Young Women Values

In our Young Women we are trying to incorporate using the values more. So, I made these blocks. We are going to display them all together at big activities (New Beginnings, Young Women in Excellence, etc...) and then every month we'll have the value that we are highlighting sitting on our front table. They were pretty inexpensive. We used 1 2x6 piece of wood which was cut into 8" pieces and painted white. This cost about $3 at Home Depot. Then used vinyl letters, a lady in our ward cut them, but they would'nt have cost very much. The ribbon was our biggest expense but I was able to find most of it on clearance at Michael's.

eta: Because there have been a bunch of questions... Yes, I did the new value "virture", it just happens to be hiding. Its color is gold and if you look very closely you can see the gold bow behind "individual worth". :)

7 Things

Yup, I was tagged and honestly, I'm the worst at doing these tags, but I'm going to do it this time!

7 Things I Can Do Well

1- Organize other people's stuff or rooms

2- Organize paper information

3- Conduct Meetings (although I get VERY nervous)

4- Smile

5- Talk to other people, especially one-on-one

6- Waste time on the computer

7- Be involved in a million things at one time

7 Things I Can't Do

1- Run (but one day I'm going to- hopefully by May)

2- Clean & organize my own house

3- Stick to a routine

4- Go all day without talking to another adult

5- Say "no"

6- Stay away from treats

7-Be late- drives me nuts!
7 Things That Attracted me to Doug

1- His kindness

2- His spirituality

3- His love of children

4- The way he not only let me be independent but embraced and encouraged it!

5- The way he treated his mom.

6- He's smart

7- He likes his family.

7 Things I Always Say

1- "I've got too much to do!"

2- "Umm, I don't know"

3- "Hurry up!"

4- "Is it bed time yet?" Meaning for the kids

5- "What day is it?" Day or date, I never know...

6- "You're a goof!"

7- "Have you practiced yet?" "Go practice, NOW!"

7 Things I Love to Eat

1- Food!

2- Red meat

3- Firehouse, Roasted Chicken Salad

4- Turkey
5- Sushi

6- Carrots

7- Cucumbers

7 People I Tag

1- Holly

2- Alesa

3- Krysta

4- Andrea

5- Stacey

6- Eileen

7- Georgana

When Life Hands You Lemons...

Make fondue! So our fridge is OUT. We had meat that was in our fridge and some in the freezer too that had thawed. I thought we could be upset and throw it all away or we could have a party. Alesa and her kids were up, mom came and we invited our friends the Andersons. And we had fondue! It was so much fun, got rid of most all the food and it was yummy! Glad we took the fun way out of this one.

You're all invited!

to my house for a food fest! We woke up this morning to our kitchen floor covered in frozen yogurt and raspberry sherbet. Thinking we had the problem fixed I left to work out. When I came home it still wasn't working. The repair man just came and gave me wonderful news. The compressor is dead, but luckily there is still a warranty left on it. So in 3-5 days and only $150 it will be fixed. There's a bunch of food that needs to be eaten. Anyone want to come???

Fun weekend!

On with the fun stuff... On Saturday, December 20th we headed down to Alesa's (after a big snowstorm the day before delayed us). We spent the day with Alesa, shopped at the mall, and celebrated Hailey's second birthday. (Don't know why we don't have any pictures of Hailey's celebration, but we don't.) We kind of celebrated Alesa's birthday too and then went down to Temple square (with Alesa & family, my mom, and Mauri- Justin's sister- and boys) to see the lights. They were beautiful as always but it was DANG cold. (I think it was only about 9*) We dressed warm and had hand warmers, but brrrr! The kids were troopers but by the end the little ones had enough!

We came home late that night. On Sunday we had a busy, fun day. Katie and I got up first thing and made a big patch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, a batch of homemade oreos and mint chocolate chunk brownies. Katie is getting to be such a great cook! It was fun to work with her.

We went to church where I taught Young Women (I had a good object lesson on being dependable, maybe I'll share later), Doug taught Gospel Doctrine and Doug and Katie sang in the Christmas Sacrament Program. My mom, Juli and Travis surprised us and showed up to the Christmas program.

Right after church we went straight out to the Austins. Leslie and family and K.C and Andi were up and Jamie and Brian had made the trek from Denver. We had such a FUN party. This replaced our traditional Christmas Eve get together and I have to say, I LOVED it! It was so much fun and we weren't stressed about getting done and getting home and there wasn't a lot of pressure. We had a yummy traditional turkey dinner. And we played "ring on a string", even Bevan got into it.

We played Apples to Apples (love this game) and exchanged gifts with the cousins. Everyone (except K.C & Andi) stayed the night, we stayed up late playing games and then the next morning we decorated gingerbread houses

and played all day until 5:00 when I had to come home to do a zone. Grandma Austin gave us all PJ's and Leslie's kids gave the little kids Play Doh- it was a hit! and kept the kids entertained for hours.

Thanks for the great time guys! Can't wait until next year! (Maybe we should do it before

then...)

Bevan & Will- they are starting to have so much fun playing together.

Katie and her "best cousin", Kali. There were many tears shed this week because Kali had to go back home to Colorado.

Maddie's School Play

On December 15th Maddie's school (the 1st & 2nd graders) performed a little play. Their school was one of only a few in the state who got grants for performing art programs. The play was cute, it was "Weather Channel". Maddie was the cow and did a very cute dance. What a performer!

December Fun!

I'm going to spend the next few entries catching up our very fun December. December was a month of much snow! Sometimes this was fun and sometimes not so much. Bevan got to go outside and enjoy the snow. (Ignore the fact that Bevan wears pink snow pants- only real men wear pink. Or boys who have 2 older sisters!)

The girls found it was perfect for making snow men, women and dogs; also great snow forts.

After snowing all of Christmas Eve (night) and ALL DAY Christmas Day we woke up to more than 2 feet of snow, it took Doug three hours to shovel us out. The snow drifts were as high as our top step on our front porch.