One of our many Philadelphia Zoo trips to come (since we bought a year pass...I hope we make good use of it!).
How do you like my new stamp station all set up? I have one more long table now along the left side that gives me a lot of work space. I haven't been able to use this area much yet.......OH, BUT I PLAN TO. Notice my little collection of rainbow pictures that my kids have made? It is still growing, and I call it my "rainbow wall". It's one of my favorite collections : )!
Isn't this a funny picture? Goldie had a sticker book for making faces, and we got pretty silly with it one day. Good times.
Hay ride for Tootie's preschool class. A very cold day...I love these fun field trips. It's one of the best parts of being a mom.
Tootie and I carved 2 of the pumpkins. If you look carefully at the one on the left, you'll see a special secret (secret to this blog) in the design!
We had fun at the S'mores Night at Hershey's Chocolate World. This singer guy was a good entertainer at the campfire party.
One of the highlights of our November was getting to meet Grandma and Grandpa at the D.C. temple and visitor's center on the day of their temple trip with their soldiers. The kids thought the soldiers were pretty fascinating, and this man was kind enough to answer questions for them and pose in the picture with them. I thought it was funny how they were afraid to stand close to him in the picture though, and this is as close as I could get them.
Happiness!
Can you believe these amazing sunsets!!? This is a scene from our back door.
I had to come up with SOME way to celebrate 11-11-11, and this is what I came up with--a yummy cake : ). And I was able to take a picture of my computer clock at 11:11 on 11-11-11, too. It was very cool. Oh yeah--I almost forgot~we also hid coins in the cake (washed, of course), in increments of 11 cents!
(11 candles, of course!)
Tootie's class did an elaborate Thanksgiving program for the parents, full of songs and stories of the first Thanksgiving celebration with the Pilgrims and Indians. Lots of fun!
He made his own vest with real Indian writings on it. Oh, that smile of his--it gets me deep down : )!
Our Thanksgiving Day feast. YUM!
Our guests this year were the two full-time elders that are serving in our ward. We missed being able to get together with family, but it was still a really nice day for us. Shark and Jazz had a nice time in the morning too, playing in the Turkey Bowl with other friends from the church. We played games (Scattergories and "Write to 100") after the meal and had a great time.
This is our handsome family scientist--testing whether play dough dries faster in the house or outside. What do you guess that he found out? He flattened both dough balls into pancakes, and he observed it for 3 days.We were surprised that our hypothesis was wrong--the play dough outside showed practically no signs of drying after 3 days, and the play dough inside was a crispy cracked white thing. We took photos and he presented his findings on a big display board, and got an A on the project : ). Way to go, Scientist Shark!
I just found this beautiful song on Nienie's blog and thought it would be a nice complement to the "Love/Hate" post that I had in the works. So I'm putting them in one post together. It's a great blessing to be able to see the silver lining to our dark clouds, isn't it? And yet, sometimes it's still fun to list pros AND cons to things that we enjoy. So, here's to seeing both sides of the coins in our pockets full of change : )!
Re: Not having my own car
LOVE: being forced out of my element ("I can do hard things"), the extra exercise, fresh air, and being independent ("I don't NEED that, I am creative and can get things done anyway.")
HATE: feeling embarrassed about it sometimes. having to ask for a ride occasionally. sometimes not being able to do what I'd choose to do if I did have a car.
LOVE: Our new home in Pennsylvania! And "living in the country" is so refreshing, quiet, and we love the farm lands.
HATE: Having to drive so far to get to church. We used to live a 12-minute drive from our stake center/ward building, now we're an hour from our stake center, and 25 minutes from our ward building. I wouldn't mind it as much if the kids didn't whine about it every week! It doesn't help that 2 of our kids consistently get car sick (including vomiting on occasion).
LOVE: that I've still been able to keep up my exercise habit 5-6 days per week, despite not having a gym membership anymore.
HATE: that I haven't played racquetball once since we left Oregon. Waaaah : '(.
