February FHE

WEEK 1: Nate told me one day that he didn't know how to tie a real tie. So for family night Erik taught us how to tie a tie. It's a lot harder than it looks. After we had all practiced Kiersten and Erik had a tie-off to see who could be the fastest and have their tie look the best.

View the video of our tie-off here.

WEEK 2: Valentine's was the next day and I had been planning on making cinnamon rolls all day for breakfast the next morning. It didn't happen. So for FHE I taught the kids how to make cinnamon rolls. No documentation of the actual rolls exist, however, but they were delicious.

WEEK 3: For spring break we are taking a road trip to Oregon. I had the kids research different places to see, things to do, where we might like to go. Their list includes Oaks Park (a mini amusement park/skating rink), the Oregon Zoo, Powell's City of Books, Sauvie Island, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Tillamook Cheese Factory, Portland Japanese Garden, a lighthouse, Munson Creek Falls, Jazz vs. Blazers game. Tyler added whale watching and the aquarium. I'd like to visit the temple grounds since we'll be in a city with a temple.

We were so excited when we found out the Jazz are playing the Blazers the Monday night we get there. After much deliberation, we opted against attending the game. For one it was just too expensive; two, we would be sitting with the opposite team's fans; and three, the only Jazz game we've gone to this year happened to be against Portland. So we'll hang out in our hotel room and party that way.

WEEK 4: This week we wrote a silly family story. It was actually a sentence/drawing game we played that goes kind of along the same lines as the telephone game. Each person had their own paper and at the top they wrote a sentence about themselves or someone else in the room and then folded the paper back and passed it to the person to their left. That person then looked at the sentence and drew a picture about that sentence. They then folded the paper so that only the drawing was showing and passed it again. This time the person could only look at the drawing and write a sentence about the drawing. The game went this way until we had reached the end of the paper. It was hilarious to read how the original sentence changed.

JAZZ GAME: I stole Erik's pictures off his camera from when we attended the Jazz game for FHE in January.

Where did my baby go?

Alex gave me a wonderful gift about a month ago, the very Sunday he turned 19 months old.

He decided that was the day he would stay in nursery . . . without me.

It was so wonderful to be able to actually focus on singing in Primary without my little sidekick terrorizing my church bag. I think the kids were able to focus a little better too without all the distractions.

And as much as I love him and enjoy having him around, it was a good day.

Hopefully there will be more good days to come.
Things about Alex:

• He's becoming a talker; can say mom VERY WELL, almost too well. Some other words: helper, Ash, Nate, Tay Tay (Kiersten), Ick (Erik), Dad, bye bye, goodnight, table, basketball, eye, uh oh, no, atch (watch), oovie (movie), up (means both up and down). We'll say, "I'll eat you . . ." and Alex will finish with "up."
• He can sign the words table, ball, refrigerator, computer, book.
• He does not like the wind and will gulp if he is ever out in it, thinking he can't breathe.
• He really enjoys pulling everything out of my bathroom cabinet while I'm getting ready.
• He's a good helper, i.e., loves to put his dirty clothes in the hamper, throw away his diapers, put my pillows on the bed.
• He is NOT a morning person or a wake-up-from-nap-pleasant-kind-of-a-guy. It takes him about an hour to really get his groove going. But hey, at 9:30 at night he's running circles around all of us.
• Usually his first words/phrase when he wakes up is "atch oovie". That is really quite sad and I'll admit we do watch our share of "potty" shows at our house.

Valentine recipes

Jacob's Lasagna

1 lb. Italian sausage or ground beef (with 1 T. Italian seasoning added)

1 T. dried onion or 2 green onions

26 oz. can Hunts Spaghetti Sauce (Garlic and Herb)

8 oz. lasagna noodles

1 large carton cottage cheese

2 eggs, beaten

1 c. mozzarella cheese

1 T. Italian seasoning

2 t. salt

2 t. pepper

Brown sausage (or ground beef with Italian seasoning). Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions. Mix cottage cheese, eggs, mozzarella cheese, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Set aside.  Mix sausage (or ground beef) with spaghetti sauce. Layer noodles first; meat sauce second (leaving a small amount for the top), and cottage cheese mixture third. Continue to layer (2 layers of noodles). Add remaining meat sauce mixture and spread on top along with mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle a small amount of Italian seasoning on top as well.

Bake at 350 degrees uncovered for 30 minutes or until bubbly and cheese is slightly brown. 

Variation: Don't cook noodles and layer as you would normally. Use about an extra half can of spaghetti sauce, making sure the noodles are well covered. Cover and leave overnight in refrigerator. Bake as you normally would. This way doesn't make the lasagna as runny.

