Kyle stuck in a Barbie box...

Kyle enjoys playing with boxes. We could probably get a variety of boxes, wrap them up and give them to him for Christmas and he would be a very happy camper. LOL! So, he found this Barbie box that usually holds Stella's Barbie Christmas tree. I then heard a plea for help about 5 minutes into the play and what good mom on a rescue mission doesn't grab her camera?!?!?!

Sooo...for your viewing pleasure....

Cambria Rose Yanda

I decided that I would start with the middle child. It seems it's always either the oldest or the youngest, so I'll break tradition. Maybe someday she'll read this and it will please her that I started with her. :)
Cambria is tough, spunky, sweet and joyful. We waited a looooong time for her to come to us. When we had Stella, we wanted another baby rather soon, as early as 18 months apart. However, that was not meant to be and we ended up waiting almost 3 years for her to join our family. The pregnancy and delivery had a few minor complications and then she was quite sick when she was born. We ended up having to leave her an extra day at the hospital. The worst feeling in the world is when you have to drive away from the hospital without your baby. I'm blessed because I was able to pick her up the next day.
Cambria loved to be swaddled, so we called her our little burrito for awhile. She was a difficult baby and cried pretty much non-stop. We soon found out she had a milk allergy and by 6 months she was fine and a very happy baby.
Cambria starting walking right around 12 months. She was a little munchkin and barely ever made it onto the growth charts, but she seemed to be healthy. Around 16 months Cambria stopped walking. She would instead crawl and we soon realized one of her knees were swollen and red. After a couple long months of various doctor appointments she was diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis. It has been a tough journery for her, but she is doing really well with it at this time. You can kinda see in this dance picture how her left knee was swollen. She has come such a long way. :)
Cambria started Kindergarten this year and has just loved every minute of it. She really enjoys being "big" like Stella and heading off to school every day. She comes home ready to do her homework happily and she has progressed with the learning and reading just fine.
She enjoys anything pink, girly and foo foo - but she's tougher than anyone I've ever known. This past summer she hit her head on a table and needed staples. It was right before we were leaving for a 2 week vacation and the staples had to come out before we would make it back. The doctors gave Ray a tool to take them out with on a certain day. Cambria just laid down and Ray started taking them out. After a couple were done Ray asked her if it hurt because she wasn't even moving or saying anything. She answered, "Yes, but I'm just breathing through it". LOL! :D
When we recently got our dog, Casey, Cambria was really intimidated by her due to her fear of dogs. However, she worked through it and now is the closest of all the kids to Casey. It's really sweet and ironic.
She has THE sweetest smile. She could probably get anyone to smile along with her. Just last week she lost one of her big teeth on the top, so she has the cute hole in her mouth. It just makes her even cuter. Sooo...I took some pictures.

I have recently discovered the wonderful time wasting world of tower defense flash games on line. For those of you who are looking for more non-productive activities to fill out your schedule check out Bananageddon.com.
I have also discovered how to waste time on Facebook, which is very cool and an easy way to find out what Television shows my friends thousands of miles away are watching or how tired they are. I don't know how I got by being ignorant of these details in the past, I guess I just didn't know any better.

Just some random thoughts...

