Ah, shucks!

I have been thinking about my mom a lot lately. Her birthday is next week, actually. And, her favorite exclamation was the word Fabulous. And her favorite color was purple, by the way. She used the word fabulous to describe everything from her favorite movie(s) to her favorite dessert(s) to being happy that Target is open until 10pm. Fabulous was her go-to word. Anyway, the significance of this is that my amazingingly wonderful sister in law Jeannie nominated me for a fabulous blog award. How nice of her to think of me. I have been called a lot of things but fabulous is not one of them. Sure, Katrina calls me Meredith the Incredible but I know she only does it in jest because she knows the real me. (I mean, she was my visiting teacher. She's seen my house a mess. She has I am sure seen me when I can't remember the last time I took a shower and we were pregnant and fat together...that can just bring out the worst in a person...especially from 36 weeks on)

I get to nominate 5 other blog girlfriends for just such an award. I will try to narrow it down to 5 friends who are just as deserving if not more so of such a fabulous recognition.

Here are the rules for receiving the fabulous award:

1. You have to pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.
2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.
3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.

Instructions:
On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then "add image" it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as well. To add it to your sidebar, add the "picture" gadget. Also, don't forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

Five Fabulous Addictions:

1. Staying up too late watching DVR'd TV shows
2. Lucky Charms
3. Hot Fudge Milkshakes (not chocolate, duh)
4. Girl time with any of my three girlies!
5. Watching 24 on DVD with Steve...when he is not working...but he has hardly been home for 3 months and I desperately want to watch it again!


And the fabulous winners are:

1. Molly: My partner in crime, the sister who hated my guts and I hated hers until I moved out and went to college and now we are the best of friends. I don't know what I would do without her. Tuesdays with Molly wouldn't exist if there was no Molly!
2. Adrienne: My best childhood friend, my college roommate, and uber fabulous mama of 4 week old twins who has written 11 blog posts since having a c-section October 21st! Amazing. I don't think I have done that many posts since October 21st.
3. Maddy: I know she hates this kind of stuff but she is the reason I have a blog so I consider her to be pretty fab! And since she couldn't watch Kate for me tomorrow since she is doing a 7 mile run, (whatever...wimp) she can do this!
4. Katrina: I received the sweetest email from Katrina today - I miss her so much. I have shared a banana split with extra hot fudge with her so I can't wait to hear about her addictions. And man, can she write, so I can only imagine what she will do with this!
5. Brittany: Brittany has not been blogging a lot lately but has recently posted the most darling pictures of her AJ and Julia AND her recently renovated bathroom. All I have to say is that she is a pretty fabulous mom and a saint for living without a proper bathroom downstairs!

If you think you are also fabulous and were left off this list, I wish I could list 50! You are all deserving of this self esteem boost! Sure, it means nothing except that I think you are pretty dang cool, er, I mean, Fabulous!

Quarterly HFPE Meeting - Gratitude

Our invitation

My centerpiece/visual aid for our theme

Thursday was our Quarterly Home, Family and Personal Enrichment Meeting and we had a fantastic night - I hope many women were as touched as I was. Great friends, wonderful food, laughs, tears, bonding, sharing, feeling The Spirit.

When I was called to be the quarterly HFPE leader, the date was set and there was a loose theme established (Fall Harvest Dinner), I just had to plan it! Our committee was somewhat bare bones this time around so it was me, the HFPE counselor, and 2 committee members. I got a couple additional sisters involved with food prep (making the bread and dessert) so that was good. We try to make the Christmas (or in this case fall) big quarterly activity a nice dinner, not a typical potluck. We want the sisters to come and enjoy, not feel obligated to bring a potluck item!

I felt strongly that our theme should revolve around gratitude and we used this talk by Elder Wirthlin as our jumping off point. My favorite quote from the article:

"Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul and a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves. They tend to be more humble, more joyful, more likable. "

All sisters were asked to write a blessing they are thankful for, to sign their name, and hang the tag on our gratitude tree. Later on that night, I used those tags for a drawing and one lucky sister won the "Be Thankful" sign I had made. We are making the tags into a small scrapbooked gratitude journal to keep in our Bishop's office.

We had a quartet sing a beautiful arrangement by Marilyn Crandall (who used to be in our ward) of "Because I Have Been Given Much". It was a great transition from eating to our speakers.

