Merry Christmas!!

I think that a good sign that the economy is improving is when we can afford to send out Christmas cards again. Ha!  So, here is our Christmas card/letter this year!  We hope you have a lovely holiday season and that you all have a marvelous 2012!!!

Marking the scriptures

Sometimes we get so used to things that we hardly even notice that they are there any more.  Such are the marks in my scriptures.

This morning while I was reading my scriptures, I was reminded of a funny thing that happened many years ago.  It jumped out at me so strongly that I said "I have to blog about this!!"

When Amanda was about two years old, she watched me as I studied and marked my scriptures.  One day I came in and found her with my scriptures and a black pen, and she was "marking my scriptures"!

Initially, I was horrified, but how could I get mad at her.  She was doing something that I had modeled for her to do.  (Just not in MY scriptures!! D-oh!!)  She was helping me to mark my scriptures.

When I see these scribbles in my scriptures it makes me laugh and reminds me how much our children watch us closely and learn from the things that we do.

Now that Amanda is in Seminary she has asked me questions about marking something in her scriptures and I am glad that I set a good example to her of making the scriptures your own.  HER own. : )

Straight hair

We have been trying to get Amanda to do something with her long blond hair for ages, but the most she will ever do is put it in a ponytail for basketball.  The other day a friend of hers offered her $5 if she straightened her hair the next day.  So, Amanda asked me if I would help her.  (She won't do it for her parents. but she will do it when a friend pays her.......hmmmm.......)

So, the next morning we spent 20 minutes straightening her hair.  (I didn't even get a cut of the money.  What's up with that?!)  The girls at Church didn't believe she would do it, so we took photos as proof.

Katrina liked the way that Amanda's hair looked and asked if we could straighten her hair as well.  I thought it would be really hard with her curly, curly hair, but it turned out great!!

Wow!  They both said that they got a lot of compliments on their hair, but I have said don't think they are going to do this very often.  It is a lot of work for Mom! : )

Canning Pickles

I love this cartoon! (by Pat Bagley)

I had my first experience canning today! Thankfully I started with something fairly easy so I wasn't overwhelmed and never wanted to do it again. We had a class in Relief Society about Pickling and I was very excited to try it!



I got all the ingredients together and this morning I cut up cucumbers and onions and put them in a bowl with a sweet pepper and salt and let them sit for three hours.



I drained the cucumbers/onions and put them in the brine to cook.



When they were hot, I put them in the jars and put the lids on. I boiled them for 10 minutes to seal them.



Voilà!! I have beautiful jars of Bread & Butter pickles. They are delicious!!

First Day of School 2011-2012

Hooray for the first day of school!



It has been a great summer and we have had a lot of fun, but we are all glad for the beginning of school and the return to schedules! The school district made a bunch of changes this last year and so the school across the street from us, which was only 5th and 6th grade, is now K-6th. Woohoo! So, both Rebecca and Katrina will be walking across the street to go to school! (No more car pooling for Lora!!)

On the 9th of August we went to the High School to register Amanda for her Freshman year. (Yikes! Already!!) We got her all signed up and her scholarship from last year got her a yearbook and her gym clothes. She got the classes she wanted and she and all her friends were standing around comparing schedules. Amanda will be taking:

1st period - Percussion
2nd Period - PE
3rd Period - Honors English
4th Period - Ag Earth Science
5th Period - Social Science
6th Period - Honors Math - Geometry
7th Period - Keyboarding

Yesterday we received the STAR testing results and the girls did very well. Katrina was too young for STAR testing, so nothing for her, but Amanda scored Advanced on everything (even the things she professes to "hate". Haha!) and Rebecca was high Proficient in English and Science and Advanced in Math! We are so proud of the girls and how hard they work at their education.



Katrina is starting 1st grade at Liberty Elementary this year and is very excited!



Here she is in her classroom. Her teacher, Mrs. Kass was a teacher at Sun Empire last year, so she is comfortable with a teacher she already knows. There are a few kids from her class last year and she came home telling me all about how she made a new friend at school. She said, "I asked her if she wanted to be my friend, and she said yes!" Isn't making friends so easy when you are a kid?!



Rebecca is starting 6th grade at Liberty Elementary, and her teacher is Mr. Sanchez. Rebecca is very excited to have a teacher who is a man, as she has never had one before. When we went to Back to School Night earlier this evening and we were sitting in Mr. Sanchez' class he said something about this being the Honors class. I glanced over at Rebecca and she whispered, "I just found that out today." We were completely unaware, but very happy to find out that Rebecca is in the Honors class this year! She worked so hard this last year to keep her grades high and it paid off!!



