If you get a chance to pick up this months Good Housekeeping. I would reccomend it. There is a story in there called "Star of Wonder" that I enjoyed very much.

We have a tradition (well we started this year with the purchase of a 7 piece nativity set) of reading one story a night and placing one piece of the set up. Hopefully, if I timed it right, baby Jesus will be the last piece after Christmas Eve. I am going to hide him somewhere and let the children find him before they can open their presents.

I really want them to understand the true meaning of Christmas...don't we all though?

The above picture is of our Christmas Display. Tree pictures coming soon!

love, deBBie

Ben And Hyrum Fighting in the Mud

Amazing what a little soap can do. This is Ben at his baptism.
I can't tell you the joy I feel when my children choose baptism or the responsibility that I feel resting on me for continuing to "nurture and train".

love, deBBie

halloween

Happy Halloween

I went to the festivities at my kids school. Here are some pictures.

Here is my 10 year old as a creature of the night.

6 year old as a snake.

8 year old as a teenage mutant ninja turtle "Van Gogh".



Baby elephant, 4 year old kangaroo, and bird of pardise friend waiting for the halloween parade.

This halloween, like many before it, left me wondering WHY? do we do this? It really is one big pain in the rear. We get the kids ready and drag them everywhere, to school, to trick or treat, to trunk or treat, etc. All so they can get so much candy it makes them sick and cranky, and gives them something to fight over for the next week. (if their candy lasts that long). And it make mommy have to be the big candy sheriff. 'you've had enough. dont' steal your sisters candy. Give that candy to me. no more candy tonite. NO I did not steal your candy. Where did you leave it? WHO left chewed gum in my bed? Why are there 300 candy wrappers next to the garbage instead of in it? ARGGHH!" And all of this to celebrate what is basically some kind of pagan holiday right? Urp.

Here are videos of the baby saying "Hi"

and of the 4 year oldf throwing a tantrum. I decided to film it for posterity. It was either that or get angry.

We hope to be "home" for thanksgiving...so see you all then!

OH What a BEAUTIFUL Morning.

These are the views I had from my front porch this morning. The one on the left was taken by my 10 year old daughter. I took the one on the right. There was a light fog which the sunrise was filtering through.



For those that haven't seen it yet, below is a picture of the house we are renting...



It is an old 5 bedroom farmhouse on a huge hazelnut orchard. It is spacious and fun, and old and cold...or hot. I am so grateful for it. The housing market here is very pricey and out of our ability to afford, while the rent we are paying is very low. It is such a blessing.


Couldn't help showing you a few more pictures that I took this morning. Try not to be jealous. But maybe the view from your life is just a wonderful?















Here is another blessing, my baby...

trying on a Halloween hat I. I don't think she liked it!


















The rest of us are doing OK. Earl is still driving his truck 6 days a week. We are so grateful when he has work work although he is missed a lot.


We took this picture of Dad's truck a while ago.


My oldest daughter is getting ready to take her psat's as this is her junior year. She has also been asked to illustrate a book called "Henry goes to church"... as part of the process we visited Henry...here is a picture. Henry is on the right.



This summer I visited a camp for the blind in Sandy Oregon as a possibility for an upcoming reunion I am planning. This is a picture I took of my daughter on the swing set there. It was a lovely place with lots of room, but there was one MAJOR problem. There was only ONE women's bathroom. Granted it had 3 shower heads but we aren't blind so that wouldn't work.
There were some minor problems like price was more than I originally thought but it was a very nice place.


I feel like I need to type something for all of my kids, mother's guilt, but I will just say they are all doing well. School has been going well for most of them and not to bad for others.

I really enjoyed the LDS General Conference this weekend. I was able to stream it in from byutv.org/streaming it is also available from lds.org I just sat and listened and crocheted. I remember when I was a child conference seemed to last FOREVER...now it is much too short. I heard a lot of things that I appreciated but I think what stuck the most was President Eyerings talk on acknowledging the hand of God in all things. We based our Family Home Evening on that talk and I gave the children books to jot down for one week the things that they are grateful for and also how they see the hand of God in their lives.

Sister Beck's talk on Mothers who KNOW was a good encouragement to do better as a mom and create more order in my home. Elders Scott's talk has me thinking about each activity as "Good Better or Best"?. Not sure where Blogging falls...probably Good. If I print it up and place it in my journal will that make it better?

love to my family and friends,
-deBBie

The day before yesterday, I took my 16 year old daughter to get her learners permit. She passed the "written" test just fine (it was on computer so no actual writing) but couldn't pass the vision exam. Her glasses were sitting home in 3 peices thanks to the 3 year old.

