Let’s talk about Thanksgiving picture books! I love all of these!
Thanksgiving in the Woods tells the true story of a family who hosts Thanksgiving in the woods every year near their home in upstate New York, with candles, bonfires, food and lots of people. Sounds so jolly!
The two ones above are about Sarah Josepha Hale, the woman who persisted to get the federal government to create the US national holiday of Thanksgiving. It’s fun to learn both about the first Thanksgiving and the history of how Thanksgiving became a U.S. federal holiday.
Now this one above is a cute board book, very simple. Give Thanks to the Lord is a beautifully illustrated book to celebrate Psalms 92. Then It’s Thanksgiving! by Jack Prelutsky, below, is packed full of delightful poems. So fun!
This one above uses Pilgrim-type language and a plural first person “we,” telling the story of the first Thanksgiving from the Pilgrims point of view.
The one above has the air of anticipation that comes on the eve of all holidays. It’s simple and sweet.
Sharing the Bread by Pat Zietlow Miller has a rhyming bounce and delightful illustrations by Jill McElmurry. I love that it features a big family with everybody pitching in to create the feast.
I enjoy the work of Eric Metaxas. Squanto’s story fascinates me!
Both the books above and below involve the real pilgrims. The one above is about John Howland, a real person who was on the Mayflower. He’s actually my many-greats-great-grandfather! His story illustrates the hand of God in someone’s life. What would have happened if he hadn’t been saved after falling overboard the Mayflower? This book deserves to be read every year to be reminded of Providence in the Pilgrims’ lives and all of our lives. I love the lovely illustrations in both these books! The one below is my favorite picture book for telling the general story of the pilgrims. I love the maps done in watercolor and pen by the author/illustrator, Cheryl Harness. I love all her books in fact.
The Thanksgiving Door is my absolute fave Thanksgiving picture book. I just love, love the story of serendipity that surprised an elderly couple because of a grandmother’s influence of her family to be hospitable.
Then here are more, above and below, that tell the story of the Pilgrims. The illustrator’s style of the book below reminds me of Tomie de Paola.
An Outlaw Thanksgiving is a little known story loosely based on a story involving Butch Cassidy. I was thrilled to find it thrifting this past year. I love this one, and A Turkey for Thanksgiving, because of their surprise endings!
I love the vibrant illustrations in Feast. So gorgeous! This tells the Pilgrim story in rhyming verse.
The ones above and below have photographs of real children dressed up as Pilgrims, showing what daily life was like for them.
Balloons Over Broadway is about a real person, Tony Sarg, who made the huge balloons involved in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This book offers loads of possibilities for a unit study with children involving lots of history, STEM, and arts and crafts.
The ones above and below just ooze happy family togetherness at Thanksgiving! I love that A Thanksgiving Wish features a big extended Jewish family gathering together and interacting with neighbors of different backgrounds. I reviewed a movie loosely based on the book below (pretty much the only thing in common is the title) over here. The book just makes me happy every time I read it. I love the snowy New England vibe and the work ethic depicted of the children, rising to the occasion to rescue Thanksgiving dinner by working together. And of course because it’s by Louisa May Alcott, or course I love it.
Finally, we have the marvelous book below that pairs lovely wood carving illustrations with the classic poem by Lydia Maria Child about going to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving. A gem!
I hope you enjoy all these books! Happy Thanksgiving!
If you want more Thanksgiving resources, including some read-aloud stories involving God’s providence involving Thanksgiving Day, go here.
I haven’t done a “things that made me smile” post in so long! For a brief time, I was good at posting every month the pretty, happy, funny, real and smart things that happened in the previous month. January was the last time I did it. I’m so woefully behind, it aches that I haven’t shared all my good, beautiful, true things since then. So many pretty photos are waiting in my camera roll waiting to be shared. I don’t know if I can ever catch up, but in the meantime, I’m sharing what was pretty, happy, funny, and real for me the last week of October, just last week.
Last week involved my second marvelous trip to Maine to visit my artist baby sister Emily. She’s almost 4 years younger than I am. We share a love for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, family life, extended family, mothering, homemaking, picture books, nature, art, other books, word games, and good home cooking. Not to mention our childhood memories of family and friends. Those give us tons of laugh-out-loud moments as we relive them. So we always have lots to talk about! My other sister got to visit her in July. Now if we could only all be there at the same time, with my mom and sisters-in-law, my other daughter, and other nieces to boot!
It was fun to hear my sister share stories of our older brothers I had never heard before. Em said that one of our brothers was a totally mean babysitter. She said that he put her in the bathroom, threw a blanket in, and turned off the light. I guess this was his way of putting her to bed? I told her I have no memory of that. She said it was probably because I was off reading the dictionary, LOL. Which may be true. I was an odd child who liked to read the dictionary, the phone book (remember those, if you are older than 40?), and the encyclopedia (remember those too?). I guess I knew I wanted to prepare for Jeopardy! at a young age, haha. Then she said that she remembers adoring our other older brother so much that when she was about 5 or 6 she told him that she wanted to marry him. That just makes me laugh because I was close enough in age to both brothers to see all their faults and would never say such a thing. As the baby of the family, though, she was enamored by one of them. If you know my brothers I bet you can figure out which brother fits each story :-).
We watched an episode of artFULL together. It featured an artist who grew up in my neighborhood. You can see all the episodes here. These are great shows to watch when you just want to relax. Totally hygge! Go here to learn about hygge!
Back in August, my 19 year old daughter, who is great friends with her two girl cousins who are her age and close to her age, 21, announced she wanted to go see her cousins in Maine. These cousins are the two older daughters of sister Emily. At the time she thought one of them would be leaving for her mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before Christmas. Since then, Cousin M. has received her mission call and found out that it doesn’t start until March. Anyway, I was thrilled that my daughter wanted to go to Maine. We had attempted to get her to come with us a year ago when my older daughter orchestrated a trip to Maine. She offered to pay for all of our plane tickets, food, and lodging if we helped babysit.
My younger daughter didn’t want to go a year ago as she had an important event coming up that she didn’t want to miss. So, much to our sadness, she stayed home. So when she announced at the end of summer that she was going to buy a plane ticket to go see her cousins in Maine, I said I wanted to come with her, and we went last week. I’ve always wanted to see Maine in October, and I got my wish! These photos are from our lovely trip. We were not disappointed! We had a spectacular time.
So, what follows, are the things that made me smile on the trip!
-food. Emily is such a great cook! So a week after letting go of my keto diet to eat the gourmet food at the WAPF Wise Traditions Conference, I let myself indulge in Emily’s yummy food involving carbs. Hey, if Dr. Boz can eat bread when she goes to Italy, I can eat bread and grains when I go to Maine.
Oh my, so delicious! Sushi rolls, egg muffins, quiche with a millet and quinoa crust, arugula pizza, roasted squash, berries on my perennial favorite Greek yogurt, and more!
-getting book recommendations from Em. We could chat about books all day! As a professional book illustrator and former employee of Books of Wonder, the NYC store that the Meg Ryan movie You’ve Got Mail is based on, she knows a lot about children’s books. Above and below are some books from her shelf, public library discards that are gems for her.
The above book totally reminds me of my childhood. The drawings just give off those 50s, 60s, 70s vibes, reminiscent of illustrator Syd Hoff. His book Danny the Dinosaur was the first book I ever read all by myself in first grade.
