And the Winter just keeps on coming...

For some reason I keep expecting spring to show up. Why is that? Just a couple of 50 degree days is all I'm asking for. So far though the weather has continued to be cold and wet. As long as it is warm enough to sled to the mailbox though the kids are happy. Saturday my son and I spent the day sledding while his sister was napping. He spent most of the time hiding his baby blues from the sun, so to keep my trigger finger happy I spent my time taking pictures of shadows and a hard liquor bottle that somebody had apparently dropped in the snow. Now that I'm thinking about it I should have picked it up and thrown it out. Good grief that was a boo boo. I recently had a friend complain that I'm putting too much pressure on. I cook weird meals, I'm learning to sew, I do all these fun things for my kids, I read, and I keep up all the blogs. She called me up and told me she had a bone to pick with me (you know who you are girl). Here is the great thing about blogs though...you can put whatever you want up and leave out all the not so flattering details. Like I could have not mentioned that I didn't pick that bottle up. Or the fact that on Friday my family ate breakfast three times (cold cereal, breakfast burritos, cold cereal), which in my book is a pretty good indication that things weren't going so well. Tonight my husband had to send me from the room because I was escalating a fight with my son over the fact that we were asking him to listen and there was no possible way he could do that while he kept whining that he was listening. The great thing about a blog though is that in general you can just use it to highlight the awesome things you do...rather then the not so awesome things. So here's to taking pictures of shadows and not to forgetting to pick up someone else's litter.

Makloubeh

When we went to Petra two summers ago a Bedouin family feed us two meals. The first was hard boiled eggs, un-leaved bread, happy cow cheese spread, and spam. At the time I was so hungry that it was delicious...in reality though to this day my darling spouse remembers it as his least favorite meal ever. Just bringing it up gives him the chills. They also invited us to their home that night. We hailed down a taxi and made our way to the Bedouin village. Using just the name our taxi driver managed to get us to their house. We spent the evening in their court yard with the whole family and most of their animals drinking warm cokes, eating makloubeh, watching the boys turned an old piece of furniture into a pretend race car and looking at what I guess would be considered stolen antiquities. It was one of the best meals I remember from my time in Jordan. After two years I decided to try my hand at the dish. I had remembered it had rice, meat, and cauliflower. A little time online and a found a recipe to try. Yes I realize it has an atrocious amount of fat in it but hey you don't have to follow every recipe exactly. I did deep fry cauliflower though...and yes that does make me feel like a bad person. I enjoyed having this moment to reflect on our trip and true to their custom I included some of the "more desirable bits" only instead of offer up the liver to Jason as would be culturally correct I ate it and remembered a cold night, eating makloubeh with shared spoons off a communal platter, when I was offered a large chunk of liver and all the woman watched me eat it.

No Meat Week Continued

No Meat Week - Day Six

So this little dish was so simple. I made it with penne and then because I was feeling way to lazy to cut the veggies myself frozen stir fry mix. I tossed the cooked noddles and mix with some butter and Parmesan cheese. The kids loved it, it was simple, and really not to bad.

No Meat Week - Day Seven...discontinued

The original plan of the week was to have seven days of no meat. Then the seventh day came. I had the vegetables out and was chopping. My lovely number one came up to me and asked what we were having for dinner. I told him. He got a little frown on his face and said, "But mom my favorites are chicken, roasted beast, and beef." How could I not cook some meat for this child? This is just noddles, green onions, carrots, and chicken. The wantons have mushrooms, chopped green onion, zucchini, and a dab of cream cheese. Well that is all except #1's wantons...those ones are just cream cheese. When it comes to dinner #1 is an oddity. As my belly will attest I love to eat and eat frequently. As my DH weight does not attest he also loves to eat and will eat anything placed before him...and I mean anything. There have been times when an experiment in the kitchen has been a complete failure and I will not indulge but there he is soldiering through the mess. We figured #1 would be like us. He is not. Add cheese sticks and cold cereal to his dinner request and that covers 95% of what he eats. We've tried and continued to try to open his horizons but so far no go. So here it is. My plate is the one on top. #2's plate looks exactly the same only on plastic with slightly smaller portions sizes...not a whole lot smaller though because #2 is just like dad and will muscle her way through anything and then there is the plate of #1. Cheese only wantons, two grapes, lots of chicken, and few pieces of veggies thrown on top that we can argue over but in truth by the time he gets down from the table he'll probably only have consumed one small piece of colored fiber.

