Words of wisdom

"Don't try to save an egg from falling by smashing it against the counter......

It doesn't work very well."

... Carly

Valentine boxes: 2nd generation

In years past, Carly & Rachel set a pretty high standard for making Valentine boxes which they only do here in 4th, 5th & 6th grade. Sometimes the classes have contests with prizes and sometimes they don't.

Samantha wanted to make a Valentines castle. This is a scaled down version of something I saw in (you guessed it..) Family fun magazine several years ago and ripped out and saved in my little book of someday projects.

It took a few days to put together. We started collecting boxes. We sat down one Friday night and cut and glued and made a basic floorplan. Several days the next week we refined and trimmed and adjusted til we had the final product ready to be painted. The painting took less time than I thought it would. We sat down one night for about an hour and got it all done. She took some time the next day to add some detail with foam stamps.

She won the prize for most valentine-y.

(and best hat)

Jacob wanted to recreate Carly and Rachel's prizewinning hot air balloon box. He didn't have the kissing Ken that Carly had to clinch her win but we had fun figuring out how to do sandbags and weaving the paper into the design around the box.

We filled water balloons with salt and tied them to the sides. I rushed out Monday morning to buy the balloon and he used his Playmobil guy to stand guard with an instructive sign. He didn't win because a girl in his class made a pretty impressive grand piano box. I saw it. It was seriously detailed.

We practiced the phrase "well, it's not all about winning!"

a lot.

Valentine Faux Pas

I made my traditional Valentine's day breakfast again this year. The food is never the same, I do whatever sounds good in the weeks leading up. Sometimes it's simple, sometimes it's more involved.

what is the same is that I use glass dishes, candles and try to be "fancy".

Valentines Breakfast 2o11 menu:

Breakfast casserole (not one of those bread ones!)

Mandarin oranges

Sausage

cranberry/pomegranate juice

Orange juice

cinnamon/sugar mini muffins

Breakfast Casserole:

20-24 oz frozen hash browns (I added some from another bag, so I did more like 32 oz)

1/4 c butter

3 c sausage, bacon, or ham, cooked (I did ham)

3 c shredded cheese (I used colby Jack)

1/2 c half and half

6 eggs (I used 8 eggs)

1/2 tsp seasoning salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Spray 9 x 13 dish with non stick cooking spray. Add has browns, brush with butter and brown in oven for 20-25 minutes. Layer sausage bacon or ham and cheese over cooked hash browns. Beat together cream, eggs, salt and pepper and pour mixture over casserole. Return to oven and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes uncovered.

(I cooked it at 400º the first 30 minutes and then lowered it to 350º after I added the eggs)

Rachel does not like eggs and I didn't know how strong the egg flavor would be in the casserole so I made her a little one without eggs. She LOVED it, ate the whole thing, and made another one Monday after school and writing up the altered recipe for her recipe book.

I fried up sausage links, making half of them into these hearts from my favorite friend "Family fun Magazine" That's an uncooked fettucini noodle skewering the halves together and the arrow parts are made of what else? cheese!

I had an Amish friendship bread start that needed to be made up that day so I turned part of it into mini muffins.

The breakfast casserole was such a big hit it may turn into an annual thing.

I found an idea for scratch & win valentines on this blog; "Let me count the ways" They were so easy.

I made all mine for Macey's ice cream cones. The scratch off spots said "small", "medium" and "king kong". I put the sizes all in different orders on the cards and used silly little rhymes that had something to do with ice cream.

"I scream, you scream, then we make up. That's the best part"

"I scream you're the coolest kid on the block"

"You're a twist of every good thing!"

"Rose are red, violets are blue

vanilla is sweet and so are you",

and so on....

I told them all before they scratched off their heart, "this is all in fun. There is no complaining. You get what you get and if you complain or scratch off more than one, you get nothing!"

They were all good sports and made it fun. Mark and Rachel got King Kongs and the rest got medium. I'm glad nobody got the small all by themselves. That would have been sad. We went that night after Mark got home from work to get our ice cream.

My faux pas moment came in my other valentines.....

I had a little sweet for all my sweethearts.

For Rachel & Carly I had valentine Junior Mints

For Jacob, Samantha & Mason I had valentine Airheads

For Mark, I had Townhouse crackers and squeeze cheese.

Again, I had to write a silly little rhyme for each of them.

For the big girls I had written "you were MINT to be my daughter. Please be Mine for eternity"

For the little 3 I had written "I'm no airhead, I'm lucky to have you for a son/daughter. Please be mine for eternity"

For Marks, I had written "In a Townhouse or in a tent, loving you is Easy Cheesy. Please be mine for 19 more years." We had been talking some the past week about how our 19th anniversary was coming up in April and so I was thinking in terms of we had spent 19 years together already and wanted to have that much more.