We opened with my visual aid of a cornucopia filled with lemons...a Horn of Plenty...of problems! I used the analogy that we all have challenges and trials and problems and briefly spoke of the lemons being made into lemonade and had the lemons, juice, water, and sugar all ready to go to be mixed into lemonade as I was speaking. We can "brighten" those around us with our lemonade. Problems don't go away, we make the best of them. We then had 3 sisters speak to our theme on gratitude. We know that times are hard for a lot of people but wanted sisters to recognize what we DO have right now. We asked the 3 sisters to speak briefly about lessons of gratitude they have learned at their stage of life/motherhood/womanhood. Their talks were wonderful - the women did a fantastic job.

We had several sisters sign up to host tables with their own china/flatware/dishware, linens and centerpieces. It was great fun to see their creativity in how they dressed their tables - there was a lot of variety and all were lovely.

We had several of our amazing youth serve the sisters. They did a wonderful job, were dressed nice, were polite, and really helped make it an evening different than the normal so the ladies could sit and visit and enjoy a true night out.

We wanted to do make a fantastic dinner for the ladies so we planned a meal somewhat a step up from the typical church meal! Our menu:

A salad of organic mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, shaved Parmesan and a balsamic Italian vinaigrette.

Chicken Picatta/Marsala (kind of a combo recipe I created)
Roasted Red Potatoes
Mixed Vegetables with garlic, butter, and parsley
Italian Rosemary Bread (a knock-off of Macaroni Grill's bread)

Dessert: Pumpkin Roll (a sister volunteered to make it for everyone - it was yum!)

We had ladies start coming to the kitchen wondering if they could get foil or plastic wrap and paper plates so they could take their dinners home. They said it was too wonderful just to throw out so they wanted to take their leftovers home like at a restaurant. We were not prepared to have "doggie bags" for everyone! So, we found some ziplock baggies and passed those out. It was so funny.

It was a truly amazing night. I know the ladies had a wonderful time and felt "Enriched". This is the point, isn't it? Here are a few more pictures from the evening. They are kind of bad - I was not careful about focus. I just grabbed a couple quick pictures.

A great big thank you to Stacy, Jinger, Karen, Evon, Danna, Kristinia, Bev and Lori and all the ladies who hosted tables. It was lovely!

The chicken. Stacy M. purchased, stored, thawed, and trimmed all the chicken breasts. I dredged, browned, deglazed the pans and made the sauce and stacked in foil pans to take to the church to finish baking. I did the above about 4 times to do all the chicken.

Our wonderful music.

Sisters enjoying their evening.

Youth server in action

Me and Evon - she is the Enrichment Leader over midweek/evening activities Crummy picture of me. Oh well.

Getting dessert out to the masses.

Our Gratitude Tree and "Be Thankful" give-away sign.

The Pumpkin Patch

Lindsay's talk today in primary

Another Lindsay post. For primary talks, Steve and I usually have written them for the girls, with their input if we planned well enough, and weren't scrambling together a talk during sacrament meeting, written on a scrap of paper from my church bag. (Did I just say that? Come on, you have forgotten your kid had a talk before too.) . This was the first time, however, she really wanted to do it herself and even wanted to look up a scripture to use for it all by herself.

I have to say, it was so sweet to be working in the kitchen and to see Steve and Lindsay on the sofa and hearing him teaching her how to use the topical guide to find scriptures related to her topic. She really wanted to write it all and made several corrections, adding and moving thoughts as they came to her. She re-wrote her talk so she wouldn't get confused with all her notes and was ready to go, triple combination in hand, as we went to church.

The assigned topic: "I am thankful to know that we are all children of God."

We are all spirit children of god. I'm a child of god because Heavenly father awnsers my prairs. The first night going to bed with chicken pocks I was scared but remembered I could say a prair to help me feel beter. Then I said a prair and a few minutes later I fel asleep. In doctrine and covenants 50 verse 41 it says, (here she read from the scriptures) "Fear not, little children, for you are mine...". I know Heavenly father waches me and knows when I need him. In the name of Jesus Christ amen.

What a grown up girl to find her own direction and think of her own story to support her topic. She told me she liked writing her talk because there were things she could read about to know what to write, unlike school things she needs to think of on her own. I reminded her that doing this was a lot like writing at school - a topic sentence, several facts to support her topic, that sort of thing. She has done several of informative paragraphs at school...same sort of thing, right? This just has the gospel twist.

Goaaaaaaaaal !!!!!!!

We received Lindsay's team pictures yesterday. I was traveling light at the game so I didn't have my diaper bag which usually has my camera. So, here is her portrait! Cutie pie!