Sooo, I'm noticing that I'm falling into the same pattern I've noticed on other's blogs. Seems if I can't think of something exciting or witty to post, I don't post at all. I don't want to blog like that... So, while some of my post MAY be exciting and witty (because...HELLO...I'm ME, haha), not all of them will be. Some might be just like this, boring, yet possibly insightful and something for my children to look back on and say...OH, wow Mom went through that too. :)
Another note to add is that I added my wonderful husband Ray as an author to this blog. I'm hoping that he will add his exciting and witty thoughts as well and together we might in some fashion create an interesting read for you most days.
I've felt as though I've gone through a forced transistion these past few weeks. As many of you know, I was released from my calling as Young Women's President at church. For those that aren't members of my church, we have jobs at the church that are voluntary. Our leaders extend callings - or jobs- to us and we have the choice to accept or decline. Our church has many different organizations and all of them work together to help us learn and grow in the gospel. I have been blessed as a convert to my religion to receive callings in organizations that I haven't had experience with yet. About 2 years ago I was called into the Young Women organization. This is for the youth girls ages 12 to 18. I was first called as a counselor to the president and found the calling to be such a joy and I was able to learn all about the organization. I thought it was a wonderful blessing to work so closely with these youth and also to learn the programs that my girls would be learning in just a few short years. About one year ago, they asked me to be the president of the organization. This was a bit of a shock because I hadn't been in there very long and also because Ray has a very time consuming and demanding calling in the church as well. It was a wonderful, yet busy and stressful year as president. This month they asked me to do something different. It's hard to spend soo much time with youth and then to just be done. Little kids are easy to love, it just comes naturally. My kids are easy to love, it also comes naturally. I was unsure of how easily the love would come for these young girls that I didn't know and that were at such "difficult" ages. The love I knew would be neccessary if I was going to serve them the way the Lord would want me to. I was amazed! The beautiful, sweet spirits not only were truly easy to love, but they loved me back in a way I wasn't expecting. The trust and the level that they were thinking at were awesome. The joy that they had and shared was amazing!
So, now I'm in with the Relief Society sisters. I have always loved Relief Society and I was excited to learn I would be able to attend their Sunday meetings. I was asked to serve as a counselor to the president and work with the enrichment of the sisters. I've had this calling before and it did not intimidate me for that reason. However, I'm realizing that going back to something after so many years is not an easy transition. It's fun to think that all these women have so much wisdom to share with me. I hope that I can make the most of this time and learn and share and serve in a way that is pleasing to my Lord. I'm also able to support and help Ray in his calling more. He needs to be out among the people and visiting and helping them a lot and this was very difficult for him to do when I was gone a lot with the young women. So, mostly good things coming from the change, but a transition none-the-less and I don't do well with changes. :)
I'm looking forward to the holidays. We origionally had planned on going camping during our Thanksgiving holiday...however we decided to stay at home and use the time to get some things done around the house that had been put on the back burner. Ray has been working a lot of overtime and so a whole day off at home is hard to come by. We are looking forward to getting our house in order for the holiday celebrations come December.
Stella turns 9 next month. It seems each year gets harder with their birthdays. I'm excited for them, but sad for me. I start looking at pictures of them when they were little and think about how long ago they seemed that little and yet it seems so fast all at the same time.
You know, I think in honor of my kids, I'm going to do a post for each of them and just tell everything about them that I love. I'm so thankful for my kids and I should express it more. What better place then this. :)

In honor of turkey day approaching...

When I was 8 years old I "adopted" my father's aunt and uncle as my grandparents. They were great and wonderful people and I truly loved them. My Grandpa Charlie passed away first when I was 16. It was a sad loss, but we still had Grandma Alice. She had a wonderful sweet spirit and a lot of spunk and boy oh boy could she cook and bake. YUM! She was best known for her banana bread. It tasted like no other banana bread I'd ever had and she jokingly called it her "ticket in the door" for our family gatherings. Ha ha! She married into our family and didn't have any children, so she always felt it was an act of kindness that we included her. However, we just loved her and holidays were not the same without her. Grandma Alice passed away in the summer of 2006. She was 98 years old! She lived a great life and touched many in her time here on earth.
Last year for Christmas, my sister gathered some of Alice's recipes and put together cookbooks for mom and I. As she was going through all the paper clipped recipes and hand written recipes this one came up. It was written out with her handwriting just like any other recipe. Ha ha! This was so funny to us all, because she was so proper and always appropriate, but every once in awhile she would pop up with something funny and out of character. So I share this with you for a holiday chuckle and if any of you try the recipe let me know how it turns out, LOL! :D

Turkey Dressing

2 cups bread crumbs
1 onion, chopped
6 stalks celery - diced
1 pkg. onion soup mix
2 cups popcorn - unpopped

Mix and stuff turkey. Place in oven at 325 degrees. After 2 hours, get the hell out of the kitchen because the popcorn will "blow the turkeys' ass right out of the oven".

