Stuff{ing}.

I'm getting so excited for Thanksgiving... 

and having a few extra chidlets (not to be confused with giblets) home.

This morning I've been working on a lesson for my Laurel class.

We've been talking about Self Reliance this month, and today our lesson is on The Lord's Way for Providing for the Poor and Needy, based on this talk by Elder Holland, and this talk by President Uchtdorf. And there are oh-so-many scriptures I want the girls to read.  I've tried really hard to incorporate the Come Follow Me principles for teaching, but I don't really know if I do it right. 

I'm trying. I love teaching, especially the youth. And young women are particularly enjoyable.

Life is busy around here. I'm sure it's busy everywhere. I've had a million things to do, to read, to ponder, to buy, to organize, to plan... you get the picture. My menopausal brain isn't great at keeping it all neat and tidy, and sometimes it's obvious to myself (and others - I hate it when that happens) that I'm a mess. The past few weeks, however, I have definitely felt the love of the Lord as I have received frequent bits of personal revelation to help me along. Thoughts and ideas that I know are not coming from me. And to tie it all together, we had a ward chapel meeting on Thursday at the temple on the topic of The Constant Flow of Revelation. My heart is so full in gratitude for a loving Heavenly Father and his son, Jesus Christ, who know me and what I need.

I purchased these coins for a handout for today's lesson via a prompting. I didn't have anything specific I was thinking of to tie them into the lesson. It wasn't until later that I read the following as I was studying the materials for the lesson:

"The two great commandments - to love God and our neighbor - are a joining of the temporal and the spiritual... Like two sides of a coin, the temporal and the spiritual are inseparable. The Giver of all life has proclaimed, 'All things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal.' ...While it is important to have our thoughts inclined toward heaven, we miss the essence of our religion if our hands are not also inclined toward our fellowmen." (President Dieter F. Uchtdorf) 

Feeling grateful!

Here's a tidbit of the other "stuff" that we've had going lately.

Mar and her friend Cate made fox tails. Mar is such a crafty girl, and had looked up a diy how-to online. I'm still trying to figure out the purpose of owning a fox tail, but these girls have loved playing that they were animals since they were itty bitty. (Their dog collar stage was the best - wink.) They diligently worked for two days making these works of art. I'm super impressed.

I organized a bit of my crawl space, and collected a nice pile for Goodwill.

A quick game of I-spy... can you find:

spirit curl rollers (not gonna lie, I'm gonna miss those)

Bill's 5-year appreciation gift from American Express (a Lenox vase... that we've never used)

sheriff badge party favors that I've held onto for.... 10 years?

picture frames of all sorts and sizes

perm rods... for all those perms I give

pitchers... (I know, I collect those... one of these has a crack, the other I just don't like that much)

candlesticks that spent a good 10 years in my family room (thus a good value)

artwork from a bedroom that has been redecorated twice since it's glory days

easter baskets

purple plastic cutlery

This pile has grown with some clothing items since I snapped a pic. Hoping to get it gone tomorrow.

I realized that I need to update this a bit. 

With only three of us home, each of us will need to take two assignments each week. Although our FHE's have become a bit more simplified. Maybe I'll have to save it for the next generation...

One of my goals is to update this, too. Yeah, there's some old stuff on there.

Last week I replaced the battery in this annoying squeaking fire detector.

It started squeaking around 2 in the morning, resulting in a terrible night's sleep for Bill and me.

I finally, finally fixed the hole in my glass-slider curtain. It's only been there almost 3 years.

Good-bye hole. Hallelujah. I feel so accomplished.

Well, that's a bunch of stuff, and it's time to be done stuff{ing}.
I still have a bunch of stuff to do, so I'd better get doing it.

Happy Sunday!

The Princess King Part 2. Finally.

Our computer is back. Hallelujah.
It's been a rough week without it, but also a very productive week.

Technology = a blessing and curse.

I wanted to quickly post the remainder of The Princess King pics and a short clip of Mar in action.

These were all taken the final day of the play.

The cast:

The cast and crew:

Mar clearly enamored with Prince Air Guitar:

The promised clip:

Daddy-o's photo bomb:

Although she loved being a part of the play, I think Mar's been happy the past few weeks to have some freedom after school.

Love that girl.

A quick shout out to MY Daddy-o as he celebrates 75 years of life!
Happy Birthday, Papá!

The Princess King.

Last weekend was Mar's school play, The Princess King.

If you remember, Mar had the role of Head Servant.

Bill and I attended opening night.

(Mar and Prince Whiner... a cute young man from our ward.) 

 (This was Mar's character's infatuation... Prince Air Guitar)

(Mar's friend Tommy, aka The Cook and/or The Princess.  He was a hoot.)

It was a super cute play.

It was a little difficult to hear some of the actors, since the microphones were limited (due to scheduling on the same weekend as the high school play = no sharing of technical equipment). Mar did a great job projecting, which I can't necessarily say for all. 

And we were sitting on the front row.

Thank heavens. 

While trying to add to this post, my beloved Mac, in which all my digitized memories lie, CRASHED. Nothing viewable but a pixilated checkerboard or a blank screen. I've decided to post this as a two-part series, with the second installation coming after the computer has been repaired... IF my pictures are retrievable. Fingers crossed!!

