brooklyn said they were going to sign up for tennis just for fun.  I said "um..NO".  I'm tired and I'm not spending $300 for you to participate in something you don't even know if you like during the holidays.  We are taking a break!!

It was about that time that I got an email letting me know about our Ward  Christmas Party planning meeting.  I didn't even know I was on the committee.  Apparently they just decided to use the same committee as last year.  I really am happy to help, but occasionally it's nice to just "show up" to something.

Glade got released from being Elders Quorum Pres this past week or so.  It was a hard thing, but probably good at the same time.  He hasn't been given a new calling as of yet, but they did advance him to a high priest.  I'm still in scouting.  Glade has been running like crazy.  I've wanted to run like crazy.  It's funny when your dilemma is being too fat to run, but if you don't, you just keep getting fatter.  But I did run four miles 3x this week.  Hopefully I can get to the end of the turkey trot.

News on Nick.  He was pretty sure he would be home by Christmas, but they are still working on his risk assessment and his next court date is the end of Jan.  I can't say I'm too sad about that.  I was kind of stressing out about having him home for the holidays.  I'm not really ready to have him home, but not sure what else we would do with him.  At least we can get through the holidays now.  I do think it sucks that he'll have been in a year and 3 months with no sentence yet.  That seems stinky.  On the other end, Stephen is doing great in Hawaii and seems to absolutely love everything about his mission.

The best thing....Christmas is coming!!!