Home Again, Home Again...

We flew home yesterday, and thankfully found everything safe and sound. Our trip to Utah was filled with fun with a few trips to Temple Square including getting to go to the Salt Lake Temple once again and remember our marriage six years ago, that was a sweet experience. We had fun traveling to Utah valley to visit a friend and some family, also visit BYU! We were able to go ice skating and have our children experience ice skating for the first time! They loved it, even though they couldn't get around without help. We also had the time of our lives sledding. So many fun memories. Of course, spending time with family for Christmas was the best of all.

Time travels past us so fast with the anticipation of a vacation, the experience of the vacation, and now the memories that are now ours. Now we have hopes of vacations and family fun yet to come...

Celebrating

We are in Utah now and have had fun doing all sorts of things together. For our anniversary we were able to go to Salt Lake City just the two of us. We walked around Temple Square and walked to Benihana (a tradition from our engagement) and watched the Joseph Smith film in the Legacy Theatre. More than anything, it was amazing to spend time with my wonderful husband and feel like a young couple again. What a great time we had.

Six Years

This Saturday my husband and I will celebrate six years of our marriage! Perhaps we will get to actually celebrate it this year without school getting in the way. (in the past our anniversary always fell during finals... not much of a celebration!)

I can say that I have married a man who is so remarkable and I had no idea how amazing he was when I married him. He is a loving husband, a wonderfully loving father, he serves us and anyone else that needs help. He always has a helping hand to give. I am sure I will continue to be amazed by all that he is and does. I love him with all my heart, and I am thankful for his love for me.

The Spirit of Christmas

Last night I attended and participated in our Relief Society's Christmas dinner and Program. We planned to have it as an intro to Christmas and help the women remember what Christmas is all about. My husband and I put together a slideshow presentation and the whole programs was a miracle. I know my heart was touched and the Holy Ghost filled me with love and a desire to share the joy of Christmas. I know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that he is the Son of God. He showed us the way that we can return and live with Him and our Father in Heaven. Because of Christ we have hope in a world of trouble. We have love for all mankind, even in a world of hate. We have happiness, even in the midst of despair. Through Christ all things are possible! That is just a little bit of the joy I feel in this season we celebrate Christmas.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come; let earth receive her King!

Here is the slideshow:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6b2UctWr1TI

Texan Christmas Lights

We drove around this evening looking at Christmas lights and had a laugh at all the funny Texan things that we saw! These longhorns are just like ones we saw in some one's yard! I thought they were reindeer at first and then I saw the horns... We also saw cactus and funny "y'all" phrases. I just love laughing at all this Texas stuff that comes out this time of year. Gotta love the Texan pride!

A New Week

I was very happy to be done with last week. I was in charge of teaching Preschool this week in the group I am with. We had fun, but I am happy to have it done! Yeah! We learned about Pilgrims on Tuesday, and Indians on Thursday. They really enjoyed making Indian headbands. Hopefully they learned a little history, at least that there were Pilgrims and Indians.

On to Thanksgiving! I took the children to a Primary activity at the church on Saturday and they had fun learning about being Thankful at "Camp Thankful". I was reminded that I need to work on being more thankful for all the blessings I have. Here is a little list of things I am thankful for:

I am thankful for....

-My wonderful husband.

-My sweet children.

-The family and friends that are near and far.

-Our home.

-Being able to teach at church. I learn so much when I teach.

-Scriptures and how I can learn something new each time I read them.

-Church and the people that surround me there. Without it I would feel empty.

-The beauties of nature and animals.

-The health that my family has had, no serious conditions to worry about so far.

-and so many other things.

I know I need to work on slowing down to see those blessing in my life. I taught my class at church today and was filled with a love for the greatest blessing in my life, that of the gospel of the Christ. Because of my knowledge I know who I am (and am still discovering my potential), I know what I can acheive, I know that we are all children of God and can be like him if we follow his son, Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus Christ, we can be sealed to our families and lived together with them and with our Father in Heaven. I wish everyone could feel the joy I feel in these things, it fills my life with happiness. That isn't to say I don't have hard times, but I can endure and be lifted and helped through those hard times. (even if I am unaware)

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Reading Time

This is David and his very good friend reading together. I love when the children sit down and reading the stories to themselves and watch their imagination tell what is happening. They can create and do so many things with their imagination. Sometimes David will be having a conversation all by himself and I will peek to see what he is doing and he will be sitting their having his fingers talk to each other.

One morning while I was getting ready, David was sitting in my closet talking. I looked over to see one foot up on the wall and the other foot saying, "That's too high, you better come down." The other foot answering saying, "Okay, I will come down." I love seeing him use his imagination. Now I just need to work on getting him to enjoy playing outside in the backyard with his imagination and then he will be in a world of his own. Being a very white skinned person, I haven't really enjoying being outside a whole lot (at least as I have grown older). The sun always seems to burn my skin. I have a hard time getting all of us outside to play, and David won't really play outside unless I am right there next to him... Although, I think as Rebecca gets old enough, they play a lot more together. Rebecca will laugh so hard, and she has quite the laugh, when David plays with her.

Children are such a joy.

Halloween

Our Halloween celebrations started on Saturday. Our church had a Halloween party at the park, then a trunk-or-treat.

