Thursday, November 25, 2010

Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving! I have so much to be grateful for: a hard working husband who loves me, two healthy daughters that keep me smiling, a car that works well, a warm home to live in, good health, a fridge full of food, contacts and glasses (I'd be blind without them), the Book of Mormon, the gift of the Holy Ghost, laughter, exercise, lots of blankets, a closet full of clothes, repentance, forgiveness, a living Prophet, my wonderful parents, tons of siblings, loving in-laws, great friends who make living away from family doable, a washer and dryer. . . .the more I write, the more I think of! Yesterday I read President Monson's talk from conference, "The Divine Gift of Gratitude". I love this talk! It has motivated me to make gratitude a dominant part of my life.

Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve all of the blessings I have, especially when I see others with much harder lives than mine. A family on my mind and in my prayers a lot lately is my Aunt Merri, Uncle Reed and their children. Reed has cancer and is in constant pain. His sickness has made it impossible to work resulting in the loss of his law firm and possible foreclosure of their home. They are a wonderful family and are handling these hard circumstances well. A friend of theirs has set up a blog in their honor where people can donate money to help them out. If you have any money to spare, they can definitely use it. Please keep them in your prayers too!


Thursday, November 11, 2010

Life

Lately I've been thinking a lot about life-it can be so hard and confusing sometimes. The other I was struggling to feel peace in my life and this song came into my head.

Where Can I Turn for Peace?

Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger or malice,
I draw myself apart, Searching my soul?

Where, when my aching grows, Where when I languish,
Where, in my need to know,where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand? He, only One.

He answers privately, Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind, Love without end.

It was just what I needed to hear at that moment. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ! I know he understands us personally. I also know that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers. Life is hard, but with their help we can make it through it. I look forward to the day when I can kneel at my Savior's feet and thank him for suffering for me, for being their for me in my darkest hours, and for loving me always. I look forward to the day when I can hug my Father in Heaven and tell him how much I've missed him. I know they live!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Halloween


We had a lot of fun this Halloween season with tons of fun activities. We got invited to our first grown-up costume party. I haven't dressed up for a few years because I always wait until the last minute, then can't think of anything. Well, I still waited until the last minute but was still able to think of something quick and cheap.

In case you can't tell, I'm a black widow and Kirk is my dinner-a tasty fly. I ran to the Goodwill and got a big pair of black pants for 29 cents to make my legs. I didn't have stuffing, but discovered a good use for the heaping pile of plastic grocery sacks we have. For Kirk's costume we used Luci's fairy wings. She was not too happy about this and sure made a stink out of it! .

For family night we had our friends down stairs over to make "haunted" ginger bread houses. It was a lot of fun. I think we all ate twice as much frosting and candy as we used on our houses.

That's a giant marshmallow in Luci's mouth.


My house didn't really look haunted in the end. Oh well.

Kirk made a dragula. Leave it to him to be the most creative.

Trick or Treat night here was on the 28th. Our town always designates which day the kids go trick or treating so it doesn't fall on the same night as a football game. We took Luci and Clara around with some neighbor friends. A lot of the people in our complex don't have kids and didn't realize it was trick or treat night. The first three doors we knocked on they opened the door only to tell us they didn't have candy. Most of the people who did have kids where out taking their own kids trick or treating so there were slim pickings that night. We ended up finding a group of kids who were older and faster than our group and could tell us which apartments had candy. All in all they still got plenty of candy.






On Friday night we had a chili potluck and trunk or treat with our ward. I'm the activities chairman and was in charge of it, so I was a little nervous it wouldn't turn out. We combined it with the other ward in our town and had a great turn out. I wish I would have taken pictures, but I was too busy running around making sure things ran smoothly.

This year we got invited to two pumpkin carving parties. Once again I forgot to bring our camera and didn't get around to taking a picture of them until they were rotting. The first one is Dora. The second one was a face that Luci dictated to Kirk as he carved it: Mean Eyebrows, pigtails, a triangle nose, and smile. The last one was my attempt to carve Clara's face. I gave it six teeth just like Clara (they've already rotted away in this picture) and a dimple. It really was quite hideous and definitely did not look like Clara!


On Sunday we had our traditional Halloween dinner. This year we made witches fingers with blood, mummy pizzas, goblin spit drink, and bat wing salad.

It took me forever to slice long strips of cheese for the mummy pizzas. Afterward Kirk told me that I could have just used string cheese. duh! I'll remember that for next year.

Luci doesn't usually like to dip her bread sticks in marinara sauce, but for some reason calling it blood made it really appetizing for her.

This is our goblin spit drink. It's really avocado milk, a yummy Brazilian drink made with milk avocado and sugar.

And we didn't forget about Clara. Here is her scary dinner. it didn't take much to make that look scary. She barely touched it. She still isn't a fan of baby food.

That about wraps up October for us. By the time Halloween came around we had done so many festivities that it felt like it was already over.