Run Mama, Run!

My entire life I've been the chubby girl. Two pregnancies have just added to my constant battle with my belly. Somewhere before my first child was born though my husband taught me how to exercise. He got me into weight training and that led to some fairly consistent cardio...mainly walking. Well two kids later my work out just is no longer cutting it. I contemplated what to do. Should I walk faster, at a higher incline, longer? At a certain point walking too fast just becomes bumpy, the incline gets so steep I almost fall off, and I'm already devoting as much time as I can in the morning to working out. It hit me though...I could run. Except I have this little problem with running. I'm just not the kind of person who is made for running. My legs are short and compact, my hips really square, my gait off, and my upper body much too jiggly. Many times before I've tried different programs to teach you to run. I even recently printed this little baby off with the hope of things to come but like most of my early running attempts it fell by the way side. This month though I knew I needed to do something different for all the above mentioned reasons. I made a deal with myself. The first week I'd run two minutes and then walk three. It was torture. I would grunt and sweat, huff and puff. Truly there was nothing enjoyable about the whole experience. The second week I'd run for five minutes and walk for five. Once again I found myself struggling along. The countdown to when I could start walking was excruciating and by my last five minutes I often found myself grabbing the handle bars of the treadmill. Week three I started putting my five minutes together. Monday I ran 7.5, then walked five, and then ran another 7.5. Then I worked up to 12 minutes running and by the end of the week I had run my 15 minutes all together and then finished up with a 15 minute brisk walk. Originally that was all I had intended. I figured running 15 minutes would add that extra lift I needed to keep my heart running fine. This Monday I did the same thing. Last night though something happened. My running shoes/the shoes I wear almost everyday were trashed. The heals were torn up, the tread worn down, and the toes wearing out. Last night after studying my gait, analyzing my run, and talking with my sister and brother in-law who are both avid runners I bought my first pair of official running shoes that I intend to be only running shoes.

With this purchase something inside me changed. Oh I still curse my overactive sweet glands and my waddling gait and as for the first five minutes of my run well they are still the worst and I have to tell myself that when they are done if I still feel as horrible as I feel in that second I can just walk, but with this purchase I think I finally found my runners high. Today when my five minutes were up I just kept running and then when I hit my fifteen minutes I figured hey why not run to twenty, and then when I hit my twenty I figured why not do twenty-five. At twenty-five minutes I had to leave to come home to get the kids ready but I felt like I could have kept going. With this purchase I told myself, "You know girl you might be a waddler but your a running waddler now." The real runners high was walking in my door and saying to my husband, "Hey I ran for 25 minutes today." It was seeing my friend at the library and saying, "Hey I run 2 1/3 miles today." It is writing this blog and saying to the world, "Hey world I may be slow but this mama is running now!" To all you people out there who run already, Angi, Brent, Jason, Bridget, Bethany, Miriam etc...hey guys I finally get it. To those of you who want to try, they aren't lying when they say it will get better. Start slow. It's easiest to use a treadmill to mark out your times but you could managed with a watch. Wear some comfortable shoes and just keep in mind while it may be miserable at first eventually it gets a little more tolerable :) Also keep in mind this program off cool runnings really is quite good even though I modified it a bit.

What makes a good mom...

What makes a good mother? Some friends of mine came over on Saturday and as I was dealing with #1 trying to kick me in the face, putting him bum near my head, and just trying to grab attention my friend said to me, "You are such a good mom. You are always so happy with your children." I almost fell over at that moment. First off this woman happens to be one of those people who admire. One of those super moms who just always seems to be giving to all those around her. Secondly I know what is going on in my mind and I do not feel like a good mom and I often do not feel like I'm being happy enough with my children. All weekend now I've been contemplating this. Am I good mom? I want to be one but I know I could do better. I wish I didn't get so grouchy with my kids. I wish #1 would respond without threats and a raised voice. I wish I didn't look at #2 and think she's already got me beat. I do try though. I try to make sure our kids are safe. I try to make sure they are healthy. I try to make sure they are happy and most importantly I try to make sure they know they are loved. I guess the key is while I might have my doubts on the inside about my own abilities the kids are enjoying the stuff on the outside. I posted this picture because it just proves my point. I had been playing up in the kids room with them for over an hour and was just exhausted. For some reason that hour between four and five just kills me. So in my bored and exhausted state I threw myself on the floor and refused to budge. Of course #1 was not pleased and demanded my attention. Eureka it hit me. Ever since watching Peter Pan #1 has been obsessed with pirates and especially his treasures (a small treasure chest he got for valentine's day and his penny bank). I got some paper and crayons and drew a map of his room and put two giant red Xs on his paper to show where his treasures were. With all the coloring we ended up doing we spent a half hour and the kid was thrilled. To my son this map represents that his mother loves him. Is interested in the things he likes and is fun. To me it represents being to lazy to get up off the floor :)

