We love President Hinckley

President Hinckley passed away last night. I have always loved his humor and his optimism. He was down to earth and somehow always made me feel like we were having a one on one conversation when he spoke in general conference. He had an unshakable testimony of Jesus Christ and the gospel we all love. I will miss the many, many, many things about President Hinckley that made him the wonderful leader and Prophet he was. I suspect he is the happiest man in the world right now, because he is once again with his sweet wife, Marjorie. There couldn't be anymore wonderful people than the two of them. They lived a true love story.
A year or so ago, we were watching general conference in our living room. At the concluding session on Sunday afternoon, the closing hymn was "We Thank The, O God, For a Prophet". During the hymn I just felt overcome with gratitude for this sweet, dear man. I could barley sing the words to the hymn and my testimony that he was indeed a prophet of God strengthened and grew tenfold. At the close of the meeting, President Hinckley began walking off the stand. As he did, he paused to wave at members of the congregation, and indeed I felt like to me, standing in my living room. He waved his cane a time or two and then blew a kiss. I was overwhelmed with love for this sweet, kind, gentle man. I'm grateful for his love for the members of the church. What a shining example he has been in my life!

*Does not follow directions well*

I spent today making a mess of everything I touched. I started the day out by ruining the recipe I was supposed to make for enrichment tonight. Ruined it beyond repair. I would consider myself a simple, yet fairly capable cook, but apparently this recipes was above my skill level. It called for "two packages of unflavored gelatin". I've never actually used unflavored gelatin, so when I opened it I found four small envelopes inside, not the one large envelope inside regular jello flavors. I read and re-read the recipe, debating whether I should use two of the smaller envelopes or two whole packages. I finally decided on two whole packages, since the recipe said "packages" not envelopes. I mixed the other ingredients into the gelatin mixture and placed it in the refrigerator to chill for the allotted 45 minutes. Imagine my surprise, a mere three quarters of an hour later, to pull out a bowl of orange flavored rubber! At that point I was pretty sure I should have used two envelopes instead of eight. But, being somewhat stubborn and unwilling to admit defeat, I decided to "fold" it into the whipping cream. You know how even completely firm jello would break apart when beat with a mixer? Well, my mixer was no match for my gelatin concoction. No chance of it coming apart--it was solid as a rock. I tried to salvage what ingredients I had left and ended up with whipping cream sprayed all over my kitchen. Eventually I decided to make some sort of trifle with the rest of the ingredients, plus a few I had around the house. I didn't have enough instant pudding for my substitute recipe and had to use cook and serve, which I cooked in the microwave and had it boil over the bowl and all over the bottom of the microwave--I mean all over. In the meantime, Ian cleaned out two shelves of my pantry, dumped a carton of ice cream sugar cones on the floor which shattered everywhere. Then he threw my bottle of vanilla flavoring across the kitchen and the lid cracked open and spilled everywhere. Merry Grace took off her diaper and peed on the floor, a drink was spilled on our home phone, so it isn't working, the kids turned the freezer temperature off, so I found everything in the freezer thawing out this morning, and I'm not sure the refrigerator is keeping things cool. And the day is still young. I really want to be an ostrich and bury my head in the sand--the sand of some warm beach in Jamaica, maybe. I'm pretty sure that would help. It's like I told one of my friends the other day, my grandpa used to say that if you swallowed a live toad first thing in the morning, the rest of the day had to get better from there. I think I just swallowed my toad. :)

A Free Day!!!

Due to the winter weather, church was canceled today. Boy is that a fun treat for us! We slept in, cooked a big breakfast (bacon, eggs, smoked sausage, biscuits, grits--YUM!!!), played games, napped, and just enjoyed being here together and out of the cold.

We played a game of Carolinaopoly--a game of monopoly that has all the properties relating to the UNC Tarheels. The kids love it, even if its a big ordeal sometimes to keep everything going smoothly.


Particularly Ian and Merry Grace are a little hard to control, as this picture indicates. But we all had fun and no one fussed, even when Merry Grace stretched out on the board and Ian held her down. What a great family!

Winterish Weather

There's been the threat of winter weather several times, but we haven't seen much of it until yesterday. Even then, it was far from a blizzard, but still pretty awesome for those of us who love snow. We went out last night in the back yard so we could fully enjoy the winter weather, since I don't know how much more we will get.

Here is Elise enjoying the snowflakes.


Here are Ian & Merry Grace on the back porch. They ate snow like it was going out of style.


Here you can see the actual flakes coming down. This is proof that it actually snowed. :)


The kids even rode their riding toys down the driveway. They enjoyed every minute we were out in the weather. It's the simple things....


