I LOVE Christmas!

I was so excited for Christmas to come, and it didn't disappoint. I think I can quite honestly say that this was my favorite Christmas, probably since we have been married. I am not exactly why that is, other than the fact that I felt more joy and peace this Christmas season than I recall ever feeling. It didn't hurt that we were all healthy and that we had minimal traveling to do. The kids were thrilled by everything, even the pajamas that they kind of figured out they were going to get on Christmas Eve, and my wonderful husband surprised me with a couple of things. One thing (a new set of scripture, beautiful burgundy, with curly gold writing, and my married name embossed on them) I had suspicions about, but that didn't lessen my amazement or gratitude for such a wonderful and beautiful gift. Here are a few highlights of our holiday.

Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It is so fun to pull out the nice dishes and the kids loved having candles.

Reading the scripture story. Everyone helped and took part. I love seeing my kids growing up.

Opening the first gift is so fun, even if you kind of think you know what it is!

Thanks again for the help Mom, the kids LOVED their pj's and Megan looks like one of the big kids now.

Visiting with Santa and Mrs. Claus (aka grandpa and grandma Chantry!) And no one was scared. what fun!

I want to savor the fun we had this Christmas, though I am going to un-decorate and get the house back to normal. I do have a tiny figure of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus that I have decided to leave up year round so that all year we remember the joy and peace that comes through our Savior.

Tutoring

This fall has been a great time for tutoring. I love math, and I have had a great variety in the tutoring jobs that I have had this fall. Yes, I know I am crazy, but here are some of the highlights:

-Two column geometry proofs (those of you who read this will think I am nuts, but it is like putting a puzzle together and it so amazing to see how the pieces fit together. So much fun!)

-Arithmetic in different bases - I did some of this when I was young, but not enough to really learn and understand it. I really understand how it all works now and how it all ties into our common bse 10 system. I can even handle base 12 and hexadecimal. Subtracting, adding, multiplying, "carrying", "borrowing". I love it all!

-Factoring Trinomials- A couple of years ago I learned a very cool method that eliminated the guess and check system that I learned and used for factoring as a high school student. It always works! It has been fun to share that with others and to just enjoy a part of math that I have loved for many, many years.

I am grateful for the opportunity to help people with math and look forward to the fun that next semester will bring!

My kids LOVE this

Dinosaur train is a relatively new show on PBS kids and the kids love it. They particularly like this song. Yesterday this episode was on and they were disappointed that they had to miss the song to get ready for the bus. So I found it on YouTube and now I am the "best mom EVER!"



He is a link to some cool printable pages for the song too.
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/dinosaurtrain/lessonplans/dinosaurssatoz/

Thankful For

This is a great time of year, an extra special chance to be thankful, and a holiday that is not near as commercialized as the others close to it. I am looking forward to a wonderful day cooking with my mom and being with my family, my mom, dad and sister. It will be great! I just wanted to share a few things that I am thankful for. The list is endless, so I just picked a few things that might stand out o me a bit more this year.

! - Brian - of course I am thankful for him, but this year I am particularly grateful for his willingness to follow through on things even when they are hard. A few examples, redoing our bathroom, helping me with lots of projects, and oh yeah, finishing his Master's project.

2 - My kids - yes they top the list too, but this year I am particularly thankful for the ways they are growing up. It is so different being a mom of school aged children (without little tiny ones at home). Between homework, piano, friends, activity days (and in not too long, Cub Scouts) we are so busy and things get a little nuts, but it is so fun! They are also so good at helping each other out. What a blessing!

3 - Primary - I love serving with the children at church. I love seeing my kids as they learn and soon Megan will be there too. I love hearing the Primary music each and every week. I love the sweet spirit the children bring with them!

4 - Friends - I am grateful for my many friends who will take time out of their busy days to help me by giving me a ride. Whether it is a necessity like a doctor appointment, or just a fun errand I want to run, so many say, "call me if you need anything" and mean it. They all say it isn't a big deal, but it is a HUGE thing for me, and blesses Brian too.

5 - My Savior, Jesus Christ, who has made it possible for me to succeed in returning to my Heavenly Father.

6 - My Heavenly Father who has provided these blessings for me now, and who has provided me with countless blessings throughout my life. He has always given me just what I needed, though I may not have understood it all at the time. He is mindful of me and my family and for that I am grateful.

Hogwarts Halloween and Fall Fun

Anyone who knows me knows that Halloween is not my favorite holiday. I don't mind the dressing up (in fact it is so fun to see the kids enjoying it so much!) and parties are fun, but I really dislike Trick-or-Treating. So we minimized that part of the holiday and enjoyed the other festivities, especially Uncle Jason's party. The kids loved our Harry Potter theme and looked great!

Mike as Ron Weasely

Liz as Hermione Granger

Nathan as The Boy Who lived

and cute little Megan as Ginny Weasely

I was Professor McGonagell (or Gonagell as Megan would say) and Brian was Dumbledore. The kids were thrilled!

The four or five days before Halloween were quite wintery, but the day of Halloween was beautiful out. We were able to clean up leaves in the yard. The kids enjoyed making a large pile and jumping. So much fun!

Grandma Dates

Last week the kids had Thursday and Friday off from school. Brian's mom wanted to take the chance to have Grandma dates with each of the kids. She got here mid morning on Thursday and took Megan for lunch and a small shopping trip, thenw as here for a few hours before taking Mike to dinner and shopping. She spent the night and took Nathan out for his turn (and breakfast) then Liz got to go to lunch. They were all excited by the surprises they got to choose, but more than that,

they LOVED being with Grandma!