Favorite Hair Product

This little bottle is my current favorite hair product. I have curly hair that just loves to be frizzy. Fly away frizzy head should be my middle name. Throughout my life I've tried various different hair sprays, mousses, and gels. Sometimes they have absolutely no affect at all. More often they highlight the curls but clump up and get crispy or make my hair lay flat on my head. Is it any wonder that I prefer my hair straight? When it is straight it is shiny and soft. When it is curly it is either frizzy or crunchy. Unfortunately straightening my hair every day requires time I don't have and would put my head in a split end spiral it probably could never recover from. Recently though I found the Brilliant Brunette series. I LOVE THIS STUFF. First off it smells DELICIOUS! I spend much of my day wanting to sniff my own hair. Secondly it makes my hair shiny...in a healthy way, not in a you need to wash your hair way. Thirdly it manages to keep the fly aways down, the curls up, and the crunchy hair absent. Oh and fourth you can easily find it at wal-mart or Target. The bummer deal is each bottle is five bucks but I figure compared to the salon that is way cheap and when we are talking about something that makes me this happy...well five dollars is five dollars well spent.

3 More No Meat Days

Three more no meat days have gone by...of course I'm still eating eggs but these are not fertilized eggs and so I refuse to count it. Granted when we were a kid and had chickens we occasionally got a fertilized one but lets just leave that for another day.

Day 3 - Spinach salad in pita pockets. How can you just not love pita pockets. I get these stone ground whole wheat ones and they are delicious. Add so spinach, avocado (my favorite food), tomato, cheese, and hard boiled eggs and you are good to go. This is a meal that doesn't weigh you down but definitely makes you feel full.

Day Four - Foule. We had a potluck to go to and I decided to take a chance and bring foule, pitas, and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. Now my darling husband and I had a several minute discussion over what actually constitutes foule. In Jordan we would order foule and they would o bring out a hummus like dish made with Fava beans instead of chickpeas. I thought this was what you would call foule. My husband though says the beans themselves are just called foule and who knows what that stuff we were eating was called. Looking for a recipe online though "foule" was used to describe the blended dish. The bean can though agrees with my husband. So I guess he is probably right. Regardless I brought both whole foule beans and the blended "foule" to the party so I guess it really doesn't matter which one of us was right. In making the dish I had a slight mishap. Below is the recipe I used to make the "foule". Using an entire lemons worth of juice...well that was probably a little too lemony. Next time I would probably add lemon to taste. Also I blended my "foule" up in my food processor. It just gave it a smoother consistency. So I made my foule and took it to my potluck. Some people really loved it. Others I'm sure were scared. I tried some last night and it was OK. I had some for lunch today and it was delicious. So I think this may be one of those things that gets better with a night in the fridge...sort of the way soup does :) I had to purchase tahini for this dish which isn't exactly the cheapest thing in the grocery store but you need tahini to make hummus as well and the recipe doesn't call for a tons so I have lost left for my next middle eastern meal.

Ingredients

1 (15 ounce) can fava beans

3 garlic cloves

2-3 tablespoons tahini

1 lemon

to taste water

to taste salt

to taste olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh parsley (optional)

1-2 teaspoon jalapenos (optional)

Directions

1. Drain water from beans, rinse beans, then place on stove top and bring to boil.
2. Mean while place garlic, and jalepeno in bowl, and mash the two of them.

3. Drain boiled beans, and add on top of garlic and mash untill you get a thick paste.

4. add lemon juice and tahini, mix together.

5. gradually add water until mix becomes to a good consistency.

6. salt to taste, and stir in optional parsley, or leave to decorate the top of the foul.

7. place foul in plate, and add olive oil on top. serve with warm pita. Enjoy.

