Highlights From This Week

We're looking forward to all of our company this weekend, but in the meantime, here are some highlights from the past week:

The weather has been crazy! We had several inches of snow this week off and on, but today and tomorrow should be warmish (mid to upper 40's and sunshine). This picture was taken Wednesday afternoon.Emma and Lauren participated in the Activity Days Recognition night. Technically, Lauren hasn't been invited to participate yet, but they were performing skits and one of the younger girls didn't show up, so they asked Lauren to step in. She did great and actually performed the part of the Good Samaritan. The older girls (Emma's group) did an original production written and produced by the girls. Emma played a bank teller who was robbed. Stellar performances. They were happy Grammy was here to watch them.So Grammy did a lot of sewing this week, but unfortunately both items she made for Emma fit Lauren perfectly. Lauren looks cute in these pink capris. I'm keeping the leftover fabric and making Emma some capris later. Grammy also made Lauren an adorable lavendar dress with daisies on it, and will be taking some fabric home to sew a couple of skirts for Emma.Emma had to make a mobile for school this week. She had to represent the setting, the characters and the plot with various items and hang them from a mobile. She did an American Girl book about Felicity. She came up with everything on her own and was very creative.

Family Talents

Lauren did a project in class the other day and it was so cute I wanted to save it on my blog. As you can see from her paper, she had to write about everyone's talents in our family. It was fun to see our talents from her perspective. If you can't read it very well, here are our talents:

Lauren

1. Jumprope
2. Piano
3. Making people laugh

Emma

1. Sewing
2. Helping people
3. Making friends

Mom

1. Subbing
2. Cooking
3. Sewing

Dad

1. Making people laugh
2. Cooking
3. Tickling
   

Visit From Grammy

So the festivities have begun for Lauren's baptism next week. My mom came into town Friday night and we've been having fun since she got here. We did a lot of shopping yesterday. I bought Twilight, the movie, and made my mom watch it last night. She didn't enjoy it, but at least she knows what everyone's talking about now. We went to Church today and made a big turkey dinner this afternoon. We tried out a new hamburger place in Rigby yesterday called "Tam's." It isn't as good as the Backyard in Rexburg, but it was still good.Grammy brought the girls new skirts she had made and some fabric and patterns to make more while I'm subbing tomorrow and Tuesday.Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and grape "salad." (Buttermilk pie with strawberry sauce for dessert)

Here's the grape salad/dessert recipe: 4 lbs red or green grapes (we did 2lbs of each), 8 oz. cream cheese, 8 oz. sour cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 cup chopped pecans. Blend the cream cheese, sour cream and white sugar together, toss with grapes to coat. Spread into a 9 X 13 pan, sprinkle brown sugar, top with pecans, chill. Soooo Good!

Watching the movie "Annie" after a very heavy dinner.

Lauren's Class Picture

This is Lauren's class picture. She's had a student teacher (Mrs. Engel) since January so she's in the picture, as well as her teacher, Mrs. Pincock and her principal, Mr. Jeppesen. One of the kids, Jacob Hammer (2nd row from the bottom, left side) is really funny looking and has some serious orthodontic work in his future. I mentioned to Lauren that I thought he was kind of funny looking. She said that Jacob drools a lot in class and sometimes he lets his drool go all the way to the floor and then sucks it back up to his mouth. Enjoy.

Cat on a Leash, part 2

I've been working on leash-training our cat. He lets me put on his harness now with no resistance. Today was almost 60 degrees outside, so Emma and I tried to take him outside to explore. Turns out he's a bit of a fraidy cat. He just wanted to look around and barely move. (He definitely belongs in our family.) Kris asked for an update, so here you go.

The Ugliest Kids Ever and Sunday Dinner

Lauren discovered a really ugly face she can make while trying to kill time on a long Sunday afternoon.

Emma decided she could be ugly too.We made one of Jane's recipes for dinner yesterday...Onion Beef Au Jus. So good! It's basically roast beef on toasted french bread with sauteed onions and Swiss cheese melted on top.

We added some sweet peppers to the sauteed onions. The girls enjoyed theirs without onions.

Fun Day in Jackson

Today we went on a fun day trip to Jackson, Wyoming. We went to the rec. center for swimming/sliding, then checked out the National Elk Refuge and ate dinner at a sandwich place we've never tried before. We stopped at the Yippy I O candy store, which is a tradition whenever we go to Jackson, and ate candy all the way home. We got our income tax return yesterday, so we had to have a little fun before we use it to pay for Landon's summer tuition. The girls jumped off the diving board several times and slid down the water slide quite a bit, too. They were pretty tired by the time we left.