New blog

I have a new blog. It is dedicated to the craft projects that i have enjoyed making (and will enjoy in the future). Check out my new post.

Smiles from Meg

It was great to see you!

This post is for Grandma DuVall and for Aunt Peggy. We had such a wonderful time visiting with you on Friday and Saturday. It is always such a treat to see you, but to have so much time and not much going on was particularly wonderful. We could just visit and enjoy one another's company. We hope that we see youa gain soon, and we hope Aunt Julie can come along next time. (Here are some pictures and I posted the Disney video below.)

Four generations

Just like Christmas. Thanks Grandma!

This is for Linda: Look to the right. I thought of you when Megan turned to this in her book today. I just thought I would share it. It is the picture we were talking about the other night.

Disneyland Video

I made this video MONTHS ago, and I am posting it now so that Grandma DuVall can see it. For some reason Sue couldn't find her DVD when we were there to show it to Grandma. It probably had something to do with the fact that she had a house full of visitor's. :-) Enjoy!

Family pictures

Our neighbor took our family pictures last week. I was really pleased with how they turned out. I can't wait to get them printed and hung on the wall. We are getting some new frames and are printing the family one larger than we have in the past. I am really excited. They will be grouped with the Forever Family plaque that I made.

Me and My Meg

I blogged about the kids going to school, so here is a little piece of what MEgan and I have done to enjoy our time together.

My friend and I took Meg and her little girl to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens, first the main garden and then the Children's Garden. It is no surprise that I had my camera along for the adventure. What a fun time we had kicking of the school year and celebrating the fact that she and I only have two little ones at home.

My cute girl

This one is a nice shot of the giant bruise on her cheek that she got from losing her balance while spinning and falling into the rocking chair

Megan liked this sculpture

Playing in teh Noah's Ark fountain at the Children's Garden

Leading us through the maze of hedges, she got us out of the maze, no problem!

I enjoyed this morning so much. I am enjoying my time with Megan and it is fun to see her enjoy her first chance of "Megan time" which she hasn't really ever had.

School has begun

Well, I am officially of the mother of three school aged kids; a third grader, a second grader and a kindergartener. I always get a little grin when people ask how it is to have just one at home in the mornings because the house is so quiet and Megan is so much fun (Megan is enjoying it a lot too) but in all seriousness I LOVE THIS STAGE! I loved when my kids were little, watching them grow, learn knew things and surprise me every day by what they were doing.

Well, this stage is just as grand and wonderful, even if it is challenging in so many different ways. I LOVE my kids' enthusiasm for learning. I LOVE that they love school. I love how I can tell how their day went the instant I see them climb off the bus. I love that I have a daughter who faces challenges relating to her vision, but does not see them as challenges. It is part of life and she adapts without worry or complaint. I love that I have a son who is learning to feel promptings from a Father above who loves him and cares about his life (and his lunchbox). I love that I have a son who has no problem heading off to kindergarten, but loves to cuddle with me and tell me all about his day when he gets home. My children are amazing and wonderful people. They are full of wondrous thoughts and ideas. I know that none of this is really eloquent, but I have been thinking about how my kids are really great and I feel so blessed.

Our Anniversary - A Family History Adventure

So Saturday was our 9th anniversary, and we planned a day with the kids in Salt Lake. It was to follow up our Family Night about ancestors, and for this week we focused on John Taylor, my great-great-great-grandfather. We talked at family night about John Taylor being in Carthage with Joseph Smith and Hyrum. We talked about his pocket watch that save him that night and we talked about serving a mission in Europe, helping wtih the French translation of the Book of Mormon, and his line of descendants that leads to us. So Saturday we headed to the Church History museum in Salt Lake. What a great day. It took us a bit to get there because of unusal traffic, but we made it and even got to ride TRAX to Temple Square. This made everyone happy.

This picture is up in a section where each Prophet is talked about. They had a section about writings from John Taylor, talked about how he dedicated the Logan temple, and about his missions. I love this portrait.

Here is John Taylor's pocket watch and his cane (belor). There is a letter written by Willard Richards and John Taylor recording what happened at Carthage. The kids thought this was quite fascinating.

After the museum we went to the Salt Lake City cemetary and found his grave. It si hard to describe how neat this was. We felt such a connection to the site, where not only John Tylor but Sophia Whitaker was buried.

We also found the graves of John Whitaker Taylor and his wife Rhoda Welling. In a lot of ways it feels like these people lived so long before us, and yet when you think about how close we are really linked. For example, John W. Taylor was my grandfather's grandfather, or the fact that I remember some about my great Grandma Marietta Taylor (Call) who is John Whitaker Taylor's daughter. Somehow thinking of things this way makes them seem closer, and much more real.

Over the last few weeks I have felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for those who came before me. I know that in so many ways I am where I am today because of the sacrifices they made in their lifetimes. We focused this time on our Taylor line because of the many things they already know about John Taylor and the connection they already feel, but I recognize that I have many, many more ancestors who have blessed my life.

And on a completely random note: The Church History museum had this really cute area for kids to play. I have been there before but things have changed since then. WE didn't stay long, but I loved this mural painted on teh wall. We made it look like our kids were at General Conference. So fun! The kids keep asking to go back.