Merry Grace being her cute, sassy self. She tagged right along with the big kids. I wish we could have gotten a little more, but I'm not complaining. I loved what we did get.

You gotta love first grade!

Elise came home from school with this note from a girl in her class. Apparently she did bunny ears on Elise, Elise told the teacher & Loren had to write this apology to her. :) She told me that several people in her class told her she shouldn't have told on Loren because it made Loren cry. But Elise said, "I just had to do it. I mean, what else could I do? If I hadn't have told the teacher I would have been sad all day. So I just had to do it. Bunny ears makes me really sad. She should learn not to do bunny ears." I just love it!

What a great send-off!

Every morning, after prayer, the kids run up to Cory and hug him to pieces before he leaves for work. Usually Elise is leaving with him, but this was a teacher workday. It's a nice send-off before he starts a hard day's work.

And here are the girls giving him kisses on each cheek. You can't beat love like that! :)

Three Sick Kiddos

I took the kids to the doctor today. Elise & Ian had both woken up during the night complaining of ear aches, Ian to the point of tears. Since Merry Grace has the same cough and cold, I figured I might as well make an appointment for her too, since I would be there anyway. So off we went and sure enough, all three of them have ear infections. At least that made the doctor's visit convenient. :) Elise was just excited to miss school. I think the ear infection was worth it, if it meant a day off. They seem to be handling it well and three prescriptions later, they should be on the mend.

We had some friends from our ward over for dinner (the Benjamin's, for those of you who may know) and Cory's sister and family, too. It was really fun. Good food, good friends, good fun. Now Elise has a crush on the oldest Benjamin boy. I think at 12 1/2 he may be a little old for her, but he is a really nice boy. What is it about older men? :) She skipped right over the nine year old and went straight for the 12 year old! What are we going to do when she gets older?!

We're finally decorating...

These first five pictures are the photographs we used to put on the walls. Four went in our living room, one in the bathroom. I love looking at them. My kids are just too cute!








Here are the pictures we hung on the wall in our living room.
We also finally found a spot for our clock

Here are a few pictures we hung in the bathroom.

We put up these lights a few months back, but added the mirror this past weekend.
And one more from the bath. It's amazing what a difference the pictures make. Everything just feels so much homier. :) They were all small changes, but made a world of difference.

More Potty Stories

Merry Grace is doing great on her potty training. After the first poop-in-the-toilet-incident I reported a few days ago, she proceeded to do the same thing two more consecutive times. We were ecstatic!!! She even pee-peed a few times as well, so that was an extra bonus. We were thinking we were really on a roll. But most things dealing with kids are not that easy, and potty training falls in that category. So yesterday while sitting on the toilet, she grabbed the hand towel nearby and dunked it in the toilet. Not a huge problem, but still gross. I just threw the towel away. I'm all about a bargain, but I would much rather buy a new hand towel than clean that one up from the toilet. Then yesterday not long after getting up from her nap, she pooped in her diaper. Before I could get a new diaper and wipes to change her, she pulled the diaper off herself and dumped the poopy out in the floor. Nice. I got it cleaned up, and all is well. The life of a stay-at-home mom is not always glamorous. Actually, its hardly ever glamorous. But its fun. I think that makes up for it. :)

The Soundtrack of Life

This was really a fun thing to do. It's amazing how the songs work out sometimes. :) Enjoy!


IF YOUR LIFE WERE A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend your cool...


Opening Credits
You've got a Friend in Me--(from Toy Story)

Waking up
Home--Chris Daughtry

First Day of School
Forever--The Beach Boys

Falling in Love
To Make you Feel My Love (From Hope Floats)

First Song
Sugar, Sugar--The Archies

Fight Song
Summer's Here--James Taylor

Breaking Up
Love of My Life--Jim Brickman

Prom
Accidentally in Love--Counting Crows

Life
Because You Loved Me--Celene Dion

Mental Breakdown
You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Driving
Bad Day--Daniel Powter

Flashback
Year 3000--Jonas Brothers

Getting Back Together
Brown-Eyed Girl--Van Morrison

Wedding
Pretty Woman

Birth of a Child
Bet On It--High School Musical

Final Battle
Walking On Sunshine--Katrina & the Waves

Death Scene
This is a Song My You--James Taylor

Funeral Song
Joy to the World--Three Dog Night

End Credits
The Real Thing--Bo Bice

See what music does to your life?

I can't believe what my baby did!

