card cuteness...

Mark brought home the getting to know you cards tonight. I was so happy when I saw the envelopes. I sat up on my bed alone while I read all of them. Not only are they very cute, but so sweet as well. I have to admit as I read the most thoughtful written messages to me I got teary eyed and it filled my heart with joy. They were so touching and very much appreciated. These cards are from Amy, Tiara, Briana, and and Erica (who is from Australia) I received one other but she wishes to remain private and I absolutely respect that and I thank you for sending me a card. You will all be included in the prize drawing on Mothers Day.

Speaking of Mother's Day, tonight for young women's, I picked up 2 of the girls after school and brought them to my house. We made picnic lunches for everyone and put together the bags of chocolate for all the girls mom's labeled...

Mom's emergency stash!

If things get bad...pray for help,

have a chocolate and take a deep breath.

Now get back in there.

It's bound to get better.

I love you!

I also had the girls make cards for their mom's. I brought all my jars of prima flowers and brads.The cards had baskets and grass. Then they "filled" the baskets with the flowers. It also had a happy mother's day message. Even though they were all the same cards, each girls looked totally different because of the different color choices. They were adorable!

Cole was in the room while we were making them and I asked him out loud what do I ask for every year for mother's day, my birthday and Christmas? He says "A clean house and peace in our home" I asked him if I ever get it? He says NO! He would be right. I told the girls how important that is to me and I know it would be to their mom's and asked them to please make an effort to fulfill my dream with their mother's. I'll ask them on Sunday who actually did it. If I can't have it, somebody should. :o) I also told them breakfast in bed wouldn't hurt.

We are having a big family dinner for Mother's day after church. What are your plans?

P.S. I recorded Americal Idol and just finished watching it. All I can say is Jason's departure was long overdue. Brooke should have been in the final 4. Syesha is very talented and I really love both David's!

National Scrapbook Day

Saturday was national scrapbook day and for the first time in months I actually scrapbooked. I had my friend Stacie over with me. I loved having her over. It was so much fun! A couple of others were planning on coming, but things came up. I only got 2 -2 page payouts done because it takes time and effort trying to find your long lost creative mojo again. I'm surprised I ever found it because I had next to no sleep Friday night. This first layout I did for Stacey (one of the young women) I know how important sports are to her so I wanted her to see how amazing she is while doing what she loves. I gave it to her on Sunday and she was beaming with happiness. I'm so glad I did that for her. Since I have no daughters of my own, it has been really special gaining a relationship with all the girls on our ward. They are such terrific girls.




This layout is "US at forty" with the pictures from my 40th birthday in the mountains. The layout is a 1 page 12X12 kit from scrapbooks etc that I turned into a 2 page 8 1/2 X 11 layout using extra supplies.

Thursday we are getting together again and I'm working on pages for my boys.




I forgot to share my handouts from when I taught my lesson last week. It was on "extended family relationships" It went pretty well even though I still really hate teaching. I just don't think it's good that my stomach hurts that much from stress and worry. Then come Sunday morning, I am beyond grumpy so my family suffers as well. In my lesson we discussed the relationships of families in the scriptures as well as what we can do to strengthen the relationships of our own families. I gave them each packets of papers that gave suggestions as well as a cute pedigree chart to fill out. I had a jar of black jelly beans and discussed how boring it would be if we were all the same and had a jar full of colorful jelly beans to represent how wonderful it is that people are different and how they each bring something special. They passed the jars around and snacked during the lesson. I wasn't sure what to do for a handout. I was sitting here looking at my blog and realized I could use my blog title. It says..

"Give a family tree a shake and a few nuts fall out!

That's okay...nuts are good...

You love them all the same!

Make sure all of your family knows how much you love them."

I glued on a cute little wood tree and filled bags with nuts. Folded and stapled to the bags. I know every family isn't perfect and there are a few "nuts", but it is our responsibility to love EVERYONE in the family no matter what. It's not always easy to do, but a sincere effort needs to be made.

Monday is weigh in day on Angie's in shape blog. I've lost 2 pounds this week and 3 last week, so 5 pounds total. It's not enough to "see" yet, but it is enough to keep me motivated to get rid of more. I also realized I've been drinking way more water that I thought. My cup that I drink out of is semi big. Without ice it holds 4 cups, with ice it's 3 cups. (and you know I have to have it with my teeny sonic ice) I usually drink about 4 of those a day. I am LOVING water!!! who knew?! My kids have been drinking my pepsi that's in my mini fridge...which would normally make me mad, but I totally don't care. I don't need it anymore. I NEVER thought that would happen.

