Africa and other stories

I hardly know where to begin, it's been a couple crazy weeks...maybe I should start with a Joseph story, always a good place to start. I told this story to one person (Farris) and he wrote it in his journal, ha-ha, very funny, then I told my sister and she made me tell my whole family, and now I'm thinking that maybe I'll share it with everyone, just if you need a good laugh today. So I'm wiping Joseph's bum (this is where my sister says "All the best stories start this way..."). He says, "My bum is big, huh, mom!" He's all excited about it because he's three and likes to be a BIG KID. Then I turn around to get something. Yup, you can guess where this is leading. He gasps, "MOM! Your bum is big! Your bum is AFRICA BIG!" Yes, I wasn't as excited about that comment as he meant me to be and yes, we are stopping all geography lessons until he learns some tact.

So then we went to Thanksgiving at my parents house in Idaho. Loads of fun with crazy kids and some crazy adults, too =)

Here's my nephew Tanner catching up on World News (ok, just the comics) with Seth. Seth is apparently reading the classifieds, looking for a good deal. Despite all of us looking through the ads, we didn't do too much shopping on Black Friday. Tasha and I went to Joanne's at 6:00 a.m. and then headed home and then Mom, Nicki, Tasha, Rob, and Farris and I went back later to hit a couple more stores in the afternoon.

This is my brother Robert taking the kids around for horsey rides and getting squashed flat when five of them jump on at once. Don't worry, he's still breathing.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving my family always goes Christmas Tree Hunting up above Sun Valley in the Sawtooth Mountains. Joseph had fun because he got passed around by at least three of us the whole time he was out there. We found a cute little tree pretty quick, which was good because it was getting cold and we were getting hungry! Joseph discovered his favorite new condiment, Mustard. We had made ham or turkey sandwiches with mustard on them, and Joseph has now tried to put mustard on enchiladas and peanut butter sandwiches. I didn't let him. Can you imagine what his missionary companion would write home to his family in 18 years? I'm hoping he won't tell his companion he has a big bum, either.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving we traditionally put up and decorate our tree. This year we vetoed anything breakable, and that has been mostly successful. Seth has only broke one of the unbreakable ornaments. And he has not yet been able to tip the tree over, we'll see if that lasts.

These are the stockings I made for our variation of an advent calendar. I made 25 little stockings and then put scriptures in for each day. I'm thinking about putting treats in the occasional one, too, just to surprise the kids on some of the days. This year I hung them on branches from our tree, next year I might try a garland or even a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. If you want scriptures for each day of December leading to Christmas, try this web site: http://redhatmandan.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/lds-christmas-scripture-study/

It had a good mixture of BOM, Bible, and D&C scriptures. There is also a Christmas Storybook there that you can download that sounds great.