So I took her home, and later that evening went to work with some ceramic glue and managed to peice them back together. Yesterday morning we headed back to the DMV with the fragile glasses. The DMV is about 25 minutes away and we were about half way there when she tried the glasses on, only to realize they were NOT her glasses, they were her brothers. So we turned around and went home to switch glasses and then went back to the DMV where she got her learners permit.

Upon arriving home I let her park the car. Actually I MADE her park the car. This was the first time she has driven and she was nervous. I kept making her back up and try again. Then I tried something a little more tricky and had her park in a different spot. She crashed into the van. We own a vintage Merceded 300D which is now missing a headlight. OOPS.

I made her practice parking a little more or i am afraid she never would have driven again.

The rest of the day was spent encouraging people to clean and being pretty lazy myself.

love, deBBie

A Day in the Life of a busy Mormon Mom

A Day In The Life Of A Mormon Mom

Yesterday morning I got most of my children off to school for their last day of school. I still have two at home a three year old and a 1 year old. My 9 year old daughter had a dental appointment, so after I got the other 5 children off to school, I got the babies dressed and took her to the dentist. While she was in her appointment, which was supposed to last an hour, I went to pick up a friend.

This friend does not drive and I wanted to spend some time together before the kids were all home so we decided to go do something that morning. 9 year olds appt was shorter than planned so we went to get her and took her to school.

When I was signing her in I asked the secretary whether or not they had enough volunteers for the field day to take place later that day. They gave me a number to call. I called. They didn't. Since I had planned on bringing my kindergarten child back for the afternoon festivities I offered to help out. I had already told him I would pick him up from school on his last day. The plan was to take him to lunch and then back for field day.

My friend and I and the two babies went to the library and enjoyed some time browsing and I enjoyed reading a few books to the 3 year old, but did not enjoy her fighting with the one year old over lap-space, nor the tendency of the one year old to climb onto the tables if I didn't pay enough attention to her.

While we were there, and before I was due to pick up kindergartner, my cell phone rang (yes, at the library...how embarrasing!) it was my 16 year old non-driving daughter who had missed the bus and needed a ride home from the high school. So friend, babies, and I packed up and drove to get her from high school.

Then I took friend home. I had decided to drop the babies off at home with 16 year old so I could go help at the school as planned. On the way home the principle called about my 7 year old. Apparently his substitute teacher just could NOT handle him. I was told that I had to either take him home for the day or come and stay with him. I told the principle I was already on the way and would be there soon.

This meant the purchase of one more happy meal which I picked up on the way to dropping of daughters. When I got to the school the 7 year old was looking decidedly UNabashed about being in the principles office. I called my husband and told him that I needed his help. I could be two people, the one who helped the parent group with field day and the parent who was supposed to stay with their morning kindergartner, but not three. The third being the person who was supposed to stay with the 7 year old for the remainder of the day. He decided since it wasn't an emergency he shouldn't leave working to help me.

7 year old, 5 year old kindergartner, and I enjoyed our McDonalds in the car and then went back to the school. He promised pristine behavior if he could stay for field day. The kindergarten teacher agreed to let her A.M. student travel with the class, without me. And the principle agreed that since I was at the school it would be OK for 7 year old to stay without my constant supervision.

While I was helping with the grapefruit relay my cell phone rang again. My 13 year old had missed his bus as well and needed a ride home. It took me almost half an hour to track down the two boys and load them up to go get the 13 year old from the middle school.

After the last two bus riders made it home we had all eight kids at home but no Dad. He didn't actually have a driving job but was working with his dad on things for the company. He called about 6:30 to ask if I had dinner on the table, I had plans but was waiting for him to get home to heat it up. I didn't share this I just said no. So he said he would eat with his parents and then head home. He commented that "time had gotten away from him" and "don't I have scouts tonite?" He did.

I took the oldest three kids to the church because I knew he would be a bit late, then drove around with the other five for a while because i didn't want to go home to the messy,lonely house. I hate it when he's not there.

We all met up around 8:00... for a evening of noise, laughter, fighting, and prayer. He went to bed around 10:00. The babies finally crashed around 11:30, as did I, but then I coughed until 12:30 before a slight Robo overdose allowed me to sleep.