This, Just In...

My lovely sister-in-law Paige took pictures for Thanksgiving! I am grateful for her photography :)
Here are some photos of the fun:

Fun at Home

The kids and I enjoy doing little experiments, crafts, and projects. Just thought I would share some of the latest :)

Our country road...

Peter came to me with this box around his waist and told me he wanted to make it into a car. 2 minutes later... here's the car :)

Peter wanted to make a car for sister too.

This is our jelly fish in a bottle. The kids love it! It was so easy to make out of recycled items. Idea and instructions found here.

Celery in food colored water. A great way to show how plants drink water. Both of them loved it! I left the jars out for days. The kids kept checking them out and talking about them.

They changed more than this... I just didn't get a picture right before David finally tossed them out. But you can still notice a difference.

I just couldn't leave this snuggle bug out of the post. We love our sweet little Hannah.

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was wonderful! We had the opportunity to host this year. It was wonderful having family around. We are so grateful for our families and it is always wonderful to spend time with those you love. This is by far the smallest group of people we have been with on Thanksgiving but it was great! David's parents DROVE out here from California! That is a long drive! On their way out they picked up David's wonderful sister Janet. Then David's brother's family came down from Kansas City, without David's brother... Poor Robert had to work a 24 hour shift that started on Thanksgiving morning. We missed Robert but it was so wonderful to have his beautiful wife here with their three sweet kids.

We had a delicious feast, played games, and made memories. There are so many things to be thankful for. I would be writing all day if I tried to list all of the abundant blessings we enjoy. So I'll leave it at this... Our Heavenly Father is wonderful! He has given us everything! We are most grateful for His matchless love and wisdom, for His plan of happiness.

Here is a short video from this years' Thanksgiving:

Kids, Service & Love

We love our kids! We love them more than we ever could have imagined we could love someone. This last Sunday in Relief Society, one of my new wonderful friends was teaching the lesson. She asked us why we love our own children so much. She asked, "Why are parents willing to do anything for their children? even give their lives for them?" Someone answered, "Because we serve them all the time." I felt the truthfulness of this principle. I know that the more we serve someone the more we grow in love for them. I know that because of the service I render to my family I have a great desire to be with them, love them, and serve them even more! I know that this is an eternal principle. I know that we have a loving Father in Heaven and our Savior, Jesus Christ who love us even more than the profound love we may have for our children. They have served us, they have given us all that we have. I also know that the more we serve our Heavenly Father and our Savior, the more we grow to love and appreciate them and all they have done and given us.

Happy Halloween!

We enjoyed some delicious chili, cornbread, and pie at the church Halloween party last weekend and today we celebrated Halloween all day! I think Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday. Not that I don't like it, I just like the other holidays better. But this year was sure fun! I think kids make holidays even more enjoyable.

I put up a few decorations last night so when the kids woke up they would be able to sense the excitement of the day. And boy did they love it! Peter thought the ghosts were the coolest things ever. I love it when it cost me nothing to make my children smile. The ghosts were made from a recycled grocery bag and some thread. And I cut some pumpkins out of construction paper and threw them up on the wall too. Simplicity is great!

I served them ghost bananas along with their Cream of Wheat this morning. I broke a banana in half and made a ghost face toward the pointed ends of each half. The eyes were mini chocolate chips and the mouth was a normal sized chocolate chip. My children rarely get sweets so those chocolate chips were the first things they ate! In fact Peter didn't even eat the banana part of the ghost, he did eat all of his cereal though.

We made these earlier, but I had to share :) This is Peter's spider cookie!

The next big festive activity was pumpkin carving! David was able to participate in the pumpkin carving! We were lucky that he had a little break from school this morning.

Of course we took the kids out Trick-or-treating! They had a blast! We went down to The Square here in Bolivar. It was great! I love small towns! Most of the little shops, boutiques, and businesses were waiting to give candy to little trick-or-treaters. The fire department even cam down to The Square and parked one of their firetrucks there with the lights flashing. They had their fire dog there too! He was a beautiful dalmatian. There were a few fire fighters dressed in uniform handing out candy from their hats! The kids loved it! I'm sure as much as I did ;)

We Love Fall!

We had the opportunity to visit the Rutledge-Wilson Farm in Springfield, MO. The kids loved seeing the animals, going on a hayride, and exploring. We will definitely make a trip out to this amazing farm/ park again :)

The kids have also enjoyed the amazing weather we have been having. Up until this week it has been beautiful and not too chilly. Here are some pictures of them enjoying the weather as we played outside. Goodness! I love these kids!