A Free Present For You!

Let me give you your first Christmas present of the season! Here is the catch - it's a blog exchange challenge. (Thanks Auprielle for the fun idea!) Leave a comment and then Sunday night (around 10pm Central Time) I will write down all the names and have Wade draw three. The lucky winners will then get one of these handmade pillows for the holidays! I promise to mail your package at the same time I mail all my other Christmas packages (next week) so you will receive it in plenty of time.

The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. (So, you must have a blog to participate.) You have 365 days to post and send the goods! I can't wait to see who I will be giving to. To join, just cut and paste this on your blog and comment away. So get posting!! 'Tis the season for giving...and blogging.

Animals

In the past few weeks we have noticed that Noah really loves to watch or play with certain animals. He claps his hands and gets very excited to watch the talking animals on the new Charlotte's Web movie. His favorite part of the Little People Nativity are the little sheep. He laughs when we baa at him and says it back to us. It's all pretty silly. Yesterday at the library I was looking for some festive movies to check out and I found this one, a National Geographic holiday. Since it's the library I thought, what the heck, and I threw it in my bag for Noah. He loves it! He talks the whole time and points and claps at the screen. It is the funniest thing to watch!





On a different note, it's wintertime again here in Iowa, which means we bring out the boys slippers. Last night the boys played trains together for an hour before bedtime. There is nothing quite like playing trains in your slippers without your pants.

Good News Wednesday

Welcome Wednesday!

1. Tree is up - it might be small, but the spirit of Christmas is here!

2. I found out this week that one of my best friends ever, Stephanie is pregnant! It's such a blessing, they tried 3 years for their first, used drugs for their second (who is Noah's age) and were just blessed this time! She feels so sick and I'm sad that I'm not there to help her, but the good news is I will be in Utah when her baby is born! Yeah for miracle babies!

3. I finished one project - stitch our names on our stockings. I love stockings, but I think they are soo overpriced! I found these at Target in the dollar bin a month ago and stitched our names on them this week. Someday my goal is to make homemade stockings that will last for years - anyone have any good patterns or ideas?

4. Free Santa pictures. Walmart had Santa visiting this weekend when we were grocery shopping and they would take and develop a 5x7 picture for free. Don't my boys look excited?! The fact that it was a woman Santa probably freaked them both out. What's your good news today?

Favorite Things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes. Snow flakes that stay on my nose and eye lashes. Silver white winters that melt into spring. These are a few of my...


I have a lot of favorite this time of year. If you have been to my house you would know that I collect nativities. My mother in law started this when one year she got all her daughters a nativity each year for girls night. We loved it and kept asking for more. I've got nine (including the Willow Tree set which took a few years to collect!) and I love each one for different reasons. I thought it would be fun share them in the next couple weeks.

This one is so cute! I love how creative it is! You can click on the pictures to enlarge, but if you could hold it in your hand and see the detail, each person has a huge nose! Including Baby Jesus! There is even a small little nose on the back that has a nose too. The cow sticks it's bum out so much on the back it cracks me up each time I see it!

My other favorite nativity might not be considered a nativity, but it has a picture of one. My friend Kim stitched this fun pillow for me. She is so talented! She sells items on ebay and Etsy all the time. (you can see her Etsy shop by clicking on it) She has a blog shop here.

Do you collect anything during the holidays? What are you favorite things?

Monday Moments

Everyone knows someone who is a "excessively happy person". I love these type people. They are always so fun to talk to, have great ideas and a fresh aspect on life. It's my goal to be one of those people someday. I shouldn't have to try at this, but I really think that the more you work at counting your blessings and being happy the happier you become, the less you complain and then soon you find yourself in that excessively happy person category.

The talks at church yesterday were focused on blessings and being happy. I loved these topics and my goal this holiday season is to be happy each and every day. We have so many blessings and have so much to be happy for. I am going to leave negative things unsaid and try hard not to complain.

Here is one of my favorite quotes about being happy:

"Happiness does not depend on what happens outside of you but on what happens inside of you." -Harold B. Lee.

