New Beds!

There's a furniture store in town that's going out of business, and we decided to go in and see what they had in the way of bunk beds. Well, we walked out with a great deal on two sets of bunk beds. One for the girls room and one for the boys room. They have book shelves, a dresser, and a desk. Very nice. They've all really loved having their new beds. After we set them up they played on them for hours.

We weren't sure how William would do sleeping in Alan's room in a new bed. But he loves it!! He's had no problem going to bed and staying asleep since he started sleeping in there. Big relief.

Now we have his old room for guests.... in case any of you want to come visit... hint.. hint..

Ice storm

It rained ice!! Everything was covered in ice, and the kids got 2 days off of school. I thought I'd share some pictures. The coolest icicles were the ones on the leaves that looked like drips of water.

Future Missionaries

On the first Sunday of the New Year, we were sitting in Sacrament meeting listening to the testimonies, when William decided to walk up to the stand to bear a testimony of his own. He didn't say anything to me before, and at first, when he left the bench, I thought he was just being wiggly and trying to get away from me, so I started after him. But then I noticed he was marching straight up to the stand. I thought he would go to his Dad (he's a counselor in the Bishopric) but he went right past him toward the microphone. Tom got up immediately to help him, but William didn't seem to notice or be seeking his Dad's help. William stepped right up on the little step they have for children, and began to speak. He still doesn't speak too well, so his words were a not really understandable, but he mentioned "presents" and "Thomas", and some other things, and then said, "Amen". After he said Amen he just walked right back to our bench and sat down. He seemed completely confident and unafraid. I was shocked. My little wild one whom we often call "William The Conquerer", who almost never sits still in Sacrament meeting, bore his testimony at just 3 years old.
Then, just last week, Alan got to speak at a baptism. A little boy in our ward who really likes Alan and looks up to him asked him to speak on the Holy Ghost at his baptism. I helped Alan find some scriptures on the Holy Ghost, and gave him some help in writing it, but I don't think I needed to. At the baptism when it was time for him to speak, he confidently went to the podium and shared his talk. It was a very good talk, and a very good experience for him. This was the first talk he's given out of primary, and he did a great job.
I'm so excited to see my kids get older and grow strong in the gospel. It makes me feel really happy to know that they are trying to do what's right.

Christmas!!

I'm a little late in posting about Christmas because Tom and I have been busy taking care of very sick Kaitlyn and William. They both have been sick since the 22nd of December with high fevers and flu like symptoms. (Kaitlyn still had a fever of 102.8 yesterday. We think it's finally broken today) They were so sick on Christmas Eve that I took them to the Emergency Room. It was a big waste of time because they told us that they just had viruses-with 104 fever in Kaitlyn and 102 in William- it was a pretty bad virus.

While I was at the Hospital with William and Kaitlyn, Tom and Alan and Sarah went over and spent Christmas Eve with our good friends the Ence's. When we got back from the hospital William and Kaitlyn and I were tired and sad and lonely without everyone else. We just ate some food from Burger King for dinner. And if anyone knows me, that is definately not what I would normally do for a Christmas Eve Dinner. :(

Then when Tom and Alan and Sarah got back, we read through the Christmas story in Luke 2, but didn't really act it out like we usually do because Kaitlyn and William were feeling so horrible. Then everyone went to bed and waited for Santa.

Christmas morning was joyful, but Kaitlyn was feeling so bad that she didn't really notice her presents, and took herself to bed after Breakfast. She slept all day with her fever never going lower than 101 even with lots of Tylenol and Motrin-alternating. William was feeling pretty bad himself, but was able to enjoy the morning and presents before taking himself to bed later that morning as well.

Here's a few of the pictures of the day.

Sarah told us that she wanted chocolate for Christmas. She got a one pound Hershey Bar in her stocking, but also this Giant Chocolate Bar Pillow which she loves.