LOVE: noticing the differences in the way people talk around here. Such as the "upside down" intonations of their questions, the different vocabulary words ("yous" instead of "you guys"), and the funny pronunciations (Lancaster = LANG-kister, Lebanon = LEB'nun), etc.
HATE: that I still don't understand the difference between a city, a township, and a borough. Maybe I'll get the hang of that someday.
LOVE: Tootie's preschool class. Tootie LOVES it too!
HATE: that it's only 3 days a week, 2 hours per day. We could use an extra few hours...2 hours a day 5 days a week would be nice, or 3 hours a day 4 days a week like we had last year would be awesome. It's hard for us to fill up all the other hours of the week with good stuff to do while the other kids are in school.
LOVE: reading good books.
HATE: not finding time enough to read.
LOVE: massages.
HATE: that no one is giving me one right now! ha ha ha : )
LOVE: my Stampin' Up! business.
HATE: that I am currently in the "find new customers or die" stage...again. Hopefully for the last time though (at least for a long time).
HATE: Snow. That cold yucky (albeit pretty) stuff that is falling from our sky right now.
LOVE: Seeing my kids get so excited about snow, and knowing that they're going to make me hate it a little less as we find joy playing in it this weekend, and for the next few months, probably!
HATE: Messes in my house.
LOVE: Being a Stay-at-home-Mom!!!
DISLIKE: Halloween...Not my favorite holiday.
LOVE: Candy (Not burning it off later though). And, seeing my kids have fun dressing up. I don't love doing that now that I'm "old", but I know it's fun for kids. I love that I have 4 amazing kids that keep me enjoying things that I've outgrown.
As for counting my blessings, I think my life is almost pretty much perfect. I am so happy with where we are right now. Life changes a little bit every day, and I love the direction it is going. I'm so happy to be me.
Goldie and Tootie and a neighbor. Sometimes the kids ask to have their picture taken when they're having fun, when I wouldn't have thought of pulling out the camera. Those pictures can be some of the best.
We finally got around to taking down the birthday balloons we had hanging up in our dining room, and wanted to make a little more use of them, so Tootie and I invented "the birthday stick". He carried this with him in the stroller on our outing downtown to the library and it was quite the good time, yes it was.
I just love this sign. It's at the edge of the Lutheran Church parking lot where Tootie goes to school. I wish we had one at our own church parking lot : )!
We had fun examining this "Ladybug tree". There must have been hundreds of ladybugs on and around it. And believe it or not, this is the first time in my life I have ever seen such PINK ladybugs! I knew there were yellow and orange ones, but pink? That's perfect!
Here we are on a very fun little hayride, a great way to celebrate the fall.
The kids had a lot of fun worrying about the other hayride truck catching up to us. We were in the lead, and we won the "race". It was funny how they kept imagining our lead shrinking and expanding, since both tractors were just going about 5 miles an hour.
Shark couldn't have been more pleased with our Philadelphia Zoo experience, because we got in some high quality lion-watching time. They didn't do anything amazing for us, but at least they weren't in hiding like they were when we went to the Oregon Zoo.
As part of "The 5000 Days Project", the movie "Two Brothers" is a completely awesome documentary about 2 LDS brothers who are interviewed periodically over the course of 10 years. It starts out when they are 8 and 10 years old, and ends with one coming home from his mission and one leaving on his mission. The older boy serves his mission in Chile, and the younger brother gets to play college football before his mission. It's so cool to see them grow up and see how they change in that amount of time. Shark and Didi and I watched the whole 80 minute movie glued to our seats. I wish it could have been even longer.
I heard about it because I'm on BYUtv's email list. I don't know how long they'll keep the whole movie on their website, so I'd highly recommend watching this movie asap while it's on there. It's also being sold on DVD for $20 (better to watch the free version!). It's totally worth the money though; Shark wants me to get him a copy for Christmas.
We had Goldie's 8th birthday party the week before her baptism. Last year she got to celebrate with a big "friends" party, so this year she got a small family party. She had a fun day even with just us, though.