Today I'm happy:

• It's Monday and letter M week! We made a fun mail box project this morning.
• I got a new calling to work in nursery - I love this calling it's so much fun to play with cute babies!
• It's Christmas season
• I have fun projects to work on this week!

What are you happy about today?

Christmas Swap

My friend Rosjuane is doing a fun Christmas swap. It's such a fun time of year to get and send packages - as if those poor postal/ups/fedex workers don't have enough to do! If you haven't ever done a swap before it's a fun way to meet new friends and anyone can sign up - blogger or not! You can find out more information on her blog by clicking here.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year Mike and Nancy Anderson, a family from our church, invited us over to spend the day with them. They asked us pretty early on and we already had plans, but when the trip we were going on fell through and Nancy found out we couldn't resist her! She is so amazing at celebrating each holiday. Each month of the year she has a holiday that her family celebrates - she has different plates they use, house decorations, games, the whole nine yards. She really is an inspiration.



The plan was to split the meal. We brought the ham, green bean bundles, veggie tray, stuffing, and a pie. She made the turkey and everything else. It ended up being a good thing we had turkey and ham because her husband Mike didn't get the turkey in the oven early enough so at 12 when we were all ready to eat the turkey wasn't done. Poor Mike was determined to wait - so the rest of us blessed the food and chowed down on ham. 2 hours later the poor guy was able to eat his turkey. I have no idea how he was able to wait that long to eat! The food was all amazing!



Gage had such a fun time with their kids ages 16, 14, 11 and 8. Noah also loved the attention of the younger girls. Wade and Mike played ping pong the whole day and I was too busy gabbing to take many pictures. These are a few of the ones I got.

First Snow

We got our first snow today! Gage was so excited and Noah only enjoyed it when he watched from Gage play from the window. To me, snow make it feel like it's really the holidays!

While at walmart this morning finishing our Thanksgiving shopping I found the Little People Nativity set. It was the only one left - it has the touchy/feely animals, and plays songs and has lights. It's one I don't have - and I had to get it! (I collect nativities for those who don't know.) The boys have really enjoyed playing with it today - but we aren't getting the rest out until Friday when the rest of the decorations come out. (Gage thinks that baby Jesus goes in the cart that the horse pulls around - that way Mary can take him everywhere she goes...or so he says!)

Happy T-day

I want to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. In case for some reason you have not heard of this project yet, it is a great idea. My friend Crystal is trying to get 100 packages out to soldiers in Iraq. You can find out more information by clicking here.

Mitt

Today I was able to see presidential candidate Mitt Romney speak at DMU about his health care program. Since Wade was working in the clinic from 9-12 but was still able to make it down to the lecture hall in time. (Lunch was also provided by Mitt, so there were lots of hungry medical students there!) It was a very interesting program and he had some very good ideas. This is part of a series of political speakers that DMU is bringing to their campus so I am anxious to see many others. The Iowa caucus is on January 3. So soon! To learn more about Mitt Romney, you can see his campaign here.

Some of my favorite (non-political) moments:

-Mitt joked to the media that the only reason there was a good turn out was because of the free lunch.

-Some one asked a question to Mitt about his son in medical school, specifically, they wanted to know what he wanted to specialize in. Apparently he is a third year and he wants to specialize in radiology. Mitt said he wasn't sure what that was, but he listed to the radio often. The crowd of students/professors LOVED this joke!

-After the meeting we patiently stood in line for a handshake or a picture. We made an agreement with our friends that we would take their picture if they would then take ours. We took theirs and then he took off out the door. I am soo sad we didn't get our picture taken with him. :(

-Dr. Smith, the Dr. Wade is currently rotating with, brought it up that he thought it was interesting that Mitt was using the student lounge as his press conference room. The student lounge is known on campus as the "Mormon" hangout. Good choice, in rooms Mitt.

Monday Moments

I was able to attend a regional church conference this weekend that our church has every 6 months. I have always enjoyed these meetings and learning and hearing from our local church leaders. There is usually a Saturday night and Sunday morning session. When Wade and I lived at the U of U I really grew to love the Saturday night sessions of these conferences. They are generally more relaxed and the topics always seem interesting and I always feel that they are sparkly directly to me.

