New Recipe #11 - Coffee Klatch Kolaches

Ingredients

• 1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water (110° to 115°)
• 3/4 cup warm 2% milk (110° to 115°)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted
• 
  GLAZE:
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• 5 teaspoons 2% milk

Directions

• In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, sugar, shortening, salt, nutmeg, eggs and 2 cups flour; beat until smooth. Add enough remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.
• Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.
• Punch dough down. Divide in half; shape each half into 12 balls. Place 3 in. apart on greased baking sheets. Flatten each ball to a 3-in. circle. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 30 minutes.
• Make a depression in the center of each roll; add a rounded tablespoonful of filling. Bake at 350° for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
• Brush rolls with butter. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool. Combine glaze ingredients; drizzle over tops. Yield: 2 dozen. 

I made the glaze they recommended. My Dad used pillsbury cream cheese frosting. His are prettier.

Awkward and Awesome

Awkward:

• Shopping at the 'big girl' store. I know everything in there is shaped pretty much like me, but I don't need to be told I'd look great in a halter, a tank top or short shorts. Those are all three blatant lies. 
• Opening 2 new bottles of BBQ sauce because you can't them open, even though you've tried for over 2 minutes. (2 minutes is a long time to try to open a bottle of condiment.) The awkward part is when I realize I've been turning it the wrong way for 2 minutes. Lefty loosey - righty tighty people! 
• Pictures of giraffes lying down.
• I interrupt people. A lot. I'm trying hard to stop doing that!  The other night I actually interrupted Ken while he was telling me I interrupt people. Noted. Sorry to everyone!
• Opening the door to the missionaries before I have my hair fixed and my make up on. They are glad that I answered and grateful that I helped but kind of surprised. The initial look on their face is burned into my brain forever. Think Yzma...or the witch lady from Tangled. I really do need make up to look presentable.
• Nicole has serious sensory issues. (This is not the awkward part.) She doesn't sit with our family at church. Yes, she's on the same bench, there is just 3 feet between her and the next person. (Also not (ish) in the awkward category.) We went to a planning meeting last night for an upcoming RS meeting that the YW are invited to and she didn't want to sit by me, make any comments or have me make suggestions. She was totally embarrassed she was there (with me), even though she signed up to help and I attend all the RS planning meetings. I felt awkward. I don't like that she is embarrassed of me. :(

Awesome:

• I returned 2 pairs of jeans to Lane Bryant's corporate return place because they were less than a year old and ripped in weird places. I got a $75 reimbursement gift card. Then I found a pair of pants for 15 dollars before tax there. Sweet! I mean...awesome!
• I've been going to the gym. I would much rather use an elliptical machine then go on a walk/job/snail crawl. I need to lose a chunk of weight (no pun intended) so that I can train to run a 5k. Although I may not be able to run one this  year, I will run one and it will be sooner than later.
• I spelled elliptical wrong in the last bullet, blogger recognized it was wrong and had the correct spelling in their data-base. It's not that old of a word and it still doesn't recognize 'Facebook.' 
• Listening to my Dad talk like a robot on the telephone. Beep.
• Right now as I type this, Anna is singing in the shower. Songs from Tangled. She sounds just like Mandy Moore. 
• Blogging with my little sister, Gina. We have been writing on the same topic for Memory Monday. It's been neat to read the same memory from two different perspectives. You should read her blog and comment. It would raise her self esteem.
• I got a card in the mail from my dad for my half birthday with a dollar in it. Proof number 86 that I am his favorite.

Awkward and Awesome:
(this is what happens when you leave your phone on the counter at my sister's house, unattended. Ryan is awkward, Gina is awesome. Both are interchangeable, depending on the day and the weather.) I love these two!

People, Don't Tailgate!! (Wordless Wednesday)

Good Idea - Bad Idea

Good Idea: Going to the gym.
Bad Idea: Eating nachos after going to the gym...as a celebration.

Good Idea: Changing your font every once in a while to mix things up.
Bad Idea: wingdings (wingdings) or comic sans


Good Idea: Taking a nap after church.
Bad Idea: sleeping from 5pm to 7pm.


