St. Louis Trip

 This last weekend our family got the opportunity to go to St. Louis so that Jaron and I could attend the temple.  Temples are not open to the public; not even all church members are allowed to go inside.  Our children had to wait outside while Jaron and I took turns going through the temple.  The reason that temples are so exclusive is because they are extremely sacred places to us.  It is important to us that temples stay clean and so members of the church have to uphold a personal standard of worthiness in order to be able to go inside. 

In the temple, sacred covenants are made with God.  One of the things that takes place in the temple are marriages.  Jaron and I were married in the temple in Idaho Falls.  We believe that because our marriage was performed by a proper priesthood in the temple, our family will be together forever - even after death. 

 For that, I am so incredibly grateful, especially since these three joined our ranks.  I really, really like being with my family!  They are the source of some of my greatest blessings and joy.

Since it's a bit of a drive to St. Louis and Jaron and I were staggering our chance to go inside the temple, we made a weekend of it.  Everytime we've tried to go to the temple we've been able to score an amazing deal on a hotel in St. Louis.  This time we paid $25 for our hotel!

We rounded out our weekend by going to the St. Louis Zoo.  I think the St. Louis Zoo is the best zoo I've ever been to (out of the 6 zoos I've been to in 3 different countries).  And the best part is, it is FREE.

We spent a lot of time looking at bugs this time. The bug exhibits are absolutely amazing. I cannot believe how BIG some bugs are! ICK! But the kids loved it.

This display right before the huge butterfly room (okay, it's not called a "room" but I can't remember the name) has hundreds of butterfly cocoons that are alive and about to hatch!  We got to SEE a BUTTERFLY come out of its COCOON!!!  Amazing.  This is just one of three display cases they had full of cocoons.

 

 Thank goodness for awesome FREE stuff to do.  We didn't have time to make it to the science center (which is also free).  Hopefully we'll be able to make it to St. Louis one more time before Kansas City gets its own temple in the spring!



Cutest Prayer Ever

Eli said the sweetest prayer ever at breakfast this morning.  In it he included:

"Thank you for Jesus and the Church.  Thank you for all of our houses and the earth and all of the planets.  Thank you for the sun and outer space."

SOO cute.  Can you tell we did outer space for preschool last week?  Unfortunately, he forgot to say a blessing on the food. :-)

Pictures in the Park

 My sweet friend Amanda, who has been our friend since we shared the Saba experience together, came over last week to snap some pictures of the kids.  Amanda is one of the classiest people I know and I like to hang around her to have some of that classiness rub off on me.  She is a great photographer, too, so it's a super sweet bonus when I get pictures out of the deal as well!

 Unless you have multiple children yourself, it is hard to believe how difficult it is to get three young kids to all be smiling (let alone looking in the same direction) at the same time.

Sweet little Eli. I think at some point he forgot how to smile.  He got stuck on this "I'm trying to look nice for pictures" face and literally could not form his smile.  Fear not - he found that smile again when we got to the park.

 And I just love this picture.  It says so much.  How determined Gracen is. How tough she thinks she is.  How she likes to be the boss and control her brothers. This picture says it all. :)

Sometimes I Don't Know What To Say

More than once in the last few years, I just can't find the words to answer the kids' questions.  It happened again today.  I was busy baking for a baby shower I'm throwing tonight and Eli walked up to me.

Eli: "Mom, if someone ate the sun, it would be dark, right?"
Me: "Uhh, yep!"
Eli: "And then we would just sleep all day, right?"
Me: "Well..."
Eli: "And then Heavenly Father would get eaten, too, right?"
Me: "...Huh?"

And with that, he scuttled off.  Thank goodness they don't always wait around for an answer!


P.S.  The best idea I ever had was to buy a roll of wallpaper from Habitat for Humanity's ReStore for $1.  We flip it upside down and use it as a good, solid paper for all kinds of good stuff!

Halloween

 To kick off Halloween, we started with a Halloween party for the neighborhood kids.  Katy and Maddie were nice enough to come and help me out because we have  lot of 3- and 4-year-old kids in our immediate neighborhood!

We started off the party with some spooky munchies: spider cookies, bones 'n blood, cheesy ghosts, and monster mouths.

 Then we played some games.  We pinned the eyeballs on the monster, bowled with ghosts (TP rolls with faces drawn on them) and a pumpkin bowling ball, and threw ghost bean bags into a pumpkin's mouth.  Then we read some spooky books together.  We finished the party with decorating paper bags that we used for our candy scavenger hunt.  It was fun but exhausting!!

 Here are the kids in their Halloween shirts that I scored after Halloween last year for $0.25 each.  Does anybody else notice how clearance stuff has been lacking lately?  It seems like more of a struggle lately to find the dirt-cheap clearance deals I used to.

 This year our family sported a Star Wars theme.  The boys were Jedi's and Gracen went as yoda.  I dressed up as Princess Leia for the trunk or treat.  Some people had some pretty great trunks at the trunk-or-treat.  One of the gals I visit teach and her husband dressed up as Hansel and Gretel.  Then they stuck candy all over their van to represent the candy house in the story and laid out a trail of bread crumbs leading to each side of the van.  So creative!  I also liked Kyra's shark trunk, especially since I snapped a picture of her describing how it came about that looks like she's terrified of the shark. :-)

 And the perfect end to a good Halloween was the presence of this oh-so-spooky spider hanging right above our door as we left for trick-or-treating.  I asked my man to "protect the hearth" my finishing this big guy off but he refused - claimed the spider "wasn't hurting anything."  So now I lose sleep thinking about where this guy sleeps at night!

Happy Birthday Gracen!

Gracen turned two!  I can't believe it.  Time moves sooooo fast.

We celebrated Gracen's birthday by taking her to the dollar store to get balloons and then opening up her gifts.  Check out that gift-tearing action!  We got her a couple of baby dolls.  She loves, loves, loves baby dolls right now!

 The best part of Gracen's birthday was when we sung to her with her birthday cake.  She absolutely loved having us sing to her (and singing along with us). 

Then she tried to blow out her candles.

 And laughed at herself when it didn't work. :)  Too cute.

At two years old, Gracen loves dogs, cats, and babies.  She is a great little mommy and loves to take her dolls for walks in their stroller and feed them a bottle.  She also likes to pretend she's a dog, getting down on all fours and barking.  She is affectionate to her brothers and I'm pretty sure believes that she's their age - she hates when she doesn't get to do the things they do (like not getting to sit in a booster seat in the van, for example).  Gracen is quick to comfort anyone who gets hurt and any time I drop something or say "ow" she responds with, "You okay, mom, you okay?"

Gracie has become interested in the potty as of late and I'm resisting.  Is it really time to potty train again already?!  I've caught her trying to put on Eli's underpants and often when I change her diaper she says, "Potty, mommy?"  What kind of a mom responds with, "Not yet, honey!"?  Me, that's who!  Gracen is a good speaker and talks non-stop.  It's so fun to hear her stringing together new sentances.  She's also a good singer and knows quite a few little songs.   

We sure love our Gracie!  She brings so much joy to our family!!