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.
After Christmas this year our entire family got together up in Washington at Camp Z and had a blast. This was the first year that we had the lodge and so there was plenty of space for all. All 9 of my siblings were there, plus 20 grandchildren and spouses. Wow, it was a party. We ate a lot, played games, sledded, skied, watched movies, lost sleep, but most of all just enjoyed being with one another. I am so blessed to have such a fantastic family. I love you all!!
This year for Christmas we were so fortunate to host my mom, her fiance Keith (from Perth Australia) and my brother and sister Doug and Jody. They spent the entire week before Christmas with us. It couldn't have been more fun. We played games and did puzzles, swam and did gymnastics at the Y, took some walks, sang silly Aussie Christmas songs, ate a lot of good food, watched movies, did our traditional Christmas eve and day activities and meals and added a really nasty meal of baked beans on rye toast. Sorry Keith, but I didn't like it at! :) It was such a great time and we had so much fun with everyone. Thanks for sharing the holidays with us!!
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. 
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.
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.