I asked Goldie what kind of cake she wanted...the Piglet part was her choice, the rainbow part was my idea. Didi helped guide me this year with the design; she knows the rainbow order better than I do (though she informed me that I ended up making the rainbow upside down), and she was a great frosting color mixer. She also helped me remember to put the (washed) money in the cake, continuing with my family tradition.
I thought this "Tangled" poster was a fun gift to give her, and thought this photo turned out cute. It's as if the characters in the poster were standing right next to her/looking at her.
After she thought all the presents had been opened, Dad brought her to "the big one" : ).
By the way, today was Goldie's first Fast Sunday since she turned 8. Now as a full member of the church, we were so proud of her for choosing to fast one meal this morning with the rest of us, and she also was brave enough to bear her testimony in sacrament meeting. What a brave girl! Isn't it great to be eight?
Goldie's baptism was extra special for a few reasons.
1. She was baptized by a very special person: her father, just as her siblings were before her.
2. She got to be baptized in a special dress: her grandmother made it, and her mother was baptized in it almost 30 years ago. Her aunt Angela and her big sister Didi also wore it for their baptisms. Isn't that nice?
3. She had some very special missionary guests at her baptism: Grandma and Grandpa Elkins were given permission to leave their duties in Virginia for a couple of days to come up for the special event. We LOVED having them here!!!
(We also really appreciated the support from several members of the ward, who came to the service. The full-time missionaries were also present, along with 3 investigators. It was so nice to have a group there to support our family.)
4. She had a very special service: talks were given by her grandparents, prayers were given by Shark and Didi, and we had a VERY special musical number: Goldie asked to sing a duet with me, her mom! She chose to sing "I Love to See the Temple", and sang the whole first verse solo, and we sang the second verse together. It was really sweet!
It was definitely a very special day for Goldie, and for all of us. I, for one, had to concentrate really hard on not crying during the song we sang together, and barely choked out the closing words, "a family is forever." Awesome.
Here is a story for you about how one of my desperate prayers was answered. Sorry if it's kind of long. It was an emotional couple of days for me, so I wanted to include the details.
Tootie's preschool class didn't start for about 3 weeks or so after his 3 older siblings started school. That turned out to be a LONG time for him to be without playmates or places to go. As we only have one vehicle, and that vehicle goes to work everyday with Dad a half an hour away, Tootie and I were for the most part homebound. Tootie was getting pretty bored, and I struggled to come up with enough entertainment for him and still keep a balance in my day for myself and all of my other wants and needs. (Taking Dad to work frequently so I can have the car has not been a feasible option for various reasons).
I had a bit of a breakdown one day. I was worried about both of us, and wondered how we would ever rectify our situation without our getting another car to give us freedom to go out and about. There is nothing super close to our home, the stores where we shop are all 1-3 miles away. All I had to help transport Tootie was a red wagon. Plus, I had misunderstood the location of his preschool--I thought it was 5 miles from us, so I really wondered how we were going to get him to and from preschool 3 days a week without burdening someone else to transport us (later I found out I just had the wrong address).
I prayed that night, very sincerely, that the next day would be better for us. That we would have something to do, that Tootie wouldn't be bored, and that I could feel satisfied with what I got done in the day. I was pretty serious about these requests, and hoped that Heavenly Father would somehow help me. Hoped He'd help me meet Tootie's needs and bless me with some relief from the stress.
The next day, I decided I would brave the streets and see what that little red wagon could do. I set Tootie up with some snacks, a hat to protect him from the sun, and I decided we were going to head out to the pharmacy where I needed to pick up a prescription (about a mile and a half away), and then we would head over to the public library to have some fun (a little farther still).
The walk to the pharmacy was hot and tiresome. The wagon + a 40 pound boy + lots of hills + no proper shoulder on the road turned out to be awkward and challenging for such a distance. But we made it. And, although I felt too beat to continue all the way to the library, the pharmacy turned out to be a blessing in itself. Inside the store, there was a little waiting area for kids, with lots of puzzles and toys. Tootie and I played there for I think at least 20 minutes before heading out. It was fun. Then right outside the pharmacy, across the street, we spied a jungle gym that belonged to an apartment complex. "Can we play there, Mommy?" "Sure!" I replied, and I was so glad that for once I wasn't thinking "I hope he doesn't make me stay longer than I want to, 'cause I have places to be." I was grateful for the playground--the first one we had found in our town, so far, since we'd moved here. There, we had lots of fun with caterpillars--"a whole family of them." Fun!
