Despite the lack of posts, we have not run off and joined the circus.

Some of us are working on our qualifications, though! More on that later...

So, yeah, life is passing us by and I feel bad that I haven't kept up. I have huge virtual piles of pictures to sort through and it is overwhelming, but (thanks to my friend Christine who gave me some good advice and encouragement) I will stop thinking I need to blog about EVERYTHING  I have missed and give you the Reader's Digest version. Short, sweet, and hopefully with a joke. (I love the jokes. They are the first sections I read when there is a RD in the doctor's office.)

Summer is home! Woohoo! She is just so wonderful to have around :)  She finished winter semester at the end of April. Rachel, Jillian, a friend from our ward, and I drove up to Provo, stayed a couple of nights and brought her home. It was so fun for me to see her apartment, meet her friends and go to church with her. Here she is at a birthday party for one of her roommates last fall.

Summer is doing well; getting good grades and happily changing her major on a regular basis. Her current thought is a major in wildlife biology, pending how she feels about doing field work with her dad while she is home. Sadly for me, but a good thing for her, she will be heading back to Provo at the end of June. She has a great job (the best job in the universe, really) working at the Harold B. Lee library in the Book Repair Unit. I worked there when I went to BYU and she even has the same boss. She doesn't have to take  classes and can work full time during summer term.

I am enjoying her while I have her. We have been hanging out together, chatting all day, and have a couple of projects we are working on together to get ready for my sisters wedding later this month. Summer is a bridesmaid and we are making her dress together. I am making Sara's guest book, which Summer will help with. She has been helping with a LOT, actually, cooking dinners (she's cooking in the picture below), making lunches and helping herd kids.

Here is a picture of Rachel in the prom dress I sewed for her. She made the bow and sash. She wore turquoise high heels and her friend Lina's sister, Jen, made her a corsage. Sorry about having to look sideways!

Here she is with her friend Lily. They were both on the prom court because of their class rankings. Lily is ranked 4th and Rachel is 6th.

Rachel made it into every school she applied to, including BYU, UCLA, Berkeley, Penn State, UC Santa Barbara and University of the Pacific. The 1st three on that list were the ones she was seriously considering, so she toured each campus. I went with her to UCLA. The school spirit at that place was amazing. At least a third of the students had UCLA shirts on. We ate at the dorm cafeteria and the food was pretty good! After the tour, I asked Rachel what she thought and her comment was, "They all look so smart! I'm smart, but I try really hard not to look smart."

Berkeley flew her up to tour their campus. She came back sure she didn't want to go there, "The food in the cafeteria was horrible and everyone looked weird."

She, Jillian, and I toured BYU the weekend that we picked Summer up. By then, because she was offered a scholarship, she was pretty set on BYU and touring the campus was great. She left feeling excited for when she goes in the fall.

We looked at the different dorms and ate in the cafeteria. After the pronouncements about UCLA students all looking smart and Berkeley students all looking weird, I asked what BYU students looked like to her. She said, "Mormon."

One funny thing happened while we were there. I took Rachel and Jillian to see the apartment complex where I lived and where Stan and I met. No one was in the office, so I just knocked on the door of one of the apartments I lived in and asked if I could show my daughter what they looked like. Some nice coeds let us in and then one of them looked at me and said, "You're the pants lady!" She went to got get another girl from the back of the apartment and said, "It's the pants lady!"

I had some floral jeans on and they had seen me on campus that day and liked my pants so much they were tempted to yell at me out their car window. Instead, I made a personal visit to their apartment. What are the odds at school with 34, 000 students?!?

Heather is just finishing up her freshman year of high school and is getting straight A's. I went to her art class earlier in the year to teach bookbinding to 34 kids and have an even greater appreciation for teachers than ever. Part of Heather wishes she could quit going and home school, but I am glad she is sticking it out because her school has some really dedicated, excellent teachers. She did request online PE and French for next year, which would mean she could leave at noon, which I am hoping is the perfect balance of in and out of public school for her.

Heather amazes me constantly with her skill in everything creative. Her artwork is lovely. She has been getting into mail art and does especially delicate watercolors. She is daring and skilled at cooking (which we are all enjoying the fruits of) and regularly asks to use my sewing machine.