Good Idea: Letting a 4 year old help clean toothpaste out of the bathroom sink.
Bad Idea: She used her toothbrush.


Good Idea: Buying me presents.
Bad Idea: Just buy me presents. The 24th was my half birthday! Hooray for 33 1/2.

Memory Monday

Grandpa Price.

Since I just saw him on Saturday, he's on my mind. Here are some things I remember about him.

• He ran everywhere. From the back door of his house to his truck. From his car to the store. If it was more than 5 or 6 steps he didn't walk there.
• We went to McDonald's once and he wanted to pay with a 100 dollar bill and they didn't have change. He changed his order to get enough food that they could break it.
• Honeycomb cereal for breakfast, meat and potatoes for dinner, peaches and or schwan ice cream for dessert.
• He was at the temple my first time through and a witness at my wedding.
• He taught me how to swallow air and burp...really well.
• The last time I saw Grandma, she and Grandpa came to visit us in McMinnville, OR. They brought us the biggest box of apples I'd ever seen in my life. When it was empty, Garen, Adam, Gina and I all fit in the box with room for our junk. The apples were good but the box was awesome!
• The road from Pasco to Basin City is the longest road. On the planet. When we were little, that road was the worst part of the drive. We were excited and the road was 24 miles of fields and barns. The combination equaled a perceived 6 hours on that road.
• We always knew we were close when we could see his grain silos up on the hill. 'Watch for Grandpa's harvestores!'

I sure love that guy! Best grandpa ever.

Video of Grandpa Price

Okay, I couldn't get my videos uploaded to blogger so I put them on YouTube. I've embedded a couple of them but here is a link to my YouTube channel and I put all the links below too. (Family, I will email them to you if you want them. A couple of them are not public on YouTube.) My Dad is the one talking to them that you can't see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSMi9eM-N1A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAh7GELIIA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lo4RktOYEI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T97_dY4_Y-M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEugi5GkdTo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSJoKp65oms





It was a good visit.

Saturday was a special day...

Saturday was a really long day for me and my Dad. It started at 3:15am. We each left our homes by 4:30, met in Tacoma and then went to the temple together. We did temple work and met with two different members of the temple presidency. The president was Kyle's mission president and one of the counselors is from my home ward in Bremerton. We were in the temple from 6:00 to 10:30 or so.  I loved it.

From there, instead of returning to my home, we took a whirlwind trip to Eastern Washington to visit my Grandpa Price (my mom's dad) as well as some of my aunts and uncles. We got to Kennewick around 2:30 and spent a couple hours with Grandpa. It was a great visit. I hadn't seen him since my Mom's funeral, over a year ago. Here are some pictures of him and Norma. 

 Here he is, showing us what he does best.

This was the first look I got of him when we walked in the room.

 These are all his balloons from his birthday. He was being a model.

From there we headed over to Basin City to Steve and Marla's house. I hadn't been to their house since 2002. We weren't there very long but I enjoyed it. That evening we attended a potluck/family get together for the Whitby's and Calaway's. Marla made the corn mean pancakes and chili sauce that my mom used to make. It was good company and good food. Most of the people there were my mom's cousins. I didn't know very many of them but it didn't really feel that way. Everyone was very inviting.

Dad and I got back on the road at 7:45 to head back to my house. We got home at 12:02am after traveling 571 miles. Had we only been driving one way, that was enough miles to go from my house to somewhere between Boise and Mountain Home, Idaho. However, I was glad to be sleeping back in my own bed at the end of our long day.

I also have some good video of my grandpa but I'm having a hard time getting it to upload. I'll keep trying. Until then, just know grandpa was in good spirits. We were there for 5 minutes before we knew who we were. He showed me the 2 seats he likes to sit at for dinner, depending on which side of the dining room they serve first and he was really funny. I don't remember him kidding around a lot when I was younger so I enjoy each of my visits with him more and more as an adult.

*Dear family, feel free to copy any of these pictures to your hard drive. They were all taken on my cell phone so I don't know how the quality will be, but what I have is better than having nothing at all. To copy them, just click on the desired picture, when it's in it's own screen, right click on the picture and 'save as.' If you want copy of the video, let me know and I'll email it to you. I think it needs to play with a quicktime.  I'm not sure though.

