Moran Family Fun

Day 28 - I love having our girls help me in the kitchen. One of the chores the girls rotate through in our house is kitchen/chef and it is, hands down, everyone's favorite job to have. Besides the obvious benefit of having an extra set of hands and some company while I'm cooking, I know that having our girls cook and bake with me makes them more adventurous eaters and to me that's totally worth the extra time and mess that kids sometimes make in the kitchen.  Natalie came home from school with a recipe for pumpkin pie last week and couldn't wait to try and make one. I've never really liked pumpkin pie and wasn't nearly as excited as she was about the recipe. Instead of making it right away I promised her that we would make it for Thanksgiving. So before we left home we gathered the ingredients and brought them along with us to the Otto's house. Jessica helped Natalie to make the pies the night before the big day and they were all Natalie was looking for...

Day 27 - Thanksgiving! A day for being extra grateful, eating too much food, and spending time with family. We had a really nice day - it started with sleeping in, which is always excellent, and then Jessica, Charissa, and I went running before getting started on the meal. While we were cooking the kids walked to the park and played capture the flag and then just played together around the house.  We tried to recreate a picture we took of all these cute kids way back in the summer of 2007. I love that Madison's sweet and slightly goofy smile looks pretty much the same in both shots. Everything was working out perfectly and we were on track for a 2 o'clock feast when we had a little hiccup in our plans. The turkey fryer had a small hole in the bottom of the pot and we were leaking oil all over the driveway. We tried to fix the problem by cutting a piece of a heavy duty foil pan to fit the bottom of the pot and then carefully placed it in the pan. We put another fo...

Day 26 - Our kids haven't had the chance to get to know their extended family very well because we've always lived across a country (or an ocean) from everyone else. I worry that the boat has sailed for our older girls and they will end up a lot like me - knowing who their cousins are but not really knowing their cousins. Now that we're living on the east coast of the United States we have seven cousin, two grandparents, three aunts, and two uncles within a day's drive of our house. Yesterday the girls and I piled in the van and started heading south for Thanksgiving with the Ottos in North Carolina. Nine hours later we arrived and, after a little warming up, the girls jumped right in and started having fun with their cousins. They've all been having a good time since then and it has been so sweet for me to see.  Hopefully now that we live closer to family this will be a more regular occurrence.  Natalie calls days like this "the best days ever" and ...

Day 25 - I broke one of my own rules this week - no Christmas decorating before Thanksgiving - when I had Jared pull out the boxes of decorations so we could deck the halls at our place. But really, Thanksgiving falls very late in November this year and it would have been December before we could decorate if we waited until we would all be together and get things looking merry and bright.  Step One: Get those outside lights and decorations taken care of! We were blessed with a beautiful day, almost 70 degrees, so the weather was perfect for breaking out the super tall ladder, the staple gun, and the strands of Christmas lights.   Maybe Jared forgot that he was using a staple gun and not the other type of gun he's used to working with? Step Two: Rediscover all of the different nativity sets you've collected over the years as you carefully unwrap each piece. It's always a trip down memory lane when we pull out our collection. We remember where we found...

Day 23 - Healthwise, it's been a rough couple of weeks at the Moran house. It started with Natalie, then jumped to Madison (but luckily in a much milder form), then Samantha got sick, and finally Emily succumbed to the mystery virus.  Unfortunately for Emily, she got hit the worst and has been looking pretty much like this . . . . . . for the last four days. I think she's has eaten only two or three times since Saturday and has only been awake for about six hours of each day. Usually when our kids are sick I take a wait and see approach and hope that they will gradually start feeling better. It seems as if when I do take them to the doctor we just get told to keep doing what we're doing. Rest, fluids, tylenol as needed, etc. For some reason those things haven't been working for Emily. Instead of feeling a little better each day she's been feeling worse. So I finally tried to get her in to see a physician today to see if this is more than just a bad cold and ...

Day 22 - It's not easy being a marching band mom. That's one of the things I've learned this fall as Madison has been a part of her school's marching band. I also learned that the high school here takes marching band waaaay more seriously than my high school did. I learned a little about the scoring system for marching band competitions and that bending your knees when you march is frowned upon (at least in our band, but apparently not in all bands?) I learned that I don't care how I look when I have to drop my child off at the school at 4 in the morning or pick her up at midnight. I'll just roll out the door in whatever clothes are lying on my bedroom floor. Mostly I learned that it kind of stinks to be without Madison every Saturday for three months.  Because we registered the girls for their new schools in August - after the marching band practices had started - Madison wasn't able to play an instrument in the marching band this season. Instead she w...

