Halloween Fun

We are all about traditions in our family, and one tradition we like to do is celebrate the holidays. This year we celebrated April fools, Easter, Saint Patricks Day, and now Halloween. I threw a little party for the kids. We made our own pizzas and decorated them like pumpkin faces, then we bobbed for apples, I made a ghostly drink that the kids enjoyed, watched some Halloween cartoons, decorated our apples that we bobbed for, and then decorated our pumpkins. To avoid the mess of the insides of pumpkins, I found some decorations that you stick into the pumpkins similar to Mr. Potato Head, the kids really enjoyed decorating their pumpkins and trying to make theirs the scariest. Our Halloween party was a sucess and the kids really enjoyed it.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Scarecrow Day at School

A new FHE game

I am always trying to think of games to help the children understand gospel principles. Madeline seems to respond really well to games and Anthony loves games as well. It has been a way for me to be able to teach to both children. I made up a game using the idea from candy land, except it goes along with Lehi's dream. Instead of grandma nut, plum fairy, and such I have pictures relevant to Lehi's dream. Instead of trying to get to the candy castle, the object of the game is to get back to Tree of Life. Normally I would send a file for you to print, but this time it would be better for me to assemble it for you and then mail. If you would want one leave me a comment or e-mail and I will be glad to send one your way. When you get to one of the symbols of Lehi's dream you stop and discuss what it means and how it can apply it to their lives. To start off the evening, I wrote Lehi's Dream on some paper and had the kids be the illustrators and then they each took turns reading a page and then we played the game and ended the night with pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, delicious.

My latest Projects

Here are some pics of my latest projects. I have a million projects listed on a list the I keep and slowly ever slowly I am chipping away at them. One day I aspire to having my project list completed but since I am constantly adding to it, I don't think that will happen.


Madeline's headboard that I made to match her quilt. Madeline loves butterflies and so we have decorated her room in a butterfly theme.

The boys' room is decorated with a space theme. I made these rockets out of wood and then painted them and then made a stencil using scrapbook font and transperacies. He makes a statement in the room.














Here is a pic of Madeline's quilt. All that is left is a few details on the sides and binding together.

What we have been up to!

It has been a busy month. My calling as Primary Counselor has kept me really busy. There have been weeks where I have had meetings of some kind everynight. I am sure Grant has felt like a single parent as I am off fulfilling my calling. I am enjoying some quiet time in regards to my calling. It has been nice to eat dinner with the family instead of making dinner and patting everyone on the head as I leave out the door. I have been doing lots of sewing as I have set a goal to make all three kids quilts for their beds by Christmas time. I didn't want to do just an ordinary tie quilt, but I wanted to adventure out into unknown territory and make one of those fancy quilts with all the fancy quilting stiches included. It has been a learning process as well as relaxing as I sit at the sewing machine pondering about life and such. A nice way to slow down.

Anthony and Madeline love school. Anthony loves all the science experiements that he gets to do on a weekly basis. He is making the grades and we are so proud of him. Madeline has come along way in her speach and getting more confident in herself. The other day at school Madeline got up by herself in front of the class and did a show n tell with a nice loud big girl voice. That is just amazing. Last Sunday she said the prayer in Primary and marched up their by herself with no prompting and gave the prayer with no help in a nice loud voice. Last year we couldn't get her to speak up and it was hard to hear her at all. You can tell she is getting confident by the day. She walks with more confidence in herself and in her ability to do things. This is all rewarding to me as a mother to see my children go out in the world with confidence and the knowledge of knowing who they are.

Conference weekend was great and it was neat to sit as a family listening to conference and to be able to as a family sustain the prophet and other General Authorities. Anthony and Madeline absolutely love when conference comes around. I try to make it a celebration all weekend long starting with homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast, to special conference baskets with goodies to enjoy, to enjoying the food from our 72 hour kits as we trade out the old for the new, to even eating pizza while daddy is at Priesthood session. The kids love to ask Grant what he learned about during Priesthood Session. This year Anthony was able to pick out what they were talking about, he was so excited to learn that he could really understand them. Now for me it is off planning FHE lessons based on the conference talks to teach to the children for the next six months.

Spencer is on the verge of walking, he has taken a couple of steps but still prefers to walk on his knees. He is absouletely every where and into everything. Completely different than the other two. He definitely keeps me hopping and he makes sure that you know that he exists and he is really good at leaving his mark all over the house. He loves to talk to you and carry on a conversation, but you need to use your imagination as to what he is saying. He can only say two words, bye bye and stinky. He can say sounds, but not really any words yet.

I haven't been able to do my pioneer party. I had things planned and then one by one we all got sick, Madeline had surgery, and then we got swamped with life. I have things still planed and put together and hopefully when we go camping this weekend we can enjoy a little pioneer celebration. I figure we might not celebrate when the first pioneers came into the valley but there were probably pioneers arriving still at this time.

