Sunday art

Luke has started drawing all of these different people from the scriptures and then giving them away as cards. I'm glad he's giving them to people, but the rule is I have to scan it first so I can have a copy too! I'm going to start posting them each Sunday.

Party

Treat for Ward party tonight.
More pictures to follow.

Snack for today

Witches Brew
Pistachio pudding, flies, and eyeballs - frozen grapes cut in half with a chocolate chip in the middle.
Who KNEW the flies would have been such a big hit.

More food

Yesterday was candy corn jello. A layer of yellow, then orange topped with whip cream, then put in a snack size container. I put the left over in a bigger bowl. you can see the colors better there.

Today:
String Cheese Fingers
String cheese cut in half, a peanut slice(you can also use an almond slice or part of an olive) for the nail.

Halloween week

It's the week of halloween, when I have time I try to put together a fun Halloween snack for the kids lunches each day.

Monday:
Spider Crackers
Ritz crackers, with peanut butter in the middle. Straight pretzels for legs and chocolate chips for eyes.

Tuesday:
Yucky Mouth
Apple slices with peanut butter and mini marshmallows for teeth

Fall Colors

The colors are beautiful right now.
Every year the vibrant colors just amaze me.

Missionaries

With the ward change, that also meant we lose our missionaries. They will be going to the Marlborough ward and the Worcester ward already has it's own set of Elders. So we had one last hurrah. They are hard working missionaries that each made a big impact on the boys. I am so thankful for that, they will be missed.

Grandpa's Visit

My Dad came to visit for almost a week, but with the church meeting and the temple day, the first half of his visit was a little bit crazy. But life seemed to settle down some after that.

We managed to find some time to play. My dad and I went on a drive to check out the gorgeous colors and to lunch almost every day. We had some good talks, I really enjoyed that time with him. We don't talk often enough. We found some new bakerys in the area, but none as good Mike's Pastry's in Boston, and the lemon raspberry cookies at Tougas Farm.

Almost every evening was spent playing games. I didn't know it was possible to have so much fun playing checkers, but somehow they managed to.

We celebrated my Dad's 60th birthday, with yummy raspberry cobbler and my mom's specialty linguine and clams.

It was a quick and busy visit but I'm so thankful he was able to come. We loved every minute of it!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Temple Day

The Monday after our "big church meeting" was the 10th anniversary of the Boston Temple. Normally, the temple is closed on Mondays, but because of the special occasion, it was open until noon and all the members were invited to attend.

All I can say is that it was an amazing day. I haven't ever seen the temple so busy, everyone seemed to want to be there. I believe I heard there were more then 4,000 ordinances performed that day. To make it even better, the outside was just as busy as the inside.

When the boys and I went to help on the temple grounds in July, we talked to Brother Ferrin, the man in charge and he said that one of his busiest times of the year is in October when he is trying to plant the tulip bulbs. So we made arrangements with him then, to come back on this particular day. Not aware of the temple day, at the time, it was just the only day that the kids had off of school. As it got closer to the day, we had heard of one other family coming to help, so I expected there to be about 7 kids total.

Boy was I surprised when we pulled up to the temple and saw that there were kids EVERYWHERE. Wow! Was all I could think of. By the end of the day there were a total of around 50 kids that had come to help.

To make it even more amazing is the kids actually worked! I was worried when I saw all of these boys who LOVE to play together, and have a hard time staying focused on anything else. But they did great. They picked up branches, cleared the flower beds to prepare for planting the bulbs, road in the truck to empty the debris, pulled up some small trees, cleaned the sidewalks etc.

They planted almost 2,000 bulbs. Some of these kids worked for almost 4 hours, the older ones worked for even longer. Many of those little kids, talked about how they couldn't wait to come back in the spring to see their tulips. I can't think of a better place for them to have ownership and pride in their work.

On a side note, we finally got a picture of the
"temple hawk" as my kids call it. Apparently, he hangs out on Moroni's trumpet quite regularly, and can generally always be found around the temple grounds somewhere. Everytime I have the boys with me at the temple, they want to get a picture of him. Basically, when we have the camera, he's not there, and when we don't have it, he is. So today was a SUCCESS - in more ways then one!

Ward News

The Sunday my dad came into town, was also the meeting that announced all of our ward changes. It was a good meeting where the spirit could be felt. I'm so thankful for that. In our church we believe that callings are called from God, that they are prayerfully considered and prayerfully offered. There aren't politics, voting, campaigning, involved. Just prayerfully and spiritually done. I felt a confirmation of the spirit at this meeting. That these changes are what needs to happen and that the new leaders that have been put in these positions are exactly where they need to be. I love that, it strengthened my testimony that the Lord's in charge of this church.

The short version of the changes are:
Our Northborough ward was dissolved - our ward had several towns in it. They split up the towns and put them in the 3 different wards. Shrewsbury, the town we live in, will be a part of the Worcester 2nd ward.