Day 21 - We were lucky enough to be able to celebrate Lizzy's third birthday while the Keeffer's were here visiting. Celebrating with extended family is not something we are really used to so it was an exciting day not just for the birthday girl but for our kids as well.  We had just enough time to squeeze in a small party between the girls coming home from school and the Keeffer's leaving for the next leg of their trip.  Pizza and cupcakes make a perfect celebration! It took a little while but Lizzie was able to blow out her candles (with a little help from her beautiful mom Sarina!) Abigail and Lizzy really had fun together. I'm not sure if it's because Abby is so much fun or if it's because Abby came home from school first on the day Lizzy arrived so she met Abigail first - either way it was heartwarming to see them together. Finally, a picture of my sweet younger brother Benjamin wearing one of Lizzy's birthday gifts as a hat. We ...

Day 20 - One thing we've been excited about here in our new home is the wood stove. Now that the weather has been getting colder we've actually had the chance to use it and it's definitely something we're glad to have in the house. One day last week we took advantage of the fire, pulled out our camping gear, and roasted some marshmallows. It's not really what a wood stove is for and our downstairs had a distinctly smoky smell afterwards, but it was certainly fun!

Day 19 - My brother Benjamin, his wife Sarina, and their daughter Lizzie are here visiting this week. We haven't seen them since right before we moved to Germany in November of 2008 so it's been a little while. Last night after they arrived we made a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up chocolate soy milk for Lizzie. We came back home with way too much junk food and have been eating a diet mostly of little debbies, coke zero, and chips. Next week the clean, healthy eating begins but for now it's back to the junk!

Day 17 - This week for Family Home Evening our lesson was about giving thanks and showing gratitude for the blessings in our life. Specifically we talked about serving those closest to us and how service is one important way we can show love and gratitude for our loved ones.  We watched a video called Enduring Love  that makes me ugly cry every time I see it or even think about it too much.  If you've got four minutes and feel like crying or just seeing something that reaffirms how much service can show our love I would encourage you to watch it - but only after you grab some kleenex. For the activity portion of our family night we worked on a little crafty project. We took colorful binder dividers that I had cut into circles and then wrote things we are thankful for on the circles. It was interesting to learn what the girls feel gratitude about and to see which of our kids couldn't stop writing things down and which girls had to think a little more about what to write....

Day 16 - I've finally received a calling in our new ward and I have to say that after four months without one I was starting to wonder if it would ever happen! At first I guess it was nice to have a break but I really like to feel as if I'm being useful and not having a calling made me feel decidedly, well, not useful.  In Conference last month I was really struck by the words of Elder Hugo Martinez when he said, "He who serves in some thing is good for something; he who serves in no thing is good for nothing." He basically summed up how I'd been feeling in our new ward because I wasn't serving in a calling. But now I have a calling and here's my view on Sundays . . . That's right, Primary pianist! On Sundays I feel both happy to be playing the beautiful Primary songs and a little scared to be playing in front of people. I try to spend at least a half hour each day practicing at home so that I can maybe reduce those nerves a little which means ...

Day 15 - Emily's birthday was actually on Thursday but our life is busy (temple trip the night of her birthday, Jared working every weeknight evening, etc) so we didn't celebrate fully until Saturday and even then the celebration spilled over into Sunday. I felt bad that Emily had to wait to enjoy her birthday celebration but in a way it extended the fun of her special day and made it last four days instead of just one - the Kennedy's call that a birthday season! After Emily and Madison went to bed the night before Emily's actual birthday I spent a few minutes doing this to her door. I had to wait a little while to make sure they were asleep because blowing up balloons and taping streamers to a door frame aren't the most quiet nighttime activities. I'm lazy and like to sleep on the days I'm not driving to seminary so I wasn't awake in the morning when she opened the door, but I know she thought it was pretty cool. Those two sweet girls weren't...

Day 13 - When we went to close on the house the previous owner mentioned in passing that the Japanese maple in the yard would have beautiful red leaves in the fall. I had kind of forgotten about that offhand comment until I looked out the kitchen window today to see this gloriousness.  Beauty like this makes it worth all the effort we've been putting in to keeping the leaves somewhat under control in our yard. Autumn is definitely amazing!

Day 12 - Natalie woke up feeling a little under the weather today so I decided to keep her home from school. She was complaining that she was seeing spots and that she had a stomachache that started at the top of her head and went all the way down to her toes. Sort of strange symptoms, but she seemed to be sincere. After about a half hour I started to wonder if I'd made the right call because she was pretty much her normal self. So I set her to work on her weekly homework packets since if she wasn't going to be at school she should at least be doing some school work, right? I felt bad for doubting her when she ran to the bathroom twenty minutes later and threw up.  At least it helped her to feel better for a little while. She went back to her homework and finished all of her work for the rest of the week. Once that was completed she wanted to play with Barbies in her room so I sent her off to play while I vacuumed the basement. When I came back upstairs it was strangely quiet ...