As we headed home from there, I made the most significant discovery of the day: we walked right by a Lutheran church...one that happened to have the same name as the place I knew Tootie's preschool would be. I inquired within, and sure enough, it was his school, where his classes would begin in a couple of weeks. Why was I so excited? Because I realized that his school was not 5 miles from my house, it was only just over 1 mile from my house. It was walkable! I wouldn't have to bum a ride! If I could just find a stroller on craigslist or something, I'd be all set. We played at his new school's playground for another 15 minutes before we headed home. I almost cried as I pondered how much more mobile I felt with Tootie that day, and how independent I could be without a car. And how at least this day, as I had requested from Heavenly Father, had been so much better than the day before. Pharmacy task done (without a car) and waiting room puzzles completed, caterpillar family adventures, playgrounds discovered...pretty much a wonderful day so far.
And then can you believe...one of my neighbors was throwing away a perfectly good stroller the following week? I asked, and they said I could have it. Blessing!! It's in great condition and it's working out perfectly for the trek to and from preschool. So much easier than pulling the wagon. I push him there, leave the stroller, and jog home 1.2 miles. Jog back an hour and a half later, and bring him home in the stroller. Perfect. And if it rains, I have learned I have 2 neighbors with kids in the same class who are more than happy to give us a ride. Awesome.
Now the preschool classes are in full swing, Mon/Wed/Fri. Until we get a second car, I feel we are going to manage just fine. The extra jogging time to and from the school complements my exercise routine perfectly. We spend plenty of time together at the playground each school day before coming home, and Tootie is so happy. I feel I'm living with a more relaxed, slightly less productive schedule than before, but the important things are getting done, and I am not as stressed. I am going to enjoy these next few months with just Tootie and me at home...my last school-year months of having a small child at home all day (or almost all day). Thank heavens for our stroller, for Tootie's preschool class, and for my ability to run a few errands whenever I need to--without having to beg rides. Why, today I even was able to walk to the bank and the post office, which are just up the road from the preschool. I love that I can be car-less and still do a few things! And I loved my happy, healing day, receiving all the blessings that I had asked for. Thanks, Heavenly Father.
Ever since I was a young adult, I've been fascinated with the concept of finding happiness. Happiness that overpowers stress, worry, sadness, happiness that fills you up. The gospel is my #1 source of this peace and happiness that I continually seek. I am so grateful for the peace in my life! I love chances to share it, too. I hope you enjoy this clip, as I did.
Our kids are going to be in 4 different school this year. (Tootie's pre-school still doesn't start for one more week.) And not only that, but they all leave the house at quite different times: 6:45 a.m., 8:00 a.m., 8:45 a.m., and 9:15 a.m. And Dad leaves the house at 6:45 a.m., so if I want to work out in the morning, I get up at 5:25 so I can be done before he leaves. That's a hefty morning schedule, if you ask me!
Shark, ready for 6th grade. And, ready for Mom not to be as present as before. I was the only parent at the bus stop, just long enough to give him a hug, take a picture, and then step back before I really embarrassed him (ha ha). Only one other parent was kind of there, watching from her car parked discreetly 200 yards away. Wow. I can't believe how grown up he is.
Shark waiting for the bus (notice the lack of parents).
Look at all the fancy new clothes! It's so much fun to get dressed up for all the excitement of the first day. Jazz's official first day of Teaching was Tuesday, the day after our kids started, though he'd been working on campus for a couple of weeks already.
Waiting for our second bus of the day, Didi's bus, as she's off to 5th grade. This bus stop is about a 3-4 minute walk from our house, so there will be no more "the bus is here!" announcements from within the house like we used to have ;).
