Hanzel and Gretle can move in now...

We spent Wednesday afternoon sugaring up the 1st annual Harper Gingerbread House. I must say, the end result was beyond what I expected. The girls were very creative in their ideas for where to use the different types of candy, and we all had a good time.  The house turned out a lot bigger than I anticipated, we had a some lack of structural integrity in the roof, but the royal icing came through and hardened like cement to keep it together.  I found the recipe for both the house and the icing online here and it worked great. I'll do it again next year, but be more precise with my cutting and measuring of the pieces. Every time I walk by the house, it smells beautifully like gingerbread and I want to scratch and sniff some more, like I did when I was a kid when I read this book, "The Sweet Smell of Christmas"   

We are trying to make more traditions for our family.  I want each one to accrue our anticipation for Christmas, like the Advent Calendar, with each tradition repeated, the sense of anticipation for the celebration of the birth of our Savior increases, our love for our family increases, and the smiles on our hearts get bigger.

 Emma was good at piping the icing.

 Audrey was good at testing the sweetness level of the candy.  I got all the candy at Dollar Tree for about $7 and used a bag of leftover Dots from Halloween (good reason to buy Halloween candy on clearance after the holiday, to stock up for this project.

 Our sweet neigbor Elise came over to help with the festivities, she had a good time, and we were happy to have her there.

 The finished project, proudly displayed on our corner counter/bar so we can easily enjoy the sweet smell of Christmas.

 We used peppermint disks, small candy canes, large candy canes, sweet stripes (the straight candy canes), spiced candied gumdrops, dots, "Rudolph Red Noses", and Sixlets.  Now that we've inaugurated this tradition, I will definitely be on the lookout for candy after Halloween for this. It was really so much fun.  I thought it would not turn out, but it was only about $20 for all the ingredients,(the molasses and heavy cream I didn't have on hand) and candy to decorate it, and it turned out way better than the $10 box houses, and smells so much more fragrant too.

A video tour of the house, in all it's imperfect sweet glory!!

 Audrey got a hold of my phone, and may be a budding photographer.  Here are a few of her photos, and it is a good snapshot of some every day life here in beautiful Woodstock.

 The Christmas tree, always should be photographed to remember. This is our new one we got this year.

 The train under the tree, we'll see how much longer it lasts, it's been repaired a few times, and will get crunched with a few more gifts coming up (when I get around to wrapping them)

 The tippy top of the tree with our glowing star that we've had for 10 years. It almost didn't glow this year, but I worked it over, gave it some TLC and now it glows beautifully.

 Who needs elf on a shelf, when these move around your house all by themselves!

 The inside of our front door, I love wreathes, and these are old, and crunched, but they'll do for this year.

 The front view of the house. It is such a friendly looking home.

 My porch is graced beautifully with black Friday poinsettias. They are so colorful and festive. They always remind me of when I was in high school and I played in a double stringed quartet and the Poinsettia Festival in Phoenix at Gardner's World on Baseline Road. It was so awesome to sit in the middle of thousands of colorful poinsettias and play Christmas music for hours.

 Some deadwood that has been kicking around our yard, until it gets cold enough we take the saws-all to it to fit it into the fireplace.

Our porch with bikes ready at a moments notice. 

The cranberry muffin I'm making for our RS brunch on Saturday. Should be lots of funny and lots of yummy! And me practicing my Christmas songs for the violin parts for Church. I'm playing in Church every Sunday until Christmas. I love doing it, and I am so thankful for my violin talent.

Georgia Gingerbread

Heather's family has a tradition of making a huge and ornate gingerbread house each year at Christmas. I wondered weather I could even make ginger bread, so I attempted it on Saturday. It was somewhat of a success, definitely needs some tweaking, but for the most part successful.  We waited until tonight to decorate cookies, and I assembled the house, but it needed to harden before we attempt to put any candy on it (my first kitchen carpentry project). It was fun, and motivated the girls to finish their tacos fast!

Sweet November

November was a good month. It was full of thanks, and that's the way it should be. I often find myself wanting to post on this blog when I'm feeling frustrated or upset or otherwise ungrateful in some way, but I know that everyone feels that way time and again, and I don't want to practice being the person that dwells on that. I want to perpetuate the positive, and I am thankful that I'm able to do that.

