Conversations on Identity

In the last week or so(except one):

Me: Eliza-are you a stinker?

Eliza: NO!! I am a cutie pie!

Tom in the morning getting her out of her crib: "Hello Gorgeous"

Eliza: No, I'm Eliza

Me: Eliza-are you cute?

Eliza: No I'm poopy

My sister Katie: OH! You're talking now.

Eliza: No I am Eliza

Me: Eliza-are you cute? (Why do I ask my kids this so much?)

Eliza: No, I'm a stinker! (So we've come full circle)

Eliza in dress shoes...asleep. My girly girl (or just Eliza)

Yeast Facts

Sometimes kids just crack you up. Samantha was trying to eat some bread dough Tom was making and he told her she couldn't and why she couldn't. So Samantha decided to guard against the perils of bread dough for always by making a comprehensive list:
She's a good speller but I'll translate just in case:

Yeast List

1. We never eat bread dough

2. We will get a fungus. They take things your body needs

Yeast Facts

This public service announcement is sponsored by Samantha. If we can save just one person from getting a fungus from bread dough-it was worth it.

Happy Scrappy

I never post my scrapbooking pages-I feel too shy. I like what I do and I'm happy I do it. I just tend to like what other people do better. But I've been working hard (like I always do about 3 months before I have a baby). I am between 1 1/2 and 2 years behind. I just have to come to terms with that. I would really like to be about 6 months behind but that doesn't seem likely. Here are a few that I like:

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Stinkin stickers wouldn't stay on straight.

You will never believe how long this one took me so I'm not going to tell you. It was inordinately long (I was watching a movie at the same time). I think it was the stitching that added so much time.

This one freaked me out-white space-ahhh. But I actually like it.

At Least She's Not a Vampire

Tommy was my biter. He bit almost constantly when he was about 18 months old (I think-I've blocked it out). I remember one particularly special occasion where my sister Livvie left my house and she had 18 horrible bite mark/bruises all over her body. Tommy had used her as his teething tool for his 2 year old molars or something. Thankfully, he never bit anyone outside of the family!

But that's just barely related to this story:

Eliza is not a "biter" per say. But occasionally she brings out the fangs in self-defense. I don't know what was going on but she bit Tommy hard the other day-on his finger. He cried, I soothed, we moved on (except for when Tommy recapped the story for daddy in great detail).

The next morning he wakes me up and says "Mommy I have an ouchie where Eliza bit me" It was infected-full of pus (sorry delicate readers)! Maybe this is normal but in the 1204930948 times Tommy bit Samantha that had never happened. Maybe Eliza has venom in her spit? Maybe Tommy will wake up with super powers? Or maybe he'll just learn not to mess with Eliza.

We Believe: New Beginnings....really cupcakes

Last week I was in charge of New Beginnings for Young Womens. Of course I was stressed about it because it's always stressful whenever you're in charge of things. I was prepared though and even though that didn't mean "I did not fear" it still went well. The decorations were cute, my talk went well, the girls did a great job on their talks/song. Everything was great!

But this post is really about cupcakes. We have a low budget this year so we went with cheap(er) and simple. The refreshments were cupcakes and water. So since it was just cupcakes I wanted them to be *fabulous*. As the post states the theme was "We Believe" based on the 13th article of Faith. That's a great theme-without any decorating ideas. So I went floral for everything (because that is ALWAYS a good theme-right?)

I got online and searched for cupcakes. At this link I found dainty little flower cupcakes shown below:
Then at this link I made these rose cupcakes (okay, okay-I put Tom in charge of these and he did a great job. )
Both of these were pretty easy really. Much easier than some of the other things I searched for. One tip on the rose ones-they were cuter when you applied unequal pressure to the two bags (if you read the link you'll understand) because evenly spread colors weren't as cute as say white tinged with pink or vice versa.

Am I ready to open my own boutique!?! Um...no, but I really enjoy doing things like this.

Poor Samantha!

Tuesday Samantha came home from school with a very high (104.3) temperature. There were two little red spots on her cheeks that I just attributed to dryness.

By the next morning she was covered head to toe in a horrific rash that would start as bumps, morph into hives, and then eventually scab over. The rash was everywhere - on her lips even!! Plus she still had her insanely high fever. I was extremely stressed and took her to the Dr.'s office. After more than one doctor, strep cultures and blood work plus waiting forever we still had no answers. The Dr. gave her a prescription for an anti-viral (which I have to admit I'd never heard of) then we just hoped for the best.

She is doing better now. She got a priesthood blessing (the biggest help I think) and the anti-viral was the right call as well. We'll probably never know what exactly she had I'm just glad she's doing better! She missed 4 days of school total. She is thrilled to go back.

These are some pictures-they really don't do it justice though. It was so bad, my one friend said she definitely won the prize for the worse rash she'd ever seen!

Character Counts

Samantha's school does this "Character Counts" thing where they talk about Six pillars of Character. One of them is "Caring" and for the month of January Samantha was nominated from her classroom as the representative for that characteristic. They sent home a little note telling us there would be a reception for her (and the other recipients). We didn't tell her about it and she was very, very excited when she found out. She got a little treat and they took a picture of her with the Principal. It was nice.

This is what her teacher said about her: "I am nominating Samantha for the pillar of caring. She is always caring for others. She is always helping other students when they need it. She hugs friends when they are sad. She is always so concerned for everyone else's feelings. She is so sweet and I enjoy having her in class very much! Thank you Samantha for being a caring friend!"