He looked at his and then looked over at the kids valentines whereupon I had asked them to "be mine for eternity" and started teasing me about only wanting 19 more years with him to which Carly quipped

"Maybe 19 more years with you IS an eternity to her"

On my lunch hour I called him and said "I just called to say I love you" and he said "good, cuz we only have 18 more years!"

I don't think I'm ever going to live this down....

I did try to make it up to him that afternoon by

sending him a singing valentine.

One of the local high schools hires out their Senior choir to sing to your valentine so at 3:30 he's sitting at his desk and in walks about 8 girls in red dresses and ask for Mark. When he indicates he is indeed the man they're looking for they make a semi-circle around him and start singing "Falling for you". I came in right after they left and he was laughing and said "I don't get embarrassed but I got embarrassed!"

I would really like to have him around longer than 19 years......

I think I could handle eternity with him.

(I wonder if there are suitcases to put away in heaven....)

He makes me laugh when I'm mad

He's generally the first one to apologize after a disagreement

He makes me feel safe

He pushes me to think differently about things.

He makes me laugh.

Is Popcorn your Preference?

There are 6 dances at Carly's high school every school year.

3 boy-ask-girl and 3 girl-ask-boy.

There was a semi-formal girl-ask-boy dance this month called Preference. At first Carly decided she wasn't going to go. Most of her friends weren't planning on it and she didn't have enough $......

Then 2 of her not-as-close friends talked to her about joining their preference group and they had a not too expensive plan for dinner and date and even an idea of who she could ask and they changed her mind.

This was the first time she has gone out on a date with a boy I don't know, a boy out of her regular group of friends. He's a senior and she knows him pretty well from the few drama productions she's done this year and last.

This is how she decided to ask him.....

First she ding-dong-ditched leaving this tub of butter & note on his porch.....

Then 10 minutes later she ding-dong-ditched again, leaving this giant bag of popcorn and note indicating he'd have to dig through the butter to find out the identity of who was asking him out. In the butter she had placed laminated notes saying "keep going", "you're almost there" etc. When he got to the bottom of the butter tub there was a note saying "oops! I meant the buttered popcorn!" So then he'd have to dig through the buttered popcorn to find 5 little laminated squares with "C", "A", "R", "L", "Y" on them and unscramble them to figure out who was asking.

She did this on a Wednesday and no answer came on Thursday, no answer came on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. She was starting to get a little worried. Did he want to go? If not fine but give me an answer!!!!! No answer came on Monday, Tuesday.....

She started asking her friends to do some digging, find out if he wants to go with me or not.

The word came back...

Yes, he wants to go with you.

I was starting to get really annoyed with this kid I didn't know who was keeping my daughter waiting for an answer! How rude!!!

Then she came home from play rehearsal on Thursday pretty happy with popcorn kernels in her hair. "He answered me and it was epic!"

A friend told her she needed to go out to the front of the school with her to "see something". When she walked out of the front doors there was a giant box of popcorn sitting on the sidewalk. She didn't know what she was supposed to do, there were quite a few people out watching... She walked up and knocked on the box and out flew popcorn everywhere and the boy in question: Royce

saying "yeah sure I'll go! why not?"

The box was dropped off in our front yard later that day and is now in our garage... what are we gong to do with it? I don't know but it's awful cute. He went to a lot of work and it made her happy so he has been redeemed in my eyes. I see now why it took so long!

There's always a "day date" and then the dance in the evening. One of the girls had plans all of saturday so the three couples had a date friday night and then dinner and the dance Saturday night. They had a Nerf war and war painted each other's faces. Then they went to some program at the high school called Mr. & Miss T. I still am not clear on what exactly that was. Then they went to "The chocolate" a dessert cafe for cookies and ice cream and back to one of the girls houses for games. All in their camouflage face paint...

Saturday night was the dinner and dance. I begged her to stop by and take pictures. She wasn't sure what time it would be. She made rolls and bought Caesar salad for their dinner. She went to her friend's house to get all primped up and get her hair curled. They picked up the boys and had dinner at one of the girl's houses and went to a park to take pictures. Mark and I had gone out to see Harry Potter 7 again and then shopping at Macey's so I was afraid I might have missed them. I didn't. Then I got worried they weren't coming by at all but they did. I got to shake hands with the boy and be introduced. I took a couple of pictures and gushed about how cute they were and they were off again.

awww... so cute.

on being a cat.......

When Rachel was a little girl I was amazed daily by her imagination and the way her mind worked because it was so clearly different from mine. I was always very grounded in reality. I have always been very aware of rules and boundaries and how they applied to me and have tried to remain carefully on the right side of them.

Rachel had this huge imagination, seeing life in colors and ideas I never even fathomed. She missed the boundaries, not because she willfully crossed them but because, boundary? what boundary? she didn't even know they were there.

