It's been a great year! We visited New York, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Tennessee. We bought a 1986 29-foot Terry Camper Trailer. Sadie and Jeff have been renovating it and it's almost ready to hit the campground for it's first away-from-home trial run. It looks amazing!
We added a grandbaby to our family in August. Becca is bright eyed and completely adorable. That makes two of the cutest grandkids ever with number three ready to make her debut any day now.
Sterling has been home from his mission for a year and is loving BYU. Soren is in the Utah Salt Lake City Mission and has less than 8 months left. Time has been going crazy fast!
Sam just moved back home with the hopes of opening a country dance club. He's trying to locate a venue. He has many people pulling for him, hoping it works out. It will be a perfect addition to our little town.
We're looking forward to 2023. It really is a Wonderful Life!!
It's hard to believe 2021 is already coming to an end. After 2020, which felt like the longest year ever, 2021 has flown by. It's been full of so many great moments and memories. Just a few of the highlights include: two college grads (Savannah in April, Sam in December), our first grandbaby - Walker is the cutest little guy ever (ever!!), Soren graduating from high school in May then leaving to serve in the Utah Salt Lake City mission at the end of the summer, Sterling returning home from the Texas San Antonio mission last week.
There's plenty to look forward to in 2022. But for now, I'm happy to just pause and be grateful for the baby born in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago, the Savior of the world.
Sterling is serving in the Texas San Antonio Mission. Last night the mission shared a musical Easter Celebration over Facebook Live and YouTube. It's a collection of musical numbers performed by missionaries and members throughout the greater San Antonio area. It's really beautiful and uplifting. Sterling recorded and mixed all the audio. He also sings in two of the numbers (at 38:55 and 45:35). I would have loved this even if Sterling wasn't involved, but seeing his cute face makes me love it even more.
Click here to watch: YouTube or you can also click on the picture below.
I know, I know. It's been forever. Like WAY too long since I last posted. I could go through a laundry list of excuses, but really I miss this. I've never gone this long without posting and it makes me sad to think of all the things that have passed without a nod to how great they were. My loss.
I've been thinking about Mother's Day and how it can be a hard day for so many. I don't want to be that person. I love being a mom. It's what I've always wanted and now I'm living the dream. Sometimes that thought makes me laugh, especially when motherhood isn't as dreamy as I sometimes wished it to be. But I do love it and don't wish I was doing anything else.
I read a great article today about how, sadly, Mother's Day can be a minefield of emotions. Guilt, regret and longing often get in the way of gratitude. Mothers come in all shapes and sizes and life circumstances. To "mother" looks different in different situations and that's okay. Mothers should be celebrated regardless. So ladies, let's embrace that instinct and opportunity to mother, whether we are mothering our kids or someone else's.
I love me a newborn. It's one of my favorite stages. Recently a friend was struggling with her baby who wouldn't settle down no matter what she tried. We were in a meeting together so I told my friend I'd be happy to walk the halls with her baby. She gratefully accepted. After about 10 minutes, baby was sound asleep and I got to enjoy a snuggly warm baby for the rest of the meeting. Afterward, someone who had been watching me in the hallway called me a "baby whisperer." It was the best compliment.
As much as I love newborns, I have to admit that though teenagers can be hard, I have some pretty great teenagers and I love the stage where each of my kids are now. We have our struggles - everyone does - but I am so grateful I get to be the mom. Their mom. It's my favorite job ever.
Gentri posted this sweet song just in time for Mother's Day. I didn't know the story behind this popular Beatles' song until I watched this video (read the text at the start), but it's pretty good advice from a mother to her son. And the song is so much more meaningful now that I know the inspiration behind it. Of course, the men from Gentri sing with such beautiful harmonies that it just adds to the message.
While the drawing for this clever Valentine is my own, the cute idea is not. I love turtles so when I saw this idea on the internet, I knew it would be the perfect valentine for my kids.
I love our Christmas card display. In the weeks after Thanksgiving, it makes me so happy to check the mail and clip all the incoming Christmas cards to a wire that stretches the width of our dining room. While I don't really keep track from year to year, it feels like we got more cards than ever in 2016. Rather than overlapping and trying to fit them all in a row, this year after a row was full we just clipped additional cards in new rows beneath the first so they are all visible at once.
I know it's February, but I'm not ready to take the cards down quite yet. These are family and friends - most of them far away - and I like having them close to remind me how blessed we are!
We just finished up one of our favorite Christmas Eve traditions -- watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. It just wouldn't be Christmas without it! We have to wait until Christmas Eve to watch it because, after all, there's only one more sleep 'til Christmas!
My favorite song is Bless Us All, sung by Tiny Tim.