Enough with talking time for pictures.

On Satudays Anthony has been working with his daddy on building a tree house. Anthony will be out there working for hours on it. Good thing the weather has been decient. Anthony is enjoying working side by side with his daddy, and I know Grant is having memories of building his own tree house when he was Anthony's age.

My Latest Project

I have been working on a scripture reading project for our kids. It has actually been in the works for a long time, but life has gotten in the way of me finishing it. I decided to bite the bullet and not let anything get in the way. If you want the whole file e-mail me and I will send it your way. I went through the scriptures and found various stories, summarized some or included the verses pertaining to the story. I then found matching clipart. The whole idea is for the kids to reach in the bag and pull out a clipart and then find the story it goes with. We then read it and then discuss what the scripture means. They each have their own scripture journals that they can draw (Anthony can write and draw) what they learned from that scripture. I am hoping this will help in our family scripture reading. When Anthony reads the scriptures it is over Madeline's head and she is bored and obviously getting nothing out of it, and when it is Madeline's turn they are the cartoon version and Anthony has those memorized. I am hoping this will meet the two kids in the middle and they will both get something out of family scripture study.

This is a pic of the bag I made for all the scripture stories, the little pouch holds the clipart. I laminated everything.

These are the scripture journals I made for the kids.

Here is an example of what they look like inside.

Madeline's Pedicure

A few days before Madeline's surgery I took her out for a treat. I thought I would let her be pampered and have a pedicure and a manicure. She was so excited and enjoyed sitting there having her nails painted. She loved picking out the colors and was excited when the lady painted butterflies on her toes. I think this will be a tradition for us. She loves things that are sparkly and in some way she likes things that are more girly than I like. However, she can be rough and tumble too. I just enjoy whatever she likes because to see the joy on her face is priceless. She can like pink even though her mother would prefer a different color, but she is not totally a princess because she prefers pants and t shirts to dresses.On a side note I thought I would include a video with Madeline and Daddy playing primary. Madeline loves to sing Called to Serve, her favorite part is the end. One Sunday she was not able to go to church because of her back so her and daddy played primary at home. She did the music and daddy was in charge of the lesson. This video is just the singing part.

I am Back!

Things have been crazy lately. Madeline had surgery on the 18th of August (her six month extension on her back). The night before surgery we had a bout with constipation that lasted until 3:00 in the morning. She never passed it, I think she just got so tired that she was able to relax and go to sleep. We got her up a few hours later to head to the hospital for her surgery. The morphene that they put her under didn't help with the constipation. Madeline was released the next day and we spent an extra night in the hotel so that Madeline could enjoy the hotel too. It was a long night, constipation still bothering her along with Spencer in retalitation that he was not in his bed and in his room in his house. We finally got Madeline the right amount of medicine to help with her problems. We thought we were home free, but we quickly learned that we weren't. It took a week in a half to get everything under control. Several calls to the doctor (don't ask why they didn't want to see us and instead just handle it over the phone..frustrating), two trips to the Urgent Care Center, and every over the counter drug that we could give her we finally got some peace in our house. It turned out that Madeline had stool stuck in her large intestines and to make matters worse gas was trapped in between all the stool and was not able to get out and to all this we add the pain that comes from having back surgery. She was a real trooper and you could see she was trying so hard to be brave. Spencer was feeding off of Madeline so every time she would cry in pain, Spencer would join in. It was crazy with having two kids crying all day and wanting and needing your attention, along with helping your son with school. It is a miracle that I am still alive. I had lots of plans, but as you can bet nothing got done. I just kept telling myself, this is just for a small moment, and it was. What was more frustrating than anything was not being able to do anything for Madeline and not getting the response from the doctors that I needed. Here I am her mother and I cannot take away the pain, all I could do was hold her as she screamed in pain. My girl is back and you can tell. I missed her spunk and the funny things that come out of her mouth, and I even missed her stuborness too. We got her on medicine for the time being, but I did inform the doctor that I much rather treat this with diet and get my daughter off from being dependant on a drug. I have to put enough medicine in her body to keep you a live I don't want to shove any more down here. However, until we can find a happy medium with her diet I have her on medication so hopefully she will never have to be in pain like that again.The kids have returned back to school. Madeline is in her same class with the same teachers, so no changes there. This year Madeline is finally able to communicate to me on what she did during school. Last year she would just keep telling me I don't know. When I pick her up she is so excited to tell me about her day. So all the way home from school she jibber jabbers in the car about all the fun things that she did during school. It is music to my ears and I absolutely enjoy hearing her talk. Anthony is in first grade this year in a gifted and talented class. He loves his teacher and is in with a few kids from his Kindergarten class too. He doesn't really tell me too much about his day, but I get a few pieces here and there. Anthony still enjoys piano and is having fun learning Star Wars music. I am amazed at how well he has grasped the piano and taken off with it. Spencer loves to jabber. He will come up to you and start jabbering as if he is having a real conversation with you. It is the funniest and cutest thing. He loves to jabber, I can only image what will happen when actual words come out. He had his 15 month check up and he weighs 27 pounds and is 33 inches tall.

