Half Dozen Roses

Alan's new hobby...

2012-01-19T11:06:00.002-05:00

Alan has started making stop motion videos. He's seen alot of lego and mega blocks stop motion videos, and thought they were cool. So, he wanted to make some of his own. He will be loading them up on his blog often. Here's the first one he made:

Math Bowling

2012-01-17T10:22:00.003-05:00

While Kaitlyn was working on her Math subtraction facts this morning, William got out the bowling set and wanted to play bowing with me. We played for a little while, then I got the idea that bowling was a great way to teach subtraction!

Here's William bowing technique:

Christmas!!

2012-01-10T09:33:00.011-05:00

Because it's so late to be posting about Christmas, I'm going to combine everything we did Christmas week into this one post.

First, we always love to make and deliver treats to our friends, but this year with Tom recovering from knee surgery, and me working alot, I was looking for easy fun treats to make.
I found at the store these super cute gingerbread man shaped marshmallows, and snowman shaped marshmallows. So, I used candy melts (much faster and easier than frosting, to me) to add details, and stuck them on popsicle sticks. So easy and so fun!! The gingerbread man marshmallows were actually gingerbread flavored, and the snowman marshmallows were eggnog flavored.
We also took some cannisters that I'd saved throughout the year and decorated them. The canisters were peanut cannisters, or hot chocolate cannisters, and we used sticky back foam to decorate them. We just got a big stack of multi colored sticky phone, and cut out our own shapes and scenes. Of course you could just buy a big batch of Christmas shapes and stick them on the cannisters too. Then, inside the cannisters we put home made caramel corn. Also a fast and delicious treat to make.

On Christmas Eve morning, I was busy finishing up a Christmas dress for Kaitlyn, which sadly, I have not taken a picture of, but it turned out nicely. While I was sewing, Kaitlyn was putting together a nativity scene. I walked into the family room, and saw this against the couches and walls:

I think these are the 3 wise men? They are separated from the Nativity scene because they were not there the night Jesus was born, they were traveling, following the star. I was suprised that Kaitlyn would remember that.

And Christmas morning! It was a happy morning. We let the kids pick out gifts for each other this year, so we had more gifts than our usual 1 from Mom, 1 from Dad and 1 from Santa. We also got beautiful Christmas Roses from Uncle Michael, and lot's of gifts from Grandpa and Grammy McGiffin!!

Here's Sarah opening the last gift. A giant one hidden behind the tree for her. It turned out to be a bean bag chair she'd been wanting since her birthday back in May. She was very happy.

Later that morning we went to church and enjoyed a nice Christmas program. I directed the ward Choir in singing a version of "Once in Royal David's City". Even Alan and Sarah sang in our little ward choir. Then, I sang a version of "O Come Immanuel" at the request of the Bishopric. I wouldn't have sung if the Bishopric hadn't asked me to because I was already directing the ward choir, but that's what they wanted. It turned out really well.

It was wonderful Christmas.

Gingerbread houses

2011-12-17T09:03:00.005-05:00

A family tradition we do every year that we love. This year we used graham crackers.
(PS. This is the 8th post I've written today, I had some catching up to do, so if you want to know what we've been doing since Halloween, scroll down and take a look at the previous posts.)

Yummy food for the ward Christmas party

2011-12-17T08:57:00.002-05:00

Also on Dec. 10th was the ward Christmas party. After we decorated the Christmas tree, I had to go to the church to help set up a little bit, so while I was gone, Tom and the kids made a dessert for the party.

They made monkey bread in a bundt pan, and then when I got home I decorated it with frosting leaves and m&m berries. It's a Christmas wreath!

Dad's surgery, and decorating the tree...

2011-12-17T08:40:00.006-05:00

We put the tree up on Nov. 30th, but didn't decorate it until the 10th. Tom was out of town from Nov 30th - Dec 4th, and then again from Dec 6-8th. He got home at 12:30am Thursday night, then got up to be at the hospital at 6:00am on Friday morning. The surgery was on a torn meniscus that happened a year ago. The surgery went well, and he's recovering quickly. It was on his right knee, and he's already able to walk and drive.

So, the day after his surgery, we decorated the tree.. Tom wasn't really able to help us decorate. He was on the couch recovering as we did it, but at least he was with us. :)

Parties, and cousins, and fun! Oh, My!!

2011-12-17T08:01:00.012-05:00

We are so happy that Uncle Johnny, Aunt Jenette, Cousin Robby and Cousin Nathan came to visit!! We loved having them over. They stayed for just a few days, but we were glad for the short time we had with them.

The thing I'm most sad about is that I didn't get hardly any pictures!! They got here late Wenesday, Nov 30th, and the next morning, Thursday, we all went to the Infantry Museum. We really like that place. The kids got to try on some soldier uniforms, which they enjoyed.

Then, Thursday night we went to Fantasy in Lights at Callaway Gardens. We had fun on the trolley singing and looking at the beautiful lights.

On Friday we went to Flat Rock Park to play our most favorite park. Then, for lunch we went to Country's Barbecue so that Johnny and Jenette could have some southern cooking. We ordered fried pickles as an appetizer, and drank water out of mason jars.

Friday night we had a little birthday party for William. We invites just a few friends over; Karter and Kamryn Ence, and Koen Jones, then we had the cousins Robby and Nathan here of course, so it made a nice number of guests for a birthday party.

Here's Kaitlyn, Robby with his trusty "Woody" hat, and William making the cupcakes to decorate at the party.

Here's Robby, William, Uncle Johnny, Sarah, and Aunt Jenette coloring on the paper we covered the table with for the party. Another picture of the famous Uncle Johnny.

Robby, William and Koen at the table ready to eat their decorated cupcakes.

The party didn't last long because it was kind of late for little ones, 6:00-7:30pm. Along with decorating cupcakes, we also hooked up our old video camera to the TV and let them dance around to music and watch themselves. They enjoyed that.

On Saturday we went to Flat Rock Park again and played a little while before Johnny and Jenette left. We were soooooo sad once they were gone!! The kids were really depressed. Alan cried a little, and William later in the day was asking where his friends went. We love our family!! We hope one day we'll get to live closer to them.

William's birthday

2011-12-17T07:44:00.006-05:00

William turned four on November 28th, and since Tom was going to be out of town for William's birthday party at the end of the week, we had a little family party before he left

We let him decorate his own little cake again this year. He loves being able to do that without worrying about making a mess.

During the day, I took William to the store and let him pick out a little birthday present for himself. He picked out a little cape and mask set, which he loves!! He also got a new bike so that he could go riding with our family on bike rides on Saturday. Kaitlyn also used her money to buy him a light saber. It was her left over birthday money, and she wanted to use it for him.

The next post will be about his party...

Thanksgiving!!

2011-12-17T07:28:00.009-05:00

Here's some pics of a few things we did on Thanksgiving. We had our good friends the Ence's over, and the Missionaries.

William loves to help me cook. Here he is helping to make the Cranberry Whipped Cream Salad:

A fun activity I had the kids do when they were bored waiting for our friends to arrive, was to make napkin rings for everyone. We took a used plastic wrap tube (because those are stiffer than tp tubes), and we cut it into rings. Then I got out all of our craft things and just let them decorate them any way they wanted. They turned out really nice.

Here's the Turkey that I roasted in the Roaster Oven. Here's the cupcake Teepees we intended to make on Thanksgiving, but didn't get made until a few days later for Family Home Evening. You bake cake in the sugar cones, and then decorate them to look like teepees. Here's some of the fun our kids had with the Missionaries, Elder George in the background, and Elder Steenick playing on the piano wearing the pink hat.

Roasting marshmallows in the kitchen!

2011-12-17T07:23:00.001-05:00

Not cold enough to have a fire? Roast giant marshmallows over the stove!!

Dad went hunting

2011-12-17T07:07:00.005-05:00

Ok, this post is not for Aunt Spring, .... :) but we're excited that Tom was able to go hunting for the first time this season. We even bought a freezer to keep it in. We're able to save alot of money on meat that way. We don't eat a ton of meat, but what we do use ground beef in a few dinners, and we like to have roasts on Sunday.

I told Tom that if he does hunt, I don't want to be able to tell it was once a deer. He has to bring it home looking like it came from the store... I know, I know.. remember I'm a city girl, and I have to take small steps.... :) I will not be posting a picture of the deer he got. I could barely look at the picture he took of it on his cell phone...

Anyway...so, he brought home the meat in a big cooler, and we just packaged it. We have a meat grinder attachment to our Kitchen Aid, and we made some ground venison with it. William particularly loved doing that part.

We have enjoyed quite a few dinners from our venison, including meatloaf. We could barely tell the difference between it and groundbeef. There's much less fat, and so it's much healthier.

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-06T13:52:00.015-05:00

Ready for Trick or Treating!

Alan's helmet was a real helmet Tom got from Australia. It had holes in it. We're thinking it was used for target practice?