Day 11 - Today's picture was an easy pick because it's Veteran's Day and I've been lucky enough to have some amazing veterans in my life.  The girls and I are blessed to have Jared at the head of our family. He is hard working, smart, kind, and a lot of fun.  It's hard to tell from this picture because Jared has his serious military face on here as he usually does for any official photo, but he really is fun to be around. Jared is such an example to me - he is always ready to serve wherever he is needed and he is not afraid to stand up for what is right. Here's my sweet dad with my mom on the left and her mom on the right. I'm grateful to have been a military brat and for the interesting childhood my parents were able to give me because of my dad's military service. I appreciate my dad's happy disposition and his kindness; he always makes the people around him feel loved. My Grandpa Jensen served in World War II in Hawaii, Mi...

Day 9 - No post or picture from yesterday because I spent the day continuing to shop for Christmas presents and then working on the talk I gave in church today so there wasn't much interesting to share - unless you want to see more pictures of shopping bags or read a transcript of my talk.  Which actually might be kind of interesting since I talked about wants versus needs and living providently. Just the thing to talk about after two straight days of shopping!  Today though, today Emily and I made these amazing cookies.  We got the recipe a couple of years ago (maybe?) from my good friend Kristy Fairbanks who, in addition to being one of Emily's most favorite Young Women leaders ever, is a phenomenal baker.  We just call them Sister Fairbanks Cookies, but they are really called Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and they are definitely not a run of the mill oatmeal cookie. They get the perfect amount of chewiness from the addition of coconut and there's just enou...

Day 7 - I know I'm a little behind the power curve here, but I started our Christmas shopping today! We didn't really want to buy anything before we moved and risk it getting lost or broken in the move so I put it off and then got so wrapped up in figuring out our new life here that nothing ever happened. I'm starting to feel the pressure to get ready now that Halloween has passed so the girls and I went out tonight and did a little shopping for the gifts we'll need to mail to our family and friends who live far away. We're not quite there yet, but it's a pretty good start. The only problem is that I can't really remember what we got for everyone last year and I worry that maybe I'm defaulting to the same things. So this is my pre-Christmas apology to anyone who might get a repeat gift from us - it certainly wasn't on purpose!

Day 6 - As lovely as it is, I can't take credit for today's picture. Nothing jumped out at me today that I wanted to take a photo of until I left the house after dark to drive to the school and pick up Madison from marching band practice and I saw the amazing moon in the sky. Unfortunately, my stinky little camera doesn't take good pictures really at all and especially not of distant nighttime scenery. Image source:  http://earthsky.org/tonight So I got home and asked Google about tonight's moon. What I found out is that tonight's moon is special because it's not your regular full moon, but something called the Frosty Moon or the Beaver Moon. This full moon in November follows the path of the sun in early May and travels across the sky from dusk to dawn. No matter what the story is behind the moon tonight, I was grateful to see it's amazing beauty on my drive. Was the moon as beautiful in your sky tonight?

Day 5 - After many, many hours spent sitting at the piano playing the melody line of the hymns Abigail has decided that she wants to learn how to play them for real and add in the accompaniment part. She came to me for a little help because she was struggling with the bass clef notes. I kind of didn't get what the problem was because she hasn't had any problem playing the songs in her piano books and they all have music written on the grand staff not just in the treble clef. Then Abigail told me that she was just memorizing what the left hand was supposed to be playing or figuring it out based on if the music sounded right. Also, the music she plays most often is for the trumpet and it's all been written in the treble clef.  She was able to correctly name each key on the piano, but she couldn't connect them to the notes written on the page. Well, we made a little cheat sheet for her and she has been steadily working her way through Come Follow Me!

Day 4 - The girls had the day off school today and I had big plans for our day together - sleeping in followed by raking leaves. Of course the girls were all totally  on board with my plan. There were mountains of leaves to rake since the approximately 327 trees in our yard are currently unceasingly shedding their leaves. Just kidding, I have no idea how many trees are in our yard! It's kind of picturesque if you don't think about all the work it takes to keep the things under control.   Our system for taking care of all the leaves was pretty inefficient. After we raked them into piles we would load up the wheelbarrow and cart them over to the woods at the edge of our property where we won't ever rake and don't care if the leaves pile up.  If we had three or four more wheelbarrows maybe things would have gone faster, but we only have one and it was taking forever. Maybe part of the problem was that Natalie was spending more time playing than workin...

Day 3 - Our girls, like many other kids, have chores to do each day. Each week they are assigned one of the five main household chores we've established. Without question, the most favored job is kitchen and chef. Besides being in charge of keeping the counters wiped down and floors swept they get to help plan, prepare, and serve meals. We've included the responsibility for setting the dinner table with this chore because it's easy to get the table ready in between dinner making tasks. This week Samantha is our chef and she takes the table setting part of her job seriously. It's really great that she enjoys making things look pleasing and using her creativity to make things special for the people around her. Since I had made the soup we had for dinner earlier in the day there wasn't much to do for dinner prep besides making some cornbread and setting the table. By the way, you should make this soup. It's a family favorite and a hit every time I share it with ...