Get ready for this--Merry Grace pooped in the toilet all by herself. She's been sort of interested in getting on the toilet for a while now. I've humored her and let her try, but to no avail. Not even a drop of pee as far as I could ever see. Then the other day she was going around without a diaper and acted like she wanted to go to the bathroom. So up she went onto the toilet and the next thing you know, she had pooped in the toilet. She thought it was the funniest thing ever and laughed and laughed. I was so proud and shocked I could hardly believe it. We still have quite a ways to go, but I definitely thought that was a promising sign. :)

My "New" Cookbook

Technically, its not really new, but since I just started using it, I think maybe it qualifies as new. My brother, Ethan, gave me a cookbook last Christmas (not the Christmas we just had, but the one before). At the time, I thought it was cool, but like too many things, it got placed on a shelf and sort of forgotten over the course of a few months. I pulled it out this week and started looking at it again. It's one of those red Betty Crocker cookbooks (maybe you've seen them before) and like almost every other cookbook on the planet has the useful pages in the front about cooking terms, emergency substitutions, herbs and spices information, and food safety. And then there are sections on appetizers, main dishes, desserts and so on. But here's the cool part. It's a three ring binder and it has all these extra blank recipe pages for me to put my own recipes on. Actually, there are only a few recipes from Betty Crocker, mostly its supposed to be your own recipes. So this morning I looked up some of the recipes I've entered into the computer when I was emailing them to a friend and printed them off on the pages for this book. There are certain staple recipes that I make over and over and now here they are in one place. I don't have to sift through a hundred other recipes that I've never made and probably never will. For someone who loves to cook as much as I do, and loves my own recipes as much as anyones, this was the perfect gift for me. So maybe it took me a little longer to appreciate this gift than usual, but there's no question it gets a gold star for recipe books.

Back to the Routine

I feel like my life has been a whirlwind since Thanksgiving, so I'm looking forward to a (hopefully) mundane existence for the next little bit. I'm relieved to start getting back on a schedule with work, school, bedtimes, and all the other regular things that keep our life running smoothly. That's not so say I didn't enjoy the holiday season, because I did--immensely. I'm just more happy than usual to get back to the consistency of the non-holiday season.

One event I failed to blog about was something that happened the Saturday before Christmas. Santa had come and we'd just opened presents and gotten into every Alcatraz-like box and played with every toy we wanted to. We were beginning lunch preparations when Merry Grace cut her hand. Oh boy did she cut it. Have you ever had one of your kids fall or get hurt and you wondered, "Should I take that to have it stitched up?" And most times, the bleeding stops and you look at it and decide it will probably be okay with a good band aid. This was not one of those times. As soon as I looked at it, I said, "This will definitely need stitches." And it did. Six of them. Poor little girl. She was so brave and did great through the whole procedure, even when the doctor numbed it. If it had've been me I think that's when I would have gotten a good kick, carefully aimed, in. But Merry Grace took it well, all things considered.

Now, 10 days later and stitches carefully snipped, her hand is almost as good as new. Thank goodness.

More fun over the Holidays

This is just a picture of the cutest, sweetest girl ever.


Elise had the camera and Cory was making me laugh. Obviously, I thought he was pretty funny. :)


Silly, silly, silly girl. She is soooooooo cute, though.


We love going to a nearby walking trail and walking or riding bikes. Even though its chilly, it was still fun to get out. Ian's favorite part is throwing rocks in the river.


My three brothers, plus Cory. They're a matched set, aren't they?


We may be old, but we're still in love. :)


Here is more trampoline drama. They boys taped their feet to skateboard (no wheels) and jumped like crazy. The things they think of....


After waiting his turn, Logan jumped in as well.


Later on, we painted sugar cookies. Merry Grace had no trouble figuring out what to do, even though it was her first time.


Ian at first thought we were using actual paint on the cookies. Realizing it was icing was a wonderful discovery for him.


As you can see.....



Unfortunately, Elise was worn out and missed the whole thing. She looks pretty comfy, though.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning found us at my parents house, for a few more presents. Here is Elise with one of her favorite presents, The Littlest Pet Shop.


Elise and Merry Grace with cute matching headbands. They are just too adorable for words.


The big present this year was a riding toy for the kids to share. Santa Claus got a GREAT deal on it. There is room for Elise and Ian in the front and Merry Grace in the back. :)


The trampoline is lots of fun for everyone. My brothers love doing cool tricks and high jumps. Watch for future posts. It definitely gets more creative. Boys, boys, boys...


Here is Ian with one of his favorite presents--a remote controlled helicopter. He's actually a really good pilot. Everyone had fun flying it.


Here is Elise and the Uncles on the trampoline. Elise has picked up a few tricks of her own.


This is what happens from too much jumping. :)



This is my Grandma and her new little dog, Goldie. We think she's the cutest thing ever!!!!