Kaitlyn was a pink bat girl!

Turning Sarah into a red m&m

Bending over was a little tough as an m&m

And.... spiderman!!

...Or is it William?

Carving pumpkins is always a fun tradition for our family on Halloween. I've been so busy that we didn't go and buy pumpkins until Halloween. It was nearly impossible to find any pumpkins. We usually get a pumpkin for everyone, but the only pumpkins that were left were $30 pumpkins at a shop outside of town, and those pumpkins were painted. So, we just bought one, scrubbed off the paint as best we could, then each of the kids carved a face on a side of it. I carved the faces for William and Kaitlyn, and Alan and Sarah got to carve their own. It was Sarah's first time carving a pumpkin. She loved it.

The other pumkin is one we carved at the Stake Fall Festival a few weeks ago.

And Tom was Superman... And I was Red Riding Hood...

The Stake Fall Festival

2011-10-29T07:37:00.004-04:00

Two weeks ago was the Stake Fall Festival. In years past, instead of a Fall Festival they had a ball. This was much more family friendly. Each ward was assigned to do a few games, and every family was asked to bring chilli. There was a lot of chilli. The kids had fun carving pumpkins, "bobbing" for donuts, playing tug of war, getting face paint, making sand art, and many other things. It was a nice activity. We only got a few pics. William was with me all the time, so the pictures I have are of him.

For face paint William wanted a "W" on one side and an "X" on the other. Here he is very focused as he gets it done:

Fun at Ft. Benning

2011-10-29T07:22:00.013-04:00

We recently went to the Ft. Benning celebration they had for all the new soldiers and their families that have moved to Ft. Benning. There were many many bounce houses and other activities. Here are a few of the highlights:

William and Sarah waited in the sun for nearly an hour in line for this "ride". They both loved it.

The velcro wall was so fun.

This is Kaitlyn and Alan "fighting". Kaitlyn needed help holding up her "weapon" (what are those things called anyway?) because it was so heavy.

At the end of the night we watched an awesome display of fireworks, and waited to see if we won a car in a drawing. We didn't. Oh well, it was a fun day anyway.

Our trip to the Fair

2011-10-25T21:10:00.003-04:00

It was a rainy dark day, but the only day we had to go to the fair, and so we decided to make the trip to Perry Georgia and see what was there. Tom and Kaitlyn and Sarah went on the Mad Mouse roller coaster. Alan is not much of a roller coaster kid and William was too small, so we waited while the others went.

I remember going to the fair when I was younger, but what I don't remember is all the paintings of immodestly dressed women all over the rides and games in the carnival area. Yuck. It was disgusting. Alan did not want to be there. We only went on a few rides, then we went to try and find some other things to look at away from the rides. We decided that we didn't really want to go again.
We did go the petting zoo, and that was pretty fun. We also went to see a small circus while there.

But actually, the best fun of the night was going to Applebees after we left the fair. It just so happened that the night we went Applebees had a "kids eat free" night. We didn't know it. They also had a craft table where the kids got to decorate and keep their own mini pumpkin and decorate a little pumpkin mask.
No more Georgia National Fair for us. But maybe Applebees again.... :)

M&M math

2011-09-29T08:36:00.004-04:00

Math is always more fun with m&m's.

Happy Autumn!

2011-09-29T07:25:00.009-04:00

Here's just a little post about the fun stuff we like to do to decorate for Autumn. We just love this time of year.

One of our favorite things to do is to get out the mason jars we painted to look like pumpkins and put them in our fireplace with lights in them. Now it looks like there's a fire in the fireplace. You can see them in the fireplace behind Kaitlyn.

Here's a new one we did this year that I thought was cute. Kaitlyn is holding the balloon pumpkin we made. We just attached an orange balloon to a little dowel with floral tape and then drew a face on it. Here's a very bad pic of one of our living room windows with shiny leaves draped over the window treatments....

Stone Mountian Feild Trip with Georgia Cyber Academy

2011-09-15T10:57:00.014-04:00

Thousands of Georgia Cyber Academy students and their parents met for a fantastic event at Stone Mountain on a beautiful September 14. There were bounce houses, educational games, a chance to meet the teachers and interact with other students and parents, and just alot of fun. It was really nice to be around people who care so much about the education of their children and take a very active role in it. All of the kids we met were well behaved and polite, and all the parents were really nice.... but it was soooo crowded!!!
After we went to the GCA event, we decided to go exploring the mountain. We went to the park museum, and also started to hike up the mountain. I say "started" because it was a pretty hot day, and the mountain was pretty steep. We decided to come back and climb it on a cooler day. We learned alot about how the stone itself was formed, and also about the carving on it. The kids had a lot of fun and they didn't want to leave. It's a beautiful park with alot of things to do.

The GCA event was so well attended, and their were so many people that it was hard to get a good picture of how many were there. I'd say there were probably 2,000-4,000 people.

Drawing with chalk.

Making a pumpkin craft.

Sarah had fun doing some dancing.

Alan waited patiently to challenge a boy who was beating everyone at Chess. When it was his turn to play, Alan beat him. The boy wanted to do a rematch, but we were on our way to do another activity.

Looking at a replica of giant crystals in the stone mountain museum.

Kaitlyn on a journey to the center of the earth!!

The climb up Stone Mountain.

Playing on the way up the mountain.

The giant field in front of the carving. This is where people come to watch Laser light shows.

William had fun discovering the mountain.

First Day of Dance

2011-09-12T19:51:00.005-04:00

Tonight Kaitlyn and Sarah started their dance classes. They both are taking beginning Ballet and Tap. They're in separate classes of course, but luckily for us the classes are held at the same time. Neither of them have taken any dance classes of any kind before, but they were eager to get started. They are taking Dance at the "Academy of Fine Arts and Dance" here in Columbus, a dance school that has been here for 43 years. They had so much fun!! (Kaitlyn is still dancing and singing right now instead of putting her pajamas on like she should be :)

Kaitlyn's "Tangled" Birthday Party

2011-09-11T16:17:00.019-04:00

Yesterday was Kaitlyn's 7th Birthday Party! She wanted a rapunzel themed party. Here she is in her Rapunzel costume and her Rapunzel hair waiting to greet her guests. The Rapunzel hair is a thick yellow rope we attached to her real hair. Notice the "wanted" poster of Flynn in the background?Here's a closer look at her dress. I used a pattern... sort of.... I altered the pattern alot.

We put paper laterns over the lights in the house to look like the lanterns in the movie.

We also hung the purple sun pendants in the house and outside just like the ones you see in the movie.The birthday cake with Rapunzel in her tower. The tower is just a big batch of Rice Krispy treats molded to make the tower and then frosted. Super easy.

Notice Flynn on the watermelon boat in the blue Jello water?

Here's Kaitlyn Rapunzel enjoying a strawberry.

This is a craft that we did as the guests arrived. They are Paskel blowers. You take a blower and put it between too sheets of sticky foam and then cut it and decorate it to look like Paskel. The blower part looks just like his tongue in the movie.

Here's another fun craft we did that the girls absolutely loved. I braided yellow yarn onto a hair elastic and let them add flowers and ribbons to it just like when Rapunzel's hair was braided in the movie.

Opening gifts.

A game we played was "pin the nose on Flynn" since in the movie Flynn always complains about his nose in the wanted posters. I took a picture and removed the nose, and then made a bunch of funny looking noses to let the kids tape to it. We also hung the poster on a tree just like the first time we see the wanted poster in the movie.

Here the kids are having fun playing with Rapunzel's hair. They played a couple of rounds of tug of war, which they loved, and then wanted to do the Limbo. So fun.

And the last thing we did was hit the flower pinata with a frying pan, of course!! As you know the frying pan was Rapunzel's "weapon" in the movie. It actually worked really well.

Kaitlyn also gave out little thankyou gifts of Rapunzel's paints.

It was a great birthday party and everyone had so much fun. I had alot of fun planning it too. Now it's time for a nap. :)

A special birthday

2011-09-11T16:13:00.003-04:00

Alan is 12 now and was ordained to the office of a Deacon last week by his Father Thomas Rose, who is a High Priest. Today he passed the Sacrament for the first time.

Alan's 12 Birthday

2011-09-06T18:05:00.009-04:00

Here's some pictures from the Lego Birthday Party Alan had. He's been collecting legos and so he thought that if he had a lego party, then he'd get all the legos he needed! Well, he got alot of legos. Right before the party started, I brought 10lbs of legos that we bought him from ebay. He was so suprised, and so happy. He dumped it all out and invited all his friends to build with him.
Here he is opening one of his favorite gifts-a yoda lego mini figure clock.

The food for the party: watermelon, grapes, apples and cheese platter, barbecue chips, corn chips and delicious cream cheese and chili dip, apple juice and pizza rolls.

And the most fun item on the menu was a bowl of lego candy that you can actually build with!!

Here are the goody bags Alan made for his friends. He filled snack bags with lego candy and made little thankyou notes with drawings on them.

