Family Togetherness

Kevin and I have been trying to find someway of getting our family together more often. It seems that every weekend the three older kids have some kind of party or activity. Also it seems that every single week night there is something going on as well. We have really been blessed to be able to be together on Sunday and Monday though. We have really enjoyed the past three family nights. Kevin and I decided to implement the ideas we heard in conference from a few different authorities about family night. We decided to have a different gospel topic each week. For instance last week the topic was "Scripture Study". We try to chose a new topic each Monday so that we can think about that topic through the week. We ask each child to come up with something to share, a personal story, scripture story, scripture or talk, and then ask them to be prepared to share it with everyone for family night. It has really been interested. It opens up the door of communication and discussion and brings the spirit into our home. Once a month go to an elderly brother in our ward for family night. He recently lost his wife and is pretty lonely at times. He's is an amazing man and we have really enjoyed being in his home. Last week we took our discussion family night over to his home. The spirit was strong and we were all taught by each other and by the spirit. It turned out to be a wonderful evening!

The other thing that Kevin and I decided to do to bring the family together more often was to audition for the Syracuse City production of "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". We had a little trouble talking Brenden into auditioning but after a little force (which we really hope wont backfire on us) he said that he would audition to. So yesterday morning our entire family went to the community center dress in our best and ready to sing sixteen bars of an upbeat Broadway tune. Regan sang "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck". She wore her favorite dress (which is about five times too small but I knew she felt special in it so I decided to let her) and she sang with all her little heart, it was so cute! Kyra sang "Music! Music! Music! by Stephan Weiss (Put Another Nickel in the Nickelodeon). She was quiet but sang really well and she even threw in a few actions to go with it! Alli Balli sang "Castle on a Cloud". She really does have a strong and beautiful little voice. She did a great job as well. Brenden sang "Look to the Rainbow". It was really hard to get him to sing for me when we were practicing at home. He just kept saying that he didn't like to sing in front of people it made him feel weird. So he went down stairs and practiced on his own. After a bit Kevin went down stairs to check on him and listened at his door. He was really surprised to hear such a beautiful, clear sound coming from Brenden's room. Finally Brenden allowed me to play the piano for him and give him some pointers. I was also really surprised at the sound coming from voice. I have not heard him sing for at least a year, because whenever we sang during family night or at church I could see his lips moving but I couldn't hear any sound. Well he did a great job on his audition as well. We just need to get him to loosen up a bit and smile.

Bridgette sang "Come to Your Senses". She did a really great job as well. She has a lot of emotion when she sings as well as a beautiful sound. I wish that I would have been able to sing like she does when I was her age.
Kevin sang "Lily's Eyes". He of course sounded great, and the directors loved him. I'm sure that they will love him even more when they see hims dance at the dance call backs on Saturday. I sang "If I Ruled the World". I didn't do a great job. I always let my nerves get the better of me and it effects my voice. The good news is I got called back for one of the Narrators. I'm excited about that although I'm pretty sure I wont get the part of Narrator as there are three other ladies who got called back too. I'll just be happy if the whole family gets cast so that we can be together. Kevin and Brenden also got called back for brothers. The girls all were called back as well for the children's chorus and Bridgette was put on the dance call back list. So we are all hopeful that we will get to be a part of this production together! Unfortunetley, Rorie Ann couldn't audition because you have to be at least six years old, but the kids are hopeful that the directors will give her a chance to shine during one of the songs that they have been drilling her on. It's pretty funny! Here is a little clip of that. FUNNY!

Christmas 2009

We were very blessed this Christmas in so many ways. We had a wonderful morning together with lots of fun gifts from santa and from each other. Rorie got twin baby dolls! She just loves them. They are water babies. She also got a stroller and diaper bag from Brenden. The diaper bag came with two bottles perfect for the twins! I purchased the twins for Rorie because we have had Lauren and Andrews babies over a few times a week and Rorie loves them a little too much some times so I am hoping that having the dolls will help direct her attention away from the real babies when needed.

Regan and Kyra love animals. They have asked for an animal of one kind or another every Christmas. They have never really been to excited about dolls. So this year they got a Fur Real pet. They move and make different noises. Kyra got the panda and it makes so kind of strange noise and it also snores when you put it down. Like we need more snoring noises in this family right? Kyra's dog of course barks. They both love them!

