Thanks be to our God

THANKSGIVING AT THE BARRETTS. My brother in law Bill made a TurDucken, that is a chicken in a duck in a turkey. It took 12 hours and a lot of work. I was in charge of veggies, easy. We got a puzzle out to give Grandma Rappleye something to do while we cooked, and it ended up distracting half the family and we were late getting dinner on. I forgot my camera, so thankfully Heidi doesn't mind that I copied all her pictures off her blog. It was a fun day and we are very grateful this year for our many blessings.

Jared and I feel so blessed, he has done well in his business this year, and I have had a life changing experience with school and internships. I thank the Lord every day for his abundance of blessings. Working at the prison makes a person so grateful not only for freedom, but for family and resources and the gospel and education. IGNORANCE and WANT are unfortunately a plague in our society that we would like to pretend are not there, and I have seen them up close and personal this past year. I've been doing my best to serve and help, but feel my efforts are so meager against the tower of disadvantage some of these people face. I've turned to the Lord and keep moving forward.

THANKSGIVING ABC's. We are grateful for...
Alan, Atonement
Barretts, Bill
Carpenters, Christmas
Doctors
Exercise, Education
Fiora, Faith, Family
Grandma, Gabe
Holy Ghost, Heather, Heidi, Holly, Home, Health, Holidays
Iron Rod
Jesus, Jared, Jesse, Justin, Joseph
Karli, Kathy Sue, Krystal, Kynsie, Kali, Kelsy
Love, laughter
Mothers, Music
Nature, normal health, nice people
Optimism
Priesthood
Quiet time
Repentence, Rachel
Savanna
Transportation
Utah
Violin lessons
Weston water
Xtra helpings
Yards to play in
Zoo (our family gatherings are like a zoo)

Breakfast in bed

One morning Savanna asked me to make her breakfast in bed. Jared and I aren't too keen on eating in beds, crumbs and whatnot. So I said no, sometimes I'm really not a fun mommy. Savanna asked me again then next week on Saturday, and since I was feeling in a "want to be a good fun mommy" mood, I said I would do it. Weston came in the kitchen and saw the tray of food I was making and asked if he could have breakfast in bed too. Fiora followed suit. So I made all my kids breakfast in bed. To say they loved it is an understatement. Weston thought he'd died and gone to heaven. The next Saturday Weston asked for breakfast in bed again. I said no I'm going to stay in bed. I guess he didn't hear me because he sat in his bed for 30 minutes and finally started yelling and crying "Why isn't anyone making me breakfast in bed!!" That made Jared mad and me not really wanting to validate his pain. He didn't get his wish that morning. But we both agreed that it showed how much he loved it the first time. I scheduled Thanksgiving morning as the day I would do it again, and we got some pictures.

Nearsighted

Fiora is nearsighted. I was sitting up at the pulpit in church to lead the singing and when my family walked in, Savanna looked at me and waved, Weston looked at me and waved, Fiora looked, then squinted at me, then waved. I thought, that's funny, the other kids didn't squint. So when I sat by her in church I asked her to read the hymn numbers. She got them all wrong. So it was off to the eye doctor. After a brief, overpriced exam, and a huffy letter to the corporate office, we went to Wal-mart to get some glasses. She picked the $9 frames, which was nice of her. She looks so grown up now, and not she can see the blades of grass and hymnal numbers in church.

Dinosaur museum

I had a busy week as usual last week and came home Friday thinking, "I don't do enough fun stuff with my kids. Soon they will be too old to want to do fun stuff. I want to take them to the dinosaur museum tomorrow!" I told Jared my idea, he has principles that go against spending over 5 dollars on anything for a kid, but I was resolved in my determination to do something fun and educational with my children that they are going to grow out of in a few years. So on Saturday we were off!

The kids loved seeing all the dino bones and trying to pronounce all the names, but by far and yon their favorite part of the museum was the water/sand exhibit. They spent an hour making islands with trees and dinosaurs, dams, pathways, and dino burial grounds.

We had to leave the exhibits halfway through to have lunch, sandwiches I made and brought so as to not waste more money, and then we walked back through to where we left off. Of course, we ended in the paleontologist exhibit where the kids get to dig/brush out dinosaur bones from the ground. They liked that, but then we went back through the exhibits so they could spend another 30 minutes in the sand/water!





Can you believe Jared chose fishing over this exitement?!? We spent 4 hours there, it was worth every penny. And the kids thanked me more than once for taking them.