On Saturday, Lindsay scored her first soccer goal! We are so excited for her. Lately, she has been struggling with feeling excited about soccer, feeling discouraged and deflated, finding reasons to want to miss additional practice (besides when she was sick.) I got her to open up to me and she said she was having a hard time knowing how to keep in position and gets nervous when the ball comes close to her and I know she has been having a hard time with being the little one - almost all of the other players are a bigger, a lot bigger, than she is. So on Friday I talked to her about how she learned skills in other areas, like at school. For instance, the things she is really great at in 2nd grade she started learning in Kindergarten and was not yet good at it. Like how she used to ride her bike with training wheels but has been wild and reckless for almost 2 years now.

So, anyway, I think she had a break thru yesterday. She was having a really great game - I saw her carefully checking the markings on the field when she came out to play, to make sure she was starting in the right position - as a midfield wing, she always looked back to make sure she was in line with the penalty box. She was running and hustling and keeping up with play. She got a hold of the ball a couple times and cleared it pretty well. Overall, she was playing a really great game for her. Then about half way thru the 4th quarter, we saw a small pack of Blue Polar Bears (Lindsay's team) and Yellow Bumble Bees in a ball struggle and tussle near the goal. Lindsay was right in the thick of it and put that ball in the net! It wasn't a long and dramatic kick, it was being the right person with the right position to pop that ball in the goal. Oh, she was elated! We could see her smile beaming from across the field!

This might be the first game the Polar Bears won all season, I may be mistaken. 4 to 1 I think was the final score. Their last game is next saturday. Lindsay has said she wanted to quit soccer and just focus gymnastics (she was just invited to the pre-team all-stars level - she is progressing quickly...more time, more $ of course) but she said she had such a great game, like I said, a break thru game for her, that she wants to play again. I was prepared to let her be done with soccer but I also like the skill set of soccer - the teamwork, the patience, the constant running is great exercise, etc. Anyway, we will play it by ear - I want her to be happy and not frustrated. I guess we all need a break thru moment, don't we?

So to celebrate said first goal, we wanted to do something fun. Ice cream after the game? Great idea that we would have loved to do but the girls had to go home and go straight to a birthday party. So, after a day spent cleaning the garage and working in the yard, we went out for a quick bite to eat and decided a goal was worthy of a trip to Krispy Kreme!!! We have not been in a while so it was quite a treat.

Last week and weekend and a little of this week...

Lindsay was sick and missed 2 days of school and soccer. Bummer but she is pretty much on the mend. Fever, headaches, that sort of thing. I actually enjoyed having her home and snuggling a little with her. Caroline was so sweet - she donned an apron and served her sister "like at a restaurant" she said. Several times I meant to grab my camera but didn't. Just imagine Caroline in an apron with the pocket filled with silverware, straws, a notepad for order taking ("I can't write what she asks for but I can write my name so I will do that" she said.) Oh, it was just precious. Refilling her water. Bringing her snacks. There is hope for kindness between sisters!

How many band aids can 4 kids LEGITIMATELY go through in 2 hours? A lot.

While Molly and Andy went to her fancy pants gala (and here's a little shout out to my Bro in Law who has lost 100 lbs!) we watched the kiddos. I love having the cousins all together -they really are the best of friends and play so well together and we are together enough that we can holler at each other's kids as if they were our own. Anyway, a few things that made that evening memorable:

Everyone got a band aid. Or two. All were injured/scraped/poked/scratched enough to warrant a band aid. It was weird. After the second kid, I just left out a first aid kit on the counter. It was crazy.

Bryn playing in the grey sand. "We don't have any grey sand, Hayden" I said after he told me Bryn was making a mess in the grey sand outside. Well, I checked on it and I guess you could call ashes and soot hand scooped out of our fire pit by one Brynley Ashton grey sand! They all looked like they were covered in volcanic ash! Ugh...

Feeding the cousin twinners

My friend was passing on the rest of her baby stuff and asked if I needed anything. Well, this folding booster/high chair was delivered to my house just in time for me to spoon feed both babies their peaches and rice cereal. It went pretty well, actually. Adrienne , my favorite mama of twins - it's not so hard! :) Just kidding.

Kate starting to laugh. It is so cute - we can get her going a little and she starts to chuckle a little but it sort of muddles into a cry. She will get the hang of it. She has this great move I call her "mute scream" where she opens her mouth wide like she wants to squeal and shout with joy and her eyes get all wrinkled up but no sound comes out. Love this little lady!

