Due to recent events that have led me to conclude that people over the age of 40 should be banned from facebook...I will not be posting anything that remotely relates to how I actually feel about my life on fb anymore. This irritates me very much because I do very much like to ask mothering/cooking/life questions to a large audience of my peers to get a varied response. oh well. So, that leaves me with this blog I guess...even though it's not private because I theoretically like to join linky parties. Anyways- if I had a status right now it would be one of those annoying ones starting a ban on old people and telling everyone else to post that as their status too- I really hate those kinds of status updates, but this is a cause I can stand behind.

"I'm Woody- Howdy, Howdy, Howdy"

So I'm one of the Relief Society teachers- yeah I know, sucks huh? There was a meeting on Sunday for "training" and when I got there it was me and two other ladies that are probably in their seventies that have been teaching RS since we've lived here- so at least 4 years....
Now, I think this all started because I was extremely reluctant to accept this calling- there are about 8 women out of the 50 or more women in RS who are under the age of 50. I am not being dramatic about that either- seriously our ward is one of those "newly-wed or nearly dead" ones. Needless to say, I am not too excited to teach women who know 500 million more things about the gospel than me. Oh, and did I mention they all don't remember even one tiny bit of what it was like to raise young children so a lot of them are pretty judgmental? Anyways, I didn't want to do it, but the bishop said the presidency had already been sent back to pray about it by him and they said they were sure they wanted me. So, basically I had no choice. Awesome.
Back to the meeting- it was all about how if you are "personally worthy" you will be a really awesome teacher. I took out of the meeting:

a. I am the only one in this room who needs "help" with the calling, so I am now The Service Project

b.You think that just because I don't like my calling, I must be having some personal worthiness issues??!!??

c.Everyone has been judging me and talking about me even more than I already thought

d. I'm so excited that you just gave me a whole other list of CRAP I have to do to "be a good teacher"- what all that other stuff like visiting teaching, going to the temple, family home evening, reading scriptures, doing family history, doing missionary work, writing in your journal, feeding the missionaries, writing in your journal oh and did I forget BEING A GOOD MOM- was that NOT ENOUGH STUFF TO DO????

okay- I would apologize for my rant, but your know what- I'm not sorry. Could you tell?

Letter Project Part 3

Well, I pulled a muscle in my back and so that means I can't really fold clothes or do dishes right? My doctor said only blogging is allowed...or something like that. I feel retarded that it's been so long since I posted about this because now that adds up to a lot of letters, but hopefully it's not too boring for everyone (aka the 2 people who read my blog).

Letter I:
Day 1- We made our "I" out of "ice cubes". I used the clear plastic that batteries
come in and scotch tape to make three dimensional squares. It took awhile but
I think it looks pretty cool- I think I will keep them after this project is
over for play food.
Day 2- We talked about Issac and Rebecca. I never realized that when Rebecca
served the water to the animals that it was Issac's kinsman there and not
Issac himself. I always thought that's how they fell in love- maybe it was,
but indirectly. Am I the only one who didn't know that?
Day 3- We made an igloo! I used stale marshmellows and vanilla frosting piled over
an upside-down bowl. It was fun!
Day 4- We made Irish Creme hot chocolate and read books about Iguanas
Day 5- We played with Ink- (stamps)



Letter J:
Day 1: Macy is OBSESSED with Toy Story right now (and Rapunzel haha), so we made
our "J" out of pictures of Jessie the cowgirl from that movie.
Day 2: I felt like we needed to talk about Jesus for "J"- I told her different
stories each night and looked at tons of art.
Day 3: Ate JELLYBEANS of course!
Day 4: We made Jello and drank special "little" Juice boxes
Day 5: We made a Jester hat out of construction paper =)

Letter K:
Day 1: We made a "K" out of "kisses"- putting on lipstick and kissing the paper!
Day 2: We read and learned about King Benjamin
Day 3: We made a Kitten mask from my mil's notebook of activities
Day 4: Austin's company is called KPMG- we made cupcakes and wrote the letters on
them.
Day 5: I was excited to think of making Kabobs with fruit and cheese for Macy's
dinner.



