Come One, Come All

I know most of my readers are from out of town, but for those of you who are here, come to the choir concert. It's a great way to relieve the stress of the holidays and get into the true spirit of the season. And besides, it's the last time you will get to see me sing with them.

This is the Feast the Kids Made

I'm starting to discover the joy of having your kids grow up. I decided that, rather than make the entire Thanksgiving feast myself, I would have the kids help as much as possible this year. This had three benefits. 1) I didn't have to do all the work. 2) The kids learned some cooking skills. 3) I was hoping they would feel some ownership and pride in the meal and want to eat it. That one didn't happen so much. Oh well.
So, here's how it worked. on Wednesday, Emma made the rolls and Ellie and I made the pumpkin pies. On Thursday, Lauren peeled the potatoes and helped me mash them, Maddie made the stuffing and the cranberry drink, and Elllie and Richard worked on the turkey. All I had to do was put the green bean casserole and the sweet potatoes together. I even cheated and got the sweet potatoes from Schwann's. It was totally easy for me. The kids also made woven placemats for themselves and set the table.
I'm thinking next year they do the whole thing and just let me know when it's time to eat.

Little Lost Lauren

This was a funny (now anyway) thing that happened a couple of days ago. It was getting to be bed time and I was helping Ellie get ready for bed. Lauren had walked downstairs and I hadn't paid attention that it was taking her a long time to return. I figured she was with Richard or something. Then Richard came upstairs and said, "Where's Lauren?"
My quick response was, "Downstairs somewhere."
"No, she's not. I was just looking for her down there."
"Well, she's not up here." So the search began. We looked in every room, under the piano, behind couches, in closets, and bathtubs. We were calling and calling for her, "Lauren, this isn't funny. You need to come out now." We figured she was trying to play a little hide-and-seek with us. That idea quickly turned to panic. Could she have gone out? Would she do that? Did someone come in and take her? Richard is prone to letting panic set in very quickly and immediately took hold of that conclusion. I had to call him to reason quickly before he dialed the police. I said, "Richard, we haven't looked somewhere. I've seen this before. I remember Joni doing this as a child. She's asleep somewhere and we have to find where." That's when Richard walked over to the couch,(that we had looked under, behind, and on every side), picked up a pillow and. . . viola! Just like magic, there she was. Pretty funny now!

I had stacked those pillows there earlier in the day and they looked exactly the way I stacked them. I never would have guessed that she had wriggled her way under them, and fallen asleep.

My smart kids

I just got back from awards assemblies today. Emma got the Principals Honor Roll (4.0 GPA) again! and Lauren got a special award for outstanding effort and achievement because her reading has improved so much in the past month. It really has. All of a sudden she wants to read everything: signs on the road, on buildings, Dr. Seuss books, my to do lists, or whatever else she can find. She's becoming a reader like the other girls. Yay!!

Very Big News. . .

I have the okay to spread the word. The contract has been signed. Richard has taken a job in Naperville, IL. He starts in January and we will probably stay here until the end of the school year and try to sell our house. We got a great relocation package, the job is awesome, and we are all very excited. Richard will be the new Naperville Chamber of Commerce Executive. It is the second largest chamber in IL. Two of the board members flew here last week to meet me and make sure I was okay with the move and everything. Of course I am. I'm excited to make a new start without all the stress that accompanied our move here. I think that's partly the reason I just never have felt comfortable here, (sorry Elk Grovians--no offense). Richard is happy too. He's been dancing on the clouds since he got this job (about a week ago). The one drawback. . .we will have to spend more money on winter wear. I have to admit, I'll miss the weather here. It is pretty darn ideal. Oh well. So, if you're ever in the area, you'll now have a place to stop. Chicago anyone?

Persimmons

What do you do with them? Richard knows a lady who grows persimmons and every year she gives him some along with some persimmon cookies. The cookies really are pretty good, but what do you do with the persimmon? I'm not making the cookies. I already looked it up. You have to wait until they are just ripe and then peel them and cook them. It seems like too much work for what you get in the end. I'll let you know how they taste. I'm going to eat them like an apple when they are ripe enough.

Activity Days Quilt

This is the quilt that I made and the activity days girls tied. They had a lot of fun learning how to tie a quilt and I thought it turned out quite cute. I put it together last spring and never got around to tying it and then one day I had to cancel our original activity plans and scrambled to put something together. It turned out to be a lot of fun and evryone was pleased with the end result.

Seussical the Musical

This has been quite a week. One of the best things that happened this week was Maddie's show. She participated in a theater workshop, which is designed to teach kids (ages 5-18) the in's-and-out's of theater productions. This workshop show was Seussical the Musical and it turned out to be soooo cute. Maddie was a bird girl. The show is based on the Dr. Seuss story of Horton Hears a Who and incorporates other Seuss story parts as well. They did a fantastic job. I wish we lived closer to you all so you could have seen it. Anyway, here are some cute pictures of her and the show.

Movie Review

So, Richard and I were in need of some "time out" tonight and decided to see a movie. We haven't done that in a while and really didn't even know what was out there. We ended up seeing Dan in Real Life.
This movie had the whole theater laughing and cringing and anxiously anticipating every scene. It far exceeded my expectations (since I really didn't have any to begin with). Steve Carell has found a character that fit him perfectly. I can't tell any of the story or it would ruin it. But do see it.
People who would enjoy this the most would be single adults (past or present), parents of girls, parents of teenagers, people from large families, okay, just about anyone even if you don't fit into any of those categories. Enjoy.

Look Closely

If you look very closely at this blank page you will see a faint outline of a picture that I drew of Ellie. I couldn't sleep one night and decided to just get up. While I was up with time to myself I decided to sketch this little photo of Ellie that I saw lying there on the desk. It turned out better than I thought it would and I have decided to continue to work on it. Someday it will be more than this faint sketch. It might not be great, but I just haven't done anything like this in such a long time, I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it.

Nature Walk

Just experimenting with Picasa. Thanks Erin. These are photos from our Actvity Days Nature Walk. The girls picked out cool stuff they saw.

Trunk-or-Treat

Just for fun I thought you might enjoy my costume for our ward's trunk-or-treat. I don't usually dress up, but thought I'd throw something together at the last minute. I went as a "washed-up" Diva. I didn't have time to make myself a Grammy, but that would have been the greatest finishing touch.

Also, we never did get a pumpkin carved this year, but Ellie and I did finally manage to put our gingerbread Haunted House together. Here it is.

Halloween Photos

And here is Halloween. Ellie was a fairy princess, Lauren was the Sugar Plum Fairy, Emma was one of the 12 Dancing Princesses, and Maddie went for quick and easy wearing the indian costume that I wore when she was 3 years old. Thanks to Grandma Myrna for making the adorable fairy costumes for Ellie and Lauren. They turned out very cute and the girls loved them. Emma's costume was her dance recital costume from last spring.