This Saturday night we attended a wonderful meeting. One comment a speaker made has really stuck in my head this weekend and I want to share it for my Monday Moment.

This talk focused on how faith and Christ should always be the center of our lives. He commented that Christ is not in a glass case somewhere that says "Break in case of emergency."

How true. We (I) often find myself praying, fasting and seeking spiritual guidance when there are things wrong that we (I) want to fix. We (I) should approach every day with this attitude..regardless of what faces me.

Happy Monday - hope we all have a wonderful Thanksgiving week!

A few things about Thanksgiving

(Gage's turkey hat last year - photo courtesy Grandma Bullard)

And now - straight from history.com......

The pilgrims didn't use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers. They wiped their hands on large cloth napkins which they also used to pick up hot morsels of food. Salt would have been on the table at the harvest feast, and people would have sprinkled it on their food. Pepper, however, was something that they used for cooking but wasn't available on the table.


In the seventeenth century, a person's social standing determined what he or she ate. The best food was placed next to the most important people. People didn't tend to sample everything that was on the table (as we do today), they just ate what was closest to them.




Pilgrims didn't eat in courses as we do today. All of the different types of foods were placed on the table at the same time and people ate in any order they chose. Sometimes there were two courses, but each of them would contain both meat dishes, puddings, and sweets.





The biggest meal of the day for the colonists was eaten at noon and it was called noonmeat or dinner. The housewives would spend part of their morning cooking that meal. Supper was a smaller meal that they had at the end of the day. Breakfast tended to be leftovers from the previous day's noonmeat.




In a pilgrim household, the adults sat down to eat and the children and servants waited on them. The foods that the colonists and Wampanoag Indians ate were very similar, but their eating patterns were different. While the colonists had set eating patterns--breakfast, dinner, and supper--the Wampanoags tended to eat when they were hungry and to have pots cooking throughout the day.

Date Night

Last night was our date night but our babysitting group got canceled. We decided to try for a romantic date anyway. We had dinner, dancing, a movie star and definite fireworks at the end of the night. Here's how we did it!



It all started with the most romantic dinner I have ever been on. This place is a very nice place and very upscale. It's called Costco. We had pizza, chicken bakes and unlimited soft drinks for $8. We met a bunch of friends there - 24 people to be exact (including a lot of babies). We took up most of the tables, ate good cheap food and gabbed. There were no candle lite tables or nice linen table clothes, but I had 3 of the most handsome dates in the entire place!



Then we headed off to the lake district of the Jordan Creek Mall to see the annual Christmas lighting. There was a free concert in the amphitheater and it was fun holiday music. Adults, children and babies all LOVED dancing and having fun together. More people joined our little group to make even more of a crowd!



The weather was a little chilly but we all toughed it out to see the show. I am such a goofy mom and decided to put Noah in a fleece snow suite that we have. He did a very good impressed of a movie star. (The little boy from The Christmas Story!)



Finally they had the count down and a firework shot across the lake at the Christmas tree to light it. It really would have been a cool site because the firework was supposed to explode right as the tree turned on but somehow the timing was off and the tree lights came on a little early. (Maybe some poor guy sitting by the light switch was cold and ready to go home!) Anyway, it was fun and the fireworks show was GREAT!



Gage, for some reason, has never liked the 4th of July or any fireworks. They scare him so he was ready to go home. Noah, on the other hand loved it! He had the biggest smile on his face.



It was a festive night that put us all in the mood for the holidays. I might just go back on my word and play some Christmas music this week. Here are a few of our pictures. If you want to see more pictures, I believe Amanda will be posting more on her blog some time this weekend.

Best Friends

My friend Rosjuane posted a few weeks back about her best friend (and we are not talking about husbands here!) You can read her post here.


I really liked this post and I have been thinking about it ever since. I've moved so many times in my life, I don't think that I can narrow it down to one best friend. I have many from so many places.


