My ward's November Relief Society meeting was a special program and dinner for all the sisters. We had about 70 sisters attend and it was a very spiritually and food filling night. The theme for the night was based on President Uchtdorf's talk (here) "Forget Not." He tells a story of the Forget-Me-Not Flower. I really connected to this talk as a sister in the gospel and with my calling. I wanted to share what I was able to help with for the meeting.

 Here is a picture of the 99 cupcakes I baked and decorated. I had 101 decorated but I had some little helpers who dropped two on the floor, thus the 99. I have never in my entire life made this many cupcakes. I don't even think in my lifetime I've made this many. It was fun planning what I would do and when I'd do it. I hope you can see the blue Forget-Me-Not flower on each one.

Here is the dessert table with all the cupcakes on. The menu for the night was pork roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, green salad, rolls, and cupcakes. The night was absolutely perfect and the spirit of love, friendship, and unity was there.
Here is the set up of the gym. There are light blue table cloths on the sides, forget-me-not flowers in Mason jars wrapped in tissue with a light in the middle as the centerpiece. The middle tables had light blue place mats to bring the blue out as well.

 We didn't know Kayla opened an internal account until Saturday at around 5 o'clock. Her story kept changing that Briella made her do it and that Alex had done it before with no adverse affects. Finally we figured that she had several in her mouth and choked down and made a deposit into her body. She hacked a lot in the toilet and tried to make a return but nothing was coming out. She said it hurt really bad. Her vital signs were normal so I just held her and talked her about what happened and about lying to her mom. I decided that the deposit had made it to her stomach and a withdrawal would make itself into the toilet.
She couldn't eat dinner, breakfast, or keep anything down. I thought maybe her throat had become irritated from her swallowing the money so we just waited. I talked with someone at church who has had a lot of experience with these kinds of things. She showed some concern and told me to see if Kayla can eat some bread. So after church, Kayla tried to eat a piece of bread and threw that up before it had gotten to her stomach. I decided that we should take her in to a doctor.
The only Instacare open was 20 minutes away so we dropped Alex and Briella off to their grandparents and went in to get an x-ray.

As you can see, the money was not in her stomach. Since it had been 24 hours since the deposit was made, the concern of it corroding her esophagus was a high concern. The doctor at the Instacare made a call and we went to the Emergency Room. After more waiting and paperwork, the doctor there said he didn't want to extract the money because it had been in there so long and was worried about the risk of further damage.
So he sent us to Primary Children's Medical Center. Again, we waited and waited and filled out more paperwork. Kayla was so uncomfortable and started spitting up continuously, every five minutes or so. She received an IV from the first hospital that we carried in our car on the drive to PCMC and received another IV there as well. She hadn't eaten since the previous day around lunchtime and she was becoming dehydrated with a higher heart-rate. Kayla would cry and whimper. It hurt to have the money inside her and she could feel pain where it was lodged.

I wasn't prepared.

So Trevor helped me out.

My Halloween dream someday will come true with all unique, homemade outfits, creative and spooky dinner party, decorations to make you all jealous, and happy children going to bed.

Halloween was great and I'm grateful for a wonderful husband for his help and love for his children.

The day started off with a visit to Kayla's school to watch her in her Halloween Parade

My camera wasn't working so I was the mom running around all the corners trying to get a working picture.

After running home and getting myself and Briella ready for Halloween, we went back to the school for Alex's parade. Here the girls are waiting for it to start. Here is Alex. He wasn't paying attention and I had to yell at him to look at me. Boys! Here the kids are Trick-or-Treating at Trevor's work Next we took the kids to Trevor's work for Trick-or-Treating around the office Briella was an angel Kayla is Bat Girl (love her pose here)

I even dressed up for the occasion - Warrior Princess!

The family, minus Trevor (taking the picture, and he didn't dress up)

Darth Vader (his costume was like 8 sizes too big for him but it was the last one at Walmart!)

My kids got a TON of candy. I invited them to eat it all that night (impossible) or pick five pieces and save the rest for later. They picked the later. I bet we got more than 15 lbs of candy between the 3 of them.

I am so grateful for Briella in our family. She brings such joy into our family. Heavenly Father wanted her here to bless us and to teach us. She'll be turning four by the end of this year and I can't imagine life without her. She loves to be snuggled by her mom and her dad. She has a spunky personality that oozes sweetness that you can't help but just fall in love over and over with her. She is a natural jazz dancer, a genius intellectually, and spiritually inclined. She also wants to marry Elmo in the Salt Lake Temple.

