It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We have been seriously busy this last few weeks, so we haven't been able to stop and share all the fun stuff we have been doing!

Thanksgiving was great! That is one of my favorite holidays. No gifts, no decorations, just focusing on good food and what we are grateful for in life. Not to mention the fact that I have Mayflower ancestry. Isaac Allerton and his family. Kevin's parents were in Nevada with his sister, so we got together with the Molloys and Kaufmans. We each brought a part of the meal and then all got to take home leftovers. It was great! We all played games and had a fun time.

The weekend after Thanksgiving we put up the trees. This year we bought a new 6.5' pre-lit tree and absolutely covered it with thirty-two years of ornaments. You can barely see the tree! The other tree is all my nativity ornaments. We get a new ornament each year. This year I got a monarch butterfly ornament for the family. Amanda got a silver A, Rebecca got a pink tiara, and Katrina got a handmade Little Einsteins ornament (I just can't justify paying Hallmark $15 for the 3D one that plays the theme song).

On 2 December, we went for the opening walk-thru night of Christmas Tree Lane with the Molloys and the Kaufmans. We walked the two mile route in two hours (including a potty break with a very long line) and got to see all the displays up close. Many of the displays have been there since Kevin and Lora were kids, and others were brand new this year. We have many favorites that we look forward to seeing each year. The older kids were so excited to get to look for all of Santa's reindeer up close! They found Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. When we got back to the cars, we had hot chocolate, hot Tang, and really yummy gingerbread cookies that Andrea had made. It was a late night, but a lot of fun.

On 4 December, the girls went to make gingerbread houses at the Library. We have been doing that since Amanda was eighteen months old. Amanda is glad that there is not an age limit so that she can still go and do them. I am glad that Amanda is still wanting to go and that it has not gotten too "cool" to do it anymore.

On the 7th, Lora and Andrea Kaufman sang a song called "Baby Christ Child" for the prelude in Sacrament Meeting. That night we went up to Mom and Dad's in Auberry and we helped Dad put the lights on the tree out in the yard by the driveway. They had a live tree about six years ago when they first were building the house, and they planted it next to the driveway. Every year Dad puts lights on it. This year it is probably 12-15' tall! We were going to take a few photos next to the tree so that we could play around with the ideas tat we had and and then retake them later. Well, as luck would have it, we actually got the nearly perfect photo! The tree looks great, we are all smiling, the sun had just set so there was a beautiful glow in the background, AND. . . there was a star in the sky right behind us! (It is actually Saturn, but at this range, it looks like a star.) It turned out great!

On the 9th Rebecca went to the library for a Christmas Storytime and got to make an ornament. It is pink.

In between all of this Amanda has been having meetings twice a week at our house with the Odyssey of the Mind group. They are just about to get their first trial structure made so that they can test it.

On 11 December the Relief Society had their Christmas Party and I was in charge of it. It went really well. We had a progressive dinner of sorts and the soups were especially delicious! The focus was on service and we had a Christmas decoration swap and a Service Swap. Each sister filled out a card with a service that they would be willing to give to another sister, and then the cards were drawn in a "White Elephant" type game. It was a lot of fun! We also had several really wonderful stories that the sisters shared about how giving and receiving service has affected them. It was a lovely evening, and, as we hoped, the fog delayed it's encroachment until after we were done and home.

On 12 December we went to the Ward Christmas Party. This year was a dessert party, so we made fudge. Yum! We took the photos of Amanda and Rebecca with Santa just like we did last year. (Katrina again refused to have anything to do with Santa, even when we offered to sit on his lap with her.) Members of the ward shared family traditions and memories of Christmas and we sang songs. The kids got to decorate cookies. It was fun.

On Saturday I got together with Andrea, Cory and Camille to practice "O Holy Night". I am really proud of myself, because the version that we are singing did not have an alto line, and so I figured out what notes I would sing and created the alto line for Camille and I to sing. I took it to my piano practice on Wednesday and Sister Moses was really impressed and helped me to tweak a couple of spots so that it sounded even better. We practiced really hard and got to the point where we could have sung it a capella if we had to. We got so many compliments when we sang it on Sunday. It sounded so good!

Now we just need to make our Christmas cards and get the last few presents taken care of so we can get things in the mail!

Primary Presentation

Today was the Primary Presentation in our ward. Amanda was the Narrator and Rebecca had a talk and sang the first verse of "When Jesus Christ was Baptized" with her friend Brooklyn Kaufman, who sang the second verse. The girls both did really well and the whole Presentation was really nice. The children did a great job. One of my kids from my Valiant B class gave a talk about prayer and told a story about how his family had prayed to find his mother's car keys. I was so proud of him for sharing such an important experience that he had.

Speaking of my Valiant B class, I was released today. I have known about it for a while, as they told me about the change a little over two weeks ago, but I wasn't going to be changing until after the Primary Presentation. So, today I was released and taught my last lesson. It has been a hard change for me. As much as I have complained about the kids and how much they drive me crazy, I was heartsick to learn that I wasn't going to be their teacher any more. I love teaching the Book of Mormon, so I was sad that I won't get to finish that either. Their new teacher is going to be great though, so I am not too worried. The release also means that I won't be the Activity Days leader any more either.

Change is the most unchangeable part of life.

Rebecca's Baptism

Rebecca has been waiting for this day for a long time! She has been very anxious to turn eight so that she can be baptized! And today was her day!

