Happy Birthday Mom!

With me being in Activity Days I see a lot of Mother and daughter relationships. It is so neat to watch because the daughter looks to her mother as a role model of what a woman is and the daughter acts like her Mother. I know first hand that as some of these girls grow up and see other woman who live their lives differently, will choose between imitating her mother or other significant influences in her life. As an adolescent I sometimes looked down on my mother and I thought that other woman were much better. Of course I wasn't a fully grown woman so I didn't understand the challenges and choices that my mother faced. It was only when I myself become a woman and a mother that I fully appreciated my mother. I pray that these girls will stick to their mothers and choose to be influenced by them and not what the world is telling them.

I love my Mom so much. I look up to her more than she knows. I still can't imagine that she raised 4 kids on her own without child support, had a baby die and have her own mother die at a young age. She's amazing and I hope that I have the strength that she has one day. I need to write her a letter and tell her this because she never looks on my blog. I still am going to talk about her though. I found this poem and it reminded me of my mom. Feel free to snag it for your own moms because mothers day is right around the corner! (Speaking of mothers day any ideas for the activity day girls? Ugh the stress! LOL)

Super Mom

Mom, you're a wonderful mother,
So gentle, yet so strong.
The many ways you show you care
Always make me feel I belong.

You're patient when I'm foolish;
You give guidance when I ask;
It seems you can do most anything;
You're the master of every task.

You're a dependable source of comfort;
You're my cushion when I fall.
You help in times of trouble;
You support me whenever I call.

I love you more than you know;
You have my total respect.
If I had my choice of mothers,
You'd be the one I'd select!

By Joanna Fuchs

On the other hand how could my mom leave me home today? Both of my sisters and my mom are in Disneyland today! :( I'm so jealous.... I keep getting picture messages and that is so mean. I can't be mad because what a fun day for my mom to celebrate her birthday at the happiest place on earth! Besides I can't go on any rides anyway. So I'm happy for them, still bitter LOL, but happy!

This is one of my favorite pictures of my mom... I call this picture minni me! It's crazy that her face never changed! She looks exactly the same as she did at age 2 just a full grown body now.


Here she is with Beck on Easter.

Activity Days

I have no idea what they were thinking but I have a new calling. I've been trying for the last year or so to connect with the older gals that I teach in Relief Society (yeah I'm pretty much the youngest why they think I had life experiences I don't know?) now I have to try and connect with 8 year olds! No offense relief society friends but the 8 year olds are so fun! Although I need to start watching Hannah Montana and iCarly to have something to talk about LOL. So I hope that you all can bare with me because I'm going to be posting my ideas and thoughts here, that way if you have 8 year old girls or if you're just a good friend you can help me! ;)

Last night was our first activity without the old leaders holding my hand and it went okay i guess. I'm always harder on myself but aren't we all? I ended up having to come up with a few other games to play to buy time. It's really hard when half of the girls leave 25 minutes in to go to soccer or dance. ah ha idea #1 send a sheet around with what days work best for the girls (but keep in mind my schedule and also Sis Martin).

So on with last night....

This is what I took around to the girls with a brown Lunch bag...
I made it with the the kit ain't she sweet by gg digital designs.

I was so happy when the girls showed up with their bags. It was really cool to see what they were interested in. Most of the girls had stuffed animals. Which I can remember having a collection of and a lot of them had books. That one surprised me because I didn't enjoy reading until I got older. Like say 4 years ago. They all liked to do crafts too so I need to keep that in my brain on file! After everyone took a turn we played one of my childhood favorites ...........

Don't eat Pete of course!

This was also made using the kit ain't she sweet by gg digital designs.

With this activity Fae and I really needed to learn about the girls, get their names down and the get to know you bag really helped I think. They loved don't eat pete and I think that they left on a gummy bear rush. Hopefully they could all still eat dinner. (ooops). After most of the girls left I asked them what games they liked to play but all they wanted to do was play tag so I talked them into another game due to the fact tag isn't appropriate in the church. So we hid their stuffed animals and had them try and find them. Which again they loved. I love these girls we can do anything and they enjoy it!


Also just a side note, my brain was really going yesterday. I made a don't eat Pete for Boys! Some days Beckham decides that dinner is going to kill him if he eats it so I turned this into a game on those nights where he won't eat. It worked like a charm last night. We just put his dinner food on the squares and played don't eat Pete, he ate almost all of it and then we played it with a few skittles for his treat. Today I think we might play it with his lunch and have a go at it again today. You could also do this with fruit call it "don't eat fruit" or even veggies although we all like veggies in our family. (besides me I don't like cooked spinach or asparagus) Also on the days where the kids want to play it with candy put cheese or any healthy snack! Any who enough of my rambling here is the boy version........


I made this one using the kit backyard boys from gg digital designs.



(Note I laminated the don't eat Pete games so I can clean them really well so they can be food safe!)


Also if I get enough requests I'll make the game into a template so you all can enjoy it with your families! ;)

Free Template!

Just to let you know that GG Digital Designs is having a super fun challenge going on right now. For this weeks challenge they have a FREE Template that they are giving away... Go here to grab it!


Here is my LO using the template...

Projects!

Life has been good. Conference always gives me a boost in the right direction spiritually. I found myself listening and thanking my Father in heaven for the words that I needed to hear.

A lot was said on faith and that is EXACTLY what I've been needing to work on lately, my faith.

This quote by James E. Faust is a good one and I need to print this out and hang it on my bathroom mirror. “Hope is the anchor of our souls. I know of no one who is not in need of hope--young or old, strong or weak, rich or poor... Everybody in this life has challenges and difficulties. That is part of our mortal test. The reason for some of these trials cannot be readily understood except on the basis of faith and hope because there is often a larger purpose which we do not always understand. Peace comes through hope.” I hope that you all enjoyed conference as much as I did.

As for the projects, we were able to get quite a few things done this past week. First, we were able to get away for the afternoon and snap a few quick shots.

Here is Beck giving us his "Good" smile...


And here he is cheesin' it...


then here is the fam (minus Nora, it wasn’t the best weather and I didn’t want her bear dirty)....


So this next one is a proud moment. So my friend who is oober talented has made so many things in her home. One of the things she has done is make a skinny shelf. I had to steal the idea and make one for our messy office. We're slowly re-doing it.


Next, this one is for Nora. I was really excited to get pink in the house in honor of her. This is just a rose wreath that I made out of crepe paper. It’s super cute for spring.


I love ceiling fans, not how they make the room look, but how they make you feel, especially at night in mid july. I've never had one in my room until we stayed with Justin's parents and I immediatly fell in love. I'll let you know if I save any money this summer. We got these for a steal too. They were on sale at Lowes for 16.99 regularly 65.99. Woot!


Last but surley not least... our plants for the garden. I went to an activity this year and we planted seeds in cups. I thought that I'd be lucky to get 1 or 2 plants but all of them have came up. I'm excited about how much money we're going to save too. We usually spend a good 40-50 on plants and we only spent 10 this year on everything and we have enough seeds to last us the next 4 years! SWEET!