She loves animals with a passion and is happiest when she has a dog sitting job. We are hoping to have her take horseback riding lessons in the town next to us this summer.

Gwen is our daredevil and the child most likely to really join the circus. We have an old telephone pole in our back yard, which she climbs and which I am in denial about. I don't like to think about her climbing it because I always imagine her crumpled at the bottom, but Stan thinks letting her take controlled risks is good. I just asked him how tall it was and she yelled from the other room, "Twenty six feet and one inch! We measured it." Eek!

Gwen is in the middle school orchestra and plays the violin. She got straight A+'s on her last progress report. She is fascinated with skeleton keys and is planning on starting a collection.

She starts high school in the fall and has signed up for PE Tennis, which I think I am more excited about than she is, but I hope she will have fun with it. She and I went to a park with tennis courts yesterday and played for a while, then went to Dairy Queen to eat ice cream and cool off.

Kelly has a birthday this week.  She wants binoculars, books, an orange ball, a nerf gun, candy and fancy pens. For Christmas, she got some fine tip markers and a sketchbook and has been using them a lot. She is following in her mother's footsteps with an love for art supplies :)

She is doing well in school, plays the piano and the cello and always cheers us up with her big smile and infectious laugh.

Michael was baptized last fall. Now that he is eight years old, he is going to Cub Scouts and he loves it. He gets to spend time with boys, doing guy things. Pretty cool. The pinewood derby was a couple of months ago and he and Stan had fun getting his car ready. Stan pulled out his old pinewood derby car to brush up on how to do the wheels and stuff (don't you love my technical language?). Michael traced his design on his block of wood and Stan sawed off the big chunks, then showed Michael how to carve and sand the rest. Michael painted it his favorite color, stuck on his number 8 stickers and was ready to go.

While he didn't win the derby (complicated rules I don't remember), his was the fastest car that night. Let me tell you, it was thrilling!

Michael and Naomi are homeschooled, which means I can take them to Coach Nash's classes. He is a great guy :) Michael took baseball a few months ago and he and Naomi just finished track and field.

Speaking of track and field class, here is Naomi throwing the javelin with excellent form. The younger kids in the class used these foam javelins, but the teenagers used the real, Olympic sized sharp ones, which meant each class got a lecture on safety with a couple of stories about athletes (not in Coach Nash's class) being impaled and having to pull their own javelin out and call 911. Coach says it is pretty fun to search "javelin mishaps" on youtube and watch all the violence. I skipped that bit of entertainment.

Naomi is fun, affectionate and, as we are trying to remember to call it, has leadership potential. She also loves to organize things, which is great. I feel like I won the lottery - my last child loves to organize? That means she can clean out all the stuff I have hoarded over the years when I get to old to use it. Woohoo!

While I am covering everyone, I should mention that we are all enamored of our little budgie, Montague Bodkin. He is talking more and more and now says, "What's cookin'?" in addition to "Pretty boy," and "I love you, Monty."

Stan and I are great, just truckin' along, raising kids and paying bills. Stan's book is selling, slowly but surely. I am looking forward to going to my sister's wedding in a week and a half. This picture is from a week ago, when the family went hiking for FHE.

Well, if you have made it all the way down to the bottom of this post, you deserve a joke, so here you go -

Q: What do you call two blondes in a closet?

A: Last year's hide-and-seek winners.

Happy Easter!

I sent my good looking family off to church, all the girls in skirts I sewed them. I am home with a cold, ready to head to bed with the Ensign to read about the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for Him and all He has done to make hope and happiness possible.

Dear Amy #2

Dearest Snotcicles,

You need to find a loosely knit scarf to wrap around your face to keep your nose warm, but that will still let you breathe. I think this will work...I imagine it will be effective...to tell you the truth I don't have any idea, because I live in Southern California where we think 46 degrees is FREEZING. Obviously we are all wimps, at least when it comes to cold weather.

My next best advice it to make up some really hot chocolate and hold it under your nose, enjoying the aroma while it cools off and you defrost as soon as you get inside!

Hoping you survive,

Amy

Meat Desserts

The missionaries came to dinner at our house on Monday night. Sunday, when I was talking to them about a time, I asked if either of them had food allergies or were vegan or whatever. One of them replied, "I'm a meatatarian."

