Cartersville, GA

Brady and I went away last Tuesday night until Friday night. We picked up the CES couple in Gainsville, then stayed the night in Lake City, FL. Wednesday we drove the rest of the way to Cartersville, GA for our husband and wife convention. The theme was "Fortifying the Family" and it was so very good! It is so nice to get together with these couples who are trying to do the same kinds of things that we are in life. They all have great ideas of things that have worked in their families and it's always nice to share and learn from other people. We went to the Etowah Indian Mounds ... very interesting. I'm not much of a history buff, at least not when we're talking 1,000 AD. You can click HERE if you are intriqued by the pictures and want to learn more!

The kids stayed with friends in the ward and had a great time. I called to talk to Jordan once and after he answered all of my questions he handed the phone to his four-year-old friend Nathan and asked him, "Do you want to talk to my mom?" I guess he was done talking to me! We are going to swap with some friends and watch their two girls this week.

Love Bug Season

Every May and September in these parts we have Love Bug season. No, that's not where we watch lots of Herbie, that's where millions of bugs descend on us and create an annoyance. The bugs are usually two joined together (thus, the term "love bug") doing their mating thing. They are mostly seen smashed all over the front of cars, and they are very hard to wash off. It takes special cleaner and lots of elbow grease. But, when September love bugs come around, we know it means a change of weather soon. We are starting to feel an ever so slight change! It's wonderful to walk outside and not sweat immediately.

This picture of the love bugs on the van is from last May's love bug season.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

This post is especially for my mom, so she can see how the vinyl cling mirror turned out. We ordered this vinyl from a friend of hers to make into a mirror for a friend of ours whose husband recently passed away. We were happy with the way it turned out. Our friend had never heard of vinyl clings before (way out here in Florida!) so she liked it as well...

Our Weekend at a Glance

You know how sometimes you just have those weekends where there seems to be more scheduled that you have time to do? Well, this weekend seemed to be one of those...Here's what our weekend looked like:

Friday
8:00 a.m. - Brady laid $150 worth of sod on our money-pit side lawn
2:00 p.m. - Brady finally finished the project and went to work
4:30 p.m. - Stephanie takes four youngest kids to church for primary program practice
5:00 p.m. - Meghann arrives at church for youth temple trip
7:00 p.m. - Brady who is already at the church leaves to go to the stake center for the institute council meeting and dance
8:00 p.m. - Stephanie takes three kids home, plus two neighbors to watch a movie. Courtney goes to a friend's house for a "half sleepover."
9:30 p.m. - Two neighbors go home, Courtney comes home, four kids go to bed.
10:30 p.m. - Meghann comes home, talks about temple trip, goes to bed
11:00 p.m. - Brady comes home. Two parents go to bed.

Saturday
8:15 a.m. - Brady takes four girls to Stake activity on his way to the temple to fill a veil assignment.
9:00 a.m. - Stephanie drops Spencer off at birthday party on her way to a baptism in the ward.
11:30 a.m. - Stephanie picks Spencer up from birthday.
12:30 p.m. - Two girls come home from stake activity.
12:45 a.m. - Stephanie leaves for sewing class, Meghann babysits.
2:30 p.m. - Brady heads home from temple.
3:30 p.m. Brady takes three boys to UCF football game (free tickets!)
5:30 p.m. - Stephanie comes home from sewing class. Brady begins trek across campus to car.
6:30 p.m. - Everyone finally home, kids scarf down dinner so they can go to a neighbors and play their Wii.
8:00 p.m. - Brady and Stephanie attempt to round up kids.
8:30 p.m. - Finally head home from neighbors, bathe boys, put everyone to bed so we can watch a movie together.
9:30 p.m. - After wasting an hour on a dumb movie ("Catch and Release") we turned it off. Brady works on stake business, Stephanie finishes preparing a sharing time.
10:30 p.m. Two tired parents go to bed.

Sunday
5:30 a.m. - Brady leaves for stake meeting
8:30 a.m. - Stephanie takes rest of family to church
9:00 a.m. - Primary Program! Courtney sings solo, does GREAT job!
12:30 p.m. - Home from church, quick snack, quiet time.
3:00 p.m. - Lunch at Natalie and Steve's.
5:30 p.m. - Brady goes home teaching.
6:30 p.m. - All go to church for Activity Day recognition night.
?? - Collapse in bed from exhaustion!

Okay, I'm sure we're not unique in our busy weekend. Just glad that EVERY weekend isn't like this! We are getting ready to take off for Atlanta this week for a husband/wife convention. I'll be glad for the get-away!

This is my new theme song...

Click HERE to hear my new theme song. You'll love it... especially if you're a mom.

Wet N' Wild

Here are some cute pictures from our day at Wet N' Wild Thursday. Love that Jewish holiday!

Surf's Up Baby Gift

I made this blanket and burp pad for a baby shower tomorrow morning. I digitized the design because I didn't have a surf design and that is her nursery theme. I thought it turned out okay!

