Oops, behind on my I love...Mondays

But I have excuses! Last week I was cleaning, cooking, laundry-ing, and getting all ready for Thanksgiving. And yesterday I was snowed in at my mother-in-laws house in Idaho, and then on the road for about 5 hours. We had to go the long way because the usual way had large snowdrifts and was closed (ahem, Nicki, did you notice I said closed, not just closed to everyone but crazy Jeep drivers??). But, I can now say:
I love...snowplows and their drivers. Thank you for clearing miles and miles of roads.
I love...my family. I know I've said that before, but there's just something about belonging to two families of fun people. Holidays require some driving to and fro from house to house, but it's fun to pack in all the visiting, playing and just enjoying being around people who have seen you at your worst and still love you. And it's much better to be snowed in at a family home rather than a hotel. Or your car, on the side of the road.
I love...Thanksgiving. For me it's not just the food and pies (although I do look forward to it) I love all the preparation that goes into it, yes, all that crazy cooking. Now, I never have made an entire dinner by myself, so maybe it's just my limited experience, but I do like cooking for a family feast. I've made rolls and salads and pies and candy and mashed potatoes and I can sort of cook a turkey (not my best culinary moment) but that's another wonderful thing about Thanksgiving: everyone brings and sets up and cleans up and much visiting goes on in the kitchen. My mom loved having her kitchen redone this year, and it was perfect for setting out the feast.
I love...Christmas trees, fresh from the Idaho mountains. This year after the (ha) Blizzard of 2010, the temps dropped to 0 or below, so instead of our whole family going to cut the trees down, a few stalwart souls volunteered to...stay behind with the kids. Errr, I mean volunteered to go brave the cold to cut our trees down. Farris picked out a perfect tree for us and helped my Dad drag out his traditionally HUGE tree. This year I think Rob came away with the biggest tree, though. He leaned it up against his house when they got home, it it was above the eaves. Oops. Like father, like son! We always told Dad he was going to have to cut a hole in the ceiling in order to put up our tree and most years we had no room for the angel or star at the top of the tree, it was always fun to tease my dad about that. We put our tree up last night, the kids decorated it for FHE, and it's lovely. To me anyway. It's not all matchy matchy like the perfect trees in some homes, I'll save that for when the kids are older. Now we have our Assorted Memories Ornaments: we have our Navajo ornaments, one from our honeymoon, a couple baby's first Christmas, the football that Cosmo the Cougar signed for Joseph, some from our childhoods and a Nativity scene made from olive wood from the Holy Land. For me, Christmas trees are a symbol of good times past. Now everyone go sing the Christmas Tree song. Speaking of...
I love...the Christmas tree song. And all those other songs. But I could post a I hate...Grandma got ran over by a reindeer blog day. I won't. Christmas songs I do love: Silent Night, Joy to the World, Far, Far Away on Judea's Plain, Silver Bells, I'll be home for Christmas, Angels We Have Heard on High, O Little Town of Bethlehem, the Primary Christmas songs, and many, many others. Bring on the Christmas Music! Ohhh, here's a tip: Go to Pandora.com, you can put in a favorite singer/band/orchestra and then add "holiday music" and there you have a variety of great music. I love my Michael Buble holiday music station. You can even do Mormon Tabernacle Choir holiday music. Very good, very good.

Free Christmas cards...yeah, that's a good deal =)

So Shutterfly is doing 50 free Christmas cards for all you fellow bloggers out there! Here's the link:

http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/

I'm excited! I love to add our family Christmas card on to our neighbor gifts, but it's too expensive (we always start small with our neighbor gifts, then end up giving a little something to everyone in a three mile radius. OK, exaggeration, this isn't Richfield--three miles would mean about twenty families there!, but still, we give a lot out)

Here's some of my favorites from the site, but they have lots, lots to choose from:

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

They of course, also have all the other fun things that you could possible stick a picture to: puzzles, stickers, t-shirts, mugs, some really cute Christmas ornaments, etc.

They even do calendars: http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars Make one up for your family chock full of fun memeries. Yes, Mothers cry when they get these.

So go sign up, it's a quick form you fill out, then wait a couple days to get their e-mail with all the details. Then spend more time filling out the rest of your Christmas shopping list!

Wanting to get ready for the Speedy Spaniard?

