Monday Memories - "As every cat owner knows, no one owns a cat." -- Ellen Perry Berkeley

Grandma Erma
Grandpa George
Dad

Tonight is our first snowfall of the year.  Our cat, Boots, is curled up with one of her kittens by our back door.  It reminds me of this story . . . 

My father was born in the spring of 1929. When I was a little girl my family gathered in the living room most Sunday evenings and played games, sang songs, ate popcorn, and listened to my father tell stories from his childhood. This is how I remember the story I liked best.

Animals weren’t allowed in the house, especially cats, but one was after she’d been a hero. This cat loved to curl up behind the wood stove on chilly, winter days. She kept my father company while his older siblings were in school.

One day, before she became a hero, the cat tagged along behind my father as he went out to play. He climbed the hill behind the house – far beyond earshot – to play in the snow. He fell through a pocket of snow down into a deep hole. He couldn’t climb out. He was there for a very long time. When they noticed him missing, my grandmother and grandfather called and called, but heard no answer. The snow wasn’t new and there were tracks everywhere. They searched and worried. They lived near a deep river that worried my grandmother constantly, and my father was little, only four or five years old, and it was getting colder.

As they searched, they noticed the cat stayed up on the hill. She seemed to walk in circles. Not finding my father anywhere, they went to see what caused the cat to stay on the hill. They found my father down in the hole that the cat was circling. Overjoyed, they gave the cat a spot in the house behind the stove.

My father said he often was bored waiting for winter to pass and his brother to come home from school. One day he lay on the floor watching the cat curled up behind the stove. The fireplace poker leaned next to the stove and reminded him of the branding iron they used on the cattle. Every spring he watched his father heat the branding iron in the fire until it was red hot, then place it on the animal until it had burned to the hide and left the brand. My father could see the cat didn’t have a brand and wondered how people would know she was his if she didn’t have a brand. The cat lay lazily in the stove’s warmth never suspecting a thing as my father stuck the poker in the wood stove until it was red hot. But when he put that hot poker on her skin she yowled, hissed, and put up a flight.

That cat never much cared for my father after that, but there was no mistaking whose she was.  

Sixteen (or so) Pictures for the Sixteenth (or so) of November Two Thousand and Sixteen

One day each month we document the day with a picture from each person in our family so we can see the everyday happenings of each other . . .

Atlas:  I am grateful that there are no tornadoes at my house and that Grandpa and
Grandma's house has armor around it to protect it from the tornadoes.
(Note:  Atlas watched the Wizard of Oz recently.)

Levin:  I am grateful for games and Atlas.

Cali:  I am grateful that our little boy is still small enough to carry once in awhile.

Ray:  I am grateful for the best day of the year and a demo project of a perfectly good bathroom.

Hazel:  I am grateful to be alive.

Henry:  I am grateful for balls to play with.

Grace:  I'm grateful for a warm house, foot to eat, and my family.

Abe:  I'm grateful for wonderful kids.

Kathryn:  I am grateful for the Sunbeam song.

Eliza: I'm greatful for marshmallows and straws. And that my right eye looks cool.

Afton: I am grateful for goodnight hugs from my little sister.

Michelle: I'm grateful that Ty bought new dishes today so I don't
have to wash the ones that stacked up through the day today.
Our mixed, matched, chipped, and cracked ones are headed for the dump.

Ty: I'm grateful for my girls and our Wednesday night tradition of
running to the track and Freedom Park. I run 4 laps with the girls in
 the stroller, then the girls get out. Afton runs a whole lap, Eliza 2/3's,
and Kathryn gets carried. Then we play at the park.

Winnie:  I am grateful for my thumb.

Ezra:  I am grateful for someone to play with.

Zeph:  I am grateful for read aloud books on the iPad.

Ande:  I am grateful for happy kids . . .

. . . and for the Young Women's program . . . and the end of a very intense fundraiser.

Joe:  I am grateful for kids because they are joyful.

Calvin:  I am grateful for good associations.

