Potatoes, Zoos, and The General Relief Society Meeting

Fall is here. And I've been slowing down a bit on the blogging. You'll have to forgive me for that!
This week I have been trying to be more wise about how I spend my time. And as much as I love the idea of consistently posting, my family comes first.

This week we were busy busy busy. But it was a good kind of busy.

Monday we woke up to a beautiful sunrise. I enjoyed it so much I had to pull out my camera and capture it.

Kay had his first full week of preschool and enjoyed it a lot. Mommy and Emmie also enjoyed having the special one on one time with each other that we don't normally get.

Being the oldest, Kay had lots of individual time hanging out with me. But Emmie hasn't been able to enjoy as much of that as her brother. It was nice just hanging out at home with her. We cleaned the house together. We ate muffins. We played with blocks.

Emmie is a lot quieter than Kay.

On Wednesday, while my children practiced their table manners, ;] , I worked on making custom CD covers for a few photography sessions I recently did.



I also had the awesome opportunity of meeting with a few of the young mothers in my area.  We got together to plan a stay at home pre school co-op, of sorts.  And I was very happy with how our planning meeting turned out.

Our first co-op lesson begins this Friday and I am very excited about the direction we decided to take our little home-made preschool. And I can't wait for my turn to plan and teach! I've been soaking in all sorts of fun ideas, via Pinterest,  for my lesson.

Thursday night my hubsters was sick sick sick. So, instead of doing a family history night, like I usually do, I stayed home and took a walk with my family instead.  The dog desperately needed to get out and we really needed/wanted to do something all together.

While we were out and about we found some awesome abandoned, old and weathered wood. We brought it back to our place with a few ideas on how to put it to better use. I can't wait to start putting together what we have in mind for it!

Friday, Kevin came home from school earlier than normal. We cleaned up our house a bit and prepared for our friends to come over to have a soup and hot chocolate party.

Which, by the way, was the best idea for a party ever. Yum! Some of our friends and us provided soup and our other friends provided hot cider/chocolate (plus fun things to have with your drink of choice like homemade hazelnut whipped creme, girl scout samoa cookie coffee creamer, and toast and jam!). I, however, like a dunce, forgot to take any pictures.

 You'll just have to trust me that it was super classy, super tasty, and super fun. I highly suggest you throw one of these parties yourself, infact!

On Saturday, the hubby went to work and I packed up my kids for a long day of activities. Thankfully, I was able to wrangle some of my friends to come a long with me, which made it a little less daunting and a lot more fun.

After starting off our morning right with glazed and chocolate bar donuts, we headed off to a local family farm who was allowing the community to glean potatoes for free. The kids helped pick the potatoes and did really well, until it got too cold.

After getting all the potatoes that we could manage, we bundled up the kiddos in the car and headed to a nearby town to eat lunch and take advantage of a free Zoo Day.

Yesterday was the day of 'Free.'

We picked up a few Little Caesars pizzas and had a picnic lunch at a park next to the Zoo. The kids ate and then ran around for about an hour before we picked up all of our belongings and made our way over to go see all the animals.

Despite it being near winter time and quite a few of the animals off display due to the season change, I was really really impressed with the Zoo. I loved all the beautiful foliage, the wonderful habitats that they set up, and how well taken care of the whole park was.

Emmie and Kay were in love with all of the animals and even after being at the park for more than 2 hours, they were not ready to go. Emmie could have looked at the monkeys all day.

Mommy, however, was straight up exhausted at this point and was ready to go home.

 I had originally planned on doing some grocery shopping before we headed home, but it had been such an awesome, fuss free day that I didn't want to risk the chance of ruining it by taking to the kids to the grocery store. Alone. And without having had a nap.

So, I decided on keeping the peace instead. We headed home to pick up Daddy from work and to enjoy some well needed and well earned naps, Mommy included.

After our naps, our day was concluded with the kids spending some individual time with Daddy, while Mommy went to the church building to watch the General Relief Society Meeting broadcast.

Which was such an amazing and peace giving experience.  The Prophet's remarks were especially meaningful to me as he mentioned the struggles that many who suffer depression go through. For not being much of a crier, my eyes were more wet than dry during those wonderful messages.

Which was really nice. Not crying can take its toll on a person. And finally being able to cry and let it all go was incredibly relieving and healing. I just wish it was something I knew how to do more often.

If you haven't had a chance to listen to the broadcast yet, I sincerely encourage you to. Even if you are not a member of my particular faith. These messages are meant for all of the women in this entire world! They are comforting and they are powerful.

And they are a wonderful witness of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

So in all, it has been a good week. Crowned with the wonderful opportunity to hear the words of a modern day prophet, not to mention the opportunity today to take the sacrament and contemplate the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I am thankful for life. I am thankful for my sweet family. And I am thankful for The Gospel of Jesus Christ.