Since our Bishop challenged us to strengthen on bodies and our spirits, and to be fit enough to run in the Speedy Spaniard this next summer, I've been trying to put together a group to exercise in the church in the mornings after kids are gone to school. Of course this does not include only those in our ward, but whoever wants to come, LDS or not, in our ward or stake or not, I don't even care if your kids go to SFH or Maple Mountain or wherever =). My sis in law does it, and it's perfect in the winter when being outside isn't an option, it's big enough you can have several (lots? hopefully?) women come together, small kids will be in a safe place where we can keep an eye on them while they play with other kids, and nobody has to make sure their basement is free from toys, laundry, etc. every day! I know the best chance I have of sticking to an exercise routine is if someone else is expecting me to be there. Sooo, after running the idea through the channels, we are down to just letting the Bishop know about how many ladies are planning on coming, when we will be there (I'm thinking Mon, Wed, and Fri?) and finding someone with a key to come. I also posted a shortened inquiry of this on FB, but for those who are not on it, and for those who don't read my blog, let's spread the word around and try to answer these questions by Sunday so we can get final clearance and start on Monday!


Other things to bring up:
--A lot of us will be bringing small kids (including me), and that's good, but we need to keep them in the gym with us.
--I don't think I need to bring this up, considering the wonderful ladies in our area, but we do need to be very careful about the videos we use and the clothing we wear. Legwarmers have been approved ;)

So let's send the word around, and then get back to me, convince someone with a key to come, and we'll be ready to go!

I love...#3

It's 7:15 on Monday and the rest of the fam is cleaning up after dinner and I just remembered to to do my I love...Monday blog! How did I remember? I was looking for a video on the humanitarian efforts (Brother Barber showed it during the YM/YW combined sunday meeting, very good)to show for family home evening, when I saw this:

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&vgnextoid=bd163ca6e9aa3210VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&channelId=bd163ca6e9aa3210VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&sourceId=070d6ce71083c210VgnVCM100000176f620a____


I love...this video and so many of the rest on the Morman messages website.

And guess what my lesson on Sunday was about: yup, gratitude and appreciation (Have I learned my lesson yet?).

What do you all love today? Well, go tell Someone thanks for it!

I also love...Farris! And Logan. By that I mean Logan, UT. It was our 10th wedding at the beginning of November, and we decided to take a quick weekend trip back to Logan, where we met, married and had Felicity. We were able to do a session in the Logan temple, visited where he proposed, drove around in the canyon and even took my nephew, the current Aggie, out to lunch. I loved seeing the campus again, so many good memories! And of course, being on campus again means:
I love...Aggie Ice Cream. yum, yum, yum.

Caleb's Thanksgiving menu

Caleb had to write a Thanksgiving menu for his class, here it is, including spelling and capitalization:

mats ptatos and gravey.
Turkey.
ckorn and cod. [corn on the cob, hee-hee, he calls it corn and cob]
Ice creme.
Pezzu.

I love the addition of pizza!

I love...

I love...Mondays #2! Wow, I am actually doing it two weeks in a row!

I love...Sunday afternoon naps. Hurrah for the 9:00 block (although, I don't enjoy it as much at 8:00)!
I love...the view out my kitchen window. The mountains change colors every few months, the sky behind them tells me what the weather is like, and the neighbors have a sumac tree that is brilliant right now!
I love...WinCo's bulk isle. I know, weird. But they have so much, it's amazing!
I love...Sunday calls to my family. I love catching up on family news, hometown doing's and laughing about everything with my mom.
I love...kids perspectives on fall. Joseph just looked out our window, gasped and said "Mom, our tree is getting OLD! The leaves are almost gone! Are we going to get another tree?" which brings me to my final love of today:
I love...the cycle of the seasons. Every year I watch the leaves fall and the grass and flowers dry up, get covered in snow, grow and bloom and then repeat. How peaceful and hopeful to see this every year, whether Democrats or Republicans or even Tea Partiers are in office, whether my kids are in cribs or big boy/girl beds, whether I'm closer or further away from my pre-kid weight. Thank you Heavenly Father for this beautiful world!

Ahhhh, now I'm ready to face the week!

The Primary Program

This coming Sunday is our ward's Primary Program. I love that Sunday! And this year is the first in a long time that I won't be involved, except as a parent. It will actually be the first as a parent of primary age kids where I am only involved as a parent! So my kids have been practicing their parts.

Felicity: I can follow Jesus Christ's example and pray every night.
Caleb: The Holy Ghost helps me be reverent.
and Joseph's part makes me laugh:
Joseph: Heavenly Father and Jesus love me because they are patient with people.

