Temple Square

A couple of weeks ago we drove to Salt Lake to Temple Square to see the beautiful lights. The whole way up the kids were fighting. Grandma Marilyn tried to distract them by playing a "name that tune" game with Christmas songs. It helped a bit. We walked around and it was beautiful and super freezing. I could feel the chill through my jeans. The next Sunday Tanner bore his testimony in church and in it he mentioned what a great experience that was and how beautiful the temple looked. A woman told me afterwards what a great boy Tanner is. For some reason I felt I had to tell her that I was quite surprised by his comments of the temple because of the rocky beginning we had in the car on the way up. She said, maybe it was because of all the fighting that he could appreciate the beauty and peace of the temple lights. I thought that was a nice thought and probably true.

Brrrrr. It was 19 degrees!

This tree was so huge!!

Ahhhh. Hot chocolate in the Joseph Smith building. Hits the spot!

Cookie Exchange

I got an e-mail from a neighbor that they were going to meet at her house on Saturday for a "Cookie exchange." I'm there! I brought 3 dozen cookies and took home 3 dozen cookies. Then you're suppose have a variety of cookies to give to neighbors as gifts but I brought mine home and we all ate them during the weekend. I made "Peanut Sitting Pretties" from Jon's Mom's recipe. They're just so festive looking. They kind of take a long time but they taste SO good.

Peanut Sitting Pretties

1 ½ C. butter

¾ C. brown sugar

3 eggs

2 t. vanilla

3 C. flour

¾ t. salt

Finely chopped walnuts

Vanilla frosting

Peanut M&M’s

Blend butter and sugar in bowl. Divide eggs from the yolks. Set the whites aside. Stir in egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour and salt. Mix well and chill for 1 hour. Roll into 1” balls. Dip into slightly beaten egg whites. Roll in nuts. Place 1” apart and bake at 350 for 5 minutes. Press thumb in center of each cookie. Bake 5 more minutes. Cool. Fill center with frosting, top with M & M. Makes 4 dozen.

Daddy Daughter Date Night

In church for the last four and a half years I have been in the Primary which I have loved. A couple of months ago I got a new calling to be the Activity Day leader for the 10 and 11-year old girls. Maddie will be 12 in March but at least I get to be with her for a little while. This is such a great calling. The girls actually listen to me and are excited to do the activities. I taught cub scouts for a while and that was very different. 11-yr-old girls are different from 8-yr-old boys. Anyway, last night we had a fancy Daddy Daughter Date night with dinner and dancing afterwards. Maddie and Jon had a great time together.

Maddie is getting Jon ready for the big date by "shaving" for him with a tongue depressor. Jon also had to paint Maddie's nails.

Dancing

Tanner and some of his friends were the waiters, they really got into it. Tanner told me last night that he would like to be a waiter someday.

Max gets his braces off

Before

After.

Lookin' good! (I had my camera on "Night" mode so the quality isn't good.)

Two great thoughts

I love uplifting messages, and let's face it, who doesn't' need to be uplifted? So, I got the first one from my friend Stef and the second one from my friend Sandra. Hope they can uplift you also.

• "Both abundance and lack of abundance exist simultaneously in our lives as parallel realities. It is always our choice which secret garden we will tend.
  When we choose not to focus on what is missing in our lives but focus on the abundance that is present, the wasteland of the illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth." Thomas S. Monson

"A Christmas to Remember"

November 29, 2009, Broadcast #4185

As we look forward to Christmas this year, let's look back to Christmases past and appreciate what makes a holiday memorable. Some memories may involve less-than-perfect circumstances--and that's all right. Few real-life celebrations resemble the slick ads and scenes in holiday movies. In fact, sometimes the most cherished Christmases take place in conditions that are not quite ideal.

Of course, it's easy to feel discouraged when things don't go according to our plans. But in time, families often look back and laugh about the mishaps: the year the tree fell over, the time they forgot to turn on the oven, the school program when everyone forgot their lines.

Other times, families weep when they remember more serious hardships: the year when someone was in the hospital, the year there were no presents because times were tight, the first Christmas after a loved one passed away.

As such memories fill our hearts, we would do well to recall that original Christmas night. It was not without difficulty. Mary and Joseph were far from home. No room could be found in the inn. Few comforts were available. And yet, love was born. Heavenly choirs sang. A new star lit the sky, and shepherds came to worship.

Unrealistic expectations for a picture-perfect Christmas may be misleading and actually keep us from appreciating the holiday's more subtle yet more satisfying blessings. Everything does not have to be just right for wonderful things to happen.

