penguin madness

My daughter Peekaboo LOVES penguins. She's mad for them. I don't get it, but then I guess there are lots of things our children do that we don't get. Anyway, since she loves and adores penguins I find myself looking for cute penguiny things. For Valentines Day I made her a Penguin pillow that she carried around with her for about a week.

So, when I was talking to a friend about looking for penguins for peekaboo she mentioned a children's book that's been turned into a song called "Your Personal Penguin". We looked it up on YouTube and it is sooo stinkin' cute! Simply Daahling! The author of these delightful books is Sandra Boynton. You should check out her stuff. There's another popular children's book/song titled 'snuggle puppy' that's too cute to boot!

So, if you see any cute 'penguin' ideas...send them my way. I'm always looking for ways to bribe my way into my darling peekaboo's good graces:)

some thoughts from 'The twice Remembered Cottage'

I follow a blog called 'the twice remembered Cottage'. Today the author wrote this lovely post. I wanted to share. Take the time to read it as it is so lovely.

-H

Article of Faith Carnival is done!!

I'm beat! Seriously Beat! But, I had a good time getting beat!

today was our Article of Faith Carnival. This is our second time and I think it went really well. We had 16 girls, so I think we were only missing 6. We had 6 games that we played. Fishing, Musical Chairs, the balloon game, the wheel of faith, the fly swatter game and name that tune. We divided the girls into two different groups and played each game for 15 minutes. It was chaos, but controlled chaos. We did have a few roadblocks. One being that there was an unexpected death and so there was a funeral @ the church, it started after we were done but the viewing started while we were there. We had made sure that we would not be in a part of the building near the funeral & we did our best to get the girls to calm down after the viewing started and they really did do a good job trying to be quiet. I was very proud of them. The other was that there was also a baby shower going on in the building...crazy day for the church building. So, back to the carnival. We played all of these fun games! I had 3 other wonderful women who helped me plan and execute this carnival (Amy, Chery & Joan)and so we divided the games responsibilites between the three of us. At the begining of the activity we gave each of the girl's a punch card that hung around their necks. Each time they recited, recognized, learned part of....etc...we praise for EVERYTHING....an article of faith they got a punch on their card. By the end they were so excited to get so many punches on their cards:) After the games we had lunch (pizza from Little Caesar's- we ordered 5 of them and they were all eaten!) and then we had our article of Faith 'Bee'. I was so impressed how well each girl did. We had 4 girls there who were new to activity girls, two who were less or inactive and two who were baptised in the last 2 weeks and all 4 of them passed off their first two articles of faith and even tried the third. It was very impressive. 10 year old McKenna won the Bee with 11 year old Lynzee coming in second and 9 year old Camille coming in 3rd. Too cute. Our theme is Bee's so all of our decorations, invitations and even the trophy were in a bee theme. Just for reference. I used a lot of Lettering Delight's graphics for all of our invitations, posters, etc. I love lettering delights. They're a fantastic company specializing in fun, digital artwork.

Name that Tune! Listen to one of the Article of Faith Songs and the first to correctly identify by number or say the rest of the article of faith...wins.

Fishing Game! I'm on the other side selecting an article of faith that they fish for and then recite to the best of their ability or with help or prompting....no loosers in fishing!

I can't believe John took this picture of me on the other side of the curtain:(

The Wheel of Faith :) Cute, huh??

I don't have pictures of the other cupcakes. All 4 of us made 2 dozen 'bee' cupcakes. We all did our own version and they were sooooo cute! Sarah calls these my special Ed bees. They're lemon cake with cream cheese frosting and then I melted dark chocolate for the 'stripes'. I topped them off with googly eyes and these little candies I made in this funky candy mold I found. I think they're cute.

Here are our 'take home' gifts for all of them. They're cute little puzzles that I found @ Michael's in the dollar bin. I put a tag on them that says "We learn our articles of Faith so that we won't be 'puzzled' when others ask us what Mormon's believe." I think they're cute.

our trophy

and the winners were
lynzee (2nd), McKenna (1st), and Camille (3rd)

our invitations (the bee graphic is a LD graphic that I've had for years but can't find on the site otherwise I'd refer you to it...it's a cute one!)
(font LDJ Beezy) . I made tickets. Some of the girls remembered to bring theirs.

our 'Punch card'. We had two groups, the buzzy bees and the honey bees. two different graphics.

All's well that ends well (ish)

It was a dark and stormy night when my teenager said to my husband and I...my stomach hurts really bad. I think I need to go to the dr.... and so begins our journey...

We spent nearly all day today in the doctor's office followed by the hospital for tests...They checked her for appendicitis but it's tricky because an appendix is a tricky thing to find...She's fine. We await more tests results but so far it looks like her spleen is fine and so is her appendix. (wish I knew how to spell that little word)

family and valentines!