This and that...aka 5 truths and a lie.

• Anna doesn't like egg salad sandwiches.
• Matthew did a whole diorama for school out of legos.
• Nicole is reading Caddie Woodlawn right now...as we speak - or as I type rather.
• I've gone to the gym 2 days in a row. I got a 14 day trial membership for free. I love the elliptical machine.
• Ken went back to bed this morning after scriptures and didn't get up until 7:30. He was late for work.
• Gina is moving to China to help all the orphans in the whole world.

Plans for world domination

Lately my brother Ryan, my sister Gina and I have been thinking of all the things we need to do to take over the world. In order for this to happen, here are some things we need to accomplish.

1. Only speak through  mega phones.
2. Learn everything we can from Pinky, the Brain and Sue Sylvester.
3. Find a small country to take over - as practice. Wait, playgrounds!
4. Anyone want to go to the park?
5. I NEED MINIONS!!
6. Hey Kate, want to come over and play?
7. Learn to cackle. done and done.
8. Costumes.
9. Own Despicable Me, Mastermind, and the first season of Glee - use as training tools.
10. Visit the east coast.

ps, I think I'm out of my funk.

Awkward and Awesome

Awkward:

• Doing exercise videos from Netflix. Oh to be a fly on the wall so I could really see myself. Not being able to is a tender mercy.
• Finding hundreds of teeth marks on the tube of toothpaste in the kids' bathroom.
• Someone asking my opinion on how to be healthy.
• How I feel blogging this week. I'm kind of in a funk. (Can you tell I've really got nothing?)

Awesome:

• Kate.
• All the junk Kate has sewn this week. (Post pictures on your blog lady!)
• School is out in 10 short weeks.
• Gina.
• Emus.

Awkward and Awesome:

Good Idea - Bad Idea

So I am stealing this idea from Gina. Although she is not cooler than me, I like her idea.

NOTE: These things may or may not have recently happened in our home. Odds point to 'may have'.

Good Idea: Returning your Netflix movies after having them in your home for a month.
Bad Idea: Sending back Ken's video game in place of one of the movies.

Good Idea: Making one of my recipes that I have suggested under 52 recipes in 2011. (I know I need to add a new one.)
Bad Idea: Using sweet condensed milk instead of evaporated milk in the french fry casserole. (My HS friend, Kelly did this just recently. I got a call this morning after she realized there was a difference between the two milks. She is going to blog about it in the next couple weeks. I'll keep you posted so you can read about it.)

Good Idea: Practicing the piano and organ everyday for you'll be ready for sacrament meeting on Sunday.
Bad Idea: Practicing the wrong week of songs everyday so you are not actually ready for sacrament meeting on Sunday.

Good Idea: Watching a movie with you almost teenager daughter.
Bad Idea: The Cheetah Girls.

Good Idea: Donating clothes to Goodwill.
Bad Idea: Leaving the bag of donate-able clothes to Goodwill in the front room and accidentally donating the bag of garbage clothes.

Good Idea: Waffles for dinner.
Bad Idea: Waffles for dinner made out of cake batter.

POST PUBLISH EDIT: The cake waffles turned out great, like always. They just aren't appropriate for dinner.

Memory Monday...on Monday(!)

Happy Go Pukey.

Remember last week when I told you about my family of 9 getting a ride home from my Uncle Dave in a little hatchback car? It would turn out that that would not be the only time our family would fit into a tiny little car like sardines. The 2nd time we did it, it was planned and it was just as big of a disaster, only if a different light.

Once upon a time our family only had 1 car because the other one was dead. The car we had was a ford EXP. Never heard of that before? Here's a picture. (not of our car but one I found on the internet.)

Here are few facts about the EXP.

• There are two seat belts.
• There are two doors.
• It's a hatchback
• The car we had was a stick shift.

Here's the story.