Playing with pictures!

So a friend sent me a link to this fun and free photo finishing software. I finally got it uploaded and had some fun with these impromptu pics of Kyle in the bathtub. Thanks for looking!

Pumpkin Carving

This is a typical face made my Cambria when she's trying to be silly.

So, usually we make time as a family to go to a pumpkin patch. However, we didn't make it this year. What we did instead is had Ray pick up a few pumpkins on his way home from work Thursday night. It actually was really cool, he found found three smaller pumpkins for around a $1 a piece. GREAT deal! The kids were happy as well. Stella drew her own face on and Cambria and Kyle chose from faces that Ray drew on paper. Then he cut the tops off and they started cleaning out their pumpkins. Kyle didn't want to have anything to do with the inside of the pumpkin. He thought it was "yucky". Ha ha! I had a couple safer cutter knives, so Stella used that to work on part of her pumpkin. Kyle was jealous and wasn't happy 'til he had his own knife. What is it with boys and knives. This past summer, I found Kyle with a paring knife and apple and a pool of blood. Yep, he needed stitches. This however, was much safer, but still made me nervous. When he got his knife though he was just so content - just worked at cutting on his pumpkin. It was cute.

The Justice League

Yep, the justice league visted my house! Pretty cool huh? Obviously it was just a quick try on and I will post more pics after Halloween! In case you're not up on your super heroes, We have Superman, Wonderwoman and Batgirl!

One of THOSE days!!! Arrrggg!!!

Yep, it's one of THOSE days! The kind where nothing goes as planned and everything is really annoying and everyone is super grumpy. Yeah THAT kind of day. And it isn't even noon yet! We started the day off late. I got home from dropping the girls off and was able to spend about an hour at home until I got a call from the school nurse. Stella wasn't feeling well. We went and picked her up and she is resting at home now. Of course that in and of itself changes my entire day. I don't want Cambria to ride the bus home by herself, so I have to go and get her early from school because I have a dentist appointmnet this afternoon. Kyle is...GRUMPY! All he wants to do is watch tv, how dare I turn his tv off. He is throwing a fit about it...as I type this.
So, yeah there you have it. IF my day improves, I might blog on a happier note. We shall see.

Look what I did!!!!

Yep, I made these! I'm very proud of myself. I'm 35 and finally getting around to learning how to sew. I've been around many people that have sewn in my life, but have never had the patience or really the desire to learn how to. About 4 years ago, Ray brought home a sewing machine. He had found a good deal at Walmart and just decided to buy it. I'm not sure what he thought was going to happen. Maybe he thought I would just magically know how to do it. Or, maybe he thought I would teach myself how to sew. I am the type of person who usually can figure things out if I want it badly enough. I just didn't care. The last year or so, I found the desire. I even bought all the things I needed to make these big pillows for a reading area in the playroom. Hopefully, that will be my next post! :D
So...today was super saturday at church. We have several classes at the church for the women to take and learn how to do things they might not know how to do. I always sign up for as much as I can. Because, lets face it - I'm making up for all the years as a kid that I flat out refused to learn anything that didn't interest me. I try not to live with regrets, however this comes close.
So, my friend Jamie taught a class on making these cute halloween treat bags. She told me ahead of time if I would bring my sewing machine she would show me how to use it. BONUS!!! She showed me how to thread the machine and all the other important functions. Big huge thank you to Jamie!!! This post is also for her to see that I did come home and make the two other bags!
So there you have it! They are reversable and uber cute and I'm darn proud of them! Onward and upward, lets see what else I can do!

We finally did it!

