Today I am Grateful . . .

* For leftovers in my fridge, which not only speak of the abundance and prosperity that our family has never had to go hungry, but also mean I do not have to cook tonight.
* For a nap, and how much better the world looks when I am well rested.
* For the Ensign, which spiritually spoon feeds me the gospel.
* For the scriptures, that testify with power and are applicable no matter the season of our lives.
* That faith precedes the miracle, and that in the instant that we exercise a particle of faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, it allows his grace to work miracles in our lives.
* For Autumn - my favorite season of all.  We've had a few cool days here that have actually made it feel like Fall and I have LOVED IT!  Hooray for decorating the house with pumpkins and leaves, long sleeved shirts, hints of color in the trees, pumpkin cookies, and General Conference coming up this weekend!  We also went to the elementary  Fall Festival and had lots of crazy fun.

Loved how they had an actual toilet bowl out there to throw the TP roll into!

* For Family.  Not only are my brother and his wife and my new little nephew coming into town tomorrow (YAY!), but Chris' sister and cousins were able to come up for a quick visit while we all went to my nephew's track meet in Louisville.

 Can't you just feel the love in that sardine pack?

* For Kylie, my little ray of sunshine.  Having her in our home is like having an excited puppy at our house.  (Or like living with Pinkie Pie, from My Little Pony.)  She loves to talk, talk, talk and is excited about everything.  But if you try to interrupt her she'll tell you, "Um, I'm not done talking yet."  We just recently rotated to our winter clothes and, I don't know when it happened, but Kylie is getting big!  I rotated her into the size 4/5 clothes and I was thinking, "when did she get so big?!?"  She isn't a little baby anymore, even though she likes me to call her my little lady bug, which is cute.  She is really growing to love preschool and learning her letters as she adjusts and makes more friends there.  I just can't believe she'll be in Kindergarten next year!!  I'll miss bringing her with me to run errands next year - she loves being my little shopping buddy and has a blast whenever we go to Walmart.  That could be trouble later . . .

 Kylie's quote of the week comes from when she and Kate were going to have a sleepover on our new couches.  She started bringing down all of her stuffed animals:
Me - I said to get your pillow, not all your animals!
Kylie - Yeah, but, they're afraid of the dark, so . . .
How could I argue with that?

* For Kate, my little explorer who always keeps things interesting.  At the track meet she was loving climbing the trees - she got up to probably 30 feet off the ground.  She has gotten really into drawing and has checked out books from the library that teach you how to draw different animals - dolphins, sharks, alligators, etc.  She's got a real talent there!  And she's always wanting to take things into school that relate to what she's learning - like the roots from the green onion I was chopping up, because they're learning about plants.    Kate has also recently found her love of singing and I love to hear her every Sunday singing all the primary songs they worked on in primary that day.  She has such a sweet voice.

 Here is Kate, problem solving one afternoon when it was hot on the porch by getting a "parasol".  Her quote of the week comes from Kate when she, Kylie, and I went into a public restroom.
Kylie - Ew! It stinks in here! (It really did)
Kate - Yeah, it smells like Lima Beans!
Me - How do you know what Lima Beans smell like?!?
Kate - Because it smells like how it did when we planted Lima Beans in our classroom.
(Haha.  I'm thinking they used manure based fertilizer when they planted their lima beans.  Love it.)

* For Lise, getting to see her developing her talents and find out who she is.  Lise is doing great in gymnastics and likes how they focus on all four events at this gym.  She also told me that she now has her front handspring and I'm sure her back handspring isn't too far off.  She's doing well in school and was selected to receive the "PAW" award for being an excellent student and leader among her peers.  As I've helped Analise study for her tests it has brought back many memories of when I was in 5th grade, and I've enjoyed all the times I get to snuggle with her and chat before bed.  Her dry sense of humor always keeps us on our toes, and I love to see her sense of fashion coming out as well.  I love watching the young lady she's developing into!