The birthday cake was one cake cut in half and made to look like two legos. The "bumps" on the lego cake are giant marshmallows cut in half. Alan said he wanted a lego cake with 12 bumps and the candles on them.

It was a very successful birthday party. I just love the older kids birthday parties because I don't have to do as much. Alan pretty much planned his party, and I let him. They had a lot of fun.

Volcanoes

2011-08-28T18:44:00.003-04:00

With my scrap wood I decided to cut some little "volcanoes" for the kids to play with.I thought they might enjoy doing eruptions with vinegar and baking soda. I just cut some 1 1/2" wood at a 45 degree angle and then drilled most of the way down in the center. It was fast and a fun way to use up some scrap wood. We put food coloring in it to make the lava different colors as well. William liked it so much that he cried after we used up all of vinegar and kept asking me for days if we could do it again.

U.S. Space and Rocket Center

2011-08-15T15:14:00.021-04:00

There's going to be lots of pictures in this post because there were just so many cool things we saw!!
Since we didn't get to take any vacations this year, we decided to take a day last week and go to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Al. We so have to take family here when they get to visit here again. It was a last minute decision, but since it's only 4 hours a way, and it was the last week before school started, we decided to go. What a great place to take your kids! We drove to Huntsville in the afternoon and checked into a hotel and played in the pool all evening. The next morning we drove out to the Space Center. We were there an entire day and still didn't get through all of it.
Along with all the space/science stuff, there was also a dinosaur exhibit going on. We got to see a life size replica of "Sue" the most complete T-rex skeleton ever found. William my little tough boy was actually really scared to go into the exhibit. He insisted that Tom or I carry him at first until he got used to it. In the dinosaur exhibit they got to dig for fossils and actually take a little one home. Also in the dino exhibit they had a climbing wall where Alan,Sarah and Tom all made it to the top. (I didn't want to embarrass myself by trying to climb the wall)

The Space Shuttle was huge!! You can't actually see it. It's on top of this giant rocket that blasts it into space.
This is actual moon rock. It's value is so high that it's actually valued at "priceless".

This is a replica of the moon.

Check out how huge this thing is next to Alan.

Another picture of the moon walker this side inside.

We also watched an IMAX movie on the Hubble telescope. So amazing how far they can see into space with that thing!!

Here's William trying to use astronauts suit gloves to screw in a bolt.

This is the actual command module of the Appollo 16. Very cool.

A giant engine. ??

A replica of Sue, the most complete T-rex skeleton ever found.

Kaitlyn is a dinosaur in this game looking for food.

A day at the shooting range

2011-08-14T13:29:00.004-04:00

Yesterday Tom ran a shooting clinic for our ward and took Alan with him. Alan loved it sooo much! The rest of this post is by Tom since I don't speak gun. :)
Alan's 1st time shooting a 9mm pistol at 10yds. He said the gun kicked alot and preferred shooting the .22. Even though it kicked hard, he still outshot some of the adults.

Shooting the .22 caliber pistol at 15 yds. Since you can't see the shot's well, I'll just tell you that most of them were in a 3" group, which is really good for his first time shooting. These were his first 10 shots shooting a real gun.

So funny... so sad....

2011-08-13T13:56:00.003-04:00

I'm totally copying this post from a friend right now. I just thought this was so funny, and sadly.. so true.

Painting ice cream cones

2011-08-11T10:52:00.007-04:00

Whenever I'm developing a new product, I have alot of extras and misfits that I will often let the kids have to paint and play with. I've been working on ice cream cones and cupcakes lately, so I let them paint some of the mess ups.

Family Band?

2011-08-11T10:01:00.008-04:00

Our family band has many practices, and may one day perform. You're all invited to their debut. But until that happens, here's a look at one of their practices. You will see guitars being played like a violin with a windshield wiper (yes, windsheild wiper) as the bow. You will see stools become drums and cut pvc pipe as drumsticks. Sometimes these pvc pipes will be taped together and made into a pan pipe or xylophone of some kind. You will also see old nut cans and oatmeal canisters being used as drums as well. Sometimes there's singing, but there's always happy, creative children. :)

Big foot sighting at Flat Rock Park!!

2011-07-24T15:35:00.003-04:00

While playing around on the rocks and streams at flatrock park, we came across this neat formation that looks just like a foot. We decided it must be big foot's foot print!! :)

William's first IV

2011-07-17T22:57:00.007-04:00

Friday evening William started complaining that his stomach hurt. Then, he started crying every few minutes because it hurt him so badly. He went on this way for over an hour. He has such a high tolerance for pain, that I thought something could be really wrong. (He's had several ear infections, including bursting an ear drum and never even cried) I called our home teacher, Bro. Coleman, to come and give him a blessing because Tom was out of town.

After the blessing I decided to take him to the ER. I started calling people in our ward to find someone who could come and stay at our house while I took William to the hospital. The other kids were already in their beds, and it was easier that way. We did find a young woman who was willing to come and stay. Thankyou ,Anna.

By the time we got to the hospital, his bouts of pain were so severe that every few minutes he would tense up and start shaking and crying. Everyone in the waiting room felt sorry for him. People were asking me if his appendix burst. I didn't know.

Finally after an hour of waiting in the waiting room we were given a room. Then we waited a while longer while he suffered, and I was almost in tears myself because of what he was going through.

The Doctor finally came in, did a quick check of him and then ordered some blood tests, an IV, some stomach x-rays, and if all those showed nothing, then he would get a CT scan. I was worried about him getting his blood drawn and the IV. He was so tired from the pain he was already going through that I wasn't sure how he would handle it. Well, his high tolerance for pain showed through, because he didn't even budge when they took his blood. It was almost like he didn't even notice the IV. The nurse who gave the IV was amazed. I guess compared to his stomach pains, the IV was nothing.

After the blood tests came back all fine, the x-rays showed that he was severely constipated. I had no idea that constipation could be so painful! Poor little guy. They gave him some thing to get his system working right again and finally let us go home. We had gotten to the hospital a little after 9:00pm, and were released at 2:00am. This is a picture of him after he fell asleep with the IV in him. Apparantly he was a little dehydrated (a little dehydrated? is there such a thing?), because just the IV fluids eased his pains enough to help him sleep.

What a relief to us all that it wasn't something serious. We're so proud of him for being so brave. William the Conquerer.

Food on fire!

2011-07-09T09:20:00.005-04:00

Tom likes to take the kids out for what Kaitlyn and Sarah like to call, "Daddy dates". (Alan doesn't call it that though, for him it's just one on one time with Dad :) A while ago, Tom decided to take both Alan and Sarah out to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants.

Happy 4th of July!!

2011-07-06T19:41:00.004-04:00

For the 4th we went to our friend's the Holloways house. We ate yummy food, and played card games, while the kids played and swam in the pool. At the end of the day we went to our usual spot in Downtown Columbus to watch the fireworks. It was a fun day.

Sarah gets a facial

2011-07-04T13:06:00.004-04:00

Last week for Activity Days the 8-11 yr old girls combined with the Young Women for a spa night. The Young Women treated the primary girls to a fun night of manicures and facials. Sarah had so much fun. She can't wait to be 12 and go into Young Women.
Here she is showing off her nails with roses on them and her chocolate facial mask.

Orchestra class

2011-06-21T12:55:00.003-04:00

One of our kids' favorite games is to play orchestra. Alan will hook up his mp3 player to the stereo in the family room and they will all pretend they are playing a different instrument in the song.

Battleship for boredom

2011-06-13T15:01:00.006-04:00

Ok, so I bribed Alan.

He was being lazy all day, and his sisters wanted to go in the pool and he didn't, so, I told him I would make him a little wooden battleship if he would go swimming with them.

It worked.

He went right into my workshop and grabbed some sandpaper,

"I'll help you sand it!" he said.

So I put together a quick battleship made out of pine. It took about 45 minutes. I had read somewhere that pine holds up really well in water and that it's good for making wooden bath toys out of. We'll see.

House of Cards

2011-06-05T15:03:00.006-04:00

Building playing card houses on a Sunday afternoon.

Random silliness

2011-06-05T14:55:00.010-04:00

Skipping Dirt?

2011-06-05T14:51:00.004-04:00

I just have to post this because I think it's funny that when we go to the park, our kids love to pick up a handful of dirt and rocks and throw it in the lake almost more than they love to play on the toys there. If ever we're near a lake or stream, they have to throw dirt and rocks into it.

Shelly the turtle gets a bigger home.

2011-06-05T14:41:00.005-04:00

Shelly is a snapping turtle that Tom found at the range where he was working almost 2 years ago. She has grown so much, that we didn't have a place big enough for her, so we took her to a place where she can have a bigger home.

Sarah is 10!!!

