Love It/Hate It

Me and snow, we have a love/hate relationship, but today I am grateful for all of the snow we have received. Sean said it was hard to tell because it had drifted some, but he thinks we got about 18 inches over the past couple days. I love that it brings us moisture for the coming year. I love that it makes everything look so clean, pure, and pretty. I love that my boys have fun playing outside together. I love that Sean has a 4-wheeler and a plow because we have lots of driveway at our house. I hate driving in it (Sean loves driving in it, especially before it has been plowed). I hate when it gets later in the year and it is all gray and ugly. But, right now I can just be at home, so I am loving it today!

Family Traditions

Today I am grateful for family traditions and the chance it gives me to reflect on my childhood and all my parents did for me. When I was in elementary school, each year we made gingerbread houses for our teacher for Christmas. I started that same tradition with my children and it has been a fun one. This year is the last year we will make a teacher house as Trevin is in his last year of elementary school. I'm sure we will keep making houses every year though because my older boys have been out for years and still continue to make them every year. They just eat them themselves now. I think it would be fun to make them and take to older couples in our ward, maybe we will start that new tradition next year.

Tyrel made a head with spikey hair and a mullet this year instead of a house. Trevin made a house for his teacher Mrs. Dewey.

Travis made a dinosaur with his house pieces.

Travis and Trevin had fun cutting out cookies with the extra dough and they used them in their creations also.

Another Albert Einstein

Trevin had the 5th grade wax museum last Friday. He chose to be Albert Einstein. Each student picks a historical figure, reads a book about them, writes a report, makes a summary fact sheet and puts together a costume and a display. Then, on the day of the wax museum, they dress up and put up their display. The other classes in the school and the parents are invited to walk through the "museum". They sit very still like wax figures for 15 minutes, then they get a 5 minute break. They do it until lunch time so it is a lot of sitting.

I had to make a quick trip to Denver for a funeral, so I wasn't here for the day of the museum, but Sean made sure he had everything together and went to the museum and snapped some pictures. When I talked to Sean on the phone that night, he said he thought Trevin looked more like Marilyn Monroe than Albert Einstein. That gave me a good laugh. I guess we should have made sure he had a moustache, that might have helped, but I was rushed so it was as good as it could be.

I'm Starting Today

We had a wonderful Stake Conference today. I'm so glad I made it home for it. I just wanted to post a couple of my favorite parts.

President Trevort told a story about when their children were younger and they were giving them a family night lesson on helping out mom and keeping up on their chores and helping out more around home. He asked them what would happen if Jesus came to their home, would He be happy there and would He enjoy His stay. He said that his little 4 year olds eyes got big and said, "Oh yes! Jesus would be happy here. We would all sit on His lap and give Him hugs and kisses and feed Him if He was hungry." He was thinking it went straight over her head but then realized that she was the one that understood. It brought tears to my eyes and made me think about if our home was a place where Jesus would be happy if He came to the door. I think He would!

My favorite part of President Rosenbaum's talk was when he talked about some missionaries who asked President Eyring how they could be humble (I think it was him, someone correct me if I'm wrong). He gave them an answer but says now if he could do it over again he would tell them that the answer is in the Sacrament Prayer and we hear it every week, it is "To Always Remember Him." The talks that were given today got me really thinking about Christ our Savior. It helped me remember the real meaning of Christmas and I really enjoyed it.

Sister Pitts, who is he wife of the Provo mission president bore her testimony and said that when she first came on her mission she followed the counsel of President Eyring (now I don't know if he was the correct person from the other talk) of starting a gratitude journal. I remember being counseled to do that and they even gave us little notebooks at one of our Enrichment activities to do so but I never did. So, today, I decided it would be a good idea for me to make a post each day with what I'm grateful for this next year. I was going to start in January, but I may as well start now because I may forget by then.

So, today I am grateful that I was able to attend a wonderful Stake Conference and hear the talks about becoming closer to my Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Affects of Tryptophan

The saying must be true because even in a noisy room with all of us talking, this is what happened to grandpa and grandma after the yummy turkey dinner!



We has a smaller crowd than expected for Thanksgiving this year. There was only 17 of us and we made 6 pies! The food was great and I made 2 pumpkin and 1 apple cream pie. Then, according to tradition, the boys each made a pie also. Tyrel made chocolate peanut butter again this year. It is really rich so I cut it into lots of little pieces and it was still too big of pieces. Everyone had to share with their spouses.

Travis made a frozen chocolate mousse pie. It was hard to cut, but everyone loved it and thought it tasted like an ice cream pie.

Trevin made a banana cream. He rolled out the crust by himself (Travis and Tyrel used pre-made chocolate crumb crusts) and he even cooked the pudding instead of using the instant kind. It is the only pie that there is none left of today. It totally disappeared.

Haylee, Traci and I decided to do a Thanksgiving craft later in the evening while the boys were watching some football. I had some tiles left by the previous owners of our house, so we spent WAY TOOOOO much time trying to find the saying we wanted, but here is the one I did. This is word art from Elegant Word Art by Bethany and it is from The Proclamation To The World.

I love how it looks. Haylee did the same one as me and Traci did a different one, but she went shopping instead of finishing hers so I don't have a picture to post.

Happy Birthday Mom

I'm a week late with this, but Happy Birthday Mom!

Freedom is Never Free

As I went outside yesterday and saw all the flags lining the streets, I felt inspired to do this layout. I have always loved this statue and it took me forever to find a picture of it on the internet to use in the layout. I didn't know what it was called, so it took me a long time. I would love to go see it someday although I don't know where it is. I guess I should have looked at more information when I found the picture. Anyway, I just wanted to do a layout expressing my thanks for the rights, and freedoms I have and enjoy and thank those who have and who continue to make it so that I can continue to live in this country and enjoy the freedoms that I do. I'm thankful for the brave and courageous men and women who fight for the freedom that we all hold dear.