....finally.....

all the stockings are hung....

now, I just hope St. Nicholas can make it!

But,

I do love when 'Barbie' and 'The Wise Men' can hang together outside the stables,

and still love and honour baby Jesus...

Another year of Thanks....

From our family to your....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I am so grateful for days like today!!!!

it has got to be one of my favorites days

it seems like everything is how it should be...

FAMILY.

my family is home together,

I love my family.

the weather took a chill last night and it feels so good,

the house is warm

I love the Christmas music softly playing,

the little ones are playing games,

I love the smell and lights of the tree,

I set up one of my Christmas trees earlier this week,

I started a new tradition this year,

I'm doing 3 trees,

the big one in the front room,

the kids tree upstairs

and

my new tree,

I did a tree of Christmas cards from past years,

I love receiving family Christmas cards but I can never throw them away,

there always too sweet....

so

now you all are on my tree,

so

send me this year's cards so I can add you to my tree,

it's so fun to see you all up there

and especially from year to year....

can you find yourself???

I love making the turkey and after all these years living in Texas,

Kurt and I have it down to perfection....

the turkey smells delicious,

I just love the feel of today...

I love taking a nap after lunch,

and I love watching all the fun movies that come on tv,

I love that it's just a 'family day'

a day for families,

with nothing else happening,

nothing else on the 'to do list'

a day of just being together

happy together.....

.....that's what I'm thankful for.

.

.

and

I love to hear the girls laughing and just being sisters.

'the gink'

It's birthday week for this one....

~Candice J~

I can't believe she'll be turning 18 years old this Saturday.

my head believes it, but my heart can't,

it's too much to take in,

I've been thinking a lot about her and her 18 years of life since last week,

we've been laughing at some of the funny things we remember about her when she was little.

I have mixed emotions,

it's so fulfilling to watch your daughter grow up and yet,

you just want to keep them tiny forever.

she was the cutest little "gink"

somehow Kurt deemed her that a very young age,

it was just her...she was so "ginky" and cute!

Our Attitude of Gratitude...

Our theme for this month in sacrament mtg. has been

'Gratitude'.

The speakers said a few things that touched my heart....

it seems like I have forgotten to be grateful lately and I really needed to hear what was said....

our bishop stood up at the end of the meeting and encouraged us to make a list of the things we were grateful for, with

sheets of paper or whatever we wanted to use, anything that would work for our family,

(I used a big poster cuz I figured a family of 6,

we should have alot of things to be grateful for....)

the bishop recommended to place it somewhere central where it's very noticable,

so, I went to work and hung it up first thing when I got home

and while we ate our Sunday dinner I explained it to the kids,

they all seemed excited about it,

I just asked everyone to write at least one thing a day,

and then at Thanksgiving we can take down our poster and talk about all the things we have been grateful for.

Being grateful is a commandment and when your happy,

more happiness is added upon you.

and seeing that I've been so sad lately I'm sure this will help us all out of our rut!

my favorite one is;

'I am greatful for edgication'

at last...

Whilst I was gone last night, Spencer took this picture of the pink clouds,

I'm so glad when he sees something that he thinks is cool, he grabs my camera and captures the moment.

at last,

I'm feeling better.

I'll tell you, when I'm overwhelmed with life it's just too hard to try to write on this blog, because the only thing that comes out is a big fat pity party, and believe you me I know!

I have a private blog that I write in almost daily, you see, I love to write and I think writing down some of your feelings is the best free therapy, and so while I was struggling this past few weeks, I would write, and it wasn't pretty, in fact it was kind-of ugly...

but, it was free ugly therapy and it works for me,

I just didn't want to share all the ugliness on my cute little family blog.

I'm afraid someone would have read it and tried to commit me to the loony bin or something!

in a nutshell,

having Kurt gone so much has been hard, really hard!

it's been emotional and financially and physically hard to start a business, and I guess it's all just been taking it's toll the last few weeks, and I have this crazy problem that I don't like to burden others with my pity party problems so,

I don't talk about it and then that just makes me feel lonely, like I'm the only girl in the whole world with problems, I know that's not so, but sometimes it can sure feel like that!

half the time I feel like a headless chicken, and the other half I feel like a dog just chasing my tail..... pure craziness.

we only have one car right now, do you even know how past crazy it gets to taxi 4 kids around to everywhere they need to go, not to mention that our 2 teenagers aren't to happy about having to be drivin everywhere, and I don't blame them, not one little bit,

but it is what it is right now and I'm sure it won't last forever, right? right!??

I could go on but what's the point?

at least I am feeling a little better about all my craziness,

good enough to try to blog again,

and having an "Attitude for Gratitude" poster hanging in our kitchen has helped,

that was a sweet little answer to a prayer that I didn't even know I needed.

at last,

I'm coming out of my funk.