Christmas 2016

Highlights of our Christmas season include:

• Skyping Dad
• Skyping Elder Jonas Bush
• Listening to Leslie sing while cleaning up after dinner (the sweetest angelic voice!)
• Working on and presenting the choir Christmas program
• Taking the Sacrament on Christmas
• Joy in kids faces as they gave their gifts
• And received them too!
• Traditions
• mini-Smurfs -- one of Santa's silly and awesome presents to me :)
• Texting Merry Christmas to family and friends as they came into my mind and heart
• Listening to kids enjoying gifts 
• Kids' excitement about new scriptures and cases, Evelyn's songbook, Reuben's brick of Mormon book (a lego book of mormon!)
• Gideon's joy in his bike
• Technology
• Christmas photo 2015 as my phone background
• Christmas caroling with family and with elders
• making cookies with little kids
• Christmas movies
• Sharing Christmas memories on Christmas night around a candle and reading Poppa Keith's 3 levels of Christmas
• Oh ... the snowflake blizzards- our upstairs is filled with hanging snowflakes that fall down so often!
• Virtual Caroling 
• Recording a Christmas song each night and sending it to dad and Elder Jonas Bush

Lucy

This is really hard to type out.  Lucy has passed away.  

She ran out into the street after a dog this morning and was hit by a car.  She died instantly, so there was no suffering. She was not torn up at all, just gone. It all happened so quickly, so suddenly.  We brought her inside, and waited for the younger ones to come home from a playdate.  Dad was able to be on the phone with us.  Mark and Stephanie came over and we had a burial in our garden plot.  We each shared a memory or a moment about her and spent the rest of the afternoon comforting each other and sharing how much we love her.

 

Yellow Senior Belt TaeKwanDo Testing

Whooohoooo!  These guys are awesome!

Book Reports

After much pleading, the kids have been doing book reports for school.  Here is one of Micah's.

Wonder

Wonder is a book of a normal life and a boy of 11 who says he is normal.  But he really isn't.  August's face deformity happened at birth.  August had been homeschooled all his life but when he finally went to public school, everyone got hit.  Some were hit with disgust, others with hate, and some with wonder.  This book is about miracles and threats, friends and enemies, notes and punches, and hate and love.  This book is about wonder.

Happy Sweet Birthday David!

20th Wedding Anniversary

Its hard to be apart, especially on holidays and special occasions like our 20th Anniversary!  

Leslie organized a beautiful fancy dinner for our 20th anniversary.  
She had each kid bring out the next course and share what we had taught them.

Gideon: be nice
Reuben: clean clothes and clean room
Evelyn: care what God thinks and be humble
Micah: forgiveness
Troy: example to younger siblings
Owen: service and diligence
Leslie: importance of one soul

Bob and I are planning on taking a fun vacation this summer to celebrate together! 




 

Leftovers

We watched a silly YouTube video (Good Mythical Morning) and the kids found an awesome way of using up some Thanksgiving leftovers.
Cut up some cheese sticks.
Fold stuffing around the cheese sticks.
Fry in oil until browned.
Cool.
Eat.
Yum!

White Friday

Ever since our kids started being able to go to the temple, we've celebrated White Friday the day after Thanksgiving.   Some of the things we are most thankful for are temples and eternal families.

We went to The Gila Valley Temple and spent the day driving, doing baptisms and initiatories and driving home again!

Thanksgiving 2016

A difficult Thanksgiving for several reasons, but we are thankful for the many blessings we share!

Elder Bush #19

So strange to celebrate Elder Bush's birthday away from him....  We sent him a birthday package and also ordered a Snickers Baskin Robbins cake for him to pick up.  I think he had a great day!

Election Day 2016

What a rough election.

The kids and I tried to have a good sense of humor about it all... We held a mock election concerning our Wednesday breakfast.  It was a close race!  We even had some tears, but we rallied together and enjoyed our morning!

May God bless the United States of America!

Halloween 2016

For Halloween: Member Missionaries!

Trunk or Treat 2016

All these years dressing up Bob and I promised each other that when we sent our first child on a mission we would dress up as missionaries for Halloween.  This worked out well, since Bob is deployed and I can't make costumes!
We had a lot of fun dressing up as missionaries and decorating our van as the "Van of Salvation"!

Celestial chocolate (white)

Terrestial chocolate (caramel)

Telestial chocolate (milk)

and 

Outer Darkness chocolate (extra dark)

were the treats at the end of the evening!