Welcome Baby James

The Farnsworth clan has a new member of the family!  Rick and Jen welcomed the newest member of thier family this week.   James Keith Stewart was born November 25 weighing 9 pounds 7 ounces.  Paul and Alex are excited to have a new brother and Annalynn still gets to be the little princess! 

He looks so cute in these pictures.  We cannot wait to meet him and see him and the rest of the family at Christmas time.  Jen was such a trooper and had him naturally with no epidural.  That is amazing considering how big James was! Congratulations Stewart family and welcome Baby James!

In other news, Emily lost another tooth:

She lost her other front tooth so now all she wants for Christmas is her two front teeth!  It is crazy because when I started this blog, Emily was getting her first teeth, now she is loosing her teeth!

This week we celebrated Thanksgiving.  We had a great time with our family.  Since Russell's family was up north with Jen and the new baby, we celebrated with my family.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house and it was so good and so nice to be with everyone.  We ate and played games and just enjoyed being with each other.  I had a goal this year to get all of my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving and I am happy to report that I got probably 95% of it done.  The kids and extended family are done so now I just have Russell left.  This was nice to get done because I was not tempted to join in the Black Friday shopping which now starts on Thanksgiving Day.  I think it is so ridiculous.  I didn't even buy a paper or look at any ads.  It was so nice to just enjoy playing games and being with family instead of studying ads and formulating a game plan.  I think I will do this every year because now I have all of December to enjoy the Christmas season rather than worrying about shopping.  I am thankful for all I have this Thanksgiving season but especially my family, home, job, and the gospel to know the true meaning of this holiday season.

I taught my first Relief Society lesson today and I think it went pretty well.  Since this would normally be the December lesson but we bumped it up a week, I decided to do my lesson on the true meaning of Christmas.  I had six other people help me with my lesson by having each of them focus their remarks on a person in the Nativity.  I had someone talk about Joseph, Mary, the Angels, the Shepherds, the lamb, and the Wise Men.  Then I talked about the Christ child.  I also had two ladies sing songs during the program.  I loved how each person that presented gave such good insights into each character and how thinking of that person would help us to remember Christ.  I had a lot of ladies comment on how much they loved the lesson and how they could feel the Spirit.  I am so glad it went so well but I am also glad it is over.  Teaching Relief Society is a lot scarier than teaching Primary.  Luckily I only have to teach once every three months.

Pies, Turkeys, and Boxcar Races.

Every November, the kids help Grandma Morwood make pies for Thanksgiving.  They have so much fun wearing aprons and rolling out the dough with their little rolling pins.  They look forward to this fun day all year.

This year Emily even learned how to put the pie dough in the pan and prepare the crust.  Grandma showed her how to trim the excess dough from the sides, prick the dough on the bottom of the pan to get out the air, and use her thumbs to create the crust edge.  We love helping Grandma.

Also, to be festive this month, we made turkeys out of stuff we found at the park during playgroup:

These turkeys were so easy and fun to make.  We just found pine cones and colorful Fall leaves.  The kids had fun making their own by putting the leaves in the pine cone.  Then we added googly eyes and a foam beak and gobbler to complete the look.

We love how they turned out and they will be a perfect table centerpiece until Thanksgiving.

Another fun thing the kids made was boxcars.

For Scouts the boys made cars our of boxes and then at Pack Meeting had a boxcar derby.  They raced in their boxes around the track and had to make pit stops for refueling (water), tire changes (taking off their shoes and then putting them back on), and washing their windshields (spraying and wiping off their safety glasses).  This Pack Meeting was so much fun.  All of the boys had a good time (even the one that puked because he drank too much water...).  Later the kids decided they wanted to make their own boxcars like the Scouts.  They found their own boxes and made their own cars.  All I helped with was tying the strings to make straps for their arms.  Emily taped on her own wings.  They colored their boxes with markers.  Then it was race time so we went outside and they raced all over the backyard.  They love these cars!  Even Logan wore his all over the place.  It is amazing what kids can come up with when they are given a cardboard box!

Here is another funny time at the Farnsworth house:

So the kids were playing with babies when it got really quiet.  If you are a parent you know "quiet" is never a good sign.  So I went to find them and they were in the bathroom with diapers spread all over the floor!  Colby shows me his doll and says "My baby was stinky and needed a diaper!"  He was so proud of how well he had put on the babies diaper, I couldn't help but laugh.  Then he proceeded to show Logan how to put a diaper on his cow doll and then showed Emily how to do it.  What little stinkers.  It is times like this that make parenthood  little easier,  

Snow Canyon Half Marathon

I did it!  I ran my first half marathon!  I set this goal back in May when I started running again.  I have wanted to run longer distances but never really pushed myself to do it until now.  I must say it was definitely a learning experience but I did it and I have the finisher's medal to prove it!  The course started a Dameron Valley ran down through Snow Canyon State Park and then finished at Snow Canyon High School.

My time was not all that bad either.  I ran the 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 2 minute (a 9:19 minute mile).  I feel good about my time but to tell you the truth, at the time, I did not feel too good about my experience. Now that I have had time to think about it though, I have a better outlook and am really happy about this accomplishment.  I am sure there were many factors that normally would not have been there that determined my state of mind during the race.  First the race was the day after Halloween so I did not eat the best the day before the race.  Second the weather was very crappy.  Practically overnight it turned winter in St. George.  October 31st was a beautiful day in the high 80s then, bam, the next morning was a very chilly, and windy 40 degrees with a little bit of rain.  I was not used to the cold weather and the wind was blowing against us during the whole race.  I could not seem to get warmed up during the whole race.  All of these things combine did not leave me with a very good mental outlook on the race.  Mental readiness is just about as important if not more important than the physical readiness.  I really hit a wall at about mile 9 and had to push myself to keep going.  But I did keep going!

Here are some pictures Russell took of me crossing the finish line.  If you look closely you can see that I am crying as I cross the finish line.  You have no idea how amazing that finish line looked to me.  It literally brought tears to my eyes knowing that I had just accomplished a goal that I had been working and training so hard for over the last five months.  I felt kind of embarrassed crying as I was finishing but I felt so good as the announcer's said my name as I crossed the finish line and they put the Finisher's Medal around my neck.  That right there made it all worth it.  

This might sound funny but I think running a race is a lot like life.  Before we came to earth, we were so excited about the plan our Father in Heaven had for us and we agreed to do what it took to come be part of that plan.  Similarly,  I was very excited to sign up for my first half marathon.  I knew it would take some special training and a lot of work but I was willing to do it.  As in the race, there are going to be trials in life.  There are going to be hard times and hard conditions.  The winds of the adversary are going to blow against us.  We are going to hit walls and be tempted to stop.  But we have to keep going, we have to endure the trials and endure to the end.  This does not mean we have to do it alone, there will be people along the way to cheer for us, give us that high five as we run passed them, offer us water and assistance along the way.  And our Savior, Jesus Christ, will be there to strengthen us when we feel like we cannot go any farther.  Finally, when we see that finish line at the end we will be so happy because we have made it!  We have endured the trials and made it back to our Father in Heaven.  I think we will have tears in our eyes as we finish this life course.  We will feel so great that it will seem like the trials we just went through were nothing.  It will all be worth it in the end when God calls us be name and welcomes us into the winner's circle.  I cannot wait for that day.

I ran this race with my cousin, Shawna.  Here we are before and after the race.  I am so glad I decided to participate in this race.  It was definitely a learning experience but, surprisingly, I am looking forward to my next half marathon in January.  

In 2 Timothy 4:7 Paul exclaims, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."  I hope we can all fight the good fight and finish our course in life and hold strong to our faith in Lord.