The Book

So many of you know that I am in the process of writing a book about my journey with cronic illness. It will take some time since I have four very cute little distractions :) Here's a excerpt from what I have written so far so you can get more of an idea of what it is about:

"Logically that path doesn’t make sense. Why do I have to go through this? You told me to go this way… The unexpected path helps your faith it gives you more of a chance to rely on God as your guide and to ask Him to lift you up, literally.

Others will think your mad for choosing such ways and may even mock you. You’ll find great joy in this direction if you allow yourself to see the joy. It’s very easy to become bitter and angry when you ask for direction and you are guided down a path that is less traveled if you are unwilling to see what the Lord is doing for you. This is when the Lord is at the edge of His seat waiting to jump in. Do we have so much pride that we can’t simply ask for His healing touch. How often do we run to a doctor first before we ask for a blessing or ask God to come with His mighty touch to heal us. How sick do we have to become before we remember the Lord? He should be the first thing on our “to do list” of healing."

Please go out and vote!!!

This election time I have had the overwhelming desire to know more about what we are voting for and to be more involved. Then this morning I came across a very inspiring scripture in the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 29:21-27:

21 And behold, now I say unto you, ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous aking save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood.

22 For behold, he has his afriends in iniquity, and he keepeth his guards about him; and he teareth up the laws of those who have reigned in righteousness before him; and he trampleth under his feet the commandments of God;

23 And he enacteth laws, and sendeth them forth among his people, yea, laws after the manner of his own wickedness; and whosoever doth not obey his laws he acauseth to be destroyed; and whosoever doth rebel against him he will send his armies against them to war, and if he can he will destroy them; and thus an unrighteous bking doth pervert the ways of all righteousness.

24 And now behold I say unto you, it is not expedient that such abominations should come upon you.

25 Therefore, choose you by the avoice of this people, judges, that ye may be bjudged according to the claws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.

26 Now it is not common that the avoice of the people desireth anything bcontrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the cpeople to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people.

27 And aif the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

Wow what a powerful statement of using the right of being the voice of the people. What a blessing it is to live in a country where we have the power of being the voice. Let's choose to not have that right taken away. From this scripture we learn that the more part of the people seek to do good. Those who want to do evil is the smaller part. We do have the power as a people to promote good in our country and we need to not feel hopeless when it comes to voting. Take the time to know who and what we are voting for. It's not a loss cause, it's our future as a people.

Aiden's school project

One of Aiden's favorite things to do with mom is to expirament with my sewing machines. He's made many "pockets" and "crazy sewing" designs, but this time he wanted to make something. So for one of his school goals he asked me to show him how to make pajama pants. As you can see he did a great job! He even picked out the fabric.

Baby Benjamin

Benjamin Thomas Casselberry
Me and the baby
Liz and Benjamin

So a few weekends ago I got to experience birth from the watching point of view. My sister (I say sister, not sister in law, because that's what I really think of her) Monica had her 7th child on a peaceful Saturday evening. Our other sister Liz was also there to witness this event. It was fun to see how excited her other children were running around the house saying "My Mom's going to have our baby!!!" I love how kids are so excited to welcome new comers. Monica had her baby at home using the same midwife I had used for Gwen. Her name is Heather and she is wonderful and very calm. They all had thought the baby was going to be a girl. But to Sammy's (Monica's oldest daughter) disappointment and to my laughter, it was a boy weighing 6 pounds 4 ounces. I felt so sad for Sammy because her little heart was so set on having another sister. He was SO tiny. I was amazed at how calm Monica was through the whole birth process. She did such an wonderful job. Watching the whole process reminded me of what a wondrous miracle it is to birth a child. It's hard to deny that God's doesn't have a hand in it. For them to turn out so perfect is truly a miracle in itself.

Colinary Arts

For lunch the past few days, Robyn has set up "Delight Cafe". Robyn writes up menus and fancy tables with cloths and her tea party set and gives the kids play money for their food. Emma, Aiden and Gwen dress up (hand bags, suit jackets and all) and come to the restaurant. Robyn plays hostess, waitress and cook all in one (I help a little bit). She even created her own recipe which is a new family hit, called "Banana Cookies". She cut bananas in rounds and sprinkles them with maple sugar. What a great way to practise hand writing, math, and life skills!

Chef, hostess and waitress, Robyn

Her customers Aiden and Emma

Another customer Gwen

A dress for Gwen

So here's my lastest creation. Gwen is growing like mad and needed a new dress so I made her this cute little dress complete with pantaloons and a petticoat. She loves wearing it! Do you like her new way of smiling? She sure does...

More Dresses I made...and my handsome boy Aiden :)

The first part of this year I was very busy with making dresses. In fact I made 10 smocked dresses between January and June. We just had some family pictures done and in them are the dresses I have made. Our friend Aeryn (red hair) is in the picture with Robyn and Emma all in their baptism dresses. I did not make her dress, but taught her mom how to make it. She did a fantastic job!

Emma, Robyn and their "sister" Aeryn in the baptism dresses
My beautiful girls...Robyn, Gwen and Emma in their Easter dresses
My good looking boy!!