Mark called and said I have 4 more getting to know you cards in the mail. I can't wait to see them. I'll share them on my next post! So fun!

Lastly...to clear things up. No I'm not mad at ANYONE. I honestly don't try to offend people by not visiting their blogs. Please don't take it personally. I just don't have time to read and comment on 125ish blogs everyday. I wish that I could, but there are not enough hours in the day and I'm sleep deprived as it is. It's not that I don't care because I truly do care about all of you and what's going on in your lives. I do my best to get to several each day when I have spare minutes here and there. I am so grateful for every single comment left on my blog so I completely understand how you all feel. There is a lot going on in my life right now with family, obligations, and numerous other things that I don't bother people with, but trust me when I say it's not a stress free life. My plate runneth over. The other day I was listening to the radio and that song by Trace Adkins - "You're gonna miss this" was playing. It totally made me cry. Not just tears. We're talking full on sobbing. All I could think about was everything I'm missing out on. My family is growing up. My grand kids are growing up. I'm missing it! Service IS important to me and I will always serve, but after girls camp is over I'm re-evaluating just how much I can do. I don't want to be sitting alone in my house years from now as an empty nester with a heavy heart full of regret for all I missed with my family. It's okay to just say NO sometimes.

fund raiser and gardening...

We did a big fund raiser for the young women to pay to go to girls camp this summer. They each had to sell a minimum of 5 name boards at $20.00 each to cover the cost of camp. They took orders for 2 weeks and did really well. They were all motivated because the first girl that sold 7 boards would get to have personalized vinyl lettering done in their bedroom. Every board was completely custom with the families last name and the established date of when they were married. They also got to choose the color their board was painted. Some people ordered custom quotes instead of names. Last Saturday we all got together to sand, paint, then sand the edges of the boards. That took 5 1/2 hours to do. Then today the leaders all got together to apply the vinyl. That took 6 hours.We made a total of almost 100 boards. Kim, who cut the vinyl worked her self ragged for 4 days preparing. I sure appreciate all of her hard work. I forgot to take my camera over there to take pictures of the piles of completed boards. They turned out so good. I ordered one for Brek and Brittany. I'm planning to give it to her for Mother's Day. I hope she likes it.

After Kim has a few weeks break from doing vinyl I'm totally going to order some stuff from her. You can check out her website. Cute stuff!

Last night ALL the girls in the Maricopa stake got together to do their first aid certification. It was really a lot of fun to be there with everyone who will be going to camp. We sang tons of camp songs then rotated classes to pass off their certification. We had the fire department there to teach some of the classes, but they didn't bring their practice dummies. Pretty funny how quickly teenage girls will volunteer themselves for a CPR demonstration. LOL!

I was practicing for camp last night. I put on a breathe right nose strip and asked Mark to tell me if it helps my snoring. My nose itched so much and you totally can't scratch it with that thing on. In the morning I took it off and my nose was sore for hours. Plus he said I still snored, just not as bad. Looks like I'll be sleeping in my car up there. :o/

Sunday we went to my in laws house to have a birthday dinner for my father in law. Every time I go over there I am totally sucked into their back yard. The WHOLE thing is garden. I love it...I appreciate it. Probably because I am not a good gardener. I tried it years ago and it was terrible. Our back yard is rocks, dirt and weeds. I hate it. When I go there and see how awesome it can be done, even in the Arizona heat it gives me hope that perhaps one day I can go this too just on a smaller scale. Mark's dad was a farmer and has some massive skills. His mom is awesome at canning. Great combination. I've done some canning, but there is more I can learn and plan to use the wealth of knowledge they have. I have a sincere desire to be good at gardening.
Get this...I finally had a pepsi the other night. It totally didn't taste great. How could that be? I love pepsi. I drank half of it then dumped it out and refilled my cup with water. I'm doing so good. Down 4 pounds so far!!! yay me!