When we were younger, my mom made candy and made us (her children) sell it door to door - business to business - to make money to pay for things like Christmas, school clothes, part of Ryan's mission, a 13 foot camper and a whole slew of other causes that shall remain unmentioned. We traveled far and wide to perform these sales. All over Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and after I was married Mom even took the kids down to Califormia. 

Mom and Dad planned a selling trip for us to take on Spring Break when I was in 8th grade. I was 14 years old. Since the beast (a big green boat of a car) was dead, we had to go in the EXP for this selling trip since canceling was out of the question. So do you remember that the car picture about had 2 seat belts and no trunk? Here is what we had to fit in the 'back seat' of this car.

• 5 children
• 6 apple and banana boxes full of candy plus 3 more apple boxes for us to use when we went door to door.
• Blankets and pillows to make the 'back seat' more comfortable.
• Food/Snacks

Believe it or not, we fit it all in. A bunch of sardines stuffed into a little tin can with a manual transmission.

Here's how to the trip went down.

• There was 7 people in the car. Mom, Dad, Me (14), Garen (11), Adam (9), Gina (6) and Kyle (3). (these ages are guesses, give or take a year.)
• We traveled south on highway 101 along the Washington coast from about Raymond all the way to the turn off to go to Astoria, Oregon.
• Those roads are full of curves and switch back type turns - very conducive to motion sickness.
• Before we had a chance to get car sick, many of the passengers in our little car came down with the stomach flu.
• Mom puked
• Kyle puked
• One of the big boys puked
• I think Gina puked
• Diarrhea crashed the party
• puke
• poop
• puke
• poop
• poop
• puke.
• I don't remember if Dad got sick.
• I did not get sick
• One of the boys got sick
• People threw up in grocery bags.
• On bedding
• On me
• In the car when Dad couldn't stop fast enough.
• Outside when he could stop fast enough.
• Kyle pooped on me.
• Others pooped on themselves.

It. Was. HORRIBLE.

So all of this - opposite of total awesomeness -  was going on when we hit the windy curvy roads. The best way to describe was happened next is to say...rinse and repeat all the bullets above.

More grossness.

I can't remember why we named that road the 'Happy Go Pukey' road. But here are some more facts about that trip.

• We sold a lot of candy.
• We didn't fight.
• No one got mad for being puked or pooped on.
• I remember we had to eat the grapes that didn't have a bag anymore because Kyle puked in it. (The grapes were not puked on.)
• Three words...Happy Go Pukey will bring many memories to 7 people, 6 now, until their dying day.

NOTE: My little sister, Gina is blogging this memory Monday also. My memory is from a 14 year old perspective. Her's if from a 6 year old. Read and compare them. We are both clicking publish at the same time. 

Today in primary

I taught the kids who are 5 and will be turning 6 this year. I'm not really sure how much they got out of the lesson but here are some things I learned from them. Our lesson was on the Word of Wisdom.

• You can't exercise in space.
• Sometimes a cat never wants to play, only scratch.
• One of the cats eats broccoli.
• One of the 5 year olds drink beer.
• One girl started crying because she doesn't have a cat.
• If you ask enough times over and over, 2 sets of parents will give you what you want. You just have to keep asking.
• Kindergarteners know how to read a lot of words. None of those words are in the scriptures. (direct quote)
• That little boy really does drink beer. (He kept assuring me.)
• Some drink juice everyday. 
• Popsicles are frozen juice. Root beer are the best.

Have you subbed in primary recently? 

You get what you pay for.

Nicole got a new clarinet for Christmas. We got a good deal on because it was a student clarinet and Amazon was having a sweet sale. About 3 or 4 weeks ago one of the screws came out so we had to take it in and the music store was able to put a new one in. Free of charge even. Yesterday when Nicole got home from school she told me she lost another screw. No problem I thought, we'll take it in and get a new screw and it will probably be a couple bucks this time. Apparently the screw she lost this time caused more damage because they said the repair will take a minimum of a week and it will be around thirty dollars, maybe more.

We are sending the clarinet back to the manufacturer.

My advice to you is to not purchase a Conductor brand musical instrument. There are good student instruments out there from good brands. Conductor is not one of those brands.

The first 30 minutes of Anna's day...