Day Five - Mushroom Ravioli. So I got this recipe from a vegetarian magazine. You take a chopped mushroom assortment and cook it down with chopped garlic, onions, olive oil, thyme, and a dash of sherry. Of course I didn't have a dash of sherry but it was still fine. Then I cheated on the dough. Yes I'm sure you true lovers of Italian food would be disgusted but I just used wanton wrappers. Today was not the day to try and roll out my own dough. So I put the mushrooms mix in the wrappers. I also did several with just cheese to makes sure that picky #1 would eat something. I boiled vegetable broth and then threw these babies in to boil for about two minutes. After I pulled them out I put butter and Parmesan cheese on the cheese ones and pesto on the mushroom raviolis. So easy and pretty tasty.

Naughty Kid Photos?

So a year or so ago I started ordering all of my prints off of winkflash. They do this great deal where for 99 cents total shipping you can order your 4 x 6 inch prints at 12 cents a pop. It doesn't take long for them to be totally cheaper than Wal-mart. Anyway they are having a contest this month. Send in your pictures of your kids being naughty and you could win up to 2000 prints free. Sounds good to me :)

No Meat Week - Valentine's Day Dinner

My son's teacher in primary is mostly a vegetarian. I have to admit that vegetarians fascinate me. There have been various times in my life where I've contemplated being a vegetarian but then I'm always been pulled back by several things. Number one being I actually really like meat. I think it taste delicious. Two I really have no idea what I would cook if I couldn't cook meat. Well we had #1's teacher over and I was contemplating these things again. Plus I figured I needed to brush up on my no red meat and stuff that can be made with tofu so when I go to see my sister in March I'll be prepared. So this week I decided to try out some no meat dishes just to see if I could come up with seven dinners worth. Seven dinners I mean besides the ones we always eat: veggie burgers, kosherie (lentils and pasta), and black beans and rice. I also wondered if it would be cheaper. We are now two days in. The answer to if it would be cheaper is a resounding no. I spent more money on groceries this week than I usually do. Yes beans and lentils are cheaper than meat but things like cauliflower, wanton wrappers, tahini, coconut oil, multiple types of mushrooms, avocados, and zucchini at this time of year really add up. Also being a vegan would be hard. I mean I'm still using dairy and eggs but if I wasn't I would have had to have bought a whole lot of tofu cheese and that would have gotten even more pricey. Anyway here are my first two days of the no meat week.

Day one: Noodles (whole wheat although the recipe called for rice noodles), carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, green onions, tossed with sesame oil and soy sauce. I thought this was delicious. My hubby said, "I know whole wheat is better for you but sometimes I just wish we could eat white carbs." I think I may have overdone it by making him whole wheat cookies earlier in the day. I mean I did use pastry whole wheat which is suppose to be better but still.

Day Two-Valentine's Day Dinner: Stuffed shells and stuffed mushrooms. The stuffed shells were filled with ricotta, spinach, egg, and Parmesan cheese. So tons of dairy there. A no/no for vegans. My sister though made a similar dish using tofu in the place of the ricotta. Well ave to ask her how it went. The mushroom heads are stuffed with sautéed mushroom steams, green onions, bread crumbs, and a tiny bit of cheddar cheese. Usually a put bacon bits in their as well and I have to say I think they were still pretty good although I did miss the bacon. We also had a spinach salad with a mandarin orange dressing and white Italian bread. I decided to give the hubby a rest.

Finally on a totally unrelated note when you are in a pinch foil works pretty well as wrapping paper and doesn't even need to be taped. HURRAY!

Obsessions

It is weird how children just become obsessed with things. My daughter recently had become enamored with her shoes. It started innocently enough one morning when she saw her dad getting ready to walk out the door. She brought me her shoes and with a series of grunts let me know she wanted them on. From those humble beginnings a monster has sprung. Now she must have socks and shoes on at all times. She will bring me her socks and push them in my face. Never mind what I'm doing they must be put on. Then she'll run over to the shoe basket and get her shoes often one at a time so that for a portion of the day she's doing a off kilter wobble to the basket to get the other. Getting them on her though is not the end. Sometimes even then she is not satisfied. Why wear sneakers when you can get mom to put boots on you or yellow socks when you can find purple. You might ask does it really matter is she's wearing shoes...well the answer is yes. Little girls that crawl up legs should not be wearing sneakers!