Taking the Ashton kiddos home to their house to go to bed and deciding I had a long day and needed a little treat for myself. I decided to go thru the sonic drive thru and get a milkshake. The kids said they were thirsty too. I got them a water. The shake was for me! I was going to go and stay up until 2am waiting for their parents to come home from fancy pants gala and make the tags for my velvet pumpkins for my upcoming HFPE night. I needed the sustanance.

Grandpa Mike stopped by Molly's house today during Tuesdays with Molly (New projects almost ready to post - we had a great day today!) Kate was a little uncooperative in the facial expressions today but I think this is great of grandpa with the babes. Dad and Debbie said they have really lucked out with great grandkids. I couldn't agree more.

Velvet pumpkins...

On thursday, I am putting on my first quarterly HFPE meeting since being released from primary and called to be the HFPE leader and I am so excited! Our theme is gratitude and we have 3 women speaking from different stages of womanhood/motherhood (young new mom/mom of teens/empty nester) and they are speaking on the lessons they have learned in their stage of life, how they teach their family, how they strive for gratitude in their own lives. We are having a great dinner and music. I found some velvet pumpkins that sell in boutiques for $14-$40 a piece and thought they would be a fun gift for the ladies so I got the RS presidency on board to make them. I have been collecting discarded/broken pumpkin stems from the little pumpkin patches and pumpkin stands and buying remnants of velvet/corduroy fabrics to make the pumpkins. A perfect take home sentiment to remember the evening celebrating gratitude and as a reminder to "Live in Thanksgiving Daily." I had three of my peeps over tonight and we spent about 3 1/2 hours cutting, hand stitching, filling with beans, cinching closed, hot gluing real pumpkin stems, tying on the tags I made. they are beautiful and sure to be a hit with the ladies. We are not having a big Christmas event this year so this is our big night and we wanted to make it a great one.

My bar lined up with 65 of the cutest pumpkins I ever did see!

Disneyland October 2008

Some of my favorite pics are also in my new header.

We had a fantastic time in Disneyland though we were a little disappointed in the weather. Unseasonably warm - the same temps we left in Phoenix! I am sorry, but even So. Cal should not be 90 degrees at the end of October! And to think how much time I wasted before we left making sure the kiddos had a couple pairs of pants that fit. Oh well. Weather aside, we had an amazing time and loved having Daddy all to ourselves. He didn't even bring his computer and since he still has a plain old cell phone, he didn't even have a way to check his email so he as all ours for FIVE whole days.

We stayed at one of the Harbor Blvd. hotels across from the park and had quick easy access. These places are nothing to write home about but are close and comfortable. (Unless you are in Molly's room that had plumbing issues...) Our annual passes are set to expire Nov 2nd so we soaked up as much Disneyland and CA Adventure before we are willing to spend the bucks for new ones. This was like most trips - we went with Molly's family and my Aunt Shelly and Uncle Joe from Oregon joined us. Disneyland with a group is always so much fun - you can divide and conquer rides for different ages and always have someone to ride with or sit out with, as the case may be. And once you work the fast pass/switch rider pass system, it really is a great trip with a whole lot of fun and not a lot of waiting in line. I highly recommend the late October/November time frame. Halloween time at Disneyland is super fun but if you go early November before Christmas kicks in, the place is dead(ish.)

Oh, and a little PSA: I can't believe how so many people wait in line for rides - they have fast passes AND switch rider passes (for the parents that have to sit out and wait with little ones) for a reason. No lines for us, thank you very much! Lines are for suckas!

We always have a plan to keep the $$ in check while in the park. I swear, some people seem to have bottomless wallets (or credit cards) and buy so much stuff! The kids were told that mommy and daddy would buy them 1 autograph book to share - it makes a great souvenir and then it is a great scrapbook for them of the trip with pictures of characters and other pictures from our trip. They then had the option to bring their own money to buy a souvenir of their choice. Lindsay bought a set of Disney earrings (way more useful than a set of ears that she will never wear) and Caroline bought a light up Tinkerbell pin/key chain (that she will add to her collection on her school bag.) We surprised them near the end and let them get a fun face paint ,with glitter, of course. As for food, we pack in snacks and sandwiches to get us through the day and then buy one significantly overpriced dinner. Oh, and Daddy springs for the occasional raspberry lemonade or churro or dole whip. Thanks food lovin' daddy!

