Long prayers

Tonight at dinner after a rushed prayer, Jackson said, "MOM!  I like LONG prayers!  You need to do a long prayer."  I start feeling excited that Jackson feels the spirit and wants to enjoy that feeling more, so I ask "Why do you like long prayers?"  "Because after long prayers my food is cooled down enough to eat . . . "  Long prayers = blessings on your food.

Love this girl!

Hallie is so friendly and interactive!  She loves to smile and wave and then tries to get you to laugh with a shake of her head.  Warning:  Just DON'T try to pick her up until she comes to you.  All signs of friendliness run out of her face and body when you try and touch her without her permission.  

Thankful

I feel like I have so much to be thankful for this year!  We finally got the answer to our prayers and are living a 'normal' life!  We have a house, an income, a schedule and can plan for our future.  Dave has a job and I have my dream job of being a full-time mom.  We are getting to know new people everyday and enjoying the most gorgeous weather here!

My parents and little sisters came to visit us and enjoy the weather.  I loved having them here!  It was so much fun to be the hosts.

We 'hiked' around a nature preserve in our neighborhood to work up an appetite.  Hallie was so cute making lots of faces.

Apparently my camera was hi-jacked by these 2 nuts and I found some crazy photos when I went through them!  I love my sisters!

Thanksgiving dinner turned out perfectly!  I don't think I even planned it going that smoothly!  I was so glad to have lots of help to prepare and especially to clean.  The meal  fed 8 adults for over three meals!  That makes the preparation even more worth it!

 We played 'cracker whacker' to work off the calories.  It is every bit as fun as it sounds.  You string a saltine cracker to a belt loop so it hangs about knee height.  Then with 1/2 a noodle you whack away.  Last one without a whacked cracker wins!

The rest of the weekend was a blur of puzzles, sitting around, black Friday shopping, garage sale shopping and and eating!!

The Saturday night was just perfect!  We made gingerbread houses.  Then headed into Tempe.  We hiked the "A" for ASU and saw a gorgeous sunset (not too uncommon here) and then walked down the hill to watch a festival of lights parade.  I thought it was so much fun!  The cars, people and floats were decorated with lots of lights.  People were dressed as Angels, snowflakes, presents, the Grinch, Christmas trees, etc, etc.  It was totally different than a summer parade (except I was plenty warm wearing capri's and a T-shirt.  My parents treated us to delicious burritos 10 steps from where we sat at the parade and then we headed to the lights at the temple (See previous post).  It was a perfect end to a wonderful weekend.

Lights at Temple Square

Lest you think we made another quick trip to Utah, may I remind you that there are OTHER temples in the world?  Mesa put on a fantastic display (and in a much more pleasant climate atmosphere, may I add).  Notable difference between this display and SLC are
1.  Palm tree lights - so cool!
2.  Non-christmas colors (neon orange, purple and blue, etc)
3.  Lights lying on the flowerbed grounds
4.  Bunches of lights made to look like flowers (I guess they can't grow their own here)
5.  Light 'clusters' hanging in trees (the tree still have leaves, so they cant just wrap them up)
6.  One tree had faint lights and we noticed that they were laser beams projected on to the tree.  What a great idea . . .and easy to take down!

It is fun because along with all the 'Mormons' there are plenty of visitors from the area who aren't members of the church and I think it is a fantastic opportunity to let them get to know us.

Day 2: Spread the love to the missionaries: I already deviated from my list of service and today we made cards for the Missionaries (not included in previous list).  I am following a website about 24 creative things to do with kids (1 per day) leading up to Christmas.  Today's post challenged us to make homemade Christmas cards.  So we tried it!  Ours didn't look exactly like this one, but pretty dang close!!  Wahoo!  Maybe I am getting better (Nah, I just picked a really easy one to do)  Jackson wasn't that into it, but I always feel like it because I hate 'arts & crafts' so much that I never expose him enough and I should do more.

 I wrote on the inside "Thanks for letting your light shine!"  Jackson was so awkward handing them out.  He would spot a missionary.  They would look at him and say hi.  He would run away, get a card and when they were talking to someone else he would just hand it to them and run away.  He gets so shy, even though he loves people and learning their names, etc.

