Let it Snow!

The view from my front porch this morning. It's been lightly snowing for over 24hrs.

I dreamt of days like this in the dog days of Texas summers. I love the snow. I love the calmness, being cozy inside, the magic of it. Of course, I'm not the one shoveling it, or digging my car out. Brad's my shoveling hero!

Go With the Flow

I gave a lesson to my Young Women the other day on Optimism. The lesson pointed out how a go-with-the-flow attitude can help you be happier in the long run. I couldn't help but think of my mom, who is the epitome of go-with-the-flow. She doesn't get rattled when things don't work out the way she wants, she just finds a way to play with the hand she's been dealt.

I found one of my favorite examples of that come-what-may attitude as I was looking through my old journals. Please indulge me as I quote from an entry in my journal, dated February 17, 1990. I was thirteen years old.

Background: Growing up, my dad was the head of our Stake, which is a group of about 6 or 7 church congregations. Every six months we had Stake Conference, and often a General Authority came out from Salt Lake. We had several General Authorities stay with us over the years. It was kind of a big deal to make sure everything was clean and perfect for the visit.

"Today was a fun and busy day. It started at around 7:50. I got up and cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned some more. You see, it is Stake Conference weekend and Elder Pinnock is here. So, finally he got here. We ate lunch. They left for meetings and I had a b-ball game. We lost 71-25.

Then we came home to get the food and stuff for the dinner at the Stake Center. We were on our way out and Mom spilled the stroganoff on the asphalt. She was about to cry. We couldn't think of what to do. Finally, she goes, 'I don't care! We're gonna eat it anyway!' So we went into the kitchen and got a couple measuring cups, and I got another can of mushrooms and she got some more cream of mushroom soup.

'It'll have sour cream anyway, and you know, it was awfully runny.'

Yah! A great way to get rid of the sogginess!!! She took those measuring cups and started scooping that stroganoff off of the ground! We kept it a secret and were hoping no one would bite on a pebble.

Well, at the table, people were complimenting the meal and Dad was all bragging, 'Yah, that's my beef!' Mom and I started cracking up! It was so funny.

After the meeting, we hurried home to park in the same place where mom spilled so it would kind of cover it up. Mom spent many minutes trying to wash it down with the hose, but it didn't work. It was a fun evening.

p.s. Elder Pinnock calls me: Sal Pal Gal"

How could I not have learned to go-with-the-flow from that and the many other experiences I had growing up? What a valuable life lesson! Thanks Mom.

Birthday Cake

I feel like a bit of a slacker. Remember my tradition of making a specialized homemade birthday cake which the birthday child had requested?

There was Elmo for Ty's 2nd birthday...

Spiderman for his third...

The infamous Jesus cake for his fourth...






And a Cars theme for his 5th?

Well, I was planning on doing a Diego cake for his 6th, but something came over me when we were at Costco. Knowing that he's still easily persuaded, I started talking about how much I loved homemade cakes, but sometimes the store-bought ones were soooo cool! How I always felt so special when I got a store-bought cake. (At least it's true. There's something especially yummy about that Costco buttercream frosting that I love.) So he got excited and asked if he could have a store-bought cake this year. Please?! Please?! "Oh, okay, since you asked."

The selection was low, and we didn't have enough time to special order one, but he loved the music notes, and was very excited. And the chocolate mousse filling? Way better than any cake I've ever made, that's for sure!

Here's a little video of him blowing out his candles. I love the split second before he blows them out, where you can tell he's making a wish. I love the magic of childhood!

Better Late than Never: Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. The kids decided to be Dora and Diego, and they had a blast trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. We spent the night with Ty's birth family at their annual family halloween party. It was a lot of fun.

The Treehouse

We've decided that in our family we'll have big friend birthday parties every other year (if they want them) and just do something fun as a family on the year off. So when Tyler's birthday came up, we decided to go up to Ogden to a big dinosaur park. We got a hotel up there, and planned our fun trip, and then Brad's co-worker mentioned how scary the dinosaur park was in October, all decked out for Halloween. We decided not to scare the kids to death.

I'm so glad it didn't work out, though, because plan B was a children's museum up in Ogden called the Treehouse, and it was JUST PERFECT! We had so much fun! Other children's museums I've been to have been a little run down. But not this one! It was in tip-top shape, and had so much to see and do!

There were so many dress-up places.

They had a cute pioneer schoolroom that the children really enjoyed.

Moving on to the American West, they had a tee-pee.

And rodeo stuff.

This one was pretty funny. There was actual fluid coming out of the cow! The kids were grossed out and mesmerized at the same time.

They had a stage where they had a children's play. A worker narrated the story of the Princess and the Pea, while the children acted it out. Tyler was a guard.

Lauren didn't want to be in the play, but she got to play on the props afterward.

There was a fake oval office complete with the President.

Lots of science stuff.

Lincoln logs.

A hospital nursery.

And tons more that we didn't get pictures of. What a great place! We were there from opening to closing! If we lived closer, I would definitely want to become a member. The kids still talk about it and ask to go back.