Coming Out Of The Darkness

The last six months or so have been really tough for us Coloradans. I mentioned it before just after the theater massacre, and instead of getting better things got even worse. Jessica Ridgeway lived about 15 miles from my house. Her killer went to school about 3 miles away. That's been tough to process.

Living in a swing state has been horrific. Hate, lies, and vitriol have flooded airways, our mailboxes, and Facebook. I've HATED it.

To top it all off, some things with both of our extended families have caused us great concern.

I've been in a dark place the last few months.

But, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to a girlfriend and it all changed.

I don't know if this is true, but I don't care. It made me feel better and changed my perspective, so whether it is true or not doesn't really concern me.

She told me that she had gotten a FB status from a friend of a friend (can you guess why I am questioning it's truthfulness?).** This friend of a friend has a son who is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon church) in Ghana. She posted this on her FB page:

Elder Holland (a leader in our church) came and spoke. He said that 80,000 new mission submissions came in since the announcement in General Conference of the younger mission ages. 50 new missions would be created in the near future as a result of this new bump in missionaries.

 He said “in this family we serve” should be our motto! We need to all lock arms and go to work. He quoted I Cor. Chap 12 and reminded us that we are all vital members of the whole. We are all in this together. When one rejoices or suffers, we all do. God is interested in our personal growth. He said that it may not be easy. Growth comes through adversity and hardships. But the Lord said that he will ease our burdens and give us strength to carry them. God is aware of us. 

How awesome is that?!? For those of you who are not members of our faith, I am sure that you know that we have missionaries. These missionaries certainly preach of Christ, but they also do service throughout the world- missionaries serve in many different ways. Normally, we have about 54,000 missionaries serving at any given time. According to this, 80,000 NEW future missionaries applied in just about 4 weeks!!!! Think of all the good they can do throughout the world!

This simply lifted my spirits as I realized that God is in charge! No matter what happens, God is in charge! We are HIS children and He cares about each and every one of us. While we may not understand why so many horrible things are happening, God understands.

Anyway, this has really helped me to not feel so much anger, despair, and hate about so many things that are going on right now. I do have faith in Christ, and I know that He cares very much about this world we live in. His work is going forward- and in the end, that is what truly matters.

**The Salt Lake Tribune did confirm that as of two weeks after conference missionary applications did spike from 700 a week to 4,000 a week, so that does add some validity to this statement.

Halloween 1, 2, 3, and 4

I mentioned before how excited the girls have been for Halloween. I now realize why: Parties, parties, and more parties. They have basically been partying and celebrating Halloween since last Friday night.

Party #1:

 Party #2:

Party #3:

 Party #4 (trick-or-treating tonight with friends from church):

Please notice the different costumes for every party. Some of you are VERY good at creating beautiful costumes. I tell my kids, "go downstairs and pick something out" and call it good. Despite the plethora of opportunities to wear costumes this year, neither Audra or Claire chose to wear the costumes they originally picked out: a bunny for Audra, Snow White for Claire.

Happy Halloween!

Trick Or Treat Street

We are in full Halloween mode here, and the girls LOVE it! Claire believes that she should be allowed to eat candy for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all snacks.

Last night we went to the Trick Or Treat Street at my old school of employment. It was great to see some old co-workers and my old stomping grounds. It's also where Ben went to High School (I was NOT his teacher, though he likes to tell people I was), so it was fun for him, too.

 Here they are with Audra's best friend Superwoman and "the green guy":

 They got their faces painted:

 This was a favorite room: Tangled

Camille, of course, was perfect the whole night. She didn't say a peep the whole night. After we got home and she was playing cutely in the Exersaucer, Ben said, "Camille really is a great baby." Yes, she is.

More tricks and treats to come...

Fall Leaves

Last Saturday we got out the rake and took care of the leaves.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to enjoy the beautiful leaves for very long this year. They finally turned color, and then we had a huge windstorm, and literally over night just about every leaf on the tree fell off. It's really too bad, because I LOVE the leaves when they change color. Oh, well.

The girls really enjoyed raking up the leaves this year. It's fun that they get so excited. Audra really wanted to be a good helper, and for the first time, she actually was:

 Notice her lack of shoes. She hates wearing shoes.

 It has actually become quite an issue-

 and not a good one:

 Finally, Claire got tired of working and decided sidewalk chalk would be more fun. She LOVES sidewalk chalk:

Pretty Girls

The World Of Camille

 Audra LOVES to read to Camille. It is super cute:

 Getting stronger:

 Camille LOVES her feet. She is constantly grabbing things with her feet, she loves to play with them, and she loves pressure on them. If you grab her feet, she wraps her toes as fiercely around your fingers as possible, as shown below:

 Playing nicely:

 And, she LOVES sticking things in her mouth. Last night at dinner she kept grabbing Ben's plate and trying to eat it. We all got a good laugh out of it:

Pumpkin Carving

Two little girls in our house are more excited for Halloween than pretty much anything else on the planet. In fact, on my Birthday Audra said,

"I'm glad it's your Birthday. That means it's Halloween!"

I sure feel loved.

Every day I get asked when Halloween is. Multiple times.

Last week we bought some pumpkins. We dreaded actually carving them. In 7 years of marriage we have never carved pumpkins. They are so yucky!

But when you have two girls who are completely obsessed with all things Halloween, you make sacrifices.

Last night we got to work.

I told you they were excited:

 The finished products. I let them draw the faces and then I cut them out. Claire's in on the left, Audra's on the right. Audra was going for a silly pumpkin- that's its' tongue sticking out.