Moran Family Fun

I spent a big chunk of my day today at the high school cooking hot dogs and hamburgers and helping to man the concession stand during a JROTC drill competition. Partway through the day we were almost out of the latex gloves we are required to wear for health and safety so I made a quick run to the commissary to buy more gloves.  The Saturday after payday and before Thanksgiving is a busy shopping day at the commissary. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen the commissary here quite so packed with shoppers. But I was a woman on a mission so I made a beeline for the spot where I knew I could find more gloves, weaving my way through the crowded aisles. I grabbed ten packages of gloves and hurried to the express check out lane, only stopping to grab a honey salted almond Ritter Sport bar for my lunch. As I was checking out three women walked up to me and said, "We're from the Liberty Spouses Association and we want to give you this Commissary gift card to help with you...

My life has been crazy for the last little while. The kind of crazy where it feels as if I'm running from one thing to the next with barely any time to catch my breath in between. The kind of crazy where I wonder if I can continue at this pace or if I'm going to break. The kind of crazy where I find myself loading an enormous bag of popcorn in the back of my car at 9:30 at night. All the crazy is my fault because I'm running around doing things that I volunteered to do.  Why yes, that is a plastic bag of nacho cheese next to the giant trash bag of popcorn! You see, I've never been very good at saying no. I think it's partly because I truly do have a desire to help others and partly because I really want people to like me but I worry they won't if I'm not of use to them. So I say yes. Yes to bringing food to a potluck, yes to substituting a church class, yes to watching your kids, yes to being PTO President, and yes to helping run concessions for the ...

This evening was our ward's annual Young Women in Excellence night. This event is a chance to recognize the young women for the good things they are doing and to celebrate the Personal Progress program. It's an opportunity for the young women to share projects or experiences they've completed during the year and show off their skills and talents a little. It's been a good year for Personal Progress for the Moran girls. Samantha has almost been in Young Women for an entire year and she has also been setting and achieving goals through the Personal Progress program. Samantha has been developing her talent for art this year and she brought several of her drawings to display that I hadn't seen before. She's got an amazing ability! I'm a little burnt out with Samantha being our fourth child to enter Young Women, but she just keeps at it and I can tell she's learning so much and building a strong foundation for her testimony of Christ. Abigail has been...

It's that time again - time to start packaging and mailing out boxes of Christmas surprises to the ones we love. I've been slowly gathering gifts over the last month or so and my sewing table was starting to disappear under the pile of presents I've been bringing home. Figuring out a time to wrap, package, address, and ship everything seemed almost impossible though as lately each day seems busier than the last.  Today was supposed to be filled with PTO stuff, but the internet was out at the school and you can't do anything without internet access anymore. This was my window! My present wrapping, box packing and addressing, package shipping, sewing table clearing window.  I gathered my supplies. Paper, tags, scissors, tape, all the shipping boxes I've been hoarding the last couple of months, pens, markers, chocolate, and Netflix and set to work. Wrapping is easy, well mostly easy. Don and Charissa will be getting one gift that's pretty wonky looking but fig...

This month is what we affectionately call "No School November" because the girls have only one week with five days of school this entire month. Last week was a two day school week for Natalie! We're currently on the last day of a seven day weekend. Normally our schedule doesn't have a lot of breathing room and, besides Sunday, a free day is as rare as a tasty school lunch. November has lots of free days and it's been pretty great so far. Today we decided to take advantage of the free day and try to find dresses for Abigail and Emily to wear to the winter formal. It's possible we'll have another day to go shopping between now and when the dance rolls around in February, but it's also possible that we won't. Plus, there are tons of cute party and going out dresses in stores right now because it's getting close to Christmas. If we went looking in January there'd be much less to choose from. We headed to Norwich and found parking but we wer...

Today is Emily's 18th birthday! Yes, somehow we managed to get another child to adulthood. The year since her last birthday has been a pretty great one so we're going to do a quick rundown of the highlights of the last 365 days for Emily.  International Student Leadership Institute (ISLI) in Germany. Emily was one of six students from her school selected to attend this week-long conference where she learned more about being a leader and made friends from all over Europe. Varsity Soccer. She hadn't played soccer since eighth grade but she jumped back into it, had a great time, and made some new friends. The only downside was that she failed to reach her goal of getting a red card. But she really, really tried! Prom with Joe. Emily has been wanting to go to prom ever since she knew what prom was. She was so excited about it that we went out and bought a prom dress in February, well before she even had a date for the dance.  Student Council. Emily was elected stu...

I've been rereading the talks from the most recent General Conference lately. During the Saturday morning session, President Uchtdorf spoke about the instinct we all have that draws us homeward to our Heavenly Father.  He said, " I believe that every man, woman, and child has felt the call of heaven at some point in his or her life. Deep within us is a longing to somehow reach past the veil and embrace Heavenly Parents we once knew and cherished.  Some might suppress this yearning and deaden their souls to its call. But those who do not quench this light within themselves can embark on an incredible journey—a wondrous migration toward heavenly climes." We need to heed the call of God and follow Him. The purpose of the church is to encourage us, teach us, lift us, and inspire us. It's there to bless our lives if we allow it to. Sometimes we worry so much about what we lack or how we fall short that we miss out on the encouragement, support, and inspiration that i...