Stenstrom's Most Talented Kids

Last night we were treated to a music concert put on by Stenstrom's Most Talented Kids. Mrs. Harbin, the wonderful music teacher at our kid's school, held an audition and chose 5 kids from 3rd grade, 5 from 4th and 5 from 5th grade to put on a little concert. There was piano playing, cello, violin, singing, dancing, even the recorder!

Tucker was chosen as one to represent the 4th grade. He worked very hard to get this piece down just right and I think he did a great job. (If you look close, especially towards the middle of the song, you can see him mouthing the words. When I asked him about it he said it helped him keep time. I thought it was cute.)

No Mo' Metal Mouth

Before

Meghann got her braces off today! What a big even in the life of a flirteen - I mean thirteen-year-old! (She's really not that flirty...thank goodness). I'll bet it's just around the corner though...ugh.

After

Surrogates

Having lived away from extended family for almost 15 years now, we've come to rely on surrogate grandparents. We've had some wonderful friends who have become like grandparents to our kids and life savers to Brady and me.

Sister Carter babysat our kids for our 10th wedding anniversary so we could go away for the night.

Phil and Roma Lee Hiatt took our kids in an instant when my water broke all over Roma Lee's floor (just after she had fed us dinner) so we could go to the hospital and have baby #5 (thank goodness it was a wood floor!!! So embarrasing).

And Lucy and Justo Casablanca were our Florida grandparents. Still are, really, but they have been on a mission recently to Argentina. While on that mission, Justo was called to be the mission president in Bogota, Columbia. So, they are home for a few months to get things ready to leave once again. And while they are home we got to have them over for Puerto Rican rice and beans. Brady was nervous about cooking for them since they are from Puerto Rico, but they got a double thumbs up from the Casablancas. Brady was beaming! One other thing the Casablancas will be remembered for: introducing my kids to The Golden Corral. They took us there before they left for Argentina and my kids thought they'd died and gone to heaven.

We will enjoy writing letters once again to them. We're so blessed to know good people to step in and fill a void.

Older...and Wiser

Happy Birthday to my OLDEST sister Michelle. Not that you're old, just older. Okay, and wiser. I'll give you both.




(She takes her wii very seriously)


Have a happy birthday Michelle!

Easter Picture - better late than never

Finally, here is a picture I took of the kids Easter morning. After getting into bed around 12:45 a.m. Sunday morning and having 9:00 a.m. church, snapping a few pictures was about all I could do Easter morning. I did manage to get Easter baskets filled and on the table for the kids as well.

I bought the girls Easter dresses, then had to modify them. I added a piece of fabric to the bottom of both of them because they were just slightly shorter than I like them. So on Courtney's I added that pink strip. It turned out so cute. I'm not sure where the picture I took of Meghann went, I'll bet she deleted it that stinker! I added a strip of brown to the bottom of hers, you might be able to see it in the above picture. Anyway, I think it made both dresses even cuter than they were AND more modest! Bonus!

Losing Teeth

A few days ago I found this photo on my flash card:

I'm not sure who took it but it's a nice shot of the inside of Spencer's mouth, don't you think? It's also a good intro for this video of Spencer losing that other front tooth this week.

And here he is, in all his toothless glory. He's a cutie.

Magnet Makeover

Yesterday I ran into my friend Shelby at JoAnns. She gave me a great idea for a magnet makeover. I already had these boring, black (but very sturdy) magnets at home on my fridge and for ONE DOLLAR they went from this:

to this:

Viola! Aren't they cute? (these are just little round stickers found back in the scrapbooking area)

Utah in a Weekend

While traveling over 2,000 miles for three days isn't exactly my idea of a "vacation," I didn't have to cook one meal, got to do some shopping with my mom and sisters, spent the night in a hotel with my hubby, and read until my heart's content on an airplane so I guess I can't complain.

We were in Utah last weekened for our efy training - getting us pumped, excited and informed about our upcoming efy session this summer. Brady and I will be at the St. Petersburg (Tampa) session, a change from our usual U of U session. I'm looking forward to it because we'll be able to bring Meghann and her friend with us. Now...if we can just figure out what to do with the other four kids we'll be all set.

(by the way, I googled "efy byu" for a nice logo type picture to insert here and only found about 500 participant photos to sift through so no picture!)

However, here are some great pictures I stole from my sister Denise's blog. Thanks for having your camera so handy. The only time I took mine out all weekend was to video my niece Jayden doing a cheer for me (she just made cheerleader at CHS - go Jayden!) But I thought she might kill me if I posted it on my blog. I dunno though, it might be cute. I haven't even watched it back yet, but watch out Jayden, I just might post it on YOUR facebook next April fools!

Here we are eating lunch at Five Guys Burgers & Fries. All I can say is "Mmmmmmmm. So delish." It was the best.

Brady joined me on Friday and we were off to be spiritually fed and uplifted at efy training. It was fun to be together again after being apart for only one day. He stayed with the kids on Thursday and was Mr. Mom. He did EVERYTHING on the "honey do" list including go to the grocery store, the dry cleaner, make sure all laundry and sweeping got done (thanks my wonderful girls for doing it), print and bring me some talks I had forgotten to do before I left, and the list goes on an on. He's amazing. So, we had a great time being together without kids. I love it when we get to get away.

I flew home on Saturday to be with the kids on Easter, Brady stayed and spent Easter with his family. The kids had a great time while we were gone with their friends. We sure have wonderful friends who will take extra kids on the tail end of spring break AND Easter weekend.

As always, it was good go be back home. That is...until I had to wake up Monday morning and realize that the laundry, dusting and cooking were waiting just for me. Ahhh...the life of a domestic diva.