I said, Okay, we'll have meat for dessert," and his companion, sounding very relieved, said, "Oh that's good! Then we won't be having ice cream. Ice cream makes me sick." (Oops, I think I might have forced ice cream on him last time he came.)

A quick search came up with a few recipes -

Chocolate Covered Bacon

Maple Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hamburger Brownies

I couldn't decide which one to make. I was strangely fascinated with all of them, so I made them all!

This is what the brownie batter looked like (I added chocolate chips) -

And this was what our dessert smorgasbord looked like -

 

1. Heather made some truffles and I put them out in case someone, out of the blue, became a vegetarian all of sudden...

2. dark chocolate covered bacon*

3. white chocolate covered bacon*

*I actually used compound coating because I had some and it is so easy to melt and dip.

4. bacon maple chocolate chip cookies - One of the reviewers suggested using bacon fat instead of butter. I did and the cookies worked great. I didn't used the whole two cups of bacon that the recipe called for. I ran out of patience with frying bacon after one pound. I saved the prettiest pieces for the chocolate covered bacon, the next prettiest for the garnishes on the cookies and crumbled the rest into the cookie dough. With the bacon fat, they were still plenty bacon-y, in my humble opinion.

5. hamburger brownies - If I ever make these again, which is highly unlikely, I will used my tried and true, favorite brownie recipe and just add hamburger, instead of this recipe. It wasn't chocolatey enough, even with the added chocolate chips.

Everyone's favorite was the chocolate covered bacon. Elder Meatatarian says they are a contender for his wedding reception :) 

The cookies were okay, but not worth the hassle of cooking bacon, which happens to be one of my least favorite kitchen activities. (See what I will sacrifice in the name of a good joke!) I took the leftover ones to a parent meeting at Michael and Mo's school and they were a hit, so if you like cooking bacon, or a least tolerate it, they are worth a try.

The hamburger brownies were kind of blah, sort of weird, good in a novelty kind of way, but not much more than that. 

It was fun, but I did warn the missionaries not to expect to be served chicken, cow AND pig next time they come to dinner :)

Dear Amy #1

Dear Unknown,

Sometime you just need to let go. Perhaps you have secret hopes the Gravity will change and become better, but it won't happen. Just let go of Gravity and you will be well on your way into outer space.

Hoping to change your mind and decide to hang around,

Amy

Dear Amy

Just for fun, ask me anything. and I'll give you advice...free!

I love limericks...

...so much so that, when I decided I wanted a new message on our voice mail, I composed one. 

Unfortunately, my family vetoed my creativity. 

Bummer.

If you need to reach Stan or Amy,
Try not to be grumpy or blame-y.
Right now they're not home.
It's best not to moan.
Just leave us your number and name-y.

And...

...we have a winner! Marcia, Alex and Cameron, on their second try, guessed all eight gingerbread house exterior decorators. Watch for your candy in the mail :)

Honorable mention definitely goes to Opal, Coral, Ruby, Stephanie & Matt who impressively got six of eight right on their first try! Woohoo!!!

Getting close...

...but no winners so far!

Gingerbread House Contest

UPDATE:We have a winner!

We made gingerbread houses for FHE a couple of weeks ago. I don't recommend using nerds. They kept hitting the floor like hail. We will probably be finding them for months. 

Do you think you can guess who made which gingerbread house? The first person who guesses them all correctly will get some candy from us in the mail. Something yummier than nerds. Leave a comment to enter.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

Here's a hint. The following people  made houses - Stan, Amy, Rachel, Heather, Gwen Kelly, Michael and Naomi.

 None of them were made by Summer, who is away at BYU trying to decide what to do with her life. Over Thanksgiving, she tried out a few roles, but decided she isn't ready to get married and doesn't want to get involved in any drug wars. (She was dressing up in her Aunt Marcia's wedding dress, using Uncle Ed's knife and wearing a poncho from her Uncle Randall's mission.)

Just for Fun

Naomi was writing in her journal this evening and asked me what this entry from Feb. 1, 2012 said. We figured it out together and I added the "translation" at the bottom. I love the artwork :)

Just a little bragging...

Gwen, Heather and Rachel all got progress reports recently. Woo-hoo!

