Welcome to harmony's Roundeo.

That title may be quite outdated as we are now very well in the middle of winter, but it is, nevertheless, where I'm at in my web log and so it will be!

I kind of dread the writing part of my blog sometimes because it requires me to think and because I wish my writing were more interesting. But sometimes it's good to have the written word to go along with the photos so here we go.

November was, surprise! BUSY! ha. That is just life isn't it. I loved Fall this year. It just seemed perfect. It was full of sunshine and colors and minus a few off-days the weather was warm and divine. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then at the end of November, right on schedule Winter made it's debut and we had tons of gorgeous white snow that we got to play in and look at. Snow is awesome. I love it. I don't love cold, but I love snow.

I took a really fun singing course on Monday nights with friends from church because the teacher is a friend from church and for fluke reasons was short students and needed to fill her class and contacted a bunch of people. We had so much fun. I love singing and performing. I miss it. I will do more of it someday.

My purse got stolen at Ikea at the end of October, so a lot of my November was taken up by the annoying things that have to be done after such an event: basically all the cancelling and replacing and insurance claiming, etc.

I was very involved in Young Women's stuff of course. That is a pretty constant responsibility. We had Young Women in Excellence night so that took up a good amount of time planning and preparing for it. I teach Sunday lessons every other week and then have the activity every Wednesday night, meetings almost weekly, stake events, other meetings, etc. It's wonderful, I love serving in this role, and these girls, but I couldn't do it without the Lord's help, and I can testify that every time I began to feel a bit overwhelmed or stressed, I would say I know God does not want me to feel this way, so I'd pray and immediately I would feel peace and a burden lifted everything would work out. I love callings. I love the church. I love the gospel! I love my Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ!!

We hosted Thanksgiving at our place. And I tried to do a bunch of crafts with the kids and on my own. It was good to do some things as I had been feeling like I hadn't done anything creative with my kids or self in a while. Stayed up really late making the owl on my door. And it was worth it! :) Yes, Spencer it really was! I love it! I pretty much just stick to recycled stuff and paper when doing crafts, nothin fancy.

Our Thanksgiving was really nice. Of course we don't get the day off, so we celebrated it the Sunday before which was stake conference Sunday so we were all out of church early enough to prep everything. We had a great time and a full house. We have to get creative with our space and accomadations. We used a blanket as a tablecloth, pulled my sewing desk over and jimmy-rigged it to the table, used our little living room table as a bench, and our computer desk as the buffet...but it worked! 

We had great time. The food was superb. We split up the tasks of course. I did the turkey and it was really good too! That's always exciting. I used a recipe where you put the seasonings under the skin. I had coloring pages for the kids to keep busy while some friends, Janet and Daniel Hausen, and us prepped our food. Then when the other guests got here, we had a simple toilet paper roll "corn" craft for the kids to do, which were also our napkin holders. We had the Hiatts, Hausens, sister and elder missionaries, and Tara and her family over. I asked all the guests (including kids) to choose a leaf or a few on the garland and write down somethings they are thankful for. After we had stuffed ourselves we all told what we had written on our leaves and expounded a bit. Then the sisters had come prepared with a message and a cute little turkey craft to give us to do with our families during the week. We had lots of yummy dessert, chilled some more, and ended up very happy and grateful!

Here are some recipes I used:

STUFFING:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/awesome-sausage-apple-and-cranberry-stuffing/detail.aspx

TURKEY:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rosemary-Roasted-Turkey-2/Detail.aspx

MAPLE PUMPKIN PIE :

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Maple-Pie-Supreme/Detail.aspx

ARTICHOKE DIP:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Simple-Artichoke-Dip/Detail.aspx

(I sprinkle the top with a little more cheese and paprika)

CRANBERRY SAUCE:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cranberry-Sauce-I/Detail.aspx

I also did quite a bit of photography. You can see what I did here (the link is always on the side of this page): http://photographybyharmony.blogspot.com

November was a good month, but it was so busy that I didn't have a second to think about December or Christmas until too late this year! But hopefully I'll get that all posted soon!