Bend Out of Shape

I have this great friend 

Lynnae Boyer Weller.

She owns a little business called

Savannah Balloons.

You can learn more about her through her 

website or facebook page.

Her balloon skills are awesome.

Here is her version of

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I love it when people

can make our world

a better place

with their

amazing

artistic

abilities.

I wish I had more artistic abilities.

I plan to read

The Artist's Way

to explore

if there is something

I have been missing.

Remember I blogged about Lynnae's mom here.

I miss her mom,

she always made me smile.

I hope you all have a great green weekend.

I plan to make some shamrock

sugar cookies

clean house,

squeeze in a date with my hubby,

and enjoy

every last minute

or our last lazy Saturday

before Spring sports begin.

I wish you all the

luck of the Irish.

And just so you know

if you google

funny + st patricks day

you are going to

see a lot of stuff about beer

and even some naked redheads.

Momming

Did you know that there

are college degrees

in family science?

I never got it when I was younger.

Why would anyone

go to all that school

just to learn how to

be married and have a family?

Can't anyone do that?

Doesn't everyone do that?

I felt that those who majored

in family studies

were just doing so

because they wanted

an easy Bachelor's Degree.

Or they were looking

to build a resume

for their future spouse.

"Look at me,

I want to

spend eternity

in your kitchen."

The older I get,

and the more I attend

marriage counseling,

I am grateful for

the other suckers who

went through all the work

to help me to figure

out the complicated

parts that I never

understood back then.

And honestly: still don't.

But,

just like everyone else,

sometimes,

I get it right,

without any studying at all.

Sometimes I get it right

out of sure dedication

and practice.

In the kitchen,

I need no therapy.

I am the boss.

In one small area

I've got the momming down

to a science.

I'm a PHDmf.

People Hone Down

(my food)

Here is a photo

for evidence.

Tuesday afternoon

this is what my kitchen counter looked like

right before I headed

out to my real job.

(ha ha - we all know

momming is my real job)

white chicken chili, homemade bread,

and after-school cookies

Let me brag for a moment.

Just the other day,

while we were on our way to soccer

Abigail received a text

from a charming young man

with whom we attend church.

We had taken his family

some cookies the day before.

He said,

and I quote,

"I would marry you

just so I could get your mom

in the deal."

Fist pumps were had

all around.

This little exchange

made my day.

Add to the fact

that Abigail's boy buddy

at school

(who has learned to cook

out of sheer desperation

because his mom doesn't)

calls me

"the regular Rachel Ray."

And

The neighborhood

adolescents' each have

their own

favorites of mine

whether it be

pumpkin bread,

rolls,

cinnamon rolls,

chocolate chip cookies,

cake pops,

homemade bread,

pizelles,

or pizza.

Yeah I screw up

in the momming

category

often.

But today I just want to take

 a moment to scream from my laptop:

"Guess what?

When it comes to

momming,

all it takes

is some skill in the kitchen!"

Momming comes naturally.

It comes best

while wearing an apron.

You can't learn it at college.

The reason any food is good

is because

the cooking of it has been

practices and practiced

and mixed,

and spooned,

and baked,

with LOVE

til it reaches

the status of

perfection.

God had it all figured out.

He gave us plenty of time

to get it right while they are young

and didn't know any different.

By the time

they just want to hang out with their friends

the moms who have put

in the most

hours

WIN!

They can't resist bringing

their friends home

for some down home food.

They don't know it

but they are all getting 

some good old momming

all of the time.

Every bite

includes a

subliminal message

"drugs are bad"

"believe in yourself"

"I love you"

"I'm always here for you"

I might still have a bunch

of stuff to figure out, 

but when I think of

my success in the kitchen,

I know

that even

without a college degree

I'm doing pretty good.

It's not that complicated.

It's called I love my kids

enough to cook for them.

No matter how else I screw up,

I know one thing.

As long as I feed everyone

til I die

I'll always

keep them coming

back for more.

