God's hand to vikings hats

I've been thinking about Henry B. Eyring's conference talk from several years ago, October 2007, if I'm remembering correctly that Grant was just born when I heard it.  He talked about the journal that he kept over a period of years, where he would write the answer to this question, "Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?" 

Since little Sophie came home, it seems we've had a daily visit from someone, a meal, a plate of cookies, an offer to help with the laundry, a phone call,  even gift cards in the mail from the wonderful sisters in Beijing.  So when I've felt discouraged I've had to stop and remember these signs that God knows me.  I'm grateful for people who use their time, and thier energy, and resources to bless others.

One of the sisters brought by this beautiful box of apples.

 Olivia, Mary, and Bethany helped me peel some apples for a pie.  Didn't think to check if there was a pie pan or not. No pie pan in this house! The strange lives of others. What do these people do at the holidays? So it didn't look so good, and since I forgot to add butter, the juice didn't come bubbling out of the cracks like I'd hoped, and frankly, even with Breyer's vanilla bean, it didn't even taste that good, but the apples and cinnamon smelled wonderful,  so I was grateful that the house smelled like a special occasion.

See? Not so juicy and the crust fell apart because I didn't have my special towel for rolling out pie crust.  There's always next time.

Last week I had a particularly harrowing trip to Target. I had the bright idea to use two carts, one for Sophie and the stuff, and one to manage William and Grant, who have become positively unmanageable in the store. William is the shopping cart Houdini, and Grant apparently learned nothing from last month's head injury when he tumbled out of the shopping cart at K-mart, so they tore around the Target carrying two enormous stuffed pumpkins leaving me  following pathetically with my two shopping carts.  Then William's diaper gave out in the check out line.  He  handed me his wet shoes, as I scooted him forward, trying to disassociate myself from the puddle at our feet.  Three or even four other customers offered to help me manage the two carts. I said no thank you, but I felt grateful for kind people.

What made it all worth it was finding this viking hat in the one dollar bin.  Ben had a viking hat just like it when he was William's age.  I sewed a viking costume to go along with it, one of the most stressful undertakings of my life.  That was Ben's second Halloween.

So the hat went on our picnic lunch with us. You might guess from Will's face that there were Oreos for desert. Halloween Oreos even. What a fun sign of Fall. I am grateful for beautiful colors, even artificial colors.