Here they are opening a present from Uncle Mark and Aunt Spring. They got a "Grow a Frog" kit. We'll send out for the tadpole and then we'll get to watch it grow. Thankyou Mark and Spring! We'll keep you posted about how that goes. Here's Alan with his "Air Hogs" Helicopter. That was the main thing he wanted. He was so excited to fly it around the house. Even Tom has had fun playing with it. Alan also got an Mp3 player which has been filled with lots of John William's Music (the composer of Star Wars music, Indiana Jones music, and Superman music) as well as other music he likes. William is enjoying a new dart gun he found in his stocking. He also got a real talking Buzz Light Year and and a Woody Doll. He loves them. Kaitlyn got dress up clothes for her dolls and a super cute and super real looking metal shopping cart by Mellissa and Doug.

Then, later on that night Tom had to go out to get some more medicine for Kaitlyn and William, and when he opened the door, he saw snow falling!! It was the first time any of us have ever seen snow falling on Christmas. It was so fun to see, that we all piled in the van and drove with Tom over to the Wal-greens just so we could see it snow more. Here's our house on Christmas night. Our Santa decoration wouldn't stand up because the snow was so wet and heavy. He kept falling over, so we just left him like that. It was so fun to see snow and Christmas lights at the same time. It only snowed for about an hour, but it was fun while it lasted. It was a happy way to end our Christmas day.

Fun Christmas pillows

This is a fun little Christmas project we did this morning. I got some felt and some string and we made some cute Christmas pillows. I did the ornament. Sarah did the big tree, Kaitlyn and William took turns making the little tree. It was just simple sewing around the edge, and then we hot glued on the decorations. It was a good project for busy hands.

A sweet gift to give

A few years ago we received a neat Christmas gift from a friend in our ward. Instead of the usual plate of Christmas cookies and goodies, she gave us a candy house. She told us that when she was little her family would cover a new wooden bird house with candy, and they would eat from it throughout the Christmas season. They could use the house again the following year. So, her gift to us was just that- a candy house- that we've been able to reuse each year.

This year, we decided to do the same thing for our friends who have 8 children in their family. I bought a bird house from Michaels, made some royal icing, and covered it with candy. They loved it!

Ginger bread Houses

Kaitlyn went to a Ginger bread event at the local library sponsored by the Georgia Cyber Academy (her home school program). Everyone who went brought a gingerbread house they decorated.
We built her ginger bread house around a gold fish box that we cut to make it the right size. After we cut the gold fish box, we measured the sides and top, then made a paper pattern for the walls and roof. Then we rolled out the ginger bread, and put the pattern on the rolled dough and cut out the peices. Then we baked them in the oven, and let them cool. While they were baking and cooling, we made Royal Icing out of egg whites and powdered sugar. Once the peices of the house were cooled, we got to work.
Alan and Sarah also wanted to make a ginger bread house even though they couldn't go the home school event. So after they got home from school, they made their houses too.

Alan's house: Sarah's house:

They're now on display in our house. (Except for Kaitlyn's which we designated as the one we could eat. :)

Primary Nativity Pageant

The Relief Society asked the primary to reenact the Nativity for the ward Christmas party.
I thought I'd post a few of the photos of the exciting event.
Our primary has mainly 4 -6 year olds, so I needed to set it up in the easiest possible way. I had all the girls be angels, and all the boys be shepherds except for the main parts. I made 3 little "scenes". The stable was on the stage, the shepherds were in the right corner of the gym next to the stage, and King Herod's palace with the wisemen were in the left corner of the gym next to the stage. I stacked up some old room dividers to make the scenes for the wisemen and the shepherds.