I lived in Arkansas from eighth grade till after my freshman year in college. It was such a fun time! Warren, the town I lived in is a very small (like 7,000 people small!) and my senior class had about 120 people in it - we were a large class. Because of this, I could literally post about each one of my classmates. We knew everyone - and every one's business!


I narrowed it down to 3 of my best friends - people I've kept in contact with and people who influenced me. So - in alphabetical order, to be fair....


Heather Chapman (Perry now)


I first met Heather in 8th grade study hall. I was knew and she was my one true friend who understood alternative music a town that surrounded me with country. We passed notes and had fun. We cried over the death of Kurt Cobain. We wore baby doll dresses, and crazy hats. When I was working I kept in contact with Heather through instant messenger. We IM'ed through her 2 pregnancies and my pregnancy with Gage. After I quit work to stay at home we kept in contact through the phone and now she has a fun blog. Heather is married to her high school sweetheart Chris and a fun mom to two kids and she works at the local hospital in Warren. You can read it here.










Annslie Larance


Annslie has always been a fun friend of mine. She always kept us laughing in high school. She was voted class clown. I met her at a softball game the summer I moved to Arkansas and she invited me - the new girl - to her birthday party. She has a very caring heart and through thick and thin, and me with my crazy boyfriends, we have remained friends. We got to cheer together our senior year and she was always bringing a smile to everyone on our squads face. If you ever want to feel young again, hang out with Annslie for the night. I'm not so good with myspace, so it's hard for us to keep in touch anymore, but Annslie has a myspace page here.








Dena Thompson (Chancellor now)

Dena and I became really good friends our senior year and carpooled together our first semester of freshman year (then I moved in the dorms). We had awesome times together driving around and going out on double dates. I haven't had any contact with her until this week, when she commented and I found out she had started a blog! I'm so excited to see how she has been doing over the years. She is married to her high school sweetheart, Brian and they have a gorgeous little boy. Dena always impressed me with her faith. You can read more about Dena here.



~~

I got out my scrapbooks this morning to search for some pictures, wowzers there were some lovely finds! I've also learned that 12x12 pages are hard to scan, and how far scrapbook trents have come. I'm glad I don't cut my pictures crazy shapes or use lots of stickers any more. What was I ever thinking?!





Now - for any other WHS readers out there, I hope I didn't offend. Leave me a comment and I hope you are doing well! I can't believe that this year will be our ten year reunion. I know that Annslie started a myspace page, but I really love this idea.... {{{Class Blog}}}} each person just leaves comments or pictures of what they are doing! Click on it to check it out!

K

Gage has had a lot of fun this week with the letter of the week K. Today we made a Karate guy and he has been jumping around kicking. Funny stuff. I get a lot of the preschool ideas that I use here. It was recommended to me by a fun librarian friend we have in Waukee.

Good News Wednesday

Welcome to Good News Wednesday!

1. Modern Medicine is good news to me this week. My poor baby Noah has a fever he hasn't been able to shake. Ibuprofen and Tylenol are such blessings. No wonder many people in history died of fevers. Last night the medicine didn't even work, but after a very long night and a very hot, lethargic boy, he was able to fall asleep around 3 and I got about 3 hours of rest before everyone was up for the day.

2. Yeah for Thomas the Train and tracks that can entertain Gage for hours on end while I sit and hold poor sick Noah. He loves his train table so much, but yesterday I found him sticking all his track in a bucket and hauling it down the stairs. The track options are endless in our living room!

3. It's almost Christmas! I don't decorate or listen to Christmas music until Thanksgiving is over, but Thanksgiving is one week away and I am so excited!

4. It's almost Thanksgiving! Where are you going? We had plans that fell through so we are still coming up with fun ideas of places to visit. We have spent the last 3 Thanksgivings here in Iowa and made a huge feast just for ourselves and each year Gage has chosen to eat a hot dog instead. I wonder what Gage and Noah will eat this year!

5. Wade is done with his class work. I mean really done! He has clinic and a class that is called problem based learning where they discuss cases, but that's it! No more flashcards that I can't read!