After Church today we gathered in the Primary room in the Kerman Ward chapel and celebrated Rebecca's enthusiastic decision to follow the example of the Savior and be baptized and become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There were a LOT of family and friends there to support her and show their love.

Rebecca was so excited she could hardly contain herself. We kept telling her to calm down a little bit, but the more we thought about it, we knew that she was just reacting, in the only way an eight year old knows how, to the good feelings of the Spirit. Amanda gave a very good talk on baptism and then Rebecca was baptized by Kevin (in VERY cold water). When she came up out of the water, she and her daddy gave each other a big hug. Her teeth were chattering as she got out of the font, but the smile on her face was enormous!

After everyone had dried off and changed, I gave a talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then Rebecca was given the Holy Ghost and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and a blessing by her dad. (Happy Father's Day Kevin!)

Afterwards, we all went outside and took a big huge group picture of all the family and friends who were there, and then several of them came over to our house for a late lunch get-together. Rebecca's Gramma and Papa were there, her Gpa Marshall, her Aunt Stephanie and cousins, Megan, Jeremy, Tracy and David, and also Uncle Scotty and Aunt Lea. There were many friends there as well, the Foxes, the Molloys, the Jorgensens and the Kaufmans. Wes, Laura and Stone showed up later on in the evening.

I don't know that at her age, Rebecca can fully appreciate the blessings of this day and all the people that were there to support her, but I know that she will one day.

-Lora

See all the Baptism/Father's Day pics HERE.

Piano lessons

Amanda and I have started taking piano lessons. We have been wanting to do this for quite a long time, but haven't been able to coordinate successfully. Recently, due to a shortage of piano players in our ward, the Bishop called one of the piano players in our ward to teach several of us. Amanda and I started taking lessons on April 2nd, and we will have lessons for nine months.

We are both doing really well for only one month of lessons so far. I had lessons for a little while eleven years ago, so I had a pretty good foundation to start with, but I am really impressed with how well Amanda is doing in such a short amount of time. We go over to the chapel almost every day to practice. We are trying to get a piano to have in our home (a church in Biola is trying to get rid of a piano that they don't use any more), but there is a line of about four people to get messages back and forth to, so we have not been able to get it yet. We are looking forward to that!

Here is Amanda playing Jingle Bells.

Church Releases New Official Portrait of First Presidency

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released today the official portrait of the new First Presidency.

The members of the First Presidency, President Thomas S. Monson, President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, have been in their current leadership positions since 3 February.

The First Presidency was reorganized following the death of the Church’s 15th president, Gordon B. Hinckley, who passed away on 27 January.

President Monson is the 16th worldwide leader of the Church. President Eyring, who serves as first counselor to President Monson, previously served as second counselor in the First Presidency. Second counselor, President Uchtdorf, was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles prior to his new assignment.

The First Presidency is the most senior governing body in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The new photograph is downloadable.

Posted March 07, 2008 by www.newsroom.lds.org in http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-releases-new-official-portrait-of-first-presidency#continued

The Molloy's Family Shower

We just got home from the Molloy's Family Shower. These are our friends that are adopting the four kids. My friend Julie and I put the shower together and it went really well! It was a lot of fun!

We had some really cute decorations that I made to match the invitations. People brought TONS of food and TONS of gifts. It was really nice to see everyone be so generous to help out this family as they begin their lives together.

We planned it really low-key, so everyone just got to visit and talk and mingle and it was great!

See all the pics HERE!

Grape Harvest

This morning Amanda and I left the house at 6:30am and started out to the Church Welfare Farm in Madera to pick some grapes. As we crossed Whitesbridge, I said to Amanda, referring to the pink and orange sky to the east, "look at the beautiful sunrise!" Just at that moment the sun poked above the mountains and quickly began to rise into the sky. It was the first time that Amanda had seen a sunrise as it happened, so she thought it was pretty cool.

We had already gone out on Wednesday night and worked with the rest of our ward to pick grapes. I did a lot of picking, but I also did a lot of picture taking! There were a lot of kids there with their parents, so I tried to get families together. They had baby sitting at the chapel (Kevin was helping there) and so there were several couples at the vineyard as well. Amanda always has a great time picking grapes and the ward did a whole row and started on another before the sun went down. There were a lot of people out there and it always goes so much faster when there are a lot of hands doing the work.

This morning we also picked up Amanda's friend Bailie and she came with us to pick grapes. We got there and the Kerman Ward rows had already been completed (a total of about 1000 trays!), so we started on Madera 3rd Ward's rows. Amanda, Bailie and I got six trays completed on our own before some more people from our ward came, including the sister missionaries, and we all worked together down the row. We got half way down the quarter mile row before it was time for us to go and take Bailie home. As we walked to the van we passed the Van Ness Ward rows and so we got to see a lot of old friends that we haven't seen for a while. It was fun!

At the Church Welfare Farm, all the labor is voluntary, and all the raisins go to help with humanitarian aid. For example, when Hurricane Katrina hit, the Church sent water and food, including raisins. As dirty and sweaty as you get, and all the spiders and weeds you have to contend with, it feels good to know that you are doing this work for the Lord and for the needs of His children throughout the world.

See all the Wednesday Night pics here.

See all the Saturday Morning pics here.

See Fresno Bee article, "Fruits of their labor" here.