A bit about our week

We're just sitting down to tea now at nearly 8.30pm! Not quite our normal schedule. As Hannah said in her little posting, they went to a Primary activity yesterday, where they made puppets to tell different scripture stories. Rachel used hers today to tell us the story of the loaves and the fishes for her family home evening lesson. She was SO excited that she was able to do her lesson with no assistance whatsoever, and it was a lovely short lesson that kept everyone's attention and we were all able to discuss miracles really openly afterwards. Then after refreshments, we had Sarah's special time which lasted about 2 1/2 hours! Sarah had really liked the animal puppets that Rebekah had made in the activity to tell the Noah's ark story. So we made a load more for our special time. Now as well as an ark, Noah and his wife and a beautiful white dove we have two each of an awful lot of animals (including fluffy lambs and ducks, hairy lions, spotty frogs, and beautifully colourful butterflies, peacocks and tortoises!!) It was a lot of fun for all of us, and now I think we have part of next weeks' family home evening ready. As Hannah also mentioned, we had a church art show in our home yesterday. The spirit here was beautiful, and it was so lovely to have such inspiring images filling our home. Unfortunately our home isn't as clean as it was yesterday after our refreshments and our enormous cutting and sticking activity, but will hopefully be back to something like it tomorrow.Michael was at home on Thursday and Friday which was badly needed, but which we're feeling so much better from, me especially. He has had two weeks leave okayed starting tomorrow which will leave us out of pocket quite a bit, but will be good for us. We hope to get a few things done before winter really sets in. We may not achieve too much - regaining normality will probably be enough. I think the girls will hopefully benefit from having both of us around for a bit - they've not had that much from me just lately and their generally neediness seems to indicate that they know things aren't quite right (Sarah and Hannah especially). We're hoping things will work out well for us with Michael's work. We've felt totally right about reducing his hours spent there, starting off with this two weeks, but this is all that has been approved so far. As we've been guided to do that and then 2 1/2 days a week, we're relying on the Lord now to make things work out the best for us. We've realised we need to be doing more of that. He always has a way for things to work out. It just might not be our way, but then his ideas are always a whole lot better than ours! W e need to work out the finances the best we can, but that was what was stopping us before and we just kept feeling we didn't need to know how to afford it, we just needed to do it and it would work out somehow. We still don't have a clue how, but we know that it's right and it was needed several weeks ago. That's one other thing I'm trying to do better at - acting on promptings immediately. :o)Peter will be 3 months old tomorrow, and looks it. He is so good at smiling and giggling for his sisters, and is a very giggly and talkative little boy. He's also very alert. He loves to either be flat on his back talking to people and kicking around or to be sitting right up and joining in with the world. He's very strong at holding his head up and has just starting grasping onto toys which he enjoys playing with at times. He seems to really enjoy singing too, aswell as his family's faces. He's actually sitting on my lap as I'm typing this now and having a good look at what I'm doing and what is all around us. He has his 2nd vaccinations tomorrow, but he reacted well to the last ones so we're not too bothered. Hopefully this time will be similar. Whenever I look at Peter I think how similar he and Sarah are. He's basically the boy version of her in every way - looks, smiles, giggles, temperament, even the labour!!I guess that's it for now. That probably isn't all that's happened of any importance this week, but I can't think what else has.

We love you! xxxxxxx

What a busy couple of days!

