Primary Gratitude

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, I don't think it's ever too early to celebrate. So I frequently spend November making happy lists, playing gratitude games, and enjoying pre-thanksgiving day feasts, as those who were living in my hall when I was an RA will account. I think November is a wonderful month, especially here in Texas where the weather is like spring.


It should therefore come as no surprise that for Singing Time today in Primary I gathered together some things that we could be thankful for, for example I pulled out a lightbulb and the kids said they were thankful for electricity, ideas, light, sunshine, Jesus--they were really quite creative. Then we would pick a song to sing that had to do with the object, in this case "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam".


As expected, the Senior Primary was a little more creative and had a lot more songs to suggest. Overall, we had a good time, and much to be thankful for. My favorite quote of the day was one of the Junior Primary kids who shouted, "Harry Potter" when I pulled out a tie. Not exactly what I was going for, but something to be grateful for none the less.

I'm very grateful for the Nursary. The kids are so fun to sing with and are always happy to see me. I can just relax and sing the same fun song 15 times in a row with them and they are perfectly happy.

Date Night

My brother-in-law has been staying with us the past week, which made it really easy for Johnny to keep his promise of finding a babysitter for a date. (I think he kind of cheated on this one, but I did get a date out of the deal . . . )I got to wear my new dress (pics to come, it needs some finishing touches), and we got to try a new restaurant--Queen of Sheba, which has Ethiopian cooking. Neither of us had tried Ethiopian before and we were excited. We walked in, which made quite a statement (you'll understand when you see the pictures. My dress is very loud.). The lady who waited on us told me during the meal that she loved my dress and that it looked very pretty on me, which I thought was very nice because a) I love getting compliments on things I make (like this one time that someone asked me if I shopped at Anthropologie because I either shopped there or sewed myself) and b) she totally could have kept that compliment to herself, but she chose to tell me, which is very generous.

For those of you who have never eaten Ethiopian food, they don't give you any silverware. Instead you get bread that is like a spongy tortilla and you rip off pieces, wrap it around your food, then stick it all in your mouth. It was really fun, and taught me that my life goal of eating an entire meal with my hands is not as hard as I used to think it was. (Don't worry, I'd already fulfilled that one before we ate this dinner.)

I am very grateful that Johnny and I are willing to try new things.

Shopping Trip

So I was at the grocery store yesterday, partly to buy groceries (obviously), and partly to check prices on ingredients for my 4th Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Day Feast, when I went to get some milk.

As you may know, whole milk is the same price as every other kind here, but apparently now, in addition to 2%, 1%, and skim, there is also 1/2%. Yes, that's right .5%. For those people who just can't take the leap from 1% to skim? Really?

So I bought some to show Johnny. Hilarious.

I'm grateful for the little things that make me laugh every day.

It's Suppertime!

I was thinking of what to make for dinner tonight, and decided to fall back on a P family favorite--sloppy joes. These aren't your Manwich, dinner-in-a-can sloppy joes, these are the homemade, ridiculously tasty, uber easy variety.

Recipe:
1 lb. beef
1 onion
1 green pepper
1 can tomato soup.

Easy as 1-2-3
1) brown beef and drain
2) add chopped veggies
3) add soup and heat through

Then enjoy. What could be simpler? I usually serve them on biscuits cause I tend to have a can of them in my fridge at all times.

I'm very grateful for my Young Women's leader who not only gave me a beautiful recipe card holder upon my graduation from high school, but who filled it with awesome recipes like the gem above. I've obviously held on and used and enjoyed it these long years.

Repetition is Also the Mother of Laughter

So G decided not to sleep last night, making everyone in the house REAAALLY tired today. And I get cranky when I'm tired. So after our walk around 5 this evening, I try to put G down for one last short nap so I can nap too. Because I'm so very tired.

And of course he doesn't want to sleep. So I bring him in bed with me to try to have my tiredness rub off on him. Instead, we end up laying on our sides facing each other, his sweet little face next to mine, and he reaches for my bangs, so I grab his hand and kiss it and put it in my mouth and squeeze his little triceps. He has very ticklish triceps, especially when they are squeezed. We've known this for awhile. So of course, he starts laughing. So I let go of his hand. And he reaches for my hair, so I grab his hand and tickle his arm and he laughs. And I let go . . .

And because I know G so well, we play this little game for about 5 minutes. As long as I don't move, he's going to reach for my hair because he always reaches for my hair, and he's always ticklish on his arms. So instead of taking a nap, I got to enjoy baby giggles. Did it help my headache? No, but it did wonders for my morale.

I'm so grateful for sweet bonding moments and a happy, happy boy.

A Look at How Far Technology has Come

Remember when you wanted a song on the radio you had to buy either the lame single or the whole album?
Remember when the only thing you exercised when you played video games were your thumbs?
Remember when a 215 mb hard drive was more space than you would ever need?
Remember when there was a reality tv show to find the next boy band?
Remember when TGIF on ABC had awesome shows like "Boy Meets World"?
Remember when you had to go to the library and look up words in a physical encyclopedia if you were doing a research paper?
Remember when you were waiting for someone to pick you up and you either had to be patient or call them on a pay phone?
Remember when you had to plan out family vacations using a fold-out map?
Remember when you wanted to say hi to your cousin so you wrote a letter?
Remember when the whole world's thoughts and feelings were just in personal journals?
Remember when you had to jog with a walkman and it would skip all the time?
Remember when you had to listen to the radio all day to make a mix tape?

Those were good times . . . but now is better!
I'm grateful for technology.

Roaming Gnome

We have this little gnome in our garden.It's super cute.But he got tired of living alone. So he went looking for a family.First, he went to Greece to find a dad.

Then he went to China to get a mom.

Now they are a happy family.

And the gnome has returned to our garden.

Happy Halloween! As you can see, things went well. My costume gave me a little grief, but it has a fun story behind it. When my sister went to China a few years ago to teach English, she brought me back a beautiful long, wrap-around skirt. The only problem was the fabric is really silky, which means it was a constant battle to keep the wrap-around skirt wrapped and not expose my slip and nylons. And of course, having to wear a slip didn't help anything either, but modesty demanded it. But it was so beautiful that I kept it. So when I decided to make an Asian inspired dress for Halloween, I went to JoAnn's for some fabric. I was choosing between blue and red, and I went with blue because I already had this beautiful skirt. But Johnny was sad cause he really wanted me to get the red fabric. So when he left on business a week or two later, I decided to surprise him by remaking my beautiful skirt into a smokin' hot dress. And it was a success, obviously. And I'm proud of myself because I wasted very little fabric and still managed to make it work. And I only cursed inside my head.

But because it was so challenging to make my costume, I didn't have time to make our original design for Johnny's costume--lederhosen. Oh, and we totally got tricked out of all our treats yesterday. We bough candy for trick-or-treaters, but because we haven't had many the last few years, we didn't buy a lot. And we would have been okay, but these four really greedy kids took handfuls of our candy, so we didn't have much after that and the night was still young. So we pretty much gave away everything pre-packaged in our house--granola bars, microwave popcorn, even Capri Suns. It was crazy, but next year we'll be better prepared, hopefully. And we probably won't be in Texas, so maybe the greediness will be not as big of a problem.