Allison got a West side Story sound track and DVD. She was pretty excited about that. She loves that movie.

Brenden, Alli and Bridgette got a digital camera and an ipod to share. Hopefully that will work out ok. We really want them to learn how to share and we did not want them to be spoiled so we decided to get just one and see how they do with that. So far so good!

Bridgette got a pink keyboard, mouse and hub to go with her computer. Bridgettes computer is in her room but doesn't have internet it is just for her writting assignments for school etc.

Every year we take the same picture of the kids on the stairs waiting (usually for dad) to come down the stairs and see the presents that Santa left by the tree and the stockings he left on the sofa. It reminds me of growing up and waiting for my Grandpa Kinmont and Aunt Susie to wake up and get ready for us to open presents. We were always so excited and had a lot of fun together just waiting and anticipating.

But all of these gifts seem so small and unimportant when I think about all the spiritual and physical gifts we have been given this year by the Lord through friends, neighbors family and doctors.
Rorie's heart is great and at the last appointment the Dr. said she only needed to be seen once that year. We have an appointment in January for her. But what a blessing this is to our family.

Allison had oral surgery this year because of a cyst in her face near one of her adult teeth. The cyst actually was quite large and had pushed one of the teeth up next to her nasal cavity. They were able to remove the cyst and also had to remove two adult teeth as well. The bone near the cyst was almost completely gone. The oral surgeon wasn't sure that the bone would grow back on it's own and he was pretty sure that Alli would need to have a bone graft. He was going to take bone from her hip and to put in her mouth. But it turns out that her bone has indeed started to grow back and she will not need a bone graph at this point. She will however need to eventually have implants where those two adult teeth were taken out. That will happen after she is done with braces. Our families health has been in the Lords hands this year and we are so grateful that he is in charge and that we are all healthy and well!

We have had many mortal ministering angels assist us this year. There have been so many times this year when my car would break down or the air conditioning broke down and needed to be replaced or the heater wasn't working or the water main started leaking, and I would get so down and start to wonder why Heavenly Father wasn't watching out for us and blessing us. In everyone of these instances my prayers were answered and someone was sent to help us. In July when the AC went out we were told that the compressor had gone out and that we should just purchase a new AC. Well I knew that we couldn't do that financially so I called my neighbor who owns the company that installed the AC in the first place. He came himself and looked at it. He verified that it did in deed need a new compressor and that he would look into different options or sales that he might have for us so that we could maybe get a deal on a new one. I was sick at the thought of coming up with $1200. I questioned why this was happening to us especially because we had just had a special FHE where we talked to the kids about the importance of fast offerings. We decided together that we needed to give quite a bit more than we were and that we would need to sacrifice somewhat to be able to do it. We showed the family budget to the kids and it was decided that we would double our fast offerings each month. So a few days after our neighbor came to look at the AC he was just driving by our home with one of his employees in this truck and he had a thought that he should stop by and have his employee look at the AC unit. He asked him to stop at our home and look at our AC for a minute and see what he thought about it. The young employee came to find that there was a wire loose and it just needed to be reconnected. I of course had to do a little repenting at having so little faith!
The same thing happened multiple times with my truck. It would break down and I wondered what in the world I would do without a car with six kids and two different schools to transport them to. I again questioned why. One of my good neighbors came to my home picked up my truck and left me the keys to his car so that I would have a way to transport my family. He then brought back my truck in working order and would not allow me to give him any money for the new parts he put in or the labor. He did this on three different occasions this past year for our family. Our heater went out three or four time this winter. Each time I called my father and he would quickly come and repair it for me. When our water main started to leak I told my dad about it. I told him that it would be around $5-7,000 to repair. He told me that he would help and that he and Kevin should be able to fix it on their own. Well it turned out that the entire line had to be replaced. We had many neighbors come and help and a wonderful neighbor bring a back hoe (the same neighbor who fixed my truck so many times). We were just speechless at the amazing support and help of others. We only had to come up with a couple hundred dollars for the whole project. We have truly been blessed this year!!!!

The New Babies

Lauren and Andrew's babies are about six weeks old now I think and they are growing so fast. I've been watching them on Tuesday's and Thursday's so that Lauren can go to work at the salon. They are really good boys and so sweet I just love having them around. It's really nice for Rorie to because she is learning how to share her mom's attention.