-“book recommendations” leads me to the next item of happiness which involved checking out Emily’s bookshelf. I wondered if she might have one of my L.M Montgomery books on her shelf that I loaned to her decades ago that she never returned, as she told me back in July she might have one, as I blogged over here. Sure enough, I found one!
It wasn’t one of the Anne books, however, as I discovered when I checked for my name written inside all of her L.M. books. It was another Lucy Maud one. But I have some of her books that she has loaned to me so I told myself I’d ask for Magic for Marigold back when I return her Thimble Summer and whatever other books of hers I have, LOL. We have been sharing books and book recommendations for decades. You can go here to get her recommendations on her blog.
-visiting the Little Free Library across the street from her home. Above is one of the books I got, thanks to Em donating books for me to use to trade.
-leaves. Em said that the peak of Maine’s gorgeous fall foliage is mid-October. So we missed the peak but there were still a ton of autumn leaves on the trees to give us a visual feast, if not the peak mid-October visual orgy. We also found wild raspberries still hanging from some bushes in her neighborhood! She hadn’t had a frost yet.
I’m pretty sure this is one of Em’s blueberry bushes.
-a lighthouse. We went to the Portland Head Lighthouse on Cape Elizabeth in Portland Maine. It was commissioned by George Washington to be built, in 1787. Amazing! It’s the oldest lighthouse in Maine.
-walks by and through the woods. Em lives in a beautiful forest!
-Teddy, the dog of my sister’s family. Named after Lawrie (Theodore Lawrence of Little Women fame), he is so smart and cute! Just like his namesake. He loves to chase squirrels and watches religiously for them through the windows. They let him out to chase them occasionally but he has never caught one yet. He has picked up the habit that whenever Em calls the family for photos, which she did for the Harvest Festival, he comes running to be part of the photo, shown below. It was fun to hear my niece, Miss M., who is the primary caregiver of Teddy, say how proud she is whenever she takes him to the vet and he gets a clean bill of health. She gets compliments about how smart and handsome he is with his glossy coat of fur. She is a proud dog mama! Look at those eyes! Don’t you just want to throw him a bone and play with him? Oh, what a good doggie!
-word games. Em and I got to play two games that I brought, plus a brainy favorite of the two of us, Huggermugger. I only took one suitcase and one carry-on so I was very limited with luggage space, therefore board game space. So I brought two tiny games: Ito and Fiction. I got to play Ito with Em, her husband, and my niece, Miss H. It was a hit!
We all laughed out loud while playing Ito. I highly recommend that game! As a cooperative game for people who don’t want to think too hard, it’s great for parties or evenings when you are too tired to think hard, but you are still up for some slightly thinky fun before going to bed. It’s also perfect for parties because you can explain it in less than five minutes or just use a YouTube video explaining it. I’m so excited to play it with my family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then Em and I played Fiction which is a mash-up between Wordle and Two Truths and a Lie.
Fiction is a combination of Wordle and Two Truths and a Lie. Fun and challenging!
-the Harvest Festival for the church congregation (ward) of my sister. It was a Halloween party with a trunk or treat, but my brother-in-law told me the official name is the Harvest Festival. Maybe because it wasn’t on the day of Halloween. It was fun to see the costumes and the food. One of my nieces dressed up as Rumi from the movie about the K-Pop Demon Hunters. Check out the braid my sister put in her hair. Then it was fun to see a photo my married daughter sent of the her family’s costumes and her cousin’s family. One of my grand-nieces also dressed up as Rumi. Of course my ancestral foods/WAPF heart winced at the amount of refined sugar I saw collected that night which damage heatlh. Once again I thought about all my ideals regarding Halloween, to focus it more on foods that we’ve actually harvested, and wholesome sweets, and dressing like heroes, to turn it into a true harvest festival and Heroween. I’ve attempted various iterations of those ideals over the years, but never have I fulfilled my vision. Someday…
-hearing my daughter talk and laugh with her cousins. She and her only sister are ten years apart so they have never had much in common. Big sis moved out to college when my younger daughter was 7 so she hasn’t grown up with her sister in the home much. It was so delightful to hear my daughter connecting with her cousins. I’m so grateful that each of my daughters have girl cousins their age and close to their age, who can fill in the gap for a lack of sisters. So thanks to my siblings who provided us with girl cousins! It was so healing to see my daughter come alive around her cousins, because I rarely get to see the fun and playful side of her.
-seeing my nieces and nephew navigate daily life in the school year, as with our last visit, they were on summer break. It was fun to see where both of my older nieces work, as they are on break from college at BYU-I, then seeing where are all my nieces and nephews have attended or are attending school, and seeing my nephew and two younger nieces cached away in their rooms, doing (or not doing, LOL) their homework after school.
-seeing the toys of my two younger nieces in their play space in the basement. They have created a whole world out of Calico Critters, Play Mobil figures, a dollhouse, blocks, Legos, and other tiny toys. The older one, 14, has pretty much left this world of pretend, but the younger one, 11, still loves to immerse herself in this imaginative world. Ahh, so sweet! It makes me look forward to having granddaughters. With five sons and two daughters, not much estrogen flowed in our home to attract dollhouses, woodland creatures, and tiny people. We did have some Polly Pockets, Lego mini-figs, Duplo sets, and Fisher Price Little People sets. That was the extent of our miniature worlds. We never had play that looked like this.
It just makes my heart happy to see the above playscape!
-seeing my sister’s art studio and art materials. She has an MFA from BYU and has illustrated a few books and done a lot of commissioned art. She’s doing art almost full-time after delaying her career to devote to her six children. With her youngest being 12 she has a lot more time for art, than when she first moved to Maine 10 years ago. Check out her artwork for sale here.
-now for something totally REAL and raw: I slept in the basement TV room on a comfy air mattress, so that meant that to go to the bathroom I had to go out of the room, around the corner, through the rec room, up the stairs, pass the kitchen, then pass the laundry room. I’m pleased to say that I made what seems like such an arduous trek when one is awakened from a comatose state by a middle-aged postpartum-7-times bladder begging, indeed, crying out to be emptied. I’m pleased to say that I made it to the target, in the near dark. Whew! I’m grateful Em provided a night light in the bathroom. At home, I am used to rolling out of bed and practically being in the bathroom off the side of my bedroom to do my business in the middle of the night, as the bathroom is two steps away from my bedside. So I’m feeling downright spry and very accomplished because of this mundane success LOL. One morning I didn’t even have to use the facilities until 7 AM.
-sleeping in. On the just mentioned morning when I got out of bed at 7 AM, I was able to go back to sleep. I’m sooooo grateful! I then slept unitl 10 AM! I haven’t had such luxury in years! The fact that the room had no windows helped with that definitely. My body sorely needed it as I was running on severe sleep deprivation and jet lag, having missed a lot of sleep with getting up at 3 AM to catch our 6:30 AM flight to Maine. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane what with a crying child a few rows ahead and a bumpy plane ride.
-thrifting in Maine. Yay!!! I didn’t go last time so I was super intent on going this time with my sister. Emily said her daughters love to go thrifting too. We got to take one of them with us and with my daughter the morning of our outbound flight back to SLC. The other one had to work. But then she got to go with us to the airport. We went to a Goodwill in Scarborough, Maine. I was surprised by the high price of books there. $4 for a Little Golden Book that had torn pages! No thank you! I left Em looking in the books while I headed to the clothes, looking for the white skirt that has eluded me the past summer and so far, all of autumn. Alas, I had no luck.