Grandchildren with their pumpkins they decorated at the Cabin.

This is our Thompson Family cabin. We spent Wednesday night through Sunday there this past week. It's so nice to get away and spend time with the family.

With so many people at the cabin, before we leave, we clean it until it sparkles. Grandpa whispered to me that he wanted to get out of work but I found him working and took this picture to prove it.

Grandma and Grandpa brought pumpkins for all the kids to decorate. Instead of pumpkin guts and seeds all over, she had some vinyl sticker faces for the pumpkins. It was perfect and everyone loved making their jack-o'lanterns.

Grandma helping Briella

Here is Alex with his pumpkin. So cute that he picked a face with glasses!

Kayla with her finished pumpkin. We had to work a bit to get the vinyl to stick well and Grandma pulled out her credit cards to help the kids to rub the stickers on.

Briella with her pumpkin. LOVE her smile and bright eyes!

We love going to the cabin. My kids wish we could live there. This past week was heavenly. The weather was so, so nice. Hiking around, the smell of the fall leaves was breathtaking. The kids loved playing at a small lake and throwing rocks in. Alex found a lot of snail shells there and collected them. Unfortunately, he brought them home and left them in the car. The smell the next day was horrendous. I had no idea what the smell was until I went searching and found a sandwich bad with the snail shells. Bleh!!
Trevor and I did some serious hiking one day. We climbed over a small stream and hiked a steep small mountain. I swear I was stepping in bear tracks but Trevor said they were moose tracks. I just can't imagine those huge animals walking up that steep mountain. We came to a place that was completely empty of any civilization and so quiet. We had a fun time hiking. We got some reading done and tons of eating yummy food from all the amazing cooks in our family!
Some of the highlights are seeing the wildlife at the cabin. We saw a lot of deer this weekend but didn't see our friendly moose until we were leaving. Trisha and Kyle were off to the side of the road and we thought maybe they were having troubles. They pointed out the moose to us. I tried to take a picture but my camera was on video. So here is a quick (don't blink) video of the moose. They were lucky it didn't charge their car!

Trevor plays soccer during his lunch break at work. Since I married a tall robust man, many of your typical soccer players bounce off him. Some even end up with injuries. He tells me of the stories when he comes home of bruises, sprains, and I think there was a broken bone at once (caused by him, on accident of course). He sometimes comes home with bruises himself but the story is always "You should have seen the other guy." So when he came home last week, Kayla ran out to see him and then ran back in and said he had gotten hurt and was bleeding. Pre-programmed with soccer injury stories, I was prepared to face whatever was behind the door. I opened the door and my heart sank. I turned around to hide my panic and hurt for him. I imagined that he was playing soccer and ran, and skidded on the pavement. How would his face heal, he'd definitely have a scar. Then I turned around again as the thought ran through my head. There were no bandages on his face. For sure, he would have had some First Aid attended to his face. Then I saw his smile. It was fake make-up. I turned around again and the emotions spilled out as tears of relief.
At work, he agreed to have a Halloween make-up demonstration on his face. He didn't wash it off either and freaked out his entire family! I'm so glad that he was able to wash it all off.

My life has changed. Miss Kayla has started school. I thought life would get easier. No, it has gotten harder.
Kayla loves school. She rode the bus on the first day. She's made several friends and tells me that there are boys on the bus and in her class that bug her.
These pictures are of Kayla on her first day. I love the pictures are she's walking to her class with her teacher. It's like she's in a parade and waving to me the entire time.
This is Alex's first day of school. I hope you can tell he's really excited.

I found out I was a bad mom when Alex got home from school on March 17th and the Leprechaun had not visited our house. I tried my best to act nonchalant about it. But when I opened the kettle with spaghetti in it, we got a surprise!

Yep - Lucky, the Leprechaun must have snuck into our house and colored our spaghetti green!



The kids all ate it so no one starved that night. When I was closing down the day and after the kids were tucked in their beds, I was greeted with this at the foot of Alex's bed:
This is a Leprechaun trap that Alex made from a Yard Stick (I guess he will walk on the yardstick) and Legos. Apparently he is supposed to climb up the Lego ladder and will be trapped there.

The sign says "Dear, Lucky. Climb up this ladder now or give me some gold. Stay in here!" Alex kept this trap up from about three weeks. No Leprechaun was every caught.

