Makezie's First Primary Program

Towards the end of every year, all the Primary kids (ages 3-12) preform in church during the Sacrament Meeting.  Some are given lines to memorize, some read a verse of scripture, some give little talks they've been asked to write, and they all sing the songs they've been learning all year long.  The program follows the themes they've been learning all year long.  This was the first year Makenzie was in Primary and got to participate.  It was so much fun to watch her.  Her class sang the song "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" all by themselves.  She started a little early with the wrong words very loudly and with guosto.  That unnerved her for the rest of the song, but she still did great.  Her two lines this year were:

The family is ordained of God and is central to His plan.

Baptism is the first ordinace of the gospel.

What Happened to Thanksgiving?

So...on Monday, November 2nd...just 2 little days after Halloween, I went to Target.  And the entire store was decorated for CHRISTMAS!!!  Red and Green everywhere.  I thought to myself, "What happened to Thanksgiving???  Isn't there another holiday to celebrate before we jump to Christmas?"  Now, I understand selling Christmas stuff early, but to decorate the entire store before Thanksgiving?  Geesh people...live in the moment a little more!!!

We had some beautiful weather recently.  Cool enough to break out the pants and sweaters.  Warm enough to enjoy being outside.  Dry enough to make the leave crunch when you walk through them.  The girls and dogs and I went outside and played in the leaves.

Here are my two black boys, patiently letting me take pictures.

The girls playing with the leaves.  They loved racking the leaves into a pile and then walking through the pile.  When I showed them how to throw the leave in the air, their eyes lit up!

Makenzie asked Hailey if she wanted to climb trees.  Here is Hailey's attempt.  Poor little short girl!

Makenzie and Hailey digging for worms.  They love finding worms and playing with them.  They also love going fishing with Grandpa.  It's a good combination!

Happy Halloween!

For Halloween, Makenzie wanted to be a mermaid.  And Hailey, of course, wanted to be the same thing.  Luckily, I had a pattern to follow.  It was a little bit of a challenge, but I LOVE the result!

And of course, Makenzie wanted me to be a mermaid too!

If the girls are mermaids, then the boys--naturally---are fishermen!

We went to our church's Trunk or Treat on Friday.  The girls' bags are overflowing with candy!  On Saturday, we went to our neighborhood Trunk or Treat...and that produced two more overflowing bags of candy.  We are on a sugar high right now!

Isaiah had his first loli-pop.  He LOVED it!!!!!!  His eyes were sparkling and he kept popping it in and out of his mouth.  Super happy boy!

Pumpkin Decorating

We went to the Greenville Hands-On Children's museum.  They were having a special pumpkin-decorating activity.  So, Makenzie and Hailey decorated too little pumkins.  Isaiah was tuckered out and slept, but he helped hold on to them on the ride back to the car!

Buddy Walk 2009

Last year, we skipped the Buddy Walk because Isaiah had just come home from the NICU. This year we decided to go. We didn't get our act togther to raise money, but we went just to socialize. There were clowns doing facepainting and making balloon animals. There were two different magic shows. And several "buddies" performed.

This is the group picture of all the "buddies".  Isaiah and I are in the front to the right, just before the stroller.

Here is the 5 of us.  Students from Wofford College came and helped make posters for the buddies.  Makenzie and Hailey decorated the poster for Isaiah.  After the walk, all the buddies got a medal and a goodie bag.

Spencer took this picture.  If you look closely, you can see the "Team Isaiah" poster in the glasses!

Apples, Apples, Everywhere

A wonderful woman from my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints AKA LDS ADA Mormons) taught a class on how to make homemade applesauce on a Thursday.  It was awesome!  I had nothing much to do Friday, so the kids and I took a trip to McAbee's Apple Stand and purchased LOTS of apples for all the ladies from the church who wanted to try their hand at canning apples.  I bought 18 1/2 bushel bags of apples!

I used one bag of apples to make applesauce.

I boiled the apples in my water bath (the large black pot).  Then you just put the apples through the squeezo (the contraption to the right) and presto...homemade applesauce.

One bag of apples made 6 1/2 quart-jars of applesauce, 2 pint-jars of apple butter, and 2 pint-jars of apple cider concetrate (I didn't have a recipee for this one, so it might not be worth repeating).

I took another bag of apples, used a supercool corer/peeler/slicer, shoved as many apples as I could into quart jars, and then added a syrupy mixure on top...and presto: apple pie filling.  One bag made 9 quart-jars!  YUMMY!!!

One More Step Into Food Storage

I went an collected our items from the Walton Food Truck today.  It was my first time ordering and it was kind of fun opening all the boxes and organizing everythings.  A HUGE thanks to Carol Justice for doing this all the time!!!  So Spencer and I ordered a bunch of the little cans of stuff for us to try.  Then we'll figure out what we use and how to use it (without buying a huge can and realizing we don't like the stuff!)  Then we'll know what bigger things to order next time.  This is kind of exciting and kind of scary at the same time!  Luckily there are lots of families that are really good at food storage to help me out!