Jane:  I am grateful for home, soft nightgowns, simple suppers, and
16 on 16 of 16 posts.

The Parable of the Cake

Today’s seminary lesson was The Parable of the Cake. This lesson is an effective way to teach good scripture study habits, and a lesson students request year after year.

I'm always encouraged and even inspired at what the kids draw from this lesson.  Their insights are personal and insightful.  This year it took 10 cakes to have enough for all of the students (Christina, our incredible support specialist, helped me to bake that many) and it was worth every pan.

Materials needed: baked chocolate cake, 1 jar caramel ice cream topping, 1 large tub whipped topping and 1 cup candy bar toppings (broken candy bars, Heath bits, mini-M&M’s, etc.)

1. Explain that reading the scriptures is a lot like eating cake.

Ask your students for correlations between eating cake and scripture study. (They will give you great analogies: both are sweet, both are filling, both make a visible difference when a lot is consumed, both have a lot of variety/ingredients, both take work, etc.)

Have students silently read a selected chapter or block of scripture. After the students have finished reading, I suggest that one similarity between cake and scripture study is sometimes they’re both a bit dry. There is a reason we frost cake and there is a reason we are encouraged to do more than read the scriptures.

2. Explain to your students that they can eat the cake just like it is – after all they have read the scriptures – or they can add more layers to make it moister, better, more satisfying.

Show the class a jar of caramel and take a vote on who wants to eat the cake plain or who wants to add a layer of caramel to the cake. (After dozens of lessons, I’ve yet to have a class vote to eat the cake plain). Explain that caramel on the cake is like studying the scriptures rather than simply reading them. Studying makes the scriptures more filling and sustaining.

3. Have the students return to the chapter or block of scripture and study using the Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, Guide to the Scriptures, maps, For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, General Conference talks, etc. While they are studying, poke holes in the cake with fork tines or a kabob stick and drizzle caramel over the cake and let it seep down into the holes.

After students have studied the scriptures for about ten minutes, allow them to share insights with the class. After the discussion, ask students if they want to eat the cake as it is (after all, they have studied the scriptures) or if they want to add another layer.

Show students a tub of whipped topping and ask for a vote. (Again, the vote has always gone for more toppings when I’ve taught this lesson.)

4. Explain that pondering and praying for understanding will add to reading and studying the scriptures.

Give students an opportunity to reflect and write in their journals what they have learned or questions that they may have from what they have read and studied. While students write in their journals, spread the whipped topping over the cake.

5. After students have written in their journals. Explain that they can eat the cake like it is – after all they have read, studied, and pondered the scriptures – or they can add another layer.

Show students the candy bar pieces and explain that teaching and testifying of what we have learned helps not only others, but it helps us to better retain the truth. It also gives the Holy Ghost an opportunity to confirm what we say and strengthens our understanding. 

Take a vote whether or not the students would like to go to the next layer.

Assign the students to teach each other or create a social media post on what they have learned. As students teach, sprinkle the candy bar bits on the cake.

6. Now that the cake is finished with a layer of caramel, whipped topping, and candy bar bits, explain that no matter how beautiful or satisfying it appears, it is of no use sitting there. It is not until the cake is eaten and inside of us that it makes a difference. It is the same with scripture study. We can learn, understand, and feel the truth of them, but until what we have learned influences our behavior and actions it is of little use to us.

Invite your students to apply what they have learned from their scripture study and record their goal in their journal or report to a friend.

Serve the cake!

(This lesson could easily be applied to other topics such as how to have a more united family or any topic that builds upon a foundation.)

Veteran's Day - The Military's Family

L-R
Abe, Army
Calvin, Army
Ty, Air Force

Years ago – years and years ago – we had two little babies. One night Calvin said, “Jane, if there is another war where I am needed I plan to re-enlist.” I cried. I begged him to realize he’d already served his time (he was drafted during the Viet Nam war) and that now we had children to raise. I tried to get him to see that fighting and going to war was someone else’s job now, not ours. He told me it was everyone’s job, in one way or another, to protect our freedom. I fervently hoped the day would never come, because he would not be swayed.