2011-05-27T07:24:00.018-04:00

Sarah's birthday was on May 23 and it was a 3-day celebration!! It wasn't really intended to be, but it just kind of turned out that way. On Saturday the 21st, she had her birthday party with her friends. It was the day after the last day of school, so she was excited to make it kind of like the last big party of the school year. She invited her whole class over to go swimming, and just hang out. (No pics of the friends of course, but it was a well attended party)
She wanted cupcakes instead of a cake this year. So, when it was time to blow out the candles, we covered one cupcake with 10 candles.

Sarah loves chocolate and the TV show/ band, "Big Time Rush" on Nickelodeon. Here she is at the party eating chocolate wearing a T-shirt of the band. One of her friends came early and gave her a shirt and a CD of them, and Sarah immediately put on the shirt. She later hooked up her CD player to the speakers we had set up out side so that she and her friends could listen to "Big Time Rush" during the party. I had no idea how popular "Big Time Rush" was to 9-10 year old girls, but they were all super excited to listen to it.

Here's a view of some of the food. Because it was so hot, I blew up a little swimming pool I got at the dollar store, filled it with ice and put all the food on it. It worked really well.

Here's Sarah opening a gift from Daddy. She got a jewelry box. He often gets her and Kaitlyn necklaces from other countries. She also got her ears peirced 2 months ago so that she could wear earrings on her 10th birthday. Now she has a place to put everything.

Here's the "bowl of chocolate" that Sarah wanted as treats at her party. This bowl is also sitting in another bowl of ice to keep it from melting, because even in our playroom where it was, it was about 85 degrees with the Air Conditioning on.

Here's the cupcakes, some of them already eaten, in the shape of a 10.

Anticipating eating the chocolate cupcake. This is before we loaded it down with candles.

The day after her party, being Sunday, Alan made her a birthday crown for her to be queen for the day, and Sarah and Alan made plans for her actual day.

Then, the next day on the 23rd, her real birthday, at exactly 7:08am (the actual time she was born), she and Alan got up and made all sorts of noise and yelling, "Happy Birthday!!", "Sarah is 10"!!

Because she likes to cook, I let her go through a dessert recipe cookbook I had, and told her she could pick anything to make on her birthday. She picked a cookie pizza.

Then, the last thing she wanted to do was watch her favorite movie, "The Karate Kid" with Jaden Smith. We like that one better than the old one because there's only 2 swear words in it (which we muted), and we think it's cool that it's set in China, and that the guy who trains him (Jackie Chan) actually knows martial arts.... But, we still waited until after Kaitlyn and William had gone to bed to watch it because it was still too old for them with the fighting and stuff..

So, Sarah had a very happy 10th Birthday!!

Restoration Timeline

2011-05-27T07:18:00.000-04:00

In primary this month we've been learning about the Restoration, so I thought it would be good ro reinforce the lessons at home. Something good and easy to do when learning about the Restoration is to make a timeline.

To set up, I tied a rope in between two chairs and attached dates to it with clothes pins.

For the learning activity, everyone in the family got a picture from the gospel art kit that depicted an event in the Restoration. After an opening song and prayer, everyone looked at their pictures and we discussed what was happening in them. Then we got to put them on the clothesline-timeline with their matching date. It went really well

Playing Birthday

2011-05-06T13:06:00.006-04:00

One of Kaitlyn and William's favorite games is to play "birthday". They love to pretend it's their birthday and have a party. They always want to have a cake with balloons and presents. Well, I usually let them pretend to make a cake and if we have some balloons, I'll blow a few up. They'll sometimes get their own toys and wrap them up in paper and give them to each other. It's very cute. Well this morning, because they play this so often, I decided that we'd make our own little mini cakes together. I got out a cake mix and used my mini bread pans to let them bake their own individual little cakes. Since they love "sprinkles", I let them put some into the cake batter before we baked the cakes.

While the cakes were baking we made some frosting. Because the cakes were so small, they only baked for about 20 minutes, and they only took a few more minutes to cool. So we were able to get to work on the frosting right away. They even wanted to put candles on the cakes and sing "happy birthday".

Another fun activity we did this morning -that teaches all sorts of good stuff to little hands and little minds,- was making an owl "softie". I let Kaitlyn pick out the fabric she wanted and then let her trace and cut the pattern peices. Then I sewed it up for her really quick, and let her stuff it. Fun!! I think this little owl looks like "neopolitan ice cream". Kaitlyn has named her "Owlie".

Resurrection Eggs

2011-05-03T08:39:00.028-04:00

On Easter Sunday, the primary children walked through 12 different scenes in the last hours of the Savior's life. After opening excercises, we dismissed the the classes one by one to go out on a "Resurrection Egg" hunt. Outside in the hallway, were 12 giant eggs sitting in front of 12 different rooms (These eggs were huge, like 2 feet long and a foot wide, and they opened up in the middle just like the small eggs) I got them from hobby lobby). The class would go to each egg, one at a time, and open the egg, and then go inside the room to learn about what they found in the egg. Once inside the room, a member of the ward greeted the children by simply reading a scripture. The rooms were set up with pictures and little bit of scenery to help it look like the place where the scripture for each egg took place. Then, each child got a smaller version of the item that was in the large egg to put in their own egg. Each child had their own set of 12 eggs with scriptures on the outside of each egg. They filled their eggs as they walked through the 12 different scenes. Some of the ward members who helped us in the scenes were dressed up. It was very effective, even with the littlest ones.
(The pictures below are the baskets full of the mini versions of the items we had to give to each child. There was of course only one of each of these items in the 12 large eggs outside the rooms. )

1.Matthew 26:36-39:36

2. Matthew 26:14-15
3. Matthew 27:1-2
4 Matthew 27:22-24
5. Matthew 27:28-30
6. Matthew 27:31-35
7. Matthew 27:35-37
8. Matthew 27;50,51, 54 9.Matthew 27:57-60

10.Matthew 27:62-666 11. Mark 16:1-2

12. Luke 24:1-6

(This egg was empty, because the tomb was empty.)

This is a picture of our Bishop in front of the empty tomb from last year when we were able to do it on Good Friday and set up an actual tomb. We even had a CD with nature sounds playing in the background. This year, our Bishop just stood outside with a picture of the Savior and a small tomb that I have from a miniature resurrection scene.

Wild Animal Safari

2011-04-30T11:03:00.012-04:00

Here's some more pictures of us at the Wild Animal Safari. The previous post has more info. We went to the Wild Animal Park on Friday of our Spring Break this year.

Spring Break

2011-04-28T07:22:00.014-04:00

We did a different activity every day of the week during spring break.

On Monday we planted our garden-we got the ground all ready and repaired the frame around the garden and then planted beans, peas, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons and strawberries. The kids had alot of fun helping with that.

On Tuesday, we went on a 2 1/2 mile hike on Pine Mountain -the longest hike we've ever taken our kids on, and they did it! It was a little tough on William. Tom and I had to take turns carrying him, but for the most part, he hiked it. We can't wait until our kids are older and we can do longer hikes.

Wednesday was pool day. We all worked on our pool to get it ready for summer- the kids loved doing that. We got all the leaves and debris out of it from the winter, scrubbed the sides and floor of it, and refilled it. Since it's a big pool, it was a big job, but the kids were happy to play in the water as we did it.

Thursday we went to the National Infantry Museum and walked around it. What an amazing and inspiring place that is. We'll have to take family there when they visit. It's huge and full of all sorts of interesting displays. It was even interesting to William. We loved it and we're thankful to be so close to it.

Friday we went to the Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain. It was better than the Atlanta Zoo! When we pulled in to the parking lot we saw a peacock just walking around in the grass in front of us. He wasn't in a cage or anything, just wandering around. Once we got inside the park, we did what they call the "walk about" where you basically go and look at the animals in their cages like at the Zoo. It was neat, except for when Alan got "sprayed" by the Tiger. Eww. I guess he didn't like us looking at him... Then we went on a "safari" where we got to drive through this 3 mile (I think) land where the animals just roam and come right up to your car window and eat out of your hand! The kids were scared at first when the big cows would come and stick their heads in our car window. But they had tons of fun.

Saturday we went with the Primary in our Ward to the Temple. I already put up a post about that, and it was such a special experience. It was beautiful and even the littlest children in our primary could feel how sacred the Temple is.

Sunday, Alan and I spoke in church. This was Alan's first talk he gave in Sacrament meeting that wasn't part of the Primary Program. He spoke on "Keeping the commandments" He wrote the entire talk himself and included lots of scriptures. Afterwards, he said he was scared at first, but then he said as he kept talking, it became kind of fun! That's my boy. :)

Kaitlyn's class field trip

2011-04-28T07:11:00.004-04:00

Kaitlyn recently got a chance to meet her teacher and other classmates on a field trip to the Columbus Space Science Center. For those of you who don't know, she's enrolled in the Georgia Cyber Academy, and I'm her learning coach. It's a public school and the school sends us all the curriculum materials for free. I really like it because she has a teacher that I can talk with and ask for help with anything we need, but I'm the one who does the teaching. They have outings and "meet ups" all the time. It's perfect for us right now.