Trapped

Since Cole missed school all last week, he has had lots of work to catch up on. He's almost completely caught up now. He had a big project that was due last week...Friday I think, but he'll be turning it in tomorrow....today, depending on when you read this. (Tuesday) He was suppose to design a game board having to do with a subject in school. His favorite subject is math so that is what he went with. We sat down tonight and worked together on it so it wouldn't be turned in too late. I already had plain white pizza boxes that I bought years ago so we used one for his game box. Cole wanted the game board itself to somewhat resemble a monopoly board, but not be exactly the same. The white foam core board has ghost lines on it so it made it easy to grid it out how he wanted. He chose the colors he wanted to use to color the strips and then painted wooden disks the same colors for the playing pieces. He used my quickutz to cut out the word "trapped" and glued it to the middle of the board. He used the Khaki font with the shadow. He totally knew exactly how he wanted the game to play. When I made suggestions, he would say "no...I want to do it this way." Who am I to argue? His rules were just fine the way they were.

Each player rolls the dice and they move to the number they roll. They have to do the multiplication or division problem on the space they land on. They have scratch paper included to work out the problem. Other players have to check their work to make sure it's correct. (that way everyone is doing more math) If you land on a "trapped" spot, you lose a turn. The first one to reach the end wins.

He has to get up in class and tell about his game, then all the students get to play it. They rotate stations to play other kids game boards. I think they will have fun with it. I would totally feel guilty for helping him if he didn't already know exactly what he wanted. Before we even sat down, he had the name of the game picked out, the rules all laid out and the board design. It doesn't hurt that his mom has fun creative resources on hand for him to use. :o) He is really proud of it and I know he's going to want to play it at home after he gets done with it at school.

Never a dull moment...

So yesterday we had a bit of excitement....not good fun excitement. First let me set up the story. We rent the house we live in from a guy named Tony. His sister in law owns the house next door. Her house has been vacant for a year and she's been paying the mortgage all this time. She has decided that she can longer afford to pay it so she plans to let the bank take it, but for now she is still in possession. Tony made arrangements for us to trade the window blinds from house to house because ours has icky 1 inch aluminum and hers is 2 inch faux wood and it's the exact same house so it's an easy switch. He brings us a key and we send Chad and his friend Will next door to start removing the blinds. They had run an extension cord from our house over there to listen to music while they work. I get ready to jump in the shower , but before I do Cody calls and needs his homework, so I ask Chad to take it to the school. During the time that I'm in the shower and he's driving to school, Will continues to work next door. Apparently someone calls the police saying that there is a burglary going on. Will hears the music stop playing so he comes out of the room he's in to find 3 guns pointed at him and they put him on the ground and tried to cuff him, but he has a cast on from a broken wrist. Needless to say, he is scared to death never having guns pointed at him before. Chad gets back and runs over there to see whats going on. Cole bangs on my door to tell me there are tons of cops outside and I better get out here quick, so I hurry up and get dressed and go next door. There are 7 cop cars out front and police everywhere. I try to explain the situation that we are not stealing and it's a prior arrangement between the owners of the homes. I get my landlord on the phone and have him talk to the officer in charge and he explains that we are not stealing. How could it be stealing with permission and a house key? The problem is that we couldn't reach his sister in law to verify that she did give permission and she did still own the house and it wasn't bank owned yet. They were totally going to arrest Chad and Will for theft and Mark and I for accessory to theft!!! ME the girl who has spent her whole life avoiding trouble at all costs. I never even liked to be in trouble with my parents when I was a little girl. Total rule rollower. Heck, I've gone back to the store to pay for a bag of ice that they forgot to put on my receipt. I am not a thief! Police don't tend to believe the "we're a nice honest family..really". They are more about the proof. Needless to say, my heart is racing. The shallow side of me is thinking, I've never had a mug shot and now I'll have one with no make up and wet curly hair straight from out of the shower. NICE! Not exactly a shining moment. I call Tony back and tell him try harder to contact her or we are all going to jail. Finally after a while she calls my phone and talks to the officer in charge verifying our story. Thank heavens! They let us continue and mark their records just in case other neighbors call the police on us. Talk about scary! My heart raced most of the rest of the day. Now we can laugh about it, but it wasn't much fun while it was happening. Good impression for the neighbors. What must they think of us now because they have no idea what was going on? CRAZY!

Random chatter with the ick factor...

