I've thought about hiring a professional...but then I wouldn't have access to pictures like this:

Oh Friends.
See that little Tasmanian Devil front and center?
This might be the roughest Christmas picture yet.

Fantastic Indeed

After Thanksgiving, we headed down south to watch Kyle play basketball.

(Tis the season!! YAY Basketball!! YAY Kyle!!)

We totally stopped by Fantastic Caverns.

"America's Only Drive Thru Cave!"

I love the picture they take when you enter.

Roman is covering his head with his hood, he was a little nervous the whole time,

and my brother Kevin's face is awesome.

Leave it to him.

...only those labors where the sacrifice is greater than the reward.

We had just come from a soccer game.

I had 2 shopping carts and 4 kids.

David showed up about 10 minutes in and saved me from shopping alone.

(But not before he hid in the produce to take these pictures ha!)

The kids were actually well behaved on this trip, but I suppose we were still a sight to see.

Twice that night, we received less than encouraging remarks from strangers.

Dude...why are strangers so hostile?

One lady told us we should stop having kids :)

Um. Noted. Thanks.

I was feeling a bit discouraged...maybe embarrassed.

I guess I care what strangers think, dang it.

The resolution to this internal conflict came just a few days later.

I listened to President Monson's retelling of The Mansion during the Christmas Devotional.

(if you want to hear the story click here, it begins at minute 5:20)

Why is this message so easy to forget?

I don't know. But how blessed I feel for the reminder.

I say to myself,

"Will you be paid twice?"

My Girls

Thanksgiving is such a perfect holiday.

All about gratitude and food, what's not to love?

My mom took these shots yesterday.

I treasure them.

On a gray, winter-like morning...

I am cleaning up from the festivities of yesterday.

Poppy was blessed in church.

Sweet little Poppy cried through the entire thing, making her daddy quite nervous.

David gave a beautiful blessing as always.

I love all baby blessings,

but there is something especially tender about listening to a father bless his tiny girl.

We had a luncheon at our home after our meetings.

I received a new journal this weekend and knew pretty quickly what I wanted to use it for.

I love planning special occasions for my family,

usually jotting down long lists and ideas or sketches on paper.

I am hoping that it might be fun in years to come to flip back through this journal

and see the shopping list for a child's fourth birthday, or baptism, or graduation party.

Poppy's blessing is the inaugural entry in that little book.

I shared my thoughts about her blessing at the end.

But I suppose that I am also hoping somewhere down the road,

my family will read a bit deeper into the lists for

grainy Dijon and Gruyere,

and understand that those careful notes and planning are just evidence of

one way I attempted to show my love for them.

I hope they remember that we celebrated their important milestones,

that we celebrated them.

Shatto Milk

Pretty skies and no school on Friday.

We headed to the dairy farm.

I think everyone would agree that the best part was standing around sampling milk.

Root-beer, Strawberry, Banana, Orange and of course Chocolate.

We also tasted their traditional eggnog and the pumpkin spice flavor.

yum and yum.

(8 varieties of cheese and delicious sweet butter!...amazing)

It was a delightful tour,

the kind that makes you feel really good about supporting a farm like Shatto.
The drive out was beautiful,

and I began to ramble on about how I could really live in the country.

I pictured a big garden, fruit trees and wide open spaces.

Every little town out there has three things...

a Dollar General, a Casey's Gas Station and a Sonic/Pizza Hut/Subway (insert one).

But these days with technology, it wouldn't feel so isolating.

I mean, Amazon sells everything correct? UPS delivers everywhere, right?

Then David pulled out his phone and said..."There is no internet connection."

Ummmm. I might have to think on it a little more. :)

Happy Halloween 2011!

Happy Halloween!

From,

The Super Heroes

A Princess

And the Sweetest Little Strawberry

The Little Strawberry has a secret...SHE SMILES!