Ok so its not fancy, but it worked!
Liane having a good time in the fort 
Our deck covered!
Gorgeous snow covered tree!
Love the mix of fall and winter in this pic!
It's Fall and I still have tomatoes growing... well I think they have stopped growing and will forever be green... regardless Liane loves to go to the garden and pick tomatoes
Playing in the leaves in our backyard... I'd say someone has a lot of work to do back here... 1,2,3 NOT IT!!
More playing in the leaves... the bazillion of them 
Liane found the bathingsuit drawer and one day thought it was super fun to wear one of my bottoms from back in the day ( ok just so all of you know... like it's any of your business, but posterity might read this one day and I want no rumors being spread about a hoochy grandma... I am long waisted and have a HARD time finding one piece bathing suits so I wear two pieces with a tank on top... ok there! :-)
Liane and Ivy playing with Legos
The before shot... Salomon likes to tease me that I always have to have a before and after pic... thats just me... I like to see where something started and the process of how it got to be what it is now... Im creating beauty!! :-)
Salomon hard at work!
Liane diggin' in
Ooooh look at the pumpkin guts... good times (well for me at least... she wasnt so sure) 
Liane loved using the spoon to dig inside the pumpkin
Checkin' out the finished product... our lil' Jack-O-Lantern!
Everything Liane likes gets a kiss... awww!
Checkin' it out
The "after" shot... the finished product!!
Ok so I love this church! The church (and therefore most Latter Day Saint families) set aside Monday nights for Family Home Evening ( a time when you gather your family together and spend time with one another - usually centered around a prayer, lesson, activity and refreshments, but every family is different and I suppose what is most important on this night is the family part... spending QUALITY time together!).
Well I heard that there was a new nursery manual that came out and I thought it would be a good tool for me to plan and prepare lessons/activities for FHE geared to Liane's age (nursery is for children 18 months to 3 years old) - Liane is a little younger but I knew that I could adapt the lesson to fit her. The manual is amazing and each lesson comes with a picture to support the lesson and a page you can copy and the kids can color. So fun! The first lesson is "I am a child of God". We started with a prayer (which Liane now knows to fold her arms when we tell her we are going to have a prayer - and sometimes she even bows her head - so cute!) and then sang "I am a child of God". We told her that she had a Mommy and a Daddy and asked her where Mommy was and where Daddy was at which point she correctly pointed to myself and then Salomon and then she proceeded to give us each a kiss... ok lesson could have been done at that point for me... so adorable! We then told her she had a Heavenly Father too and that He loved her very much. We used the picture of a group of children from the lesson to talk about how everyone is a child of God. We followed with a little movement activity and colored the picture together as a family. Liane had fun and we had a BLAST spending one on one time with her - TV, phones, computer, radio off... just quiet family fun time! It seriously lasted about 10 minutes but what we accomplished and the foundation we are setting for her are priceless!
I need to go to the church distribution center to purchase this Nursery Manual, but until I do, I can print the lessons off of www.lds.org for free!! Ok so this is one of the reasons why I am blogging about this... all of you mommys out there (LDS or not) I totally recommend this manual (or any others) to help you teach your children about who they are and how special they are. Religious or not, this manual has lessons that are so fun for the kids and so cute to teach ( yes most lessons are gospel related). What we will be doing (once I buy the manual) is laminate the pictures and keep the one out of the current lesson and talk about it throughout the week to reinforce what we discussed in FHE. Liane may be young but she catches on quickly and I think there is no better time to teach her about her Heavenly Father, Jesus Chirst and who she is... you are never to young for that, and she may get it more that I will ever know. I know as parents we are blessed for our efforts and, well I saw the reward already tonight.
Oh and you can order this manual and anything else online at www.lds.org as well... from the home page click on Gospel Library on the upper left of the screen, and from the pop up box click on Order Church Materials... browse the site - there are lots of great things you can get to help teach your children of all ages!!
