Jake's Baby Blessing

We headed to Indiana for Jake's baby blessing.  But of course first, random photos!

Shanna and Haley entered a poster contest for a peace around the world poster.  Or something like that.  Shanna's around the world.

Haley's won 3rd place at the school!  She will receive $50! Haley's poster and timeline.

I made it to Indiana about 4 in the morning.  Lee and Clark didn't come as Lee was in South Carolina and Clark had a marching band competition.  The rest of us headed out to be with family.  I loved seeing everyone! I went on a short run that morning.

That afternoon I went to the temple with the kids except Elden.  Darrell and Stacie and kids were there, along with the Bunkers.  So fun.  We all got to be together to do baptisms.  After baptisms we later went to Hobby Lobby, then IKEA and visited.  Oh we also went to a park as well.  It was fast Sunday so the kids and I fasted.  It was also the end of day light saving.  We ended up fasting technically 25 hours.  But we made it!

Painting our nails before church. Sam and Shawna's kids were with us on Saturday and then they met up with us Sunday morning. 

I love this cute flyer Stephanie made.

My kids love to play with the duplos there.

James and Darrell are buddies.

Sunday afternoon everyone headed home.  We stayed the night.  We helped clean up and I had a good visit with Steph.  We all went to bed fairly early.  We left about 4:20 am to go back home.  We arrived about 1:45 or so.  Thanks Steph for the great weekend! 

Since it's now November the Christmas shopping begins!!!  Last year I made sure to have all Christmas money saved up for November.  I did that again this year (thankfully it worked out to do so!) and I love it.  I can shop at will here and there and get it done.  I actually have all the family gifts done.  Just need to mail off one come December.  The Christmas cards are done as well, just need to wait for them to arrive!  I feel sad when people say they hate the holidays, or that they are so stressful.  I just think to myself....they are your holidays!  Make them fun.  Make them not stressful.  Make them peaceful.  That power is within them and it's UP to them! I hear that the gifting part is stressful.  Well, tell people no gifts!  Even if it's your kids! We have all of our plans pretty much set for the holidays.  I do get it.  Life in general is busy.  And then throw in the holidays on top of an already busy schedule...yep. That's hard.  But there are always things popping up.  Halloween, school trips and performances, concerts, test, etc.  Life is just going to be busy.  People should make the holidays what they want them to be and not let other people's expectations drive their spending or other things that aren't enjoyable. For example, if people get all mad about you not wanting to participate in a gift exchange, well too bad!  It's not THEIR money.  It's yours! Have healthy boundaries and just stick to them.  This year we aren't buying our kids presents at all and they in turn are going to do service projects for people that they themselves decide on.  Lee and I actually decided as well not to give each other Christmas presents anymore.  Well, for sure this year.  We've done this a couple times already.  And I think we will continue to not gift each other presents.  There's my holiday rant for you!

But, I'm SO excited for the holidays!  We are going to see a lot of family and I am going to turn 40 before the new year! AHHH!!!!