What did I do on Martin Luther King Jr. Day?

I cleaned off my scrapbooking table. Here is what it looks like all nice and clean and mostly organized. Now I just need to clean the rest of the room...

January Week 3

The girls and I enjoyed a nice quiet day off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On Wednesday I subbed for the school librarian all day. This time I had Evie go to a friend’s house after school, and that made things much easier. That night Lissy and Shawn went to a Daddy/daughter dinner for activity days and when they got home I went to our book group meeting. The book we read was The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. I enjoyed the book, but probably didn’t get very much out of it since I read more for entertainment than enlightenment. I went to “work” a couple mornings this week, drove the girls to dance on Thursday and to help at the school on Friday. Friday night we had a bishopric dinner and it was nice to go and get to know everyone. I took mom’s pudding fruit salad, and we each had to say one thing about our spouse that no one else would know. Shawn shared my weird sock thing and I told of his Solid Gold performance when we were dating. Saturday we celebrated Lissy’s birthday with chocolate chip pancakes, a trip to the mall for ear piercing and a new outfit, and she got to bring a friend to “Lunner” at Chuck-a-rama. We opened presents between the mall and lunch. Sunday was another busy day – I had meetings and did sharing time and Shawn had choir, sang a special musical number at the assisted living center sacrament meeting and led a priesthood choir for our sacrament meeting. He left during church for Boise because he was worried about traveling the next day. He and a coworker went to testify before the state legislature in favor of a Medicaid bill. They didn’t expect it to pass, but it did, so they must have done a great job!

Late night Walgreens run

At about 11 o’clock last night Evie came into our room with the dreaded barking cough. We got her a drink, stuck her head out the back door for a few minutes, and put her in a steamy bathroom and that all seemed to help. However, we got rid of our humidifier a while back and never replaced it, so at 11:30 p.m. last night I went to Walgreens, in the single digit temperatures, to buy a new one. On the way home it was snowing pretty good, but it was so cold, the wipers wouldn’t really work. Good thing we live close! She slept through her alarm this morning, so we just let her sleep until about 9 a.m. and had her stay home from school. She still sounds a little croaky, but is feeling better. Lydia has a sore throat and Felicity has a cold too. I guess it is just that time of year.

What more could I ask for??

It was another busy week around here. Monday I “worked” at school and then since it was early release (but Evie stays through lunch) I met Shawn for lunch at a sandwich shop. I got home from that just in time to meet the piano tuner (the last time it was tuned was in Jersey over 5 years ago). After school I took the girls to dance and we had a family home evening. Tuesday I dropped off my cards for card group on the way into Shawn’s office to help with some filing. After school the girls and I cleaned the house. I put jobs on slips of paper in a cute basket and they got to pick them out. I paid them a quarter a job until the jobs were done. Lydia did the most, but Lissy cleaned up a couple months worth of doggie-doo (which is worth more), so they got paid the same. They are great helpers if I find the right gimmick :). Wednesday Evie was having a friend over to play, but Shawn had to pick up his truck from the shop (turns out the new battery Shawn put in awhile ago was a bad battery), so after taking Shawn there I took the girls to Arctic Circle for some lunch and climbing play time in the indoor playground. Then they came home and played for a couple more hours. That night we went visiting teaching to two sisters. Thursday I went in and did some more filing, then Shawn had me help take the car and truck in to be appraised for a trade in. He has been looking at SUV/Crossovers so that he has something with a little more room, decent gas mileage, and a little better to drive in the snow and ice. He found a Chrysler Pacifica and get this – it is the same color as my car, so now we match. Awwwwww – how sweet! I got home barely in time to grab stuff for dance and to go get the girls from school. While Evie and Lydia were at dance, Lissy and I ran and picked up Shawn’s new suit pants, went to the library, went to the distribution center to get a new spiral hymnbook (ours is lost) and ran one other errand, but I can’t remember what now. I was supposed to go visiting teaching again, but my partner got sick, and our gal was busy, so we just did a phone visit. On Friday I spent about 4 hours at the school helping in class, the library and selling snacks at lunchtime. I honestly don’t know what I did after that – probably just helped the girls with homework and stuff until dinnertime. Oh, I did make a chocolate bundt cake to take to dinner. A couple at Shawn’s work invited us all over. They don’t have kids, but had things kids love – a dog, 2 cats, a rocking horse made out of an old whiskey barrel and saddle and exercise equipment – the girls were in heaven on the treadmill and the mini-trampoline. I guess we should get one of those…. I know Shawn and I could use it. On Saturday, we slept in a little and after “brunch” Lissy watched the girls for us while a 2 hour errand excursion turned into 3. Shawn and I were able to get things done at Sam’s Club, the car dealership, a little clearance shopping at a home décor discount store, odds and ends picked up from K-Mart, etc. When we got home we made some pizza for lunner (lunch-dinner) and then Shawn took Lydia on her daddy-daughter date (to Sub Zero of course) and Evie got to go to a friend’s birthday party. After they all got home, I took Lissy to get groceries. We got a little sidetracked on the way though and stopped at the Candy Cottage by the grocery store. I had a coupon for buy one get one free pound of salt water taffy, so we decided to go check it out. Yummy! We were the only ones in there, so we got to go behind the counter to see the candy artist hand dip some cherries and he even let us each have one. We also got to sample their gelato and besides the taffy, I picked up a couple of chocolate-covered cherries for Shawn and I later. Lissy and I had a good time hanging out together. Sunday we had choir, I had a PPI, I played piano at the first ever sacrament meeting at our neighboring assisted living center (Lissy came with), played the piano for a special musical number at both sacrament meetings, Shawn and I went to visit one of his home teaching families that are not very active and I gave their kids the primary CD and we read with the girls several chapters in our book (The People of Sparks) before bed.
I have to say that although life is busy and a little stressful at times, I realize more and more how content and blessed I am. I have beautiful, healthy girls who I enjoy more and more each day. I have a wonderful, supportive, hard-working husband who I adore more and more each day. I have a warm and comfortable home, food to eat, clothes to wear and so much more than I really need that I appreciate more and more each day. I have wonderful parents who I owe so much to and who get more and more wise each day :) What more could I ask for??