 Analise's quote of the week came from about a year ago, when she was reading a Dear America book about Vietnam Veterans.  (Chris was on deployment #7 at the time)
Lise - Mom, what's a Veteran?
Me - Someone who's fought in a war - like Dad.
Lise (incredulously) - Dad's been in a war?!?
Me - Um, yeah, for like the past 12 years . . .   (aka, your entire life!)
In a way it was a relief to me that Analise wasn't carrying around the burden of worrying about her Dad's safety all the time and knowing what he was doing while he was deployed.  It's kind of sad to see your child's innocence disappear, ya know?  But it's also awesome to see them learning and becoming aware of the world around them.  I hope that as my girls grow older they will be able to appreciate all that their dad did for their country, and the sacrifices made by him and our entire family so that we can enjoy the freedoms we do in this country.

* For Aly, who continues to amaze me with how well she adapts, manages her time, and excels in all that she does.  After just 3 months in Kentucky she is fully integrated here - friends at school, good friends at church, good grades (in advanced classes too!), and looking awesome on the soccer field!  Her team had a slow start, but they are really pulling together, improving their footwork and passes, and being more aggressive at getting the ball.  It's fun to watch Aly play.  Aly has also started running before and after practice to build up her endurance, which is awesome.  Her sense of fashion has kicked in as well and Aly frequently enjoys helping herself to the clothes in my closet - the very same ones that she laughed at me for wearing just last year.  Love it.  I enjoy Aly's sense of humor and love whenever I get a chance to talk with her about what's going on in her life - which isn't very often as she is always at soccer or young women's.  And when she is home she's either reading, texting, or watching Once Upon a Time or Merlin.  I kinda miss that kid!

 The selfie obsession continues, but at least Aly's sharing some of the spotlight now.  What are these called, "we-fies"?  Anyhoo, I feel very privileged that I got to be a part of one.  ;)  Also, I love the one with Kate and Kylie, who are both holding up two fingers, Kylie as a peace sign and Kate as "bunny ears on myself!"  Hilarious how just the slightest difference of placement makes the biggest difference of meaning.

* For Chris - my best friend who will be crazy and silly with the girls, serve up my plate for dinner, listen to me blab on and on about random nothingness, back me up and serve as my tag team partner in parenting, and my ultimate favorite person to hang out with whenever I get the chance. I love getting to go on dates with him, go to the temple with him, watch Aly's soccer games with him, or just chill on the couch watching shows with him.  It seems I never can get enough time with him.  So glad we have forever!

 * For this season in my life - to learn, to serve, to grow, and  to be with my family.
* For this gift of mortality - I pray that I may rejoice in the day the Lord has given me.

P.S. to Nauvoo

So, there were two things about our trip to Nauvoo that, although minor, I wanted to record for posterity's sake (mainly because my kids always love to hear about what they were like when they were younger and to laugh about things they did).

The first thing was the spiders.  Our campsite was infested with daddy long legs about the size of my palm.  (That's not an exaggeration - I have pretty small hands, but that still makes for one big spider!)  They were everywhere and in the morning you'd wake up to about 20 of them crawling on the tent.  The hilarious part was the girls different reactions to them.  Lise and Kylie were pretty indifferent and would just shoo them away.  Kate liked to play with them and we had to tell her not to pull off their legs.  Aly on the other hand freaked out and would scream like a little girl whenever she saw one (which was like every 5 minutes.)  She made huge progress by the end of the trip to where she would just shudder and flick them away.  I was very proud of her (and my ears thank her too.)

The second thing was that everywhere we went in Nauvoo the standard question was, "Where are you folks visiting from?"  Telling them we were from Kentucky got mixed responses.  One guy was like, "There's no way you're from Kentucky."  Apparently we don't have the "Kentucky Look" or sound or whatever after living here for only 2 months.  Usually once we told them we were in the military the light bulb came on.  After the first question there was usually some comment about us having 4 girls.  That was when Kate would pipe up and very proudly announce, "WE'RE A CURSE!"  It cracks me up that Kate is so happy to be part of a 5 girl curse pronounced on her father's head from long ago.  Love it. 

Rendevous in Old Nauvoo!

For Labor day weekend the girls had Monday and Tuesday off, so we decided to take advantage of it and cross something off of our Kentucky Bucket List - Nauvoo, Illinois!  This is one of the many church history sites within a day's drive of where we live and I was super excited to hit the road!

We headed out after the kids got out of school and made it a little over 1/2 way before stopping at a hotel.  The next morning the kids  played "hotel", got to do a little swimming, and Chris and Kate even escaped to do some geocaching.  Then, it was on to Nauvoo!

