Hannah's first crime

Earlier this month, I was in Relief Society and Hannah was happily playing with some toys on the ground. All of a sudden I saw Hannah reaching for a tag on the back of a chair, and before I could extend my arm out to grab her she ripped the tag off the chair, making a nice ripping noise in the quiet room.  I grabbed the tag from her and noticed this (see the highlighted pink portion):

Yep!  Hannah committed her first "crime," and I officially joined the club of the mothers whose children have ripped these tags off the back of the Relief Society's chairs.  The funny part is, Hannah did it again last Sunday during Gospel Doctrine (Sunday School).  Yes, my daughter is a repeat offender.

Our Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2011

We did not dine at the Iowa River Power Restaurant this year.  Instead, we went over to a friends place and dined with several other friends there.  It was a filling day -- with food and fun!

 

After dinner Brookie, Nathan, Brookie's brother (whose name is also Nathan), Lael, and Dave all played the Pirates of the Caribbean game, while Abby and I did some dishes and started cleaning up.  FYI--the Pirates game is a real fun one.  I recommend you get it.  One fun rule we like to do is to talk as if we were pirates (as you can see on Lael's face below).

While the adults were playing the Pirate game Hannah just hung out and played with some toys.  She really enjoyed the mirror and a few books (she is really into books right now).

After playing games and visiting for a while we ate dessert!  I completely forgot to take pictures of the pies (the picture below I took a few years back).  There were two apple pies, one pumpkin pie, and they were delicious!  Apple pie is my favorite part of Thanksgiving!

It started to get late and Hannah was ready to go so we packed up and headed home.  After putting Hannah to bed we pulled out the Christmas decorations.  I figured with Hannah out of the way it was a good time to put up the tree and decorate.  Nathan and I were watching The Two Towers (Lord of the Rings) and while I was decorating I suddenly noticed that Kronk had climbed up the tree!  He has never done this before in the 5 years we've had him.  It was so funny that we had to grab the camera.

Here Mom...I posted this video for you. :)

After decorating the tree and finishing our movie, Nathan and I were off to bed.  It was a very relaxing, yet productive Thanksgiving.

A curious take on preparedness

A few weeks ago before Hannah went down for bed we updated our emergency kits, and of course Kronk was his curious little self and wanted to check things out and supervise the entire thing.  But now Kronk has to compete with Hannah because she is just as curious as he is.  It was quite funny to watch.  In the end I think Hannah won, however Kronk still got to do some exploring.

The Book of Mormon

The Relief Society in our ward set a goal to read the Book of Mormon for 2011 -- cover to cover.  Today, I finished reading the Book of Mormon!  This is not the first time I have completed reading this remarkable book, and I do not know how many times I have read it in my life.  I seem to have lost count.  However, when I was reading the last chapter today I did recall an experience that I had when I was about 10 years old (give or take a year).

When I was a kid, my two older siblings would come home from seminary and we would read the Book of Mormon as a family before we all went our separate ways.  I don't remember the exact day, but I do remember with perfect clarity my feelings that morning as our family finished reading the Book of Mormon.  We started reading chapter 10 of Moroni, and then we came to Moroni's promise a few verses later, which reads:

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye should ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know of the truth of all things."

Upon reading those two verses my heart started pounding.  I felt an overwhelming feeling in my chest and I knew immediately what I was experiencing.  I knew that the Holy Ghost was confirming to me the truthfulness of this book.  I knew that the Holy Ghost was telling me that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and that I was closer to God because of it.  I gained a divine witness that morning.  I knew that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet in these latter days.  I knew at the moment that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church.

I no longer needed to rely on my parents testimony because I knew for myself 100% that it was true -- all of it!  I am so grateful for this wonderful book.  I am forever grateful to my parents.  They made it a point for our family to read the Book of Mormon every morning before school, and by doing so I gained my testimony, which is a treasure to me in my life.

Eleven * Eleven * Eleven

Happy 11/11/11 -- with blog post posted at 11:11 am.

And with this post comes a funny story I have been meaning to tell all week.  This last Sunday, November 6th, we were in middle of sacrament meeting and Hannah let out a HUGE belch right in the middle of fast and testimony meeting.  Classic.

Family photos

A great friend of ours took some pictures of our family a few weeks ago with the beautiful Iowa fall colors.  I thought I would post a few pictures on our blog for people to enjoy.  Thanks Channa for being so willing and generous of your time.

80's Style

Yesterday, Hannah and I dropped by the office that I used to work at to see their Halloween costumes.  Every year they dress up for Halloween and this years theme was 80's.  It was time to pull out the hair crimper, the scrunchies, the neon colored clothes, and the leg warmers.

I love how Matthew dressed up as Maverick, from the movie Top Gun--glasses and all.  Classic.

It's amazing how much that office has changed.  I haven't worked there in 11 months and there are already new staff additions, new gadgets, and new office decorations.  There are a few things I miss about working.  I miss working/talking with adults and being in the "know" about orthodontics, but the one thing I DO NOT MISS is the lab work.  I'm am glad that lab work is no longer a part of my life.  I hated it.   Anyways...it was nice to catch up on old times.