Halloween thru Christmas

Halloween pics....yes, I know they are a few months too late. :o)
Jace did NOT like getting in his costume, but after we let him run around in the leaves for a while he decided it wasn't so bad.
Dallan was a doctor, but, because he's Dallan he had to spice it up a little. He wore the Sombrero to the Halloween Carnival so people would know he was a Mexican doctor. :o) Derek wanted to be Harry Potter really bad, so I ordered a cape online and he looked really cute. He is reading Harry Potter and I have to ground him from taking it to school so he doesn't read through recess. I was very pleased the other day when he came home and told me that he had spent recess pretending to be a brain sucking alien like the other boys. :o)

Spinach and Carrot Smoothie??

So my favorite Christmas gift this year was a Ninja personal blender that Tom got me. Since I am not a fan of raw vegetables, I have for a while been making a smoothie that I drink every morning, and I actually think it tastes pretty good. My kids like it too. I am lucky to live in Brigham because we have great friends and neighbors that give us free fruit that I can freeze and use all year!!

Here is my basic recipe for one serving:

small handful of fresh spinach (I use bagged baby spinach)
3 baby carrots
a cup or so of frozen peaches
4-6 frozen raspberries
1/4 green apple, chopped (galas or braeburns are good too)
1/2 cup (approx.) orange juice
milk (maybe 1/2 cup - 1 cup?)
small section of a banana (optional)

I don't add any sugar at all. And sometimes it's a little tart, so I add just a small amount of banana and it's perfect. The key I think is to have a good blender and let it blend long enough so you can't even tell the spinach is there. I also think the O.J. is vital. At first I didn't add it, and it wasn't nearly as good.

I even told my kids there was spinach in it and they still wanted more, they couldn't even tell. And the raspberries make it a nice pink color so it doesn't look green.

I think if you were a yogurt person that might be good too, but as I'm not, I haven't tried it.

September Happenings

This summer we made a reading goal for Derek and the big reward was a trip to Lagoon. Well, he did really well so I gave him a little extension on the time and we went to Lagoon last Saturday. It was just Derek, Dallan, and myself. We had a blast! I hadn't been there since I was 18, and everything was so different. It's much prettier and cleaner than I remember, with a lot more options for kids. Derek fell in love with a couple rides, and we got Dallan to go on 5 kiddie rides so I considered that quite a large victory.
And a friend invited me to go to a Jazzercise class last night. It was a lot of fun! Although, nobody was wearing cool leotards like these ladies, that would have been even cooler. :o) I would love to keep going regularly, but that might have to wait for another time and place in my life. And that's OK. At least now I know that I like it and it can be an option in the future when things aren't so busy.

And I know I just posted about this, but I decided to try and take some quality portrait-type pics of my kids. I made them pose around the yard and give me their best smiles. I think they turned out really well. If anyone wants me to practice on them, let me know. I won't even make you pay an arm and a leg. :o)

New Camera Pics

So Tom got sick of all the terrible cameras we have and decided to get a nice camera. He has been having fun taking a million pictures. One of these days I want to figure out how to use it too. Here are some of my favorites of the kids

Goods and Bads

Things I am loving right now.....

#1 I love this time of year. I'm not crazy about the heat, but I just love having my flowers in full bloom and vegetables ready to pick. I love going to the grocery stores and fruit stands and getting lots of fresh produce. I love the anticipation of a new school year and making new goals to get organized (and believing that this year I might actually do them). :o)

#2 My new carpet! For anyone who's been to my house in the past. Just a note that it is now safe to put your children down on my floors. The carpet was way past due and is finally here! I hope the new carpet smell with hold on for a long time.

#3 My family! Okay, I love my family all the time and I should've probably listed them first, but I talk about them in every post, so....

#4 I love having Tom home in the mornings and I can go out walking early. Something about getting out first thing in the morning while it's still cool, with your favorite songs playing on your ipod and the sun not quite peaking through the mountains yet, it's so refreshing and a great way to start the day. I will miss when Tom goes back to work (for many reasons, by the way), and I have to go back to my elliptical or else push a stroller around with me. Oh well. I'm still very lucky, I know.


OK - Things I do NOT love right now.....

Note: I consider myself a pretty easy-going person. Maybe some people could argue with that, but I try to understand both sides of any argument, and I pride myself in the fact that I don't get offended too easily. With that said, I do have some things that are driving me crazy:

#1 People who treat their dogs better than their children or their grandchildren. I have seen this in several cases and it drives me nuts. Dogs are very trendy right now, and everyone knows I'm not a dog lover (not even a little bit), but I do appreciate the fact that many people do love them. I know they have their good qualities. I just hate when I see people Oooh and Aaahh over the dog, talk to it in a lovey dovey voice, and then turn to their kids and bark some mean command or comment. Or people who pay no attention when their kids or grandkids are talking to them, but every bark and move the dog makes gets some wonderful response. Arghh....

#2 I am a little tired of being asked to sign up for store credit cards everywhere I shop. Do people really have cards for every different store they shop in? Sad. I guess I could save a lot of money on those initial sales, but I just hate the idea of credit cards and would like to check out without getting a sales pitch every time I do.

#3 I'll probably get some negative feedback on this one, but what the heck! I'm tired of all the little comments people make and emails that are sent around with jokes about how they wish our president would be assassinated. I think it's rediculous. I don't consider myself a democrat, nor do I think that Obama is making the best decisions for our country, but I'm really sick of good, Christian people wishing that the president of our own country would die. He was elected by a fair process and from that point on our focus as a country should always be work together to find ways to make our country better. Too much of politics seems focused on the competition of the two parties and it seems very counter-productive.

End of rant. :o) At least I have 4 good and 3 bad!