Questions and comments made:
Do frogs have teeth?
I'm going to go pray for Captain Moroni now.
I like to wear these slippers everyday.
I love Santa.
Can I go to the bathroom?
Can I have a cookie?
Can I have some cake?
What day is it?
What I'm going to be for Halloween?
Look mom, I'm jumping on one foot.
And I can jump on 2 feet.
And I can do this! (Wave her arms while she's jumping on one and two feet.)

More ninja moves with sound effects.

Songs that were sung:
Poker Face (oh, oh oh oh)
Hey Soul Sister (hey ay, hey ay)
Everybody wants to be a cat
The Itsy Bitsy Spider

I'm ready for a nap. :)

Awkward and Awesome

Awkward:

• Making small talk. I'm not good at it too often.
• Gina.
• Being woken up at 2 in the morning by an OCD child asking me if they can check the front door and make sure it's locked. (It wasn't.)
• Ken calling me at a little after 2 in the morning because he was locked out of the house. (He had been on a death call.)
• Sharing a bed with a blanket hog. You would think after almost 14 years we could figure this out. Yet I wake up a couple times a week completely confused about why I have no blankets on my side of the bed and what happened to the top sheet?! It was there when I feel asleep.
• passed vs past. When do I use these words? I get confused often.
• Me using sporting analogies. (See bullet number 3 in awesome, which could be awkward too.)

Awesome:

• Today is my Grandpa Price's birthday! He is 87 years old. I love him so much!
• The comments I get on my blog of people sharing their awkward moments. I love them all. I encourage you to do Awkward and Awesome too. 
• Bullet number 4 on the awkward list is a double hitter. 2 birds, one stone.
• You just scrolled back and forth on the screen to figure out my rambling.
• Me.
• The dead guy that was in the van in our driveway for 2 hours before he was shipped to Los Angeles.
• The starts for our garden are growing really well. They're almost ready to go into the ground.

Awkward and Awesome:

Memory Monday...er Wednesday (pt deux)

(I like Memory Monday on Wednesday.)

3rd Grade:

• We lived in Dundee, Oregon and attended Newberg 2nd ward.

• Garen, Adam and I spent many hours riding in the back of tonka dump trucks (the little yellow ones) down the street that had a steep grade, through an intersection (that did not have stop signs) and into the field. We crashed a lot. I ruined a few pairs of shoes. I loved every minute of it.

• We got a 13 foot camper trailer and played house in it a lot.

• Mom and Dad bought matching Ford Fairmont cars. They were the fanciest cars we'd ever owned in my life. Their license plates were one number apart and our first Oregon plates. We had recently moved from Idaho.
• I sang in a talent show. We were the first act. We did terrible. Even as a nine year old I knew this.

*This story may be offensive to some of you. Remember, that is your choice.

• I heard the 'f' word for the first time. We were walking to the public library and my 'buddy' said to me, 'I know what the 'f' word is.' I told her there wasn't an 'f' word . (and I knew all the swear words!) She assured me there was one and then said it. I repeated it a couple of times, told her it was stupid word and then we talked about something else like chinese jump ropes or fortune tellers. Later on in the week I was downstairs in the family room watching She-ra and Garen came down and told me Mom wanted me. I told him to tell her I'd be right there. A minute later Mom is yelling for me - angry. I ran upstairs to see what was wrong. She was at the top of the stairs. She asked me what I told Garen when he called for me. I said, 'I'd be right there.' Garen said, 'No! You told me to tell her to 'f' off.' I was shocked for two reasons.

1. I would never say any swear word to my mom. I learned that lesson when I made her a list of them...
2. How did Garen know that word?! I had just learned it two days before.

It turned out that I just had to take my clothes to my room and Garen got in trouble for using that word. 

• Wendi, Ryan and Heather had 2 themed parties at our house. Mom made me costumes for them and I crashed them. I also fell in love with Scott Rollins. He was Ryan's friend.
• I rode on a Camelot float in the Old Fashioned Days Parade in Newberg.

• It was the first year I stayed up until midnight on New Years Eve.

• Garen threw up on my brand new dress from Santa on Christmas morning at Grandma's house.

