October

Is anyone else going crazy because it is already October? Didn't school just start? It is amazing how quickly time goes.

Fortunately I am a freak and I already have half of my Christmas shopping complete. Also, we have decided not to get gifts for Nathan and Audrey this year. They have so many things already and our annual trip to Michigan is sort of their "gift." (Not to mention that they have several aunts, uncles and two sets of grandparents that do more than their share in providing for our children!) I have never liked the whole Santa Christmas tradition anyway. I guess part of that has to do with feeling like birthdays are the best days ever - one day set aside to celebrate you. We do our best to be sure that the children's birthdays are the best. As Nathan always insists, birthdays need balloons, presents and cake! For right now all Audrey cares about is CAKE!

Family Home Evening

We have been given instruction to hold weekly family home evenings. We are also given promises of increased blessings if we do hold FHE. For the past year we have been fairly diligent in holding our home evenings. It has been a learning and growing process for our family - for instance, we know that after a prayer and song we have five minutes or less to give a lesson (anything longer results in bad attitudes and loud voices!). I can testify that as we do the things we are instructed we can and do receive the increased blessings we have been promised.

In an earlier blog we mentioned that we have been working with Nathan to memorize the Articles of Faith. So far Nathan has the first and second Articles of Faith completely memorized. We introduced him to the third this week. As we were sitting in the living room Audrey started to participate. She looked at her daddy and said, "We believe," long pause "in God [the] Eternal Father," long pause - we all stared at her "and [in] his son Jesus Christ," we all continued to stare, not believing what we were hearing "and in [the] Holy Ghost."

Later we were able to get her on a recording saying the the First Article of Faith. We will be trying to put that on our blog too.

Audrey's Second Birthday

It is official Audrey finally has the age to go along with her attitude! She has been acting 2 for quite some time; now he has every right to!!! All joking aside, Audrey is our prized princess and we love her more every day. Audrey is compassionate, loving and involved we are so blessed to have her in our family.

As is custom we let Audrey choose her birthday dinner. We had pizza, Baked Cheddar and Sour Cream potato chips, fruit and cake - with all of the options she wanted white cake, white frosting and chocolate chips. Her ice cream choice just had be be plain vanilla too. When we sang to her she was embarrassed and had to hide her head. It was a great birthday.

Home Improvement

This is the most ambitious home improvement project of my life. I found the stud and everything. I am very impressed with myself. - RJB

Ryan forgot to mention that WE found the stud. WE put the bracket together. WE hung it from the wall!

TJ Illness

TJ had a bad experience with one of his paws recently. He wouldn't quit licking and biting at it, so we did the best we could under the circumstances. It was this or the cone around the neck. During a trip to the vet we learned he had an infection and needed some medicine. Fortunately, he stopped wearing the sock shortly thereafter.

School, Festival, Field Trip

Nathan had his first day of Kindergarten on September 1. He loves going to school! The favorite thing he has learned is math and something called "the sensory" (we are still not exactly sure what the heck that is yet, but we know it really does exist). He says the Pledge of Allegiance each day, and eats a ham and cheese sandwich each day (his school prohibits peanut butter in lunches).

Nathan is wonderful with memorization. He has many parts of movies and videos memorized. He often quotes parts of his favorite movies. (Sometimes he skews reality with TV world. Fortunately we have litmited his video and television intake.) We have decided that we should use his memorization skills for building up his knowledge of the Gospel. For family home evening, our family has been working on learning the Articles of Faith. Nathan has the first Article of Faith memorized, and almost has the second one down well also. He loves learning!

Picture and Video:

We attended the Apple Festivle in Hendersonville, NC. You may not be able to tell from the picture but Audrey did not enjoy the ride nearly as much as Nathan did!

Nathan had his first field trip. He went to Hickory Nut Gap Farm in Fairview, NC. There he had the chance to feed a goat, was offered to hold a baby chick - he "chickened out", fed a couple of pigs some apples, went through a sunflower and corn maze, etc. It was a fun experience!

Happy Birthday "5"

Nathan's birthday was yesterday, August 20th at 10:15 am. I woke him up early by singing "Happy Birthday". He was tired and sat up in bed. He hung his head and began to pout. I felt a little bad because I did wake him up about a half hour before he usually wakes up on his own. As I questioned him about being upset he indicated that he didn't want to be 5. In fact, he wants to be 4 forever. I let him in on a little secret - okay you are still 4, your birthday isn't until 10:15 a.m. He put on a smile, jumped off the bed and started his day! After balloons, presents and cake he still claims to be 4!

Michigan Trip - August 2009

I must start this entry out by telling all of our friends what an incredible husband and father Ryan is. He knows that it is very important for the kids and I to spend time in Michigan to see our familyso he sacrifices time away from us. Although the time apart is difficult for all of us, it is expecially hard on Ryan - as he is the one left behind. We are all glad to be back together and we are thankful for the time the kids had to spend with their family, espcially their grandparents. We know it never feels like enough time for them....

Lessons from the Road...

If you know one thing about Nathan - you probably know that Nathan LOVES animals. His current obsession centers around extinct animals. Grandma Beadle introduced Nathan to a new word - Roadkill. She went above and beyond giving Nathan a definition...if a picture is worth a thousand words the the real thing is woth at least a thousand questions!

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

One of my very favorite things about Michigan is Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. Ryan and I both attended MSU and received our bachelor degrees from there.

Campus is lovely and holds a certain magical charm for me. We visited the MSU Dairy, fed some Canadian Geese, and visited the famous painted rock.




This rock is actually the size of your fist, it has been painted that many times!




Nathan was tired of the backseat. He navigated traffic like an expert.




The sandbox is always fun - wet or dry!



Pay close attention to three very important fashion tips...

You can only pull off these fashion tips if you are a cute little girl!

Lake Powhatan

A friend of ours told us about a lake near our home that actually has a sandy beach. This was a surprise to us because here in NC the "dirt" is a red clay. We didn't expect that there would be any beaches with sand. The best part...the lake is about five minutes from our house!





At some point I am going to make a post about our favorite places to visit in the Asheville, NC area. This will definitely make it to the list. Not only is there a lake with a swimming area and beach, there are picnic tables, grills and even a campground.

Here is some information I found about Lake Powhatan:

Thirteen man-made lakes and ponds provide added opportunities for water sports and recreation along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Lake Powhatan, with its multifaceted recreation area, is one of the most popular.

Rather than a primitive wilderness experience, the Lake Powhatan Recreation Area offers easy access to a variety of outdoor activities such as fishing, hiking, swimming, and mountain biking. In addition, connector trails lead to the 6,300-acre Bent Creek Research and Demonstration Forest, The North Carolina Arboretum, and less heavily visited areas in the Pisgah National Forest.

Around the Country

It has been quite some time since I have posted - not for lack of happenings. We have had visitors from around the country! As I have been reflecting on the wonderful friends I have and where I met each one I have thought about the wonderful blessing it has been in my life to live in many different places. Without the moves I would never have met some of my closest friends.

After moving to North Carolina and purchasing our home we decided to keep a book for our visitors to sign when they stay the night. This idea certainly isn't original - Ryan's grandma Virgina "Ginny" Beadle use to keep a book in her home in Venice, Florida. Her guests would sign it when they would come to stay. Years after she passed away it was interesting to look through the book. So we decided to begin the tradition for our home.

So far we have had visitors from Michigan (obviously there have been lots of visits from our family), Tennessee, Florida and Washington. We are looking forward to expanding our book and would love to have visitors from around the country!