Texas trip

So we decided to get brave and take a road trip down to Estillene, Texas to go to the Davidson family reunion.  I’ll be honest, I was VERY hesitant to go, since Jace has not been very content in his carseat on much shorter trips.  But all the boys were so good!  We stayed with cousins, Mike and Susan, who were very good to put up with our boys and all their craziness and messes.  As you can see, there was plenty of playing in the dirt.

         This is our niece, Katie, who came over from Mississippi.  She was wonderful with Jace and packed him around a lot of the time, which was a very nice break for me.

Here is Mike with the boys.  He was great with them, and let them ride in the tractor and the bulldozer.  

I’m really glad we went, and it was really fun to see everyone again.   I don’t know if we will be going down every year, but we hope to make it down again sometime.

Awesome Girl's Camp

We just had THE BEST Girls' Camp. OK, it wasn't really a traditional "camp" at all. We called it "urban" camp and stayed in Salt Lake for three days. Our camp leader, Valene, did an amazing job and I think the girls will never forget it.

The first morning we went down in our dresses and started right off doing baptisms for the dead in the SL Temple. It was so beautiful and a first for most of our girls. Afterward we walked over and had a light lunch at the Lion House, and then gathered on the lawn in front of the temple for a talk about temple marriage from one of the newly married sister's in our ward. Then we watched the Joseph Smith movie (which made me cry several times) at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, then walked through that building and the Beehive House, where Brigham Young and a couple other prophets lived. Then we went back to the place we were staying, had dinner and a game, and got our hiking clothes on for a hike up Ensign Peak. To the girls' surprise, our camp leader's daughter was waiting up at the top with some gold, helium-filled balloons. She gave a talk on virtue from Brother Uchtdorf's "Happily Ever After" talk, and then let the girls write some goals on their balloons with ideas on how they would be virtuous. Then we said the YW Theme and let the balloons go. It was VERY cool.

The next day we started by going to President Hinckley's gravesite at the Salt Lake Cemetary. We all stood around the grave and took turns telling memories and things that we learned and appreciated about President Hinckley. We found some other prophets graves also, as well as some other graves from people in church history. Then we headed up to the This is the Place Monument, where one of our leaders told a pioneer story. After we went home for lunch and had a demonstration on making cinnamon rolls and homemade taffy. Then we headed to the Humanitarian Center and took a tour there. It was so neat for the girls to see where all the money and donated goods are going and how the church works in that way. We went back for dinner and ended with a very nice testimony meeting outside.

The last day we let the girls play and we all went swimming at a local water park. It was a lot of fun and a great end to a great camp.

What a Month!

This month has kept us all on our toes. Busy Busy! And for someone like me that doesn't multi-task very well that means I don't get much done at all. But here are some of the highlights:

My baby turned ONE!! Isn't he cute? We are working on the walking thing, but I figure he still has six more months to beat me, so no rush.
And my little brother Matt got married!! He is a cutie, and his wife is awesome! We are very excited to have her as part of our family. Congratulations Matt and Jacq! My Dallan got to be the ring bearer, so cute. I will post those pics when I get them.I also finished 3 drawings this month, probably a record for me since I have had children. And I made my first (and only so far) portrait sale on Etsy. Hopefully there will be more to come....

Looking forward to school being out and getting on with summer! We have a busy one planned so bring it on!

New Food Day

Derek has instituted a new holiday at our house, it is called New Food Day. I let him look through new recipes and pick a few new ones that I can cook for each meal of the day. Overall it was a great idea and the kids enjoyed the new "kid-friendly" recipes, but I did learn the important lesson that too much baking soda can make muffins taste horribly bitter.

Nature Scripture Scavenger Hunt

Just as a fun activity, our girls wanted to roast marshmellows and make s'mores at a nearby campground. To make things a little more interesting, I made the following Nature Scripture Scavenger Hunt

http://www.behsscience.com/Mel/NatureScriptureScavengerHunt.doc

that they had to complete before they could make their s'mores. I put it on slightly larger poster paper for each group, and they had to lay the items on the appropriate squares. It turned out pretty fun and they got pretty competitive.

Personal Progress Ideas

I was going through my YW files and found a couple things we have done that have worked out pretty well:

For Value experience #7 in Choice and Accountability, we had a financial planner come and talk to the girls about how important it is to start now to be financially responsible. Then we did an activity were I gave each of the girls 15-20 (I don't remember exactly how many) dry beans, and the following paper

http://www.behsscience.com/Mel/Beansyouthactivity.doc

and they had to allocate their money (beans) to be able to get the things they wanted. I think it was a pretty successful activity. Some girls thought it was a breeze and others struggled to stretch their beans.


For Good Works Value Experience #1, we did an activity I found online where you set up tables like a restauraunt, give the girls a menu with items included things like "your mom made you lunch", "your brother opened the door for you", "your teacher stayed late to help you with your homework", etc..... and then the leaders dressed up with aprons and went around and asked the girls, "are you being served?" Then we read the required scriptures together, and showed this short video that we made:

http://www.portraitsbymel.net/PRICELESS.htm

Then we gave each girl a personalized, laminated credit card handout to remind them for at least two weeks to be aware of the small acts of service people do for them every day.

Farewells

Last weekend we went out to my family's in Roosevelt to attend a missionary farewell for my cousin, Stuart. It was lots of fun to see everyone and my kids had a blast playing with all their cousins. We wish Stuart lots of luck and we will miss him (especially the little kids since he is WONDERFUL with all of the little kids in the family).

Also, my little brother Jordan left this week to serve in the military. My sisters planned a last minute party for him and I was sad we couldn't be there since we went out of town at the same time, but we are all very proud of him and his decision. Here's a picture of some of my family sporting their best camo at the party. Jordan is the one in the very back in the middle.