Civic Duty

Yesterday we took the kids with us when we went to vote. Dr. J took #1 with him and I took #2. Next time I may rethink that. It turns out #2 is a tad bit claustrophobic. As soon as the curtain closed around us she started freaking out, pulling at the curtains, kicking at the ballot, and peaking in on the guy voting next to us. I'm sure he thought I was spying on him. Regardless I still managed to get my ballot filled out with only one tiny flub. I at least voted for the candidate I wanted so that was nice. In the end even the kids were excited because they got I voted stickers. #2 left hers on all day. I'm sure the volunteers were relieved to see us go though. Between the two of us we picked up five stickers. One for me, one each for the kids, and then Dr. J took two. He wanted one for his coat and one for his shirt so that no matter how he was dressed everyone would know he had voted :) At least that's what he told me. Maybe he just wanted to put out a visible memory jogger for those people who had forgotten it was Super Tuesday. Really though I enjoyed taking the kids. I felt like it was an important moment and I wanted them to share in it and know it was important to me. I have to admit though part of that may be because I now live in a state that at least for primaries splits delegates. Personally I think this is awesome. For those of you who don't know I grew up in Arizona. When I turned eighteen and registered for the democratic party my grandfather told me I was just throwing my vote away. I think his intention was that I would see the light and switch back to the "Right Party". Instead I threw my vote away that year and voted for Al Gore. Yes I've seen an Inconvenient Truth and yes I don't know if I really wanted him to be president but I have to admit at the time it seemed like the lesser of two bloated egos and even though my vote meant nothing because I lived in Arizona and the delegates were most definitely going to go republican I wanted someone out there to know I personally didn't have to vote the same way my grandfather did. I've now been through two presidential elections and both times my vote was thrown away but this year in the primary at least I got to vote and split some delegates. It wasn't much but it finally made me feel like I mattered in the process. It makes me wonder if they split delegates in the actual presidential election if more people would bother to show up to vote? I can't help but think it might scrounge up some extra democrats in Arizona or some republicans in Illinois who otherwise just sit at home because they know which way their state is going to go.

Blue Corn Chips

So I got these blue corn chips at my favorite grocery store. I had a hankering to make some guacamole but I wanted to spice the whole process up. Meijer sells these organic blue corn chips with sesame seed. I figured it would add a little pep to my dish and the kids would probably get a kick out of the purple coloring. These little babies did not disappoint. I wouldn't say that I'd want to eat them every time because there was something a little bit unnerving about the sesame flavor but they were salty and delicious and the kids really did enjoy the odd color. Plus the have a little extra protein then regular chips and they dissolve much easier then regular corn chips making them a favorable chip to give to #2 when she is insisting on eating the same thing as everyone else. I guess the only real negative is the unpleasant hue the chips cast on the guacamole. While I can assure you it was delicious it certainly doesn't look that way in the picture :)

Guacamole

2 ripe avocados
½ onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
1-2 serrano chiles, stems and seeds removed, minced (the seeds are the hot part so if you leave them in...well you understand)
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
A dash of salt
1/2 ripe tomato, seeds and pulp removed, chopped (some people like this...others don't...I leave them out when I don't have them).

1. Cut avocados in half. Remove seed. Scoop out avacado from the peel and put in a bowl.

2. Using a fork, mash the avocado. Add the chopped onion, cilantro, lime, salt and mash.

Keep the tomatoes separate until ready to serve.

3. Cover with plastic wrap directly on the surface of the guacamole to prevent oxidation from the air reaching it. Refrigerate until ready.

4. Just before serving, add the chopped tomato to the guacamole and mix.

Men's Shirt Dress

So remember that men's shirt dress tutorial...well I got around to doing it. Here is the first of two shirts that I slaughtered in the name of a really cool project (I mean I really did slaughter them...cut at every seam). If I had to do it again I'd say give yourself a little more room then I did above the top button on the back. I mean cut yourself maybe an extra inch up there so you can decided how much material you need when you are getting ready to sew to fold it over twice and make a nice back seam. Also I don't know if you can tell but the shirts I picked were long sleeved and had a back pleat. The sleeves didn't matter it just meant I cut off a whole lot more in the slaughtering process. I just picked long sleeves because when I went to Plato's closet they were being clearanced out and in my opinion cheap used clothes are better then not cheap. Secondly the pleat thing...well that was just an accident. I hadn't paid attention to the back of the shirt in the tutorial but it actually worked out really cute. I used the seam ripper to carefully remove the tag from the inside of the shirt. Then I used the inside as the outside of my front piece and I ended up with this really cute gather that I didn't have to do myself. Super Nifty. (Look Dr. J...I actually put super instead of supper. A pet peeve of his but something I always mess up on. I also have a problem with then and than. If you ask me to explain when you use them I'm fine but when it comes to blogging I'm a mess. Yes I have horrible grammar and spelling. Let's talk about something I haven't known since first grade :) Anyway I just bought eyelet lace to go around because personally I have neither the patience nor the know how to do the nifty pleating the originally tutorial master did. I still think it worked out. Oh also I was thinking that one made out of those shirts with the pearl buttons would be totally adorable. Maybe next year :) Now that I have all these super cute spring clothes for #2 I need it to get warm.

