Oh, Wow!

I can't believe it has been two weeks now since we got home! I feel like I've done enough to have been home for ages more. I cleaned the massive toy explosion in the kids room, again. I cleaned my room, again. I folded all the laundry and put it all away, only to start over, again, today. And I'm beginning to understand the frustration that my mom would have when my room wasn't clean as a kid...

On Sunday, Ashton got his new kitty. He's black and white and named Mr. Fluffybottoms. Ashton named him after some featured kitties on this site that Randall loves. And for the kids it was love at first sight! Something about funny animal pictures has them in stitches! And, when Randall read them the little quips, they memorized them for instant retrieval later. Now there's not a day that goes by that a situation provides the perfect opportunity for them slip one into the conversation. Jenna is really good at choosing the right words for any moment...

And the biggest news of all...BECCA IS GETTING MARRIED!!! I'm really excited about it! While I was on vacation, I got to meet my new brother-in -law-to be. He's a great guy and is the perfect complement to my sister. It's going to be so cool to have Jamie as part of our family. It will make for loads of fun in the coming years! My brother and his wife life quite a ways away from us so, we just haven't had time to get very close and they have much different interests than we do. So, all that to say, I'm happy for them both and happy for me, because I have a new "brother" to hang out with now...

As her wedding present from us, I'm doing the food, with the help of Mom. There are some days that I start thinking that I must be crazy. I've got tons to do over the next 8 weeks that I just don't know how things are going to get done. Nov. 4 is our Young Women in Excellence night, then I'm teaching a beading class at our Relief Society retreat Nov. 6 and 7. Then the 13th is our Fall Festival at the community center, and silly me, I signed up to be the committee head last year when plans for the event fell through. Then Dec. 10 is the wedding and the 18th is the reception. And, some where in the middle of all that, I've got 3 Halloween parties, teaching lessons in YW on Sundays, YW wed. night activities, Stake YW activities, and Christmas and Thanksgiving to plan and prepare for...If I make it to the New Year, I'll call myself a superhero! I'm beginning to believe that's what mothers are, you know...Superheroes...

Now, I've got to go put on my spandex jumpsuit and cape. Up Up and Away!

Scripture of the Day: Genesis 2:18

"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;..."

Ah, such true words. Being here with only Grandpa is very lonely. But there are some nice things about being by myself. I can get the house cleaned up for one. Also, I have time to do things like post on this here so-phisticated blog do-hickey. Also, please note my newly updated profile which is now full of deeply personal information like my dislike of pajamas. (My wife has enough pajamas to fill a U-Stor-It, so she more than makes up for my lack.)

Also, I can look for jobs, not that this takes very long. And I can do my computer artwork, which is becoming a big hobby for me. Meg gets back on Wednesday! Yeah!

Daddy, guess what we did today...

The zoo was fun, but the kids were done looking at everything in about 20 minutes. (It was tiny, maybe 20 exhibits.) Some of the highlights were the Lemurs, White Bengal Tigers, and the Kodiak bear. But I think the cutest was the baby zebra. All in all, I think it was a bit over priced for what it was.

In less than a week our time on vacation will be done and we'll be home again with you! Tomorrow, we'll be going on the The Great Pumpkin Patch Express. It's a train ride trough the mountains and at the end we get to meet Charlie Brown, Lucy and Snoopy! We'll post another video again tomorrow all about the train ride!

I am a G-I-R-L...

It seems that no matter how much pink and flowers Shiloh has on, 9 out of 10 people call her a boy. So, in an effort to reinforce that she is a girl, I have decided to create some hair bows for her. It seems I've always got ribbon lying around the house anyway...So today I made a couple to up the cuteness factor. One in browns and pinks and the other in white and pink. I can't believe how completely easy these were and how totally girly Shiloh looks, bald head and all...

Death...

Oh...Yesterday was a bit crazy. Randall had to work until 3am on Sunday morning and then after only 4 hours of sleep had to go and speak at church. So, we loaded everyone up and were about to pull out of the drive way when I looked over at the pig pen (Lewis has baby pigs and several chickens now) and I noticed that Ranger is in the pen. Not outside patrolling it, but trapped inside it. So, we drove over to investigate. I made Randall get out to see what was going on. Ranger got in the pen and killed both of the pigs. Well, this cemented his death sentence. We couldn't really do much dressed for church and all so we left him in there and took off. On the way, Randall called to tell Lewis and was told that he was going to shoot him and after church he'd have to go and bury all three.