Half-Italian

After searching high and low and finally paying top dollar for a pizzelle maker off ebay, I feel like I must be half-Italian! Pizzelles are these yummy, thin, crispy Italian cookies that can be bought at Costco. Last Christmas when I asked my (Italian) friend Laura to pick me some more up when she went, she said, "You know, I have a pizzelle maker and you can just make your own." I had no idea there was such a thing! She brought me over some homemade pizzelles the next day. A few weeks later I did borrow her pizzelle maker and my family was hooked!

So finally I began searching for one of my own. I didn't know they would be so tricky to buy. I bought one at Bed, Bath & Beyond but after one disasterous try of making the cookies, I took it back. The trick is to get one that isn't non-stick. I know, normally non-stick is boss, right? But on this gadget, the teflon just doesn't work. I prefer the shiny, stainless steel kind. And, happily, I found it on ebay (where else?). We have been making them often for after-school snacks, Family Home Evening treats, and a few weeks ago I took them to my friend for her birthday filled with real whipped cream...mmm, delicious!

Here's some pictures to get your mouth watering.

Don't judge me by this next picture, my pizzelles aren't perfectly centered!

We usually leave them flat and dust them with powdered sugar:

But this time I got fancy and rolled them, then filled them with cream.


Sooooo delicious. If you are serious about buying yourself a pizzelle maker, email me and I'll give you the best brand to buy!

Conference Traditions

This year we combined the old with the new.

Old tradition:

M&M's given out during MUSIC. We can't watch General Conference without M&Ms. A few weeks before Conference I start watching for a good sale on them because I know I'll need a few bags. This year our grocery store had the BIG bag on sale, buy one get one free (a BOGO - love them). This is actually more M&M's than we'll need, but I'll use the leftovers at FHE on Monday for a game (and any left over after that will get eaten with all five kids home this week for Spring Break. Trust me, no M&M will go wasted).


By the way, the kids have to "earn" their M&Ms by telling us what they learned in the previous segment of conference. THEN they get a colorful handful.

the official m&m passer out-er

New Tradition:

It was so nice of Walmart to have not five but SIX different colors of notebooks for Brady to buy for our new Conference tradition. That way when two children were fighting over the same color, we could take the PURPLE one back that no one wanted, trade it for a YELLOW one so that the one who originally wanted GREEN would give it up to the second one who wanted GREEN and take the YELLOW one and everyone was happy. Follow that? It doesn't matter. What matters is that this new tradition was a success! Everyone actually loved taking notes in their new notebook. They weren't writing feverishly the whole time (except for Tucker). There was still plenty of coloring going on in separate coloring books, but I'm telling you, they were listening and taking notes.

There's an incentive for taking notes. On Monday for FHE we'll have a Conference Quiz. Each person in the family is responsible for submitting three questions from what they heard during Conference that we will use for our lesson. (I'll be throwing out m&ms for correct answers!) The incentive to take good notes is that this is an OPEN NOTEBOOK test so whatever they wrote down will help them tomorrow night.

My favorite notes were those taken by Jordan. My five-year-old who is learning to write. Each sentence runs together and many words do too, but my favorite part is in the middle of the page where it says, "rafael E. Pino I like his hair." He did have good hair, you have to admit. Black and slicked back. Jordan has good taste in hair and takes a lot of care to make sure he has a good "up" each morning before going to school. (pictures of his "up" would be a good post for another day. He has a "school up" and a "church up." The school up is a little more wild).

my meticulous note-taker. He counted 11 pages of notes after just the Saturday session.

This is a small sampling of what our family room looks like during Conference: It's a mess, crayons, markers, colored pencils, coloring books, computer-printed coloring pages, TV trays - all strewn about the room. But the kids are listening and that makes me so happy. Happy enough to ignore the mess.

p.s. for more great ideas for Conference weekend see the article in the March edition of the Ensign. I read a few of these there and just adapted them a little for our family.

Brains vs. Common Sense

Today I was cleaning off the clutter from the kitchen cupboard. I asked Tucker to put down his book and come do a few jobs for me. I pointed to a tool sitting on the cupboard and said, "Go put that in dad's tool box."

A few minutes later Brady came to take care of two receipts that were on the cupboard, to find only ONE receipt there. He looked all over for the other one but could not find it. I thought, "Ah ha" and walked to the garage to where the tool box lives. There, in the top of the tool box was the missing receipt. And there, on the kitchen cupboard, the needle nose pliers sat.

I have to smile a little at Tucker's lack of common sense because it reminds me of myself, really. My dad used to tell me I had plenty of brains but lacked common sense. (Was he calling me a dumb blonde???) Well, Tucker has enough brains for at least two people his age, but common sense...well, the tool/receipt incident is just one example. He is famous for hiding things from his brothers, only to completely forget where he hid them. I need to look on the internet and see if that is a common thing because I know quite a few "brilliant" kids who are a little on the ditzy side. Oh well, we're still okay for a few more years until he gets behind the wheel of a car. That's when my ditzy side caused me grief. But I got over it - I haven't been pulled over since about 1998! (I hope I didn't just jinx myself).

A Laugh For You

I saw this today and it made me laugh out loud, all by myself here at the computer when I should be cleaning, doing laundry, cooking, sewing or some other domestic diva-ish job. Actually, my dishes are done, bed is made, laundry day isn't until tomorrow, so I'm good to sit and waste time at the computer. But I do need a shower. So, enjoy this little laugh on April Fool's Day. Played any good jokes? Tucker was NOT happy to wake up to blue eye shadow courtesy of his two sisters, but the other two boys didn't care too much. It actually looked kind of cute on Jordan, accentuated his blue eyes. Mine and Brady's saran-wrap-over the door didn't fool the kids though. Darn.