Spring Break 2015

 This Spring Break, fashion was very important. Ruby and I worked out fuzzy bathrobes and matching blood-red nails. Meanwhile, Milo showed off his Idaho loyalty by wearing two Burley shirts at once!

 It may have been my spring break, but the Utah niblets still had school. I had a ton of fun walking the smallest ones to class and helping with Maxwell's carpool. The baby and I played at the park, took walks, and watched fire trucks on YouTube while his momma helped with kindergarten reading, 3rd grade PE, and Junior Achievement. I also got to see rehearsals for Jonah and Maxwell's plays!

 I made two trips to the shop that sells British food so that we could enjoy some Doctor Who related treats. Some of the niblets were more impressed with Jammy Dodgers and Jelly Babies than others, but everyone agreed that the Cadbury's Heroes were delicious.

 The IF leg of my journey coincided perfectly with Kylie's birthday. We had a fun dinner at Leos, then moved the party to Grandma/Grandpas for presents, cake, and a movie!

 The movie in question was a family favorite: The Penguins of Madagascar. We all tried out hand at making Private's famous face...

 ... But nobody could beat Penguin super-fan Greg. He IS Private... and Rico and Kolwaski and Skipper. Seriously. That kid could reenact the movie after only seeing it once. Amazing.

In conclusion, spring break was wonderful. Now I just need another week off to rest up and recover from my vacation.

My Day Off

In yet another example of my addiction to stake activities, I drove to IF yesterday to help Becky and my mom teach a couple hundred 14-year-olds how to tie quilts.

Tying theses quilts (that will be donated to the local homeless men's shelter) was one of four or five service stations the groups rotated through during the evening. More kids showed up than were anticipated, and many of them had never held a sewing needle before in their short lives.  Needless to say, it was a little crazy and a lot fun. The kids were great.. all 200+ of them.

When there weren't enough needles for all of them to tie, they still found ways to keep busy, like hanging out under the quilts to make sure that the yarn didn't accidentally get bunched up. Those kids turned out to be pretty good little quilters

Of course, that's not to say that mistakes weren't made... But as one of the 14 year old boys pointed out, "The homeless guys will just be happy to HAVE a blanket, right?"

Because I knew it would be a late night, I had arranged for a sub at school today. That meant I could stick around IF a little longer and spend some time with some of my favorite people. After Becky got the older girls off to school, she and the two little ones joined me for breakfast.

Becky and Kristy were great company,,,

...and it is always a joy to hang out with Bubba. The kid is just one big ball of love.

So after a fun and exciting night with my amazing mom and some awesome teens, I got have have a fun and delicious morning with my sweet niblets and their awesome momma. Maybe I should take a day off more often!

Getting My Relief Society "Fix"

It has been a little over two months since my adventure in the stake Relief Society ended and, although I am learning to enjoy teaching Sunday School, I still miss my old calling.

But after attending the new Relief Society presidency's first awesome event last Tuesday, I discovered that what I was missing most was my sweet sisters. Although the dinner and the program were wonderful, the best part of the evening was sitting with Sue and Jolene and Barbara. I LOVE those ladies! Of course, it was also super nice to show up to the meeting right before it started, sit down to eat, have time to visit, and then go home before midnight. 

Then, on Saturday, I got another Relief Society "fix" when I crashed the set up for the other stake's big Relief Society breakfast and program. My dearest darling Valerie was one of the creative geniuses behind the event, so I had been able to spend a few weeks living the Relief Society Meeting Lifestyle vicariously through her.

After hearing about all of the awesome plans and preparations, I couldn't resist showing up a little early to take some photos of the end results. 

Their theme was how keeping covenants is the "Key" to eternal salvation.

And yes, I plan to steal many of these ideas in the future.

 Seriously... How cute is this?

Valerie planned and prepared absolutely delicious food.

I love that the muffins were actually mini bundt cakes. How cute are they, with all of their fruit fixin's? 

Valerie has saved my Relief Society skin many times, so I was really excited to volunteer to help with some of the baking in an attempt to repay her kindness. 

And you would think that, because I had such pure motives for baking, the baking process would have gone a lot more smoothly,

But it didn't.

My first attempt at coconut zucchini bundts was, well, disastrous. I over-greased, over-floured, and over-filled the pans; the result being seriously deformed cakes coated white sludge. 

My second attempt turned out a lot better, but that small moment of success resulted in a burst of over-confidence which, of course, didn't end well.

I got the batter made (but not quite, as it turned out) and then started filling the pans.

Then I realized that I hadn't greased the pans, so I had to un-fill them, which made a mess.

After cleaning up the pans, I greased them, re-filled them, and slid them in the oven.

Immediately after I closed the oven door, I spotted the bag of coconut, which I had forgotten to stir into the batter. 

After snatching the pans back out of the oven, they once again had to be un-filled, the un-filling mess cleaned up, the coconut stirred in, the pans re-greased, and then refilled. 

That third batch turned out ok, but after so many baking fails, I spent the rest of the night waiting for the fair board to come and ask me to surrender my blue ribbons. 

So I guess spending some time in Sunday school might end up being a blessing for me and for my ribbons.