Anyone who knows Ray and I really well, know that we are not really animal people. We both had pets as children, but never really desired to have pets as adults. And so we didn't. Unfortunately, we were blessed with two out of three children who are VERY much animal people. Stella and Kyle love animals. Kyle seems to be kindred spirits with any dog/horse that's around. So, we have known for a couple years now that at some point a family pet would be in inevitable. Our old saying during the baby years was that if it ate and pooped it had better be a child. More recently I had been pushing for a dog. With Cambria now in school with Stella it just leaves Kyle at home. He has Grandma Candee most days and of course me, but he loves to be outside just running around. I could always picture him with a man's best friend. Ray was not easily sold to the committment of having a dog. He finally relented and said recently that we could go ahead and try to find a dog. I searched the internet and found different ways of getting a dog and then life just got busy and we never did anymore about it.
Well...Friday afternoon I got home from a playdate at the park for Kyle and there was a sweet dog hanging around. Now, again, I'm not really an animal person. I have NEVER, really never, even thought once about giving a stray anything. However, immediately with this dog I thought it looked thirsty. So, I found a bowl, filled it with water and put it out for her to drink. She came and drank and then layed down in the driveway to rest. She was sooo sweet. I decided to go inside and look to see what I could feed her and when I came out she was headed down the street. So, I just pretty much thought she had moved on.
Several hours later, my neighbor girl came by with the dog and proceeded to try to convince me to keep this dog. She said it had been following her home from the bus stop every day for about 2 weeks and she couldn't keep it. I told her it sounded like a great idea but I would need to convince my husband. LOL! I called Ray and he was not at first excited about taking in a stray since he felt we wouldn't know what we were getting. Long story short, he came home, checked her out, saw how stella and her bonded immediately and welll.....we have a new dog!
Her name is Casey (Stella named her) and the vet thinks she is a lab-sheppard mix but could possible have some chow in her since her tongue is purple. They estimated her to be about 14 months old.
She is wonderful with the kids and is very sweet and loving. She seems very pleased to have a place to call home. We had her shots and everything done on Saturday and tomorrow will have her spayed. She is our newest member of the Yanda family and we are truly smitten with her. :)

Ok....pictures!

So, I'm still an internet nervous nellie, but since I have made this blog private, I feel somewhat comfortable sharing pictures.

Since I have some new readers that I haven't been in contact with for a few years, I will summarize the last few months with pictures. :)

I've started taking pictures more. I actually love doing it and of course my favorite subjects are my kids. This pic and about 3 dozen other ones were taken at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. It is the absolute perfect backdrop for gorgeous pictures!

Ray took the girls for a day up to the Dallas Museum of Art. They got to do some cool projects in this room. It's not a fantastic picture but you can see all the many recycled products that they had at their fingertips to use. They had a blast as well as Daddy.
Ray and Kyle went on their first father/son campout with the stake. This was held at the new stake center grounds which was very historical to get to camp there once before they broke ground to build on it.
We had a crazy, crazy hail storm. Yep, that's hail, not snow. Everyone in our entire neighborhood had to get new roofs and rain gutters. It was a crazy thing.
We made a quick trip up to Iowa for my cousin's wedding and my kids got to spend the 4th of July like I used to as a kid. Quite fun! My mom had all 5 of her grandkids there since my sister came out as well. The firework picture is of Stella. She claimed that she was only setting off 1 sparkler at a time, however, the proof is in the picture. LOL! The last picture is a typical picture of us when we are camping. I always have popsicles in our freezer on camping trips. Aren't they precious?!?!



Ray's sister Christy got married in August in Las Vegas. This was our "big" trip for the summer and it was quite the tumultuous trip. If you're interested in reading about it, you can do so on my facebook page here. Stella and Cambria were flower girls and Kyle was the ring bearer. All them did amazing! The last picture is when we went to the M&M world store and Coca Cola store in Vegas. BOTH very cool places!
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The summer ended with both Stella AND Cambria heading off to school. Stella is in 3rd grade and Cambria started Kindergarten. Boo hoo for me, but yay! for her. She is loving it and has grown so much over just a month. Amazing! The pictures below are on the first day of school, eating breakfast and out in the driveway getting ready to go. Of course Kyle couldn't be left out of the pictures. A few weeks ago he started museum school, however it is only 2 hours once a week. I can handle that. :D

Well, if you made it through all that, YOU are amazing! You wanted pictures, you got them!!! Haha! You are officially up to date on the happenings in our lives in the past few months.

Creepin' Up!