Did I mention

that my girls

have all been fighting

over who gets

which  recipes of mine when they

get married?

I told them I would

make them each their own

recipe box.

Maybe I won't have to cook til I die

after all.

Thank goodness.

Fellowship

I just put this little diddy

together

as I am going

visiting teaching

today.

I made it in Microsoft Word

but couldn't get it

the same in Paint,

but I guess

it's close enough

for you to the get the picture.

I am now off on my run

and I will be pondering

this month's

visiting teaching message

about

conversion.

The quote above

by

Elder Ballard

is the part

I liked the most.

Fellow-shipping

is tricky

when you live in

the state of Utah

and I am ashamed to

say that I have

kind of given up

on making friends.

I am going to try harder.

I also loved the quote by

President Hinckley

 “we must make an increasingly substantial effort to assist them as they find their way. Every one of them needs three things: a friend, a responsibility, and nurturing with ‘the good word of God’.

Back in the days

when I was the

President

of the

Relief Society

this was the theme

of our work.

We wanted

all the sisters in our ward

to have

1- a friend,

2- a responsibility,

and

3 - nourishment with the

good word of God.

I miss the days

when I got to serve

alongside

other women in

the Relief Society.

Those are some

of my most

cherished

friendships

and I find

that I don't make

as many friends

when I am stuck

in a church calling that

is fully autonomous.

New Year

In Utah,

we've had some record colds

for the past week.

I've loved all the snow.

I don't think Olive has though.

Check out her water

frozen over.

We've all been enjoying our

Christmas gifts.

Caroline is up to her same antics.

But like her shirt says,

she is the best present ever

so it's o.k. that

she's spoiled rotten.

Right?

Notice that Santa

did bring the girl

all she wanted.

Make-up and nail polish.

Sophia finally got a fijit (she's wanted it for 2 years
and Santa found it on sale at Target for $15.)
Caroline with her make-up case.
 She has carried it around the house with all her treasures.
Bella with her FurReal Pets.
Abigail with her combat boots. Katniss style.

My favorite gift you ask?

It is a 50/50 toss up between

my pizelle maker

that I asked for on pinterest

and

the diamond earrings

that LG

picked out

all by myself.

But my favorite of all was this purse.

I've been looking for the perfect purse for 3 years.

LG and I spotted this at TJMaxx a week after Christmas

but it was $100 so I put it back.

LG went back to the store

on his own accord and

surprised me with it for no reason at all

on New Year's Eve.

He said it is my

"the party is over" purse.

That means I'll have it to enjoy

when I go back to living on a

non-Christmas bonus budget.

It makes me so happy every time I see it.

I love this photo from Christmas.

Abigail thought that Bella's present was awesome.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is

taking the girls to the Dollar Tree and letting them shop.

It always proves to be entertaining.

I justify the expense by only letting them shop

for a select few and by

not doing stockings.

Oh yeah, this post was supposed to be about New Year.

Well, we had a great New Year.

We got to be reunited with our good friends

The Varnon Family

from Knoxville TN.

They were bringing Jordan out

for his first semester of college

and stayed with us a few days.

That's Jordan.

The kid figured out that he can dominate

at Just Dance4 by only moving his arm.

Yeah, our family room is not made for 13 people,

but cozy is how we prefer to do things around here.

I suck at dancing.

But man I'm looking fit,

even with that layered looking

hanging all out.

Isn't Caroline the cutest?

She's a great dancer.

So are all these girls.

Of course we took the obligatory outoftowners

sightseeing trip to

Temple Square.

Here are two of my favorite photos.

I wish I had more time to play with  my camera.

Here are the Varnon's

in front of the historical

Salt Lake Temple.

And here they are

in the Conference Center.

We stopped in at the church's

Historical Museum.

They have a pretty great kids' wing.

LG was pretty sick that day.

What a trooper.

I'm always amazed at how

some of my favorite pictures

are the spontaneous ones.

I sure love these kids.