No matter the circumstances for Christmas this year, cherished moments are within reach. Hold a child in your arms. Pause to look at the night sky. Welcome friends and family into your home, and listen to heavenly choirs. Give the love that only you can give, and you will have a memorable Christmas: a Christmas that recalls that first holy night when, in the lowliest of circumstances, a King was born.

Festival of Trees

Last year I went to The Festival of Trees with Maddie's Activity Day church group so this year I made our whole family go. This really gets me into the Christmas spirit. It's a fund raiser for the Primary Children's Hospital. What's amazing about it is everything is donated. Even the employees are all volunteers so 100% of the money earned goes to the hospital. People decorate amazing trees and gingerbread houses then others can bid on them as a donation. Last year they made 1.5 million dollars. People are so generous! They had 800 trees donated this year. The other thing about it that pulls on my heart is little signs by some of the trees about children that spent lots of time in the hospital and some died and some lived but the families donate trees as a thank you. Last year our neighbor's mom died so all the sisters got together and made a tree to donate then my neighbors husband went and bought it as a surprise to his wife. Just so many sweet stories.

The "UP" house

A gingerbread bird house

I told Max to stand by his favorite tree and I'd take his picture so he chose this one.

Maddie

Tanner by the "Guitar Hero" tree

I thought this paintbrush tree was creative.

Choo Choo

My grandma bought this at the grocery store the other day and it was so much fun. It comes with everything, even the icing and candy. The kids had a lot of fun putting it together with Grandma Marylyn. It didn't make the whole house smell like gingerbread, but that's the only bad thing about it. I highly recommend it!!


Even Tanner couldn't resist getting in on the decorating.

Decorating for Christmas or Spring cleaning?

In order to get to my Christmas decorations I decided to clean out the whole storage area, which is Jon's office closet, he says it's actually my closet because I have more junk in there than he does, that's debatable. (That was quite the sentence.) Then, the whole house needs to be relatively clean in order to get out all the bulky Christmas stuff. It is quite the process but I love the end result!!

Krispy Kreme

Krispy Kreme doughnuts have a deal where you can bring in your report card and get a free doughnut for each A (up to 6 per person). We decided today was the day to get some doughnuts!! It's a fun place because you can watch the process of making the doughnuts.

Here the doughnuts are about to go under the "waterfall of glaze."

Enjoying the doughnuts with some hot chocolate. Perfect breakfast, and pretty balanced diet too I'm sure.

On the way home our odometer flipped to 100,000 miles, pretty exciting. (Our gas is not out, the needle is just freaking out a bit, guess that's a sign of a car with 100,000 miles on it.)

Hey Yah!

Seth got his blue belt in Little Dragons last month. The two boys on either side of him are in our carpool too. Yay, for carpools!!
Maddie got her blue belt which means she's in Max's class now, that's easier on the driving too.

Max got his red belt which means he gets a blue gi for an added cost. He's really working his way up the belt ladder. I think he only needs three more for his black belt. Amazing he's staying with it this long!!

Microwave caramel recipe

My sister, Lyssa, and I always make this caramel recipe whenever she comes to visit. We also make it on our own when we're apart because we just love it so much. It's great for caramel apples, turtles, or just by itself. Here's the recipe, it's pretty much every form of sugar you can think of. Don't make caramels for your health, just if you need something that tastes super good.

1/2 C. melted butter

1/2 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. sugar

1/2 C. corn syrup

1/2 C. condensed milk ( I just do 1/2 the can)

1/2 T. vanilla

One assistant (Maddie in this case)

I always use this glass bowl but it probably doesn't have to be glass, just something that does well in the microwave for a while. Start with the butter since it has to be melted. The rest of the ingredients can be added in any order. Don't put the vanilla in yet. Stir it all up and place in microwave.
Here's Maddie stirring it all up. Microwaves vary greatly I have learned. You may have to try a few times to get it perfect but once you do, write that time down and never forget it. Put it in the microwave between 5-8 minutes. Mine takes 5:30.
Take it out of the microwave and stir in the vanilla. Grease an 8X8 (or so) pan and pour it in. After they cool you can cut and wrap in cellophane, this part takes a while but after you taste it you'll see they're worth it!! Yum!!

Crazy Hair Day

For Red Ribbon week the kids do something different every day. Today, Friday, was "Crazy Hair Day." I got to ask the kids questions about drugs, "Why don't you want to take drugs?" etc. and after they gave a very informative answer, "Cause I'll die!" I handed them a Red Vine. This was during lunch recess. I also brought my camera along to take pictures of the crazy hair.