Amanda is starting 9th grade, a Freshman at Kerman High School! Go Lions!! She is happy to be in Percussion again and her Ag Earth Science teacher is a very good friend of ours, so she is happy to have her as a teacher. Amanda plans to try out for the basketball team again this year, will continue in CJSF, will continue volunteering at the Library, and starts Seminary at the beginning of next week.

This is going to be a great year!!

Family Adventure Day!

It's our 4th Annual last-weekend-of-the-summer Family Adventure Day!



This year we decided to head back to the beach. We went to Morro Bay. We haven't been there for about nine years, so we figured it was about time to go back. Lora's mom was visiting, so we took her with us to Atascadero, where we met with Uncle Rich, who took her to visit with Aunt Lindi.



We drove into Morro Bay and went out to the Rock. We ate lunch at a park, with a seagull standing hopefully by. Nearby a boy started throwing french fries to the two birds that were there, and within a minute, he was surrounded by over thirty birds, including six pelicans!



We left the park and drove to the Historical Landmark and got the answers for an Earthcache. We discussed how the rock was formed, whether by volcanic activity or erosion, and decided that it was both. It was originally formed by volcanic activity, but over the years has eroded to the shape it is now. We enjoy those kind of caches.



After the cache, we drove to the Morro Bay Aquarium. We have been here before, but Rebecca was two years old. The girls got some fish chum to feed the seals that are in the front of the aquarium. I can't believe those seals don't weigh a ton with all they get fed all day long.






The aquarium has seen better days. They used to have an octopus (see the photo of Rebecca when she was two), and the fish look a bit tired. It was fun though. They still have the shark, the anemones, the abalone and the horseshoe crabs. They did have a few fish I don't remember seeing before.



These fish seemed really interested in Rebecca! : )

When we left the aquarium we went to The Shell Shack and the girls got to pick out several shells. Then we walked around the shops, saw some of the sights, and let the girls each pick out a tshirt. We walked along the decks and we tried to get a photo of all of us, the long-arm way, with the Rock in the background. A waiter from the restaurant in front of us came out and offered to take a picture of all of us. The photo was slightly out of focus, but it was very nice of them.



We went up to the Morro Bay Natural History Museum. This is an amazing place! We strongly recommend this museum!! It has some of the most inventive displays we had ever seen. There were earphones shaped like "Rocky" that told the kids facts about Morro Rock. There were displays with drawers underneath them, and each drawer had even more displays in them. There were cylinders that had different pictures of different aspects of each of the ecosystems. There were really cool pull-out "windows" that showed the food chain. There was a great display that as you turned the "wheel" the louvers rotated to show different information. There was also a whale skeleton that the museum had put together themselves. Very cool!!












Lora's mom met back up with us and went down to the beach for a little while.




After cleaning up the sand from the beach, we went to dinner. We checked out a few places, but finally decided to go to the restaurant where the waiter had taken a photo of us. It was called the Flying Dutchman. We had a long wait for a table, but the food was worth it!



Amanda, Rebecca and Kevin had the fish and chips, Katrina had the chicken strips, Mom had the clam chowder in a bread bowl, and Lora had the special which was bacon-wrapped teriyaki tuna with jasmine rice, baby vegetables and cucumber salsa. Mom said it was the best clam chowder she has ever had, the fish and chips weren't overly greasy like some places, and the special was really good! We made sure to tell the manager that we came back because of his employee. They really appreciated hearing that!



Then, we drove home. : ) As usual, a lovely end to the summer!

To see all the photos from our Morro Bay adventure CLICK HERE

A really fun birthday present

We are not big believers that kids need phones, but at the end of the school year when Lora couldn't get ahold of Amanda on several occasions, she called Kevin and said, "I know what we are getting Amanda for her birthday!"

We spent some time researching phones, as we wanted her to have a decent phone, but we don't have texting on our phones, so no texting, no internet, etc. We finally found the one that we wanted to get her, only to have another one start to look interesting. We finally decided on that one, as it had a slider, etc., and it would be a "cool" phone for a teenager to have.

When we called to order it, of course, they were out of the phone, so we did some quick deciding again via a three-way call with the service representative and finally came to rest on the Pantech Link. We also decided that it wouldn't be reasonable to have a teenager's phone with no texting capabilities, so we changed our data plans and added unlimited texting for all three phones, which worked out to the same price that we are paying now.

We ordered the phone.....and then came the fun part.

We bought an 8G memory card, as Amanda has been saving her money to buy an iPod, and we loaded it with several of her favorite songs. (So, now she can spend her money on earphones, as the audio connection on this phone is an oddball one.)