Hee-hee! I think our Primary President is getting cynical about the sunbeams. No, just kidding, usually the kids write their own parts. I'm not sure where this idea bubbled up in his head. Maybe he's heard me praying for patience? Our primary president is doing a great job, and I very much understand and appreciate all that her and the rest of the presidency and all the teachers do every week. And bless Sunbeam teachers all over the world. May they never run out of crayons or patience.

Halloween!

My sister Nicki came up on our Halloween-ish Day (we celebrated Halloween on the 30th so we could celebrate Sunday on Sunday ;)) to help out and to get some of the Halloween laughs, too. She brought her laptop, we plugged my camera into it, then copied the pictures into my USB drive, so now I can share some pictures from Halloween! It was a chilly, wet Halloween, with a hailstorm passing through as we ate dinner, but it was only sprinkling when we hit the Trunk or Treat and finished up by going to a few houses that we'd missed from the that. We had a delightful time, and the Mommy and Daddy tax on the candy (ahem...) was yummy.

Joseph is part of a neighborhood preschool this year, (kindergarten next year? Already?), and they had a party with all the little brothers and sisters invited. Cute kids! LittleBug would only be in this picture if he could ride on that toy at the same time. He's a tiger in this picture but decided he didn't like it, so we went with the duck costume for trick or treating.

When the pumpkins were still ripening, I scratched these letters and pictures in, and then the pumpkin scabbed them over. Easy-peasy, and so many things you could do! We had an overabundant crop, giving pumpkins to Joseph's preschool class, our neighbors, the Laurels and Mia Maids, and still having enough to line more than a dozen on our front steps! Crazy squash plants.

The whole gang, after the trick or treating and the trunk or treat. Only a little wet!

I love the cheesy grin on our duck. He loved splashing in the abundant puddles.


Our terriying Dragon makes a repeat. He loved this costume so much last year, so he decided to do it again. The legs were a little High in the Water, but it was wet, so it's all good.

Our Ferocius Dinosaur.

He's not really giving the peace sign, those are his claws. Because he's Dangerous.

I painted Felicity's face to make her more fairy-ish. I think the best part was the purple eyebrows! And I love her smile-for-the-camera smile in this picture, hee-hee.

Here's the whole costume. I decided to go with the pixie kind of tunic instead of the skirt. It was a last minute, figuring it out as I went and only using what I had on hand kind of costume, but she loved it. She really liked the leggings, our '80s girl.

Hope you all had a fabulous Halloween, too!

I love...Mondays

A few weeks ago, (or more, it was the week before General Conference, time is moving fast!) I was thinking that I needed to do one of those Day kind of blog traditions. You know, like Crafty Tuesday, Silent Saturday, Not Me Wednesday, etc. And then I was thinking that I needed to have a I love day where I only talk about the good, simple, happy things of life. I tend to get...well, a little pessimistic. I growl and moan and sometimes cry. I know, I'm a woman and sometimes that's how we do things. But I'm trying to do better. So I was thinking, "I need to do a day of things I love, and when better than Monday, the traditional depression day. Listing it in the morning will help me remember to be optimistic. Count my blessings one by one! And I thought it was a great plan. And then I didn't do it. Then President Monson stands up and gives his Attitude of Gratitude talk (Excellent, here's the link: http://new.lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/the-divine-gift-of-gratitude?lang=eng ). And I think (I'm thinking a lot inthis post) "Oops, I better get on it." And I don't. And then on Sunday, we have our special 5th Sunday lesson from Amazing Addie our YW Secretary, and guess what it's on? That's right the topic was "DeeAnna, get going on you optimistic blog day" Ok, it was really on optimism and how we can choose to have it. Fine, already, I'll do it. So here we go.
I love...chilly mornings in the fall. I know, kick me everyone, but I love the briskness and the smell of fireplaces coming from the neighbors houses, it reminds me of our old stove downstairs in the house I grew up in, smells lovely. And the sound of the furnace kicking on. It always reminds me of Christmas morning, when we'd get up and huddle over the vents waiting until Dad came back from the barn so we could start the whole sh bang. It also reminds me of our family studying the scriptures in the mornings, because we'd be huddled over the vents in the living room. Coziness.
I love...the way kids minds work. Joseph just came up to tell me that "'They' is a funny word." Where did that come from? From the Deep Minds of Kids everywhere.
I love...being able to vote. And the votes being counted. And no people with big guns outside the doors. I loved voting on the rez. You'd go to the local Chapter House (that's how you could tell where a town was. There might be nothing for miles, but kaboom, there was the Chapter House. It's like Town Hall), and it was very small towny and nice.
I love...my family. Among other things, they give good snuggles. And what's not to love about that?