One day we were in a toddler/mom stand-off and I came back with the classic "Because I am the mother!" and she flared right back, hands on hips "Well, I am Da Rachel!"

Carly was much like me, having a firm hold on reality and so Rachel was this complete new experience for me. And it was so much fun.

(Most of the time)

When she was about to turn 3 yrs old we started potty-training efforts. Carly had been an easy 3 day effort. After 3 days there was an occasional accident if she got playing too hard and waited too long but it was rare and so I thought that this easy 3 day effort was the potty-training norm. I had 4 more babies prove that Carly was the exception, not the rule. I feel bad now, having that experienced knowledge because I was a little impatient with Rachel who came right after Carly.

One day I was changing her diaper, trying to interest her in being more grown-up, wearing panties and keeping them dry, etc. I was trying to use a little psychology on her.......

me: "Rachel; Babies wear diapers and big girls wear panties. Do you want to be a baby or a big girl????

Rachel: "I want to be a cat! Meow...."

well it's taken a few years

Rachel's jr. high choir was invited to participate in "An evening with Andrew Lloyd Webber" at a local high school. This was a huge production, more than a choir performance. Costumes and some dancing and some acting. It was pretty intense this last week, lots of rehearsal after school and 3 performances over Friday and Saturday but she had a great time. She needed to dress up like a cat and all on her own got an old pair of pajama pants and cut them up and got out my sewing machine and sewed little legwarmer bits and armwarmer bits. It was fun to see her so self-sufficient. She was so proud of her efforts and what she did all on her own. She got really into doing her cat makeup the last night of rehearsal and during the performances. She wondered if she had done a good job and her ego was fed a little bit as others asked them do do theirs after seeing her. She felt good about that. Her hair was big! I was able to go last night to the final performance and she was the cutest cat there! She was so expressive and into it and I loved watching her as I always do.

She continues to amaze and astound me.

She is, after all

Da Rachel!

what's your motto?

While shopping for new jeans for my 6th grader.....

We also found some cute hoodies clearance priced at $3.50. I couldn't pass that up so I spent some time trying to find one that would fit both Jacob and Mason. Because my big girls were at work/play practice and my little girl was at 4H afterschool club I ended up at Wal-mart with the boys. Both such a joy to shop with. If they're not fighting, they're complaining. If they're not complaining, they're running around hiding so I have to spend extra time finding them. If they're not running around hiding.....

Mason found a red jacket he liked and put the hood up and pushed up the sleeves to his elbows and kind of sauntered around, his hands tucked in his front pockets.

He said with a proper James Dean scowl on his face "does this look cool?"

"sure" I muttered absentmindedly while waiting for Jacob to try on the next pair of size 16 jeans (do you know by the way that size 16 is the last BOYS size jeans and then I will have to go to the MEN's section???????)

"That's like my motto...."

"What is?"

" To always look cool," he replied.

Oh no.....

If he starts talking skinny jeans we're gonna have a fight. I will die on that hill.

A fix for frumpy sheets

I've had some sick days in the last couple of weeks. I was home with Samantha and Mason last week and decided to get going on a project I had heard about from a coworker. She was sharing how she had fixed her sheet problem.... you know the one that happens when your sheets are still in good shape except for the elastic has loosened up just enough that during the night they start popping up off the corners? She had tried those little clips that look like suspenders you see on endcaps at walmart and several other "quick fix" ideas that she'd seen in stores but nothing worked. So she came up with her own idea of sewing straps across the corners and it worked. I didn't have the webbing strap material she was talking about but I wondered if wide elastic would work just as well since I knew I had some odds and ends pieces of that lying around in my craft bins. It does! yea. So if you have had this problem and are tired of feeling the edges of your sheets curling around your toes during the night and fixing all the corners every morning then this idea is for you!

I put the sheet on my bed and then measured the elastic putting pins in the edges where I thought it would be best attached at. I took it off and hand-sewed them while I watched a good movie. I suppose I could have gotten out my sewing machine and done it faster but I always need an excuse for myself to sit down and watch a movie in the middle of the day instead of cleaning the fridge which has needed a thorough cleaning for about 3 year snow. Sorry mom. You have taught me better than that but it's just a job I hate!

That's what it looks like. I had 2 sheets to fix and not enough of that nice wide elastic so some of my corners have thinner elastic by more than half and it's working great. I love it. I really hated having frumpy. They are frumpy no more.

Cookie plans and Heavenly Father's plan for me ....by Mason

I had no excuse this week of not knowing about the talk til Saturday night....

I've known about it since last Sunday when he promptly gave me "I have been chosen to give a talk next week" paper right after primary.

I put it in the book I was reading to remind me to work on it every day. I didn't know the theme for the month so I thought every day.... "I need to call someone in the primary presidency to get the theme" The secretary's phone number was right on the paper.