Here's a picture of her and William playing with the "mars cars" at the museum. I wanted to get a picture of the whole group, but we had to leave early. There were probably 15 kids there with parents. It was fun.

Valentine's Day at Chez La Rose

2011-04-27T14:20:00.004-04:00

When I was growing up my brothers and I would make dinner for my parents on their anniversary and turn our family room into a private restauraunt. My mom was always in on it, and if I remember correctly it was her idea the first time we did it. It became a family tradition every year on their anniversary. My older brother would make the meal, I would make some fancy looking menus, my other brothers would act as waiters, and bus boys, etc. I have fond memories of doing this.
Now, my own children really love playing restauraunt. They play it constantly and we even have videos of them playing restauraunt with each other. (It helps that their mom makes wooden play food:) So, I thought the perfect thing to do for Valentine's day would be to have them help me make a surprise restauraunt for Tom and I. They loved the idea! We got to work cleaning up the spare bedroom and creating the "atmosphere". We brought an old round table that I dont use any more and covered it with a red table cloth. I bought some heart shaped candles and made up some menus for the new restauraunt, "Chez la Rose". I made the meal, but I let the kids serve it. Tom was totally surprised, and we had a nice (semi) quiet, private Valentine's Dinner. The kids loved it so much they want to do it again another time. I'm sure we will.

Time to catch up...

2011-04-27T14:10:00.004-04:00

To say I've been busy would be... well... repetitive... since I always say I'm busy. But, I think I might've reached a tipping point in the past few months, and the blog has suffered. Which is sad because this is what I'm using as a family journal of sorts. I've started publishing each year in a blog book, and I don't like to leave things out. But, so far this year, I have. So, because I have a lot of catching up to to do, I'm going to post some things that we've done in the past few months that don't really fit, but I don't want to leave them out.

Atlanta Temple Open House

2011-04-12T07:00:00.008-04:00

The Atlanta Temple has been going through renovations for almost 2 years and it's finally finished. This last Saturday we went with our ward to take a tour during the open house. It's was a great experience. Even William was able to stay relatively still and look at the beautiful building. In nearly every room he kept wanting to reach down and touch the white rugs. We let him. Sarah, Kaitlyn and William standing with two little girls in our ward that look like they could be my children too. :)

Making Rainbows

2011-03-25T07:03:00.009-04:00

Kaitlyn has been learning about the weather in Science lately and one of the things we learned about was rain and rainbows. The Georgia Cyber Academy sent us all sorts of good stuff (for free because it's a public school) that we can use to better learn certain concepts. On the day that we learned about rain and rainbows we got to create our own rainbows using a mirror in water. We also made bubbles so that we could look at the tiny rainbows on the bubbles. Another part of the lesson was to make it "rain" by filling a cotton ball with droplets of water until it go so full that it started dripping or "raining". Lots of good hands on lessons. The best kind for little ones.

Here's how to make your own rainbow using a mirror in a bowl of water. You fill a large glass bowl with water then you put a mirror completely in the water. You take a peice of paper and move it around in front of the bowl until the light from the sun bounces off of the mirror in the water and reflects onto the paper. On the edge of the light being reflected, you will see a band of rainbow colors. You can tell your little scientist that rainbows are made when sunlight bounces off of droplets of water. (That's also why you can see rainbows in bubbles.)

Happy Half Birthday!!

2011-03-17T08:36:00.004-04:00

We don't usually celebrate half birthdays, but Kaitlyn and William love to pretend it's someone's birthday all the time, so I thought it would be fun to celebrate a half birthday for Family Home Evening this week. Alan's half birthday would've been February 31st, Kaitlyn's March 8th, Tom's March 12th, and mine March 20th. We played games like "mother may I" and had different kids of races (like somersault races, cottonball races, etc). Then at the end we made a batch of sugar cookie dough and gave everyone their own portion of dough to make whatever shapes they wanted. After that we decorated them and ate them. Yum!

Crazy Raking

2011-03-15T13:27:00.011-04:00

We don't bother raking in the fall because the leaves don't completely fall off of the trees here until it's almost spring. Tom will do one good mow in November when it starts to cool off which will pick up alot of the leaves, but by January-Feb more leaves have fallen and we have to do it all over again. So, last week we had a lot fun raking and blowing the leaves in both the front and back. We did more playing than raking for a while. :)

Dr. Suess' Birthday

2011-03-03T21:07:00.009-05:00

In honor of Dr. Suess' birthday yesterday we ate green eggs and ham for dinner. Kaitlyn read us a Dr. Suess book , "Hop on Pop". (We couldn't find our "Green Eggs and Ham" book) After eating that dinner we have all decided that we like Green eggs and Ham.
The ham was literally "colored" with a green food coloring pen.

Here's my attempt at making green fried eggs.

Car Wash

2011-02-19T11:03:00.002-05:00

Yesterday the kids were out of school and the weather was beautiful and warm- low 70's I think. They were playing outside all day and at one point Sarah came in and begged me to let them wash the van. At first I thought it wasn't a good idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I'd get a free carwash out of it, and it was a chore that I didn't have to try to get them to do. I couldn't argue with that. :)

A song as a game

2011-02-15T09:19:00.005-05:00

Since I have no chorister in my Primary right now, I'm acting as the chorister and teaching the kids the new songs each month. This month the song is "I Will Follow God's Plan". I thought of making the song into a game and tested it out on our family Sunday evening.

I'm not sure if it will work in Primary without a lot of changes, but it was a lot of fun for our family. I made a little "color cube" by taking a little block of wood and coloring the sides of it to match the colors in the game. We used Hershey Kisses as markers and when we got to the end everyone got to eat their playing piece. :)

Please excuse the poor quality pictures, our Family room is dimly lit and we badly need a new camera.

Homemade Rootbeer

2011-02-13T18:22:00.007-05:00

For FHE last week we made homemade rootbeer. We've always wanted to try making it, and for Christmas my mom gave Tom a rootbeer making kit. It was a lot of fun and even though we couldn't taste it for a few days, when we finally got to, it was pretty good!!

The Pledge of Allegiance Song

2011-02-10T12:46:00.002-05:00

I found this song to help teach Kaitlyn the Pledge of Allegiance. Good teaching tool for little ones. I know my genius nephew memorized the pledge at only 2, but we're still working on it here. :) Just thought I'd share what I found.

Clogs from the Netherlands!!

2011-02-07T18:44:00.005-05:00

Tom just got back from a trip to the Netherlands. He always tries pick up something from the country he visits for each of our kids. For Kaitlyn and William he bought some clogs. He got the plain kind so that they could paint their own. Kaitlyn is really sick again, so she didn't feel up to painting today. Here are a few pictures of William painting his new clogs.

Sudoku Sarah

2011-02-05T11:54:00.006-05:00

I found this Sudoku game at the Dollar store. Sarah has been playing it all morning. Good math practice.

And in other news I have let Sarah start her own blog too. I think it's good creative writing practice. So now, both Alan and Sarah have their own blogs. I am not responsible for the content of either blog. :)

For Alan

2011-02-03T10:15:00.000-05:00

New Beds!

2011-01-18T08:30:00.007-05:00

There's a furniture store in town that's going out of business, and we decided to go in and see what they had in the way of bunk beds. Well, we walked out with a great deal on two sets of bunk beds. One for the girls room and one for the boys room. They have book shelves, a dresser, and a desk. Very nice. They've all really loved having their new beds. After we set them up they played on them for hours.

We weren't sure how William would do sleeping in Alan's room in a new bed. But he loves it!! He's had no problem going to bed and staying asleep since he started sleeping in there. Big relief.

Now we have his old room for guests.... in case any of you want to come visit... hint.. hint..

Ice storm

2011-01-16T15:02:00.010-05:00

It rained ice!! Everything was covered in ice, and the kids got 2 days off of school. I thought I'd share some pictures. The coolest icicles were the ones on the leaves that looked like drips of water.

Future Missionaries

2011-01-11T16:48:00.002-05:00

On the first Sunday of the New Year, we were sitting in Sacrament meeting listening to the testimonies, when William decided to walk up to the stand to bear a testimony of his own. He didn't say anything to me before, and at first, when he left the bench, I thought he was just being wiggly and trying to get away from me, so I started after him. But then I noticed he was marching straight up to the stand. I thought he would go to his Dad (he's a counselor in the Bishopric) but he went right past him toward the microphone. Tom got up immediately to help him, but William didn't seem to notice or be seeking his Dad's help. William stepped right up on the little step they have for children, and began to speak. He still doesn't speak too well, so his words were a not really understandable, but he mentioned "presents" and "Thomas", and some other things, and then said, "Amen". After he said Amen he just walked right back to our bench and sat down. He seemed completely confident and unafraid. I was shocked. My little wild one whom we often call "William The Conquerer", who almost never sits still in Sacrament meeting, bore his testimony at just 3 years old.
Then, just last week, Alan got to speak at a baptism. A little boy in our ward who really likes Alan and looks up to him asked him to speak on the Holy Ghost at his baptism. I helped Alan find some scriptures on the Holy Ghost, and gave him some help in writing it, but I don't think I needed to. At the baptism when it was time for him to speak, he confidently went to the podium and shared his talk. It was a very good talk, and a very good experience for him. This was the first talk he's given out of primary, and he did a great job.
I'm so excited to see my kids get older and grow strong in the gospel. It makes me feel really happy to know that they are trying to do what's right.