Mike was released as the Northborough ward Bishop and then recalled as the Worcester 2nd ward Bishop.

All of the Northborough ward members were released from all of their callings and will receive new callings in the Worcester 2nd ward.

These changes will be interesting and has the potential to be a great new beginning. We have pretty much doubled the ward, and they are so excited to have us. They were small just like we were, but they also have a lot of people from different ethnic backgrounds and also several new converts. Sometimes that takes extra effort to keep everything running smoothly. So with the extra people we will be able to meet each others needs.

This past Sunday was our first Sunday that all of us met together. It was eventful to say the least. In just one Sunday we went from an average of 80-90 for sacrament attendance to 216. We double in size in every organization, including primary (we brought 32 kids), there was also a missionary who had just come home after serving in LA, a missionary who had just completed his service here and was back to visit, a convert baptism (that was in spanish) and a linger longer to celebrate the baptism and help all get to know each other! IT WAS A CRAZY DAY!!!!! I think we all were walking around a little dazed and confused. ;-)

The Bishopric had been very busy the past couple of weeks and I would say 20-30 maybe more, of us got new callings. Yesterday everyone went to their new callings, and started to try and figure things out, meet people, get a feel of all the organizations how many people are in each organization etc. During the week, this week, the new presidencies will be able to meet, and I'm sure order will start to flow!

Although it was all a little overwhelming for ALL OF US, there is a good spirit in the ward. There are a lot of good people here and I'm looking forward to this new beginning.

Printing Press

We also made stops at the Joseph Smith Family Farm and also the Book of Mormon publishing site which is where the first copy of the Book of Mormon was printed. Mike and the boys LOVED learning about that. They thought it was fascinating. Between there and the LDS bookstore next door, what was supposed to be a quick stop, turned into a couple of hours stop!

After that, it was time to go home. I'm so glad we went. It was a quick weekend, but well worth it for many different reasons.
We made it home around 9ish and then we had a house to clean. Look who came to visit at 5am the following morning! :-)

Wrestle time

You can only hope for so many calm and peaceful moments when you have boys. After every sight we saw, it seemed to end with some form of goofing off.


I LOVE that they love being together, even though they can be complete crazy animals sometimes. It's music to my ears!

Sacred Grove

Going to the Sacred Grove was another highlight for all of us. We were just finishing reading the Book of Mormon for the 4th time with our family, but this was the 1st time finishing where they were all really old enough to grasp what we have been reading. We walked through the Sacred Grove for quite awhile, then found a place to sit, and finished the last part of the Book of Mormon. We talked about Moroni's promise in chapter 10 at the end of the book that reads:


4. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

We talked about the wonderful gift that we have been given of personal revelation, and that we can receive answers to our own personal prayers. They can receive the answers for themselves of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the gospel. We talked about Joseph Smith and how he did this very thing and prayed for answers here in this Sacred Grove. We challenged them to pray and ask Heavenly Father about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The spirit was so strong, we were able to have a great discussion, it was a very special time. Afterwords, we gave each of them some time to ponder and think on their own. For me, this experience, made the trip well worth the effort.

Temple

Next stop:
Palmyra Temple
It was built in a beautiful setting, overlooking the Sacred Grove.

Hill Cumorah

Let the catching up begin. A week and a half ago, we had an amazing weekend. It was the weekend of all of the ward changes, we knew Mike was going to be extra busy for awhile, so we took off for a family weekend (just overnight) to Palmyra, NY. This is a trip that we have been wanting to make for a long time but it kept getting rescheduled. We had a free weekend, so we hurried and left before something else was put in that "free times" spot. :-) This quick trip ended up being more then I could have dreamed of.

Palmyra is a town where a lot of our church history took place. We started at the Hill Cumorah the largest hill in the area, a perfect place for 3 boys and a dog with lots of energy. There is a nice lovely paved path that leads up to the top. I never saw that path. The boys lead the way and it was straight up the hill, and for the boys, down again, then up again then down again. I believe Josh held the record at 5 times. Although, who knows how many times Jake did it with each of the boys, I do know that he slept almost the ENTIRE way home. I added the above pictures, so hopefully you could get an idea of the size. If not click on the link .

We ended up having a great discussion at the top, about all of the history that has happened in this area and how it has affected our lives today. Between the time of ancient America when the Nephites and Laminites were on the earth and when Joseph Smith was in Palmyra. I love the age of the boys right now. They aren't old enough yet, to "act" like they don't care, but they are old enough to really think and be able to talk about it. It was a great start to the day.

Luke was pretty impressed with his giant wish bone. I made him make a wish and pull it apart right there. He couldn't understand why we didn't want to take it home and save it for thanksgiving. I know I'm a party pooper, but really can you imagine that big stick in an already full car, for a 5 hour drive home? SCAREY!