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Lemon-Orange Drink (aka Mt. Dew drink)

6 oz. concentrated orange juice

6 oz. concentrated lemonade

1 1/3 c. sugar

1 t. almond

1 t. vanilla

12 c. water

Combine all together and chill. Makes 1 gallon. May also be served with 7-Up or Sprite.

NOTE: If I use Sprite, I reduce the sugar to 1/3 cup. It's too sweet otherwise.

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Insulin Shock

20 oz. pkg. Oreos

1/2 gal. vanilla ice cream

1 jar hot fudge topping

8 oz. Cool Whip

Crush up half of Oreos and layer in 9X13-inch pan. Slice ice cream and layer on top of cookies. Pour topping over ice cream and top with Cool Whip. Top with remainder of Oreos. Freeze until solid.

A little late Valentines update

We are trying to refinance . . . again. So this week I have been vigilant in keeping my house spotless, waiting for an appraiser to show up, which he finally did (turns out he was having a hard time getting a hold of us). It's a lot of work trying to keep a house looking like a Parade of Homes home with five kids and all their stuff. I think I vacuumed and dusted every day and made sure all the bathrooms were clean. But it paid off. That appraisal came in SO much better than the last one did a couple of months ago. I will never understand how one appraisal can be so much better/worse than another. It is such a biased job even if they don't think so.

The week before Valentine's we "heart-attacked" our kitchen with love notes. Some were serious, some not-so-serious. Apparently my nephew even got in on the action. I found a note he had secretly stashed under the cabinet :)

Tyler and I rarely go out for Valentine's, so every year I make his favorite dinner of lasagna, garlic bread, salad. This year I even made what he calls his Mt. Dew drink and an Oreo ice cream dessert. The kids usually get some goodies, but this year I threw in an extra present.

Every year their elementary school hosts a book battle where the contestants have a buzzer to ring in to answer the question. I found the same buzzer online and thought we could have some fun with it at home doing our own trivia games. I think we might even be able to use it in the car.

My favorite valentine: Nate's. He actually took the 100 Grand I had given him and regifted it back. 

Stake Conference talk

I'm an anomaly. I got asked to speak in Stake Conference and loved it. I didn't say I wasn't nervous, but I really did enjoy prepping and speaking.

Here's a *quick* run down on my talk.

D&C 59:9 . . . "that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world"

In our society we hand out marks frequently:

• When you enter Lagoon you're given a hand stamp that says you belong to this park for the day.
• When you are born, the nurses put a band on you that says you belong to this mother and father.
• When you become engaged, you become marked by a ring.
• A basketball player is marked by the jersey he wears.

The scriptures record several instances where a people were given a distinguishing trait or marked:

• Lamanites marked with a dark skin (Alma 3:6)
• Amlicites marked themselves with red in their forehead (Alma 3:4)
• Cain had a mark placed on his (Genesis 4:15)
• When the Israelites were under bondage in Egypt, they were told to put a mark above their doors so that the destroying angel would pass them by (Exodus 12:7)

What is the purpose of putting a mark on an individual or group of people? (Alma 3:8) The Lord needs a people who are different from the world.

We likewise mark ourselves by the covenants we make and keep. When we enter into a covenant with the Lord, he puts his mark on us. WE ARE HIS!

In the beginning the Lord laid out a plan where he offered blessings for obedience to his commandments. He knew we would get distracted by the things of the world and would need to be reminded regularly of our covenants and promises. These regular reminders occur in our sacrament meetings and at the sacrament table.

Spencer W. Kimball: "We do not go to Sabbath meetings to be entertained or even solely to be instructed. We go to worship the Lord. If the service is a failure to you, you have failed. No one can worship for you; you must do your own waiting upon the Lord."

When we come to all our meetings on Sunday, we are telling the Lord how we really feel about him. It is an outward manifestation of an inward commitment; it is an indication of the depth of our conversion. We are marking ourselves in a way that tells the world WHOSE we are. The Lord told Moses in Exodus 31:16, "Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever . . . "

1. Our great-grandparents called it the Holy Sabbath Day (Exodus 16:23)
2. Our grandparents called it the Sabbath Day.
3. Our parents called it Sunday.
4. We simply call it the weekend.
5. WHICH GROUP DO YOU FALL IN LINE WITH?

So would you like to get more out of your Sunday meetings, particularly sacrament meetings?