Happy Valentines Day. It's been quite a busy couple of days. I've taken so many pictures in the last few days that it's impossible to show them all to you. Here are a few highlights of our family valentines day dinner. John (my darling valentine) made us dinner. He cooked us a ham and noodles and corn. Then, for dinner he made us an allergy friendly desert. He made wheat free, gluten free, egg & dairy and nut free chocolate cupcakes topped with strawberries. they were actually quite good, although we couldn't quite figure out what food group they fit into.

Here's me with the wild ones!















Here's me with my peekaboo!















My sister T. Feelin' a bit under the weather but ready to get back on the road!
















'Cedes, Boo and Kara & Sarah's Penguin pillow that I made her for valentines day. Sarah's totally into Penguins!














Peekaboo and Kara bonding. I made the flower in Kara's hair and Sarah styled her hair. kara's a total girlie girl.

Northward bound

I'm home!
Yeah! I am so happy to be home! I love my home!

I just got home from California. I went to help my sister Christy and her family move. I'm so glad I went because I was able to spend so much quality time with my sister and my nephews and niece. My niece Kara in particular is very shy and always has to be re-introduced to me but this time she's old enough that I was able to interact with her and soak up her sweetness and Love!. Christy and her hubby and kids are moving to Kirkland, Washington so this is the closest she's lived to us since she left for college many, many ,many years ago.


I flew down to LA where Christy has been living. I'm really NOT a big fan of flying so I think I did really quite well. I arrived at 9:30 @ night and after a little mix up over where to pick me up I got home to Christy's safe and sound. Poor Christy (now to be referred to as T) was completely exhausted. She'd been packing for days. She's blessed to have movers come to pack and move her stuff but she still needed to have about 4 more arms than she has and an extra pair or two of eyes to keep track of everything.

Early the next morning we got the kids off to school and the movers arrived to pack everything up in this ginormous moving truck. They were quick and friendly but it's still a major chore. They started packing @ 8 am and finished by 2! I went to a hotel with the kids to keep them out of the way and get ready for the next day. It's amazing how exhausting just being around people who are moving things can be.


On Friday morning, bright and early (actually not so bright) we left Torrence, wich is just south of LA. It was 5:15 in the morning and neither Christy or I had slept for more than about 2 hours. I slept with my nephew Alton who is sweet and cuddly and a definte mover in bed. I awoke several times to his kicking me and then one time I felt his feet walking up my back and then his feet flung over my shoulder. I had to move him numerous times. Christy slept with Kara who also moved and kicked all night. There's nothing like a night of being beat up to prepare you for a long tedious drive.


We feel very blessed to have left LA when we did because we encountered virtually NO traffic. This proved to be true as a moved north. We spent the night in Redding California (right near the Oregon border). We traveled through Sacramento and several other sizeable cities and never really had to slow down much. Blesssings!!
The next day was much the same. We managed to travel through such beautiful country all in good time with virtually no traffic. The kids were super troopers. They watched DVD's and played their DS's and talked and didn't complain or whine. They were wonderful! It was such a good trip! If you have to spend 17+ hours in the car with 3 young children I hope yours goes this well.

My 'Cedes

My 'Cedes is 7! I can't believe how old she is and how quickly she's grown! On Sunday we went to Sethy's to celebrate her big 07! She was pretty durn wound up! But, I guess I would be too since she'd been partying since Friday. Whoo Hoo!!!

Here she is holding her massive balloon bunch! Her favorite balloon is shaped like a horse. It's really cool and really big!

Here she's showing off her ceramics she made in school. I'm not entirely certain what they are but up close they're quite cute. I think the one on the left is a pumpkin and the one on the right almost looks like a chicken. She asked me to take pictures to show Nanna!

Here's my 'Cedes all tricked out in the new hoodie we gave her for her b-day and the necklace I made her. She gave me so many poses I didn't know which one to choose! She's a total ham in front of the camera!
this is the remnant of her birthday 'cupcake'. She quite deliberately made a mess while proclaiming how 'clean' she is...total ham... I could tell she was dying for me to take a picture and so I did. I guess she's got me trained.

Ok, so WHY is it so stinkin' hard to take a group shot with everyone looking in the same direction at the same time??? WHY????

See...we have waaay too many hams in this family to get a good group photo. It's so frustrating to me.

I give up!!

OK...so, this is the last of my post. It's a little video of 'cedes. She said she wanted to play me a song....there's not much music to it but it is definitely a snapshot of the stubborn little ham that is our 'Cedes. Need I mention that I love this girl and get a great big kick out of her! She's a riot! She's my 'Cedes