Oh yeah,

we have rung in the New Year

 with the Varnon's

every year but 2011 for about 10 years.

We missed our other

partners in crime

The Ryan family.

I am pretty certain

this year was the best.

The photo says it all.

We did some other fun stuff

while the Varnon's were here.

We went up to see

Bridal Veil Falls.

We saw a funny movie.

(Highly recommend Here Comes the Boom).

We went to BYU.

We checked out Deseret Industries.

And last but certainly not least,

we went sledding.

If you made it this far in the post,

you are our true friends

and you are invited

to come and crash at our house

past the 3 day

fish and family stink

rule

any time.

Happy New Year y'all.

We love you Varnon family.

Hope you still love us

after spending that much time at our house.

Where Jesus Eats

My friend Amanda is an amazing person. I mean an AMAZING person. I feel so privileged that not only did our paths cross while I lived in Tennessee, but that we became good friends. She, like many other Tennesseans, is exceptionally spiritual and extraordinarily kind.

Back in the beginning of 2012 (yes this post has been sitting in my inbox for that long) Amanda won a contest put on by a local radio station.

"What would she do with 500 chicken

 sandwiches from Chick-Fil-A?" 

Her winning answer will tell you much more about the kind of person Amanda is than I ever could.

"Distribute them to the homeless in Knoxville."

It was no surprise that her answer won from all the entries. Chick-fil-A is well known as a Christian establishment and I am sure whoever chose the winner of the contest, chose correctly in Amanda. The homeless population is extremely high in K-town.

Here is a photo from back in February, of Amanda's three kids handing out sandwiches. 

Amanda explained to me that she had romanticized the whole thing thinking she could pray with each individual and tell them that people cared about them.

Instead her mini-van was mobbed until every last scrap was gone (including her kids lunchbox leftovers) in only a minute and that they were then asked to leave by The Salvation Army who informed them that they were breaking some kind of law.

Amanda and I exchanged an e-mail the other day. I wanted to make sure she was still o.k. with me writing about her experience after all the backlash Chick-Fil-A had received lately. Here is her response,

"Thanks for reminding me of promises, I'd made 6 months ago. It's so easy to let our personal busy take over and not do good on the follow-through. I don't mind a bit if you blog about it and I'm not worried about any backlash. God's got this and He will get all the glory. What we did with Chick-Fil-A was not a publicity or political statement it was a chance to love on people in a very real, practical way." I just LOVE that Amanda. I love how much she cares for others. I love how much she gives her life to others. I love that she is always actively looking for ways to help others and that she goes around constantly making promises to God, even if it will be hard to keep them. I love it that her "fail" is mightier than anyone else's "success."

Real quick I wanted to share a funny story that Amanda told me:

This weekend I was privileged to spend 3 days with our Middle School Ministry at our church.  We had this incredible speaker, Acton Bowen.  Acton is a past youth minister, speaker, and Christian correspondant for Fox News.  He was talking about meeting with one of his friends who was a member of the Black Ops team in the US Armed forces and telling of his many missions.  Acton said that they met at Chick-Fil-a which is "where Jesus eats".

You all can hate on a place because of their stance on gay marriage, that is your prerogative, but please realize that this restaurant is a lot like Amanda. They are always doing a whole lot of good. Oh, and their food is also like Amanda too:
A - MAZ - ING!

Here are a few other good recent news stories about Chick-Fil-A.

Here is a recent car-line in Waynesboro, VA taken by my cousin Jarrett. Chick-fil-A had committed a good portion of their profits to the family of Ethan Blevins, who had recently passed from leukemia complication.

How about the time they opened their doors with free meals to police officers after the Colorado movie theater shootings?

As for me? I love my gay friends. I truly do.
But I want to eat where Jesus eats
and I hope they can be o.k. with it.

For some chick-fil-a funny,
check out this old post.

True Joy

Evan and Leah Wampler are friends of ours in Kingsport, TN.

They had little baby Liam a while back.