I have been busy getting to know my sewing machine and in total love with it. My grandmother bought Madeline her first sewing machine, and Madeline loves it. Madeline pushes the pedal, I guide the fabric and tell her when to stop and the most important thing I do is watch out for my fingers. Madeline gets excited when it is time for her and I to sew, she loves making things. Though her attention spam fizzles out before the project is completed and I finish it myself. I took her to the fabric store and she picked out some material and fringe to make lots of pillows for her room. She thought that was the funnest thing to do and she was even more excited when we came home and made a pillow together.

After Madeline and I made a pillow together, I made a few more to cover her bench that I made her in her room. After that I attempted to make a fabric basket and after breaking two needles I decided that next time I will order the timetex on line. The basket turned out kind of funny looking, but it works to put things that we need to take care of when we leave the house (for example, bills, letter, packages, papers for school or doctor offices, etc.). I have a lot more projects, more projects then I have time for, but I am slowing chipping away at them. I am loving the fact that I can embroider things, it is like having a label maker for sewing. I love my label maker to label my totes around the house, and now I can label baskets, pillows, and bags that I make for the kids. It is fabulous.

Here are a few random pics of Anthony going to see the new star wars movie. He absolutely loved it, but Grant said it is not the same as seeing the original star wars movies. He said he wouldn't see it again.

The Best Gift Ever!

My Grandma surprised me with a brand new Embroidery/Sewing Machine. How cool is that! It is quite the understatement when I say that I was excited. Forget Christmas in July, how about Christmas in August! I quickly got the kitchen cleaned up, who wouldn't when you have a brand new sewing machine calling your name and your fingers itching to open it up and play with all the features. And oh boy does it have features. My favorite part is that I can sew without even pressing the foot, just push the start button and let it go. Now how cool is that! Having to thread a sewing machine and bobbin manually is a thing of the past. I mean with this machine it seems all I need to do is push buttons and watch my masterpiece unfold from my very own eyes.

I haven't been able to explore the embroidery side of the machine, I am leaving that to this weekend. Grant is planning on going for a bike ride and when he gets back, I am shutting the door to my make shift sewing room and letting my imagination go wild. My mind is filled with endless possibilities of what I can do, and my project list is getting longer and longer. Christmas will be so much fun. I plan on making the kids quilts for their beds with matching pillows and decorative pillows. With my new machine I can embroider their names and other decorative finishes now how cool is that going to be! I am probably more excited then they are. I know this for a fact. The other day in my animated voice I was explaining to Anthony all the fun things I have planned for decorating his room. When I was done explaining everything I asked for his opinion in which he replied you are crazy mom, you crack me up! This machine will give me endless fun as well as drain my wallet, those cartridges are not cheap! To try out my machine I made a bag for church

This isn't the best picture, but I was trying to show the decorative stitching that I did around the handle bars and along the top border. It sure is a fun toy!

Thanks Grandma you are the best!

Spencer's Quiet Book

Spencer is an active boy and loves to be moving, so sitting in sacrament meeting is not his idea of fun. We don't really have toys for him that would be church appropriate. Spencer prefers the toys that move light up and other fun actions. So for a few weeks ago as soon as we would enter the chapel he would start to protest because he knew where he was and what would be going on. Grant and I started to take turns sitting out in the foyer with Spencer. Thinking about this I knew that Spencer needed to be in the chapel with us as a family and perhaps with the right toys we could enjoy part of sacrament meeting together as a family. I decided about a quiet book and looking around realized that those babies are expensive and then I had a crazy thought, I will just make one. And so for one whole week the kids' enjoyed their total freedom and I became good friends with my sewing machine. I looked at other church related quiet books on line to get ideas and that put on my creativity cap and went to work. I went to the fabric store and bought whatever I thought would be fun in a quiet book. I was totally entering unknown territory for me, but in the end it was fun, I got to know my sewing machine better, figured out how to thread my surger, and produced a somewhat useful quiet book which Spencer through on the floor when he saw it. So we are still working on sitting through sacrament meeting. Only if the quiet book lit up and had action to it, but then it wouldn't be called a quiet book.
My favorite page is the family tree. It really neat to look at his tree with pics of his family members. It is almost overwhelming. I could have kept going at least two more generations but ran out of room. To do the titles of the book I used this paper, I found it at the craft store but you can make it yourself.

