Happy Thanksgiving!

The kids and I made these today. We found the idea on Disney's Family Fun website. In case you are wondering, no, the pilgrims are not sick- those are the girls' attempt at freckles!

Happy Thanksgiving!

By the by- I FINALLY posted all about October- we had some pretty swell adventures, so go one post back from this one and check it out!!! Here's one teaser- your get to see all my kids dressed up in full cowboy/girl garb!

October Re-cap

We have indeed slowed down in November and it has been lovely. In fact a couple of weekends ago, Kenneth had Friday off in addition to Saturday and Sunday and we mostly just stayed home and played with the kids and did normal stuff here. It was really nice. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, we are spending a quiet day with a co-worker of Kenneth's and his wife. But, we had a BLAST in October and I need to record it all and, of course, share all our good times with you all (finally)!! Here goes:

October 1st we went on a lovely outing to the temple. We have been taking the kids lately and switching off. There is a great park right up the road and we bring a picnic to enjoy on the temple grounds. The kids love it. We love it. It's a win-win.

October 2nd and 3rd were General Conference. What a lovely time!! What is really fantastic is that being on the West Coast, the timing is such that Grant naps during the entire afternoon session and we can actually hear the speakers! How thankful I am to be a member of a 'living' church; one in which there is a prophet who communicates with Jesus Christ and then gives us guidance.

October 8th, we went to Gilroy Gardens, a family theme park about 45 minutes away from us, with Miss Anita and Mr. Brian (the kids' adopted Grandparents out here) We all had a great time- especially the kids. The highlight of their time was riding a real horse!!! It sure was fun to see them dressed up as little cow girls and boy! Thanks Brian and Anita for treating them!
Arianna could have ridden the carousel all day long. Notice the purple beaded necklace around the horses neck. Arianna brought it with her and insisted on putting it on each horse she rode on the carousel.
Is she loving this or what?

Happy little man

Of course, the beautiful things about kids is they can have just as much fun waiting for the rides!

The highlight of the day was dressing up in full cowboy/girl garb and getting ride a horse!

Handsome little man


Emma, the cowgirl

Grant on the horse
Emma on the horse

Once again


Arianna is really into horses lately. She was so excited about this experience!!

Emma 'lassoing'

The evening of October 8th I had the privilege of hearing Sister Julie Beck, The Relief Society (the Womens' Organization in our Church) General President, speak right here in my neck of the woods. She was indeed inspiring. One of the concepts she taught was that the Lord is organizing things in our life- even if it may look like a mess to us. He is creating experiences for us. These experiences are not payback for something we have or haven't done; they are to teach us. She also encouraged us by saying that the Lord strengthens us to carry the burdens he gives us. She ended by inviting us to be long-term optimists. Yes, we may have hard times in our lives, but long-term, it will all work out!

October 9th all 5 of us went up to the Auditorium on the Temple grounds to hear Jenny Oaks Baker and the Orchestra at Temple Hill in her Wish Upon a Star concert. She is an incredible violinist! Her Wish Upon a Star album combines her skill with the magic of Disney. All arranged by Kurt Bestor, the pieces were simply incredible. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and was actually amazed at how well the kids did sitting through an Orchestra Concert!

October 14th and 15th we spent in Fresno, CA with two very special people in our lives: The Klands. Brother and Sister Kland served a mission in Ithaca, New York from 2002 to 2004. Sister Kland actually introduced Kenneth and myself at a Young Single Adult Conference. The last time we saw them had been in 2004 when they left New York. It was so great to spend some time in their home with them. While in Fresno, we went to see the animals at Fresno State University and went to see the temple. It was a lovely visit. Here are some pictures of that weekend:
Helping Brother Kland feed the birds.

Wagon rides in their backyard

My three little cuties!

We went to see the Ag School area at Frenso State University. The kids loved seeing the pigs, horses, and cows.

Grant and me at the Fresno Temple.

Our family with the Klands.

Grant and Daddy at the temple

The kids with the Klands in front of their house.

My monkey

October 18th we met with Kenneth's Oncologist, who had only good news to report. Kenneth's body is still recovering from the Chemotherapy, as is to be expected, but everything in the liver turned out to be nothing to worry about. It was a very happy appointment!