Christmas!!

2011-01-02T16:45:00.009-05:00

I'm a little late in posting about Christmas because Tom and I have been busy taking care of very sick Kaitlyn and William. They both have been sick since the 22nd of December with high fevers and flu like symptoms. (Kaitlyn still had a fever of 102.8 yesterday. We think it's finally broken today) They were so sick on Christmas Eve that I took them to the Emergency Room. It was a big waste of time because they told us that they just had viruses-with 104 fever in Kaitlyn and 102 in William- it was a pretty bad virus.

While I was at the Hospital with William and Kaitlyn, Tom and Alan and Sarah went over and spent Christmas Eve with our good friends the Ence's. When we got back from the hospital William and Kaitlyn and I were tired and sad and lonely without everyone else. We just ate some food from Burger King for dinner. And if anyone knows me, that is definately not what I would normally do for a Christmas Eve Dinner. :(

Then when Tom and Alan and Sarah got back, we read through the Christmas story in Luke 2, but didn't really act it out like we usually do because Kaitlyn and William were feeling so horrible. Then everyone went to bed and waited for Santa.

Christmas morning was joyful, but Kaitlyn was feeling so bad that she didn't really notice her presents, and took herself to bed after Breakfast. She slept all day with her fever never going lower than 101 even with lots of Tylenol and Motrin-alternating. William was feeling pretty bad himself, but was able to enjoy the morning and presents before taking himself to bed later that morning as well.

Here's a few of the pictures of the day.

Sarah told us that she wanted chocolate for Christmas. She got a one pound Hershey Bar in her stocking, but also this Giant Chocolate Bar Pillow which she loves.

Here they are opening a present from Uncle Mark and Aunt Spring. They got a "Grow a Frog" kit. We'll send out for the tadpole and then we'll get to watch it grow. Thankyou Mark and Spring! We'll keep you posted about how that goes. Here's Alan with his "Air Hogs" Helicopter. That was the main thing he wanted. He was so excited to fly it around the house. Even Tom has had fun playing with it. Alan also got an Mp3 player which has been filled with lots of John William's Music (the composer of Star Wars music, Indiana Jones music, and Superman music) as well as other music he likes. William is enjoying a new dart gun he found in his stocking. He also got a real talking Buzz Light Year and and a Woody Doll. He loves them. Kaitlyn got dress up clothes for her dolls and a super cute and super real looking metal shopping cart by Mellissa and Doug.

Then, later on that night Tom had to go out to get some more medicine for Kaitlyn and William, and when he opened the door, he saw snow falling!! It was the first time any of us have ever seen snow falling on Christmas. It was so fun to see, that we all piled in the van and drove with Tom over to the Wal-greens just so we could see it snow more. Here's our house on Christmas night. Our Santa decoration wouldn't stand up because the snow was so wet and heavy. He kept falling over, so we just left him like that. It was so fun to see snow and Christmas lights at the same time. It only snowed for about an hour, but it was fun while it lasted. It was a happy way to end our Christmas day.

Fun Christmas pillows

2010-12-23T13:54:00.005-05:00

This is a fun little Christmas project we did this morning. I got some felt and some string and we made some cute Christmas pillows. I did the ornament. Sarah did the big tree, Kaitlyn and William took turns making the little tree. It was just simple sewing around the edge, and then we hot glued on the decorations. It was a good project for busy hands.

A sweet gift to give

2010-12-22T13:32:00.006-05:00

A few years ago we received a neat Christmas gift from a friend in our ward. Instead of the usual plate of Christmas cookies and goodies, she gave us a candy house. She told us that when she was little her family would cover a new wooden bird house with candy, and they would eat from it throughout the Christmas season. They could use the house again the following year. So, her gift to us was just that- a candy house- that we've been able to reuse each year.

This year, we decided to do the same thing for our friends who have 8 children in their family. I bought a bird house from Michaels, made some royal icing, and covered it with candy. They loved it!

Ginger bread Houses

2010-12-17T08:40:00.009-05:00

Kaitlyn went to a Ginger bread event at the local library sponsored by the Georgia Cyber Academy (her home school program). Everyone who went brought a gingerbread house they decorated.
We built her ginger bread house around a gold fish box that we cut to make it the right size. After we cut the gold fish box, we measured the sides and top, then made a paper pattern for the walls and roof. Then we rolled out the ginger bread, and put the pattern on the rolled dough and cut out the peices. Then we baked them in the oven, and let them cool. While they were baking and cooling, we made Royal Icing out of egg whites and powdered sugar. Once the peices of the house were cooled, we got to work.
Alan and Sarah also wanted to make a ginger bread house even though they couldn't go the home school event. So after they got home from school, they made their houses too.

Alan's house: Sarah's house:

They're now on display in our house. (Except for Kaitlyn's which we designated as the one we could eat. :)

Primary Nativity Pageant

2010-12-11T11:12:00.007-05:00

The Relief Society asked the primary to reenact the Nativity for the ward Christmas party.
I thought I'd post a few of the photos of the exciting event.
Our primary has mainly 4 -6 year olds, so I needed to set it up in the easiest possible way. I had all the girls be angels, and all the boys be shepherds except for the main parts. I made 3 little "scenes". The stable was on the stage, the shepherds were in the right corner of the gym next to the stage, and King Herod's palace with the wisemen were in the left corner of the gym next to the stage. I stacked up some old room dividers to make the scenes for the wisemen and the shepherds.

Alan and Sarah were Mary and Joseph. They waited at the back of the gym while the Narrator -(an 8-yr-old in our primary with a very expressive reading voice)- began to read in Luke 2. Mary and Joseph walked from door to door in the gym looking for room. They finally came to the door in the right front corner of the gym where the innkeeper was waiting. He shook his head when they came to the door, but then pointed to the stage on the stable indicating there was room there. Here they are looking for room: Here they are in the stable on the stage. You can see the Narrator next to the piano, and I'm sitting at the piano. Then, "nearby" in the fields, the shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night, when the angel of the Lord appeared to them. No one had a speaking part except for the angel. She was a girl in our senior primary who is going to be 12 in a few weeks, so she said that she could memorize the angel's part. She did a great job.
Then, suddenly, there was with the angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and singing. All the girls in primary were angels, and they sang the chorus to "Far, Far Away on Judea's plains". Kaitlyn is first angel on the left.This next picture is of the shepherds visiting the stable. The star is a Christmas tree star I put on the top of some PVC pipe. Our primary Secretary is an artist, she put make up on the shepherds faces to make them look like they had beards. I also got some large plastic candy canes for the shepherds to use as shepherds crooks.
On the left side of the stage on the floor was King Herod's palace. After the shepherds came to the stable, the Narrator read in Matthew 2 where the wisemen came to King Herod asking where the "King of the Jews" was born. Here's King Herod pointing at the star and telling them to follow it.

Santa? Did you come to the park?

2010-12-08T10:31:00.006-05:00

We went to the park on Monday and had a nice lunch, and then walked around and discovered all sorts of fun things. Kaitlyn is at the stage where she's putting sounds together and starting to read. So, as we were walking around, I'd write the words of some of the things we were finding in the dirt. She loved discovering the words and reading them. At one point we decided to walk along a dried up stream bed. As we were walking, we saw some animal footprints. We thought they were dog prints at first, but then when we looked closer, we saw that they were deer prints.

Kaitlyn immediately thought they were Santa's reindeer prints, and we had to follow them to see if we could find him. We didn't find Santa, or his reindeer, but we had alot of fun.

William's 3rd Birthday

2010-12-05T19:22:00.007-05:00

William's Birthday was on a Sunday this year, and he and I were both sick with pretty bad colds. So, we had a nice little family birthday. We had meatloaf for dinner (one of his favorites), and after dinner we opened presents. He got a toy helicopter and a fire truck. He loves them.
For his cake, I decided that I would let him decorate it himself. He loves to "help" me cook, so I thought he'd really enjoy doing his own cake. He helped me make up the cake batter, and got to put the food coloring in the frosting. Then, when it was time to decorate it, he was ready. He had fun pouring on the sprinkles-mainly all in the same place, but it was so much fun for him to do it with out anyone correcting him or telling him how to do it.

Here he is happy with his masterpeice:Daddy helped him cut the cake.