The book was fun to make. There are eight pages total and then I made a cover with handles and velcro to close it. Hopefully Spencer will appreciate the value of the book and enjoy it, until then there is always hope and the other two kids will enjoy the book for him.

Martha Stewart came for a Visit

I don't know what happened to me, but I got into a Martha Stewart kick this weekend. It all started when I saw these cute crayon roll ups and I knew this would be great for church. I then saw these cute bags and thought these would be great and the kid's church bag so they can each carry their own bag to church with stuff just for them. No more carrying this big bulky bag around. And so let the sewing begin. Thanks for the help of Grant. I am not really good at reading all those directions and so my husband helped me cut the fabric and helped me to understand the directions. I think they turned out really good and the kids sure did enjoy them.

And then I just kept going for some insane reason and I decided to make homemade cranberry bagels oh but wait I still kept going and made homemade wheat bread and Grant and the kids made homemade cranberry muffins, and I guess I still had enough energy to make dinner. Clean up was a whole other issue, it took me sometime to go in and clean up from my cooking and sewing excursions. I have determined that Martha Stewart has a crew and I don't so being Martha Stewart is exhausting. I have put her in the closet and am taking a break maybe she will come out again. I have some more sewing projects planned so we will see.

In searching the Internet to come up with neat ideas for the house I came across these neat ideas for traveling. My mind is dizzy with ideas that I just might have to put to action. Not only am I going to do this one for travel but I think I am going to make one for Madeline for when she goes to the hospital in a couple of weeks filled with fun and comforting things to do as she recovers.

Madeline has been having problems with stomach pain and constipation to the point of it disrupting our lives. The doctor gave us a couple of suggestions one was to do a test which I wanted to avoid I don't want to cause her pain more than I have to and the other suggestion was to eliminate dairy, fats, and grease, and processed foods. After looking at the list I realized there was nothing left to eat. Well we have eliminated milk and cheese, fats, grease, and taking baby steps to eliminating processed foods. We have noticed a difference and Madeline has not had any stomach problems or constipation since we started the changes. The only change has been her eating intake. She has started to eat more and enjoy eating. This new diet puts a lot of work on me, since most of her stuff needs to be made homemade, but we are taking baby steps so as to not overwhelm ourselves completely. It has been rewarding to see Madeline feeling better and not having problems with pain. She already goes through so much so to take care some of her pain is worth whatever effort I will need to do on my part.

Tinfoil dinners and our FHE

For our pioneer primary activity we wanted to serve lunch tin foil style. Since we can't start any fires we came up with idea of making pigs in a blanket using buicuit doe, hot dogs, tin foil and cooking it on the gril. With the help of the other primary counselor and Anthony and Madeline we figured out and experimented with the idea. I am happy to say it worked and ever since then my children ask for pigs in a blanket for lunch or for dinner. The critical step is spraying the tin foil with cooking spray for easy release after the pigs are done. So the first step is to take the biscuit dough (we used the ones that come in a can in the ref. section of the store). Flaten it out smooth and then place your hot dog in the middle. If you want cheese cut a slit down the middle but not all the way through and then add some cheese. Take the buscuit dough and wrap it around the hot dog like a taco shell. Then take the tin foil and wrap it burrito style and then place it on the gril about 6 min on each side.

For FHE this evening, it was Madeline's turn to do the lesson and boy was she so excited. We did the story of Nephi hunting for food in the wilderness. I wrote the story for Madeline and she colored the pictures that followed the story. I have included a video of Madeline giving her lesson.

After the lesson we took animals like Nephi would have hunted and with a bow and arrow we hunted like Nephi. The kids had fun hunting animals and knocking them off the coffee table. At first I was going to use clip art of different animals and attach them to a block, but forgot so I found some inexpensive plastic animals from the store. It was fun to use our imagination and pretend to be like Nephi. We were able to talk about out Nephi did not give up when he was faced with a hard task, but instead he asked Heavenly Father for help and Heavenly Father helped him. We also talked about how Heavenly Father did not just give Nephi the bow, Nephi had to work hard but Heavenly Father helped him to know how to build a bow. We related this to our own life that Heavenly Father just doesn't give us something, but instead we still need to work hard and Heavenly Father will help us.

It is neat to do stories from the scriptures and then help the children see in their own lives how they can be like the various prophets in the scriptures. I feel this helps bring the scriptures to life for the children and for them to be able to see how the scriptures can apply to their lives.

Anthony was sick during Pioneer Day so we were not able to have our Pioneer Day party so we will have this weekend. I figure the pioneers were still coming into the valley. So I will post pictures after our party.

How would you define Grant

Grant --

[adjective]: Extremely extreme!

'How" will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

How would you define Sandra

Sandra --

[noun]: A person who is constantly high

'How" will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com