Alli Turns 6!

I just want to start by saying that everyone's birthday should be on a weekend or a holiday!! Hooray for President's Day sometimes falling on Alli's birthday! We enjoyed a wonderful day!

We woke up and had a breakfast of French Toast and berries. Although Alli tried to steal everyone's berries with the stretchy fork! I had gotten up early and gone to the grocery store to get stuff for breakfast and balloons. My sister in law thinks that everyone should have balloons on their birthday, and since she isn't here to bring the kids balloons anymore, I had to get them myself! :) Luckily they were nice and filled them for me because they weren't supposed to open that part until 9!

look how sweet and innocent she looks....

this is the real Alli!

She had fun opening presents from Kentucky

she got the biggest kick out of this one from Grammy and Grandpa!

Grammy also made this darling apron for her and she LOVES it!

Sadly Corry had to go to work, but after breakfast we headed down to Snow College to go swimming with Liz and her kids. We had a great time!

After it was off to Fat Jack's, which is now Roy's, for pizza, pasta and cheesy bread! Yummy! Then we went to the candy counter for ice cream and candy. SO much fun sitting on the stools like an old time candy store! LOVED IT!

Then it was home for naps (every one else slept in the car but me, so I got mine when I got home). After it was baked potatoes, chili and cheese for dinner with ice cream cake for dessert. No I didn't make a carmel bomb this year. I bought fudge instead of carmel even!

Here are my 6 favorite things about Alli:

1. She gets very excited about things you do for her or give her. Thank you, thank you, thank you is her usual response. I love that! It makes we want to do more things for her because she appreciates it!
2. She loves to read! Everywhere we go she is trying to read signs and books that she comes across. I love that she is so excited to learn.
3. She is my little helper. She loves to be by my side creating, cooking, even cleaning, as long as she gets to do it with me!
4. She has a tender little heart. We were reading this book where a little girl had to leave her cow and escape from some bad people and the little girl was distraught over leaving her cow. I looked over at Alli and there were tears rolling down her cheeks.
5. She loves music. Whether it is singing, dancing or playing the piano, she loves music. My favorite is when she thinks she is all alone in her room she will belt out Phantom songs! I love that she loves music as much as I do!
6. She has the best handwriting of any kindergartener I have ever seen. (Although she doesn't always choose to write in that handwriting). I love to see the things she writes and creates!

I love my Alli and am so excited she is my little princess! My life would be much duller without that little ray of sunshine! Love you toots!

Not nearly as bad as the carmel bomb

I didn't make nearly as big of a mess as when I made the carmel bomb, but it was still pretty messy! If you look at the bottom right corner, you can still see the burn mark on the floor we haven't fixed yet.

Anyway, what I did this time....

I was making pretzels again and I was multi-tasker extraordinaire. Except that I dropped the flour all over the floor. Luckily Corry started laughing and it all turned into a funny thing with my white foot prints all over everything the rest of the night! We just couldn't get it all off me! But we had some darn good pretzels again! Yummy!!! (It also didn't take nearly so long to clean up as the carmel bomb did!)

Super Bowl Sunday

I forgot to post about the Super Bowl! I love Super Bowl Sunday mostly for the yummy food! I really didn't care about who won, although I was cheering for the Steelers. At least the game was a good one. My favorite part was having a reason to make soft pretzels! Yummy! I think they were all gone in 10 minutes and I doubled the recipe and there were only 13 of us!

Mine weren't this pretty, but they were delicious and not too terribly time consuming! I got the recipe from my food network magazine again! - Love it! Here is the recipe!

Valentine's Day

Valentines Day was very low key this year. Corry and I went with some friends Saturday to the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU's Museum of Art. The exhibit was quite beautiful, but the ipad rental made it the best. To get info about the exhibit, go HERE. What a neat exhibit. I had no idea about somethings in those paintings I have seen for years. What a remarkable talent Carl Bloch had.

