Moran Family Fun

I don't love the actual work of organizing, but I love when my life and the things in it are organized.  This year I've been working on one quick organizing project *almost* every day.  Breaking up a big job makes it seem so much easier.  Besides the obvious benefit of having a more neat and orderly place to live, I've found that organizing has a hidden benefit as well.  As I've been making my way around our house cleaning out and cutting back, I've stumbled across some sweet things that I'd forgotten about. I'm not usually one to save things for simply sentimental reasons (just ask my mother-in-law) but from time to time I do hang on to the cute things my kids write or draw.   I'll put it somewhere thinking that I'll remember it later, but I never really remember what I've put where. If I hadn't taken the time to go through  that cupboard, drawer, or box I never would have found this sweet letter from Abigail to her Dad.  Judging b...

Since her birthday in November, Emily has been happily working on her Personal Progress.  I love that she is so excited about not only setting goals but also working towards them.  Last week she came to me and asked if I would teach her how to sew "for Personal Progress."    She is working hard to complete the knowledge section right now, and one of the required experiences is to learn about talents, list a talent you would like to strengthen or develop, and then learn a new skill or talent that can be used in the future.  I was excited that, out of all the skills she might like to learn more about, she chose sewing.  I love to sew and create things and I really loved having the chance to share that with Emily.   She wanted to make a bag that would be big enough to use as a school bag.  She's lucky enough to have two copies of all of her textbooks - one to keep at school and one to keep at home.  That means she only carries a big binder...

Easter this year was lovely, even if the weather wasn't so beautiful.  I wanted to make all the girls clothes for Easter, and with the exception of Madison, I did it.  I was a little afraid to sew something for a body with curves and decided to stick to sewing for those with more straight bodies so Madison got a store bought dress.  I already shared Abigail's skirt here  and no one at church mentioned the Hester Prynne aspect of her skirt!  I never did get around to making a tie for Jared, but I did find a tutorial and it's been added to my sewing to-do list. For the third Easter Sunday in a row, I was released from one calling and given another one.  I guess Easter is my day for change.  I am no longer the Young Women's first counselor and am instead the Young Women's Camp Director.  I'm glad I still get to work with the wonderful girls in our ward, especially with my two sweet daughters. Natalie wore her ruffly skirt and Sam...

Despite traveling on the actual day, we did celebrate Jared's birthday this year.  He got to party a day early, the lucky man!  It was a pretty normal birthday - dinner, cake, and presents.  I have just a few pictures of Jared's 38th to share. Samantha was excited to be able to bring Jared the first present to open I don't know what Emily wrote on her card to Jared, but he said it was "better then the present".  It must have been good because she gave him a huge Reese's Easter Bunny All Natalie wanted to do was give this biggest present to Jared.  He'd been trying to guess all week what it was and Samantha, who helped me wrap the gifts, came really close to giving it away. This gift might have been more for me that Jared.  I did not like our grill's dirty, rusty  cooking grate.  A new shiny grate and a work table that attaches to the side of grill make it look so much nicer.   Jared cookies and cream ice cream cake. ...

For our last full day in Belgium I wanted to go to a market.  Apparently, Belgians are serious about the markets and have them for all sorts of things - furniture, flowers, fish, vegetables, meat, chocolate - you name it and there is probably a market for it.  Well, every year on Good Friday there is a flower market in Tournai and Tournai was just 20 minutes by train from our hotel.  I was looking for something easy for our last day so that we could have time to organize and pack as well.  The flower market sounded like just the thing. We did the train thing again and I learned that local trains aren't as nice as the long distance ones.  At least not the one to and from Ath and Tournai.  There was lots of graffiti and the seats were not so comfy.  But I was willing to trade a twenty minutes ride and the knowledge that we'd be dropped right across from the market for graffiti and lumpy seats. The entire street from the train station to the church wa...

Everyone said we had  to go to Brugge, which is known as the Venice of the North.  Or if you're from Brugge, Venice is the Brugge of the South.  Brugge is in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium.  Hooray - another language I don't speak or understand!  It all worked out though, as everyone we encountered spoke English.  It seemed to me as if Dutch is a language sort of in between English and German so if I couldn't understand things with the English part of my brain I'd let the German part try to figure it out.  Even though Brugge was all the way on the other side of Belgium, we went and I'm glad we did.  Belgium isn't that big so it only took a little over an hour to drive there.  We spend more time than that driving to and from church each week.  Before we went into the actual city of Brugge we kept driving east until we found the sea.  Other than going to the Children's Museum in Brussels, the beach was the one thing that Samantha ...

As I was planning our week in Belgium I knew that we would probably go to Brussels, but I really wasn't looking forward to our visit there.  I do not enjoy big cities and am much happier when we spend our time exploring smaller cities.  However, there were interesting things to see and do in Brussels and I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity.  I had read and been told that I shouldn't try driving into downtown Brussels because it is a maze of confusing one-way streets.  That was fine with me, as a lot of what stresses me out about cities is the traffic and parking.  Once I decided that we would take the train to Brussels and use the subway once we got there, I found myself more excited about our day.  Plus, the youngest three girlies rode for free on the train making our round trip cost just 45 Euro - way less than it would have been for gas and parking. Despite Europe having an amazing rail system, this is the first time I've taken the train anywh...