General Conference Saturday

This is one of my favorite weekends of the year - one of the Semi-annual General Conferences of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I was inspired by so many things today. President Monson's announcement about missionary service is so exciting! Elder Oaks said so well something I have been feeling very strongly, especially as I think about the upcoming elections and choose candidates. So much of our culture is centered on selfish adult priorities and all too frequently it is innocent children unable to speak up for themselves that suffer.

I was also particularly inspired by Elder Ballard's talk and made up this page to print out and help me remember as I say my prayers. You can download a pdf here.

I am looking forward to tomorrow and more conference :)

20 Years

This past July, Stan and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. Neither of us had ever been to Catalina Island, so we decided that would be a good place to go. Unless you have your own yacht (we don't - surprise!) there are two ways to get to Catalina - a ferry, or a helicopter. Stan has gone in a helicopter a few times for work and I've been jealous every time, so I told him that was all I wanted for an anniversary gift :)

It was SO FUN. We even saw a BLUE WHALE from the air!!!! Can you tell it was really exciting? 

We lay around on the beach, slept in, went out to dinner, shopped for sunglasses, and pretty much relaxed sans kids. It was great :) The other splurge we indulged in besides the helicopter flight was going Snuba diving, a cross between scuba and snorkeling. 

It was fun taking underwater pictures of the wildlife...

...the kelp forest...

...and each other!

Daughters in My Kingdom Study Guide

Here is something we used in our Relief Society to deepen our study of the wonderful book, Daughters in My Kingdom. I am putting it on my blog because I looked all over the internet and, at least while I was trying, I couldn't find a study guide. Feel free to link to it, print it out and copy it as much as you would like.
                                               ***UPDATE***
I was contacted (see the comments) by Sandra López from Mujer Mormona and she has translated the guide I wrote into Spanish and posted it here. I think that is so nifty :) Thanks, Sister Lopez!

To put these together, I printed the first seven pages of the document, then flipped them over, reinserted them in my printer face up, and printed the next seven pages. Then I was able to fold them into a booklet and the pages were in order. You may have to do a little trial and error, in case your printer does things differently than mine.

Then, I had them copied at a print shop, where they even folded them for me, which was nice. I also could have had them stapled, but instead I conscripted a couple of my kids and we sewed them all with baker's twine using a pamphlet stitch, which I thought was much nicer than scratchy metal staples.

If you are going to stitch them, I'd recommend five hole pamphlet stitch because of the size. Jeannine Stein has a nice tutorial for the stitch. Scroll down for the five hole instructions.

Natalie and David come to visit.

While Rachel and Heather were in St. George going to EFY in July, my niece and nephew, Natalie and David came to stay with us. We took them into LA one day. Our first stop was the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theater. I'm not that impressed with the stars in the sidewalk, but I do get a kick out of the hand and footprints.

Can you tell which star's shoe prints my kids wanted their picture with? 

 

After Hollywood, we headed to Chinatown where we got a rockin' hot deal ($1 each) on some boba mango smoothies. Yum. They hit the spot on a summer day.

Gwen and Natalie couldn't resist the piano sitting and waiting to be played. They each took a turn and finished with a duet. 

Rachel's New Bob

This past summer, Rachel got her "college girl" haircut a year early.

Still here...slightly alive!

Inigo Montoya: He's dead. He can't talk.

Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.

Yes, we are still here and alive. I haven't blogged for a LONG time and I dearly miss it, so I am using a week I have at home recovering from a doctor's appt. to catch up.

There are two reasons I haven't been on here for a while. One, I got a new calling that is busier than Nursery Leader. I am the Relief Society President in our ward. It is hard for me to give myself permission to blog when my RS stuff is in a big pile that needs organized :)

The second reason is because once I fall behind, I fell like I need to catch up on EVERYTHING I have missed before I start blogging about what is going on today. Forget that! I will never catch up. I hope the kids forgive me for missing a bunch of their birthdays.

So, for the next while, I will post about stuff from the past nine months or so, or maybe I won't, we'll see...

Anyway, today, I have a treat for you, and it is dedicated to Summer, who when I told her I was going to try to blog today, said, "Oh, good, I love it when you blog, as long as I am not home for you to blog about me."

Pseudo-analysis

What Type Are You?

Happy Pi Day!