For the next few years I often thought about Calvin’s lone comment. A few times I asked him if he still felt the same; he insisted that he did, and each time my heart sweat fear.

Several years passed and more babies joined our family.  My mind gradually came to understand his way of thinking and eventually joined his, “If not us, then who?”

By the time our sons, Abe and Ty, enlisted in the military, my heart and mind were at peace. Well-intending family, friends and acquaintances suggested it was “others’” responsibility to defend America, but the boys believed as Calvin and had a desire to serve God, fellowman, and country. I clearly remember standing humbly and proudly next to Calvin on the sidelines as each boy took his oath to protect and defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. They understood freedom is worth defending.

A few summers ago Ruth came up to me at a Fourth of July celebration and said, “I didn’t realize you come from a military family and I just wanted to say thank you for all your family has done for this country’s freedom.”

Frankly, I was surprised. Even though Calvin’s grandfather served in WWI, his dad in WWII, and Calvin during Viet Nam, I didn’t think of him as coming from a military family. Even though my grandfather served during WWI, my father in the Korean War, and our sons serve now, I didn’t see us as a military family either. I thought military families were like the . . .

Eisenhower family. (President Eisenhower was a General and his sons followed his military lead.)

Or . . .

The McCain family. (Senator McCain’s father was a Navy admiral, Senator McCain was a Naval officer and POW, and his son a Naval officer.)

Or. . .

The countless families that move all over the world in the name of the United States Military.

These are the types are families I considered to be military families, and they are. They have blessed our country immeasurably by their sacrifice and service.

I guess it’s because we’re normal people living normal lives in normal houses that I hadn’t thought of us being a “military family.” Ruth’s comment helped me realize that military families are much more common than I had supposed.

A few years ago a young man from my hometown had his legs blown off in Iraq. He was a track star and the loss of his legs seemed sardonic. I watched my hometown rally to his support. Hundreds left appreciative and concerned comments on his progress blog, and I suspect even more prayed for his recovery and adjustment. Fundraisers were held and ceremonies planned. Suddenly military families were created as hundreds reached out and adopted him as their own and cheered for his new achievements – first, breathing on his own, then eating on his own, and finally sitting by himself.

Or Bill Crawford, a janitor at the United States Air Force Academy. He swept, mopped, and scrubbed toilets, but he didn’t talk much. The cadets didn’t pay him much attention either. Until one day . . .

A cadet was reading about a tough Allied ground battle in Italy during WW II. The book recorded that Private Bill Crawford had charged forward as his platoon was being pelleted by machine guns. He had thrown a hand grenade into the machine gun nest. Two other machine gun nests began to shoot from the left and the right so Bill ran into the bullets and, after capturing the nests, began using the guns on the running German soldiers. His platoon was able to advance and they fought until night fall. Bill lay somewhere on the battle field, but no one could find him. His fellow soldiers assumed him dead and submitted his name to receive the Medal of Honor in gratitude for his bravery and saving their lives. His father received the award posthumously.

But, Bill was not dead. He was a prisoner of war in a German camp. The thing that got him through that camp was a scripture from his Red-Cross issued, pocket New Testament: Romans 8:31 “If God be for us, who can be against us.” He hung on to that verse to get him through the deplorable camp conditions and the rest of his life as he faced new challenges. Even scrubbing toilets and mopping floors at the Air Force Academy.

When the cadets discovered that Bill was a Medal of Honor recipient, news spread quickly through the corps. The young men made more time to talk to Bill, asked him for advice, and cleaned up better after themselves. They adopted him as their father, their family. They also arranged to have President Ronald Reagan present the Medal of Honor to Bill properly as part of their graduation ceremony. Bill was part of their family.

We don’t have to wait until a soldier’s legs are gone or until we learn of a soldier’s courage and bravery to adopt them into our families and hearts to say, “Thank you for defending my family, America, and her constitution.”

Veteran’s Day makes military families out of all of us as we honor the service and sacrifice of those who defend and rebuild this nation and promote the freedom they protect.