Project Manager

Although you may suspect this is about Dave's work . . . and I'm sure this is probably what he DOES at work, it is actually about ME.  I have SO many self-inflicted projects going on right now and they actually make me really excited!
 I just finished a gift for Dave, my SIL and my brother (all the same gift) that is 12 Staying-in Date nights, complete with all the necessities for completing the dates (since it is a gift, I'll spare the details, but if you are interested in doing something similar, let me know and I will tell you what I planned.)  I am guessing this project took upwards of 15 hours to complete, so I am hoping it will provide hours of date night fun for the 3 couples it is intended for.

I also finished our Christmas cards (see previous post) and I'm sure you are all in anticipation of it (I made it myself so don't laugh!)

Then I finished a gift for Dave's and my 5th anniversary.  Since it is just between Dave and I, I won't be sharing, but it was alot of work and it was fun to make.  I think he'll like it!

 I made some heart biscuits (did you even know you could home make biscuits?  I didn't :)) to go with Sausage gravy for breakfast.

Then today  I felt like I wasn't doing enough with my kids (I am pulled in too many directions all the time) so I decided I would do the 24 days of service.  Remember this from last year?

Thanks to some inspiration from my sister-in-law, I decided to fill each muffin hole with an idea for service.  I'm not sure that we'll get to all of them (since we'll be in Maui and Utah from 3/4th of the month) but it's worth a try.  Today, we took cookies and a card to the fire station.  They were kind enough to give us a tour of the building and trucks.  I thought Jackson would love it but he was SOOO nervous!  He didn't want to get into the truck without me and he DIDN'T want Hallie to touch the truck.  He said we was scared there was going to be an emergency.  I think I want to go back more often so he isn't so scared!  

 We came home with a new fire man hat and a cuddly stuffed bear for Hallie.  I'm not sure that taught his service since we GOT more than we GAVE, but hopefully, he's started thinking about others a little bit.

Here is my list of ideas for this month.  The great thing is that I am only going to put one each day (Jackson will cheat otherwise) so I can pick what I am in the mood for or have time to do each day!

1.     Make a birthday card for Grandma

2.       Visit old folks home

3.        Random Act of Kindness

4.       Babysit for someone

5.       Read a book to elderly

6.       Cheer up a sick friend

7.       Give a treat and a Thank You card to Firefighters

8.       Give a treat and a Thank You card to Police

9.       Give a gift to a new baby (we have 2 neighbors due soon!)

10.   Deliver needed items for homeless shelter

11.   Food scavenger hunt for Food Bank

12.   Bake bread for someone

13.   Visit children's hospital (give stuffed animal)

14.   Pick weeds for neighbors (This won't work in Utah, but maybe shovel snow or rake leaves?) 

15.   Pick up trash at park or in neighborhood

16.   Caroling

17.   Treat and Thank you for Nursery leaders

18.   Get well cards

19.    Send a Card to Grandparents on a mission in Germany

20.  A Service for  Hallie?? or Dad??

21.   Deliver Ronald McDonald Pop tab donations and other needed items

22.   Child Crisis center in Mesa (pick clothes and toys to deliver)

23.    Angel tree shopping for Jonathan age 4

24.   A treat and a Thank You for the Bishop and family.  

WHEW!  Like I said, we'll see what happens, but it sounds like this might help us get in the season of giving!

Get your Christmas Cards here!!

First time Hosting

My parents decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather in AZ and spend Thanksgiving with us.  I have been so excited to host people at our house!  I realized that living in Utah we never really had that chance because we were always going to our parents house.  I don't think it will be anything spectacular, but I've enjoyed planning a meal, getting guest items ready and getting Jackson excited for guests.  We tried to make Turkey decor (and once again, failed . . .)

The inspiration:

Mine:

Theirs:

 Mine:

I hope everything goes smoothly and everyone of all ages has fun with family, luckily my family is really laid back and will enjoy anything :).  We're also excited to have babysitters so we can hit up the Black Friday shopping again for the 5th year in a row.