Richardson Report

Ward Christmas Party Christmas Dresses 8th Birthday I just have to take a quick moment to say how delightful this girl is.  Kenna is a spunky, sweet, thoughtful girl who takes delight in serving others.  She asks what she can do to help and comes up with ideas all on her own.  She loves to make things for others, plan events, decorate, and snuggle babies.  She is my mini-me and what a gem she is.  She tries very hard to do the right thing and is quick to apologize and accept correction.  She was super excited to turn 8 and become one of my big kids!  Can't imagine our family without this girl.  Happy Birthday, Miss Kenna! Quick party with a few friends, old and new New scriptures! Mom's favorite spot in my new house.  No, she's not spying on the neighbors.   The birds are fascinating.  That's what she says, anyway.  Our first snow of the season! ...

When it comes to documenting our family life I've been doing some sort of season thing I guess.  I just forget to get the photos off my phone. Halloween Taking hikes at Big River Noyo Harbor Our empty house.  Good-bye!  You've been good to us the past 10 years! We had some time to kill in Cloverdale, so I took the kids by a couple of the houses I grew up in. I remember the driveway of the gray house being much steeper.  Hmmm. 1985-1992  This house feels much smaller now that the trees have grown and the neighborhood has filled in. 1992-1996  My best sweeper Loving her bike And my helper Hannah and Faith are such buddies.  So sad that Faith won't remember all this. Playing with Idaho cousins FHE Faith really wanted to play Five Crowns with us tonight!  She felt so grown up!

My friend Ju recommended I listed to a BYU-Idaho Devotional given by someone she knew at the BYU Jerusalem center when she was there.   LINK . I finally got around to listening to it and there was one thought that really stood out to me.  Brother Bennion shared this quote from President Heber J. Grant:   "There is no danger of any man or woman losing his or her faith in this church if he or she is humble, and prayerful, and obedient to duty.  I have never known of such an individual losing his faith.  By doing our duty, faith becomes perfect knowledge...There is no power given to the adversary of men's souls to destroy us if we are doing our duty."      I loved the simplicity of that promise.  Brother Bennion says you may not feel like you have a calling of any significance (or indeed, any calling at all), but when you are doing the basic things you are supposed to do such as attending your meetings, taking care of your family, etc....

It's a wrap.  We are pretty much officially moved in.  I haven't hung the pictures on the walls yet.  Sort of waiting until Christmas is over -rather than decorate for two weeks and then re-decorate for a month, and then put it all back.  Anyway.  We are in.  Our garage is organized-ish.  I know where some  of our stuff is.  And life is going to start going like it should (hopefully - fingers crossed - knock on wood).  I'm so ready to be done with transition phase. We had our first Sunday in what is now our old ward.  Ha ha.  We will go to a different ward next week when the official boundary change takes place.  How's that for confusing??! It's time to get into homeschooling.  I just did something I haven't done in the last 12 years of my homeschooling career.  I bought a ton of curriculum.  I'm just sort of not excited to do middle school and yet I don't want to send Logan to school and he doesn't reall...

It is finally official.  And we can tell people.  And it's happening soon. In two short weeks Josh will be starting in Grants Pass, Oregon, and a week later the rest of us will join him.  In the meantime I pack and pack and clean and sort and dump and pack and clean some more.  It's coming along but I'm so afraid that I'll end up with too much to do at the end.  I get sort of panicky about that.  But I've got a good packing schedule and gave myself some leeway (I think - still don't have exact dates from the movers). We are going to buy a house.  First we're going to rent it for 9 months so that we can get some pay stubs from our new location to prove that Josh really does do something productive when he leaves the house each day.    I'm both excited and scared about this house.  It's beautiful and pretty close to a dream house for me.  But it also feels like such a big responsibility.  Taking care of it.  Furnishing i...

July started with the three littlest girls and I going on a trip while the big kids and Josh went to Scout and Girls Camp.  We had such a great trip!  I was getting over a terrible cold that had me sick for over three weeks.  Recuperating in warm sun at mom and dad's house was a great way to recover. Following Heather's lead, we stopped at the Mystery Trees just south of Crescent City.  Can you believe in that in all our travels up and down that hwy I can't think of a time we've stopped?  Maybe once.  Crazy!  It was fun.  We didn't do the gondola ride - I'm hoping to do that this fall though. The girls were royally spoiled by Grandma, who stocked up in preparation for their visit with dollar store goodies to keep them busy. Swimming outside is always a treat.  My girls loved the days of playing in the pool and having cousins there made it double the fun! I think one of my favorite things was going to...