I passed up a black Frozen sweatshirt that looked just like the one above. It was cute but I’m just not a sweatshirt person. You can get it if you go to ebay.
I bought a Christmas-y top with poinsettias and a gray cardigan sweater. See above! Every year I like to get one new top for Christmas. I’m also always on the look-out for cardigans to brighten up winters with hygge. Ever since my older daughter said I’m a Carol Tuttle Dressing Your Truth Type 4/1, I haven’t worn gray. But this gray sweater was such a light delicate gray, so cute with scalloped edges, and new, still with the tag, I just felt so drawn to it! So I bought it. It was $10. It’s Grecerelle brand, so that was a deal since those sweaters are over $20 retail. I might end up giving it to my mom, who is Type 2. Gray is the neutral color that looks best on Type 2s. Black is the best neutral color for Type 4, and white is the best for Type 1. So maybe I should have bought the Frozen shirt since it’s black and white, LOL.
Em stayed in the books section the whole time, not put off by the high prices like I was. Our girls asked me where she was and I told them she was in the books, the last time I saw her. They went to find her and couldn’t, because she had bent over and was looking on the lower part of the shelves. It was just funny that they missed her. She was searching thoroughly! Her hard work paid off. Here are the great books she found above. She got the War of Art (get it? a play on the classic Art of War) for her BYU-attending son who is following in her footsteps and studying art there. (Although she studied illustration and he’s doing animation.) She got the pocket dictionary for her daughter, Miss M. who will be serving in a French-speaking mission in Africa.
-Em also introduced me to Marshalls and Home Goods, which we do have here in Utah but I had never been to either one. They are like fraternal twin stores, connected but with with separate entrances. I didn’t buy anything at either place but got ideas about what to get when I got back home. She was so excited to find some green candles for her Christmas Advent tradition. She said she has been looking for two years for these and finally found some, that don’t smell awful, at Home Goods. She was also excited to find tan and red striped giftwrap. Before she even picked it up I was about to say, “Em this paper totally reminds me of you!” It just gives off Emily vibes. 🙂
-on the way home, on the airplane, we flew from Portland to Charlotte NC and then Charlotte to SLC. So it was fun to think we were taking the same plane flight that my oldest child took 11 years ago when he came home from his mission to Charlotte, in November 2014. What a happy time that was! I loved walking down the hall through the exit doors to the baggage claim, the same doors two of my sons, and many, many missionaries walk through every week when they return home from a mission. I call it the Hero’s Journey Return Walk. As my daughter and I walked through there, this amazing music was playing on the loudspeakers. First it was this fun happy music below
and then there was this music that maybe was the MoTab Choir. They sounded like angels. Then we walked through that space between the exit doors and the baggage claim, where families are reunited with returning missionary sons and daughters, cousins, nieces, nephews, relatives, etc. after 18 months to two years. It is truly The Happiest Place on Earth. So many joyful tears are shed there! (I blog about mission homecomings here.)
-on the airplane ride home I got to watch something I’ve wanted to watch for a long time, which is the new adaptation of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small stories, streaming in Netflix, and on airplanes, at least with American Airlines Wifi, apparently. I read all his books as a teen and loved them. I watched one episode and enjoyed it although it didn’t completely hold my attention, as I kept nodding off. I did enjoy the cozy family, England and pastoral vibes though.
-also on the way home I got to watch something completely new to me, which came out this year. It was the movie Nonnas. See the trailer below. It was a near-perfect movie to watch for a 4.5 hour airplane ride home, after I got tired of reading and doing my crossword puzzle. I wanted something clean, funny, romantic, that also promoted home and family. This fit the bill! It’s also based on a true story! A definitely magical movie, despite taking the Lord’s name in vain a few times. Ouch, that always hurts. I told my husband all about it on the way home after he picked us up at the airport. I’m excited to tell my foodie son-in-law about it and talk about it with him.
We got home the night before Halloween, Thursday. As much as I love traveling, as I told my daughter when we picked up our luggage in the SLC airport, the best part of taking a trip is coming home. I’m grateful I have a home that I want to come home to! Part of what makes my home so lovely is that I get to see a view like the one below every day, below, when I go walking! Go here to see more of the views and how I celebrated Heroween/Halloween/All Saints’ Day/Day of the Dead.
I love finding different perspectives of this peak with different trees framing the peak. This and the next two photos are all of the same mountain. I didn’t use any filters for these photos.
After I arrived home from my trip to Maine last week, the eve of Halloween, I kind of wanted to host my own Heroween/Halloween on Friday, and then do an All Saints’ Day/ Day of the Dead Celebration on Saturday, telling saints and ancestor stories around a bonfire. In my heart though I knew I didn’t really want to plan and follow through on those things. That represents my constant battle between the ideal and reality. So that’s why I didn’t plan those activities, before I left. I knew that after my arrival from Maine I’d be wanting to just decompress and catch up on laptop work that I hadn’t been able to do all week.
So that’s what I did Friday and Saturday in the afternoon and evening, while I doled out treats to our few door-knockers. I didn’t even get nonedible treats like I did last year. What with my trip that just was too much to plan. I did watch BYUTV’s Fires of Faith on Friday to celebrate Halloween/Reformation Day as I did my laptop work that doesn’t require too much thinking. You can watch it here. It’s three parts, and all about Martin Luther, as well as other reformers, especially those who sacrificed to bring about the Kings James Bible. I just watched Part 1 this year. So, so, so good! I’m so grateful for these martyrs.
I still want to share stories that resonate with those days with somebody. So you dear blog reader are the recipient since I’m not having a party like I have in the past where I share stories. Stories about good people, saints, who are now spirits because they are dearly departed. So, a week later,…here are five stories I want to share to honor Heroween/ Halloween/All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and the Day of the Dead holiday. These stories and holidays involve ghosts, which of course, is another name for spirits. This is very fitting since for my church’s Come Follow Jesus Christ scripture study this week we are reading about the revelation to Joseph Smith involving proxy baptisms in behalf of dead people.
Another view I get to see on my daily walk, until the leaves all fall. So, so gorgeous!
Partly because of this revelation, I believe that dead people continue to live on, in the form of spirits, as they wait to be resurrected, or reunited with their physical bodies. People, ideally family members, can act as proxies to be baptized for these people. This isn’t so weird if you take a look at what Paul mentioned, in the Bible, “Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” ( 1 Corinthians 15:29)
We also know, because of a revelation to President Joseph F. Smith, that in the space between the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that Jesus organized spirits in the spirit world to be missionaries to teach spirits in spirit prison about Him and His gospel, to prepare them to get baptized. Read the revelation here.
So I just think it’s so cool that these truths have been revealed to us, regarding dearly departed people. Here are some stories, below, about deceased spirits that are not scary. I’ve blogged about these stories of spirits before but now I’m linking them all in one place.
My nephew who is on a mission in TX sent this photo. The carved image on the pumpkin is a silhouette of the Angel Moroni, who symbolizes the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The first story is here. Written by Carla Sansom, it involves a little European girl who died, and then as a spirit she appeared to her best friend of childhood, Carla, the author, multiple times, as Carla grew to adulthood. The deceased friend, Brigitte, never spoke. After these multiple visits, when Carla finally told her husband about them, her husband suggested that Brigitte probably wanted Carla to be baptized for her, since Carla was the only person Brigitte knew who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After Carla did the research, got permission, and got the paperwork ready for the baptism and submitted it to the temple, Brigitte appeared to Carla a final time and spoke. She told Carla she could now progress in the spirit world.
