Teacher Appreciation

It is the end of the third quarter again and time to do Teacher appreciation gifts for all our primary workers. Last month, Andrea's husband has an edible treat delivered to him at work and Andrea called me and told me it was so cute and she thought we could duplicate it for TA gifts. So we got together last week and made 27!!
You take an ice cream cone (I used the bigger waffle ones) and fill the cone part with M & M's. Then we made rice crispy treats and shaped them into a ball shape and stuck them on the cone. You had to let them "set up" a little or else they wouldn't hold their shape. We tried several ways to prop them up to "dry" and found that sticking them in a cup worked best. After they dried out for awhile, we swirled white chocolate on top with some sprinkles.

we wrapped them in a cellophane bag with a tag that read: "Here's the scoop, our primary would melt without you!!" They turned out so cute. We really couldn't run our primary without our dedicated teachers!! I like to recognize them once a quarter:)

Promised Picture

Here's the promised picture of Elder Tilton. We LOVED him, he was so cool.

A Special Day Indeed...

Last night was a great night in our family. Talon's girlfriend, Tiffany was baptized. She has been taking the discussions since May and she finally committed to baptism. Her dad was opposed, but she went through with it anyway. It was touch and go for awhile and the baptism was on and off because they really wanted Tiffany's dad's permission. But she was determined to be baptized without it too. Talon was able to baptize her and had to redo it because they thought his arm wasn't a perfect square, but other than that, it went good.
Here they are with Elder Balanzar and Elder Fawcett. Elder Fawcett's been teaching her the longest, but she is particularly close to Elder Tilton who was transfered and couldn't make it. I'll have to post a picture of them with him later...
The whole baptism was very a very spiritual experience. Tiffany had asked me to give the talk on Baptism, which I was so nervous about. I stood up there and looked at her to begin and she just started bawling. Oh, man, was that hard on me!! I managed to maintain my composure until the very end though and even cut it short because the tears had started on my end, but I had to look at her the whole time and she cried the whole time!! Tanner played the piano, Taz gave the opening prayer, Cynjyn helped lead the music and Garry will confirm her tomorrow at church, so it was a real family effort. While Talon and Tiffany were dressing, they had some people in the audience come up and give their conversion story. Sherry Hopkins, our neighbor did hers and Lewis Miranda, Talon's freshman volleyball coach gave his. They were both really good, especially Lewis' because Talon and Tiffany had nonmember friends there and Talon's friends knew Lewis. You couldn't help but feel the spirit as they both spoke.
Lewis' wife, Lindsey made this cake for the occasion. I gave her free reign with Tiffany's favorite colors (brown and yellow) and told her to make it chocolate, because Tiffany loves chocolate. I thought it turned out beautiful and it was delicious and you know I'm not a big chocolate fan, but it had choc. chips in it and a cream cheese frosting! YUMMY, thanks, Lindsey!!

Tiffany's cousin, (far left) and her friend came to support her and Talon's friends RJ and Eric came for him. We gave Tiffany her own engraved set of scriptures and I really thought the whole night was so good!!

Sunday morning

Our primary sacrament program was this past Sunday. We had been practicing for the past two weeks and the kids were working hard. We decided to have a "fun" day after the program. We chose popcorn and a movie. So I bought a pack of popcorn from Sam's (30 bags) after looking all over for already popped, bagged popcorn. Sunday morning, I started popping at 7:30. I figured it would take me a little over an hour to do the 30 bags at 2:00 min. each. Everything was going great, I had 9 bags popped and then the light in the microwave went off and the screen was black. I had burned out my microwave after only 9 bags! Garry went and checked the fuse box, and he unplugged it and tried a different outlet, nothing. So we decided to let it sit for 20 min. At 8:30, I was going to call Andrea and Toni and Joanne and bring them each about 7 bags of popcorn to do. Just before 8:30, I heard a beep and it turned back on and was good to go!! I let it rest a few minutes after each batch just to be sure and I finished all 30 bags by 10:10, just in time to leave and get to the church early enough to set up chairs and put name tags on every one's seats. All the kids did great and we had 73 parts and I only had to help 3 kids!!
we had been bribing them with Skittles and M & M's if they practiced and sang well. Luckily I had bagged those up the Friday before. 60 bags of each!! It almost filled this laundry basket and made it very heavy!

Changes

In July right before Garry went to scout camp, we got a call from the Stake Executive Secretary saying the Stake President wanted to meet with us. We were both very curious as to what they would want with us as I had only been Primary President for a year and Garry was new to the scout master calling by a month. Garry got to scout camp and Brent Davis told him that the Stake President was interviewing some men and their wives from our ward as they were about to change out the Bishop. So, Garry and I went to that interview with that in mind. We were waiting on the couch as President Davie had another couple in his office at that time. When they were done, they walked out arm in arm and at that moment, Garry and I looked at each other and both had no doubt that we were looking at our next Bishop. The people coming out of that room were David and Jeanne Holland. The spirit bore witness to me at that moment that he would be our next Bishop.

