Thanksgiving 2011

This year we had Thanksgiving Dinner at my mom's house. While the turkey was finishing. Lea, Jonah, and I made some cute little turkeys of our own. These were super fun to make and soooo yummy to eat. Chocolate covered marshmallows, chocolate striped shortbread cookies, and candy corn - YUM!

Here are my mom and brother David making mashed potatoes. I couldn't get the pictures to straighten out. Cute cooks!

Lea helped my mom set the table and she made the placecards for the table. Good handwriting Lea!

We missed my brother Steven who is in Washington, and also all of our family in Utah. We are grateful for you all! Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble Me Up!

Happy Thanksgiving! I found a fun idea for a Thanksgiving snack for the kids today. We are enjoying this vacation from school and getting into the Holiday season. These fruit turkey's were so much fun to put together and very tasty to eat!

Precious Feelings of the Spirit

Lea will be 8 in a few weeks. Daniel and I had a talk with her about her choice to be baptized or not. She asked "It's a choice?" We explained that yes it is a choice. We followed the scripture in Moses 6:57 which says, "Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent, or they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God, for no unclean thing can dwell there, or dwell in his presence." We explained the purpose of Jesus Christ is to be our Savior - to save us from our sins so that we can be made clean to enter in our Heavenly Father's presence in the next life. If we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and follow His commandments we can be made clean through baptism and repentance. The 4th article of faith for our church states that "The first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, second, repentance, third baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost." We also talked about prayer and how we can pray to our loving Father in Heaven to know if a decision we want to make is right. Lea told us that she wanted to think about getting baptized and pray about it. We encouraged her to do so and we told her to let us know when she had made her decision. We had a family prayer and sent the kids off to bed. Daniel went to a boy scout meeting at that point and I went into my room to get pj's on and get comfy for the night. A little while later Lea came into my room and with a big smile she said, "Mom, it's a YES!" She was glowing. I hugged her and asked her about her experience. She explained that as she was praying she felt a warm feeling that spread all the way down her body. I told her that was the feeling of the Spirit. A minute later, Jonah came in with a solemn face to say that he had prayed to know if he should get baptized and he wanted to know what it meant when he started to get a little itchy and a warm feeling. He asked if that was Heavenly Father saying yes or no. I told him having a warm, tingly and good feeling means you are making the right choice. And he smiled real big and his eyes were excited as he exclaimed "He said yes!?!" Jonah was so happy. I was truly humbled by these individual and precious experiences that my beautiful children had feeling the wonderful goodness of the Holy Ghost and experiencing an answer to their prayers. It was awesome that they have such pure faith that they received immediate answers to their prayers. This experience for me strengthened my testimony of Jesus' teachings when he said to "become as little children" (Matthew 18:3). I am inspired by the pure faith and desire to do what's right in my precious children. I also love the simple yet powerful way that we receive confirmation from the Holy Ghost of Gospel principles.

"Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me." Alma 32:28

This was a very special experience with my treasured children and I am so happy for the righteous desires of their hearts. I love them so much!

My boys...

watching football. :)

Happy Halloween

Daniel and the kids carved pumpkins the day before Halloween.

Here are the jack-o-lanterns all lit up.

That night we had a yummy dinner at my mom's house with spiders and "greeny meanies". Yum!

Halloween!!!

Thanks to a great friend and my awesome mom I was fortunate enough to be able to help at Jonah's and Lea's school Halloween parties. Everyone loved Jonah's costume and they were all impressed with his shaved head.

Lea and Jonah loved being in costume with all of their friends.

Ninjas were very popular this year among first graders and here is Jonah posing with a few of them.

Grandma and Micah came to watch Lea and Jonah in their school parade.

Lea's second grade class.

Lea loves her teacher Mrs. Bundenthal.

Let the trick-or-treating begin!

Our neighbor Olivia was dressed as Minnie Mouse so I had to get a picture of Mickey and Minnie. Unfortunately Micah wasn't in the mood to pose for a picture. He wanted to get on with the trick-or-treating.

After going down our street we went trick-or-treating at Grandma's house and to her neighbors. By this time Micah was getting the hang of things and he stopped after several houses to say. "I like this Mom."

My mom took the kids home and put them to bed so Daniel and I could go to a Halloween party. I went as Little Red Riding Hood and Daniel was the Big Bad Wolf.

We played "Minute To Win It" games and had a great time. Happy Halloween!