I got two more getting to know you cards in the mail. They are so stinking CUTE! The one on the left is from Maren. The one on the right is from Andi. Thank yo so much ladies! I appreciate you! I'm extending the deadline to May 10th for 2 reasons...I haven't gotten many cards, so that gives who ever wants to more time and I'm too busy right now to put the prize together. :o) I will announce the winner on May 11th. (mother's day) My address again...Jolene George P.O. Box 40512 Mesa, AZ. 85274

Do you know why my mini fridge is still full of Pepsi? Because today is day 6 with no Pepsi. I've decided that I get to drink it one day a week. I have yet to decide which day that will be. I guess it depends on my needs or the level of stress I'm under. I have really learned to love water (with my teeny sonic ice) but I do miss the flavor of my sweet Pepsi. I think just maybe I'm a junkie.

In my bathroom I've posted the wall of shame/motivation. I'm definitely a girl who needs to check things off of list. I feel more accomplished. I'm a big time visual learner. I have dropped 1 pound so far. I won't mark it unless it stays down for a couple of days. I've been exercising in my room at night, but I think I'll add walking in the mornings. I had Chad ride is bike around the neighborhood loop. It's 3.5 miles...which may not seem like far to most people, but for me that is a REALLY long ways. I'm going to take my dog Pappi with me because he has gained a considerable amount of weight over the past few years and he loves to go on walks.

This afternoon I went to watch Stacey (one of my young women) play girls softball at the high school. She is an amazing athlete. I was so impressed by her. She is really great at any sport. I got so many great shots of her...even through the chain link fence. I really loved watching her play. Such a darling girl!

Just as I got home from the game, Chad was leaving to meet up with Mark and the guys for their night ride. Yesterday he was on his other motorcycle and he called me saying the valve stem broke on his front tire and I needed to come get him with the trailer. Just so you know, I've never in my life hooked up a trailer. I couldn't just back up to the RV gates and hook up either because it was in the back yard backwards. Cole and I unloaded the junk off of it and pushed it by hand through the rocks, turned it around and pulled it out to the street to hook it up to Kyle's truck. Then getting the hitch securely locked onto the ball and hooking up electrical is a whole nother issue. It took a few minutes but we did it. We then hop in the truck (that has NO AC mind you and it's HOT here now) I look down and the gas tank is empty. PERFECT! Now I need to try to pull into a gas station with a big trailer behind me and do my best not to hit another car or the gas pump. It wasn't easy, but I did it. By this time Chad has been standing in the sun for a good 45 minutes and we still have 20 miles to get to where he is. Added bonus is that he went to country thunder this weekend and got really bad sunburned so just being out in the heat hurts. The majority of his body hadn't seen sunlight the whole time in Afghanistan. So we get to where he is broke down and we load up the motorcycle and he ties it down with ratchet straps. On the way home I hit a significant bump and the bike falls over in the trailer totally cracking the fairing. UGGG! I feel just terrible!

Other random icky things...

Chad was changing his shirt before he left tonight and his chest and back are completely blistered. Looks like water blisters times a million. I took pictures but it looks so gross. Makes me throw up in my mouth....Shudder...

They got all the wood out of Mark's hiney/leg. Now he has a major infection. He says it hurts worse now. They put him on antibiotics.

Cole missed church on Sunday and 2 days of school this week. He's had a cough and runny nose, plus Sunday morning he woke up with these awful and equally gross cold sores from his lips clear up to his nostrils. We've been putting abrevia on several times a day. He says he's not going to school tomorrow either because kids will make fun of him. I'm not sure what school policy is on icky cold cores, so I'll have to call in the morning. I need that boy in school if at all possible!

I teach this Sunday, so the stomach aches are back. I've been studying and preparing.

There is so much on my plate this week. I'll be glad to see Monday come around. I do love my Mondays!

Enough about us.....How are YOU?

Convention and getting in shape...

I've been going to the CK convention for the past 12 years. I haven't missed any since they started here in Arizona. I use to take classes, but gave them up a couple of years ago. It got to be a waste of money...for me. So I would just go to shop and browse the vendor faire. Well this weekend it was here again and for the first time I wasn't planning on going at all. Mark had called me Friday morning because he heard from friends that convention was here so he wanted to know why I hadn't mentioned it and if I was going. I told him no because we really didn't have "spending" money right now. The sweet man that he is informed me that he hid some cash and I could have it to go shop the faire. His instructions were to get out and have some fun. :o) I did just that and I got some great deals in the process. The packs of bazzill forz (8"X8") which are normally $5.50 I got for $1.00. With a deal like that I had to get every color combination they had. I also got a box full of 12X12 bazzill for $20. I counted and I crammed 106 sheets in there. There was a new booth there this year that I loved. Stamps by Judith and Heather. So many cute things in there. Later that night I went scrapbook store hopping with a group of friends. It was a lot of fun and something I've never done before. Scrapbooks-Etc is still the best, hands down!