October 19th was my 33rd Birthday!! I chose to have a sandwich for my Birthday dinner. I mean all the fixin's: the high quality roll, the nice lunch meat, Havarti cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, Grey Poupon, a little mayo. I was in heaven! And the best part? I didn't have to cook! I should have thought of doing that long ago!

October 20th Kenneth's brother, Dennis, his sister, Karen, and her family arrived from Utah. They stayed through Saturday afternoon, the 22nd and we had a blast!!! We went to the beach one day, to San Francisco the next and then chilled at home on Saturday while the men folk barbequed the traditional Larchar Chicken BBQ. It was like we were on the farm. . .well, almost.

Emma, Ashley and Alyssa having a blast at the beach!

Tyler, Grant and Kaylynn with the clan in the background.

Believe it or not, this is the best picture we got of the family in front of the bridge this day. Too sunny, too windy, non- cooperative children!

Kenneth, Karen and Dennis (Kenneth's siblings)

Walking back to the car. Grant really took right to Dennis- he loves to spend time with him!

This is what it looks like driving down the steepest street in San Fransisco!

The crookedest street- Lombard Street

We drove home from San Fransisco by way of the Oakland Temple. Here is the whole gang out front.

Buddies!

Also on October 20th, Kenneth took me to see the BYU Ballroom dancers perform. They are incredible!!!!! Emma came along, too. What a great Birthday gift!

October 23rd was the Primary Program at church. As the Primary Music Leader, it is the day the kids and I work towards all year long. The kids did great and it went pretty smoothly. They even have a set of handbells in this Primary that the kids played for one of the numbers. It was fantastic!

On October 28th, we discovered that the girls had lice!!!! To make a long story short, it involved hours of treatments and picking through hair, thorough vacuuming and about 10 loads of laundry. Boy were we glad when that was over! And cutting the girls hair off- forgot to mention that!

The next day, October 29th, we were supposed to go to San Francisco to meet my sister and brother-in-law for a tour of Alcatraz. With the lice issues, we could no longer take them to anyone's house to be cared for, so we just brought them all with us. Arianna threw up on the boat ride, but other than that it was very enjoyable having them with us. They, of course, LOVED spending time with Aunt Wendy and Uncle John!
Alcatraz from the boat

Kenneth in prison

Golden Gate Bridge at Sunset from Alcatraz

Finally, October 31st, we went to a Birthday Party for one of the kids' preschool friends. It was fun to have someplace to go all dressed up. Emma was Snow White for the party and Arianna was the queen (the costume Emma was wearing a few posts ago). Grant would have none of the dressing up. In fact, I don't think I even took a picture of them. Oh well.

Here are a few extra pictures of the activities in the month:
Working in the garden with Daddy. We are enjoying the peas that are on! You gotta love California!
Arianna LOVES swiss chard from the garden!

Homeschooling at our house looks like this!!! On this particular day, Emma decided to make a bookstore and sorted most of the books on the shelf into piles- ABC books, Arctic/Antarctic animals, Noah's Arc books, books about horses, books about dancing. She was busy as a bee and having so much fun.

Daddy has been teaching his girls to play baseball. Good times!

Phew!!! So, there you have it- the rundown of our busy month of October!

Thy gold to refine. . .

In church today, we sang How Firm a Foundation in Sacrament Meeting. We actually sang all 7 verses, which I don't think I've done in years. Verses 4 and 5 were particularly inspiring and comforting to me today. We had a hard last year, it's true. But, I know so many other people, both friends and family, who are going through many difficult trials. In many ways, far more difficult than anything I have experienced. As we sang these verses today, a prayer went up to my Father for all of them that they may feel the comfort and encouragement in these verses:

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o'erflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee, and sanctify to thee,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, thy dross to consume,
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

I have succeeded in some small way. . .

My five-year-old asked for more kale at dinner tonight. I couldn't believe it! In fact, I didn't even give her any on her plate to begin with- just carrots. She asked for firsts and seconds.

Too bad I still haven't succeeded in blogging about October! One of these days. . .