He weighed just a pound and has been confined to the NICU

for many long weeks

as he grows strong enough to meet the outside world.

Our prayers have been mighty on behalf of Liam

and we have been so pleased that

by the grace of God he has grown and developed.

The wonderful world of facebook 

has kept us updated every step of the way.

Leah posted this picture the other day.

It had the caption

Evan feeding Liam with a bottle for the first time.

It struck me profoundly.

What a beautiful beautiful moment.

How many times have I fed my four children

and never gave it a moment's notice?

This photo so perfectly depicts 

one of the way God works in our mortal journey.

It's a hard lesson to swallow

yet so necessary:

God lets us suffer

so that we can truly enjoy the non-suffering.

If we didn't know the pain,

we couldn't enjoy the joy.

I am so grateful for all the hard times I have endured

because those hard times

make my normal and even somewhat insignificant life

seem like such a miracle every day.

Thank you God

for my trials

and for Liam.

Toddler survival

Last Sunday, we found out last minute that it was one of Caroline's nursery teacher's birthday. 

(Is that too many possessives in one sentence?)

Anyway, you know how we feel about Sabbath worship, so we couldn't go to the store to get her a gift.

While having my Sunday nap, I woke up to an idea for a gift. I scrounged around the house to find appropriate pieces and made a homemade batch of cookies to include.

I thought the gift turned out cute even though it was completely made from stuff we found around the house.

And let's face it, we all could use some tricks up our sleeves to survive the toddler years.

Holly Wreath Cookies

Thanks to Donna for doing a virtual cookie swap. How much fun is that?
Anyone can join including you, so go check it out.

I am honored to be her first feature
with a long-standing family tradition cookie called
Holly Wreath Cookies.

Oh the memories of buttered up hands and brothers grabbing all the red hots first.
I don't know how my mom put up with all of us.

Before I give you the recipe, let me direct you to Donna's funniest recent blog post about what not to ask black people. Donna is black just in case you were wondering what makes her the expert.

Here is the recipe for those of you who like your cookies made from dirty little fingers.

Holly Wreath Cookies

1 Cube Real Butter
1 Bag Large Marshmallows
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 tsp Almond Extract
6 cups corn flakes
Lots of green food coloring
Red Hots if desired

First make sure you grease a few large pieces of wax paper prior to preparing cookies. We use Pam to spray the wax paper but mom always used butter or margarine.

In a large stock pot melt the butter. Add marshmallows, vanilla and almond extracts and stir until all marshmallows are melted. Be careful to not burn the mixture. Remove from heat and add green food coloring to bring mixture to a forest green color. It takes quite a bit but it definately looks better than avacado green when you use just a little.

When mixture is a good shade of green add the corn flakes. Fold the flakes into the mixture to avoid crushing the flakes. When flakes are sufficiently green scoop out approxiamtely 1 1/2 cups of flakes onto wax paper. Have kids rub their hands with butter and form the flakes into wreath shapes. Add red hots and let cool.

Another Holiday Give Away

Remember my friend Lori who won the half-tee and I asked her to give me something free.

Well, she is trying her hardest to oblige.
You're welcome everyone for putting the giveaway idea in her head.

This post is my 1 in 4 chance at winning one of her adorable and quite famous pillows.
I don't usually do this much work so that tells you how much I want one for FREEE!

Go here for your chance to win.

Halloween

I guess I better get these Halloween photos up
before Thanksgiving gets here.

Our girls got some killer deals
at K-mart on their costumes.
Sometimes it pays to be late.
50% off plus another 20% off coupon.
Then I got another discount on Abigail's
because we had to sew a strap on.
I told the girls that we would only spend $5 on each of them.
They gladly subsidized with their own money
so they didn't have to make their own costumes.
I think we spent a total combined of $30.

I can't say that I was disappointed
since making our own costumes
would require my help.

I was going to dress Caroline up

as Shirley Temple

but she barely cooperated

for wings,

so what would have been the point?

Have I told you how much of a handful this kid is?