I can't believe it's October 9th. What the heck?? I need to get in the Halloween spirit. Some of my friends might never speak to me again for this comment, but here goes anyway. I've never been really big on Halloween. There I said it. Sorry, Melanie!!! :D I've never cared whether I dress up or not. As a child I had a wonderful big sister who would dress me up. I think she enjoyed it more than I did however, haha! I have distinct memories of one year her dressing me up as a baseball player. And, she's very creative. I remember sitting on the toilet seat while she painted my face with a black eyeliner pencil. I still don't remember what she put on my face with it, but I remember it taking wayyy too long. Ha ha! I was such a pain. So, with that said, I have never really enjoyed dressing my children up for Halloween also. I do love watching them get excited, so of course I do it every year. Just not an "easy" thing for me. I would much rather someone come and do it for me, haha, and let me just watch. So, that being said, it's now or never that I need to be working on getting the kids costumes. Kyle is going to be superman, easy - but I need to get a costume. Cambria is still undecided. She had thought about being a mermaid and so my sister sent an old costume of my neices that is a cute mermaid costume. However, Cambria is still unsure if that's what she wants to be. Stella had thought she wanted to be one of the characters from the new star wars clones movie. However, when she saw the costume she thought it looked too scary. Haha! So, I have no idea what she wants to be now. I guess I better get it figured out. Uggg, it's creepin' up on me!!!
Now, I do however, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this time of year!!! I love the pumpkins and the fall colors and the parties! Just not all the have toos and the candy and stuff.

More time in a day....

Do you think if we all banned together we could put together a ballot to add to the upcoming election?? It would look something like this: "Vote for change - 30 hours in a day rather than only 24. Everyone needs more time, give us the change we need!" LOL!
I need more time. I need more time to clean my house, more time to do yard work, more time for my church calling, more time to love my husband ;), more time to read to my kids, more time to cook and bake, more time to spend on homework with the kids, more time to volunteer, more time to grocery shop and cut coupons, and of course, not to be forgotten, more time to goof off and sleep!!!!! I just don't see this as an unreasonable request. Who would know the difference if we just all agreed on it and voted it into law?!?!?!
My week has gotten away from me. Thank goodness for my wonderful mother. She has been a life saver to me this week and it's only Tuesday. She cleaned my kitchen for me yesterday, watched Kyle and Stella today so they didn't have to go to the doctor's office with Cambria and I and catch who knows what. She insisted I take a nap today. Tomorrow she watches Kyle while I volunteer at the school. How would I function without her? Welll....a lot less would get done that's how! So, mom, if you're reading this which I'm sure you're not because you probably haven't checked your email in who knows how long (yeah Amber I know you're laughing) - but anyways, thanks for supporting me so much! You're great!
A little funny for your reading pleasure today. Cambria had her 6 yr old checkup today. Everything was fine which is always refreshing in this family when it happens, however I had her get the flu shot. I told her ahead of time she was going to get it and she asked me where they would give it to her and I said I didn't know - but it would probably be either her arm, leg or butt. I knew it wasn't gonna be in the butt, but (haha) I thought it was funny. She immediatley looked at me in horror and said, "Mommy, I dont' want it in my butt, pleeeeeaaase!" LOL! She wanted it in her arm. The doctor and nurse were suprised but said since she's 6 she could have it in her arm. So, she had her flu shot in her arm and her butt was spared. Whew!!! Ha hahahah! Kids are sooo funny!
I didn't get near enough done today - but I got some great meat that was on sale and stocked up, took a short nap, took Cambria to the doctor and then had a presidency meeting for church. I'm off to cut out some laminating that I need to turn back into school tomorrow. I'm hoping to get to bed earlier. I really need to do better at that.
So, I don't know exactly how these blogs are "suppose" to be - but for me it's just a rambling of the thoughts in my head. Which, is fantastic for me, but probably not as enjoyable to you. So, as a loyal reader of what, two days, if you want to hear my thoughts on anything in particular, post it. I always have something to say about pretty much everything! Let me know! :D