Here's a video of our goofy boy blowing out his candles:

Stuffing

2010-11-28T06:38:00.008-05:00

I have memories of making old-fashioned sage dressing/stuffing with my family the night before Thanksgiving. We'd get out the celery, the bread, the butter, the onion, the sage, and all work together to put it together. My mom would get out the large stainless steel bowl to fill it with stuffing, and large frying pan, then we'd get to work. This is a tradition that I like to continue especially since we've never had Thanksgiving with my mom in the 13 years since we've been married.

Here's what we do:

First, we'd put two cubes of butter in the frying pan:

Then we tear a whole loaf of bread into peices. William and Kaitlyn had this job, mostly. Then we'd chop up an entire bunch of celery and one large onion. Sarah chopped the celery with my help, and Alan chopped up the onion with Tom's help.

Then we'd sautee the onion and celery in the butter until the onion was clear and the celery was soft. Then we add 2-3 TBspns of sage and some salt and pepper to the pan and mix it with the onion, celery and butter. Then we pour the frying pan mixture into the large bowl of torn bread and mix it all together. You put it in the refridgerator until ready to stuff the bird.

I know it may not be the most exciting recipe, but it's tradition, and being so far from home, I'm very thankful for family traditions.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Family Home Evening

2010-11-22T20:35:00.008-05:00

For FHE tonight we learned about the first Thanksgiving. We sang Hymn number 93 "Prayer of Thanksgiving" and then we watched "William Bradford: The first Thanksgiving" from the animated Hero Classics. (You can click on the picture and it will take you to the listing for it on Amazon.com for $10.50)

After that we made "pear turkeys" and "plymouth rocks".

Here's our "Plymouth Rocks" made from nuts, marshmallows and melted chocolate:

Once there was a snowman?

2010-11-11T10:26:00.007-05:00

This morning Kaitlyn was playing "monster" with William, and pretending that there was a scary monster in the Family Room. I didn't like her scaring him, so I told them that instead of a monster in the family room, there was a snowman. They liked that idea and began to build a snowman out of the pillows from the couches. Soon Alan and Sarah came in and helped to build the snow man...er um... the "couch" man. So here he is:
Here's couch man with a white blanket on him to make it look more like snow. He's also decked out in a lei, backpack, and Sarah is fixing his "tu tu" :

Alan decided if the snowman was going to have a tu tu, then he needed to have a light saber too. It's a little hard to see, but it's on the left :

The boys at bedtime

2010-11-07T06:16:00.002-05:00

Everynight at bedtime after family prayer, William races to Alan's room to play before I can get him and put him into bed. I took this video back in June or July, but they still like to do this before bed. It's very cute.

October 30th Halloween

2010-10-31T18:37:00.012-04:00

The city of Columbus designated Saturday the 30th from 6:00-8:00pm as the official "trick or treating" time. I find this fascinating that the city would actually dictate a day and time to go Trick or Treating, but I guess it's because we live in a small city in the South. Well, for whatever reason, it was nice because we wouldn't have gone out on Sunday. Tom and I actually thought people wouldn't be "trick or treating" last night because it wasn't the actual day of Halloween. We told our kids that if no one else is trick or treating then we won't go either, but as soon as 6:00pm hit, our neighborhood was swarming with costumed kids!! It was crazy!

So here's some pics of the night:

Here's our ghost lights on the bushes.

We spray painted Sarah's hair black and I let her put make up on.

And the biggest suprise is.... Alan was another Star Wars Character!!

Kaitlyn the dragon slayer from "How to train your Dragon"

Riding the wagon as we go trick or treating. William loved being Buzz light year. He wore a costume I made for Alan several years ago.

Here he is trick or treating

William and the Worm

2010-10-29T12:36:00.002-04:00

Ok... call me crazy, but....

2010-10-28T13:34:00.007-04:00

...I got a little tired of sending Kaitlyn to a kindergarten where they had no recesses, no free time (unless you call turning on cartoons and making them watch free time), no self-directed learning, just 6 1/2 hours of worksheets and discipline. She was so stressed out that she was getting really bad stomach aches everyday, and playing "school" in an intense feverish manner whenever she came home, and crying all the time.....

So, I talked to her teacher. She said that she'd love to be able to slow down and do more developmentally appropriate practices, but the things they're forced to do make it nearly impossible to do kindergarten the way she'd like to. HUH?

Unfortunately this is not the only school in Columbus that is like this. We left another school years ago because of the very same problems. ...

It's like I stepped into a parallel universe where it's ok for children to be yelled at, and ordered around and humiliated, and where all tried and true developmentally appropriate practices for teaching children are completely thrown out the window.

....So (and here's the part where you'll probably call me crazy), I brought her home to do Independent Study through Georgia Cyber Academy-AKA-Home school. It was the hardest decision I've really ever had to make, and over General Conference weekend, Tom and I were fasting and praying a lot. We got the answer that she should come home.
Since she's been home with me she's made lots of progress, she's learing things that she just couldn't get before, and she's so much happier. So for now, she's home, ... and some times, I call myself crazy.

Finally! We can go out doors!!

2010-10-16T19:10:00.004-04:00

Well now that summer is over we can go outside without melting our faces off. So, we've been taking advantage of the cool 80 something degree weather we've had this weekend. Here's Alan reading a starwars book that Grandpa Rose got him. Grandpa Rose has been visiting this week. It's been nice.

Here's Kaitlyn and William watching "Shelly" our snapping turtle enjoy the great outdoors.

Dancing in Pajamas

2010-10-12T08:12:00.004-04:00

Sarah had hooked up her mp3 player to the stereo in the family room and was playing Highschool musical songs. I was out of the room, and when I walked in I saw William "dancing". Then in came the other crazies in their pj's. It's always a party at the Rose home.

Fall project

2010-09-26T18:48:00.009-04:00

Yesterday we decided it was time to decorate for fall. It's been depressingly hot all month-the high 90's even into the 100's some days. ... I was really hoping it'd be cooler by now, but I got tired of waiting for it to feel like fall and we decorated anyway.

Inspired by some Halloween napkins in our box of Autumn decorations, I got out the "mod podge" and some jars. I gave them each an old paint brush and told them they could cut up the napkins and decorate the jars anyway they wanted. They had so much fun!

Here's a picture of the secret ingredients:

Here are the jars drying:

Kaitlyn's Lengthy Locks

2010-09-13T08:33:00.006-04:00

Kaitlyn's hair grows really fast, just like mine. It had gotten so long that it was causing some problems for her. . This is her hair caught in the curtain on our side door. I'm not sure how this happened. Tom was the one that got her out of this mess. I would've just cut her hair to get it untangled, but I didn't. Last week though, I finally cut it. We forgot to take a good picture of her new hair cut, but here's a picture of her at her party. I cut over 1 foot off. She doesn't mind at all because it's not as hot and it's way easier to brush and wash.

Kaitlyn's 6th Birthday Party!

2010-09-11T21:43:00.010-04:00

Kaitlyn had a teddy bear birthday party today. A few weeks ago Kaitlyn said she wanted her own stuffed animal. I told her that she had plenty, but then I realized that all the stuffed animals in our house originally belonged to Alan or Sarah. She didn't have one of her own. So, we decided to have a "make your own teddy bear" party. I found this place online that makes teddy bears that you stuff yourself (waaaaay cheaper than "build-a-bear"). The bears are 14" long and all come with their own adoption certificate, heart to place in side, and stuffing. It was at http://www.buildables.biz/ if anyone is interested. ..... Anyway, we had a ton of fun at our teddy bear party!!

Here's Kaitlyn coloring on her bear's shirt, with friends stuffing their bears in the background:

Here you can see one of the bears after it was stuffed, along with the kids coloring their bear shirts.
Kaitlyn opening her presents:

Enjoyting cake, ice cream, and pink lemonade:

Here's the Birthday Cake!! The "fondant" is not really fondant, it's just marshmallow cream and powdered sugar mixed together until it became a dough. Not the greatest to work with for covering a cake, but nice for making little teddy bears!! The teddy bears had some powdered unsweetened cocoa in them to make them brown,.. the chocolate made them taste awesome.

Happy 6th Birthday Kaitlyn!!

Cupcakes for Kaitlyn

2010-09-09T10:07:00.008-04:00

Yesterday was Kaitlyn's 6th Birthday. We'll be having a party for her on Saturday, but I took cupcakes to her class yesterday for fun. I made cupcakes in mini ice cream cones and I tried to frost them to look like ice cream cones. I guess I didn't use the right tip because as I was frosting them, I noticed they looked more like pink flowers in a flower pot than ice cream. So, I added some green leaves, and took the potted flower cupcakes to Kaitlyn's class. Everyone loved them!! I also decided to make a little wooden cupcake for fun this morning as well. I used food coloring to stain the wood for the first time. It worked really well. William has been having fun taking the candle and the top off and on all morning.