I really had no excuse to wait til Friday or saturday to call her. ....but that's what I did.

Saturday afternoon, Mason and I sat down and discussed his talk. The theme was "Heavenly Father has a plan for me" He was not very helpful. He kept shrugging his shoulders and saying "I don't know... I don't know" So I got on the internet and found the primary program outline on LDS.Org.

I am so glad I have had experience serving in primary so I know how it all works and know how to support my kids. It has been a great blessing to me that I was called to be a counselor in primary the very year Carly turned 3 and entered primary. I have served almost exclusively in primary since that time. Other than 2 years in R.S callings I've been activity day leader, nursery leader twice and in 3 different primary presidencies. I really do love primary.

Anyway... I was talking about Mason, not me.

Something in the outline got me thinking about equating other kinds of plans with Heavenly Father's plan. The only kind of plan I could think of that Mason would relate to was a recipe. That got the ball rolling and from that point on, he was actively involved in the discussion and helped write his talk. I try really hard to help them write their own talks. I think it's easier to memorize and a better experience for them if they are involved and the talk is in their words.

This is not to say I don't do a lot of directing and some fine tuning. There's one line in his talk that he lifted right out of a primary song. See if you can find it.

I learned something interesting through this discussion and exercise of writing a talk. Mason does not understand as much as I thought he did. He is the youngest. It is easy to assume I have given him the same instruction I've given the others but somehow, I haven't.

He said to me as we talked, "well, it's kind of pointless I think". "what?" I asked. "Well, Heavenly Father sends us to earth to get a body so we get one and then we die and then our body is gone. That's kind of pointless"

I was really surprised he didn't understand about the resurrection. We talk about it every Easter when we talk about Jesus Christ's atonement, death and resurrection. I realized that I probably use wording designed for the older kids who have the foundation of understanding. So he's kind of lost trying to grasp a concept he doesn't have the foundation to grasp. I had a good talk with him trying to explain it but don't know for sure if he really understands. I know it won't ever be about one conversation but hopefully with this new awareness I'll try to help him understand better and be able to see other holes I've missed in his gospel learning.

Of course after we wrote the talk and practiced it several times....

we had to make cookies to really bring the principle home..

There are 2 parts to the video because he was going along really great and then lost his place and got frazzled. He motioned for me to turn the camera off. After he regrouped, I had him record the end because I knew it would be hard to get him to do the whole thing again because it was almost time to go to church and I was afraid we might forget after church. I was right...

We did however miss one line in the regrouping. he was supposed to say this but only said the first half...

I have a great plan for making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies but if I don’t follow it, they won’t turn out right. Heavenly Father has a great plan for me but if I don’t follow it I won’t receive his blessings.

He did well as he gave his talk in primary. I was able to sit in the back and watch him for the first time. Usually he has required me to stand next to him. It's both exciting and a little sad to be able to watch him do new things and to see that he is not as needful of me. With that last one, it's hard to not be needed.

So... here is Mason's primary talks. In 2 parts.( left side first)

Toilet paper tube valentines.... You're gonna want 'em too!

I am a long time believer in and subscriber to Family fun Magazine.

Great birthday cakes. Great craft ideas. Hours of fun for the whole family! I promise.

anyway.....

When I saw this idea in February 2011 I got really excited because.... Hello! toilet paper tubes are extremely plentiful in a house of 7. Paint, I got. Beads, I got. Embroidery floss, I got. I didn't even have to go to the store for a thing. I thought it turned out really cute. What do you think?

like a weed

These jeans are not supposed to be in a stack in my basement.

They are supposed to be in a drawer upstairs in Jacob's dresser lasting til the end of 6th grade.

They are in great shape.

Not a hole to be found but too tight... too short.....

He had 4 new pairs of jeans in September when school started. 2 pair from old Navy that looked the same, 2 pair from Target that looked the same.

One of his pairs of jeans got holes in the knees last week and so I knew he'd been wearing them every day and insisted this morning he take them off and throw them in the hamper as I was preparing to load the washing machine. He argued, saying he didn't have anything else to wear. I ignored his comments. I knew the pants he had on were size 14 and I knew the other 3 pair in his drawer were size 14 so whatever, GO GET YOUR OTHER JEANS ON!

He came down the stairs

(with a smug look on his face, I might add)

3 different times in 3 different pairs of size 14 jeans that were obviously TOO small.

He then explained that he had only been wearing the one pair since December or earlier when the others became uncomfortable.

I had no idea til the holes.

How is it that one pair of size 14's still fit while the others absolutely don't?

Mismarking?

stretch denim?

I don't know but I do know that we're going pants shopping this afternoon.

Hopefully these will last til the end of 6th grade....