Seth got to put red dye in his hair and spike it, he was in heaven.
Maddie, that's as crazy as she can get.:)
A neighbor, her mom said she used a coat hanger.
This is done using a cup, it's not very comfortable.
Nicole used floral wire, it started straight up at the beginning of the day. Pretty crazy day.

child's personality + situation = changing strategies

Saturday is our day to clean and find our house again. It actually stays clean until about Sunday night. Last Saturday Jon wasn't home and I was in charge of getting the kids pepped up to clean. For some reason there's a lot more fighting when I'm in charge. I decided I would stay calm and every time a fight broke out I would calmly just add another chore to their list. Genius! It worked for a little while but then I heard a huge yell from downstairs. I went into the boys room and one brother (no names) decided the other brother wasn't helping enough so he opened the bin of summer clothes I had just switched out of their drawers and dumped it all over the room. I lost it. After yelling for a good five minutes, I stayed down in the room with them telling them exactly what to do and helping them until it was done. Complaining to my husband about it later he said, "You should have tried the strategy where they have a certain amount of time to finish then you check their work, that almost always works for me." It's hard because each child has a very different personality and what may work for him may not work for his sister or brother. One of my children will cry if I look at him/her funny where another one has to have a big blow out to get him/her motivated. I just wish there was a formula that said, "In this situation and with this child do this and you will get the result you want and the child wants and everyone will be happy." I guess that's part of parenting, I'll just keep trying the best I can and hope it all turns out for the best!

More Halloween Stuff

On Friday I helped with Max's Halloween party at the school. We had 3 groups of 10 for about 10 minutes which is pretty manageable. I played a game that our family would always play at our cabin when I was growing up. You tie a string of yarn to a marshmallow (ghost) and put it in the middle of the circle. Someone has a pan lid and if they roll a 7 or 11 they crash down the pan lid to try and catch as many ghosts as possible while the kids try and yank out their ghosts before the lid comes down. I'm not very good at explaining it but it's a lot of fun!

This is Max's teacher, Mr. Wise who is really nice, not devil-like at all.

After Max's party was over I went into the other kids classrooms to get a picture of them.

Seth with Miss Jones

So, in the past I made soup in pumpkin bread bowls for Halloween dinner then Jon would take the kids trick or treating while I stayed in the warm house passing out candy. Last year and this year it started changing. This year we had Wendy's drive thru because we went to a BYU soccer game all day and each of the kids had a group of friends they wanted to go with. Even though those were simpler times, I'm okay with this change, everyone is still happy.

So here is Max and Seth's group...scary?

Tanner's group, which hid behind the bushes scaring "older" kids. Michael is wearing a book cover. Then they went to the neighbor's house to watch a movie.
And Maddie's group. One of her friends is from Alpine so I had to drop them off there and then her mom brought them back to our neighborhood to finish, a little complicated. It was a fun and safe night.

Halloween stuff

We had a Fall-oween carnival at the elementary school. It was packed and they ran out of pizza before we ate, but according to the kids it was a lot of fun.

Maddie and her friend were suppose to be in charge of a booth but "some mean girls took it over." Maddie is going to be a gypsy for Halloween but she didn't feel like getting it all together yet.

When they ran out of pizza Tanner was still able to find some food, shew!

Two of my kids hate the goop in the pumpkins and two of them like it, guess which ones...

Tanner had a lofty carving idea that worked half way, it got too thin and we did not have the right tools.

Tanner and Max hate the goop, Maddie and Seth like it!!

Ear Tubes and Adenoids

Seth has fought ear infections all of his short life. He had tubes for a few years which is good for one set of tubes. We were trying really hard to not have to get tubes again, by trying I mean crossing my fingers. Every time we went to the ENT she would say, "They look good but not great, let's see him in 3 months." The copay starts to add up after doing that for a couple of years. Then in September he had an ear infection the WHOLE month. He was on three antibiotics that didn't seem to touch it. So today he got his second set of tubes and his adenoids out. His Dr. said his adenoids were infected which made her think they might have been the source of his many ear infections. Also, he had a sinus infection and his ear drum was about to burst it was so infected. For some reason my first reaction was, "Good." I feel like the surgery was definitely necessary and now he should have all that yucky stuff out and be able to hear and be pain free. He's recovered really fast, right now he's playing away with Max and his friend. I told him he could take the day off school today and tomorrow which thrilled him.

Seth watching a new Wallace and Gromit movie in my bed. The hospital gave him a "free" t-shirt.