Backyard Activities

The weather has been beautiful!  The kids have been playing outside lots.  Isaac got out the empty soda cans and got some spelling practice in.  Yay!

Daniel took Sam to Lowe's where they invested in a new tarp.  Sam and Ruthie were hard at work making a treehouse of sorts.  They have many luxuries up there.

Chairs, art on the walls, a table.  The problem is the wood is rotting.  Hopefully the set doesn't fall apart while they're up there!

Fair Flair.

The Weber County Fair begins tomorrow.  It goes through Saturday if you were wondering.  And for the second time, we are putting goats in the fair.  This time all three of my children will be showing their goats.  The goat show is this Friday at 4 pm in the show arena by the barns,  You know, in case you wanted to come.  Otherwise, if you happen to come to the fair another time, you can see our cute kids down goat alley (I just made that up, but there is one "alley" where all the goats are, so why not?!) on the east side, with the doors in the stalls.  We've trimmed hooves, practiced walking with a leash and have all of our goat things in order.

They will go in tomorrow morning.  Here is our sign.  I had wanted to have a sign made for the show and for our pasture.  But I didn't quite get to it.  So I made one myself.  We are calling our pasture "Vegeta's Goat Hide Away" after Vegeta the goat who was born here and died here. 

Here's an exciting addition!!  I have entered two yummy treats in the fair! 

My yummy and delicious chocolate chip cookies.  When I took them in this morning, the gal entering me looked at them and said "Ooh, they look yummy.  I want one.  I really don't like chocolate chip cookies, but those look wonderful!"  Or something like that.  I was pretty tickled!  But she's not a judge, so I have to wait and see...

I also entered my yummy and delicious cinnamon bread!  I made one large loaf and then 3 small loaves so I could manage the size of the large loaf.  Whoops.  I miscalculated the large loaf.  It came out flat and, well, flat.  So I quickly added to the recipe that it makes, not just 2 large loaves, but 6 mini loaves.  And then I took this magnificent looking mini loaf and entered it.

My entries cost all of $1.00.  And I can"make" all of $3 per entry!  Ruthie wants to enter next year.  We'll certainly do that and make more items.  And remember to not put our names on the recipe card.  And make the bread regular-like so I have a magnificent large loaf.  And get an awesome sign made for Vegeta's Goat Hide Away.

More fair news later in the week.  Wish us luck!



Opportunity.

At a Robotics 4-H night, the lead 4-H gal said there were boxes of thousands of these wood pieces.  She suggested we all take some.  So...  I did

Here are the pieces I took.  Lots of squares and some large and small rectangles.

So what does one do with all these wood pieces??

Here's what I did.  I bought some paint, some sponge brushes and some mod podge. 

Then I got some nice paper and printed "Pray for Opportunity then Listen".

I painted several square pieces with some paint.  Except for the middle.  Didn't want to waste the paint!

Then I mod podged the paper onto the wood.  Here is the finished product.

And here's the purpose. 

I am a ward missionary.  I'm not excited about it at all! In the handbook it says the ward missionaries should go into the members' homes and invite them to have a missionary experience.  So Christine, my companion, and I decided to pray each month for active families in the ward to visit and invite.  We invite them to pray for a missionary opportunity.  Then we invite them to listen to the promptings of the spirit.  Then we give them this little reminder.

Aren't we awesome?!  Seriously~ I love this calling.  We are visiting active members and less active members. We are also doing new member discussions.  We have only 18 months in this calling and I hope to make each moment count. 

If you are in my ward and would like a visit, please let me know.  We would love to come!

What A Week!

It's Saturday.  Our Spring Break is coming to a close.  It's beautiful outside.  Tomorrow is Easter.

We've had a seriously busy week.  Last Saturday Daniel's car engine bit the dust.  It's gone.  He had a guy looking for an engine, but to no avail.  We are in the process of finding another car.  Little, cheap, quick.

We blew eggs on Monday and then colored them.

I love the egg blowing rather than boiling.  Less stink.

We got some clay and made some pretty cool stuff.

My fruit basket.  So life-like you wanna eat it, right?

A dog.

We also had a day of making stuff out of these weird things called nuudles.  Yes.  Weird.

 But loads of fun.  We also went to the zoo.  But it was so crowded we left and went to the Museum of Natural History instead.  Good times.

Kids played outside in the absolutely gorgeous weather. 

We visited grandma and grandpa, got our teeth cleaned, I was set apart as a ward missionary, I went to my last Wolf Den Meeting, we had many late nights and had a most wonderful time.  We also have been doing our Easter week lessons about the things Jesus did each day before the Resurrection.  Boy are we grateful for Him.  Happy Easter and enjoy the beauty of Spring!  

