Fall

Fall is here! My favorite time of year. I can't believe the weather we have been having. It has been beautiful with cold nights and warm days. David worked on the garden last weekend and got is all cleaned up. He put away things for the winter and with that it made me think of the coming of the holidays and gathering of family. I am so looking forward to the holidays this year. It is so funny because there is not a lot of money to do things for the kids but because there is not a lot of money I seem to dig a little deeper for more meaningful gifts. I am so grateful for my children and every day thank my Heavenly Father that he sent me the spirits He did. They have taught me a lot over the years and this year I feel their love and support more than I ever have before. I feel like everyone of us is in a good place. We are all trying to be happy and have joy in our lives. It shows when we gather. Last weekend we had October birthdays. I took a few moments and just sat back and listened. Listened to the noise...the laughter, teasing, talking, crying, laughing some more....it brought me great joy as I listened to my family. Everyone of them has a unique gift that shines through in their personalities. I don't think I appreciated it much when they were little. But now I see how they each add to our family in only the way they can. This weekend I get to spend time with just the girls. Our girls weekend...Reagan is so excited, she says "Yeah, no stinky boys!". Those boys will all be home with grandpa. It will be fun to hang out and just do girly things. I am so glad we have these traditions with the children. This is the last year we will be all home or around the area together. Next Christmas Noah and possibly Chad will be on their missions. This makes me want to make this holiday even more special for everyone. There will be a lot of handmade gifts, good eating, and lots of time spent together. Through my eyes I hope to see love....lots of love!

Grandparent Dates March, April, May and June

Wow! I cannot believe I have not blogged since February! I thought that I had been caught up on our "Grandparent Dates" except for last months. Where has the time gone. I have so much to catch up on. First of all our date for March was a trip to the zoo! It was a beautiful day and we got to see lot of new things. It also had been a very long time since grandpa had gone to the zoo so it was especially fun for him. I think our favorite were the flamingos. Reagan loved those pink birds!

For April we went to the Tulip Festival in Woodburn. At first I think the older boys thought it was going to be stupid but they were really happy when they saw all the rides and fun things to do. I really enjoyed the beautiful tulips...so many and so many colors. May we stayed closer to home and the goal was to make the worlds largest ice cream sundae. What we ended up doing was making the worlds best homemade cookies and cream ice cream! This date was a little harder because being at home there were the children here at home trying to get in on our fun. In the end it all turned out--everyone got some ice cream and everyone was happy! This month we went strawberry picking. I think the kids had lots of fun. There is a cute little family farm in Warren that I like to pick strawberries at and so that is where we headed Saturday. Reagan had fun playing in the field a little game she called "find my necklace". She would throw it and then go find it. She kept herself very occupied. Adrian played a little game of "throw the strawberries". At least that is what grandpa and I saw several times as we were helping the little ones pick. Luke and Jonathan did a great job...well Jonathan spent most of his time looking for the biggest, ripest, reddest strawberry he could find. I don't think he found one as big as he had imagined. After picking we went to a friends little ones birthday party at the park. We had hot dogs and watermelon! Best party ever!

We love these little dates with these guys. I really love it when we are talking and Reagan will say...remember when.... It is so special to be creating these memories with them. I hope they cherish it as much as we do!

God Chose Me

Autumn is a very special girl. I really don't know what to think of most of what she says or does. She is so tenderhearted and thoughtful. She is a normal nine year old but there is something very special about her. She was so excited to get her scriptures last year when she was baptized. I have purchased many sets of scriptures over the years and decided to go with some hard cover less expensive ones so they would not get destroyed by the time she turned 12 or so. Well, she was not unhappy with them but not particularly happy with them. They were heavy and she had a hard time finding the books in them. So all she wanted for Christmas was "all-in-ones" as she called them. It was spelled out very plainly in a letter to Santa Clause that she needed this kind of scriptures to read better. So Santa was very happy to grant her her wish. It was all she wanted for Christmas after all. I often catch her doing what she is doing in this picture. She loves marking her scriptures. She is very organized about it. She has a color for scriptures she hears in primary, a color for ones from Sacrament meeting, a color for ones from FHE, and you guessed it a color for our family scripture study. She started a scripture journal. She said she wanted to be like me. She sees me keeping notes all of the time about the things I read. She started with the Book of Mormon and for every chapter she read she has been summarizing it. It is slow going for her. She does not understand a lot of the words but she is trying. I love her tenacity. She does not want to give up. When a few days go by and she has not read she gets back to it and lets me know she is trying again. What a wonderful habit she is forming. I do remember many of the children doing similar things at this same age. I remember their innocence and love for all things church related. But still, there is something a little different about this with Autumn. I have a strong desire to cultivate it, to continue with my own studying so she can see how she motivates me. I know that this study of the scriptures is helping her to develop her testimony.

Yesterday after church she came into my room with this little note. She had written it the night before but wanted me to have it. I think she had planned on giving her testimony in Sacrament meeting but didn't. She said she thought I needed to see her testimony and that she hoped it would make me happy. (Don't you love the pretty pink gems she added) What insight this little nine year old has. To know that God chose her to be with us at this time....what a blessing she is to our family and especially to me. It is hard to watch children go down the wrong path and make wrong choices. Sometimes I even think "Why am I even doing this?" This little note, this small little testimony is why. The lesson I learned from Autumn yesterday was that God chose me to be the mother of these eleven children, these very strong spirits who needed someone who would love them no matter what. I love my kids and oh how I appreciate now more than ever nine year olds! 

February's Grandparent Date

So our February date was to go bowling. We went to the local bowling alley and had fun rolling those "big balls" as Reagan called them down the lane. It took a few attempts for David and I to remember how to do this bowling thing. Actually, more like it took me a few tries, David did just fine. Everything went really well except for the couple of times that Jonathan pushed the reset button just as I was throwing the ball and lets just say things got stuck a few times. In the end all was well and he learned to sit and wait in between his turns. I think the older boys really enjoyed themselves.

 Luke was great at inputting all the information. He knew just what to do and got us started

 Here we are with are silly bowling shoes. 

 Adrian actually did really well. It helped we had the bumber rails up and he used those to his advantage.

 I love the look on Jonathan's face here. Everytime he was so excited that his ball made it all the way to the pins! It helped that Grandpa was his partner and I am sure that his added push helped it along.

 I was Reagan's partner and basically she said "It's too heavy, you do it". I did try hard to have her help every time until finally she just had had enough.

 And so this is where she went to pout when I told her no she couldn't push all the buttons. The last four frames I had Jonathan take her turn. As you can see, they tied. Funny how when we got home she told Toshia bowling was really fun and wanted to go again. Hmmm....I guess ice cream at the end erases all unhappy memories!

 Of course, Grandpa won over all and I came in second. Adrian was third with Luke close behind. 

 What date would be complete if we didn't have a treat. So off to Dari Delish we went for ice cream  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Even though the sun was out it still was kind of cold and by the time the kids were finished with their ice cream they were shivering.

I couldn't resist adding this last photo. What a cutie! We had so much fun bowling with the kids. It really is fun to have this time with just them and hang out. Luke said, "This weekend I have not quit having fun, first bowling then ice cream, tomorrow the super bowl party....." 

Happy Times!

Vintage suitcases hung on the wall....

Over the weekend my sweet husband and I worked on a project that I have been dreaming about for about a year now. I saw in Flea Market magazine last year a project that I fell in love with. So for the last little while I have been collecting suitcases. I did not want to pay very much for them because I was going to cut them in half. Cut them you say, yes cut them. I wanted to make shelves out of them. I wanted to fill a bigger space and also have room to hang some pictures. It is not finished but the rough idea of what I wanted is done. I am really happy with the look and it looks amazing in my upstairs family room.

Suitcases all cut and ready to go. It was a team effort to figure out how we wanted to hang them on the wall. It took a little thinking out, but in the end we merged our ideas and came up with a solution that ended up costing us nothing.

David was nervous cutting the suitcases but once we did one it was easy! I have to say I did have a little anxiety over it but had to keep telling myself this is the reason I bought them. It has been one of the funnest projects we have worked together on in a long time. I think it helped he got to watch all of the football game before we got started.... Just sayin....

Toshia's new FHE blog

Toshia has started a wonderful new blog to help us all out with FHE this year. She has taken the new curriculum and created FHE lessons to go with the monthly themes. I have been doing it for the last three weeks and the kids are loving the videos and activities. I am inviting anyone who follows my blog to hop on over to comefollowmefhe.blogspot.com  and look it over. While you are there sign up to follow her. She has done a great job of having things for little kids as well as the older ones. Thank you Toshia for sharing with us your love of the Savior and for helping us be organized with our FHE for 2013.

Winter Ball

This year Noah went to winter ball with Alyna. She looked so cute and I like how casual this picture is . Noah looked so handsome, it is so hard to believe he is 17 and so grown up.

This is the group they went with. It sure looks cold outside. I am so grateful that Alyna's mom got these pictures. We were on our "Grandparent" date and so she really helped me out. Noah said it was a lot of fun and he had a really good time. It was so nice to be waiting up for him and that he came home and shared with us all that they did. He's such a great kid!

January's Grandparent Date

So these pictures are a little out of order.....but here are some photos from our first "grandparent date" of 2013. For Christmas we decided to give the gift of time to the grand kids. Toshia has done the "12 dates if Christmas" with Andrew every year so we decided to follow her example and do "12 dates of Christmas" Grandma and Grandpa style. For January we wanted to take them to the snow. We did not tell them where we were going, just that we were going to go play in the snow. We ended up at Mt. Hood near government camp. It was a beautiful day! A lot warmer there in the snow than at home that was for sure. Here Adrian is trying to help Jonathan back up the embankment where they sled down from.

Adrian seemed to spend a lot of time either running into trees or falling into holes. He was having a lot of fun. It only took him a few times going down the hill before he figured out how to steer the toboggan better. 

Jonathan went down the hill a lot with Grandpa but soon spent most of his time making a fort for the snowball fight he was planning and eating snow. Every time I looked at him he was eating snow...I hope it was OK.....

Here's a cute group shot. Of course, I am not in it because I am taking the picture. I prefer that anyway...not very photogenic. Anyway, aren't they just the cutest little gang of grand kids ever?

I think Luke was having a blast sledding and digging in the snow. Our snowball fight did not turn into anything that big. The snow was not the best for making into snowballs. He did have the funniest line of the day when Grandpa tried to throw a snowball at him he said, "Yeah, well I'm the one who added the dodge to dodge ball." I don't think he ever got hit with one....he dodged all the snowballs!

Here they are in the car at the beginning of our trip. Aren't they just adorable! They were so excited. We were only on the road five minutes when Reagan said, "I'm hungry...." We heard that the whole way up. Silly girl.

I just had to throw this picture in. She sure has won her grandpa's heart that is for sure. I think he took her down the hill at least 20 times which meant he had to bring her back up the hill that many times.

I can hardly wait until next months date......

Christmas Morning 2012

 

Christmas morning we started with breakfast. Everyone got to the house around 10:30 and then we ate. It is kind of fun having older kids that have the patience to wait to open presents. I think this is the first year we were able to do this. Anyway, after breakfast we went upstairs were Santa had left his mark with presents for everyone. Apparently everyone was good because there was no coal to be found. I think it was a little overwhelming for my Mom and Papa John. The room is big but not that big when you have the biggest tree found in the forest (it's funny how small they look when you're picking it out) and 11 children and 4 grandchildren and spouses and boyfriends and grandparents. Needless to say, we had a room full. It is tradition for us to go slow and enjoy each others gifts with them. I love that Christmas lasts for a long while. I overheard some of the children saying that Santa got it right this year - hum... maybe he was listening very carefully. After we were finished we opening gifts we spent time together as a family enjoying one other and playing with some of the thing Santa brought. I have to say I have heard from almost everyone and they say it was the best Christmas ever! I have to agree it was fun and such a blessing to have everyone home this year and together. I think that is the best gift of all!!!!!