Clark and the children had fun going on a cake walk, and having a picnic dinner. Then on Halloween we had a Preschool party and the children had so much fun making pictures, playing games, and getting prizes. David really liked going trick-or-treating. We decided to take them for the memories. They were so cute saying "thank you" and "Happy Halloween"! I think it made others happy as well. I can only say, I am happy this week is all done, it has been a busy week! On to November!

A Week of Celebration

Monday was my birthday! I have always looked forward to my birthdays. I have always felt it is the beginning of all the celebrating we do from now until the end of the year! So now I can start saying, "Happy Holidays!"

We started our fun filled weekend with going to the temple on Saturday. I love going down to San Antonio and spending the day at the temple and having family time. I was excited to see a wonderful friend at the temple that I haven't seen in years, it was a great surprise and blessing. Who knew we would meet up again in Texas! We have so much fun on our drives too, singing songs, reading stories, etc.

Clark took Monday off and we had a wonderful time together. I woke up in the morning and found that David and Clark were gone grocery shopping. (we had planned on doing that task since we were gone all day on Saturday) It was such a wonderful surprise. Then we spent the rest of the day enjoy the surprisingly cool weather! We visited some friends and then went out to eat. What a fun day, I wish everyday could be like that. Just spending time together.

Sick Days

Since the last post we have gone to a pumpkin patch. I really wanted Clark to go to the pumpkin patch (really a Christmas tree farm) that I took the preschool group to. We went on Saturday, when they had a pumpkin festival; it was so much fun to be all together as a family.

We have also had fun flying a kite at our little park. David loves standing there watching it fly. He has been asking to fly a kite for a while, but Clark needs to be home since it is hard to keep Rebecca close by while we try to fly our kite. She likes to wander to the swings.

The rest of the week we had to take pretty slowly. David didn't go to preschool since he, Rebecca, and I were all sick. We have done a lot of resting. Thankfully, I think we are through it and are on the mend now.

Relaxing Week

This week was a little relaxing, especially after doing Preschool last week. I can't believe it was only last week; it feels like it was two weeks ago. I guess that it how it goes when there are more activities in one week.

We enjoyed watching General Conference and learning ways that we can strengthen our family. I can't wait to read the Ensign edition that has all the talks written. Watching conference was fun and yet hectic with the children running around and not wanting to sit for two hour stretches, but we made it and tried to make it fun for them as well. I felt so happy inside when David would talk about what someone spoke of or a word he recognized. He especially picked up on the talks that the people would mention the apostle Paul. That surprised me.

I have also been having fun doing all sorts of reading. I love reading the Hymns and trying to remember the words. Now that I can't sit at the piano hours at a time and play all the Hymns, I am starting to forget lots of words. I am still reading "Fishers of Men" by Gerald N. Lund. I really enjoy that as well. I get a perspective of how people lived back in the day of Christ's ministry on the earth, also the culture and traditions of that time. Clark brought me a book home from the University Library called "Christy" by Catherine Marshall. So far I have found it to be a very interesting book, very addicting too. I love reading.

Preschool Week

I was able to take my turn this week in teaching our preschool group. I was lucky, though, and only had to teach one day and the other day we went to a Christmas Tree farm for Pumpkin fun!

I loved getting to teach about pumpkins since Fall, pumpkins, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are what make up my favorite time of year! The children were silly, but I think they learned a little about pumpkins. I cut a pumpkin open for them and they all looked at it and put their hands on their noses and said, "ewe that's stinky!" Some were brave enough to put their hands in. My favorite part was piling a corner with blankets and making a cozy corner for reading books. The children actually sat and listened and wanted me to keep reading! They were all so cute snuggled in the blankets and listening to the pumpkin stories. Then they made their own little paper plate pumpkins. In spite of being tired, things went very well.

The pumpkin patch was fun too. The hostess read the children a couple of pumpkin books, then we all climbed up on a wagon for a tractor hayride. Our group was so large we used three trailers. Then we ate lunch and went through a corn maze. I think the children were all worn out by the end, when we decorated the pumpkins and then went home. I loved that they have animals for the children to see as well. I wish that Clark could have come with us, that would have made the fun complete! Enjoy the pictures of the week.

Starting Fresh

I decided to start fresh with our blog. Here you can see the weekly progress of our family. Yesterday was a big adventure for me (Maryann) and the children. I took my turn in being the Preschool teacher (a group of six mothers take turns by the week). I had so much fun and I think the children did too. Tomorrow we will take a field trip to a farm that sells pumpkins in the Fall and Christmas trees in the Winter. I took the children last year and am excited to take them tomorrow. I will put pictures on later.

We are all excited to listen to the prophet and apostles this weekend for General Conference. I used to think these were the longest weekends of my life when I was young and struggled to pay attention. Now I feel it is too short and I just can't get enough. Thankfully I have learned that I can study those talks forever more and get more in six months. I miss getting to see it on our television in Utah, but at least we can watch it on our computer here.

We are doing very well right now enjoying the beautiful Fall weather (90 degrees still here in Texas). We are now in October, one of the greatest months in the year, with my birthday in it. Lots to celebrate now! Have a great time enjoying the Fall season.