The Love Boat

In the 1980's I loved the T.V. show ......

I had a little crush on Gopher

What was I thinking?!

Anyway, I always had dreams of going on a cruise boat but it was never fulfilled until this year!  My sweetie took me on a cruise at the end of September!!  Since this was my first time being away from my babies for a long period of time I couldn't go over to the Eastern side of the U.S. by the Carribean (it seemed too far away) and Mexico didn't excite me.  So we decided to take a western coast cruise that started in Vancouver, Canada and ended in San Diego.  It was 4 days at sea with one stop in Victoria, Canada.

The view of Vancouver as we were pulling away

On top of the boat.  It was called the Stattendam.

Our room had a deck and we passed a light house as were pulling away getting out to the ocean.

I think he is 1,000 times cuter and sexier than Gopher.

We stopped at Victoria

I got suckered into to purchasing the picture that one of the photographers took of us as we were leaving the boat at Victoria. 

Butchart Gardens

The cruise was good.  It was so fun to be with Jeff every minute and not have to say good-bye to each other.  I really enjoyed myself and relaxed a ton.  Those of you who see me on a regular basis know that I have worn a wrist brace and have wrist problems that start from carrying and lifting my babies after they are born.  Lizzie was almost two and I was still having pain in my wrist.  On my vacation I didn't have to lift kids, make dinner, drive or do the daily motherly duties and by the end of the vacation I was finally feeling relief.  And now my wrist is feeling great.

When the cruise ended we stayed in San Diego for a day.

Ben and Lizzie stayed at my parent's house in Rexburg, Idaho.  They had a blast and still talk very fondly of their grandparents and tell me often they want to go back to their house.  My dad took pictures of their "vacation" and then my mom made a picture/storybook and had it laminated and bound so the kids could have a record of their time at grandma's and grandpa's.  What a treasure.

Ben's Interview

We have had a few request for an interview with Ben since I did an interview with Lizzie a few months ago.  So here it is:

He cracks me up.  Right after he woke up from his nap earlier he said it was Fall and he knows it is Fall because the leaves fall.  So when I asked him what happens when it is Fall, I wasn't expecting that answer.  The Frosty Frog is a shaved ice shack that we have close to our house that we drive past a lot during the summer months.

This Sunday is our Primary program in Sacrament Meeting and Ben was asked to share a talk he gave in the Spring in primary.  We helped him tell a story about President Monson when he was 12 years old.  The actual story can be found here.  So now we are trying to get him to be able to tell the story in his own words so he can share the story to the congregation on Sunday.  I don't know how well that is going to go for a 4 year old but I bet it will be entertaining for my dear ward members.

Superheroes

We got this book from the library today.

 Nope.  Not teddy bears.  My superheroes have a stuffed dog and a book.

An Interview with Lizzie

Here is a video I took of Lizzie where I asked her some questions about her life.  We love her.  She is our total sweetie and our total terror.  At one point in the video she is talking about going to nursery/class on Sunday and it is hard to understand her if you don't know the back story.  She hates nursery. She turned 18 months in April and a few times she has stayed in there but most of the time she throws a huge fit and Jeff has to take her to his classes with him.  Well the previous Sunday, she threw a big fit and instead of taking her to his class, he took her home, took off her dress and put her to bed.  She DID NOT like that one bit.  So hopefully she will go to class from now on or she will get put in bed. :)

Tower of Babel

A few months back my Relief Society asked me to teach at Enrichment night about some simple Family Home Evening lesson ideas for Toddlers and Preschoolers.  Frankly I had felt fed up with trying to keep my two little ones sitting still during Family Home Evening.  It felt impossible and my brain couldn't come up with ideas.  But I did some research on Pinterest and found some really fun ideas that I am going to try and that I shared at Enrichment. I'll share some of the ideas at the end of this post.

One of the lessons I found and that we did with the kids was on the Tower of Babel.  We talked to the kids about the Tower of Babel while they colored this picture which I found on the internet.

 

Earlier in the day I made a chocolate cake in a 9X13 pan along with some frosting and cut it into large square pieces.

 We built our own Tower of Babel with chocolate cake and frosting.

Lizzie started.

Here is Jeff after I took a turn.

Ben is getting ready to put his on

Ooops!  Down it came.

Now it is time to eat it.

The kids loved the lesson.  Success!

(Erica wasn't with us for this FHE.  Normally we do our FHE on Sunday because she is almost always with us on Sunday but she had something going on at her mother's that day.)

Here are some other ideas I found that I will be using in the future:

·                  David  and Goliath - Tell the story of David and Goliath.  Make paper rocks and throw them at daddy

·                  Masterpiece Maker - Watch "Create" on lds.org (2 minutes).  Create something out of peanut butter playdough and snacks.