• On the way home from Christmas at Grandma's our car broke down and my Uncle Dave picked us all up (7 kids and parents) and took us home. in a little hatchback car.

• I learned about Santa. This came to be when I rearranged all the presents to get what I really wanted and somehow my mom new. lame.

• I mastered the monkey bars at my school. The bars turned when you grabbed them so they were really hard.

• I watched Poltergeist and Friday the 13th.

• My teacher was Mrs. Bollinger. My best friends were Teresa and Jenny. My arch nemesis was Esther. James' dad died. 
• Great Grandpa Calaway came to visit. 
• My Mom made me a penguin sundress. I picked the fabric.
• I got my first journal.
• Ryan, Heather, Garen, Adam and I walked across a railroad bridge that was active. I told Ryan and Heather that we shouldn't do it. They made us anyway. I asked them what we should do if the train came and Ryan said, 'jump.' After we were off it a train came. Ryan told me that night he didn't know trains still crossed that bridge.
• It was a pretty good year.

Stuff and Things 4-12-2011

Stuff and Things = Whatever comes out of my brains. 

• Last night I got a free box of Cheerios at the super market with a coupon. It came with a free 'pull back racer' hot wheel car. Matthew was super excited because 'you just don't get free stuff in cereal anymore.' (a direct quote from an old 11 year old.)
• Do you remember cracker jacks? Do they even make them anymore? They were really nasty but we loved them because we got a prize.  a cheap prize. Not a hot wheel, that's for sure!
• I have quite a few sewing projects started and no ambition to finish any of them. some of them include, a dress for Nicole, dolls for my friend in PA, junk to sell on Etsy, a couple of aprons for someone who doesn't know they are on the way and said person may or may not read this blog. (Be surprised!), the blanket for my bed. 
• A family from our ward is being sealed on Saturday. Ken and I are attending. I love seeing a sealing.
• I can't play 'All Creatures of our God and King.'
• I slept through choir on Sunday. (In my bed, not at the church.)
• Below are some random pictures I have taken on my phone in the last week.

Anna falls asleep in our bed. Her routine includes, going through the night table drawers, rearranging our blankets, turning on our outside light and then randomly falling asleep however she feels like.

We had a lot of rain yesterday morning. After it quit and the sun came out, the roofs has steam rising from them. I never saw that in Kansas and it was first time since we moved back that I'd seen it. I actually cried. Lame, I know. But steam rising off roofs is cool.

Also yesterday, I decorated my first cake using tips. Although this cake is poorly done if you look too close (or you are an expert) I'm pretty pleased with how my first try came out. I will be practicing this technique again because I really love it.

Happy Tuesday!

dream vs reality

reminder: this blog is my journal. You may not care about this post. If you don't want to read about my mom, scroll down to the bottom and watch a sweet YouTube video.

Last night I had a dream that my mom died. It was all of the sudden. She was in perfect health. We all walked around like zombies. We didn't know the funeral directors/embalmer - or the funeral home for that matter. There was a lot of crying and moping and many of us lacked direction. When the funeral was over we went out separate ways and life did not seem to go on for many in the family.

This is a huge contrast to how it really happened.

Mom was sick. Before they diagnosed her cancer she was not doing well. Although we were surprised she was taken so quickly (28 days from diagnosis to death) we knew her cancer was terminal.  Mike Woodhouse (Ken's new co-worker) was the funeral director. Ken embalmed her. We had a party. The 9 days we were in Washington for mom's funeral was the best visit I had had in many years. There was some crying, but there was a lot of laughter and love. We talked of the good times and saw tender mercies all around us. We ate good food she loved and played Rock Band the night we buried her. It was as happy of a time as it could have been.

Yesterday in Relief Society I sat by a lady who is new in the ward but an old friend of our family. She was in Bremerton 2nd ward for a few years. She asked me how mom was doing. I had to tell her she died and I felt bad for her. She started crying. I found myself at the viewing again. I don't know how many people I hugged that were crying like crazy people. I just told them it would be okay and I assured them that Mom really loved them. I did that again yesterday.

Obviously, this morning Mom is on my mind. Here are some things I don't want to forget about her.