Naturally, with boys around, things get interesting and dangerous. Here are a couple of my brothers on the roof.

Christmas Party #1 and #2

We started our Christmas celebrations with our little family Christmas. We put in our request early and had Santa deliver presents for the kids on the Saturday before Christmas. Here is a picture of Merry Grace with the dolls she got. She loves baby dolls.

We also made gingerbread houses. Well, technically they're graham cracker houses. But you get the idea. Here is the one I made. :)
On Sunday we went down to Cory's folks house to visit and spend Christmas Eve with them. Here is Elise with a couple of her cousins. It is a wild, raucous party with all the little kids running around, but it is so much fun.
A rare picture of my hubby and me. :) Very cute.

More funny conversations

This morning, Elise woke up and crawled into our bed for a few minutes. It hadn't been long before she let us know she was hungry.

Elise: Will you get up and cook me breakfast? I'm soooooooo hungry!!!
Me: Me too! What are you cooking for me?
Elise: Hey now! I'm not the parent here!

Should we be concerned? Obviously the "Sassy Sixes" are in full swing. :)

Popcorn Kernels

The other night Ian & Elise were eating popcorn and watching "The Incredibles" in our bedroom while Cory & I did some holiday wrapping. Elise fell asleep and Cory went to pick her up and take her to her bed. When he looked at our bed, there were popcorn kernels everywhere. He looked over at Ian, who was obviously the culprit, as he lifted Elise up from the mattress. As he picked her up popcorn kernels fell out EVERYWHERE. He again looked over at Ian, this time incredulously, and Ian just giggled mischievously. It never occurred to us that we needed to tell him not to put popcorn kernels on his sister. We'll know for next time. :)

Christmas Cheer

Yesterday, Cory took Elise and Ian out to do a little Christmas shopping for me. We like for them to pick out one present for each member of the family, so that while we play up the Santa-thing, we also give them a chance to give and receive. Later on in the evening, Ian was wanting to tell me what I had gotten because he was so excited about it. I told him how I really wanted to be surprised and then started teasing him with fake things he was getting like cucumbers, refrigerators and light bulbs. He then wanted Cory to tell him what he was getting and this is how the conversations went:

Cory: I think you're going to get a bag of switches.
Ian: (laughing quite a bit, because by this time he's in the swing of things.)
Me: Ian, do you know what 'switches' are?
Ian: Yeah! They're what turn the lights on.

Don't you love kids?

Christmas Activities

Since I've been a horrible blogger this month, I'll just put up a few of the sparse pictures I've taken of stuff we've done.
My mom and the kids and I painted/decorated these little wooden bears and made ornaments out of them. We had the best time.
Ian is all decked out for Christmas. He's wearing two of our Christmas stockings and of course the Santa hat. :)
Merry Grace decorated the tree in only one spot. By the end she had about 8 ornaments on the same branch.

Here are the ornaments we made (cinnamon, glue, applesauce). The kids only wanted to use our Halloween cookie cutters so we have quite a few witches, bats, spiders, skeletons and so on. Unique, to say the least.

Christmas Stuff

I have a hundred other things I want/need to write about but here's a quick Christmas survey. I'd love for you to post your answers to any and all of the questions in the comments section.

1. What is your favorite Christmas food? I can't think of a "real" food that is unique to Christmas. I enjoy eggnog, though, and gingerbread cookies, and peanut butter balls. Oh yummy!!!!!

2. Have you finished your Christmas Shopping yet? No. But almost. Mainly stocking stuffers, is all that is left.

3. What is your favorite Christmas song? The list of songs I don't like would be shorter. But two standouts are Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree (by Brenda Lee) and Oh Holy Night.

4. What is your favorite Christmas movie? White Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas, and the animated Grinch. :)

5. Who do you want to kiss under the mistletoe? Without a doubt, Cory. In fact I may put up some mistletoe, just as an excuse. :) (Sorry to gross you out Adam & Logan)

6. Do you have a real or fake Christmas tree? Fake. Two fake ones, actually. When Cory
& I first got married, we had real trees and swore we'd never have anything but. Turns out you can still have the Christmas spirit, even with a fake tree. :)

7. Have you ever had a White Christmas? Not that I can think of. The closest one was one year when we got some ice on Christmas Eve. It wasn't snow, but on Christmas morning everything was sparkly and wintery. Beautiful.

8. How many Christmas cards do you send out? I sent out around 40 this year, but the more I address, the more I remember other whom I ought to mail to. There are at least 10 more I really need to do, but we'll see.

9. How early do you wake up on Christmas morning? Whenever my kids do--6 or 7.

10. Do you like gingerbread cookies? Oh yes. :)