Thankful!

As you can tell, our kids were not excited to get their pictures taken. (They were REALLY tired.) This was at the Christmas party last night for our ward (church). They had the bishop and his counselors dress up as the three wise men instead of having Santa come--which I thought was great! It was really cute. Well, I realized last night how thankful I am for being able to work with the Young Women in our ward. I thought we were going to be released because of some of the rumors that have been circulating. Well, I spoke to the president and she said we were going to add not replace the leaders in YW. I knew I enjoyed being in it, but when I was faced with thinking my time was done, I really was so sad about it! Our girls are great! Really sweet and down to earth from really good families here. And the leaders that I work with are great also!! This little experience has helped me count my blessings. :) Yesterday, I cut all of our kids' hair. You can probably tell from recent pictures that they have needed it for SO long. Charlie's Superman curl was getting longer and longer. In the past I've tried to bribe them to sit still with a sucker, but this time I let them watch a movie and it was AMAZING how long they were patient. Even though Derek has been the one asking for a haircut, he was working until the party so he didn't get one until today. (So it's my fault that he had long hair for our picture.) Everyone ready for Christmas????

Emma's Quote

Emma came up to me with a book and was pretending to read to me from it. She said very seriously, "And the Prophet says...No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" I laughed SO hard, which caused her to repeat the phrase over and over all day. So much has happened since I wrote last, but now that I sit down to write it...I'm having writer's block. I'm so very excited that my mom will be here on Monday! She will be visiting for two weeks during Christmas. Right now we're in the middle of a snow, sleet and freezing rain storm, but I think it will all calm down by Monday.

Joseph's Tooth

Emma reprogrammed our laptop while I was helping one of our other kids, so I have to "borrow" our neighbor's internet signal (which isn't always on). This morning I had my first parent-teacher conference, which was a good thing and it went very well. Also, Joseph lost his first tooth last night. I will probably post a picture of it soon. I went in to give him some water at about 1 am 'cause he was coughing and he said in a very calm voice, "Mom, my tooth is over there." It cracked me up that he woke up, pulled his tooth out, and threw it across the room.


So, this picture is on Monday morning right after we took Derek to work. (That's why they still have their footed pj's on.) When we got home, it was snowing just a little and they wouldn't go inside 'cause they were having fun running around in it. Well, it was one year ago that we visited New York with NO intention of moving here. In fact, Derek bought our plane tickets when he was out of state on a different rotation. I told him I would rather have gone with him to a different interview to some other place and he said he bought them because it would be our only chance to visit New York, since we would never move there. Now look at us---------I love it here!!

Snow, Snow, Snow!!

This morning we woke up to LOTS of snow! I went to all the trouble of taking video of the kids as they came down stairs and discovered the snow, but then Derek reminded me that the boys all saw snow on the fathers and sons outing last year. Oh well, the footage is still cute! Emma was excited to see the snow though. I must say, it's a lot funner for me to drive around in a car in it, than to be cycling through it like on my mission!! I was talking with the kids and we just happened to start talking about future brothers and sisters. Well, Joseph and Charlie decided it would be fun for us to have 2 more baby sisters and 2 more baby brothers at the same time. I told them they would have to come visit me in the mental hospital. Well, Joseph doesn't know what a "mental" hospital is, but he caught what I was saying and said, "Okay, mom. We will only have one baby girl and one baby boy and you don't have to worry because Charlie and me will hold them all of the time!" This morning at church was fun, too because I lost my keys out in the snow on our way in. Well, I didn't realize they were lost until a good friend of ours went up to bear his testimony and showed my keys to the congregation and announced that if the owner wanted their keys back they would have to bear their testimony. He left them up on the pulpit. Yes, humiliating, but pretty funny!! I had wanted to bear my testimony, so it helped motivate me. The day before Thanksgiving we discovered our heater/furnace had stopped working. When the repairman looked at it, he told us he was surprised it didn't burn our house down when it burnt itself up inside. I have been thinking of that a lot over the past week and I feel like more than at any other time of my life, Heavenly Father is leading and guiding me and our family and protecting us. I feel that He loves our children SO much and their future is VERY important to Him. Even though I'm not studying the scriptures and teaching the gospel for hours everyday, like on my mission, Heavenly Father is still using me to help my kids and He gives me guidance to help them. To me it's a similar feeling to helping someone learn about the gospel, but a little different. I'm so grateful for the guidance of the Holy Ghost. I also have more empathy for my parents now that I'm trying to do what they did. I feel I fall so short, but that if I'm trying my hardest and ask for His help, he will help my kids in the ways I wasn't able to. WOW!! Okay, I'm done. If you've read all the way to the end I should give you a prize or something!! :) Have a great day!