Alan and Sarah were Mary and Joseph. They waited at the back of the gym while the Narrator -(an 8-yr-old in our primary with a very expressive reading voice)- began to read in Luke 2. Mary and Joseph walked from door to door in the gym looking for room. They finally came to the door in the right front corner of the gym where the innkeeper was waiting. He shook his head when they came to the door, but then pointed to the stage on the stable indicating there was room there. Here they are looking for room: Here they are in the stable on the stage. You can see the Narrator next to the piano, and I'm sitting at the piano. Then, "nearby" in the fields, the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night, when the angel of the Lord appeared to them. No one had a speaking part except for the angel. She was a girl in our senior primary who is going to be 12 in a few weeks, so she said that she could memorize the angel's part. She did a great job.
Then, suddenly, there was with the angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and singing. All the girls in primary were angels, and they sang the chorus to "Far, Far Away on Judea's plains". Kaitlyn is first angel on the left.This next picture is of the shepherds visiting the stable. The star is a Christmas tree star I put on the top of some PVC pipe. Our primary Secretary is an artist, she put make up on the shepherds faces to make them look like they had beards. I also got some large plastic candy canes for the shepherds to use as shepherds crooks.
On the left side of the stage on the floor was King Herod's palace. After the shepherds came to the stable, the Narrator read in Matthew 2 where the wisemen came to King Herod asking where the "King of the Jews" was born. Here's King Herod pointing at the star and telling them to follow it.

Santa? Did you come to the park?

We went to the park on Monday and had a nice lunch, and then walked around and discovered all sorts of fun things. Kaitlyn is at the stage where she's putting sounds together and starting to read. So, as we were walking around, I'd write the words of some of the things we were finding in the dirt. She loved discovering the words and reading them. At one point we decided to walk along a dried up stream bed. As we were walking, we saw some animal footprints. We thought they were dog prints at first, but then when we looked closer, we saw that they were deer prints.

Kaitlyn immediately thought they were Santa's reindeer prints, and we had to follow them to see if we could find him. We didn't find Santa, or his reindeer, but we had alot of fun.

William's 3rd Birthday

William's Birthday was on a Sunday this year, and he and I were both sick with pretty bad colds. So, we had a nice little family birthday. We had meatloaf for dinner (one of his favorites), and after dinner we opened presents. He got a toy helicopter and a fire truck. He loves them.
For his cake, I decided that I would let him decorate it himself. He loves to "help" me cook, so I thought he'd really enjoy doing his own cake. He helped me make up the cake batter, and got to put the food coloring in the frosting. Then, when it was time to decorate it, he was ready. He had fun pouring on the sprinkles-mainly all in the same place, but it was so much fun for him to do it with out anyone correcting him or telling him how to do it.

Here he is happy with his masterpeice:Daddy helped him cut the cake.

Here's a video of our goofy boy blowing out his candles:

Stuffing

I have memories of making old-fashioned sage dressing/stuffing with my family the night before Thanksgiving. We'd get out the celery, the bread, the butter, the onion, the sage, and all work together to put it together. My mom would get out the large stainless steel bowl to fill it with stuffing, and large frying pan, then we'd get to work. This is a tradition that I like to continue especially since we've never had Thanksgiving with my mom in the 13 years since we've been married.

Here's what we do:

First, we'd put two cubes of butter in the frying pan:

Then we tear a whole loaf of bread into peices. William and Kaitlyn had this job, mostly. Then we'd chop up an entire bunch of celery and one large onion. Sarah chopped the celery with my help, and Alan chopped up the onion with Tom's help.

Then we'd sautee the onion and celery in the butter until the onion was clear and the celery was soft. Then we add 2-3 TBspns of sage and some salt and pepper to the pan and mix it with the onion, celery and butter. Then we pour the frying pan mixture into the large bowl of torn bread and mix it all together. You put it in the refridgerator until ready to stuff the bird.

I know it may not be the most exciting recipe, but it's tradition, and being so far from home, I'm very thankful for family traditions.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Family Home Evening

For FHE tonight we learned about the first Thanksgiving. We sang Hymn number 93 "Prayer of Thanksgiving" and then we watched "William Bradford: The first Thanksgiving" from the animated Hero Classics. (You can click on the picture and it will take you to the listing for it on Amazon.com for $10.50)

After that we made "pear turkeys" and "plymouth rocks".

Here's our "Plymouth Rocks" made from nuts, marshmallows and melted chocolate: