A good night's rest

There is nothing that beats a good night's rest. Today, this is what I am most grateful for. For the past 3 days, Hazel has relapsed into her old habit of waking during the night. Only now, she comes and gets in bed with me. Or she wants me to lay by her. I am too incoherent to do more than let her in my bed or go lay down in hers. I'll do anything to try to get back to sleep. Only, I can't sleep with her in my bed. So I end up very sleep deprived. Add to that a couple of work-outs on top of a couple of full days of regular stuff and I was crashing before the election was called last night.

I've concluded that a lot of the "problems" in life are caused by a lack of sleep. There are so many things that we think are more important. And there are a few that really are (such as children). But many things in life could be made better just by getting enough sleep.

This morning I woke refreshed after a much need good night's rest. I had more patience, compassion, and energy to do all that I needed for today. Here's to hoping and working for more of that good sleep!

Proud to be an American

I am not a political person. But I am a very patriotic person. Today I am grateful that I live in America. I am grateful that I have the freedom to vote. I am grateful for the rights and privileges and opportunities that are mine because I live in this great country. I have been to many countries and seen evidences of what not having these rights can be like. Places where it is difficult or near impossible to change one's life or one's standing. I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for sending me here, at this time, to live my life with so many blessings. I am grateful that I have the freedom to stand for something, to take advantage of this opportunity to participate, and to freely vote. What a privilege we have. Don't miss out - go VOTE!

and other internal organs

Since it's November and the season of Thanksgiving, we had a Family Home Evening lesson on this subject. (We also used this opportunity to practice using the Topical Guide so that the kids would be involved in the lesson rather than just listening -or not.)
The lesson started off with a little history lesson: what is Thanksgiving? why do we celebrate?
Isaac proceeded to inform us that we celebrated when the pilgrims got to Utah and the indians helped them. ( An example of what happens when you get Mormon and American history mixed up.) So this led to creating a tall tale as a humorous explanation of how the pilgrims sailed/portaged the Mayflower across the United States, creating the Grand Canyon when they got off course on their trek to the promised land. That sometimes Babe the Blue Ox helped to pull the ship across the land until they got to the Great Salt Lake. Toby especially found this hilarious.
Anyway, for the activity, we wrote down on cards things that we are thankful for. Besides the expected answers (parents, family, gospel, etc.) we got some interesting and amusing listings. Here are a few examples.

• my very intelegent smartness (Isaac) (I love that he really is very smart, but can't spell)
  
• resources (Isaac)
• Hazel and other internal organs (Isaac again)
• pie (Nate)
• Shiny, metalic beetles, worms, colorful dragonflies and butterflies, cool scorpions and spiders, and all the other little weird looking insects, like centipedes. (Toby)
• ME (Toby about himself) (Everyone should be so self-assured)
  
• Books and other cool bits of information that is really obscure (Toby)
• clocks (Aspen)
• Oceans (Aspen)
• Fire (Aspen)

The best part of the lesson was Isaac's comment at the end of Family Home Evening. Isaac was conducting this meeting so he got up at the end and said,
"We'd like to thank Mom for her lesson. That's another thing we should write on a card."
For the rest of November, I'm going to try to post about the things/people that we are thankful for. I hope that ya'll will remember to thank Heavenly Father for those people/things/tender mercies/blessings in your life. Maybe post on your blog too:)

Bikes for kids

November in Texas means mostly beautiful weather. So we enjoyed our last evening before daylight savings ended riding bikes. Hazel has finally mastered the tricycle and the kids rode around the block before the sun set. Even though I am looking forward to cooler weather and the chill of autumn, I love the mild evenings we've been having and being able to be outside.

Now we can move on

The last few weeks have been busy and I've slacked on the blogging. But I don't want to wait forever to post Halloween - it's nearly time for thanksgiving and Christmas! Anyway, the kids dressed up and everyone went trick-or-treating. Toby went with friends from church, Aspen went with friends from school, and Isaac went with Hazel in our neighborhood. Pretty low key. Nate stayed home to hand out candy while working on his laptop on the front porch - and to light another pumpkin on fire.

Isaac was the grim reaper.

Hazel was snow white.


Toby is always scary as a vampire. Really, how does such a cute innocent kid get to look so scary?

This was Toby's vampire costume four years ago. He thinks it so fun to scare little kids. He's such a boy sometimes.Aspen was a witch. I bought her an ugly, green, warty nose. But she wanted to be a pretty witch, not an ugly, nasty one.
So we're done for another year. But not done with costume making yet. The only thing Hazel wants for Christmas is a pink princess costume for her dress up box. So that's next on the list.

Fast Sunday Baking

It seems that I spend most of my fast Sundays baking and cooking. I think I inherited this habit from my dad. He loves to read cookbooks and seems to peruse them more on fast Sundays. I guess that I am more willing to spend the time it takes to bake and cook elaborate things on this day. Every other day seems to be full of things to do. So the kids and I spent today making pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, chocolate pie, and Italian bread. The funny thing is that we spent so much time baking, that I didn't actually get around to making dinner. So we pulled out some previously made and frozen soup for dinner. I love fall and soup and pies and breads. They seem more delicious in the fall. (I do wish that it was actually chilly here...maybe in another couple months.) Anyway, hope that you are enjoying the beginning of the holiday season.

p.s. this picture isn't from today, but it is a picture of pie!

Anyone interested?

A friend of mine just finished the Ragnar Relay Race series event that was near here and it seemed pretty cool. You can see some of her thoughts here.
There is a race from this series being held June 19-20th, 2009 in Utah. It's 180 miles, along the back of the Wasatch Mountains, 12 runners, each running 3 times with leg distances from 3 miles to 8.5 miles. I think it would be pretty cool to run. Is anyone interested in joining me? We'd need twelve runners, two big vans and a couple of drivers to help support. You can check it out here. There is a early registration discount deadline of Jan 31, 2009. Save $200 by registering early.