i am thankful for...

This year my family did a little movie making activity for our Thanksgiving reunion. We all had to make a movie that was based on what we were thankful for. We decided to make this little video. It is modeled after the LDS church's "Mormon Messages" (but this is not endorsed by the church in anyway...even though we borrowed the ending from one of their videos). Some of the things are inside jokes that only my family would get, but I thought I would put it on, so you could see what we are thankful for right now in our lives. Hope your Thanksgiving was full of love and gratitude for all of the many blessings in life.

Sam the Service Turkey

Today I came up with a fantastic new Thanksgiving tradition. Sadly I feel Thanksgiving gets majorly skipped over... it's like the stores discount their Halloween stuff and move directly into Christmas. I love Christmas, of course, but I also LOVE Thanksgiving... the food, the colors, the leaves, the cute sweaters unmasked by big coats, the perfect weather, and most of all a time focused solely on gratitude. So today I decided I needed to come up with a fun kid tradition for our family (as well as a sharing time activity for church on Sunday with the kiddies). The answer... Sam the Service Turkey! The idea just popped in my head. Here he is:

How he works: We discuss that people can show their gratitude by serving others. Sam the Service Turkey is missing his feathers and by Thanksgiving he needs to have them all... but he has to earn each one. Each time we do something kind for others we get to put a feather in Sam. On the back of each feather I wrote an idea of something kind to do to help others. On Sunday I plan to have the kids act out the ideas on the feathers and have the others guess and then pass out a feather to each kid to remind them to do service at home this month.

How to make Sam: I went to the craft store and his creation cost less than $10 including tax! Granted his neck and legs are made of 1 toilet paper roll, but I had to be frugal. Obviously by the looks of him all you need is 2 Styrofoam balls, 1 piece of red foam paper, 1 toilet paper roll, a piece of ribbon, 2 googly eyes, feathers, brown & yellow paint, and hot glue. Simple.
(Note: His head/beak is actually carved from a small block of floral foam because it was $2 cheaper than the ball)

I Think I Have Alzheimers!

I just realized that I am absolutely, positively horrible. You see last year James signed us up to bring 48 rolls to The Hunger Dinner for the homeless that our church puts on. I had just had MaryKate less than 2 weeks earlier, but went and purchased the rolls at Costco just to get myself out of the house. On the day of the banquet I completely forgot to bring them. No one called, but the following week when I noticed moldy rolls on top of the fridge, I just about died. I forgot to feed the poor & needy! Aaah!
So this year when the sign up list came around I specifically signed up for rolls again as some form of penance for having forgotten last year. But this year I vowed to make fresh, homemade rolls. (That should make up for it, right?!) I wrote it on my calendar and called my friend for her roll recipe. I even practiced making them for my book club earlier in the week to make sure I knew how to make them just right. Then Friday came around, I took James to the airport for his conference, and completely forgot until today at church they thanked all the families for their donations to the Hunger Banquet. Aaah! No! I forgot again...

2nd Halloween Pics

Last Halloween MaryKate was almost 2 weeks old & looked like this:

So little & difficult to get a good picture of. She was a ballerina & a tiger.

This year she was a BYU Cheerleader & although we missed trick or treating because we were in the car driving back from California, we did go to a Church Trunk or Treat party. Here are some pictures from that.

Below is a picture of MK & Anderson(my sister's nephew). He is more than 6 months older!

And this is MK with all of Mary's & Cherice's kids (cousins & pseudo cousins). It was so fun!

Hasn't she grown so much!
This year she didn't really understand the concept of trick or treating. Next year will be the year. She just loved walking with all the kids at the party. The dum-dum she ate changed her life. I don't think 1 little sucker will be all she wants in years to come. Happy Belated Halloween!