I feel so blessed. I am home with my kiddos, even today, when Emma and Audrey are home from school sick, I love to be with them. They are good kids. They have good desires in their hearts, and I have to keep that at the top of my "list-type" mind to remember that they are kids, and they do what kids do best.

Amid all the mess, disorganization and occasional frustration that comes with a stay at home parent (I'm careful to use "parent" in that phrase because Tim was such a good stay at home parent and I don't discount the many, many dads that are at home with kiddos while moms work) I feel like I am new at this whole full time parenting thing.  I feel like I'm starting a whole new life.

It is a cross roads.

I can either choose to be dumpy about missing all my friends and family and familiarity of Gilbert, AZ now that I am home and could enjoy all that more, or I can get out, learn and enjoy all this area has to offer, meet and make new friends, and learn to cook, clean and keep a home with more depth and detail and happiness than before. 

So, as I am home with my kiddos, I realize the weight of consequence of the way I choose to spend my time.  I am still trying to figure out how my baby is 4 1/2 years old. I'm trying to figure out how to cook, where my creative muscles went, how to keep up with my running routine, and do it all with a smile in my heart, if not on my face.

I've never really been a good writer, but I aspire to improve.  I don't know if I want to be great, but I know as I work on the things I feel are important and are valuable, I will improve.  Writing is one of them.  I appreciate anyone who wants to read and give tips and/or suggestions or just spend a virtual moment with me here on this blog. We've been private for a few years, but I am trying out a different setting for a few posts and we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading.

Chapter 1, prologue...

Here we are. I posted over two months ago that we were moving to Georgia. Well, we did it. We. Did. It.

Here is the play-by-play version.  

July 17: Email from Atlanta, Georgia : "You serious about moving down South to work?"
July 23: Phone interview with folks in Atlanta, it went well...
July 25:  Another phone interview... These guys like Tim.
July 30: Skype interview, during the interview, they plan on Tim coming to Atlanta for an in person interview.
August 6-7: Interview in Atlanta, went well. They say they'll let us know in a week, but we don't think they'll offer us the position. Time to move on.
August 10: Email from Atlanta, " We need more time to decide on a candidate."
August 17: Phone call from Atlanta with an offer of work. Blew our expectations of pay and benefits.
August 18: We tell our family we are moving across the country. Lots of tears shed (both happy and sad)
August 20: I give my 2 weeks notice at the best office I've ever worked in. I cry. A lot.
August 24-26: House hunting trip to Atlanta, looked at some dumps, but found a gem!
August 29: Last day of work, many tears shed all week. Movers come and pack up our stuff
September 2: Send off party for Harper Family at the Harper's. Lots of amazing friends, family, laughs and tears.
September 3: My last run in AZ for a while. I sob the entire 3 miles. Finish packing for the 3 day drive. 
September 4: Leave AZ. Lots of tears, Tim drives our truck, I drive the van with the kiddos.  It was an adventure for sure, but if I could do it again, I would do it without a deadline.
September 6: Arrive in Woodstock, GA and sign for our rental house and stay in another motel, because we don't have our stuff for 3 more days.
September 7: Get kids registered for school.
September 8: Ward social, meet lots of amazing families and friends that are kindred spirits for sure.
September 10: First day of school/work/moving truck arrives/ Life in Atlanta begins, only two short months after offhandedly applying for a position as the Associate Facility Manager for the Atlanta Georgia Temple working for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Wow.

And the long version of it will come from here on out as I attempt to resurrect this blog and get out my feelings as I take on a whole new challenge of at-home parenting and Tim works a very rewarding but very difficult job; all very far from home, family, and many things familiar.

I hope this blog will be noticed and read and sometimes enjoyed by those dear to us that aren't near to us for the time being.

We don't know how long we'll be here in Georgia.  We don't know how long Tim will be in the position he is in, he wants to advance and improve his skills and broaden his working horizons. He has great goals, but we also want to keep our main priority of doing and going where the Lord wants us to go.

I know we had it pretty sweet and easy in AZ. We were blooming there (which is why I put the beautiful cactus blooms on the background of the blog).  We were happy and could have been happy there indefinitely.  