Letter L:
Day 1: We made "Ladybugs" out of little red stones by drawing black polka-dots on
and made our "L" out of them.
Day 2: We talked about Lehi and his family- we used those Book of Mormon stories
that are drawn- almost like "comics"?
Day 3: Another activity that was in our little activity book was to make scones
and build them into a little alter like stones to use to tell the story
about how Lehi made an alter to pray in thankfulness for saving him and his
family.
Day 4: Lucky for me we inherited a cool bug puzzle where you "build" the bugs- and
one of them was a Ladybug ( I know, lots of the same, but give me a break!
haha).
Day 5: Our wonderful cousins passed down some boy clothes for us to give to
neighbors, lucky for us, though, we caught BUZZ LIGHTYEAR pajamas before we
gave them away! Macy has only worn two things for the last 6 weeks- her
Rapunzel nightgown and these pajamas...

Thanksgiving Mantel

Okay, I know this is super late notice- Thanksgiving is today and the event itself if over...but I guess I really like how my mantel turned out so I still wanted to post it. I swear it has been up for the last three weeks!=)

Alphabet and Scripture Project Part 2

Sooo- I have been wanting to post about my alphabet & scripture project, but with all the things in the way and also not wanting to post every week, I have just been writing down what I did with her. Well, lucky for me Macy likes to spill liquids on everything important... yeah. My list is gone. I'm going to try to remember, but sadly my mind is 1/4 of what it use- to be.

Week 5: E

• Monday we talked about Eve (I'm trying to focus on the awesome women) and we looked at several different pictures of her- I was surprised how much art has been done of her. I just told Macy that the "Adam was a prophet" Adam and Eve are the mommy and daddy of all the people on the earth. Sorry if that is weird for anyone?
• Tuesday we made our little scrambled Egg letter "E"- Macy thought this was cool- I think because of the felt food I've made her.
• Wednesday we made a construction paper "Earth" and I got stickers at the dollar store of plants and animals that had neat facts about them on the back. We talked about how Jesus made the earth
• Thursday we actually did do an Easter Egg Hunt! I recommend doing this! Why do we wait until Easter? I didn't even put anything in them- she just thought it was fun finding them in the family room!
• Friday I got out a "new-to-us" train and track or an Engine if you're being creative haha.

Week 6: F

• Monday when I started with "F" I had a hard time finding anyone scriptural that had a name that started with F- come to find out after looking it up online- names with F don't exist in all of the scriptures! So I decided to go with Faith, since in Nursery they had made little bean plant cups. (that's what the cup above F is)
• Tuesday we made the Feather letter F
• Wednesday we made butterflies- because they Fly- with an amazing little binder of "projects" my mother-in-law made for Macy (and to help me keep her busy!). You use plastic baggies- the ones you just fold over, not ziplock- and strips of different colored tissue paper and a clothespin. You fill the baggie with the tissue paper, either scrunched or just spread around, and then cinch it in the middle and make it stay with the clothespin. Then we drew a little face on the clothespin. Super easy and cute (especially when all the stuff is prepared for you! I think a binder of "stuff to do" with all the things prepared would be an awesome gift for birthdays- I gotta figure out how to do it!)
• Thursday we went to Ross and got a bucket of those little plastic beads that you melt with an iron to melt them together. I loved these when I was younger and I wasn't sure if Macy would be old enough yet, but I could always save them for later. Yeah- she wasn't old enough as you can see by the picture...she dumped the whole thing out. Oh well. So she "helped" me make a "Fortress" (really a castle since we got the princess set) and we melted it together.
• Friday we made Halloween Finger puppets just out of paper.

Week 7: G

• Monday we talked about the angel Gabriel and how he came and told Mary that she was going to have a baby and he was going to be baby Jesus.
• Tuesday we made our G out of Grass
• Wednesday we read Halloween books about friendly Ghosts.
• Thursday we made cupcakes and took them to Give to people in our ward. Someone started a "Boo-ed" little chain letter thing where you leave anonymous treats at people's doors and the people who got the treats have then been "boo-ed" and they have to put up a ghost so they don't get hit again. It was a fun idea!
• Friday Macy got to eat Gold coins I had saved- and frozen!!- from St. Patrick's Day (sorry if that's gross- really they were fine). We talked about colors and treasure.