Accent In A Jar.

Boring!! You can hardly see the jar.  And you can see the plastic flower stems.  Boring!!

So here's what I did.  I took the jar.  Wait!! It's started with a vase.  I decided a jar would be cute.  So.  Again.  I took the jar. Grabbed the paint I used on the counter wall...

Poured the paint in and then turned it upside down.  I moved the jar every 10 to 15 minutes so it didn't make a big paint mess.  But I kept it upside down until all the paint dripped out.  Then I waited for the inside to dry.

Isn't that cute!?  Way better than the clear jar, yeah?  I love my kitchen and dining room.  Just the rugs and some towels to go now.

Kitchen Curtains.

I guess curtains is a gross over statement.  Just window treatments to be fair.  I got some cute striped fabric and then let it sit in my sewing pile for a bit.  So today I got to work.  Finally.

Aren't they cute?  And I know what you're thinking.  Circus!  Yes.  They do look circus tent-ish.  Never mind, let's go with cabana-ish.

And then I had fabric left over to make a little place mat type dealio for the table.  The jar is next on my list.  It's just so exciting!! 

Splashing All Over.

More colorful splashes in the kitchen and dining room.  After I painted the counter bottom Sam said we just need more bright colors in the house.  So I obliged.  I added the blue shortly after the red.

I think it looks cabana-like.  It kinda feels like you could open the window and smell the beach.  It's not done yet.  I need to add some yellow splashes to compliment the stools.  And redo the window treatments.  Oh it's so fun!

And I made some of my delicious cookies but used Splenda instead of white sugar.  Hmmm.  They turned out good.  Just not quite the same.  Have you baked with Splenda?  Do you like the results?

A Splash Of Color.

Can you say Bored?!

This is before.  A Big Fat Blah!!

And this is after!  Hip Hip Hooray!

The counter wall is red and the stools are yellow.  It is so much more fun to sit there now. 

Isaac says it looks like a diner.  I need another splash of color elsewhere. 

Think blue...

A Crafty Day.

It's spring break. We've got lots o' things planned. Today's activities were crafty. And had purpose. First we broke out the oven bake clay. We each fashioned an oil lamp for the Parable of the Ten Virgins lesson tomorrow. They turned out pretty good, eh!

Oh, we did go to Maverick first. Must do things in order. But the kids had fun crafting their own lamps.

They even had clay left over to make other crafty little things.

Some of them are just plain weird! The lamp on your left is the original oil lamp from Jerusalem. The lamp on your right is Sam's.

Here they are...baked and oiled and wicked and lit.

Sam and his lamp.

Ruth and her lamp.

Isaac and his lamp.

Then we got a box of eggs out and blew them. You know, take a raw egg, put little holes on the top and bottom and then blow with all your might until the snot like substance comes flying out. We broke a few eggs, but ended up with 9 greatly blown eggs. Then we painted them. Then one more egg broke.

We put a few of the brightly colored and keepable and unstinkable eggs into a cute basket with some jelly beans to give to grandma and grandpa tomorrow. Grandma is still in a care center while her back and neck continue to heal from the car accident.

There is one more craft we're working on but didn't get to today. We will be cutting out some eggs from construction paper and decorating them and then taking them to our local elderly care center for Easter. I'll show you how that one goes when we get to it.

Birthday Craft.

For Ruthann's birthday party we needed a craft idea. I found a cute idea on Family Fun (which I LOVE) and wanted so much for the girls to make these cute little compacts. It required little candy or mint tins though. I could not find a little tin anywhere. Well, except for big tins for chocolates and such for Christmas. While I was in Dilly Dally's, I was looking for little "things" to put into a compact, and hoped I would happen upon a little tin. Instead I found square soap boxes for vacation!! Your reaction might be "square is normal for soap boxes" Well, no, in fact you are wrong. Most soap boxes, now that I take many opportunities to study soap boxes, are rounded on top.

So. I bought 8 of them and all the cute "stuff" to go in them. Here is Ruthie's final result. We glued a square, okay, rectangle, of cute felt (I had many to choose from) onto the top of the lid.
Then we glued a small mirror into the inside of the lid. A girl must be able to see herself! We then added some essentials to our boxes.
Lotion, lip gloss, nail file, stickers-which the girls used to decorate the boxes inside and out. What is not in the picture is a small pack of gum and hair pins.
Last night Ruthie's mirror fell out. I hot glued it in. Then it fell out again and the felt on top fell off. So I hot glued the felt and used double sided tape on the mirror. Viola! Done. Ruthie brought hers to church yesterday in her bag. The lip gloss was needed, and so was the mirror. The nail file was used by a brother with a gnarly hang nail. Oh I am a genius!