Thank you veteran’s - past and active duty - thank you.

Monday Memories - Grandma Lunt's Spudnuts

           
Calvin spent a lot of time at his grandparents’ (Ed and Orpha Lunt) home in Duncan, Arizona.  He was about seven years old when his grandpa Lunt bought him his first b.b. gun.  His grandpa said, “Giving Calvin that b.b. gun was the worst damn thing I ever did.  If anything's alive or moves he shoots it.  It doesn't matter what it is: flies, butterflies, bees, wasps, lizards, rattlesnakes, a Gila monster.  Nothing is safe when Calvin has his b.b. gun.”

While Calvin’s grandparents lived for a few years in Durango, Colorado, his grandfather had an old garage with a lot of mice in it.  When Calvin was nine or ten years old, he took a ballpeen hammer and knocked a hole in the sheetrock at each stud joint on the floor – every 16 inches – because that’s where all the mice nests were.  He collected all the baby mice and put them through his grandmother’s apple grinder.  Calvin was proud he’d captured and gotten rid of all those mice, but when Grandma Lunt came outside and saw what he'd done, she was swearing mad.  She turned around and filled a tub of hot water and soap and brought it back to Calvin and made him scrub and scrub that grinder.  If he was expecting a trophy for killing them, he was disappointed because he got a cussing out and chores instead. Apple and chokecherry season was just around the corner and Grandma Lunt needed her press to make juice.  Calvin’s favorite jelly is still apple-chokecherry, with just a hint of mice.

Calvin's dad once told me that Grandma Lunt (his mother-in-law) was the best cook he ever knew, and he ate homecooking his whole life.  Though I only met Grandma Lunt a couple of times, I have some of her recipes and spudnuts is one of them. Tonight for family home evening we made them. I've made them several times before, but this was Calvin's first time.  It's a good thing we only made a half a batch because we kept telling each other, "They won't taste this good tomorrow, they're best fresh -- better eat another one."  And we did.

Grandma Lunt's Spudnuts

1 cup mashed potatoes

½ cup warm potato water

½ cup shortening (melted)

2/3 cup sugar

3 Tbsp yeast

8 cups flour

2 Tbsp vanilla

1 (12oz.) can evaporated milk

2 eggs

2 tsp salt

Soak yeast in potato water.  Combine sugar, shortening, milk, and eggs.  Beat well.  Add yeast, water, and potatoes.  Sift flour with salt.  Add to rest of mixture.  Roll out and cut with doughnut cutter.  Let rise until nearly double.  Fry in hot oil.  Drain on paper towels.  Dip in glaze while warm and let dry on a cooling rack.

Glaze

1 box powdered sugar

½ cup boiling water

1 tsp vanilla

Life in Our World -- The Last Days of October

We butchered the hogs.  They were a funny batch and I'll miss their grunts and squeals when they were fed a bucket of slop.  It's always a bit humbling on butcher day when you remember that your well-being and energy comes from an animal's end.

Biscuits and sausage gravy will be the first thing on the menu.  

The water has been turned off in the canal, the first freeze killed the tomato vines, and we harvested the last of the garden.  Bitter sweet.

For family home evening we voted.  

When Washington State switched to a mail-in-only ballot, I was sad.  I liked the levers, the click and the voting booth curtain.  I liked the quick results announced in the evening.  

Where I grew up in Southern Idaho, voting was an important duty.  Folks voted at the grange hall or the school, depending.  It took a long time to vote, too, because neighbors gathered in small circles, or talked over their pick-up hoods about the weather, the crops, the harvest, the other neighbors, and recipes.  Voting day was as important to building our sense of community as the county fair and the annual grade school Christmas Play. 

When I became an adult, I served as an election judge.  The other judges and I swapped recipes, stitched handwork, and visited with the voters.  I still have one of Carolyn's recipes:

Carolyn’s Cheese Cake

1 small box Ritz crackers

1 cube butter

Crush crackers and mix with melted butter.  Press into a 9” x 13” pan. 