Lora created two ringtones, on Harry Potter and one Star Wars. A few days before Amanda's birthday we activated the phone and then tested them out to make sure you would be able to hear them from inside the box. It took a few tweaks, but we got it to work!

A few days before, Lora texted a ton of people and asked them to send Amanda a text at 8:30pm wishing her a Happy Birthday. We were afraid that if we took Amanda's presents to the restaurant (we always let them pick a restaurant to have their birthday dinner) she would not be able to hear the phone ringing, so we figured we would be able to be back from the restaurant by 8:30pm. We also figured her reaction would be too exuberant for a restaurant and there would be a mess of plates on the table.


Amanda chose Sizzler for her birthday dinner, as she wanted to get the shrimp plate. Gramma Carol joined us. We ended up leaving the restaurant much later than we expected.

Both Kevin and Lora had been very careful to erase or hide everything off their phones and off Lora's computer so that there would be no trace for Amanda to find. On the way home from the restaurant, Amanda asked if she could play on Lora's phone. We were five minutes from home and Lora knew there was nothing on the phone that might give them away, so she said yes. The FIRST THING Amanda said when she got Lora's phone in her hand was, "Why does it say that your phone called me?" Lora just about had a heartattack!! What?! She played it cool and pretended she had no idea what it could be (and in reality she didn't) as Amanda kept going on about how could Lora call her "future" phone if she didn't have one.

SOMEHOW Lora's purse had called Amanda's phone while we were all at the restaurant!! Talk about freakish timing! Arg!!

We got home at about 8:40pm, and we were getting Amanda's presents together and there was a soft chirping chime one of the boxes. The girls kept asking what the noise was and Kevin told them it was probably one of our cameras. Then Kevin called the phone and Harry Potter music started playing. You should have seen the looks on their faces!!



Amanda opened her gifts, and periodically the box would chime, or Harry Potter music would play. Each time the girls would stop and say, "there is the Harry Potter music again! I DID hear it!"

She opened the box from us last. As she unwrapped it, Lora called her phone and Star Wars music started playing. THAT really got her wondering.

She opened the box and was absolutely stunned. Like she just sat there with her mouth open, staring at the box! She said "I'm happy!"




There were already 12 messages on her phone and she began to read each birthday wish. As she did, the phone kept chiming as more and more messages came in. It was WONDERFUL!! Perfect!!



She sat and texted thank yous to everyone and texted back and forth with her cousins, and tried to figure out things on her new phone.

There are a big list of rules that go with the phone, but she was so happy to actually have one, and Kevin and Lora are very grateful that they will be able to get a hold of her when they need to!

Here is the video of her opening the box. It's several minutes long.



Thank you so much to everyone for texting her and making this an amazingly fun birthday gift for her!!

Laugh Out Loud moment of the day!!

My good friend Camille is pregnant and yesterday when she came to pick up her kids from our house after an OB appointment, we were talking about how she was doing, etc. In the course of conversation, and as the kids were congregating in the entry way to get their shoes one etc., I mentioned about how when Rebecca was born, the doctor nearly didn't make it. I said that they barely had time to get his gown on before she came out. Rebecca asked what he needed a gown for, and I said, "because a lot more comes out than just a baby. There's blood and goo and water and palcenta." Rebecca blurted out, "plus Santa?!" We all started laughing so hard that I couldn't even say it again. It was too funny!

Katrina's Kitchen

The other day Katrina saw a recipe in the Friend Magazine for Confetti Pizza that she wanted to try. So, we bought all the ingredients and Katrina made it for dinner tonight. It was a hit and we wanted to share the recipe, as it is a lot of fun!

For the recipe for Confetti Pizza, click here.

First, Katrina set the oven to preheat to 375 degrees. Then we took the two packages of crescent roll dough and rolled them out on our baking stone.


While we waited for the oven to get hot, Katrina measured out 1/2 cup of mayonnaise into a bowl.


Then she opened an 8oz package of cream cheese (softened) and added it to the bowl. Then she added the buttermilk dressing mix and stirred it up.




(Please note that the recipe calls for 1/3 of the dressing package. We missed that part and used the whole package and it was pretty strong. Good, but I am sure it would have tested better with less buttermilk mix.)

When the crust was done cooking, and had cooled, Katrina spread the cream cheese mixture on the crust.



Earlier, Mom had cut all the vegetable ingredients into little confetti bits.


Now, Katrina sprinkled all the vegetables all over the top of the pizza.



We cut the pizza into wedges, and served them with watermelon!



Delicious!!