Week 8: H

• How awesome for me that the "H" week was Halloween week! I broke my "rules" (what rules?) and we just did Halloween things all week long.
• Monday we did talk about Hannah and how she really wanted to have a baby, but she couldn't, so she went to the temple and prayed for a long time and then Heavenly Father helped her have a baby! And that baby grew up to named Samuel who was a prophet!
• Tuesday we made our H out of Halloween stamps ( kinda hard to tell in the picture, I know)
• Wednesday we worked on Halloween costumes (this was a continuing thing) and trick or treat bags (or purse in Macy's case)
• Thursday we got Halloween candy to pass out.
• Saturday I am on Activities Committee and so we went to the church and decorated for the Halloween party that night- it took a while! (I'm counting that for Friday)

Macy and I are now on the letter K but I haven't taken a picture of the wall yet because my camera memory card is full...and I am retarded enough not to know how to put the pictures on the computer. Plus, that would make this post REALLY long- I wonder if it's already too much? Anyways, thanks for reading. Having this to do has really been nice because my days have a goal I can reasonably accomplish and checking things off a never ending to-do list is always good. =)

Murder at the Malt Shop

Emily and Austin's Annual Halloween Party this year was another Murder Mystery Dinner. I love the idea of solving a crime and eating and most especially being with awesome friends while doing so. I was lucky enough to find one of the boxed games of "How to Host a Murder Mystery" at the thrift store for $1! I have been saving it for a year!

The theme of this particular one was the 50's and took place in a malt shop. The 50's to me says pink and teal, which is certainly not typical Halloween colors, and as we all can obviously tell, I'm a little into the holiday so I didn't want to have to give up my spooky vibe- so I mixed the two. The food is the main way I did this, by using a Rachel Ray birthday party idea, I made all the food "Twilight Zone" hugely out of proportion. The little menu has all the catch phrases. Of course the fact that we were trying to solve a murder was spooky too! This was so very fun and I am thankful to all you guys for coming and really getting into it! It always makes it more fun! =)

The whole gang hanging at "Monster Maltie's Falcon Malt Shop"

after our High School Reunion- "Roley High" Class of '54 where our friend the famous "Rock" N. Roley performed and is now gone missing...dun,dun, DUN!!!!!!

Cate and Doug Hopkins

as

Cheerleader "E.C. Leigh" and Football Star "Del Toydes"

Val and Dave LeMieux

as

Jitterbug Champ "Bea A'upper" and Quarterback "Jock S. Trappe"

Me and Austin

as

Femme Fatal "Dee C. Deucer" and Genius "Cal Q. Later" (I just have to say is that not hilarious about Austin? When picking our parts I was cracking up)

Josh and Dustie Sube

as

Mogul "Joe K. Awledge" and Hometown Girl "Penny Lofer"

Candice and Tom Macari (and Baby Evangeline)

as

Studious "Priscilla E. Teene" and Rebel "Rick C. Alcitrent"

My Jukebox- I'm certainly not an artist, but I was excited it turned out okay.

The "Chandelier"

]
Here's the menu and the main way that I tried to try Halloween to the Malt

"Monster Maltie's Falcon Malt Shop-"

"We'll SCARE you with our STRANGELY Substantial portion sizes"

"Bizarrely Big Broccoli" and "Uncanny Carrots" with "Dramatically Devilish Dip"

"Monumentally Macho Nachos"

"Horrifically Huge Hamburgers"

"Mysteriously Massive Milkshake"

(plus cute nerd) =)

"Creepily Colossal Cupcake"

Decorations of 50's candy to also go with the Halloween season

More little touches

Checkerboard Floor (not quite finished, but the idea comes across...)

The End!

(thanks for reading this whole post if you got this far!!)