Thanksgiving!!!

This Thanksgiving we were blessed to be able to spend time with a lot of Jonathan's family. Three of his sisters traveled here to Richmond with their families, and Jared and Brigitte, and Jonathan's parents are already here so we had a fun big party!!! Usually I forget my camera these days, this time I just forgot to use it:) Here are a couple of the pictures that I did take:)

Jared, Tami and Dan:)

The cousins: Joshua, Rylee, Mikayla, Tyler, Abby, and Gavin

The kids LOVED playing with their cousins and were so sad when they had to leave.

Lisa and Clint and their two beautiful children, Tyler and Abby, stayed at our home and we all just had so much fun with them here.
This picture was right after church:)
We missed Sarah, Mike and their kids, and Emily and Trevor--we love you guys!!!

The pregnant mama!!!

I honestly HATE getting my picture taken, even when I'm not pregnant!!! But for my wonderful family members who insist on this here it is:) Enjoy b/c I won't do it again:)

I am thankful for...

I love this Holiday season and I love that it starts with Thanksgiving. Tonight for family home evening we made turkeys. In order to get feathers, a face, feet and a bow or bow tie we had to say something that we were thankful for for each item. It was wonderful to hear the kids thinking of so many things that they are thankful for and that they recognize them as blessings. I love how each turkey turned out, Gavin did his own and it is so perfect:) I'm sure you can pick his out!!! I love my kids!!!

I'm a little late posting Rylee and Papa's joint birthday party. We are so blessed to live close to family and it was so wonderful to have Jonathan's parents, and his brother Jared and his beautiful wife Brigitte come over for Rylee's birthday and Papa's as well. This is the dress that Grandma and Papa got Rylee for her birthday!!! So loves it, however, it was so funny to see her fave when she opened it. She is still young enough not to truly appreciate clothing for a birthday present:)
I love this little nut:) Check out those beautiful big brown eyes!!!!!

We had already had so much cake and since the gathering was at my house I got to choose the dessert (and I had totally been craving cinnamon rolls:)

It's time to start laughing!!!!!

I have mostly used this blog to update family and friends on our family, mostly the kids. I would like to start sharing some of the things that I am learning as I study and also the things that I learn just being a mom.

Yesterday I was reading in Sister Hinckley's Book, "Small and Simple Things." I love everything in this book!!!!! She had such amazing insight into life, what an amazing woman. One of the quotes that really stood out to me yesterday was this one: "True spirituality makes you loving and grateful, and forgiving, and patient, and gentle, and long-suffering. True spirituality breathes reverence into every act and deed. It compels you to get in touch with your Heavenly Father every single day of your life."
The scripture she shared with this is in Alma 37:34, 36; "Be meek and lowly in heart...cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and withersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; Yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever."

I have been feeling very overwhelmed with many things in my life right lately and it has been affecting my moods and how I have felt. I know that my family has been affected by my no-so-cheery moods lately, and so this quote was really a wake-up for me. It was one of those times when I just needed to be reminded of something that is so simple and that I already knew. As I get older, life seems to going by faster and I know that I need to be using every minute doing the things that will bring me closer to my Heavenly Father and turning to Him for help when I feel overwhelmed with life. There isn't time to waist being mopey. Sister Hinckley also says on another page, "...the only was to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache." I always get a headache when I cry--so it's time to start laughing:)

2 crafts and a Party!!!

So a couple girls and I made these adorable yarn wreaths. I could not get a good picture to truly show how cute it turned out. But this works:) The next is a pillow I made for Christmas. I have decided that I am now taking a break from anything have to do with ruffles--they are a pain!!!!! But I think for a beginner sewer it turned out pretty cute:)

Rylee's birthday party!!! I told her that she could invite four girls over for a party, of course she invited her entire class including her teacher and bus driver--so Rylee!!! Luckily only the four really invited showed up:) Claire, Charity, Laureana, and Kylie were the sweet girls that came to celebrate with Rylee.

Gavin was awesome, he played down stairs the whole time and never once bothered the girls:)

Pizza for lunch--yum yum!!!

I forgot to say no presents, oh well Rylee LOVED everything:)

The girls had a blast helping her open her presents.

The group playing with barbies!!! What a cute bunch of girls we better watch out when these five grow up!!!

So I usually go all out with the cake but for some reason I have just been preoccupied lately and so Ry's cake was pretty simple this year, but still cute. She liked it and that's all that matters:)

My little girl is 6!!!

Rylee turned 6 years old. I can't believe how grown up she is. She is such a joy to have in our family. It is so crazy to think how fast each year goes by and how much she grows. She just loves school and learning. And she LOVES making friends and is an amazing friend to others. We had macaroni and cheese for dinner and dirt pudding for dessert (we are having a cake this weekend).

She wanted a jump rope and bubble gum for her birthday, pretty easy:)

A princess coloring book:)

And this Belle barbie cracked me up. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday she told me that she wanted a Belle barbie since Santa messed up last year and didn't bring her one:) So mom and dad did better than Santa:)

I love the next three pictures. Sometimes they love getting their pictures taken other times not so much. This was a good day:)

Aunt Brigitte came over after school to give Rylee this present--which she LOVES!!!!! If you can't tell from this picture Rylee loves anything and everything PINK:) We love our birthday girl:)

Happy Halloween

So we had a wonderful ward Halloween party and Trunk-or-Treating, but of course because I have pregnancy brain I forgot the camera:) But we did do a little Trick-or-Treating on Halloween. Here are the cute pumpins that we carved!!!

I LOVE this picture. Rylee was a snow princess and Gavin was riding a horse:) At the church party Rylee was a princess riding a pink unicorn and so they both matched but she decided to be something different the next night so I do not have a picture of her riding the unicorn:( Oh well. I sure do have cute kiddos.