I wonder where she gets it from?

We dumped Caroline back at home with dad

after knocking on the condos

close to home.

Here are the girls out about in the neighborhood

with our two friends Natassja and India.

It seems we should live somewhere more exotic

than Utah

when we have friends with names like that.

I just loved this shot with the pumpkin.

Notice that we use pillowcases

for carrying Halloween candy.

It's what my mom used to make us do

when we were kids

and the tradition has stuck.

Best costume of the evening.

Obama and his Secret Service agents.

These boys are awesome.

My girls enjoyed following them around the neighborhood

on our perfect weathered evening.

We got a whole lot of candy.

I enjoyed taunting Obama at every door

that us Utahns only give our candy to Republicans

who work for their own stuff.

I'm silly like that.

Guest Post - Jenny - School Lunches

Hi everyone, I am Jenny Lynn from simply family and designing for home. Alice and I go way back to a time when we were goofy teens. In fact I spent many summer nights trying to Tee Pee her house, only to have her mom catch me in the act. Which meant I had to clean it up. Of course I was not alone in this act, it usually involved a Young Woman’s leader driving and a sleep over. We grew up in the same ward. It has been so fun to be in touch with her again.

The last four years I have been working in an elementary school. Part of my job besides being an aide includes working in the lunchroom as a guard. Really I spend my time doing mommy type things, like cleaning up spills, giving reminders about table manners, cleaning up their own mess when done and so much more. After spending so much time in the lunchroom I started to notice a few things, that maybe other moms would love to know. This year on my family blog I have started sharing my Lunchroom tips once a week. Alice has given me a chance to share with you a few of those tips.

1. Please put both the child’s name and the teacher’s name somewhere on the lunch box. When a lunch box is found, if it has the teachers name on it, it makes it easier to either place it in the right lunch bucket or get it to the right classroom.

2. Fruit, what to do to make them eat their fruit. Well, a little container of fruit dip goes a long way. Also make sure those apples are cut up. Little ones, first graders especially still have a hard time eating the skins of apples due to loose teeth. Recently I have seen some children with cut up peaches, which in turn other children are begging for just a small piece of. Bananas don’t get eaten as well as you would think. They seem to be the perfect fruit for a home lunch. Well, they don’t always look that appealing after sitting in a lunch box all morning. kind of warm, and bruised from being bonked around as the child swings that lunch box around. I think you get the picture. Bananas and apples are the most thrown out fruit I see each day.

3. Do they eat everything you pack? No! Even if they tell you that they do most likely they empty what they could not finish right into the trash. They are not always eating everything that gets packed. Decided with your child a head of time what they should do with the food they don’t feel like eating at lunch time. Most children don’t want to upset their mothers because of the expectation of having to eat everything. There are days when a snack is brought into the classroom and eaten before lunch time. Leaving them too full to eat everything you have lovingly packed. Keep this in mind on party days, those thanksgiving meals, or other special days, etc.

4. Look at the lunch menu to see what is being served ahead of time. Then plan what days your child will be eating at school or bringing a lunch. We do this at our house. My 6th grader has loved packing her own home lunch this year.

5. Which brings me to this, please involve your child in planning their home lunches. There are so many wonderful ideas out there on how to pack the perfect home lunch. This is a perfect time to build up those communication skills with your children. Although it seems like a small thing, talking about what they like is important. I have even been doing this more with my children, of whom I have 5

6. Trading does take place at lunch,. Hot trade items include Capri suns, goodies (of course), Gogurts and chips. There are times that my children have planned a day a head of time what they are going to be trading. I have let them do it.

7. Cutest thing I see is the love notes that are written in a merriment of different ways. Many times I will have a child show me his/hers mothers love. There are times I read it to them. It really does mean something to your child. It doesn’t need to be everyday. But once in a while it is a nice surprise for them.

I do have many other things I plan on sharing in the weeks to come on my own blog about the lunchroom. I am so grateful to Alice for giving me the chance to post here.