I chronicled our experience of losing our home here, and that was a huge life changing event in our family.  That was 2 years ago this month.  We handled that well, knowing that it was part of the Lord's plan for our family.  It was hard, and a long dark tunnel we had to go through, but we had faith it would be for our good.  And it was. We are stronger and more faithful because of it.  Now, here we are, with another life changing opportunity laid in our path, and we chose of our own free will to take the chance to have some faith and make it grow.  It reminds me of a message shared in General Conference by President Henry B. Eyring called "Mountains to Climb". Well, that is a little bit of what Tim and I felt when we quietly received this job offer.  We knew it came from Heavenly Father. We knew that this was an opportunity for us to grow our faith, strengthen our little family unit, and smile in the face of adversity.  We knew that all the events that have happened in the last few years of our life have prepared us to accept this opportunity to grow and move and struggle and be blessed.

Well, we are.  All of that.  It has been a challenge for all of us, and I think the biggest challenge of all, is remembering that we chose this.  Remember that we chose to move away from family, to get closer to family out here. Remembering that we chose to leave our friends and make new friendships here.  Remembering that Heavenly Father has His hand in our lives, and that when we have faith and let Him lead us, we will be happy through the difficulties we face.

Now, I'm not professing to be a great writer, but I feel the weight of necessity to record our experiences here so that we can remember, enjoy and also look forward with faith in this plan for our family.  I hope I will be able to balance my time spent here as well as on my new full time job of at-home-parent and through my records and reflections, I may be able to enjoy, learn, grow, but most of all... Remember.

So, here at the beginning, I want to remember. I want to soak up ever last drop of joy, heartache, growth, tears, laughs, and memories. And I want to share it here. 

So I can remember.

Moving to Georgia, y'all!!

Well, this post marks the end of an amazing chapter and the beginning of a whole new one for the Harpers.  When I renamed this blog 4 years ago, we decided to put USA in the name, because deep down somewhere we knew we would be leaving beautiful AZ for a new adventure with our family.  Well, here we are, and we are getting ready to say goodbye for a while to our close friends and family, then start a new life and new adventure in a whole new area in Georgia.  I will be at home with the kids, and Tim will be working full time and it will be away from family and most things familiar.  It will push us all out of our comfort zones, but we are up for the challenge.  One of my goals at home will be to record all our amazing adventures, and what better place than to revitalized my USA blog and share our adventures with our family and friends. We are excited, scared, humbled, nervous, sad, and most of all ready for a great adventure. Come along with us!!

In my quest to discover and nurture my "passions" (I learned about this from a passion guru) I am trying to be more in tune with the way I feel when I talk about something I do or like or am interested in.  What is a passion you ask? It is something you would do every day if you never got paid. I've defined 2 today, well I've known about them, but they came out of the mist and cleared up in my head as actual passions in my life. They are as follows, (with more to be revealed later):

• My kids and husband
• Health and wellness
• Running. period.

I separated health and wellness from running because I get a different "feeling" when I think of running than when I think of health and wellness. When I think of running, I get all tingly.  When I plan for a run, I am happy and look forward to it.  I define a 'good' run as putting on my shoes and treading long enough to get sweaty and clear my head. Sometimes it takes only 20 minutes, sometimes it goes for an hour.  It doesn't matter how fast or slow I go, or how many "pick-ups" or "sprints" I complete, just that I feel like I've centered my head for the day. 

I stopped, or fell out of habit of this blog because it wasn't my passion.  I felt it was taking me away from my passion, which is my kids and Tim.  I discovered recently a blog and the author has a way of writing and cutting through the distractions and defining how to make the most of time to be spent on what matters most.

That is my passion.

I knew it all along, but have just realized it. Good thing it's not too late. I can make the most of today, today. Yay!!  So, as I make realizations, I'll share what I can. I haven't been totally off the record, I actually dusted off my old Journal out of my bedside table and have been writing in that consistently since January.  I continue to search for clarity, and now have decided that the search can be as amazing as the discovery.  

Hopefully more to come soon! 

I found hands free mama blog online. It is my new favorite. I'll find the link, the other  one was broken or wrong.
 Here it is: it is the facebook, with links I think...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Hands-Free-Revolution/148689625181672