• Her laugh was great. She laughed with her whole body.

• Her first impression of people was correct a lot of the time.
• She drove me crazy.
• I loved her.
• She played the piano like a ninja. There's a gal in our ward who is a musical genius. When she plays the piano I cry buckets. Her music skills remind of my Mom. A lot.
• She told her grandchildren, 'You may have two grandma's, but  I'm the cute grandma.' 
• She too hated cats.
• She loved to dance.
• I'm certain she would have loved InsideOut A Cappella

This morning I am thankful for Jesus Christ. I love him so much. He carries me most of the time. I'm grateful my parents were married in the temple and that Ken and I were married in the temple too. We are an eternal family. My mom is with Robert, a thought that makes me green with envy and helps me sleep at night also. The scriptures bring me peace. Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. A brave one. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and the strength it provides me to keep going.

Families are Forever.

Another sewing project

I'm working on another blanket. I think this will be my last one. It's for my bed. I don't really have a pattern set and I don't know what it's going to look like when it's done. I'm just making one or two or three quilt blocks from some of my favorite blankets I've seen over the years. I need 144 9 1/2 inch blocks. It's going to be a sampler of sorts.

While I was looking through a quilt book I saw mini quilt blocks. I'm not sure why anyone would make such small things but I had a lot of scraps and I wanted to give it a try.  See the pictures below.

How big do you think this block is?

 1 3/4 inches after it was squared up.

 2 1/2 inches with the border.

I sent these pictures to Gina and she told me I need to make friends that don't live in Pennsylvania and Utah. (boo)

I showed this block to Wendi and she rolled her eyes at me and told me I need a hobby.

I texted it to Kate and she liked it. (after she guessed 1, 2 or 17 inches for the size. in that order. )

Three things come to my mind.

1. All three responses from all three people were 100% predictable.
2. I have friends in Washington.
3. Sewing is my hobby.

Here is one I have to middle done but don't know about the background yet..

More pictures to follow of my blanket. Stay tuned.

Ken and I are officially OLD!

Ken and I chaperoned a stake dance tonight. We were in the foyer, guarding the hallway to the dry council high council room. During the course of 3 hours, approximately 50-60 songs were played. We knew 14 of them. 25%. Fail. How did this happen?

                    

Here are the songs we knew: (I linked them all so you can listen to see if you recognize them.)

1. Hey There Delilah
2. Fire Burning
3. Cotton Eyed Joe
4. Cha Cha Slide
5. Staying Alive
6. Thriller (This video used to scare me to death. I haven't seen it since I was in 3rd grade.)
7. Electric Slide
8. Party in the USA
9. Hot N Cold
10. Bohemian Rhapsody
11. Don't Stop Believing
12. You Make Me Smile
13. You've Lost That Love and Feeling
14. Hoedown Throw Down

I have a couple things to say about this..

• Sad that I knew 2 Hannah Montana songs. (I didn't know party in the USA was hers until I looked them up.)
• Where were They Might Be Giants, We Will Rock You and 500 Miles? Best. Dance Songs. Ever!
• Don't feel bad if you don't know these songs. You probably know some of the others.
• We had a lot of fun and would love to chaperon again.

A Day O' Fun

We are on Spring Break this week. In years passed I've taken the kids somewhere new for 3 or 4 days over Spring Break. A Trip O' Fun just with Mom. (Ken would stay home and work.) The stipulations for Trips O' Fun were:

* there had to be a temple

*there had to be a something educational

*we ate a lot of good food

Well, the tradition of 'Trips O' Fun' have ended for at least a few years. In years passed, I have also had a full time job...with a paycheck. I seem to be lacking that paycheck. Both a blessing and a curse.

On Tuesday we had a Day O' Fun. Although it was only 7 hours long, we met all three requirements of our Trip O' Fun

The Seattle Temple

(Matthew is trying to hold it in his hands. Thank you Despicable Me.)

 The Space Needle

 Pacific Science Center. (Somewhere they'd never been and educational)

We had lunch at a buffet restaurant. They ate a lot of 'good' food. (This is the place where Anna proclaimed she loves Chinese Food.)