Pigs Don't Say Oink and a Temple Trip With Sisters

Penny homeworking with Starling:

A sleepy friend.

A super moon lingering in the west one morning. The picture does not capture how enormous it looked. (And it really was that shockingly yellow.)

I bought a new coat. I have one sort of like it already, but this one was so soft and so ... 2/3rds off of its original price. (And Daisy sometimes likes to borrow my other one. So now, she can borrow it ... forever! :))

Beast and Pig. When Stella and Moses were here, I was trying to teach Moses what a pig says. "A pig says 'oink oink'," I said. Starling looked at me, bewildered. "A pig doesn't say oink!" she said. It's true. It's true. "When I was a child I spake as a child." But Starling has had far too much real-world experience in her young life to believe in such naively sweet pig sounds. It's a bit sad really. Perhaps I can post a video of Pig in all her grunting and squealing glory sometime. 

Holly. The cold and early dark have meant we've been spending much less time with her, and I fear, perhaps because of that?, she's getting a bit headstrong. I preferred her docile and agreeable version.

Our glorious fogs! This was walking from the rental to the bus stop.

And this was just after, when I'd driven to the farm. I was standing right on the front porch of the new house. And this was my view to the right. It's just so great. Foggy cows in the mist? From the front porch??? Does that seem like the best thing in the world to everyone? I don't know how it couldn't! (Though I also don't know why it does. Haha.)

I met up with my mom and sisters for a pre-Christmas temple session and lunch in Brigham City a few weeks ago. (Oh! And here we see the other coat that made justifying the new coat ... tricky.)

At one point the 18-year-old cook from the back came out and told us he'd noticed us right when we walked in. He kept asking things, almost confused it seemed, about like ... why we all had such glowing skin. In truth we had wrinkles and (at least in my case) acne to spare amongst us. But he seemed simply to be trying to understand just what it was that made us stand out so much to him. I think, if I may be so bold, it was the light about us. After all, here we were, a group of women endowed with power from God, feeling nothing but love for each other, and having come straight out of a holy temple where we did God's work for other women who love each other. I think that's what he was seeing.

But we didn't leave him totally in the dark about it. My mom told him to make sure to turn to God for all the answers throughout his life and promised that God would surprise him with information and direction he hadn't suspected. 

AND! If all of that wasn't enough, Megan gifted me with this painting she'd done for the new house! (You all know it's the pea viner property by this point I presume.)

Speaking of the pea viner property. Here Jesse is helping Mike with ... trenches and pipe and troughs and what not. The boys have mostly learned to accept that every Saturday for ... the rest of their lives :) will entail farm work.

Fattening them up. :) 

And lastly: our first (and so far, only) snowfall of the season. (Notice the snowman in the middle of the road if you will.)