So, given Ashton's previous record, we weren't telling him. But then once Chris and Belle got to church, everyone in the whole church knew. When it came time to sit down for sacrament, Ashton wasn't around and Chris piped up that he was balling in the gym. Chris told him all the gory details. Ashton was so upset that it took most of an hour to get him to even look and Lewis or Debbie. But, he eventually sat on Debbie's lap. But, even after church he told Lewis that he wasn't going to forgive him unless he got him a cat...

One of our neighbors has kittens that were just born not too long ago and so, Lewis is going to take him over there and let him pick out one that he can have when they're old enough to be away from their mom.

And the pet saga continues...

Mischeif managed.

Oi! Wednesday was a ton of work, but in the end, the girls loved it and so did the parents. We had an appreciation dinner. It was cute and fun. Here's some pictures of the decor. For the center pieces, we made delicate paper flowers from tissue paper. We put them in vases and then surrounded them with seashells the kids collected. Judy, my councilor, helped us get bibs for everyone at Red Lobster. For the "chargers" we cut 12" pieces of wrapping paper.

Since the theme was appreciation, we didn't give anyone utensils to get their spaghetti dinner with; so that they would appreciate the fork when they ate their dessert. Then we commented on how we appreciated the tines of our forks as much as we appreciate those around us and all their talents. When we gave them the forks we also gave the parents poems about appreciating our moms and dads. We also gave the dads a Mr. Goodbar and for the moms we made rosette corsages from ribbon. Then, to top the night of as a YW presidency we wrote letters of appreciation to each of the girls and gave those to them. The girls loved it. The parents loved it. And we're all one more step closer to accomplishing our Personal Progress goals. (This event passed off Individual Worth #3)

Speaking of Personal Progress....I started a queen sized afgan for my bed. It's going to be my Divine Nature Value Project. And I'm using it as my 1000 yd Stashbuster challenge. Here's my starting picture.

Wow!

I can't believe that it's been a month since I posted any updates here! It's been a whirlwind month with life running away at full speed. The first weekend we went up to Thomasville, GA and celebrated the life of a man who was noted as one of the best Father-in-laws by my m-i-l. Randy Jones was one of Randall grandparents, who after a valiant effort at making a life after a stroke, finally found rest at the end of a full and eventful life. I think I only able to spend time with him once or twice, but I remember him being a very gracious person who tried to find the best in all situations.

I came back and jumped back into to Young Women's. I got a new councilor and secretary and so I was training them with what they needed to do. I did one of the funnest lessons for the girls the other day. I was on resisting sin. I made them some Kryptonite and read them the story of RAYAD and made little petite fours for them to eat. Here's a picture of them before I took them to church and they were devoured!

They were fun to make but very tedious. I don't know that I'll make them for anything again, but it was fun to learn how to do it and the end result was that my lesson really struck home with them and it will be something that they never forget.

Then it was time to start school. And since we home school, that meant I needed to plan and prepare to have things ready for last Monday when it was the official first day of school here. And after a week, I think we're starting to settle down into a routine and things are smoothing out. We've already planned a field trip to the mountains to ride a train and go to the zoo while we visit with Nanny and Grampy and then drive on over to spend my mom's birthday with her and see my sister and her new beau. So, it's a full schedule ahead...

On the knitting front, I have decided I need to finish my Modern Log Cabin Blanket that I started. I recently taught myself how to knit continental style and it goes pretty fast now, so I think I could potentially have it done by October. Which is good because I need to pass it off in my Personal Progress manual. It's going to be one of my value projects. I've got a little less than four inches to do on a baby blanket that Shiloh loves. so, maybe after I get the stuff finished for our parent appreciation night tomorrow night, I can bang that out and make a little baby very happy. ( she likes to chew on it)

I was going to post a video I took of Shiloh mimicking Ashton, but it's too big for my dial-up connection. So, you'll have to be satisfied with a few pictures from the past month.