Our first night there we set up camp (literally - we were camping. ;)>) and then headed to a musical show put on by the senior missionaries.

Sunday morning we headed to church (a very interesting experience trying to get everyone looking ready for the Sabbath after sleeping in a tent, let me tell you), and then spent the day visiting various sites.

We took a walk down the trail of hope, the road that the saints took on their exodus from Nauvoo, which had a lot of quotes from the pioneers from their journals.

We also went to visit Carthage Jail.  It was neat to watch the video and do the tour.  At the end, the tour guide asked if anyone had any questions.  Analise asked a question about if the jailers just let the mob in or how did they get past the jailers?  So Kylie, never wanting to be left out of anything, raised her hand and asked, "Did he fall out of the well?" (We're standing in front of the well in the below picture).   The tour guide, not understanding that she meant the water well said, "No, you're thinking of Jonah and the Whale."  Love it.

We also walked around the Nauvoo temple, which was beautiful.  Our one regret was that Chris and I weren't able to do a session in there - but we didn't really think we could just leave the kiddos at the campsite unsupervised, ya know?

(Also, not shown, we saw the movie - Joseph: Prophet of the Restoration in the visitor's center.  Such a powerful movie.)

This was my view waking up in the morning.  Love it!  We were so blessed on this trip.  We had hail and damaging winds predicted.  (I wasn't too worried about our safety, per se.  I knew Chris would take care of us.  I just really didn't want to deal with the mud and whining wet kids that would result from such weather.)  Instead, we got a couple of hours of rain one morning at 3 am and that was it!  Plus, that cooled things down a bit and cleared out the humidity.  It was in the 70's and beautiful!

And, of course, the best thing about camping is a campfire!

Monday we continued the fun by going on a wagon ride to overlook the Mississippi.

Then we toured a bunch of shops such as the bakery, school house, blacksmith, printer's shop, etc.  We also made some crafts like rope (shown below) and got to eat some yummy brick oven baked bread and gingerbread cookies!  Chris' favorite was the gun shop, of course. ;)

I was really glad we took the time to do this trip.  It turned out really well.    On a funny note, even though the girls had Monday and Tuesday off, Kylie only had Monday off.  When we told her she would be missing a day of preschool she said, "I'm good with that."  So it must have been a success for the  girls too.  What a great way to finish off the "official" last weekend of summer!

Back to School - Oh so Cruel!

Well, the time had come.  A little earlier than we would have liked, but no use whining and complaining - (although we did hear quite a bit of that) - It was time to go back to school. Dum, dum!

I think Kylie was the most excited of all to go to preschool.  She goes Monday through Wednesday, and she really likes that her new school has a playground. I really like that I get to carpool with a lady in our ward/neighborhood whose little boy is also in Kylie's class!

Kylie's preschool also put on a private showing of "Frozen" at the local theater for the preschool kids and their families.  Chris took Kylie to it for their Daddy-daughter date.  Kylie was SOOO excited about it that she would tell everyone she met about her daddy daughter date.  Chris said it was a hoot - all the little kids were singing along.  I can only imagine.

This preschool is done by a local church, so Kylie comes home having learned about Bible stories like Adam and Eve and Noah.  Funny story about the picture of the rainbow - Kylie shows me this paper and the conversation goes like this:

Kylie - Mom, is this how the real rainbow goes?!?

Me - Yep, you did a great job and got them all in order: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

Kylie - But Mom!  What about PINK?!?

In addition to preschool, I've also taken Kylie to a Music Makers group that is done by the ladies in the ward at church.  Also, another lady in our ward teaches dance and so I have Kate and Kylie in that.  (My, what a talented ward I have!)

I forgot to take pictures of the other girls at open house, so I'll just have to talk about it.  All of the girls have adjusted very well to their new school. There are some things they liked better about their old school (like that the bus came a 1/2 hour later so we all got to sleep in a bit more!), but there are also some new surprises here that we like about our new schools as well.