We always need a picture by one of the elk archways.

That middle picture shows hundreds of elk. We watched the elk from the truck, but the girls got out long enough for a quick picture. (Landon is eating candy while he watches.)

Lauren's Birthday

Lauren's birthday began at 6:30am, so we could fit everything in before everyone had to leave for school. I made pancakes for us, then Lauren opened all her presents. Emma started this new thing on her birthday and Lauren wanted to do it for her birthday too--we have to hide all the presents and the birthday girl hunts for them. So Lauren hunted, found, then opened her gifts. She was most excited about her skirt from Grammy, her Mario Kart for DS from us, and her new leather-bound, indexed scriptures with her name engraved on the front from Nana. After present opening, I drove the girls to school (a treat, since we can leave later than Dad and the bus). At school, Lauren passed out candy to her class that we found at the dollar store--so much easier than chocolate-dipped strawberries! Lauren made that choice, and I was thrilled. She's a candy girl at heart. I picked Lauren up after school and we went on a little date, while Emma stayed for some after school activities. We went out for an ice-cream cone, ordered her a scripture tote at Deseret Book and ran some errands at Walmart. For dinner, she wanted homemade chicken strips, pierogies (not homemade), and broccoli/cauliflower roasted in the oven with Parmesan cheese on top. We had yellow cake with rainbow chip frosting and mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. Lauren was tired, but happy with her birthday. She's really excited to get baptized at the end of the month! Can't tell from this picture, but the scriptures are green, which Lauren requested.Mario Kart. She told me last night that "The Mario Kart for the Wii is more fun, but I like the DS game too, so don't feel bad, Mom."Lauren showed off her skirt to everyone at school yesterday. When I picked her up from school, all the teachers were coming up to her saying, "Is this the famous birthday skirt? It's so beautiful!" Word had gotten around the school that Lauren was very happy with her skirt.Lauren is happy with her birthday dinner. She requested Capri Sun as her beverage.
If anyone needs a number 8 candle, let me know. Only been lit once. Tired Lauren getting some tips from master gamer, Daddy.

Lauren's Birthday Party

Saturday was Lauren's birthday party at Leo's Place (like Chuck E. Cheese) in Idaho Falls. She invited 7 girls and 5 actually came. Between the car and the truck, we were able to fit everyone in with seat belts. Lauren has been looking forward to this day for years, I think, so she was very excited. Because we had so many leftover cupcakes from the RS enrichment activity, I saved and froze 10 cupcakes for Lauren's party. It was a stroke of genius, I must say. The only mishap was that my boyfriend left the headlights on at Leo's Place, so we had to jump start the car before we left. Other than that, a very fun party. As we were waiting for all the kids to arrive, the kitty became the star of the show. The girls did all kinds of fun things with the cat, but he never ran away, he always came back for more.The indoor playground was a ton of fun for the girls. They were all sweaty and hot by the time we left.These are Lauren's little friends. Two of the girls are in 1st grade, two are in her class in 2nd grade. This is Emma's best friend, Katrina. Lauren let her come to the party, since Emma let Lauren's friend (and Katrina's sister) come to Emma's little go-to-the-movies activity on her birthday.

Lauren got some fun things for her birthday from her friends, including a baby doll from Kayla (Katrina's sister) to match the one they gave Emma on her birthday. This is me, getting some love for being the best mom ever.

Something Gross

Last night Landon emerged from the bathroom and said, "I just peed on the cat." The story he's trying to sell me is that the cat jumped up on the toilet rim between Landon's legs and his "pee stream" hit the cat in the head. It wouldn't surprise me if Landon was bored and aimed at the cat, who is very intrigued by the toilet right now. Landon took the cat and washed his head in the sink, but the cat still smells like urine, if you ask me.

Another Fun Saturday

This is Lauren and Emma playing jumprope in the house. This is a pretty unedited video, so forgive the poor quality.