Whip:

2 cans sweetened condensed milk

2 8 oz. cream cheese

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

Pour over cracker crumbs.  Top with cherry, raspberry, or blueberry pie filling.  Cover and chill 2 hours before serving.

Voting is no longer a community building event where we live now; however, a big perk to mail-in-ballots is that you can use the voter's pamphlet and information on the internet as you fill in the circles.  On lengthy ballots, like ours was this year, that is very helpful.  

Today we went on an 18 mile bike ride . . . in the mountains . . . in the pouring rain . . . with four other people (kind of sounds like it's my accusations from a game of "Clue" doesn't it?)

Calvin swears we went 36 miles and it was all uphill.

Our bones are jelly-fied tonight, but we had a fun day with great people and lively conversations in a beautiful part of the world that smelled earthy and rich.

Lessons from the Wild

Levin with a nest of baby robins in one of our apple trees

Perhaps like many, I have a love-hate relationship with life in the wild:

watching birds carry branches and twine to build nests

deer and elk feeding in the meadows

squirrels running from branch to branch in the trees

ants carrying crumbs to their hill

fish jumping in the lake

dolphins feeding in the tidal marsh

alligators basking on the bank

coyotes barking and howling

– all of these are familiar and loved sights and sounds.

Watching animals in their habitat with their habits is fascinating, and I’ve learned much watching animals in their natural environment.

Consider three lessons I’ve learned from birds:

I anticipate the return of the birds each spring. One year they returned with a thud. Early one morning I heard the clear notes from a solitary bird even before the sun was up. Soon after, while cooking breakfast, I heard a thump. Our kids hurried to the living room window and cried, “Quick! You gotta see this!” A hawk was outside in the flowerbed with an injured bird in his claws. One bird’s misfortune of hitting the window pane had become another bird’s fortune of breakfast.

Lesson one taught to me by the birds: Life isn’t fair, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be good.

The life of a bird is filled with adventures and hard luck; few die of old age, which make their songs especially beautiful. Birds chirp and sing amidst the risks, rain or shine, few species are as optimistic. I read where one sweet, caged and unmated female canary laid eggs and was so happy that she offered food to the unfertilized eggs and chattered and chirped as if willing them to hatch. Contrast that with the turtle that lays her eggs and then leaves. Not one word of encouragement or advice to her young.

Lesson two taught by the birds: Face life with optimism and encourage others within your influence.

Birds travel light and make their accommodations with what is at hand. Nests are made or lined with dryer lint, hair, string, mud, twigs, tinsel, twine, and leaves. Each year, as a couple, the male and female birds either build or extensively remodel their homes – a trial for even the hardiest human marriages – and they do it debt free.

Lesson three: Be self-reliant and work on a harmonious relationship with your spouse.

Even the alligators who rest under the same shady tree at the same time each hot day have taught me by remote example that a little sun goes a long way, a good daily routine should not be messed with, and it’s good to conserve energy in the heat of the day for a nice evening.

Neither can I underestimate the influence of the story of the Grasshopper and the Ant. I suppose every child of the 60’s grew up on it. I listened to it on the record player and loved it, notwithstanding the static and skips. As the story goes, the ants stored food in their hill for the cold winter days while the grasshopper loafed, laughed at the ants, and played his wings as he sang, “Oh, the world owes me a living. Deedle dardle doodle deedle dum. If I worked hard all day I might sleep badder when in bed at night. Deedle dardle doodle deedle dum.” The winter winds came and the grasshopper got sick, hungry, and nearly froze. The ants took pity on him, made him a mustard plaster, and he soon grew better. The grasshopper changed his tune and instead began to sing, “Oh, I owe the world a living. Deedle dardle doodle deedle dum. You ants were right the time you said you’ve got to work for all you get. Deedle dardle doodle deedle dum.”

The ants’ example in this story has motivated me for more than thirty years to store enough food to last through hard times.

I have loved learning from the animal kingdom and watching life in the wild.

