Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a pretty day with blue skies.  Our front maple tree was filled with about 8 Robins which is very unusual for this time of the year.  However by the time I got my phone, most of them had flown away.

Jessica, Elessia and Liam headed up around lunch time and we began a busy time of chopping and assembling some freezer meals for upcoming Baby Zander's arrival.  I made 5 for us as well so that we are covered during these last two weeks of the school semester.  Crock pot meals are great for cold winter days when you have homework to do. 

Jena wanted to make cookies with Scarlett and Liam so in the evening, we rolled out cookie dough and frosted cookies.  As you can see, they were hard workers with a little help from their moms.

The cookies were great!

It was fun having Jessica. Elessia and Liam spend the night.  It made it even more like a holiday.  And it came in handy, as Gary and I woke early to go down to Provo to visit Ben and then pick up our niece Anna at BYU and bring her back for a couple of days.  Jessica was here to put in the turkey and we were able to play a few rounds of dominos as well (while Liam was sleeping).

I had found this picture of our first Thanksgiving with Scott.  This was exactly 30 years ago and Scarlett is the exact same age as Scott was in this picture (well plus a few days older.)

This picture was taken on the front porch of our home in West Jordan.  Notice on the front row Scott and Jessica are the ones with bare feet.  The back row is Jake Bird, Christie McKinney.  Front row Carmen McKinney, Jessica, Chera Bird and Scott.  Arms are my sister-in-laws--Chera Bird and Vonette Kerr.

I had to remind our children that we didn't take 100 pictures of the same shot to make sure everyone is looking in the right direction and don't have their cookies in their mouths.

No pictures from Thanksgiving day but it was nice to make things together with Anna, Jessica, Elessia and Jena.  My dad and Karla came for dinner as well as Scott, Chantel and Scarlett.  We missed Ben and Tosha, Austen and Niki.  We did all get to facetime with Tosha and Niki.  We passed the phone around the room and everyone got to say hello and enjoy seeing her and Niki.

Friday Jena, Anna and I headed off to the bowling alley for some practice.  Anna is taking bowling at BYU so we thought we should keep her in practice.  Gary missed out because he was taking Allan out to lunch at KFC because he had gotten 4 strikes in a row during bowling on Wednesday night.  That was Allan's tradition with his wife so Gary thought he would honor that.

NOw he needs to take me to KFC (not soon, we still have too many leftovers!).  I had the highest game I have ever bowled in my entire life during our third game.

our bowling selfie

Hard to see but it was a 193!!!!! I could have broken 200.  However after I got a strike in the 10th frame, I was walking up to bowl my first extra ball and thought to myself, if I do well in these two balls I could get 200...and I promptly hit my leg with the ball and got a gutter ball. Oh, well--shows that thinking does not help my bowling!!

Anna Giberson and Jena

Of course I had to print it off to prove to Gary--so it is hanging on the fridge where all such accomplishments end up.

We got home in time for my sister, Valerie and her husband Lance to arrive with my dad and the serious game playing began.  We sat downstairs in the game room and went from one game to another only breaking for snacks, water and food.  It was so fun.  However as they were getting ready to leave, Valerie and I sat down in the family room and began to quickly try to catch up.  In all of our game playing, we didn't get much conversation in.  I missed that and we will have to get together to catch up another time.  Thank heavens for phones.

After spending three days on fun, food, and games, Saturday began real life again as I spent the entire day working on homework and doing laundry.

Those piles of papers are the research I have done for my paper.
Let me say that it is much easier to do research online than
making a trip to the university library.
Technology is so useful.

Yoga pants and my "This is My Lazy Day shirt"--
perfect for a day when I must stay home and do homework.

I love school but the last two weeks of the semester can be brutal, especially if you are a bit behind on major projects.  Fortunately, I made great progress on everything yesterday and feel much better about what I have left to do.

Doesn't that look interesting!!!?????

Two weeks and two more semesters left until I am done with school!

A little bit of this and a little bit of that....

I know this picture is very hard to see but I was amazed to open the calendar on my tablet to discover that the light orange items had been added.  These are my amazon orders and when they are going to be delievered.  Amazing....too bad I can't figure out how to sync my tablet and phone so I can use both for calendaring.  Somehow Amazon can do it, but we can't  (And we have tried!)

