Thanksgiving Week

First up this little guy turned 4 the day before Thanksgiving! He so badly wanted a batman cake and for his friends to come over for a party. So, what does any good Mom do? Finds out whose hosting preschool that week and asks if we can crash it for the last hour. Emily graciously let us take over her house. Ashton was thrilled. I tried my hand at marshmellow foundant to cut out the bat. David was so kind to inform me that the bat should be black and the cake yellow but black fondant is gross so yellow it was. Did you see how happy Hannah is for Ashton? Priceless.

Ashton and his buddy Parker wearing silly glasses from their goodie bags. Yes, goodie bags. I'm trying to earn some Mom points back.

On to Thanksgiving. David and I are now smack dab in the middle of the Jacobson family in Dallas and Wisconsin. We volunteered to host and save ourselves the drive. Everyone thought hosting was a big deal. Shh...no one needs to know we'd host any day and sleep in our own beds over having to pack up and travel. I was sick the entire week and was so grateful for help. I realized one life skill I've already mastered is delegation. I hosted Thanksgiving here but hardly had to do anything. I was in charge of a few things including the Turkey but I didn't ever have to touch it. David's dad did all the prep work and put it in the oven. I kept an eye on it and called Ben over to take it out and make the gravy.

So this Thanksgiving I was VERY grateful for lots of help and reminded again of how grateful I am for good health. Here is our little grateful tree we made all month with the kids. All of our leaves kept sliding down to the bottom of our branches. Next year we'll try something different.

I didn't take many pictures but I didn't miss this photo-op. Cody got all the brothers ninja turtle shirts as a parting gift before he leaves next month on his mission. Apparently each turtle coincides directly with that brother's personality. If David were here he'd make me name them all... but you get it.

The whole Jacobson clan together.

It was a great week. I stayed up way too late many nights even after taking Nyquil. I'm pretty sure if I had to be sick over a vacation this was the perfect way to do it. Thanks for coming everyone!

Restored Faith

For a few months now I've been thinking a lot about raising teenagers someday. I've been thinking about what they'll face at school. Then started contemplating homeschooling to keep them away from all of it. I can remember the drugs, profanity and immorality that I was surrounded in highschool and I can only imagine how bad it is now.

Then last night we had our ward's Young Women in Excellence. It was well planned with the theme "Come See The Light". The girls read and related experiences from 3Nephi11 and focused on the Savior's teachings. As I listened to each girl share their testimonies of Christ it brought me to tears over and over again. They are doing just fine. They are doing more than just fine. They are thriving. They know who Jesus Christ is and they love Him.

I was so very wrong. I'm so grateful to these young women for teaching me last night that amidst all the filth going on around them they are still standing tall for what is right. I didn't ever need to worry because as long as our kids are learning the restored gospel of Jesus Christ they can handle anything.

Here is the video that was shown last night called Come See The Light.

Great Weekend

I had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. My sis-in-law Emily and I went to Time Out for Women in Kansas City. It was wonderful, spiritual and not cheesey at all. I was grateful for a day and a half just to focus on how I can better myself.

On Saturday when it finished Emily and I drove straight to Independence, MO where we would meet David, Ben and all of our kids. Did I mention a couple weeks earlier we convinced them to meet us up there so we could see some church history sites that were close by? So Emily (and James their baby) and I drove up on Friday afternoon. On Saturday David and Ben with the 5 other kids drove up and met us Independce. We went through the visitor's center.
Here's the replica log cabin where 10 families would have stayed.
They've added a little pionner playroom for the kids. Here's Hannah driving Anna and Kate.

Mallie inside the little kid's cabin. She was so thrilled to be out of the car after crying almost the entire 4 hour drive up. Sorry Ben (and David)! She seriously ran laps around everyone for the first 20 mins after being out of the car.

From Indepence we picked up some Little Caesars all ate in the car and drove 20 mins to our hotel that I got for $55 on priceline. It was an Embassy Suites and really nice we took the kids swimming and then they crashed. They are getting really good at sleeping in hotels. Mallie's mini pack n play fit in the closet so everyone slept soundly. After we put them down we went and played Spades in the hallway with Ben & Em.

Sunday morning we woke up and drove to Liberty Jail where Joseph Smith and 4 other men were locked up for 5 months because they were mormons. The sister missonary here got the kids really involved so it was special to them and then we sang Praise to the Man because that was a hymn the older kids knew from primary. It truly was a sacred place and the Spirit testified of that.

Then we made the hour drive up to Adam-ondi-ahman. The kids were thrilled to be out of the car again.

To document where we were.
It was so fun to take David to all these places I remember from when I was 15. The entire time we drove I read to him out of my Church History Trip book so we knew all about the places we were visiting. We both were reminded of how blessed we are and grateful for those early pioneers and Joseph Smith. I feel like seeing all these places will mark the times of my life. Going as a teenager, as a young mother and we're planning on taking our teenagers back and then David and I will go again someday when we're older by ourselves. Even with all the driving it was a perfect weekend. The kids were great, we loved going with family. Who knew so many fun and wonderful things would come out of living in the middle of nowhere Missouri!?