The second story is here, or watch it above, from RootsTech. Skip to the 6:30 mark. It involves President Russell M. Nelsons’ grandfather who received a visit from his deceased father’s spirit. It’s a beautiful story.
The third story is from the book The Message. The main guy in this book, Lance Richardson, died during an operation and was allowed to see what his family was doing for a few days while his spirit was out of his body. They couldn’t see him. Then he was allowed to return back to his body and live for a few more years. It’s such a beautiful heartwarming story! I read it last January and want to read it every New Year to remind me of what’s truly important: Jesus, family, and friends. Below is the video of an interview with Lance’s wife, Jozet.
The fourth story involves a genius woman composer, Rosemary Brown, who says that she was allowed to receive inspiration from spirits as to how to write music, the unfinished works of famous composers like Lizst. It’s a fascinating story. Get it here. I love to listen to it at least once a year around Halloween time. It’s very heartwarming and has insights into the mortal life pertaining to the premortal world. Is she telling the truth? I don’t know but her story is very interesting.
The fifth story is from this week’s Come Follow Christ study. I’ve copied and pasted the introduction to the lesson below, from the link I just mentioned:
“In August 1840, a grieving Jane Neyman listened to the Prophet Joseph speak at the funeral of his friend Seymour Brunson. Jane’s own teenage son Cyrus had also recently passed away. Adding to her grief was the fact that Cyrus had never been baptized, and Jane worried what this would mean for his eternal soul. Joseph had wondered the same thing about his beloved brother Alvin, who also died before being baptized. So the Prophet decided to share with everyone at the funeral what the Lord had revealed to him about people who pass away without receiving gospel ordinances—and what we can do to help them.
“The doctrine of baptism for the dead thrilled the Saints; their thoughts turned immediately to deceased family members. Now there was hope for them! Joseph shared their joy, and in a letter teaching this doctrine, he used joyful, enthusiastic language to express what the Lord taught him about the salvation of the dead: ‘Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King!’ (Doctrine and Covenants 128:23).”
I’m grateful to know of this doctrine of Jesus Christ that was restored through Joseph Smith. You can learn more in Doctrine and Covenants 127 and Doctrine and Covenants 128. It’s so comforting and beautiful to know that people live on after earth life. Even if they didn’t know about Jesus during their mortal life, they can be saved in heaven and be with their families eternally. God’s plan of salvation is so generous, with Jesus Christ at the center of it all, full of as much love and tender mercy as possible.
Roses are still in bloom in my neighborhood. What a fun surprise on my morning walk!
Jared Halverson, in the video below, tells a story of being in divinity school in Tennessee and sharing the doctrine of the baptism of dead with his classmates and professor. Go to the 51:00 mark to hear the story. I love that he says that the love of the Father and the Son is for all. Their love is demonstrated by the opportunity for all to be baptized, either in this mortal life, or in heaven by proxy mortals on earth. I also love that he points out that this doctrine is so joyful and wonderful, Joseph used so many exclamation points in verse 23 of Section 28 to celebrate this truth. Maybe these are the most exclamation points of any scripture verses.
“Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free.
“Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King! And ye rivers, and brooks, and rills, flow down with gladness. Let the woods and all the trees of the field praise the Lord; and ye solid rocks weep for joy! And let the sun, moon, and the morning stars sing together, and let all the sons of God shout for joy! And let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever! And again I say, how glorious is the voice we hear from heaven, proclaiming in our ears, glory, and salvation, and honor, and immortality, and eternal life; kingdoms, principalities, and powers!”
As a follow-up to my post last week, which was a recap of the Weston A. Price Conference in Salt Lake City UT that was October 16-18, I’m sharing a recap of the same conference by the Drs. Bailey. The Drs. Bailey are husband and wife, Mark and Sam (Samantha), who were both there. Both earned medical doctor degrees and have practiced medicine for about 20 years, and both left their practices because they got disillusioned with mainstream medical practice.
Here are Dr. Mark and Dr. Sam with Sally Fallon Morrell, founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation, at the Saturday night banquet of the SLC conference. Photo Credit: Dr. Sam Bailey YouTube Channel
Watch the video below to hear their recap. They overcame a lot of obstacles to get there! They live in New Zealand. Dr. Sam was debanked back in June because of what she has spoken about. She wasn’t sure if her passport would work to get to the US for this conference. They share the journey of their story and how much they enjoyed the conference.
Want more of the Bailey doctors? Check out the resources below.
You can get these books above and below, on Dr. Sam’s website or on amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you purchase the books through the links provided. The above book is here.
Neither Dr. Bailey wrote this book below, but Dr. Sam wrote the foreword. Buy it here.
I’ve blogged about the Law of the Terrain here. (Robert Scott Bell, who I mention in the post I just linked, was at the WAPF conference as well.)
Below we see the Drs. Bailey explaining their own books and other books on their shelves.
They sound like kindred spirits for sure as they share their excitement for things I love and have blogged about, including Jordan Peterson, health, gardening and free market economics. I’m excited to learn more from them!
I watched this interview yesterday and thoroughly loved it! It’s about Meredith. As a child, she had a feminist mom who raised her to be independent. thinking that marriage and motherhood were not needed as a woman. She was intensely curious about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because all the high school students in her school who were members were kind and helpful and responsible. She started looking into the church and even dated a member. She also did a term paper about the Church and attended meetings of the Church. She probably would have joined the Church in high school but her mom forbade her to learn any more about it. So she stopped investigating it. She then went off to college thinking she would become a forensic pathologist. Instead she became an Episcopalian priest. She loved her job as a priest in a nursing home, encouraging old people M-F. But she knew something was missing, especially on Sunday. As a trained theologian, having a master’s from divinity school, she loved theology. When she read the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, she knew that Joseph Smith could not have written the sublime truths in the Book of Mormon by himself. She knew this book comes from God. Long story short (you have to watch the video) she got baptized into the Church and now teaches gospel doctrine classes. Sadly, her husband passed away a year ago. She has a completely different life than she had in her younger adult years. Now she lives on a farm and has 4 children, and she homeschools most of them. This is such a beautiful story, please have a listen!
This interview is fascinating! I hope you watch it!
Hey, it’s Thursday! Instead of doing a #thriftythursday post about thrift store finds, like I’ve often done on Thursdays lately, I’m doing a #thrivingthursday post.
I got to go to the annual Weston A. Price Foundation Conference last week in Salt Lake City, Utah! The photo above shows one of the marvelously nourishing delicious dinners I got to enjoy while there. That’s roasted bison with divine gravy, salad with a dressing, roasted root veggies (hiding behind the bread), sourdough bread with raw milk butter, and kombucha. Then dessert was butterscotch budino topped with caramel sauce. Normally I eat keto but with such a gourmet, nutrient dense food opportunity, I indulged in a lot more carbs than I usually do.
This conference was a dream come true for sure! Sally Fallon Morrell, the founder of the WAPF, and Queen of Butter, was there. She gave four presentations: Nourishing Broth, Nourishing Diet Part 1 and Part 2, and Bringing Up Baby. She is known as the Queen of Butter, and I’ve been wanting her to come to Utah for since 2012, as shown by my blog over here. Sally is one of my heroes. I blogged about her as one of my Mothers for the Day in May over here. She is a great example of a woman who has followed the seasons of a woman’s life. She got a Stanford college education to prepare for a career, got married at some point, delayed a career outside of the home for a career of full-time motherhood, then as her children left the nest, she devoted her energy to outside the home. She founded and has led the Weston A. Price Foundation, spreading the truths of nourishing traditions (ancestral foods, farming, and the healing arts) for the past 25 years.
