She's Eight Years Old!!

Little L celebrated her eighth birthday quite a few times this year. The first celebration was in November when we went to get her ears pierced, and shopped for some boots and jewelry. We did this knowing that December gets crazy and we didn't want all those fun things to get forgotten.

One week before her real birthday she had a party with some friends. Then, the day after her birthday (Dec. 16) she celebrated again with her Grandma Vance on her grandma's actual birthday. Two days after that was her baptism and her Grandma Baughman came into town with her fiance Keith, Aunt Jody and Uncle Doug. It was a lot of celebrating for a very special girl. We love you cutie. Happy Birthday. We are so happy you got to be baptized!

Thanksgiving at Grandpa's

We had another wonderful Thanksgiving celebration this year at Grandpa Baughman's house. The highlights were great food, Aunt Laurie and Uncle Jay bringing the largest assortment of pies ever, Aunt Janet teaching beading, Uncle Kevin treating the kids to Tangled (in 3D), everyone playing games and reading stories, staying in a hotel and going to get breakfast and hot chocolate (multiple times,) the Christmas parade (ok, maybe that was not much of a highlight, but we did it,) and of course just being able to hang out with Grandpa. We love you all. Thank you for such a wonderful weekend.

The Car Wouldn't Start-A Story From My Life

I often have experiences in my life where it is completely obvious to me that the Lord is blessing me. Sometimes it is finding a much needed item for our family at a thrift store. Other times it is an answer to a prayer to locate something lost. The scriptures tell us that the Lord loves to bless us. I saw that again recently when I was running a number of errands. I had to turn the car off and on at every location. I had gone to probably 7 different places and then decided to stop at the Goodwill trailer to unload my donations. I turned off the car, unloaded and then went back in the car to go to my next stop, but the car wouldn't start. I kept trying. The lights would turn on so I concluded that the battery wasn't dead. I opened the hood and saw that there was some corrosion on the battery. Even after scraping it off the car wouldn't start.

As I was sitting there in the parking lot I noticed a man walking his dog. He would glance over at me occasionally. At one point he called out, "Do you need a phone?" I told him the situation and he said that he was a mechanic! He took a look at the corrosion and asked for some pliers (which I happened to have in the car) and in twenty minutes he took apart the corroded part, cleaned it, and put it all back together. I kept thanking him and asked if this was inconveniencing him or keeping him from anything and he kept reassuring me that it was fine. He was happy to serve me.

The car started, we said goodbye and as I was driving down the road I realized that my car could have broken down anywhere. It could have happened at the bank or at the church or at my friend's house, but instead the Lord blessed me to break down right where he knew a kind mechanic would be there to help me.

Heavenly Father loves us and loves to bless us. If we just take the time to notice it, we will see that He is blessing us every day. In this experience I feel that the Lord wanted me to know that he loves me and is watching out for me. I am so thankful for His love and watchful care over me and my family.

Halloween

Here are some fun halloween picts. The dark faceless one is a dementor and the tall one is a dad who decided last minute to put on his dracula cape. Below are picts of the back of the car that Mr. M decorated for the trunk-or-treat and below that are picts of us at our friends' house making cookies. Marci is the queen of good sugar cookies.

Clayton and Bonnie's Wedding

Last week Dad's brother Clayton got married. After many long years of searching, Clayton has finally found the love of his life, the perfect match for him. We are so excited for him to have found Bonnie. We love her to death and love how she makes Clayton so happy and completes him. We love our new aunt/sister. Welcome to the family Bonnie.

More good news on Clayton for those of you that know and love him, He is working as a professional artist, doing contract work for the church helping with the designs of the temples and starting a series of temple paintings of his own to sell. He also had a paper he wrote put in the church archives. Finally, all the schooling is paying off.

Horray for Clay!!

Halloween Party

My friend Leanne and I did our second Halloween party together last weekend. We invited two families in our ward and a neighbor. It was pretty crazy with all those kids doing dance contests, wrapping each other up like mummies, feeling gooey things in bags and eating lots of creepy food. We all had a blast and of course were exhausted at the end of the evening.

Corn Maize

We went out to a local farm to run around in their corn maze last Sat. It was fun to get out in the fall air and have a little family outing. The kids are getting all excited for the Halloween parties that are coming up. Good times.