Aly is in the advanced chorus group and has jumped into soccer (pictures to come).  She is doing great in her classes and has made friends quickly (no surprise).  She's decided that she even likes having 7 classes instead of six, and gets most of her homework done at school, as there is a built in study hall for the students.  This, of course, leaves more time for texting her friends on mom's phone when she gets home. :)

Analise has really taken charge of her schoolwork this year and is demonstrating great responsibility and study habits.  They have the kids rotate teachers in 5th Grade to prepare them for middle school so she has 4 different teachers and she's doing great with that.  She was even awarded the "PAWS" award by the 5th grade teachers because she "always gives her best effort, is respectful to her teachers and peers, works cooperatively with groups, and turns in homework on time."  Way to go Lise!  She also started gymnastics up again and likes the new gym.  (pictures to come).

Kate seems to be breezing by in her new school.  Her homework load is a lot less than it was in Florida, so she usually does her whole weeks work of homework in one day.  She does get the challenge spelling words though and is enjoying reading chapter books for independent reading.  She's discovering her artistic talent, and loves that they have an actual art class here.

So, with all the kids in their new schools and activities, here is what my new schedule looks like:

Wake up early.  (I'm seeing a lot more sunrises than sunsets these days.)  

Get the kids on the bus.

Work Out.  (My friend in the ward does a different work out at her house each day and anybody is welcome to come.  She only lives a street over from me, which is perfect!)

Get Kylie to preschool.

A few hours to get some things done and then the kids are home from school and it's homework, afterschool activities, dinner, FHE, Activity Days/Young Women's, etc. and kids in bed.  (I've been reading "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" to the little girls, which has been a lot of fun.  Lise also likes me to come snuggle with her in the basement and read to her some of her book.  Love this time.  It's just hard to squeeze it all in when everybody wants me to read to them at the same time!)

Spend some time with Chris (so happy to be able to say that he is home almost every night!) - we either read or watch a show.  Since finishing Psych, our current favorite is the BBC Sherlock Holmes.

Crash on the bed in exhaustion and start it all again the next morning.

Some groups I've joined in my ward for fun are their book club and their meal planning group.  I've been trying out a lot of new crock pot meals to have every Wednesday before church activities, which has been kind of refreshing.  Also, Chris and I have our new church callings.  Chris has been called to be the Teacher's Quorum adviser in Young Men's and I've been called to be the 2nd Counselor in the Primary Presidency.  So pretty much the same as what we were doing in Florida.  

Anyhoo, as you can see, we've got plenty to keep us busy.  Weekends are filling up fast as well with scout campouts, soccer games, etc., but Chris and I did take an opportunity to go to the temple (only 1 hour away - whoo hoo!!) and we are trying to enjoy the journey and not get too overwhelmed.

Anyhoo, now for some fun kidisms.  Aly has jumped into the social scene with the youth group at church.  She's been to a "movie night" at someone's house with the beehives and deacons, and loves any time she can hang out with her friends from church.  Another thing about Aly is that she has gotten into the "selfie" phase.  I'll go to take a picture of the girls with my phone and be like, "why am I looking at myself?"  Then I realize that Aly's had my phone.  Below are some of the fun treasures I've found. . .

AND, as if that isn't bad enough. I caught Kylie pretending to take selfies of herself with her play phone that makes a camera "clicking"  noise.  Aye, aye, aye.  She's been watching her big sister too much.

Also, Analise's sense of humor has really been coming out lately (and keeping us all entertained).  We've decided she would be a great actress because she is always imitating people in commercials.  Below is just a sampling.    

And finally, I have a random story about this safe. Chris ordered this gun safe, which showed up accompanied only by the driver. (A very small, skinny looking drive, I might add.) What?  He was like, "The safe weighs 500 lbs. and is extremely top heavy.  If I can't get it inside, can I just leave it on the porch?" WHAT?!? No!  Of course you can't leave it on the porch!  I ended up being the other set of hands to make sure the safe didn't topple over as we brought it down the hill on the side of the house to the basement.  I was thinking to myself, "If this thing falls over I'm going to be squashed like Wiley the Coyote in a Roadrunner cartoon." It all worked out in the end, but it was a little sketchy at times.  "Safe" delivery? HA!

Fireworks, Friends, and Fiestas!

Despite the moving and unpacking craziness, we did manage to have some summer fun adventures in Kentucky.  First of all, the 4th of July.  We were invited to a BBQ and fireworks with some families in the ward which was fun.  (Super nice - we have such great people in our new ward - love them!)

It stays light until like 10 pm in the summer here, so we were limited to firecrackers, sparklers, and smoke bombs, but it was still fun.  I love this picture of Kate and Kylie covering their ears for the firecrackers.