On the other hand, the animal kingdom makes me so mad sometimes . . .

I not only grew up with lots of kids in my family (I come from a family of ten children), I grew up with lots of cows. Because of the cows, the coyote was our enemy. Coyotes were sneaky and costly. One calving season the coyotes were especially bad. Coyotes have neither ethics nor morals; they have only the will to survive. They would creep among the cows, find the newborn calves that had not yet gotten their legs under them, and begin chewing on the soft tissue of the calves—the nose, the rectum, or the umbilical area. The coyotes literally began to eat the calves alive and often left them to die half eaten. I detested them for their cruelty.

I remember one situation clearly. It was cold and snowy and a cow had secluded herself from the herd to calve. She gave birth to twins, 30 yards apart. Then the coyote moved in. The mother cow would butt and charge as the coyote came close to one twin, then the coyote would quickly move to the other calf so the cow would run over to protect it. Back and forth she ran trying to protect her two newborn calves from the coyote. In her weakened condition, she was near collapse from the effort. The coyote would soon have three kills had my father not happened on the scene.

Three months ago I walked out to our chicken coop to gather the eggs and saw some dead chickens in the run. I hurried inside the coop and found only the old arthritic rooster. I hurried out behind the coop and looked in the pasture for the rest of the brood and found more dead birds. Not one live hen was found. The coyotes had dug in under the pen and carried away, or killed for sport, every last hen. All 25 of them.

I was mad. Deedle dardle doodle deedle dum.   Coyotes think the world owes them a living and there is nothing more repulsive than an entitled attitude.  They will not pilfer from our flock again. Girded with the optimism and self-reliance learned from the birds, Calvin went right to work to teach the coyotes a lesson they obviously missed in the wild: you don’t mess with the Payne hens.

Calvin fixing the coop

horse-high-and-hog-tight

No way, no how is a fox getting into the hen house now

Relief-Society-Favor Cute

Last Saturday I made pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies. I wished I could call our grandkids and invite them to come get one, and thought as I often do, “I wouldn’t wish any of them to come back here to live in Moses Lake simply because we miss them; they have wonderful, fulfilling lives where they are, and they followed personal inspiration to live where they live, but sometimes, just sometimes I really wish we all lived on the same mile and the grandkids could walk over to visit and get a cookie.”

The next morning I woke up thinking there had to be a grandma somewhere wishing that her grandchildren lived close to her instead of in Moses Lake.

I packaged the cookies up in cute, little, orange with white polka-dot bags and went to church looking for some children whose grandma lived far away.  At first I saw the Davis children quietly sitting on the pew; their grandma is serving a mission in Australia. Next I saw the Johnston boys, four of them. Max, who is 3, came with his dad to say hello.  His dad said, "Max, tell Sister Payne what you’re wearing today.” 

Max ducked his head into his dad’s chest so I guessed, “Max, are you wearing big boy underwear?” 

He looked at me carefully and slowly smiled. I pulled his pants out a bit so that I could see what character was on them and said, “Ninja turtle shorts?  Oh Max.  Ninja turtles are very cool!” 

His smile got bigger.  

Max reminded me of Eliza and Henry, two of our grandchildren, who are in the beginning stages of potty training, and it just seemed like he and his brothers could use a cookie.  

Thank you to Max's grandma, wherever she lives, for encouraging her family to live in Moses Lake. Her little grandsons filled a void and gave me someone to give cookies to.

Max and his brothers could have cared less how cute their cookies were packaged.

Part of my responsibilities for our Stake Relief Society Leadership meeting tomorrow night was to prepare a favor that would reinforce and remind the sisters of the message taught.  Maybe Max and his brothers didn't care if their cookie came in a cute bag with a cute tag, but women do.  So I put a green tag that says it all on an orange bag. 

Instead of cookies, I thought white chocolate popcorn sprinkled with fall-colored m&m's, candy corn, and oreo cookies would be a festive filler. I was wrong.  It looks u.g.l.y. in the bags.  They need something flat-er and now I'm out of time so there will be no favors at our meeting . . .   