Spencer's Birthday - and a day off school!

Yesterday was Spencer's birthday, and conveniently we had the day off of school also - Jewish holiday. We took the kids to Wet N' Wild. We also took our neighbor, Nate Shepherd. We had given him a day at WNW for his birthday a few weeks ago. It was so nice to go on a weekday when other counties weren't out of school! The lines were short, not a lot of people, it was wonderful! We rode every ride in the park (well, some of us who are brave rode every ride in the park) and some rides twice. We did find that Spencer has a fear of a few rides and he would not try one because of something a neighbor told him about it. I didn't force him (it was his birthday, after all) but I'm going to see if we can get him to try it next time. We didn't get rained out either so it was a great day.

Spencer opted for Krispy Kreme donuts instead of a birthday cake. Yeah for mom! I remember two years ago when I made him a Spiderman cake - worked all day on it (okay, maybe not ALL day) but had it decorated up cute and when it came time to eat it he said, "Ice cream only please!" What? No cake? Then he told me that he doesn't really like cake. So before I even started thinking of what kind of cake we were going to make this year, I suggested donuts and he loved the idea. So we stopped on the way home from WNW and had a great time eating donuts.

For his birthday he got two Lego sets (thanks Mom and Dad), some crocs (an imitation of them) and a LEFT handed baseball glove. He was excited about that. Our friend Nate who we took to WNW gave him a $15 gift card to Target and at the end of the day, he said that was his favorite gift. Go figure! All I had to do was get him a gift card and save myself the trouble of shopping. Oh well.

Bath Towels

Here are two bath towels I made for a friend's sister's wedding.

Taffy Pull...or something like it

We invited the Shepherd's over for FHE Monday night for a taffy pull. We've done it before with molasses taffy, but this time we decided to try a salt water taffy recipe. Hmm...I think we'll stick with the molasses next time. The salt water tasted good - we made a peppermint flavor, but it just didn't harden and was VERY sticky. It was all over the kitchen and the kids, but everyone had a good time so I guess that's what counts. And it only took me a while to mop the kitchen floor on my HANDS AND KNEES later that night! (he he). Here's what the fun looked like.

Universal Studios and a Big Turkey Leg

We went to Universal on Saturday after Brady's teacher training in the morning. We got there just before noon, ate some lunch in the parking lot, then headed in for some fun. It was some sort of Christian Ministry day there and there were a TON of youth camp-type groups there - all with their Jesus Saves shirts. We stopped at the Customer Service center to see when the kid's passes expired because we knew it was coming up soon but it was sooner than we thought - the 24th of this month! So we were glad we had gone that day. I may try to take them one more day before the 24th but it will mean a day missed of school. We did find out that my pass was accidentally renewed until '09 and as a courtesy, they said they wouldn't take it back so my pass is good for another two years. I wonder if I'll be here in '09 to use it?

It started to rain in the afternoon (what is a trip to a theme park in Florida without rain?) so we bought a turkey leg and stood under an umbrella and ate it. The kids were in heaven. I think this is only the second time we have spent any money while we've been at Universal because we always bring food so we don't have to buy it, but everyone loves these turkey legs and we had fun taking turns gnawing on the leg (that sounds gross, huh?). We didn't stay too long after the rain started, which meant that we didn't get too wet so that was good. Here are some pictures to enjoy.

A Funny Story

Brady and I went to look at cabinets on Tuesday. A friend had referred us to someone so we decided to see about it. It was a man, probably in his 20's and his new wife of almost a year. They are expecting their first baby in a few months as well, so just this young, cute couple who has started a business on their own. They came to the house to take measurements and we told them who had referred us to them. Then Brady said, "We go to church with Gerald" (the guy who had referred us). To which they replied, "You go to church? We're looking for a church." When does that ever happen!? We jumped right on that and told them we had a great church that they would just love. We arranged to meet them at the church house closer to their house (which isn't ours) on the 16th, as they were moving his mother this coming weekend. We'll see how that goes...but we were very excited about it.

Now the funny part, he (his name is Juan) was telling us why he was looking for a church. He told us that a while ago he was lost at sea - had been on a boat with others for three days and two nights. They woke up the third morning and their boat had been drifting but they couldn't tell because it was dark and the compass had been pointing north, but the boat was headed somewhere else come morning. Come to find out, they were on this boat from Cuba headed to the U.S. He was telling us that they hadn't had anything to eat the whole trip because if they were to vomit from motion sickness it would attract sharks. They bring gasoline and pour a little in the water when they do see a shark because it makes them go away. So anyway, when they realized they had been drifting Juan said he started praying and told God if he ever set foot on land again, he would give away all his gold (his necklaces) and go to church and pray again. He said they were in Key West in 30 minutes. They docked, got out of the boat, and some Coast Guard people came up to them, quizzing them about how they got there. They were very close to a coast guard station, but were not seen by the Coast Guard. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but in any case, he's here now, married to a citizen so I guess he's in the club now and just living life like and American (with a Cuban accent of course). So he said when they got out of the boat, the threw his necklaces in the ocean and when he got to his guardian family, he asked them to take him to church. He said he took a dozen white roses to Jesus. The church they used to go to is too far away for them now so we're excited to see what they think on the 16th! All of that over shopping for cabinets!