Rock Hounding with Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim

Our family has been working on a science project learning about volcano's and volcanic rocks. Aaron's Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim live close to us and they are big rock hounders and last Saturday they took us out to a sight to look for Pyrite. We had a great time digging for rocks and cracking them open to see what we could find.

Emma with her bucket of rocks
Gwen loading her bucket with all sorts of rocks
Aiden's favorite part was opening the rocks up with a hammer

Ellis Island

Sandy city did an exciting event for 9-11 where they set up the field across from city hall to be a mock Ellis Island where you could go through the steps of becoming an american citizen. They had the kids walk to different stations where they learned what people have to commit to, to become a citizen. They watched a video about Ellis island, took a test about American History and then took the pledge. It was a great chance to teach the kids about being a patriot of our country and why people are so willing to die to protect it. They had a great time running around all the flags and being with their friends as well.

Liberty Girls

This year I decided to host a Liberty Girls Chapter. My girls have been apart of Liberty Girls since we have moved to Utah 3 years ago. For those of you who don't know what Liberty Girls is, it's when we take the fictional history books from the American Girl company and we study one girl/time period for a semester. We do activities, field trips and crafts that relate to what that girl might have done. At the end of the year the organization that is in charge of Liberty Girls holds a super activity around one of the time periods. For instance last year they had a high tea party in the time period of 1776. It's great fun! Here are some pictures of our girls first meeting this year.

Utah State Fair

The state fair was a few weeks ago and we always like going to see the big pumkins and what people have made. The kids really enjoyed seeing the beehive and all the animals. They also loved going down the big slide.

Aeryn's baptism

At the begining of this month we got to witness our friend Aeryn being baptized. I helped her mom make her dress and we got a really cute picture of the girls and the boys.

Our family was asked to sing during the program where we were accompanied by Aeryn's aunt and uncle who sang through American Sign Language. It was such a sweet moment to think that the spirit can talk to us through all languages.

Robyn, Aeryn and Emma

Aiden with his "brother" Clayton

(Aiden is older than Clayton...poor kid took after me)

Gravitational pulls and gravity

We had fun with this experiment one school day learning about gravitational pulls and gravity. It was interesting because I thought the salt swing would have stayed circling, but it kept changing directions. The kids had fun getting salt every where.

Camping at Albion Basin

At the end of August we got to go camping with our homeschooling group to Albion Basin. It was beautiful there and we had a great time enjoying the outdoors. At night we stayed up talking about all sorts of fun topics, watched the stars, told stories, roasted marshmallows. The next morning one of the mom's made a treasure hunt with the treasure being a large water melon to share. It was fun to watch the kids explore their surrounding and learn by doing.

Aaron with Gwen on his back

Aeryn, Emma and Robyn at the creek

Ainsley and Gwen observing the creek.

Robyn and Emma watching their dad carve a stick
Campfire with our friends

I asked Gwen to smile and this is what she did :)

This is as far as Aiden would sit from the fire. He's going to make a great Boy Scout someday!

Declaration of Independence in Salt Lake

We got the privilege to wait in line for two hours to see an unsigned copy of the Declaration of Independence that visited Salt Lake for two days. We also got to tour the State capitol building while we waited. It was a great time to share with the kids the importance of this document and to get some good dad bonding time. The Nielsen's shared this moment with us.

Kibbie kids with the Nielsen kids and the Brigham Young statue

Involved dad's
Us in front of the document

Our favorite pass time: Hiking

Here we are hiking up near Alta to Lake Cathrine. It was a beautiful day and there were many wild flowers. We also met a friendly prarie dog that liked our chips.

Robyn, Emma, Aiden and Gwen

Emma

On the Trail

Wild Flowers

Our friend the prairie dog

Our Garden, New Classification: The Jungle

So, we re-named our backyard garden to The Jungle. Last year we planted many plants and only a few survived. This year I planted much more thinking that half would die. Nothing died and now we have a jungle in our backyard. Everything did so well that I can't mow the lawn. I contribute, the jungle, to composting and Aiden's nightly prayers in which he asks for the garden to grow "really big". Here are some pictures Robyn so proudly took of our jungle.

Darth "Gwen" Vader haunts our home

One weekend we had a movie day where we watched Star Wars 4, 5 and 6. We had a great time and have a constant reminder of this weekend from Gwen. There's something wrong about her not being calmed by a primary hymn, but with the imperial march...hum...

Emma was baptized

How does time go by so fast. I don't feel old enough to have two kids baptized now. Emma was baptized this August and it was a wonderful moment. There's nothing like seeing your daughter and husband go into the water to take a necessary step to know God and be with Him again. One of my favorite parts is to see all the little kids surround the font to cheer Emma on. We had the privilege to have so many members of our family members and friends join us for this special day for Emma and missed those who could not make it.

Emma with her Dad

Aaron, Tina, Gwen, Aiden, Emma and Robyn
Everyone that came to share this moment

Emma with her Grandpa and Grandma Thompsen