Bless us all who gather here,
The loving family I hold dear.
No place on earth compares with home
And every path will bring me back from where I roam.
Bless us all that as we live,
We always comfort and forgive.
We have so much that we can share
With those in need we see around us everywhere. ...
I attended a writing group last night for the first time in several years. It was a blast! To start off, we were given twenty minutes to write on the prompt "Projects." We could interpret that however we wanted, from class projects to Christmas projects to the lack of projects, etc. Everyone was then invited to share what they wrote. Some were serious; most were funny. Here is what I wrote. It's a story worth remembering.
They were just the cutest little ornaments. The delicate angels looked like porcelain, but they were made almost entirely out of pasta. Bowtie pasta made the wings and dress, elbow macaroni formed the arms, and the little wooden bead head was covered in Acini de Pepe or what I call "frog-eye" pasta to look like curly hair. A few coats of white spray paint and a dash of translucent glitter was finished off with a little ribbon rose nestled in each angel's arms with a beaded halo on top.
I learned to make them at a church craft fair and decided I must make them for everyone I knew. How hard could it be? I started off just fine, but then the demands of the season started creeping in.
I was making them assembly-line style, one step at a time when I had a few minutes here and there. But then it came time to put the hair on my tray full of angels. For some reason this crippled me. It was the most tedious step and suddenly I felt overwhelmed. I put it off for days. One night I came home from a meeting and complained to my husband about all the demands on my time. I finished off with, "And I've still got to put hair on all of those angels!" At that, my husband of only six months said, "Come look at your hairless little angels."
I walked over to the tray to find that my very masculine Jeff had laid aside his studies to spend the entire evening calmly and methodically spreading glue on my angels' little bald heads and then sticking them in the tiny pasta balls to cover every single angel head with hair.
That was 21 years ago, but I will never forget that selfless act of love.
For the past three weeks we've drawn names every Sunday. During the week we do nice things for our person. For each act of service, we get to put a straw in our popsicle-stick manger. We're trying to make a soft bed for the baby Jesus before Christmas.
Some of us are doing really well (some not so much, like...um...whoever has my name). Some of us are excited to find opportunities to secretly do something without getting caught while others ask "Who has my name?" when they have a job to do, hoping their someone will volunteer. :) As you can see, it's far from perfect. But overall, it's a positive alternative to the gimme attitude that all-too-often prevails at this time of year.
And our little makeshift manger is filling right up!
Tomorrow is Day One of the #lighttheworld campaign for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. #Lighttheworld issues a challenge to follow the example of the Savior and be a light to the world (see John 8:12). There is a different challenge for each day of December through Christmas.
I love this video. My favorite part is how it shows Christ helping someone and then it shows someone in our day performing a similar service. I got all teary-eyed the first time I watched it because it reminded me of my last days with my dad. I would sit with him for hours, even as he slept, and it didn't feel like a burden. His last night at home, he was up every five or ten minutes - in too much pain to sleep and needing to clear the mucous out of his lungs by gargling and spitting. It hurt too much for him to cough and he couldn't swallow. We wiped his face and made sure he had what he needed. We tried to make him as comfortable as possible, but it was heart-wrenching to be so helpless to relieve his suffering. I know that any of us who were caring for him would have done anything to give him even a few minutes of relief. It was a blessing to serve him. The video above shows that spirit of service.
Tomorrow the challenge is to participate in the Worldwide Day of Service. Just find a way to serve someone else, big or small.
If you go to mormon.org, you can download the "In 25 Ways. Over 25 Days." advent calendar. (Just scroll down a little from the video.) It spells out the challenges for each day.
This morning a big group of us headed out to hike the Cress Creek trail up Kelly Canyon. The weather was perfect. The scenery was amazing. The company was great.
Here are some pictures of our beautiful day.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I will forever love the Flower of Scotland!
Sawyer is the cutest! He kept stopping and asking me to take his picture.
These last few were taken on the drive on our way to the trail. It was just a beautiful day all around!
Sunday was the most beautiful day. Because of the Memorial Day weekend and the perfect weather, we took he kids to a small cemetery a few minutes from our home to explore. If there's one thing Illinois has a lot of, it's small cemeteries. They are everywhere.
One thing we all noticed about this particular cemetery was the number of young children and babies buried there. One particular headstone marked the grave of a husband and wife. It also showed that each of their four children preceded them in death. Three of their children died before they were a year old. The fourth was only 8 or 9. That was in the early 1900's. It left me wanting to know their story. What was their life like? How did they continue on after so much loss?
We saw several soldiers graves. One was lost at sea. Another died in battle during WWII. But most served their country and then went on to live long lives.
It was a beautiful afternoon. We love this great country!