One of the slides from one of Sally’s presentations. She is for raw milk and does not recommend pasteurized milk. See realmilk.com for all about that.
A model WAPF meal, with meat, sourdough bread, butter (with not enough butter as sadly, the butter had run out. Sally says one should have enough butter on sourdough bread to leave teeth marks), a salad with dressing free of seed oils, a lacto-fermented veggie, sauerkraut, and a small portion of a dessert with a whole sweetener.
It was her teachings that led me, as a young mom, to quit being vegan/vegetarian. I learned about her from Diane Hopkins’ homeschooling newsletter. In one of her newsletters, Diane explained that she was no longer vegan. She said that her veganism caused her children tooth decay because she was vegan when she was pregnant with them, and then fed them a vegan diet when they were young children. She cited the Weston A. Price Foundation’s nutritional principles that include the importance of animal products. When she stopped being vegan, their teeth improved. My midwife also told me to stop being vegetarian, saying that women who keep having more and more babies as vegetarians have more sickly children the more children they have. I was severely anemic. She told me I needed to eat meat. So with those two witnesses, I started eating meat, in 2001. I believe that’s why my three younger children, who I had after this change, don’t have allergies like some of my older ones.
I also believe that’s why my youngest child has such a beautiful round head and great looks. He’s the baby in the header on the top of this website. He’s 16 years old now and such a cutie! All my children are great-looking, in my not so humble opinion, LOL, but he probably has the roundest head of all 7 of them, which as Sally teaches, is a sign of good maternal nutrition in pregnancy.
The boy on the left has a narrow face, a sign of poor nutrition, and the boy on the right has a round head, a sign of great nutrition.
I also gave up drinking soy milk, because of what Sally teaches, completely before I had him whereas with most of the others I drank it occasionally and fed a lot of it to my children. Someone I know was vegan the same time I was in our early mothering years. We both gave up veganism eventually. Even after giving up veganism, however, she continued feeding her family soy milk, even after her last pregnancy. Her baby with that pregnancy has a narrow face and tons of allergies. This is anecdotal and I know I have no way of proving these results as to whether or not diet determined them. Yet I believe it’s all connected to diet. So I’m grateful to Sally Fallon. She saved my health and my children’s health. So, dear children of mine, you can thank Sally that in my later mothering years you all got to eat meat, butter, and cheese, and no more tofu or fake milk! They were starving for meat snd cheese and would sneak them at family gatherings, until I fully embraced WAPF principles and started buying animal products and serving them.
Here are Sally Fallon Morrell and Tom Cowan MD, conferring before the conference starts.
I saw Sally within 5 minutes of walking into the event, on the second floor of the SLC Hyatt Regency Hotel. She was talking to Tom Cowan, MD, someone else I enjoy learning from. The photo above shows the two of them talking when I saw them, the Friday morning of the conference. They are co-authors, having written a handful of books together.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
I also saw Holistic Hilda, shown above, the host of the WAPF podcast, called Wise Traditions. I’ve blogged about her here and have shared a bunch of her podcasts here. She is just as darling in person as she is on the podcast!
For the Saturday night banquet, to celebrate the 25th, Silver Anniversary of the WAPF, she dressed up in a silver sequined dress, a white cowgirl hat, and white cowgirl boots. We were all encouraged to wear something silver to help celebrate 25 years! I managed to rustle up a silver and pearl necklace I got years ago. Usually I wear gold.
So getting into fangirl mode with these three holistic celeb sightings was a fabulous way to kick off my conference experience! I introduced myself to Hilda and thanked her for her work. I held off on meeting Sally until the next day, when I found her not talking to anyone after one of her classes.
She was friendly and willing to talk to anyone who approached her. She autographed my Nourishing Traditions for Children cookbook!
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
So many interesting natural-health promoting products abounded at the conference. See the stickers above, and below is a T-shirt promoting crunchy mom values. I love it!
John Stockton, host of the Ultimate Assist podcast, and former NBA player of the Utah Jazz, interviewed Sally a week before the conference. You can listen to that here to get a one-hour summary of the Weston A. Price diet that the WAPF promotes.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn a commission if you buy the above book through this link.
He says that he and his family drink raw milk. He promised that and after the podcast interview ended, he was going to buy Sally’s Nourishing Traditions book. I’d forgotten that John is a crunchy guy. I do remember hearing that during the plandemic he refused to get the jab, so this makes sense.
Over 1200 people came to the conference! Here we are all in a ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in downtown SLC enjoying one of the gourmet dinners. People came from all but 3 of the fifty US states, and 12 other countries besides the USA.
The conference organizers had the consulting chef of WAPF, Yolanda Hawthorne, supervise the meals. She worked with the hotel chef and kitchen staff to prepare all the food served. Local natural food sources provided the food. So a huge thank you to Redmond Farms for Real Salt and Raw Milk, Green Goddess for the ferments, Han’s for the kombucha, What the Beat for kvass, Loncho’s Larder for lard, One Degree for sprouted oats and flour, hollow Tree Honey for honey, Utah Natural Meat, Leavity SLC sourdough bread, Sunnyside Up Meat, Pleasant Pastures grassfed butter, Old Home Place turkey, Amos Miller Organic Farm beef sausage, Pure Indian Foods Ghee, Northstar Bison, Amos Miller Organic Farm cream cheese, Gardens of Grace dates and almonds, Wild for Salmon smoked salmon, Midwest Mermaid Muse tea, Rich Nuts, Devin’s Good Gut Yogurt. Whew! It was all scrumptious! My first time eating liver pate, and it was good!
Here is the Friday dinner menu and the quantities of food the organizers obtained to create the fabulous meals. A huge thanks to Paul Frank for sourcing the food. This is the best food you could eat anywhere! Better than any high-end restaurant! So thank you again, Yolanda, Paul, the hotel chef and staff, and all the other WAPF people.
It was fabulous to see people I’ve only ever heard from before: Sally of course, Hilda, Sandrine Perez, of nourishingourchildren.org, Tom Cowan, Nina Teicholz, and Catherine Austin Fitts of solari.com, among others.
I learned so much from this conference! I’ll be sharing what I learned in the next few weeks.
Here are some of Tom’s books below.
Below is the cool sturdy bag that each participant received along with the conference program, and some of the free vendor samples I received. Each banquet attendee also got a glass with the WAPF 25 years anniversary logo. At the banquet we did a kombucha toast with the glass.
Here is Sally’s presentation which I was privileged to watch. It was split into two sessions, Part 1 and Part 2. I’ve heard her do it in YouTube more than once. I wanted to see her do it in person and see if she added new stuff and she did. I thoroughly enjoyed both parts.
You can get the slides for Sally’s presentations from her blog here. So much food for thought, pun intended!
My very favorite talk was by Dr. Samantha Bailey, a medical doctor from New Zealand. She talked about “Secrets of a Staged Pandemic” on Friday night. I remember hearing her in YouTube during the plandemic. She is shown in the photo below.
It was so amazing! Dr. Bailey and her husband, Dr. Mark Bailey, live on a small farm in NZ with their three sons. They look like teenagers! They’ve got to be each in their 40s though as the bios in the conference program say that they have each practiced medicine for 20 years. Both of them received the Mary Enig Integrity in Science Award from the WAPF at the Saturday night banquet. I just have to say, Dr. Sam looked so elegant in her evening gown that night. It was a stunning, sparkly orangeish, pinkish dress. The two Dr. Baileys are shown below with Sally after receiving the award at the banquet. It was a complete surprise to both of them.