Cut to this past Sunday. Trent Jenkins was released as Bishop after 7 years and David Holland was put in as our new bishop. I loved Trent. I think he's been a wonderful Bishop and he is a remarkable man raising a remarkable family. His presence as Bishop will be missed. I also think that Bishop Holland has all th qualities of a great Bishop. He's in approachable, loving, humble, funny etc. all of which a Bishop should be. Of course his father was there that day and spoke at the end of the meeting. He immediatly called himself to repentance saying that he had come to church that day just wanting to sit with his family and be the proud father watching his son be sustained as a bishop. He said that President Davie immediatly asked him to preside and say a few words at the end of our meeting. Now, Garry thinke we might be a little desensitized because we get visits from general authorities more often in our ward having two children of GA in our ward. The minute President Holland stood to speak, my tears started flowing freely as the Holy Ghost bore witness to me that I was in the presence of an Apostle of the Lord. I continued to cry for the rest of the meeting. I didn't feel desensitized at all. The beautiful thing about the words spoken by President Holland was that he spoke as a proud father that day and spoke from the heart as such. I thought both Dave and his father's talks were heartfelt and inspiring. I am so thankful for the Holy Ghost and those whisperings that help my testimony to continue to grow. I am also grateful that I am able to recognize those whisperings and fell peace from them.

Recipe

O.K for you lemon lovers. I was craving some lemon cookies that Lauie Orton had made at a small group dinner last year. She said she got the recipe off the Pilsbury lemon cake box. Well, it's not on there anymore, and I couldn't even find Pilsbury brand lemon cake, so I went to the next best source, the internet. Found this little recipe and loved that it only had 4 ingredients, so I tried it. They're pretty good, but have a really chewy texture (which I happen to like), so here goes:

1 box lemon cake mix.
1 egg
2 1/4 C. cool whip
Mix these three ingredients together and refrigerate for an hour.

Roll dough into balls and roll in powdered sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 11-13 min.

Sooooo easy!!

It all started with a cookie...

This morning, Tanner and Garry left at 6:00 am to go to a fundraiser for scouts. They will be back tonight sometime. So, Cynjyn asked me if we could make cookies. I had a new recipe for a lemon cookie I wanted to try, so I said sure. So, here she is putting the dough together. Well, it had to be refrigerated for an hour, so while we were waiting, she went off to play at the Hopkins and I started making an apron for preschool on Monday. It will be an alphabet apron.
Since said helper was gone at Hopkins for the day, I rolled the cookies and covered them with powdered sugar and put the first batch in the oven. I took them out when the buzzer rang, set them on the stove to cool and went to get a spatula, turned around and saw the whole pan upside down on the floor:(
Cleaned that mess up and put the second batch in.
Now, back to apron. Can I just remind everyone that we have 6 fairly large people in a fairly small house. So, that being said, my sewing stuff is in the front closet and the basket I need is at the bottom of the stack, so I had to empty the whole closet to get to my one basket, thus causing the dining room to look like the above picture!

Table aka my sewing table looked like this when I started.
Kitchen looked like this as we didn't eat at home last night, so we didn't clean up the kitchen before bed:(
That meant, no dishes were done!
Stove looked like this, clean pots mixed with dirty and one oversized pot on the right whic made the cookie pan off, thus it fell on the floor after the first batch of cookies came out.
In the middle of all this, Taz has a 1:15 football game. So I take him to that (Yes, 1:15 in the MIDDLE of the DAY in LAS VEGAS= HOT!). Well, Garry is the coach and he's out of town, so he has a dad covering for him plus he's taken two of the players with him to the fundraiser instead of coming to the game. But hey, that's o.k. because they'll still have 6 boys which means one sub and 5 playing at all times. Well, only 5 boys show up, it's 106 out and all 5 boys have to play the whole game with no subs!! The other team has 10 players and most of them are bigger than our boys. It looks like we'll be slaughtered, the back up coach tells the boys to just do their best and today's not about winning, just BELIEVE. They end up tying 20-20, going into overtime, holding the opposing team from scoring in OT, getting possesion and scoring on the FIRST play and winning 26-20!! It was so exciting, the boys were so hot and so proud of themselves. Had to stop at DQ on the way home to get Taz his congratulatory ice cream cone!!

Anway, back home to the mess and Garry coming home in a few hours. So I tackle the kitchen and it turns into the above photo.

Stove looks like this and I'm wondering why I didn't do this first (would have two dozen cookies to much on instead of 1).
Put away sewing gear, making the dining room turn into this...
Sew the apron, then clean off the table.
Finished product #1


Finished project #2. Now you'll find me sitting on the couch reading my book looking like my day went perfect when Garry gets home!! Too bad I don't have any Bon Bons. Oh, and good thing the camera lady didn't go near her bedroom...that's a whole other post!!