Enrichment Night

Last night was our big quarterly enrichment night/RS birthday celebration dinner. Being the counselor over enrichment in my ward, I was kind of in charge of making sure it all came together. I was pretty stressed about it, even though we have a good committee and I really didn't have anything to stress about. As usual (whenever I'm on an enrichment committee), somehow I ended up setting up all 14 tables and all 96 chairs by myself. Whatever! At least it's over now. We had taco salads with shells made by Taco Time--they'll make taco salad bowls in large quantities if you pre-order them. We had a great slide show with pictures of ladies in the ward and then we assigned 7 sisters to speak on the acronym S.I.S.T.E.R.S., each person selecting a word that starts with their assigned letter, having to do with sisterhood. Let's just say there was plenty of cheese to go around.
I wanted to show pictures of the decorations, for any of you who are responsible for decorating for an event whether it's RS or YW or whatever, I thought our decoration person did an amazing job. So simple, but very effective.
The decorations were black/white bags with colored tissue paper in each bag. We put black plastic table covers cut in half on each white tablecloth. We put a RS quiz and nametag at each place setting so the ladies could do something before the dinner started. Each table represented a month of the year and the ladies had to sit at their birthday table, which everyone hated, but they got to know new people.This is the food table, before the food showed up. We had volunteers sign up to bring cupcakes, so that was dessert.This was the little party favor at the end. It's just a RS bookmark with candies inside a cellophane bag with a ribbon on top.

Lauren's Birthday Plans

Lauren's 8th birthday is next Tuesday, so we're having her birthday party this Saturday. In our family, the kids get a birthday party on their 5th and their 8th birthdays. Lauren wants to take her friends to Leo's Place in Idaho Falls, which is a pizza place with a big indoor playground and arcade. She is so excited! We made the invitations last night. She distributed them at school today very discreetly, so no feelings were hurt. She said she took her invitees under the slide to give them their invitations during recess, and slipped one invitation to a girl under the table at breakfast.
Random Lauren thing: She calls Landon "Todd" now. This is a derivative of "Daddy--Dad-Dodd-Todd"

Lick It For 10

I DVR'd "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" last night, because I'm a Jimmy Fallon fan and wanted to see his new show. Well, there is a game he played with the audience called "Lick It For 10." Basically, he gives 10 bucks to audience members if they lick something he tells them to lick. I was telling Landon about it today at lunch, and he said, "I can't think of anything I wouldn't lick for 10 dollars." We shared a good laugh over that one.

Weekend in Utah

So we went to Utah this weekend to visit Kristen and her family, as well as Jane and her family. I'm going crazy in Rexburg. Sometimes I need to get out of here and clear my head. It's so ugly and cold here and I needed to go south for some warmer temperatures. We had a great weekend. The girls played on the Luke's trampoline non-stop, and I laughed my butt off at Jane's house. We stayed the first night at Kristen's. We were able to watch the first 3 episodes of Survivor on Kristen's high-speed internet, since we have Dish and Dish Network is in a dispute with Fisher Broadcasting, so we no longer receive CBS. (We've been missing Survivor and it's been traumatizing for us. We realized on the drive down to Utah that Landon has cable TV at school and we can start recording Survivor every Thursday at his school and watch it on Friday at home.) We had fun playing with Oliviana and visiting with Kristen and Manase Friday night. Saturday we went to the Orem mall with Kristen and Oliviana (Nase had a rugby tournament in St. George) and met Jane and her kids there. The Lukes gave each of my kids a Build a Bear for their birthdays, so we were able to do that while we were at the mall. We made it back to Jane's house and just hung out and talked and laughed while the kids played. Landon went back to Kristen's and did some homework. Kristen, baby and Landon came back to Jane's house for dinner which was amazing! She made Cafe Rio pork tacos! We loved it so much, we stopped at Winco on our way back to Rexburg and bought a pork roast so we can make it at home. The drive home on Sunday was pretty uneventful, but we did stop at IKEA and enjoy a plate of meatballs before hitting the road.

Playing with Oliviana, Friday night.Catching up on Survivor."Riding" a virtual-reality roller coaster ride at the arcade at the mall. It was super fun. Emma and Lauren making their new Build a Bears with their BFFs at the mall.

We stopped at the Draper Temple real quick to take a picture before hitting IKEA.

IKEA is one of our favorite places to go. Eating meatballs is a big part of the joy.

Emma, sleeping off the fun.

Fun with a Horse

Jane made a "horse" for John to hunt geese with. (John made the steel frame for it.) He and a buddy get inside the horse and sneak up on geese and blow them away when they least suspect it. While we were visiting, Jane got out the horse to show us. I told her she should offer to put it on display at JoAnns. Playing around with Jane's horse was the hardest I've laughed in months. Definitely a highlight of our trip to Utah.

This horse has the most sturdy set of legs I've ever seen.

This is the talented creator of the life-like hunting horse.

Here I am, cutting loose at Jane's house with a horse head.