Cake Pops, MannaPacks, and a Voice Recital.

Just thought I would catch up on a few things that got lost in the whirlwind of the past month.

We had our YWIE.

(Young Women In Excellence)

The theme was D.O.T.S.

(Depend On The Savior)

(Yes, we LDS - aka Mormon - members love a good acronym!!)

One of our YW organized, planned, made assignments, and decorated for a value project.

She did an amazing job!

 (Mar brought the skirt she made with her Grandma G. to display... can you spot it?)

Michaela and I tried our hand at cake pops as part of the refreshments for YWIE.

I baked them (in cake pop pans I've had for pert near 3 years and have never used),

Michaela dipped and decorated.

I think they pretty much turned out awesome,

I learned a little about trimming those babies, so my next attempt will be better (unless I forget what I've learned by the next time I make them).

Mar, Cate, Bill and I participated in an awesome service project: Feed My Starving Children - a multi-denominational Christian effort to help feed children in underdeveloped countries.
We helped fill, seal, and box up MannaPacks:

Oh yeah, I love a good hair net. Good thing we've had so much food handling experience at LDS wet-pack and dry-pack canneries over the years.

Mar and Cate did a great job filling... yelling "Omaha" to let the scoopers know they were ready:

Our session filled enough MannaPacks to feed 341 children a meal a day for a year.
That feels awesome.

Mar participated in her first ever Voice Recital.
Here's one of her songs, April Showers:

I was super proud of her! She had worked hard on memorizing her pieces, and is so brave to perform to a group that included some seasoned vocalists (and some other beginners...) and their parents! Her voice teacher, Sister Hansen, performed part of an opera for us. I knew she had been a professional opera singer, but still had no idea how incredibly amazing she is! I don't think she had performed opera publicly since moving to CO, so it was definitely a thrill to get to hear her.

It was a fun FHE, followed by cleaning our church building before heading out to Kneaders for a celebratory treat.
Nice job, Mar!

I think I can deem myself caught up. For now.

Mic's 18th.

Last Saturday we celebrated Michaela's 18th Birthday.

Mar and her friend Cate decorated Mic's room while she was out shopping with a friend.

 I pulled out our trusty birthday banner and updated the year to 18. I love a good reuse/repurpose makes-it-worth-the-hours-I-spent-making-it item, don't you? Previously used {here} and here:

You know I'll use that baby again. For future reference (because I'm sure I'll remember to look here... cough), the font is Rage. RAGE, Tina, RAGE. I remember looking for the matching font back when Mar turned 12 and couldn't find it for the life of me. For Mic's birthday, once again I found myself hunting for the original font. After a good 30 minutes of searching, and looking through my font list for what seemed like a hundred times, I, on a chance, tried Rage. Yep, that was it.

We headed to Red Robin that evening, only to discover there was a 1-hour wait time.

WHAT??? The waiting area didn't even seem that crowded, so I couldn't imagine such a lengthy wait.

We asked Mic what she wanted to do - wait or go somewhere else.

She decided we should try Chili's. We called ahead and only had a 30 min. wait time there, so off we went. It was a good choice because we were seated and had placed our order within 20 minutes of arrival. I'm only bummed that we neglected to snap a pic or two.

Afterwards we went home to have the red velvet/cream cheese cake Mic had selected for her birthday cake, and to sing Happy Birthday.

 I had spotted these awesome sparkler candles at Target earlier that day, and thought they would be spectacular enough for an 18th Birthday celebration.

Here's a quick clip of Mic blowing out those sparkler candles:

I didn't mean for them to be hard to blow out, but it made for a fun time.

Happy Birthday, Michaela!

The Devil Made Me Do It.

Halloween was pretty chill yesterday.

I didn't need to help anyone dress up.

I didn't have to be home early enough to get everyone ready and out the door.

I didn't need to plan or attend any parties or parades.

I only needed to replenish my candy stash a bit, as it had dwindled slightly throughout the week.

Then Mar came home from school.

She and her friends had planned a little last-minute party.

Since she didn't want to do her bat ears for a third time, and she knew that she was on her own for whatever preparations were needed, she told me she would look through our trusty costume box for something simple. And of course we needed to get the dogs in their costumes.

It was, after all, Halloween.

Mar selected the devil costume.

We couldn't resist a little reminiscing, and a reenactment of one of our family's favorite Halloween pictures:

Circa 2005.

And since I love a good blast from the past:

Shilo was supa happy for the Trunk-or-Treat that year...

...not so happy on Halloween night. She says it was because I made her wear a coat/jacket under her costume. One of the reasons it was kind of nice not having all that high-expectations-for-mama pressure this year!

Back to the present:  Mar dressed the d-o-g's: Dorothy and Wiener Dog.

Oh yeah, the devil made them do it. Hah!

Then she took them on a little stroll around the cul-de-sac.

We set Slim out to greet the trick-or-treaters...

...and even dressed him up a bit.

 Mar and her friends headed to Chipotle for dinner (and their $3 burritos for anyone in costume), then decided to trick-or-treat... "just for enough candy to get us through a scary movie."

Right.

Mar came home with a sackful.

Today I am hoping to get all the spooky decor down, as we are celebrating Michaela's big 18th.

In a Syddall-simplified kind of way, which always includes dinner at Red Robin.

Hello November!