It was a solitary activity as we were all lost in our own thoughts and ipads, but the ride over was entertaining. The best part of the night was dinner at our house after. I made my stuffed shells and there were not any left! Mmmmm! I love homemade stuffed shells plus there was my friend's delicious bread and my other friend's wonderful cookie sundays for dessert! Mmmm! Just thinking about it makes me hungry again. I love the company of good friends. I was recently reading a blog about dating and the "expert" said you have to go just the two of you to make it a real date. I totally disagree. We love to go out the two of us, but we try to mix it up a bit between going with others and going alone. For us we love the time alone. We get a chance to talk and enjoy each other. But when we go with other couples we tend to laugh a whole lot more. That is medicine we both need sometimes too.

On Valentine's Day we had a nice low key meal at home with the kids, and the neighbor's kids. Our friends needed a babysitter so they could go out, but we didn't want to miss out on family home evening or on celebrating with our kids, so we invited their kids to come over until bed time and then Missy took them home to put them to bed. It worked out well for everyone. Fuzzy made heart shaped taco pizzas and the kids brought over cinnamon rolls for after dinner and chocolate dipped strawberries for the Family night treat. Yummy again!

Corry bought the kids a giant heart shaped chocolate box, me one of my own as well as a giant stuffed animal monkey! He is hilarious, but I loved it. I got him Tabasco sauce. I know you're thinking it wasn't a very nice gift, but

1. We weren't buying gifts because we are going on a cruise in a month! YEA YEA YEA YEA!!!
2. One of Corry's favorite quotes is from an ex-marine in our ward that stood up one Sunday (on his 50th anniversary) and said that he had been married so long that they were on their second bottle of Tabasco sauce. Corry thought that was the funniest thing and we have laughed for years about the fact we can't ever say that since we have never had a first bottle of Tabasco sauce.

So actually I was VERY funny and we had a good laugh together.

Happy Valentine's day to a wonderful husband and children! I love you dearly!

Miracles

So we had a really great lesson in Sunday School about the miracles Christ performed during His life. It really was a great lesson. We talked about the need of the person to have faith that the miracle could happen, faith in the power of the priesthood that they can and still do happen. That is all fine and good. A good lesson.

But, I couldn't help but think about all those who didn't have the miracles. There were other lepers, there were probably other sick children, maimed, lame, with evil spirits, dead brothers/children/loved ones. What about them? Did they not have sufficient faith? I don't believe that.

My nieces and nephew died. We all had sufficient faith. We knew God had the power to not take them home. My cousin. He had a blessing. I know he and his family had sufficient faith to heal him. Why were those miracles not granted. I think I was thinking about them already because Alli had given a talk in primary about the Plan of Happiness (Salvation) and she talked about them and how she knows she will see them again. She understands the plan. But where do miracles fit into this plan when the plan is for loved ones lives to be cut short? Then I thought, maybe their life being cut short was the miracle. Maybe it is a miracle that God took them when he did so that they could serve Him on the other side. Maybe it was a miracle in the lives of the love ones they left behind to help them in their progress to eternal life. I know that I look at the miscarriages in my life as miracles. They turned me closer to my Father. Do I want them again. NO WAY!!! Having foster kids was a miracle in my life. My eyes were opened and I was VERY humbled. I didn't know I needed that miracle in my life, but apparently I did. I am still being humbled by the comments I get sometimes. I have to say though it is a nice change from the you are so amazing comments. I hated those because I felt so much less than amazing! Anyway, I don't want to go on rambling, but I just wanted to write my thoughts. I had a miracle happen on the way to the grocery store this morning to remind me that just because things I want don't happen, it doesn't mean I don't have miracles in my life. The thing the teacher reminded us yesterday is that all our lives are miracles. The very fact that we are where we are with the ones we are with is a miracle! I believe that!

One more Christmas I forgot to post - Cloward Family Party

We all met together after Scotty's baptism. We were only short Dewey and the boys on missions. Quite a neat thing to have the family together.

The kids all opened their presents from each other. Alli is still my all time favorite present opener. She was so excited about a build-a-bear Rapuzel dress for Halli. This is her happy dance.

Scotty was excited about his science experiments.

Miss got a game instead of her real present since Jana left them all in Vernal, but it has turned out to be one of her favorite presents. She plays it a lot!

Fuzz loved her new sweatshirt. you can never have to many warm snuggly sweatshirts!