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Book Club

Last night I hosted book club. The book was Breaking Dawn and so, of course, we had to have themed food with it. Luckily when I got home from teaching preschool that morning, the air was on fixed and beginning to cool down the house!! Anyway, I digress...After preschool, I whipped up a batch of "Seth's cinnamon rolls" (by the way, I was out of powdered sugar and knew Tanner was on his way home from school, so I put my last batch of rolls in the oven and ran to the store to get the sugar...yep, you guessed it, Tanner got home late, the buzzer was already going off, Tanner took them out and they were burned...BOOHOO) I was trying to make enough so that everyone could have a "center" one! But I had got 12 out of the first batch, so I was good. I also served "Bella's eggs" (deviled eggs were easiest. I almost made a quiche, but since I'd never made one, I chickened out at the last minute). A bowl of Paul and Jacob's Doritos, and "Renesmee's favored drink" -- Looked like blood, in reality though, Cranberry Crystal Light and 7-Up! The night ended with a good discussion, good food and a fun visit with "the girls"!! Don't ya just love book club!

Chris, Jen, me, Natalie and Maranda, after the discussion.
Sherry and Toni (Taz was the photographer and this one turned out a little blury, sorry)

Natalie and Maranda, with April.

Just for Kres...again...

We still have no AIR. The compressor didn't work on the new system, so they have to install a different one today. They'd BETTER finish it today. I have book club here tonight! (Breaking Dawn btw)

Still hot in Vegas.

Friday, our air conditioner died. It was so hot as I was cooking homemade pizzas in the OVEN!! We called Gibson Air first thing Saturday morning, but we'd have to pay overtime if they came on a weekend (even though the owner is a personal friend:() So we suffered through the weekend (average daytime temps were around 106). We even had the elders over for dinner on Sunday and a lesson for Tiffany. They taught the discussion out by the pool because it was cooler out there than inside. Monday morning we got them on the phone and got them here and of course as luck would have it, we had to replace the whole unit. Well, it is 14 years old, so we figured that was coming. So, $8,000.00 later, we still don't have air. They could only do so much yesterday, but are here now as we speak and promise me a cool house by tonight. Well, we finally got smart and had the kids sleep downstairs last night with the slider door open a little and three fans blowing around the room. Talon went to Tiffany's because he couldn't take another night and he is doing training up by her house for work. Hopefully all will go well today and we'll be sleeping cooler tonight!

This is for Kresimir

Taz had Josh over Friday night and Josh brought two fun little bikes he'd gotten at a garage sale. I thought they were so funny looking I made them pose for me. The video is just for Kres, we thought he'd like it.

Taz and Cynjyn took a cooking class at Lindsey Miranda's house on Friday too. They made BBQ chicken pizza and a dessert pizza. They had a really fun time and the food was yummy. They even got little chef hats and aprons. Go to this website to see a slide show of the fun night. http://kidsinthekitchenclub.blogspot.com/

Labor Day weekend!

Sunday, we had the elders over for dinner and Tiffany had another discussion. She committed to baptism and set her date for September 27th. We are excited for her. Anyway, afterwards, we had FHE and then they decided to play Wii while they were having refreshements (Cynjyn chose chocolate milkshakes, homemade of course).




































Our labor day started with no labor and lots of playing. We began our day with a game of Castle Risk, while Cynjyn played with Alexa. Then we apparently became rednecks and took a KFC picnic to the park. (Refer here to get the redneck reference.) We came home and Taz and Cynjyn went to the Bailey's and Tanner, Garry and I played Mario Party 8. Talon was sick most of the day after playing volleyball all morning, so he and Tiff just hung out here and we bbqed steak and had some corn on the cob and mushrooms and watermelon for dinner and settled in for the evening to watch the season premier of Prison Break!! Quite the weekend.

First day of school, teeth, and 80's...

So, did anyone else watch 80 hours of the 80's this weekend on VH1 Classics?? We had it on and off all weekend. We played a lot of games and it was mindless noise in the background and a chance for our kids to see 80's classics. Anyway, so I was feeling nostalgic and wore my 80's earrings to church on Sunday. Cynjyn LOVED them and I felt kind of silly but what the heck, you only live once!!

I don't know if you can tell, but last weekend, my tooth started hurting and by Tuesday morning, my whole cheek was swollen. I got into the dentist that day, and he said my tooth might have a fracture and I'll probably have to have it pulled:( I just had a root canal on it in January and paid $450 that insurance didn't cover! I am not happy. I go to a specialist this coming Friday to see if he thinks there is anything he can do to save it from extraction!! My tooth was so infected that it couldn't hold it anymore and had spread out into my cheek, that is why I looked so swollen. I'm still on antibiotics for that and am hoping for good news from the specialist!

This is how Taz and Cynjyn looked as they came downstairs the first day of school.

They seemed to perk up by the time they had to leave though. I actually forgot to take Tanner's picture in the morning, so we took it after school!

They had to ride the bus the first day, but after that, I usually take them in the mornings.