First week of January...

Well, it’s more like a week and a half into January, but I’ll get you up to date anyway. Last Sunday was our first Sunday of the new year in primary and fast Sunday. Turns out, the two did not mix well for me. We had the late schedule (1-4) and half way through primary I just lost it – one little behavior thing turned into hours of bawling for me. We have been without a chorister and so I was doing singing time and teaching the new song on top of everything else. In the future, I think I will adjust my fasting schedule so I can eat something before church. Other than that, our first week went pretty smoothly though. I have an awesome counselor who has been preparing the new sunbeams for 2 months and is still easing them into primary a little at a time. I think it makes a world of difference. There were still a few bumps to iron out in the seating arrangement (we’ve turned it 90 degrees and are going the wide way in our room rather than the long, narrow way) and some sad little ones, but all in all, not too bad.
It was nice to get back to our regular schedule this week. The girls are all back in school, I’m going in to volunteer a couple days a week still, and I’m helping with filing at Shawn’s office a couple mornings a week for a little longer. The girls went after school to our neighbor’s to get haircuts and I went and got mine cut one morning while they were at school. Last Friday Shawn and I went to a wedding reception and then were able to go to a sealing session with our ward. This Friday, we let Lissy babysit while we went out to dinner for a “mini-date.” Shawn has been enjoying the football playoffs every chance he gets. We read in the paper that cars cannot be parked on our city streets anymore for plowing, so yesterday we jump started the truck and dropped it off at the shop so it could get looked at. Shawn replaced the battery a few months ago, but it still doesn’t start without a jump, so he thinks maybe it’s the alternator. Yesterday I got to go to a baby shower and it was fun to see some of my friends there. Shawn took Evie on a daddy-daughter date to a new ice cream place near us. It is called Sub-Zero and you get to choose your own kind of cream, flavors and mix-ins. Then they add some liquid nitrogen and mix it all up to create your very own ice cream right there. I can’t wait to go for my date now!
This Sunday primary went much better – no tears. Our new chorister was also called today, so I shouldn’t have to worry about that anymore either. I’m looking forward to another structured busy week in our little cold, cold corner of the state.

Christmas Day Slideshow

Christmas Eve Slideshow

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Second Day of Christmas Vacation

We made sugar cookies (Grandma Olsen's recipe) and Gingersnaps today then made our goodie plates to deliver to neighbors.

The girls bundled up and Shawn took them to deliver the goodies. After the girls went to bed, Shawn and I played his new game - the office - which he got at the gift exchange at his office of course. I was Pam and Shawn was Jim.

First Day of Christmas Vacation

The girls helped me make candy - fudge, caramels, and divinity.

We also cut snowflakes and hung them from the ceiling and the entry to our living room.

It's Showtime!

And here are pitcures from the night of the performance.

Dance Recital

Here are some pictures from the dress rehearsal of the girls' dance recital. They all did great!

Happy New Year!

The holidays have been so busy around here and I don't think it's quite ready to let up. Most of my free time I manage to fill with primary things to do. I've enjoyed having the girls home from school and the few days that Shawn has been able to take off during the holdiays. It was nice to stay here in town and do things together as a family.

Christmas Eve we saw Tale of Despereaux (quite different than the book) and went out to a fancy dinner at a restaurant/Sushi place that our hometeacher owns. We made a ham dinner Christmas Day and enjoyed all our new toys. We went over to the church so Felicity could ride her new scooter and Evelyn could try out her new bike. Lydia got a DS and likes picto-chatting with Felicity. I took Shawn shopping for a new suit and Shawn got me a laptop. I love having a computer upstairs now and I will be able to keep all my digiscrapbooking stuff on it this year. A couple days after Christmas I talked Shawn out of sledding and into bowling (I really don't like being cold and wet). The two younger girls had never gone bowling before (we deprive them, I know), so it was pretty exciting. With the bumpers up we all did fabulously and we had so many problems with our lanes (they even switched us over to another lane) that the very nice manager didn't charge us.

New Year's Eve we threw our own little party here. We made all our favorite snack foods - cheeseball, Chex mix, Muddy Buddies, Grandpa Paul's Perfect Party Punch - and just hung out and relaxed. We played some U-No attack, had top spinning competitions, pulled some old-fashioned party crackers, watched the Dog Whisperer and America's Funniest Videos. Evelyn fell asleep sometime just after 11 p.m., but after the ball dropped in Time Square we woke her up to go outside and blow our noisemakers, do poppers and yell "Happy New Year." New Year's Day we made a turkey dinner and went and saw Bolt at the dollar theatre while the turkey cooked.

I haven't made any resolutions yet - I must choose them very carefully if I have any hope of keeping them you know. We have a primary activity tomorrow and the whole New Year part of primary organization that has been taking a lot of my brain power. I will try to get some pictures posted and some of the recipes from our festivities up on our Recipe Blog.