My favorite thing was opening the adult presents. Instead of purchasing gifts this year we made things for the couples. We got a bunch of coupons to cash in for babysitting, errand running, but my favorite ones were for the bread or pastries! YUMMY! I am not sure I will be sharing any of them! Love our cheesy faces!

There were framed family photos, a cool handmade wooden game, a cute wreath, and a neat family memory game.

More cheesy faces in the self portrait.

I had so much fun making our gift for Corry's parents. I made them frozen lasagna and frozen pies in jars that I found the recipe for HERE. They are so great and really worked! (I have several more in my freezer to snack on when I get a pie craving.) I just really like the thoughtfulness of the gifts and giving from the heart - really thinking what they might like. I loved it!

Then all together we gave Corry's parents a photo book with pictures of our family and what we love about his parents. It was quite a task to put together since it took a lot to get everyone to turn in their stuff, but it had the desired effect... mom cried! I think it is something they will look back at and use. I LOVE the more thoughtful theme of Christmas this year!

The other thing I love is how much my kids love their cousins - all of them. I love that the older girls are not to big to still play with the little ones sometimes. They like to be big too, but they still love playing with the little ones. I love my family.

MInimal Days

Really? Why can't my kids just have the whole day off???? Even worse for Kindergarten. All three pick up times changed from the normal Monday early change from the normal Tuesday-Friday schedule! AHHH!!! Anyway, we decided to make the best of the minimal day and let the kids have friends over.

Missy invited her friends over for lunch (since their lunches ended up being at about 10 AM - lame). They made homemade pizzas then we sent them off to the barn so Scotty could have his party without them. (BTW - I LOVE these girls)

One of Scotty's arrow points for Cub Scouts (I am getting all scout smart now) was to host a party. He had to help decorate, serve the refreshments, plan the activities and clean up afterwards. He did a great job! We invited a bunch of the neighbors. Scotty played balloon games, drop the clothes pin in the jar (funny how much he LOVES that game - gotta love the old school stuff), a dice game where you get to get lots of candy and steal other people's candy, and a marble game he learned from another Scout arrow he already passed off. Then after he had to talk about what went well and what he would do differently. The kids all had a great time, Scotty was a wonderful party planner/host and my kids had a great earlier early out day from school!

Valentine's Box

Scotty was SOOOOO excited to make his Valentine's box this year because there were going to be prizes for different ones and he wanted to win for the furriest. We happened to be at a store and he found this furry scarf that he thought would be perfect for his box. Then he came up with the eye covers that Corry gets on oversea flights. I had some red felt left from my project and voila! He had the best furriest box ever. He couldn't wait to bring it into his class, but he kept it hidden in a bag at school until Valentine's Day. He didn't end up winning furriest (they didn't give a prize for that) but he did win funniest! Way to go Scotty!

Invention Convention

Our 6th graders all have to come up with an invention or an innovation for their annual invention convention. Fuzzy had a great idea for hers! (That is half the battle!) She came up with attaching a box to a snow shovel that allows you to sprinkles salt on the surface as you are shoveling the snow. She called it... wait for it...

the Slip-away-inator

(little too much Phineas and Ferb going on at our house!)

She did a great job with her project, but I forgot my camera the day of the convention, so all I have are the pictures she took to put on her poster. I love it that these kinds of projects Miss and Fuzz just want to do. I did very little work other than taking her to the store to get the supplies she needed (and Corry helped her zip tie our fertilizer spreader to a child snow shovel for her model).

Way to go Fuzz!

Valentine Crafts

Since my life calmed down again I started up my craft group. These were the projects we made this month - yes I know my heart is crooked, but that is ok.

Sometimes my heart on the inside is a little off too.

I found this project HERE.

This one I LOVED!!! The only suggestion I would make is to use a thimble to push all the pins in place! I found this one HERE.

Anyone interested in coming to work on projects or just learning what projects we are doing let me know! We have a lot of fun, we keep the costs down and children are always welcome to come with you too!

Pointe Counterpointe

I was so proud of my girls at their big show this year. They had to sell so many tickets and we fell WAY short this year and had to buy a TON of them ourselves. I was not happy about it, but they took it all in stride and offered to pay for the extra tickets that we had to buy.