1. PREPARE YOURSELF: Alma takes his missionary friends on another mission to the Zoramites who were not doing the right things. When he gets there he finds a group of people who have been cast out and because of that are willing and ready to hear the word of God?

How do we get the word of God? ANGELS (Alma 32:23). Angels have given us written scriptures, they are also the speakers in sacrament meetings, parents, teachers. 2nd Nephi 32:3 teaches us that angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost. The speaker is only the messenger. And even then the Holy Ghost can only carry the message unto our hearts not into our hearts. That is our job: to allow the message into our hearts.

Once you realize that the Holy Ghost is the real teacher than you are prepared to learn. (Shared a story by Wendy Watson Nelson found here.

2. BE ATTENTIVE: don't stay up late and don't eat a big breakfast . . . it makes you sleepy!

3. Try keeping a CHURCH JOURNAL instead of playing the dot game.

4. Keep the ELECTRONIC DEVICES at home. This one suggestion may be what my entire talk will be remembered for. I had several people afterwards tell me how they put away their phones after that. That wasn't my intention, but just to make them aware how most often technology gadgets are used for texting and games more than for worshipping. Even this morning when President Morris was opening the morning session, he called me out and said that he was only checking the time on his phone; he wasn't texting. :)

KSL did a news feature where they took a photo of a classroom and asked us to guess how many kids were texting. I guessed maybe 2 of 3 that I could see. The answer was all of them. If there is one thing I have learned in the years that technology went boom, it's that we need time for quiet, to reflect, to allow the spirit to do his work. I wish the youth would understand how important it is to take out the earplugs, turn off the tv, and unplug the internet. Sacrament meeting is one of those places where we can sit and meditate, but it is simply too hard when we bring those distractions with us.

I think at this point I made a quick reference to the sacrament table and how it had been brought to my attention recently that when the bread and water trays are set up and the white cloth is draped over them, it kind of looks like a body. You may never look at the sacrament the same when you look at it that way.

One of the blessings of attending sacrament meeting is that it does keep us unspotted from the world. It gives us power to stay on the right course. We can be like Nephi of old who said, "I will go and do as the Lord commanded." And if you read his very last words at the end of 2nd Nephi, he says, "I must obey." Wow! What a powerful example of obedience. When we are obedient, the Lord will bless, not eye for an eye, but a thousand times over, more than we can receive. 

"When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes our quest, in that moment God will endow us with power. (Pres. Benson)

January FHE

For Christmas my mother-in-law gave us a Chinese take out box filled with family home evening ideas for the next year (52 weeks) plus some spending cash to make it happen. Her only stipulation is that we had to take pictures and email them to her.
WEEK 1: Erik has been our designated photographer. However, I can't seem to find the picture of Ash giving the lesson. She read a cute story out of The Friend magazine about a girl who had earned some four quarters and headed to the store to buy something for herself but instead came home with a mix to make a chocolate cake for her dad's birthday. Ash even had four quarters and a chocolate cake mix as props to go with it. Darn it!

WEEK 2: We drew names and headed to the library to pick out a book for the person whose name we drew. The rule was we only had to read 20 pages of the book. Ash was pretty excited for me to read The Silver Crown by the author of The Rats of Nimh. She was pretty sure I had read the rat book and would like this one. I haven't but maybe I'll like The Silver Crown. In the next couple of weeks we're going to have everyone report on their book. A visit to Arctic Circle topped off the night.

WEEK 3: Usually the first FHE of the new year year we review everyone's height and weight and goals for the previous year and then record all that again for the new year. We were just a little behind this year and didn't get to it until the middle of January. Alex didn't really like standing on the scale but was happy to get his height measured. He was the one who grew the most. Ash has FINALLY put on a few pounds and I am continuing to shrink. Not sure I like where this is headed. We finished with Rango. It was a pretty lame movie in my opinion. I even managed to fall asleep for part of it. No surprise there.

WEEK 4: Erik gave us a lesson on how to get more out of sacrament meetings. Actually, I should say that John Bytheway gave our lesson. We watched several small clips with Erik thinking that each one was "the one" he wanted us to watch. He finally gave up and handed out small notebooks for his siblings and a pen to take notes during the meeting. 

**I read something today where the parents would right down questions about sacrament meeting to be asked after church. The one who could answer the most questions correctly got a small prize or treat. I think I'll have to try that one.

 WEEK 5: This past Monday Tyler surprised us all with tickets to the Jazz game. We had a most enjoyable evening with lots of cheering and yelling. The kids have all been a little hoarse this week and I came home with a headache from yelling so much. But those Jazz pulled it off.
Stayed tuned for next month's FHE.