Some memorable moments:
*Cousins holding hands running from attraction to attraction
*Opening weekend of the High School Musical 3 concert parade At CA. Adventure
*Getting soaked on repeated Grizzly River expeditions
*Uncle Joe babysitting both babies while all the big people rode Indiana Jones...he was great!
*Seeing Captain Jack Sparrow - we didn't think we would find him!
*Baby Kate the bug eyed wonder! She LOVED the sights and spectacle of Disneyland!
*Taking turns staying up late with the big kids (Lindsay and Hayden) and closing the place down at midnight.
*Fearless kids - so glad they take after Mommy and Daddy and LOVE a good ride! No weenies allowed in our family.
*Steve smiling from ear to ear as he played with the kids
*Pre-opening day of Pixie Hollow and meeting TinkerBell and Silvermist
*Meredith and her camera...always looking for a fun shot...last year she "fell out of" Dumbo and this year the gates closed on her at Space Mountain and she missed her flight crew!
*Lindsay and Hayden tall enough to ride Indiana Jones (wahoo!) but not tall enough to ride California Screamin'. (sad.)
*Eating a Turkey leg for dinner while watching the Parade of Dreams.
*Aunt Shelly letting the kiddos repeatedly climb all over her
*Realizing we have still NEVER set foot on Tom Sawyer's Island and we have been to Disneyland 4 times in 6 years!
*Spending a beautiful afternoon at Newport Beach. Wish we planned for longer.
*Seeing sea lions and dolphins in the surf just beyond where we played in the waves.

I/We voted!

A much cuter voter than me.

Some how, I am still wearing a shirt with orange sticky stuff that got on me when I took a water bottle out of Lindsay's backpack before school today. Not photo worthy. Oh well. It was just Tuesdays with Molly. I didn't need to dress up for her! (But I did vote, orange sticky t-shirt and all. There and back in 30 minutes - I was quite pleased with that. Thanks Molly for watching the kiddos!)

I have been a CNN junkie for weeks. I have not turned it on once today. Maybe tonight after gymnastics. I was busy with Molly and voting myself and the kids (Caroline and Brynley) were eating Halloween candy and watching too much TV. Again, keeping it real!

Anyway, I have had several thoughts brewing in my head as we are having this historic election today. My children have asked all along who "we" like for president and I have made no secret of the fact that we lean towards John McCain. I say lean because I see so much good in Barack Obama (and plan to support him as our next leader as it looks like it will go that way). Additionally, my personal politicial orientation has swayed both sides of moderate so I see good on both sides of the aisle. However, I always try to make it clear that one candidate isn't necessarily better than the other, just different. I try to explain it in ways that they can understand. That there is sometimes two right ways to do something. Just like they may want to watch two really great movies, but only have time for one so they need to make a choice. Different choices for different people. Some like chips and salsa. Others like M&M's. Yes, I know there are some fundamental differences between two candidates that can be right or wrong to you, depending on your religious/moral/social value system but I don't think my 4 year old and 7 year old need to be introduced to things like embrionic stem cell research, gun control, abortion, philosophies of war, same-sex politics, etc. That can come at a later time. We try to teach them that we have been blessed to live in a country where we can make choices and we each have our agency and it our right, privilege and duty to vote. We can disagree with our friends. I disagree with some of my friends and it is OK! I want to make sure they know they can have their own opinions and that they are entitled to them...as are their friends. My friend's daughter has been taunted by kids at school because her family supports Barack Obama when their own family supports John McCain. This is totally uncalled for and have made it clear to my children that it is innapropriate.

A lot of talk goes round and round about how a "Good Mormon" is or should be of a particular party. There is no LDS political party. I even have a friend who had someone ask her how she could be a Democrat voting for Obama and hold a temple recommend! Yikes! I try to remember that BOTH mainstream political parties are flawed; both have their good points and bad points. Let's always remember the following (as taken from the LDS.org website:)

The Church does not:

• Endorse, promote or oppose political parties, candidates or platforms.
• Allow its church buildings, membership lists or other resources to be used for partisan political purposes.
• Attempt to direct its members as to which candidate or party they should give their votes to. This policy applies whether or not a candidate for office is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• Attempt to direct or dictate to a government leader.

The Church does:

• Encourage its members to play a role as responsible citizens in their communities, including becoming informed about issues and voting in elections.
• Expect its members to engage in the political process in an informed and civil manner, respecting the fact that members of the Church come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and may have differences of opinion in partisan political matters.
• Request candidates for office not to imply that their candidacy or platforms are endorsed by the Church.
• Reserve the right as an institution to address, in a nonpartisan way, issues that it believes have significant community or moral consequences or that directly affect the interests of the Church.

And to that I say, Amen, I feel blessed to be able to participate in our political process and teach my children about it!