Yesterday we went to the London Temple. We hadn't had too much sleep in the night and things didn't go too well the previous evening or that morning, so we were tired, and we were behind. It happens! When we were finally all breakfasted, all dressed, all packed, and Peter all sorted too, it was late morning, but still earlier than our previous month's temple visit, and we do have a 2 month old baby so I guess that's okay.Then we discovered that our fantastic, tall, fruitful tomato plants in our back garden which were supplying 6 tomato-hungry people in our family with plenty of tomatoes on a daily basis (and so not having to buy any, and less of some other things besides) were ...diseased. Basically one plant in about a day had shrivelled, gone black, and the fruit was going mouldy. Urgh! Whatever the problem was (and we haven't had the chance yet to discover what the problem was ) had already spread almost entirely to another plant and was starting on the others. Well, tomorrow was Sunday so no serious gardening then, and we wouldn't be back until very late, so they had to come down right then before the whole lot was destroyed (and not knowing what it was, before it had the chance to also damage the nearby developing sweetcorn and cucumbers).So we picked bowls and saucepan-fuls of ripe, ripening and totally green tomatoes, all stages of development, so that all of our hard work would not go to waste over the weekend. We now have a couple of punnets full of ripe tomatoes in the fridge which will probably last us up to about a week, and I've given three punnets away to big families at church today that I figure could use them (food seems to disappear in seconds in a big family, and the money doesn't appear enough in the first place!). Hopefully the rest - mostly green tomatoes will ripen on sunny windowsills (that's more to make room for inside!), and I have some totally unaffected bunches that I left on their stalks hanging up from string in the top of our little greenhouses - that experiment may work too, we shall see.So an hour and a bit after the emergency work had been done, an hour and a bit after we were ready to drive away in the first place, we actually drove away. We had lunch in the car, and then the radiator light started to go on and off. We checked the manual and it said that if the radiator light comes on you must stop immediately and top up the coolant. We were on the motorway, just. By fluke we missed the first services, so stopped at the next for coolant. The children all could have done with some coolant too - it was pretty hot stopping the car and having to wait inside at that time of day, even parked in the shade. We would have to wait for the engine to cool before adding the coolant and thought that might take some time, so as the light was still going on and off we took it with us to the temple to do there.When we had made it through an awful lot of crawling traffic (apparently due to just closing one lane), we finally made it to the temple. There was time for both of us to do some work inside the temple, taking turns as we normally do so the other can look after the children. We had planned on doing a session each as normal, and that was not possible now as the last session on a Saturday is 4pm. Our ward's temple coach was nearby, and someone then came over to tell Michael that the temple was closed! The last session that day was at 2pm, not 4pm, apparently because it was Helping Hands day. There was nothing left to do, despite our children struggling to make the hot journey for the previous 3 hours. It had taken a lot to get to the temple this month, and we desperately needed to be in there this month in actual fact - a lot of questions needed answering etc. It didn't seem very funny!We then spent a quiet few hours around the temple. There was a possibility of us at least using the time for our family and going to a nearby National Trust place we like where they have a big seed bank etc. There was just enough time to make it a worthwhile visit there. We figured though that we would all enjoy the beautiful outdoors as much where we were, and maybe just being near to the temple we would find the peace and help that we needed - something that probably could not be found a little way down the road. Michael and I had some talking time in the end, and we enjoyed a picnic tea there, I got some exercise and some time to read and ponder. I found a little grove of trees that when you stand underneath opens out above into a huge leaf-covered space that felt like being in a temple. We had the help we needed to find the peace we needed, and we didn't feel so bad. Infact we both felt more fulfilled driving away that night than we have done at times coming away from a more hectic visit to the temple. We still have the urgent questions still needing their answers, and we will need to return somehow as soon as possible to gain the understanding we seek, but we felt fulfilled. We are grateful for the spirit and holiness that surrounds the temples of God. It is more intense within its walls, but is very tangible without.Today, we made it church (not quite on time) to practice our Primary's presentation. The children worked hard, so did I, and so did Michael caring for Rebekah (who was crying in Nursery so came out in the end) and Peter and supporting me all he could - bless him. The practise time was needed so that everyone knew what they needed to be doing when, but I was glad when it was over. The presentation went well and I was glad to be able to enjoy it a whole lot more than the practise. Hannah and Rachel each sang their parts beautifully, as did all of the children. "Follow the prophet" was especially good, and it was great hearing two of the older boys enthusiastically taking on one of the verses alone. I think they surprised our bishop, that they (the older boys that is) seemed to enjoy singing that much, which I suppose is not always typical - I find them to be great though. They all did a fantastic job. Sarah boldly and enthusuastically showed us her picture of Jonah and the whale, and Rebekah got a bit too shy somehow to say "thankyou for Peter" as she wanted to, but Daddy said it for her.We enjoyed refreshments and a couple of church videos for our family home evening today, all in our pyjamas (half the family were anyway by that time as they had been soaked with water one way or another, so we thought we'd join them for fun!) - and that was before we ate dinner.We hope your weekend has been totally uneventful and boring, otherwise you might feel as worn out as we do now. Either way, sleep well - hope the week turns out well for you all!

Where we went today!

Michael took the day off work today. He took Rachel and Hannah to church for their ballet lesson, and Sarah and Rebekah shopping. Then they attempted to go to the park, but that was cut short by a downpour while they were eating lunch, so they ended up at the art gallery in town. These two sculptures seem just perfect for them - ballet (it's actually meant to be a girl waiting at a bus stop), and violin. They're good aren't they. They came home with pictures of fossils they'd coloured in and a moving paper skeleton of a rabbit they had each made. They'd clearly enjoyed their day with Daddy.

Farewell Kylie

Last Saturday, 9th September, we had some fun exploring St. Mary's Guild Hall in Coventry city centre and the girls tried their hand at weaving, writing with feather and ink etc. - part of a free history weekend around the city. Then we got to do what we'd been waiting for for some time - see Kylie and Paul Russell before Kylie flew back home to America last week. We had a bit of fun playing around at the Memorial Park and having a chicken and chips picnic for tea. We were so sad to see our beloved Kylie go so far away, though happy for her to see her family and some friends again. We wish her the very best of luck in finding a great place for her and Paul to settle down and enjoy building a family together. :o) It was fun. We hope it won't be the last we see of them

What a giggly boy!

Yesterday afternoon, Michael had Peter on his lap and was jiggling his tummy, which really made him giggle. I had to take a picture for you all to see. He is such a happy boy, especially if he has a friend to talk with. I really do mean with as he will talk and gurgle away quite happily with plenty of smiles just by having you close enough to know you want to communicate with him. Then any kisses he gets just really make him laugh. We love him and his cheerful spirit such a lot.