The Cannery

We took the kids to the cannery tonight and darn it, I forgot my camera. It would have made you laugh to see five kids in hair nets and blue gloves. It was a hoot. Their favorite thing was breaking the spaghetti in half to put it in the cans. They were able to scoop the popcorn (which we brought to can) and the macaroni into cans. They liked that too, but mostly they just wanted to break spaghetti. Their second favorite thing was mopping the floor. They were pushing that big cotton mop around like it was a ride at Disney World. I'm wondering if they will line up like that next time I get the mop out...somehow I don't think so! The funniest thing was when we went to Sam's Club afterwards and the boys wore their hair nets and gloves into the store! We get stared at on a normal day with five kids, but you should have seen it with three of them in hair nets! It was just plain embarassing, but oh well. The boys thought it was great fun. On the way home Jordan said, "Thanks mom and dad for taking us there" so it must have been a hit. Usually they only say "thanks" on their own for really big things, like the surprise trip to Wet N' Wild. So, I guess we'll have to go back sometime!

So this is what FREE time is like...

Okay, I've finally had time this week to do what I want to do - and that is sew, sew, sew. I made this bag for the lady I mentioned a few blogs ago. It turned out so cute and she loved it so I was glad about that.

I made a valance and pillow shams for the girl's bedroom which now finishes off the redecorating we started a few months ago...

And I made this baptism towel for a friend who is going to her nephew's baptism in Arizona this weekend. It is so fun to sew in a quiet house for a few hours, then go get Jordan and have him home for a few hours before we get all the rest of the crazy kids home! - Not that the kids are crazy, but the house sure gets crazy with everyone home.

Whew...We Found It!

Well, it only took the prayers and fasting of four of us on Sunday to be able to find Tucker's scout belt on Monday! He was THRILLED when we found it and couldn't wait to get those belt loops on! I'm so glad we found it - and just in time for scouts on Wednesday.

Tower of Toppings

I thought this tower of toppings the boys made while waiting for donuts to cook was cute.

Labor Day

Jordan is saying, "I surrender!"


Lego Dinosaur



R2D2 Mailbox at Downtown Disney




All made from Legos (except the Nixons)




On Labor Day we went to Wet N' Wild. We had another great day there. The lines weren't too long and we were able to go on some rides that we hadn't been on the last time we were there. I am amazed that Jordan just hops on all the rides that the big kids do, even some rides that make me nervous because of how high we have to climb to start the ride! I thought I was going to have to bail on the Bubba Tub because we climbed six stories high, but I was a big girl and I made it! After Wet N' Wild we went to Downtown Disney to go to the Lego store and do some shopping for Spencer's upcoming birthday. That store is always a lot of fun! We especially loved the free sample from the Ghiradelli chocolate store at Downtown. Brady even managed to pick up a cute Mickey tie (subtle Mickey).

The Beach... Oh So Fun

We had another great day at the beach on Saturday. We went with our friends, the Rogers, and they are our favorite friends now because they have a surf board! How have we lived in Florida for four years and not bought a surf board? It was so much fun. Everyone but Jordan (who didn't try) and Brady (who did try) got up. I just tell Brady that he'll be with me a while longer - he can't walk on water yet! Courtney was a natural at it - but she was good and waterskiing too. Meghann tried it once, did great, but wasn't interested in doing it again. Tucker did great - he thought he was so cool to be "Surfing USA." Spencer was definitely going out of his comfort zone, but put on his brave face and did a great job. I surprised myself even by getting up and riding a wave all the way to the beach. I think techinicall you're supposed to ride parallel to the wave so that you keep going - not ride it in and stop - but hey, it was my first time! We had a great time. You can see it all in the slide show.

Check out my Slide Show!

A Fun Project

Here's the latest thing I have been working on. A lady called my cell phone, saying she had gotten my phone number from someone (she never did tell me who) and wondered if I could make a diaper bag with a name embroidered on it for a baby gift. We met and she showed me one that her daughter has, something she was trying to duplicate for this gift. Well, I went on a hunt for a pattern and found one I fell in love with. I made up this bag for a friend's birthday and thought it turned out so cute. I can't wait to make up the one for the baby gift in pink and greens!

Tucker Earns Wolf Badge

Tucker earned his Wolf badge at Pack meeting tonight. What a thrill! He truly loves scouting and was thrilled that he had earned his wolf badge after being in scouts for only 7 months. He also earned several belt loops - about eight in all I think. That was thanks to his week-long scout camp this summer. But here's Murphy's Law for you - he earned all of those belt loops and now we can't find his belt! So we're on a hunt for it...He also earned a gold arrow. What a great kid!