The big 1 1

2010-09-04T07:36:00.005-04:00

For Alan's 11th Birthday party, he wanted to just invite a few friends over to play some video games and have pizza. (At our house, the kids only get to play video games once a week on Saturday, and only after their chores/homework/piano practicing are done. So it's a big deal to be able to play video games in our family) I was more than happy to agree to that party idea.

It was the easiest birthday party we've ever had. Because he's 11, I don't really pay attention to what he's putting on, and I didn't notice his fashion choices until after the party had started. Oh well.

He got a U-Command Wall-E, which is basically a robot that he controls with a wireless remote. He was so excited to get it. He's wanted that since Christmas.

And of course it wouldn't be Alan's Birthday if there weren't something resembling Star Wars. He asked for a cake that just said "Star Wars" on it. Funny. But it's so Alan.

Activity Days video!

2010-09-01T05:11:00.002-04:00

This a video we did to help the 8-11 year olds in our primary accomplish one of their goals in theif Faith in God books. Part of the goal was "Tell a story from the book of Mormon that exemplifies faith in Christ". We decided it would be fun to make a movie!

Dancing Teddy Bears

2010-08-19T10:55:00.002-04:00

Sarah likes the "player piano" feature of our piano. She tried to see if she could make her teddy bears dance while sitting them on the moving keys.

Big Boy Lessons

2010-08-12T08:23:00.003-04:00

William likes to color... everything.... paper, rugs, beds, walls... I realized that just telling him "no" or having him go to the corner when he did it was not working. So when he recently colored on the wall in the family room I gave him a sponge with soap on it to scrub it off. I think he understood why he was doing it, and if he does it again, he'll have to clean it up. And in other news... William started wearing underwear this week. He loves it and he has been going to the bathroom everyday since Monday. He even stays dry at naptime! We're still having a little trouble getting to the bathroom on time with "number 2", but he at least tries to get there. Having only underwear on and no pullups really helps because he doesn't like to be wet. YAY!! We're a diaper free home!!

1st Day of School!!

2010-08-09T13:32:00.004-04:00

Today was the 1st Day of School. Kaitlyn was so excited that she's been counting down the days for weeks!! As per our tradition, yesterday evening they all recieved a "Daddy blessing". When the blessings were done for the big kids, William got on the chair and said, "my turn" so he got a special blessing from Daddy too.

Here they all are in their uniforms ready to go. (William had to be in the picture too of course) Kaitlyn starts Kindergarten today!
Sarah starts 4th grade!!

Alan is the big man on campus this year in the 5th grade. He prides himself in the fact that he could be the oldest kid at the school since technically he could be in the 6th grade.

(his birthday is one day before the cut-off, so I kept him back in kindergarten so that he wouldn't be the youngest).

Breakfast with Sister Parks

2010-08-05T20:16:00.002-04:00

Our friend Christie parks likes to come over to visit and play with our kids. She's the Primary Chorister in our ward and loves children, but can't have any of her own. This morning she came over and had breakfast with us. She brought her own special batter for waffles. She had the kids help her make it. They had lots of fun. She also brought some fruit to put on the waffles.

It was a delicious breakfast. Thanks Sister Parks!!!I love William's morning hair.

Fruit pizza and homemade ice cream

2010-08-02T12:57:00.005-04:00

One of our new favorite desserts!! We put sugar cookie dough on a pizza pan and cooked it. Then covered it with frosting, then covered it with fruit. We did the ice cream the old fashioned way-without an ice cream maker. We placed the ingredients inside a plastic jar, made sure the lid was tight, then placed that jar into an even bigger jar. We put ice and rock salt around it, then closed the lid on the bigger jar. Then we rolled it back and forth to each other in the kitchen. It took about 30 minutes of rolling back and forth. We sang songs as we did it. It was fun and yummy!!

Alan's letter to the tooth fairy

2010-07-26T10:58:00.004-04:00

Alan has been losing alot of teeth lately. He has 3 teeth with stainless steel crowns. When he got them put on it cost over $200. I guess he heard me talk about it before, and so this was the letter that went under his pillow with his tooth. The tooth fairy gave him .50 cents. :)

UPDATE: Alan just corrected me, he said the tooth fairy gave him $1.

Pioneer Day

2010-07-25T14:04:00.004-04:00

Last week much of my time was spent getting ready for the Pioneer Day Ward Activity that the primary was in charge of. We haven't had a pioneer day acivity for our ward or even stake in years, so I thought it would be nice to do something this year. You can see what we did on the primary blog I write by going here: http://www.edgewoodprimary.blogspot.com/

I made bonnets for Kaitlyn and Sarah and myself. Sarah is wearing hers with the front flipped up.

Normally you might think that we'd have a pioneer activity outside, but it was sooooo hot! It was over 105 degrees outside and the humidity was so much that not even the air conditioning could get rid of the "stickiness" in the air. Anyway, we had fun-about 80 people came a very good turn out for our tiny ward. The activities were making butter, hoop racing, and making a ward quilt. I also made a giant map of the pioneer trail and put it up on the wall. We all had a good time, but even today, a day later, I'm exhausted.

Museum Mayhem

2010-07-23T09:16:00.005-04:00

We went to the museum yesterday to play in the children's section.Kaitlyn dressed up.One of their favorite places is the light blocks area. They all have fun building with the clear colored blocks on a light table. One room is covered in chalk boards. Kaitlyn-who doesn't know the order of the rainbow, decided that she wanted to put the colored chalk in "order". I didn't notice what she was doing until she was done. I asked her if any one helped her with it. She said "no". She's such a little artist that she saw how the colors would naturally change from one to another. She's been drawing people with faces, hands and legs since she was two,

but I've kind of forgotten how artistic she was until I saw this.

Library trips

2010-07-19T07:42:00.003-04:00

We go to the library every 2 weeks to check out new books. We have a really big city library with a huge children's section that my kids love. When we first started going, William was so excited with all the room in the library that he'd run around like a crazy boy. So I would put him in our toddler hiking back pack. That made it alot easier, except for the back pain. :/ Anyway, William the conquerer has finally learned that the library is not to be conquered, and he stays with me when we go-mostly.

Watermelon seed spitting contest

2010-07-15T09:26:00.003-04:00

Our friends the Holloways came over yesterday to play and have lunch. They have 8 children in their family, so it's always a party when they come.

We're starring in a new "Star Wars!"

2010-07-13T14:16:00.003-04:00

A little too big too see it all, but I posted it on Alan's blog and facebook too.

The Fantastic Fourth

2010-07-08T08:45:00.005-04:00

We had a two day 4th of July celebration. Since the fourth was on a Sunday we did our big barbecue on Saturday. We had our good friends the Ence's come over and enjoy the day with us. Then on Sunday we went to their house and spent the afternoon after church with their family of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandpa, grandma etc. It was nice since we're never with family on the fourth, they were kind of our surrogate family. In the evening we went downtown with them to watch the fireworks.
Here's some of the kids enjoying the fire works. Although Sarah looks like she didn't expect to get her picture taken.

I've always wanted to make one of those flag desserts, but I've been soooo busy these days, I didn't want to work too much on the holiday. So I just made some jello with fruit in it, then covered it with whipcream and made it look like a flag with blueberries and strawberries. It was yummy, and not much work. Here's a video of the "pop-it's" festivities.

And this next video is my favorite. When we went to the fireworks down town, William immediately began to climb the wall that was in front of us. He would run across the wall and yell as if he were doing some sort of warrior cry, then jump off into the grass. I wasn't able to capture him yelling as he ran, because he was focused on going to see the ants at the end of the wall, but he does jump at the end with his little warrior yell. It's so funny because we've never heard him do that before.

Sarah Rose, runway model

2010-06-29T21:34:00.004-04:00

Sarah had Activity Day Camp last week. On the last day they had a "modest" fashion show. It was very cute to see the girls model modest outfits. Some modeled dresses, while some like Sarah, chose to model casual wear. He she is a "blur"on the runway. She was a little embarrassed and so she was walking really fast. My cell-phone camera was all I remembered to bring. :( Here she is standing in front of her outline that she colored at the camp.

And here is the classic "Sarah being annoyed by her little sister" look. This is a look that we see often between the two of them. Most often when we are in public. Sarah gets really embarrassed by her little sister. (Sigh) She acts like a teenager more and more every day. And yet she's only 9!

Alan's Major Award

2010-06-21T11:46:00.003-04:00

Alan is now a featured artist at the Columbus Museum for his drawing of....The Columbus Museum. He said he only had one day to draw it, and he would've colored it if he'd been given more time. He thinks he might've won 1st place if he'd colored it. He won 2nd place in the "ARTiculate" contest. He competed with children from schools around the city. He's very excited, especially because he won a $15 gift card with it.

Alan's first business venture

2010-06-16T11:26:00.003-04:00

Alan designed these puzzles. He drew out these little dinosaurs and then I copied them onto the wood and cut them out for him. He wants to see if they will sell. He's so excited about it. So I listed them on etsy. If you click on my shop to the left, you will see them up for sale.