Dr. Sam looks like a model or beauty pageant winner. I’d love to visit with her in person and ask her a ton of questions. They are some of the few medical doctors who have stood for truth about the jab of five years ago. I remember watching her first videos back then, but then life happened, I moved from AZ to UT, and I forgot I had discovered her. So this conference was a great reacquaintance with her. You can watch her video about virology below.
Both Dr. Baileys state that viruses are not what makes us sick. They say that no virus has ever been isolated, either in a lab or in nature. Because of these stances of not taking the jab and not promoting germ theory, Dr. Sam has endured a lot of persecution and trials.
It was a miracle that she and her husband were even able to get from NZ to SLC for this conference, after being invited by Sally to come speak. I’m grateful for their courage in sharing the truth about illness and health with all their work.
Dr. Tom Cowan, Dr. Mark Bailey, his wife, Dr. Sam Bailey, and Dr. Andy Kaufman are shown above, left to right. They all claim that no virus has ever been isolated. Each has a medical doctor degree, and each has been disappointed with they way mainstream medicine has gone. This was the first time that the four met in person. The Fantastic Four! They call themselves virus deniers. They did a Q & A panel to answer questions. I didn’t think of any questions to ask until later. If I had been thinking more I would have come up with a question to ask them in their session but alas I was not feeling super thinky, I was just taking things in, so I just watched other people ask questions.
This video above features Dr. Sam Bailey interviewing Sally. You can see Dr. Bailey’s YouTube channel here. She started it in 2020, and now has over 20 million views and over 350K subscribers. Wow!
Then Dr. Sam Bailey’s website is here. She and her husband have a substack for paying subscribers here.
Shepherd’s pie, sourdough bread slathered with butter, saurkraut, and and apple crumble!
I’m so thrilled that I could attend this year! I’ve been wanting to go for a long time, but this year, with it being in my home state of Utah, it was finally within my reach. I drove to it back and forth every day from home. I met up with my friend/third cousin KeeNan at the meals and swapped notes about the classes we attended. I got to meet a lot of new people. I even met someone who reads my blog! Shout out to Carrie S. of Kaysville UT! It was so wonderful! As I left the conference on the last day, my heart felt so happy and fulfilled. It was truly a magical experience!
The last day of the conference involved a tour of some farms: Utah Natural Meat in West Jordan UT, Redmond Farms‘ real salt mine in Redmond UT, and Sunnyside Up Pastures Farm in Centerfield UT. I didn’t go on the tour but hope to arrange a tour on my own since I live within an easy day’s drive to all of these places. One of my Veggie Gal girlfriends arranged a tour of the Redmond Farms salt mine two years ago.
I’m excited to keep learning from all these resources and I hope you join me on the journey! You can watch the video that Kelly the Kitchen Kop did of the tour, below. I saw her at the conference and said “Hi, you’re Kelly the Kitchen Kop!” because I’m on her email newsletter list and recognized her. Then she said my name which surprised me. I thought, “What, she knows my name?! Does she remember me from some email questions I’ve sent her?” but now I realize, oh she was just reading my name badge, LOL. The wave of traffic moved on so I didn’t have time to talk to her more.
If you want to get all the recordings of the conference, you can go here.
Free talks of the previous years’ conference are over here as well, look on the right hand side.
Please check back on my blog in the next few weeks as I blog about the different presenters that I haven’t even mentioned yet. This is a whole universe of new things to learn!
I hope to go to next year’s conference, in Washington DC, October 16-18, 2026. Maybe I’ll see you there!
Happy learning and living! May we all thrive not just on Thursday, but every day! I invite you to join the WAPF for only $40 for a year membership to help you on your wellness journey.
Here’s what you get for $40:
Our quarterly journal: Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts
A members-only Facebook group
Our annual Shopping Guide
Our main dietary guidelines brochure and twelve informative trifold flyers
Timely email information and action alerts
Quarterly members-only zoom meeting on various topics with WAPF experts
Consult with Pete Kennedy on state laws, regulations and policies including food freedom legislation and issues regarding consumer access to raw milk, cottage foods and on-farm meat and poultry processing.
Credit for photos above and below showing images found in ashes of the Grand Blanc church fire: Deseret News YouTube Channel
Wow what an amazing last week I had! I got to attend the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) annual conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have so much to share about it! The food, the people, the weather, the learning, oh, it was all so nourishing and fabulous! I have blogged about WAPF and its founder, Sally Fallon Morrell, a lot through the years (see here) and I’ve always wanted to go to a WAPF Conference, so this was a dream come true! More on all of that later!
While in SLC for the conference, I attended sacrament meeting in downtown SLC with my longtime friend/third cousin KeeNan, who was also at the conference with me. The two sacrament meeting speakers, Brother and Sister S, were so fabulous! They shared how even though they both grew up in SLC, they decided they didn’t want to raise their family there. They intentionally moved to the East Coast so their children would grow up outside of the “Mormon” culture. Joe implied that because he didn’t discover Jesus until he was 28, even though he was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and served a mission for the Church, finishing his mission at age 22, he wanted his children to come to Jesus earlier and not take Jesus for granted, which can easily happen when being raised in Utah Church culture.
While living on the East Coast, Brother S met a woman in his ward (congregation) who had unwavering faith in Christ, as a true Saint. She was from Ghana, and had emigrated on a green card to Connecticut. She worked as a home health aide 24/7 for an elderly man. On her meager salary of about $35K a year, almost 20 years ago, she supported 3 children on a mission and 3 in college. Once a month she was committed to going to the temple in Manhattan. She had to get someone to cover her for work, which cost her $350 each temple visit. One time she bore her testimony of Jesus in church. Her testimony was so full of the Holy Spirit that a little girl in the congregation asked, “Is that Jesus’ grandma?”
Brother S said that he wants all of us to develop faith like this woman. Then he likened her faith to this month’s Come Follow Christ study, which we are discussing this month in Sunday School classes, and as families in our homes.
This is such a painful, destructive time in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It involved the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, a type of bank. It involved the Three Witnesses of The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, leaving the Church. (Two of them eventually came back to Church, and all of them never denied their witness/testimony of the Book of Mormon.) Joseph Smith ended up in prison during this painful time in Kirtland Ohio.
While in prison, Joseph felt that God had given up on him.
This story from Church history relates to the woman from Ghana and it relates to us. At one point, the woman from Ghana, before she emigrated to the United States, went back to Ghana. She had no money, her husband had just died. The only place she could find to live was in a friend’s barn, sharing 4 horse stalls with her 8 children. An apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ came to Ghana. This was the apostle who just last week became the president of the Church, President Oaks. He was then called Elder Oaks. He asked the local Church leadership who he could minister to, and they suggested this woman. Imagine how hard it would be to host an apostle of Jesus Christ in a barn, with your children running wild around in the hay! Elder Oaks asked her how he could help her. She replied “Please pray for me.” So right then and there, Elder Oaks knelt with her and prayed. Brother S added that her children were thinking, “Oh mom, ask him to buy us a house! He’s a rich American!” LOL!