Happy Memorial Day.
*Note: The Music and the Spoken Word broadcast yesterday had a beautiful arrangement of God Bless the USA, with special guest Dallyn Vail Bayles. I loved it and wanted to post it here, but it won't be available until a year from now. So after May 29, 2017, you should be able to find it here. :)
Sterling was saving his money for a Looper Pedal. They aren't cheap so he was constantly asking, "What can I do?" to earn some extra cash. He was happily doing things that are typically my responsibility or jobs that don't get done on a regular basis. The money was coming in steadily, but not fast enough.
Then I realized that a Looper Pedal alone wouldn't do him much good. He'd need a microphone going in and a speaker coming out. Plus, the Looper he'd picked out was really set up for the guitar and a vocal one cost a little more. The price was climbing. I hesitated to tell Sterling because I didn't want to deflate his hopes. Then I had an idea.
For years I've thought about getting some sound equipment for these musical kids of ours, but each time I look into it, I get so overwhelmed by the options and the prices and not knowing where to start. I eventually abandon the idea. Knowing all of our kids would enjoy the equipment, I decided to look into it once more and see just what it would take to get Sterling set up.
I purchased a microphone, PA speaker, and a Looper as well as the cords needed to hook everything up. I asked Sterling if he was willing to give me the money he'd earned so far and we'd take care of the rest.* He jumped at the offer. We gave the equipment to the kids on Easter and, no joke, within 10 minutes of getting everything out of the boxes, Sterling was making some cool music.
It's pretty slick. He records one track and then pushes the loop button with his foot and it plays it again so he can record another track right along with it. Then he can add another voice and another and he just goes right on singing with his own self.
I asked Sterling to give me a quick demo of his Looper Pedal so here you go. (The Looper is on the floor.) This is real time just as you see it. Fun stuff!!
*Jeff and I always try to make our Easter gifts meaningful to the holiday. We gave the microphone and speaker to all the kids after we had them look up scripture verses about crying out with the "sound of a trump" (microphone) and "hearing" the word of the Lord (speaker). Here's how I tied Sterling's Looper Pedal in -- We have a children's book called "You Are Priceless," by Stephen E. Robinson. The book retells 'the parable of the bicycle' that's found in his book (a favorite of mine), "Believing Christ." The parable of the bicycle tells the story of a little girl saving for a bike. She saves and saves, but comes to the realization that she'll never have enough. Then her dad says, "Give me all you've got and a hug and a kiss and the bike is yours." Then the book goes on to compare this to what Christ did for us. No matter what we do, we'll always be short of perfection. We simply cannot gain exaltation without the saving power of Christ's Atonement. Christ asks for our best ("Give me all you've got,") and our love ("and a hug and a kiss") and He'll make up the difference where we fall short. We read the story to our kids and then asked Sterling if he was willing to give us all he'd saved so far (and a hug and a kiss) for a Looper Pedal. He was. He didn't know then that I'd already purchased the pedal. I wish I had a picture of his face when he realized he wouldn't have to wait. :)
Have you ever wanted to sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Recently, they invited people to join them in singing the Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah. With some specific instructions about how to submit a video of yourself singing your chosen vocal part, they put all the videos together and came up with this virtual choir. {I wish we had participated!}
We didn't do this on purpose. We didn't even know there was such a thing as St. Patrick, Missouri. But it just so happened that we were staying in a little community right next door and had to drive through St. Patrick to get where we were going. And it just happened to be St. Patrick's day. :) These pictures were taken yesterday (3/16) as we were heading in from Nauvoo for the evening. But we drove through again this morning as we headed to Carthage.
Kind of a fun coincidence. Happy St. Patrick's Day! :)
Hands down, this is my favorite pie. It's the apple pie I grew up with, the one I'd sneak into the kitchen for to steal loose bits of the yummy top crust when no one was looking. It's so yummy served warm with vanilla ice cream or cold out of the fridge for breakfast the next day.
It's the perfect pie for our Pi Day (3.14) celebration. It's super easy to make which makes it even better! Mom's Apple Pie
1 bottom pie crust (not deep dish)
4+ large Granny Smith apples (or 7-8 smaller apples)
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
Combine sugar and cinnamon. Peel, core, and slice apples. Place them in unbaked pie shell and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar after each layer or so. Continue until apples are heaping in pie shell.
Topping:
1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. flour
1/3 c. butter or margarine
With a pastry blender, combine until crumbly. Spoon over apples and pat down with hands to form the top "crust." Bake on a foil lined cookie sheet at 400° for 40-50 minutes. (My oven is on the warm side so 40 minutes is plenty. I gently place a piece of foil on top for the last 10 minutes to keep the top crust from getting too dark.)