A Typical Monday

I always get excited about the new week. The two older kids head to school and it's just Kyle and I at home and I always figure I'll have sooo much time to get stuff done. Yet....it never happens. I'm always super busy and I never have enough time to get done what I want to.
I took the girls to school, came home and cleared off my dining room table. I organized my shopping list and meal planning for the week. I had a phone call from Kyle's preschool teacher that lasted about 20 minutes. My mom comes over most weekdays to cook lunch for Kyle and spend time with him. I know, I know I'm spoiled, but they both love this time together so who am I to argue. Haha! Anyway, I decided to go to the store while mom was here. This took forever! I had a list, why did it take forever?? I didn't get anything that wasn't on my list. I did need to buy a gift for a little boy for a party the kids are going to today. That took a bit of time because let's face it, I'm still kinda new to the boy toys. LOL! I had to get deli meat, which ALWAYS take forever and then of course there is checking out. Yes, I was at Wally World (walmart) so that explains it. Then I went over to Albertson's to get some of their $1 eggs on sale. Great deal. By the time I got home I realized I only had 2 hours before I had to leave and I still needed to make bread. Ugggg! So the bread is raising as I write this. I think I'll make it, lol!
Well...guess I better get going on the other stuff for the day. I still need to wrap presents, bake bread, take shower ( yep still haven't done that today, got out of bed late), dress Kyle, cut coupons, vacuum, wash towels, go to party, cook dinner, homework and get kids to bed. I REALLY don't see FHE happening tonight. Oh well. It's a good day. I should be happy to have such a full and vibrant life. Ha ha!

Finding Joy in the Journey

Ok, so I had a few more thoughts on President Monson's talk about finding joy in the journey. He told us we needed to find joy in the journey , whatever journey we are on, NOW! We need to appreciate our blessings more and to reflect gratitude to our Lord and Savior. Isn't that fantastic???
I think each year I learn to find more joy in my journey. I must admit, the toddler years are not "my thing". I loved the newborn phase until about age 1 and then started really liking them again around 4, maybe 5. LOL! I like to be able to "reason" with my children. Of course I always loved my children, I just am saying that I enjoyed certain phases more than others. I'm sure I won't particularly "like" the kids during their teenage years either, LOL! I think I'm a much better to mom to school aged kids. I'm much better at routines such as homework and chores than I am about tantrums and potty training.
So, I'm not sure if it's because both Stella and Cambria are in school this year or if it's because Kyle is approaching that "reasonable" age...but I'm find myself finding more joy, being more relaxed and enjoying the day to day life more. I still haven't found time for all those elusive projects around the house, but I've found more time to sit down with a pile of books and read them to Kyle.
One area where I could do better at finding joy in the journey is with the young women at church. Ah, yes, the teenagers. Again, I completely love and adore all of them, which is a huge blessing from the Lord no doubt. However, sometimes I get so caught up in the "buisness" aspect of my work with them, that I fail to just have fun with them. Every month we have a youth dance that is about an hour drive. I always go whenever I can and drive any of the girls that want to go. I truly love this time with them. They always share such wonderful things with me and it's so wonderful to see teenagers in this world have joy. Yes, joy! I think that's why I love working with them and why I never seem to mind being with them. They are happy. They are joyful. My children at home are happy and joyful. What better life could I lead. I'm constantly around happy and joyful people!
So, I think I'm doing ok at finding joy in the journey, but we can always improve and so I will seek for more ways to find my joy in my journey each and every day. How about you?

Spiritually Uplifted!....and a bit crazed!

Well...conference was absolutely wonderful! I loved, loved President Monson telling us, almost commanding us to "Find joy in the journey, NOW!"

I must say that yesterday went better than today. Kyle was a bit more rambunctious and then since we stayed during the break to eat and let the kids run around the building, it was hard for him to get settled back down again. However, when you think about 8 hours of sitting in church over a 2-day period, they were amazing! Ray and I have decided that we will do this each conference from now on. We felt truly blessed by the Lord for our act of faith in attending conference at the building.