Saturday Mark spent most of the day helping a friend rip off his roof to put on a new one. Some how he ended up with a hunk of wood in his hiney....well technically where the leg meets the hiney. It broke off deep inside and the hole sealed up. It's infected and he's been in pain ever since. There is NO WAY I would be able to cut into him to try to get it out, so he's at Express Care as I type getting it removed. Poor guy! All in the name of service.

Okay to the getting in shape part of my blog title...so Miss Angie is going to start an additional blog for a support group for weight loss/getting in shape. I'm in need of both. After the realization that I could die at girls camp and the fact that I got on the scale and I'm at my heaviest EVER...that includes being full term pregnant!!!! Sick!! I put on a t shirt and a pair of stretchy pants and had Cole take full on front and profile pictures of me. I knew I couldn't wear jeans because they do hold in the tummy a little bit. I wanted true pictures. I uploaded them to my computer and as I sat here looking at them tears started rolling down my face. I couldn't hide from it anymore.My first reaction was to delete the pictures as fast as I could, but right then I printed the horrible profile picture and I made up a weight loss chart, a water intake chart and a daily exercise chart, then I taped them to my bathroom wall. I've decided I'm not going to beat myself up and sit and cry about it. I'm going to do something about in instead. Today is day 4 of my new routine. I haven't had a pepsi in 4 days!!! That is HUGE for me! I'm not saying that I'm giving up my pepsi totally or other things I love because I will never stick to something that deprives me of things I love. It's all about balance and moderation. I think the best thing is that I will be able to go to Angie's blog and get the motivation and support I need to do this. She is setting it up as a "better YOU in 12 weeks." I know I won't meet my goal of 40 pounds in 12 weeks, but I plan to be well on my way down the right path. Anyone else in?

Camp stuff and hair cut...

This past Saturday I went to the girls camp to check it out. We took pictures and sort of got a game plan on where needed to be decorated and how we wanted to do things this year. The square wood platforms are where each tent is put on. There are about 12 of these little groupings scattered all over the camp. We got to tour the whole thing and let me just say I AM SERIOUSLY OUT OF SHAPE! I was huffing and puffing while climbing up mountain trails. It was a real eye opener....and not a happy one. Thoughts passed through my mind as the others hiked effortlessly around me and I was gasping for breath. We were only there for a few hours and all I could think was I'm going to be up here for 5 long days in the middle of summer. I'm surely going to die on the Mountain. I hope they plan a nice memorial service for me because there is no way in heck I'm going to survive this one.

See the little building the ladies are standing around? That my friends is an outhouse. There is nothing to flush in there. Nope! I'm fully aware of the irony that I have a cute outhouse bathroom in my house and I'm whining about an outhouse, but my toilet flushes. I appreciate the ability to flush. Flushing is good. Flushing takes away bad smells. What will I do at night when I have to take one of my numerous trips to the bathroom? Mountains have lots and lots of bugs and I can't see them all in the dark. Panic has set in. I fear I'm going to come home with a kidney/urinary tract infection from holding it in too long and I know I will be sleep deprived and physically exhausted. I've already informed Mark that he WILL be driving up to come get me on day 5 because I will not have the ability to drive home alone.This cute little ramada is my one true perk. This is where the "craft shack" will be, therefore I will be spending all of my time there. So cute...I love it! I've designed my main craft and have plans for 2-3 small ones. I'll share those as I get the samples made.

Tonight we had the girls tying camp quilts that they will lay over their sleeping bags. You can't tell from the pictures, but the fabric has little stars all over it to go with the theme. They still need to be bound, but at least they are tied. The girls did a great job and we so appreciate the teachers who came and taught them how to do this. I think it's a great skill to learn. Their little camp quilts will be a keepsake for many years to come.

Okay...so I got my hair cut last week and covered the gray. Actually I'm already getting some feisty little gray hairs peeking back though. They seem to like me so I'll have to learn to get along with them. I cut all the dead off the bottom...which is quite a lot, but now my ends look healthy instead of fried and sparse, so I'm pretty happy with it. My hair is a bit tousled in the picture. I just got home from running an errand and it was real windy outside.

Why is it that teenage girls can take their own pictures and they are cute, but a 40 year old does it and she looks dumb? :o)

Happy Thursday!