Anyway, they did a great job. I just love watching them perform. One of my favorite parts of the show is that the girls who are Seniors in High School get to create their own piece from choreography to lighting - everything! I think that is such a great opportunity for them. One of them was my favorite piece of the show.

The girls' best friends and Grandma and Grandpa did come and we had a great time (I forgot my camera the first night when the family came).

I love to watch them perform. It has been so much fun to watch them grow and improve their talents. It makes me cry to see how hard they have worked and the growth they have achieved! Love these two!

Clay's funeral

Clay's funeral was a beautiful thing. In some ways it was really hard to have Corry all the way in China when it all happened, but it other ways I think it was good for me to think how would I feel if he didn't come home? What would my life be like now? Alli would just cry and say, "I wouldn't like it if my daddy just didn't wake up again." This whole thing made me want to hold on to my loved ones a little longer, spend more time with them and really get to know them. Clay came to Scotty's baptism, but had to leave right after and all I did was wave to him that day. I want to do more than that.

(Corry now tells me that he is exhausted after the weekends because I want to fill it with memories for our children and spending time with friends and family!!!)

I knew Clay was a pretty remarkable person, but the thing I love about funerals is finding out all the stuff you didn't know. I loved Corry's grandparents' funerals because I got to hear so many stories I had never heard before. I love to get to know people. Anyway, one of my favorite talks at the funeral was by Clay's daughter Lindsee. (she will be a speaker everyone has heard of some day) Anyway she shared part of a letter Clay had written years ago (1981) to his parents and siblings about the importance of family and having family reunions. I just loved it so much I had to get a copy of it.

This is what he said:

"I think of what great joys awaits us as we all live together in the glorious surroundings of the celestial kingdom. Then my mind became puzzled and I ask myself, Why should we wait until life after death to have this joy? Has not the Lord said that the joy we obtain in this life will rise with us to the next? Will not fulfilled family relationships in this life make our joy that much sweeter in the next? Should we not live today well so that tomorrow will be better? As I answered these questions to myself I felt a strong desire and urge to make a positive step in the direction of solidifying and making sweet the relationship of the Anderson family...time has not dulled my memory of my family but rather it has made it sweeter. We need to be making memories today that will make our tomorrows sweeter."

That is how he lived.

Some pics from the day

The best part about funerals is that there is a lot of this:

Diasater Averted!!!

The high school here put on and INCREDIBLE version of the Phantom of the Opera. We took all the kids last weekend and were completely blown away! I had been debating for weeks about taking all the kids and finally decided to take them all. Boy am I glad we did. Alli was a little creeped out by Evan (the Phantom - a young man in our neighborhood) but she has been singing the songs all week. The other kids all loved it so much they wanted to go back to see it again with their friends.

So I went to buy tickets on Wednesday morning for Saturday night. I was lucky to get there when I did because they were sold out for every night but Saturday and there were only a handful of tickets left when I was done.

So this morning I was going through my purse making sure I had all the tickets and found I was missing one. We searched my purse, called the neighbor whom I had also purchased tickets for and they were NO WHERE!!! Scotty volunteered to be the one not to go, but he was sad. I finally found my receipt and realized I hadn't lost a ticket, I had counted wrong when I purchased tickets.

Let me now back up to mother of the year when I had the wrong time for Scotty's last basketball game. I still don't think he has forgiven my for that, which is wrong, but understandable.

Thanks to the magic of facebook, I found a friend that had one extra ticket and bought it!!! Yea! Disaster averted for disappointing my son again!

Chocolate Lava Cake

Gotta love singing happy birthday to yourself and making your own birthday cake!

That's OK 'cause I got to celebrate with Lisa too!

Happy Birthday to Us!

This post was meant to be about the Chocolate Lava Cake but I forgot to post about it!!! My sister gave us Food Network Magazine for Christmas and I LOVE IT!!!! They had a recipe for their knock off of Chili's Chocolate Lava Cake that I just had to have for my birthday! I had so much fun making them and finding the cool forms to put them it so they looked like mountains. Now I need to figure out how to make their white chocolate one. I actually like that one better. Yum! You can get the recipe HERE.