Of course, by being gone from the house all weekend, nothing got done. Now I have a mess to clean up starting tomorrow, big bummer! My dining room table...I think there's a table top under all that stuff! All of cambria's presents are sitting on it and just the remnants from last week. Nothing 10 minutes wouldn't fix, but just still a bit overhwelming. I have a few loads of laundry left to do, but the overwhelming part with that is putting it all away. Don't you hate that???

One Word Tag

1. Where is your cell phone? table
2. Your significant other? Ray
3. Your hair? Auburn
4. Your mother? Helper
5. Your father? Heaven
6. Your favorite thing? Prayer
7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your favorite drink? Diet Coke
9. Your dream/goal? Peace
10. The room you’re in? Dining
11. Your hobby? Baking
12. Your fear? Unknown
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here
14. What you’re not? Skinny
15. Muffins? Bran
16. One of your wish list items? Wii
17. Where you grew up? California
18. The last thing you did? Laundry
19. What are you wearing? Nightgown
20. Favorite gadget? Cellphone
21. Your pets? None
22. Your computer? Timewaster
23. Your mood? Peaceful
24. Missing someone? Always
25. Your car? Capable
26. Something you’re not wearing? Shoes
27. Favorite store? SuperTarget
28. Like someone? Many
29. Your favorite color? Green
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? Today
I tag Nikki, Jamie and Sadie

Are we insane???

As I mentioned in a previous post, this weekend is general conference for our church. There are 5 sessions. Each session is 2 hours long. There are two general session on Saturday and 2 general sessions on Sunday and then the fifth session is just for the men on Saturday night. This conference is broadcast on BYU tv which we get at home on the dish and also you can get a livestream on the internet. We have always watched at home. However, you can also go to our church building and watch it on a big screen. We have been having trouble being able to watch it at home. The kids (of course) just don't get it. Too many distractions at home. So, today we decided to go and watch it at the building. Yep, 4 hours of church! Ha ha, are we insane? Apparently not. The kids were amazing. I (of course) had to be prepared. I brought a BUNCH of fun stuff for them to do. Pipe cleaners, geoboards, pattern blocks with a pattern activity book, magazines, sticker books, dot to dot coloring books, construction paper, crayons, and of course snacks. What was entertaining to me was that I brought certain things with one child in mind to use them, and I was totally way off. I brought the pipe cleaners thinking that Cambria would really enjoy using them. She did play with them for a bit, but really had no clue what to do with them. Then, Stella got bug eyed about them and played with them for a good hour making all sorts of creations. A crown and easter basket were among the memorable ones for me. It was cool. I brought the pattern blocks and activity book for Stella because it was one of her favorites when I homeschooled her. Duh, that was 2 years ago. Ha ha! She played with it for about two minutes and then came and told me that it was too easy for her. Ok then. I told her to take them over to Cambria and show her how to do it. Yep, Cambria played with that for about an hour. That's a reallllly long time for Cambria to do ANYTHING. LOL! There were only a handful of people and we were the only crazy ones with kids, but we got sooo much more out of conference. It was very relaxing for me and I saw the kids looking up and listening every once in awhile. Imagine that. Soooo....we are off to do the same thing tomorrow. I'll let you know. ;)

A post in response to Melanie's tagged post

7 things I plan to do before I die
Go on a mission with Ray
Become a Grandma - **can wait a looooong time for that though
Have a beautiful flower garden that I don't kill anything
Earn my bachelor degree
Visit another country
Eat Vegetables
Help many, many people that are in need

7 things I do now
Love Ray unconditionally
Care, nurture and love my 3 wonderful children
Keep a somewhat well functionally household, lol
Volunteer at the elementary school
Serve and love and teach the young women at church
Foster good friendships
Blog!

7 things I can't do (I don't like to say can't, but for the sake of playing along)
paint walls - for some reason I'm really lousy at this
sew - but I'm gonna learn soon
run a marathon - maybe some day
excel spreadsheets
garden
keep my house clean consistenly
quite drinking diet coke, - lol

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:(or love about my husband)
his hands - wowzers! :)
his lips and smile
the dimple in his chin
the way he loves and adores and honors me
the way he loves his children and makes time for them
his strength - both physically, emotionally and spiritually
just because he is him - he's the only one eternally for me

7 things that I say most often:
stop it!
Go potty
Be quiet
I love you
clean this up
hurry up
I need to do...
uggggggg!!!