·                  Family History - Go through pictures of grandparents, cousins and other family members and practice saying their names

·                  Jesus Calms the Storm - Tell the story of Jesus calming the storm in Luke 8: 22-25.  Next create a storm in your living room.  Use musical instruments to make noise, shake a blue blanket to create a storm on the water, turn the lights on and off to make lightening.  When you hold up a picture of Jesus all of the noise, lightening and winds on the waves obey Jesus and stop.  Memorize Luke 8:25  together("for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.")  Sing Master the Tempest is Raging.  Make Banana Boats for a treat.

·                  Book of Mormon Battles - Get out your Lincoln Logs and plastic army guys for this one. Read your favorite Book of Mormon battle story.  As you read slowly, set up and elaborate re-enactment of the scriptures by building forts, strategically placing little soldiers, cutting up wavy strips of blue construction paper for rivers, make mountains, build trenches, etc.  Alma 56 would be a good one to act out.

·                  Lehi's Dream - Have a large poster board, pencils, markers, crayon, stickers etc.  As you tell the story of Lehi's dream to your family, have each family take part in drawing a part of it.  Also talk about the interpretation of the dream by Nephi.  For the treat try a new fruit that your family hasn't tried before.

·                  Obedience - Get an animal of some sort (a sheep, cow, goat--something that lives on a farm would work the best) and make some sort of fence around the animal.  Ask the kids, or just explain (depending on ages), why we keep the animals in fences-- they could get lost, hurt, not be able to find food... if they were on their own. Parallel the fence to rules and commandments that we have.

·                  Temples - Create temples out of play-dough.  While the temples are being made show pictures of temples and talk about why we have temples.

·                  Creation - While you read the scriptures about the creation when each day is read a person goes into the kitchen and adds an ingredient(s) to a bowl and on the final day it is mixed all together and baked.

My ideas came from the following blogs:

http://nataliesfhespot.blogspot.com/

http://ldsfhe.blogspot.com/

http://fheplanner.blogspot.com/

http://mormonmommymft.blogspot.com/

Quilt Journal - Part 2

It is time for part 2 of my quilt journal.  I did Part One in 2010 and I have done a few quilts since then that I need to document for my posterity. 

This little cutie is my nephew born in January 2011 (1/11/11) and I made him an animal/alphabet quilt.  But I didn't take any pictures of just the quilt by itself.  So you have to look at my cute models laying on it or next to it.  It is super colorful.

Then I made a quilt for my Lizzie while she was in my tummy.  It is Minkee fabric which is so soft and cuddly.

 

I want to squeeze those cheeks!

 

Then I made the quilt below for my sister-in-law, Kristin for Christmas 2010 but she didn't get it until March 2011 because I was a little busy during the Holiday season of 2010 with my newborn.

My sister, Leah, made the quilt below for Lizzie.  Isn't it the sweetest?!  The backing is flannel and so soft and cuddly.

 

My favorite quilting store (American Quilting) has a block of the month class called the "Mystery Saturday Sampler" where each month you get your fabric for the month's blocks and sew them together.  The quilt is a mystery and you don't know what it will look like until the very last class of the year.  I started the class in July 2009 and it went until June 2010.  Here is how mine turned out.

 Here are a few of my favorite blocks.

Below is what the actual quilt from the class turned out to look like.  The border was a little too much for me to do.  I think it is so cute but I didn't have the patience to do all of that.

 

Below is the quilt my mom, Leah and I made for my sister, Anna, when she got married in January this year.  I saw this camping fabric and loved it so much.

 I sewed the quilt top together and Leah put on the backing and the binding.  My mom helped us pay for it.  Then we had Leah's mother-in-law, Jody, do the quilting.

 Can you see the moose and the bear in the quilting below?!  I love it.

My current projects are my strawberry fields cartwheel quilt, a Christmas advent calendar and I'm starting another mystery Saturday sampler class in July.  Stay tuned and maybe in a couple of years I'll show those off too.

My Busy Cuties

This is one of my favorite purchases I have made at Costco recently.  A water table.  It keeps them busy for a long time so I can sit and stare at my cuties.

Favorite People

Two of our favorite people live four hours away from us and so every now and then we like to hop in the car and travel to their house so they can spoil us with their undivided attention. We did a trip in the beginning of April.

Grandma!!!

Grandpa!!!
They live on a hill and Ben is learning how to ride his bike so luckily Grandpa has a stick with a hook on it to hang on to him.

Grandpa knows how to show a one and three year old a good time......take them across the street to stand on top of a big pile of dirt  :)  That's right!

 

They took us to the library and we heard stories about the wind.   Ben made his own wind catcher.

 They loved the fish tank at the library too.

 

We also went to the Cal-Ranch store to look at baby chicks and ducklings.

 We went over to my brother's house and the kids are in love with their dog.  They got to feed him ham.

Getting Lizzie to smile for the camera is rare but when she is in the same room with dog she will give you the biggest smile she has to offer.

Whenever we are around my brother Ira, he is doing this with Ben.....

Wrestling!

Ben loves it and by the time they are done they are both dripping wet with sweat.

I adore my parents and feel so blessed that we have a place to go to escape life sometimes.  Going to my parents' house after I moved out many years ago has always been delightful and enchanting.  I love taking my kids there now.