. . . but there will be a lot of happy kids where I work, because, like Max, they don't care about relief-society-favor cute so they'll eat the dishpan full of popcorn.

You win some, you lose some, but should you need orange bags, give me a call.  I've got 200 minus 4.

Fun Gift Packets

Eliza, Afton, Kathryn

These little mail-able packets are fun to make and send for Halloween, Valentine's Day, birthdays, or . . . well, good heavens, you could put a few cough drops, package of kleenex, and a packet of chicken soup and have a get-well packet.  Truly, anything goes. just sew them together and take them to the post office and they mail them as is -- promise.

Materials needed: heavy table-cloth plastic (available at fabric stores), small firm candies (such as skittles, smarties, tootsie-rolls, bubblegum, candy necklaces, jolly ranchers, etc.), little doo-dads like straws, pencils, erasers, decks of cards, balloons, socks, etc.

Directions:  (This size is simply a suggestion.  Make your packets big enough to hold the items you wish to send.)

1) Cut a 16 x 12 inch rectangle of heavy plastic and fold in half lengthwise so that the dimensions are 8 x 12 inches with the fold at the bottom.

2) Sew, using a zigzag or straight stitch, both 8 inch sides closed.

3) Measure in approximately 3 inches from side seam and stitch from bottom to top.

4) Repeat by measuring approximately 3 more inches from that seam and sew again from bottom to top—creating columns in the plastic rectangle.

5) Fill each column two inches full with candies.  After all the columns are filled; sew a horizontal stitch across the columns, sealing the candy inside.

6) Repeat steps for the next row of columns; except add the name and address which you have written on a postcard, index card, or a piece of paper in one of the columns instead of candy. Sew closed, and layer candies again.

7) Sew columns closed and take to the post office and mail. They will mail it just like it is—honest!

16 (or so) pictures taken on the 16th of October 2016

We've been doing a monthly family post for almost 72 months.  In all of those years, we missed one month and stretched the original perimeters on many others, including this month.  

Some of these photos were taken on 10-16-16, some were taken days before, and a few were taken a day or two after.  I am grateful for the family's contributions. whenever they come and however many come, for it captures a piece of life in our world.  

In the month of October of 2016 . . . 

Calvin:  preparing to give a talk in church.

Jane:  Popcorn, a typical Sunday night supper.

Kathryn: One great way to make Mom happy is to express an undeniable desire to go to bed.

Eliza: Dad asked me to pick up a few pairs of shoes that were out, and that gave me an idea...

Afton: We made some cinnamon rOOOOOOlls yesterday,
and delivered them to some neighbors today.

Michelle: At the end of the day it's another day over.

Ty:  I had to do a quick inventory of our church's games for the Harvest Festival.
They are functional, but not pretty.

Abe: Training in Idaho with my 1SG.

Grace:  Family selfie to send to Dad.  Henry's not very cooperative
these days.

Minion Hazel

Henry and Hazel are really starting to interact and play with each other.

Ray:  Fishwheel on the Yukon.  Catching 350 fish per day to dry and feed 63 sled dogs year round.
(Ray went moose hunting this month with his brother Johnny.)

Ray:  Drying salmon for the dogs.

Cali:  Helping Atlas stay quiet while listening to General Conference.

Levin:  Museum of flight.

Levin and Atlas:  Ray taught the boys if they ate food before they pray
they have to open their mouths while he blesses the food.

Atlas:  Zombie Krispie Kreme donuts for Family Home Evening

Atlas:  Museum of flight

Ande:  When life hands you a 5 day power outage...
you use your questionable, but decent smelling, milk
to make a two gallons of Greek yogurt.
(Thank you Hurricane Matthew for not knocking over
Joe and Ande's house when it knocked out the power.)

Ezra: Mom made yogurt. I dipped my fingers in it and ate it plain.
We won't give company our yogurt.

Zeph: My favorite part of post-hurricane Matthew yard-clean-up
is keeping the branches in the wagon.

Until next month . . .