Why Breakfast Means Watch Out...

I love pancakes, waffles, hash browns, eggs, French toast, and bacon. The sad things is I probably only make breakfast food for breakfast once a month. Instead I save those meals for when I desperately need them. Probably about once a week when it comes to dinner I'm too tired, too indecisive, too grouchy to make anything but breakfast. Breakfast dinners server a three fold mission for me. 1) They are easy and speedy. 2) They are delicious and everyone will eat them without complaint. 3) They are a signal to my husband and children to tread lightly. This is mommy's worst days of the week :)

Time Capsule

I just opened what I guess you could call a time capsule. This year #1 has moved into sunbeams*. The primary president asked all the children, including the little guys, to bring scriptures each Sunday. I gave #1 my old seminary/college scriptures to take with him. He loves taking them but I've noticed that he often gets distracted during sharing time by the little pieces of paper that litter the books. Tonight I decided that before he takes them again I would spend some time cleaning them out. It was like jumping back seven years. I had tons of programs covered in script of notes from lessons I thought were important, handouts from six to twelve years ago, old book marks, an earing back and three shell fragments. Where did they come from and why was I holding onto them? The most fun to read though were the little notes I'd written with my friends during church. Here are some examples:

Travis I'll pay you $5 to trade you seats next Sunday! Who is this Travis and why did I so desperately want his seat that I would be willing to fork over a happy meals worth of money to have it?

Noah has a woman. He's a weirdo! Again who is this person and I why did I think he was so odd? Did he deserve my abuse or was I just being a jerk? Probably I was just being a jerk.

Written in my hand. That is Mandy Wright, the girl we are trying to get Jake to ask out. Return Missionary, so sweet, so friendly, so cute. PERFECT! Written in a roommates hand. She's really Cute! How does Rachel feel about that? Well seeing as this particular Jake is married to cute Bev and this particular Rachel is quite happily now a Lufkins I guess it didn't matter if he asked Mandy out or not and Rachel didn't mind one bit. Oh college match making. I just hope Mandy fared as well as these four did :)

This one makes me laugh. The 1st counselor has been playing with his palm pilot for 35 minutes. What could he possibly be doing? Do you remember when palm pilots first came out and people were constantly on them? I particularly loved how they had a scripture download so no one could really tell if you were skimming through the Book of Mormon or if you had a game of solitaire going.

And here was my all time favorite: SHANE PARRY YOU ARE BAD! I don't know what happened to Shane. I haven't heard from him in over five years, but if by some chance he should ever happen upon this post Shane Parry you really probably were being naughty but thanks for keeping us all so entertained! We all loved you so much!

So now I will gather up all these notes, along with the others that weren't worth publishing, and the old seminary bookmarks, and the old Sunday school notes, and the back of that earing and I will throw them away. I'm keeping the shells though. They must have meant something important :)

* For those of you not of the Mormon Faith, Primary is where the members of our church ages 3-12 go for two hours each Sunday to be taught more age appropriate lessons. Sunbeams is the youngest class in primary. When a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ refers to their scriptures they are generally referring to the bible, and a triple combinations holding the pearl of great price, the doctrine and covenants, and the Book of Mormon. Those three books are unique to the Mormon Faith. Seminary is a weekly church doctrine class that high school age students attend. Is you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Snow Fun

So I got this idea from a parenting magazine. I realize some of you out there hate parenting magazines. I myself have my own issues with them generally related to the fact that reporters are often misinformed or do not have the skills necessary to pass on health information correctly. Regardless though parenting magazines are a great place to glean activities, especially Wondertime and Family Fun. This idea is totally ripped off from a parenting issue. The mother said she brought in a bucket of snow for her daughter to play with. I put our snow in the sink although I'm sure a bucket or the tub would do just fine. Then I set #1 on it. We've now done this twice and both times he loved it. It is a fun was to extend the snow fun without having to actually be outside freezing your tushie off. We even made a mini snowman with chocolate chips for eyes and his belly button (#1's idea).

Snow Day

When the choices are take the pictures or pull the sled, opt to take the pictures :)