Happy, late, Thanksgiving!  Ours was a really low-key day, but it was great!  Since my sister moved back West, we don’t have family near and although we invited some friends, they already had plans- so it was just our family for Thanksgiving.  Nick, who is in the middle of a work project he is in charge of, spent a lot of the day ironing out kicks with work, so the kids and I worked on food and then played.  The weather was beautiful! and we weren’t tied to a schedule, so we had a very nice day.

Arwyn won an art contest for entering a picture of a “fat eagle” (her words) in the Veteran’s Day contest.  She won the GRAND prize, along with $150.  She was and is soo excited and has been plotting how she can spend her money.  It is amazing to me how her confidence in her artistic ability has taken off.  Once she saw that her art was appreciated (and had a fiscal reward) she hasn’t stopped drawing!  Her picture has been on display at the library.

Art isn’t the only talent my kids have.  I’ve recently discovered that Chase will listen to music on the radio and then can sing it back to you.  His memory is quite good for lyrics, although he doesn’t always understand what is being said and fills in gaps he doesn’t understand with his own words.  It makes for great entertainment, but has made me much more picky about what I listen to in the car.  Their most recent song is a pop song that has the refrain, “I’m going to break, break, break, break your heart” (repeated several times).  Chase (5) and Pierce (2) go around singing it all the time.  They thought it was really funny when I asked them to NOT break MY heart and it only egged them on to sing and say it to me more.  When Pierce is in a loving mood, he now tells me, “I not break your heart, Mom!”

I’ve already done a lot of Christmas shopping, here and there, and with the kids home from school, we got the tree up and have started putting presents under it.  I love Christmas.  I love seeing presents under the tree and I’m excited to see the kids open up their presents.  While I love these things, they also fill me with a sense of sadness and guilt!  Even as we strive to keep Christ at the center of this holiday, it seems like things and money so easily crowd out what is more important.  We are not rich, or even close, but we have so many blessings and while I’m filled with gratitude for all we have, I know I also take so much that I have for granted.  Seeing our Christmas bounty laid out, waiting for us, makes me feel a real need to look outside of our family to all those in the world who don’t enjoy all the blessings we do.

Nick and I were talking about this last night.  This last conference, three new Apostles were called to fill positions in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  One of these new Apostles, Elder Dale Renlund, told of an experience he had in the Democratic Republic on Congo.  Elder Renlund had asked the Saints at a meeting, what their challenges were.  He related that, “an older gentleman stood up and said, ‘Elder Renlund, how can we have challenges?  We have the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  Now, my faith isn’t as strong as that African brother’s, I have the gospel, but I KNOW I still have challenges.  At the same time, I do know (but need to constantly remind myself) that my challengers are nothing compared to the blessings I have been given, especially those that come from the Gospel.  Elder Renlund concluded that those African Saints “look like they have nothing, but they have everything.”