The paint job is done on the main box of the library.  I have put the first coat on the doors but they need at least one more coat before they are hung.

I am now really excited as it is getting close to being done.  Gary is still concerned how we are going to put it up on its stand and screw it in but I am hoping to have a good weather day and several neighbors to help with that project.

Despite its weight, Gary was able to move it out of our kitchen in time for Thanksgiving holidays. (Thanks to those little furniture movers and a piece of carpet and Gary's moving know-how.)

Maybe we will have our ribbon cutting during the week before Christmas.  Watch facebook for the announcement!

Sis. Elaine Dalton

I don't know if you have ever pondered the "Five People--Living or Dead-that you would like to have lunch with" puzzle, but I have thought about it from time to time and filled the chairs with different people who I admire.  Those people change from time to time as life ebbs and flows around me.  A standard one for a long time has been the wife of Mormon (I have great respect for her as she was a wife in a very difficult time and raised a son like Moroni.).  My mom, Sheri Dew, Jane McCurry Owen(my great grandmother), Abigail Adams (a women like the wife of Mormon I think) and the list can go on.  One person on that list has been Elaine Dalton.  She served as the General Young Women's President in the Church and I loved her talks.  She was a good storyteller which I always like and could apply simple gospels lessons to life.

How lucky we were that we were able to attend the Young Church Service Missionary Fireside at the Little Theatre in the Conference Center in Salt Lake on Nov. 13th and hear her talk. She did a great job and it was an enjoyable and sweet moment to see all of those missionaries and their families together in one place.  

For the first time ever, the fireside was broadcasted to other locations throughout the US where YCSM are serving--Atlanta, Mesa, Idaho, San Diego, etc.  I think they said that there was over 550 missionaries serving in this program currently.  The goal is to make it possible for EVERY young man with a desire to serve to bring a mission to their "very door step" if that is what is required for them to serve.  Exciting times......

Jena with her cookie outside of the Little Theatre

So I had a little moment...actually two little moments of connection with Sis. Dalton.  These are those times which words can not really describe but you know and feel a deep sense of Heavenly Father's awareness of you. The first was just a glance across the audience, Sis. Dalton and I made eye contact--a random thing, but she smiled and I thought, "Well, it's not lunch but more than I expected."  Then they announced after the meeting Sis. Dalton wanted to shake hands with the missionaries.  However as we were heading quickly out to go visit Ben, I just hoped that we would get out the door before the crowd lined up to shake her hand.  After the prayer, we headed up the stairs and got in one of the the cookie lines (we didn't want to leave without one of their yummy cookies).  Around the corner came Sis. Dalton with some of the other leadership who was trying to have her stop at a certain point to shake hands.  She said, "People are in line, I will just go shake their hands while they wait.  She shook the hand of the missionary in front of us and then came and shook Jena's hand and thanked her for serving.  She then turned and grabbed my hand and said, "Good job, mom.  You are doing a good job."  A simple sentence and common to say in such a situation but the feeling was so intense that my eyes filled with tears.  Mothering is hard and while I am passionate about mothers and mothering, I know that I could have done so much better--especially knowing more now than I did then. But in that moment, I felt like my Heavenly Father was there, reassuring me it is okay, I needed that!

Teaching Sunbeams......

We have four Sunbeams in our class on most Sundays.  This is what it looks like for today---

The red bag in the middle is our usual stuff--crayons, handouts, bean bag, etc.  The white hamper on the right contains a CD player and a homemade xylophone (Jena made it at Wonderwood and we borrowed it for our lesson today.) and on the left is my rice box.  I made the rice box for work but used it first for an assignment for school.  I decided to make an activity today so that our Primary class can enjoy the rice before I take it to work.  That is about 40 lbs of rice in there. 

Our lesson today is on "Music Makes Us Happy" so we are going to have some fun times with music today.  Jena buried (Easter) eggs in the rice--some with pictures of instruments on them for us to pretend to play and others are rice shakers which we will use to make our own music.  Don't you wish you were a Sunbeam!

It is fun to work with the Sunbeams on Sunday before I work with basically the same age at my internship.  It reminds me what typical children should be doing and keeps some perspective as I work with my sweet clients and their parents.

MUSIC CAN MAKE ME HAPPY!!!!