Maybe, up until that visit, she felt abandoned by God. Maybe she felt that He was hidden from her. I like to think that with the visit of Elder Oaks she felt noticed by God, and some light broke forth, I don’t know. Anyway, she kept her trust in God and Christ, continued following Christ, and came to the U.S. She continued to live according to her covenants. Her life got better.
The Saints in the time of Kirtland, especially Joseph Smith probably felt that God had abandoned them. Joseph Smith eventually asked from prison, a dark, stinky uncomfortable place where he couldn’t even fully stand up, “Where art Thou God?”
Jared Halvorsen talks about when God seems and feels hidden from us in this video below.
“Where art Thou God?”
Many of us are asking the same thing right now with so much confusion and bad things happening in our world. Especially with the violent killing and burning that happened three weeks ago at a church in Michigan. He made the video the day after that September 28 attack.
This photographer tells the story, in the video, below, of walking through the charred remains of the burned down church in Michigan. What she found was amazing! Watch below.
I just love that story! I love that despite destruction, she found images that reflected Christ, His love, and Heavenly Father’s love. Those images did not burn up. I love that she found such a beautiful image of God’s hand, the hand of Jesus Christ, pierced for his crucifixion, a symbol of His atoning sacrifice for each of us.
Joseph Smith had his vision of living peacefully and prosperously in Kirtland OH. Then the safety society collapsed, some of his closest friends turned against him, and he was put in prison. I love that despite the destruction and loss, he found comfort in his prison eventually. The Lord Jesus Christ replied to him, which is now Doctrine and Covenants Section 121, including these words:
“7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
9 Thy friends do stand by thee, and they shall hail thee again with warm hearts and friendly hands.
10 Thou art not yet as Job; thy friends do not contend against thee, neither charge thee with transgression, as they did Job.
11 And they who do charge thee with transgression, their hope shall be blasted, and their prospects shall melt away as the hoar frost melteth before the burning rays of the rising sun;”
It often feels impossible to find God in loss and destruction. The story of the woman from Ghana, the story of Joseph, and the story of the Michigan photographer show us that sometimes we can see God’s hand, despite the loss and destruction. Sometimes God’s hand isn’t apparent. We might have to go looking, even digging, in the ashes, but God’s hand is there. I’ve had my own trials, like all of you probably have too, and I too have found God’s hand in the trials.
It finally feels like fall, y’all, instead of hotumn, LOL.
Above and below are some photos I took on my walk today. So beautiful! I feel like I’m Anne of Green Gables with her statement, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!”
Whereas for all of September and the first half of October, almost every day we’ve had 70-90 degrees days, it’s now 50-60 degrees through the day. When I wake up in the morning, it’s chilly enough that I don’t want to wear my capris any more. Especially when I have to drive my son to his morning classes that are outside of the home for part of our homeschooling routine.
I’m really excited that I anticipated this cold time coming up and found some brand-new-with-tag Pioneer Woman jeans on ebay to buy, to replace two pairs of old jeans from last year that are either too worn out, or ahem, too small. This new PW pair of jeans is so comfy and cute! As much as I love thrifting, I just didn’t want to go to the thrift store and be tempted to buy more stuff on top of jeans that I need. I decided I’d just get some on ebay and not buy anything else and I’d probably end up saving money than if I went thrifting and bought more than $20 worth of stuff. Now I’ll never know what I missed :-).
I love that the jeans just slip on so easily and fit like a glove, since they are pull-on, slightly stretchy denim, with no zipper. Only Ree Drummond could make a pair of pull-on pants feel fashionable and not like something a toddler would wear. So perfect! They will work along with some of my other old pants, which used to be baggy on me, while I get more strict on keto, to fit back into the old pairs :-).
They are so cute!!! Only $20 on ebay, free shipping!
OK, on to the purpose of this post: decorating your home for fall easily and cheaply. I got all my fall decorations up last week! If you are looking for how to decorate your home for autumn easily and inexpensively read on! It is #thriftingthursday after all.
Here’s what you need for this project/what you can use:
-autumn-colored leaf garlands from Hobby Lobby, Walmart, amazon, or thrift store
-twinkle lights from amazon or elsewhere
-any kind of free or inexpensive printable banner you can find online, like here and here. I’m not super big into Halloween so I use Thanksgiving-themed banners for my fall decorating
-fall picture books with themes of harvest (like The Oxcart Man), apples, pumpkins, Columbus Day, Halloween, heroes, for Heroween, and Thanksgiving. If you have few or zero fall picture books, never fear! You can find them online using addall.com for used/thrift store prices, or of course new online. Go here to learn about using addall.com. I have collected mine through the years thrifting at thrift stores and used library sales.
-wax paper lanterns (just collect some fall leaves, then sandwich them in-between wax paper using an iron on low with thin fabric in-between the iron and the iron. Then form a cylindrical tube and tape the edges. You can put a small battery-operated tea light candle inside for a lantern effect.)
-any small type of fall decorations from Dollar Tree or other stores. I think that’s where the quirky turkey in one of my photos came from years ago
-paint-safe Scotch tape for places where you can see the tape, and green frog paint-safe tape, where you won’t be able to see it
So go ahead an assemble all those things. Then decorate your shelves, doorways, and windows with the garlands and banner. Use the paint-safe tape for attaching the garlands and banners.
If you have ledges, like I do above my windows, and doorways, you can put the picture books on those. My ledges have grooves that the book fits into to help prevent them from slipping. I discovered last summer, for Independence Day, that I could put my seasonal and holiday picture books on my ledges for decorating! Yay!!!
What an amazing discovery for my homeschooling mama, picture-book loving and collecting heart!!!! Here’s what my front room looked like last year before I made this life-changing discovery, without the books on the ledges.
Then here are my ledges this year. They are so purty!
Dangerous Journey is a child’s version of Pilgrim’s Progress. The March sisters act out Pilgrim’s Progress in The Little Women book. I always think of Little Women as a Thanksgiving and Christmas movie. The theme song of the 1994 movie gives off Thanksgiving vibes, the story starts on Christmas Day, the author Lousia May Alcott has a November birthday, all on top of the pilgrim journey played out in the story. (You have to read the book to get that, sadly, it’s not given in the movies very much or at all.) It’s such a great movie (the 1994 version) any time of year, but especially for Thanksgiving weekend.
If you don’t have ledges, use bookshelves, hutches, or coffee tables for the books. Display the books by putting them on top of the shelf or table with the pages slightly fanned out so they can stand up on their own.
If you have more than one or two books to put on top of the shelf or table, put the rest in a pile with the spines out, or put them in baskets if space is limited so the books don’t look cluttered. Baskets do wonders for organizing and adding beauty at the same time!
That’s it! Enjoy! Feel free to share any photos of your fall decorations in the comments below. I’d also love to hear if you have any fall picture book suggestions I don’t have pictured in this post.
Credit for All Photos of Conference Speakers and Images from it above and below: churchofjesuschrist.org
It’s time to play Fun Facts October 2025 General Conference! If you don’t know what that is, that is the semi-annual conference for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a time when we get to hear people called by God to lead the members of the Church, as well as anyone else. They testify of Jesus Christ and preach to us about how to be better disciples of Jesus Christ. This is held and livestreamed every six months, the first weekend of every April and October. So we just had a conference over a week ago. It’s like the Sabbath Day on steroids, spread out over two days. I aim to make it a time of feasting spiritually and physically. More thoughts about that are here.