7 celebraties that I like:
Drew Barrymore
Adam Sandler
Will Ferrel
Jim Carey
Keira Knightly
...
...

7 favorite foods:
chicken alfredo
mom's goulash
vegtable soup
london broil
beef fajitas
brownies
spaghetti with whole wheat noodles

7 people who I invite to do this:
Nikki
Jamie
Sadie
....those are the only blogs I have...

The need to laugh at ourselves...

So, for those friends and families of mine that are not members of my church...Today was the first day in a two-day semi-anual general conference. This is a wonderful event for me. Our living prophet on the earth speaks to us as well as our other apostles and general leaders. Each speaker prayerfully decides what to address us on and it always amazes me that there is a theme. The topics are always things that I need to hear, it's truly wonderful. Usually there are one or two each day that really stand out to me. Today it was Elder Wirthlin. He is a wonderfully, cute old man who has been forced to give his talks from a chair. He is not able to read his talk very well, so sometimes he stumbles with his words. All in all it is obvious he is still as sharp as a tack. Today he spoke about the need to laugh. Especially at those times of extreme stress. I can be a pretty high strung person at times and I have been known to let things really bother me in the moment before. I would love to laugh more when the going gets tough. So...in honor of Elder Wirthlin, I'm putting together a little list of "silly" things I've done lately that really irked me and I got mad, rather than letting it go. I vow to laugh more about these things:

• Thursday night I was baking cupcakes for Cambria's school class - I had two different sets going and so set the microwave timer as well as the stove timer. Unfortunately I failed to remember that I always turn the sound off on the microwave, so the timer went off but never sounded. Ha ha! Duh! Luckily my nose caught wind before it was too late!
• Last night I really thought I was doing well. I had remembered everything and done everything to make Cambria's party at Chuck E Cheese wonderful. I even remembered the camera (not something I always do) and proudly handed it over to Ray when he asked for it. A few minutes later he came back and asked me if I brought the memory card. Duh! Nope!
• This is just more funny and not really my fault. A couple weeks ago I was out of bread and figured I had enough time to bake some before I had to go to church for mutual. Unfortunately, Ray called and needed me to help him with something that required me to leave earlier. My bread was mixed and was just rising. So, with nothing else to do, I stuck it in a bowl, covered it and put it in the fridge. When I came home that night, I walked by the fridge and there was some dough laying on the ground in front of the fridge. I opened the fridge and saw that the dough has risen too much, but couldn't figure out how the dough got on the floor. Even though it was already late, I didn't want anymore mess, so I layed the dough out, waited for it to rise and baked it. The other odd thing was that there didn't seem to be as much dough as I usually have. The next day I was telling Ray about all this and he had a sheepish look on his face. He told me he came home and opened the fridge and the dough was starting to overflow, so he just - get this - scooped up a handful of dough and threw it in the trash. LOL! OMG! HAHA!!!! So, THAT is how some dough dropped on the floor and THAT is why I didn't have as much dough as usual. Guess I need to teach him how to punch dough down, haha!

Well, that's it for me. If you want to - leave me a comment and tell me a funny story or a duh moment lately. I promise to laugh with you and not at you....really...LOL!

I have jumped in...finally...

Yes, it was only a matter of time before I joined the blogging bandwagon. I've already tried my time with myspace and am an avid user of facebook. I think the reason for my decision to have a blog is two-fold. I thouroughly enjoy reading other's blogs and I could use a place to pour out my thoughts and happenings. I also have learned from being an avid reader of other's blogs first that I need to keep my posts up. Nothing is worse when you check a blog day after day and they don't blog for like a month. VERY annoying! LOL!
Soooo...stay tuned. For your reading pleasure I have a few posts tonight. It's just the kids and I at home and they have a movie in mind to watch, so I've got nothin' but time to blog to my hearts desire! :)