6. It's good news that we have been blessed with so much. I love this time of year and reflecting on my blessings. I have so many. Martina McBride said it best.

What's your good news this chilly Wednesday morning?

Goals

So I was going over in my mind the items on my never ending to do list. Scrapbook. Read. Blog. Read Scriptures. Exercise. Make dinner. Clean.

I started to think of what goals I had made for myself this year. We only have about 6 weeks left in 2007, which blows my mind! (Do you remember when we all thought the computers and world was going to blow up or go crazy in 2000?) Did I really graduate from high school 10 years ago?

I had to go back and search my blog, but these were the goals I had this year. You can read my old post by clicking here. Below is a summary of how I am doing. I copied and pasted from my old post, so Blue text is from my actual posting in January - black text is my evaluation.


1. I need to read the Book of Mormon again. This is a goal I think I will have every year from here on out. I've done it for the past two years.
I've read the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants and New Testament this year. I've just now started the Book Mormon for the 2nd time.

2. Scrapbook. I started Wade's mission album 2 years ago and haven't finished it. I haven't started Noah's and I'm 6 months behind in 2006. I set up an actual scrapbook area in my house so I won't have the excuse that it's too hard to get everything out. We'll see how it goes.
Noah's book is almost complete. I have about 3 pages left. Everything else is lacking. I haven't touched Wade's mission book. My 2007 family book only has about 4 pages done.

3. Be more healthy. Yes, this probably should be above scrapbooking, but seeing how productive scrapbooking involves coke and chocolate, I had to prioritize these goals.
I'm working on this all the time. I still am not in the best exercises schedule, does chasing th boys count? I believe that we eat better meals and I have been drinking more water. Baby steps.

4. Family vacations. The plan is to go to Washington to see my parents for spring break, drive to Utah this summer and go to Nauvoo sometime on a long weekend.
We've made it to Washington, Utah and Omaha a few times. We had plans to go to Indiana to visit friends for Thanksgiving, but they fell through. Our time in the Midwest is becoming limited, so Chicago and Nauvoo are first up on our list when we get a weekend off.

How are you doing on your goals for 2007? I hope you are doing better than I am. I feel like I still have a lot to strive for.

Monday Moments

This quote is from a lesson on Revelation taught by an awsome teacher and friend, Amanda. The quote is by President Spencer W. Kimball.

Try reading this one out loud.

Don't feel silly, it will sink in more if you read it that way. It is that good. Read it and see. You can read lessons from his teachings by clicking here.



"Do you want guidance? Have you prayed to the Lord for inspiration? Do you want to do right or do you want to do what you want to do whether or not it is right? Do you want to do what is best for you in the long run or what seems more desirable for the moment? Have you prayed? How much have you prayed? How did you pray? Have you prayed as did the Savior of the world in Gethsemane or did you ask for what you want regardless of its being proper? Do you say in your prayers: “Thy will be done”? Did you say, “Heavenly Father, if you will inspire and impress me with the right, I will do that right”? Or, did you pray, “Give me what I want or I will take it anyway”? Did you say: “Father in Heaven, I love you, I believe in you, I know you are omniscient. I am honest. I am sincerely desirous of doing right. I know you can see the end from the beginning. You can see the future. You can discern if under this situation I present, I will have peace or turmoil, happiness or sorrow, success or failure. Tell me, please, loved Heavenly Father, and I promise to do what you tell me to do.” Have you prayed that way? Don’t you think it might be wise? Are you courageous enough to pray that prayer?"

One year

We had Noah's one year pictures taken last week. The poor boy had a big bruise in the middle of his forhead that wouldn't go away. Here are a few samples - don't worry Grandmas and Grandpas your pictures will be in the mail soon!

Gobble Gobble

Last night was our turn to watch for our date night group.We had a bunch of gobble heads.The kids had a blast - although my pictures are grainy for some reason. (Gage made this hat last year at the library when my mom was here to help with Noah) I found the directions off Family Fun, it's such a good source for ideas. Click {here} for the directions. Gobble Gobble!