The next day Chris, Kate, Kylie & I tried out our new fire pit.  I had been missing our fires on the beach since Monterey, so I was super excited to break in the new pit with GOURMET S'MORES!

What are gourmet s'mores, you may ask?  Well, let me tell you!  You always have the graham cracker and marshmallow base, but then the rest is left up to your imagination (usually including some kind of candy bar or fruit).

We tried out the banana chocolate s'more, the apple/chocolate/caramel s'more, and the Reese's Pieces Buttercup s'more.

Our #1 favorite of the night was the white chocolate/raspberry s'more.  This one tasted like raspberry cheesecake - delicious!  I also think that a strawberry chocolate s'more would be yummy.  Next time.

We followed up the night with some fireworks of our own.  While we were watching fireworks Kate turns to me and says, "If my head was as big as the earth, then my body would be in outer space."  Just the mental picture of Kate's body orbiting around her globe sized head made me happy for the rest of the night.

Another fun thing we did was spend a day with a 7th Group friend of ours from way back in the Fort Bragg Days.  We had a scrumptious lunch at her house and then she took us to this cute little town with yummy ice cream.  Inside they had checker boards and everything that the girls could play with.  Super fun just to get out and explore a little bit.

Now for a bit of kid craziness.  My kids borrow my phone a lot to take pictures and so sometimes I find random gems on here and I have no idea where they came from.  Like these two pictures of Kylie.  No idea what was going on here.  I know that  Kylie and Lise have been playing that they are "Leah the Alaska Girl" and "Hailey the Hawaii Girl", repectively,  as superheroes for the past few months.  Maybe it had something to do with that . . . 

This awesome picture came from when Lise was randomly pretending to be a chipmunk at our house.  That was too good of a photo op to let pass.

And speaking of Lise, she has been on this "wishing on the clock" thing for a few months as well.  You'll be talking to her and mid-sentence she'll yell, "IT'S 2:22 - MAKE A WISH!" (Or 3:33, 5:55, etc.)  She was so obsessed with it that she tried to set our microwave to military time so that she could wish on 14:14, 20:20, etc.

The girl's have done really well adjusting to life in Kentucky.  There were many tears shed at leaving all of our beloved friends in Florida, but I'm happy to report that we have found just as many amazing people in Kentucky.  Here are pictures of just a couple of the girls new friends.

Another amazing thing about the people in Kentucky is that they are always giving you yummy vegetables from their gardens!  We have had so many yummy tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, and zucchini.  Hooray for BLT's, sauteed zucchinni & squash, & pico de gallo.  And look at that yummy zucchini bread up there!  It was delish.  Someone even gave me a spaghetti squash, I figured out how to cook it, and we had it for dinner with our spaghetti instead of noodles.  Plus, I was also able to restock on the strawberry freezer jam.  Look at me go!  Kentucky might be the place where I finally get domestic. ;)

Another fun adventure we were able to have was going to the water park on post.  It had a shallow end for the little kids, 2 water slides and this water obstacle course for the kids.  We met some friends up there and had lots of fun.

And for a final hurrah before school started, we were invited over to a friend's house in the ward for a pool party.  What better way to finish off the summer?

This pool party also happened to be on Kylie's b-day along with another little boy in the ward so they got doughnuts with candles in them. :)

For Kylie's Birthday of course we had to make cupcakes - pink cupcakes - since she had been promising them to everybody since her last birthday whenever she was happy with someone.  ("I love you so much you can have 5 cupcakes at my birthday!")  We only made 2 dozen however, not the thousands that would be required to fulfill all her cupcake promises.

Chris and I also have our birthdays during the summer. For my birthday I got season tickets to the local play house.  Our first play was "Jesus Christ: Superstar".  Oh boy - what a doozy that was.  It was like reading the scriptures while on meth. [ Not that I know what that's like, but it was how I would imagine it to be.]  We invited some friends to go with us and went to DQ afterwards, which was good times, and I'm super excited for some of the upcoming plays including "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Oliver Twist".  For Chris' birthday we did another fire & gourmet s'mores - awesomeness! - and then he and I did dinner and a movie that weekend.

So yeah, lots of fun parties going on at our house this summer.  Poor Aly, she's the only one in our family that doesn't have a birthday in the summer. ;)