OK, so that’s about Conference. Now let’s talk about the Fun Facts game. This is a mass-marketed tabletop game that I love. You can read my review of it here. I love it because it generates conversation, laughs, and smiles as people connect over random topics as they answer questions. Every answer is a number. It’s not so much a trivia game, as it is a co-operative game to see if you as a team can figure things out to arrange your number answers in order. If you need the rules go here. After reading the rules, you can probably come up with your own DIY game using paper and pens or mini-white boards and dry erase markers, as well as a stack of question cards.
I like to provide customized Fun Facts questions related to General Conference talks. You can read my questions for October 2024 GC here, and April 2025 GC here.
Image Credit: boardgamegeek.com
Here are the questions for October 2025’s General Conference.
-Elder Gary E. Stevenson talked about two men involved in a conflict who made peace and are now good friends. One is a Muslim imam, and the other is a Christian pastor. They live in Nigeria, Africa, where they have established an interfaith mediation center. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you desire to visit Africa? If you already live in Africa, on a scale of 1-100, how much do you desire to continue living there?
-Sister Tracy Y. Browning spoke about the power of songs in the Children’s Songbook used in Primary. On a scale of 1-100, how confident are you in being able to sing the first verse of any song in the Songbook, without looking at the words?
-Elder Kelly R. Johnson talked about how when he was a child, his family used a cherry tree shaker to harvest cherries. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you like to eat cherry pie?
-Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi wore a lavender tie. How many items of lavender clothing do you own?
-Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi spoke of touring Hill Air Face Base in Layton Utah USA. How many United States Air Force Bases can you name off the top of your head?
Image Credit: amazon.com
-Elder Jaggi spoke of reading aloud to his children the Chronicles of Narnia series of books by C.S. Lewis. How many books by C.S. Lewis have you read?
-Elder Jaggi told the story that President Russell M. Nelson told in am October 2022 General Conference talk who toured a temple open house and noticed an altar in the temple. How many temple open houses have you attended in your life?
Credit for photo of sealing room in Rome Italy Temple from ldsdaily.com
-Elder Kevin Brown wore an orange and yellow floral tie. How many articles of orange clothing do you own?
-Elder Brown said that he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his native Jamaica. He said that Jamaica to him is as the Sacred Grove is to Joseph Smith. He then shared the exact address of the home he was living in when he gained a witness from the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. How many addresses of places where you have lived can you recall?
Image Credit: brittanica.com
-Elder Gerritt Gong told a story of learning to make fortune cookies as a young adult, and that he learned that fortune cookies aren’t authentically Chinese. On a scale of 1-100, how much do you desire to learn to make fortune cookies from scratch?
-Elder Gong said that every Sabbath Day, our church holds worship services in how many nations? (195)
-Elder Gong said that our Sunday meetings our held in how many languages? (125)
-Elder Michael Cziesla said that when he left his native Europe to serve a mission in Ogden Utah USA, he discovered green jello and funeral potatoes as popular foods in Utah. On a scale of 1-100, how much you do enjoy eating green jello? How much do you enjoy eating funeral potatoes?
-Elder Quentin L. Cook quoted Charles Dickens by saying that today is “the best of times and the worst of times” just as the setting in A Tale of Two Cities. How many books by Dickens have you read?
Image Credit: amazon.com
-Elder Cook said that in the past 36 months, nearly how many people have joined the Church? (900,000)
-Elder Cook said that this amount of 900,000 members exceeds what the Church’s population was during what anniversary year of the Church? (110)
-Elder Cook said the membership of the Church in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and Latin America grew by what percent? (20)
-Elder Cook said that the membership of the Church in North America increased by what percentage? (17)
-What year did Elder Cook say that Elder Holland, Elder Uchtdorf, and he, Elder Cook, were born, which was the year the Church celebrated its 110th anniversary? (1940)
-Elder James E. Evanson told a story of two service missionaries who met a woman in a park, who eventually got baptized. How many different parks have you visited so far this year?
-Elder Dale G. Renlund wore a pink and purple paisley tie. How many paisley clothing items do you own? How many pink clothing items do you own?
-Elder Renlund’s talk was “Taking On the Name of Jesus Christ.” He spoke of a professorship created by the University of Utah Medical School named after President Nelson, who was a heart surgeon and professor at the U of U. Dr. Robert Selzman is the first person to receive the professorship. Dr. Selzman realized that he wanted to be a kinder surgeon, as President Nelson was, in the operating room. Elder Renlund likened the way that Dr. Selzman took on the RMN (Russell M. Nelson) ethos as a doctor to the way we take upon ourselves the name of Christ when we get baptized. How many parallels did Elder Renlund make between these two pathways? (5) (What are these five parallels? Go here to read and find out!)
-Sister Sister Andrea Muñoz Spannaus spoke about prophets of God. She wore a purple dress. How many articles of purple clothing do you own?
-Sister Spannaus shared the story from the Bible about a woman who invited Elisha, a prophet, to come eat bread in her home. How many times this past year have you invited someone into your home to “break bread,” aka share food?
-Elder Ozani Farias wore a yellow tie. How many articles of yellow clothing do you own?
-Elder Ozani gave a talk titled “The Book of Mormon—an Immeasurable Treasure on Our Journey.” He gave several facts related to The Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
-How old was Joseph Smith when he translated The Book of Mormon? (23)
-What year did Joseph Smith finish translating The Book of Mormon (1829)
-What year was The Book of Mormon published (1830)
-How many days did it take Joseph Smith to translate The Book of Mormon? (less than 75)
-How many missionaries are serving around the world bearing witness that The Book of Mormon is true and that it testifies of Jesus Christ? (over 80,000)
-In how many countries are the missionaries serving? (more than 150 countries)
How many temples did President Oaks say that President Nelson announced, as of April 2025? (200)
-How many years did he say that it has been since the Proclamation on the Family to the World was announced by President Hinckley? (30 years)
-How old was President Oaks when he got the news that his father had died? (7) The news caused him to run to his bedroom and cry his heart out. Then his grandfather rushed to his side and told him that he would be his father. President Oaks said that grandparents can fill in the gap for parents. How many grandparents did you have living when you were a child, or have living now as you are a child?
-President Oaks assured us that people can repent in the spirit world after they die. What section in the Doctrine and Covenants tells us this revealed truth? (138) (verses 57-59)
That’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed Conference, and if you missed it, or want to watch again, go here to watch.
Last summer I read this amazing book by a homeschooling mom, Sarah Janisse Brown. It’s the book below.
Book Cover Image Credit: amazon.com
Her story is amazing! I’ll have to do a review of it another time, it’s too much to cover here. If you are a homeschool mom, you will love reading it. It’s one of those books that feels like you are enjoying a cozy mug of herbal tea with a cinnamon roll, while you lounge on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. It’s just such a lovely testament of the power of what one woman can do as a Christian wife and mother.
Sarah has 10 biological children and 5 adopted. She was homeschooled herself, which led her to homeschool her own children. While figuring out how to help her daughter with dyslexia, she created a fun way of homeschooling called funschooling.
Here is how to implement funschooling in your home, step by step, with a video explanation below.
Watch her video below to learn more.
Go here to see if funschooling is a good fit for you.
If you go here you can get an ebook from Sarah, for $10, full of homemaking tips, healthy recipes, family bonding ideas. I enjoy it!
Here is a fun article she wrote for a newspaper about chocolate. Then below is a video she did years ago, with her veteran mom advice about life with toddlers.
Her daughter with dyslexia grew up to be a lovely young lady who created a musical about the life of Jesus Christ, called His Story.
Tree of Life Mothering 