Kayla turned five in March. I know, I'm a bit behind blogging about it. I wanted to do something "girly" with her since she is such a girly girl. So I scheduled for her to get her hair done from a neighbor. My neighbor was so nice and cut and styled it for her. Then we went shopping and I let her pick out a couple shirts and some capris. I about died in the dressing room when she totally posed and checked out her backside. Hello - someone is learning something from someone and it could be me! Doh! She's growing into such a sweet little lady.
She started playing neighborhood soccer a couple of weeks ago and she really enjoys that. I think she mostly likes getting the treat after the game. But she likes to run and kick the ball too and she knows where to go! YAY!
She also likes formulating words and sounds. Yesterday she had a chapter book and wanted me to put the timer on for 15 minutes so she could do her reading. This is what we do with Alex but I guess she wanted to do it as well. She seriously looked at that book for 15 minutes. I'm not sure how much she read but it was cute anyways.

"A sweet and obedient child will enroll a father or mother only in Parenting 101. If you are blessed with a child who tests your patience to the nth degree, you will be enrolled in Parenting 505. . . Could it be possible that you need this child as much as this child needs you?" (General Conference May 2011 "What Manner of Men and Women Ought Ye to Be?" by Elder Lynn G. Robbins)

Aahhh!

I have the worst job EVER!

I have the BEST job ever!

With my day-to-day routine of being your average, typical Stay-At-Home, Mormon mom - I do survive. I decided a long time ago that I needed to find joys in the mundane, routine, and simple things of my life. I feel like I've mastered one of them and that is cooking. If I'm going to make most meals at home, three times a day, with snacks in between, I better learn to like it. I've found that variety and trying different foods and recipes is my cure-all for that necessary task in life. There are also great benefits to being able to cook. Sometimes I sit down to a yummy meal and thank myself that I can make something taste good. I'd really hate cooking if all my meals tasted like "BLEH."

My biggest problem of "this" life is I can't seem to enjoy laundry. Sorting, washing, drying, sorting, folding, putting away. Oh, and don't forget "stain control." Yes - I've tried to enlist my kids in doing their own laundry, well at least folding at putting away. But their reactions and tantrums mixed with my hatefulness of laundry doesn't make doing this task any better.

A couple of days this week, I did laundry. I tried something different, as I always do to try and see if I like it better. I have done this before but this week, I had a smile on my face about doing laundry. Instead of taking all the laundry upstairs to fold and put away - I left if downstairs on the couch, and planned on watching some great cooking shows as I folded. I did my workout and lunged one way and started sorting, then lunged the other way. So while I was exercising, I sorted the laundry into individual piles. Well the two little girls saw their laundry in a pile and asked me if they could fold their clothes! Hallelujah! I tried not to act as if angels were floating all around my house showering us with good-laundry feelings, and said "sure, you can fold it if you want to." Happily, they folded their laundry. Once the laundry was all folded, I called on the laundry fairies.

The laundry fairies have come to visit my laundry in the past. But I needed them again to make trips up and down the stairs. They never fold, they just put clothes away. So I let the girls know that I didn't think the laundry fairies were coming today (reverse psychology) because it was cloudy outside and they probably didn't want to fly in the dark clouds. Then I turn my head and out of the corner of my eye, Kayla and Briella start gathering up clothes in their arms. Then I hear little scampers up the stairs. "Where did Kayla's pile of pants go?" I cry out - and little giggles of laughter are heard throughout the house. This dialogue happens with the entire houseful of laundry until all is put away. I love my laundry fairies and hope they come and visit all the time.

 Alex turned 7 yesterday and I couldn't believe my day. He had some specific requests that I wanted to fulfill.

He wanted cinnamon rolls for breakfast which we've never had for breakfast at my home. The time intensive process of making them is quite overwhelming. I made the dough the night before and got up early to roll it out and cut, let rise and bake. Yes - I was tempted to spend the $3 at the store and buy them but they wouldn't taste the same. Then he wanted Jack Daniel's Chicken and Shrimp for dinner (minus the JD of course!). Making the sauce for that takes three hours as well. But all in all, he loved every bite of his birthday food. Except we found out that he MAY be allergic to shrimp. Something that we'll have to watch in the future. He wanted to help peel the raw shrimp but as he started his hands started itching pretty bad. I had him stop and then after dinner and after the birthday celebration, his stomach didn't feel good and he threw up twice. Hmmm.

And he wanted a Star Wars birthday cake. This is an ice cream cake because our family would be eating it and no one really likes cake. I know, crazy. But everyone was eating this cake so it made it worth it. He got Star Wars Legos from his Papa and Grandma as well as Mom and dad and some money from Grandpa Stevens. He talked to Grandma in Arizona and I think he had a great day!