Happy Mother's Day!!

I love flowers. Tom knows I love flowers and that I'm just as happy with a beautiful boquet of flowers as with a present. He ordered the "Delux Hugs and Kisses" boquet from Proflowers.com, and it came on friday. It was so beautiful. This picture doesn't do it justice, but I love it.

Candy Roses and Daisies

Tom was conducting in church yesterday, and so he was trying to think of something to give to all the moms. I had been making some Hershey Kiss Roses as presents for the ladies I visit teach, and I suggested that I just make a few more for the ward. I also thought of another idea for peanut butter cup daises. I bought some mini PB cups, and some mini Hershey kisses, and I wrapped the mini kisses in foil so that hey looked like normal Kisses. Then I poked a wooden skewer through the PB cups and the kisses, and wrapped them in plastic wrap. Finally I wrapped them up in florist tape and put a plastic leaf around then with the florist tape. They turned out really nice. We had more than enough. Our ward is tiny, and we only had about 20 ladies there yesterday. But I had fun making the flowers anyway. And my kids and I didn't mind eating the extra ones.

Dreaming of Sharing Time...

I was in charge of sharing time yesterday, and the monthly theme is "Heavenly Father planned for me to come to a family, I can strengthen my family now". A few days before I dreamt about doing a sharing time based on the story of the Liahona and the journey to the promised land. I dreamt that I had made a game called "Journey to a happy home" and that I made a little spinner chart for them kind of like the Liahona. It's the first time I've ever had that happen before. As I was preparing sharing time, I decided to go ahead and use the idea I dreamt about, and it worked. I talked about how the Liahona was the compass that told them how to get to the promised land, and it only worked when everyone in the family was being good. It stopped working when Laman and Lemuel tied up Nephi, and so when some of the family were being wicked, the whole family couldn't progress on their journey. Our families are the same. We are all working to have a happy home, and progressing to return to our Heavenly Home together. The Holy Ghost is our guide and will direct us home as long as we have the spirit in our home. The spirit cannot be there if some of us are not living the way we should.

In the game, the kids spun our little "Liahona" and it landed on a particular color with a particular picture on it. The color matched a spot on the game board that I had up on the chalk board. We talked about the picture on the spinner, and then moved a game marker on the board. As we progressed along the colored squares, we talked about how to strengthen our family. It was really good. (The music notes were for singing songs that went with it)

Mother's Day Picture Frames

After our lesson/game of "Journey to a happy home", I got out some little wooden frames that I had ordered from my wholesale wood supplier, and let the kids decorate them for a mother's day present. At first, I had thought about having them paint on them, but I kept having the feeling that wasn't the right thing to have them do. The thought came to me that the primary closet would have some things do decorate the frames with, and it did! There were magnets in the closet that we stuck to the back of the frames so that they could stick to the refridgerator. There were also foam stickers from a prior primary activity that the kids could decorate their frames with. Crayon's worked really well on the frames too. It all worked out perfectly!!

Butterfly Ball

Kaitlyn and William and I just went to Sarah's class for her "Butterfly ball" I was asked to read a story to the class to start out the ball. It was called, "Hurry and the Monarch". It was a cute little story about a tortoise named Hurry, and a Monarch butterfly. The kids were very attentive, and I asked them questions throughout the story and let them share a little bit about what they had learned in their butterfly unit as we talked about the story. It was really fun.

After the story, another mom had the class make a butterfly snack. They spread peanut butter on two slices of apple for the wings, then put a pretzel stick in between the apple slices for the body. Then they decorated the "wings" by putting m&m's on the peanutbutter. It was very cute. The picture is another snack that a mom gave them.

We got to look at the work that they had done for their butterfly unit. One of the things I thought was neat was the "butterfly in the cacoon" project they made. They colored a paper butterfly and put it on a popsicle stick, and then decorated a toilet paper tube as the cacoon. They rolled the butterfly up and slid it inside it's cacoon. Very cute.

Scripture Heroes

Alan was in charge of Family Home Evening tonight, and he wanted us to make balloon characters of our favorite scripture heroes. We filled the balloons with flour so that we could squish the faces around and make different expressions. We also used embroidery floss for the hair.

Alan was Captain Moroni and he told how Moroni asked the prophet Alma for help in knowing what to do in the war.

Sarah was 1st Nephi, and she told about how Nephi was tied up on the boat for 3 days and recieved strength from the Lord. Kaitlyn also wanted to be 1st Nephi because she wanted to be like Sarah. Tom was King Lamoni who repented after he was taught the gospel by Ammon and then became a good King. I was Hadessa who changed her name to Esther and became the Queen and saved her people from being killed. It was a fun little night making the balloon people together and sharing the stories. We had the most fun making different faces with our little people and laughing at them.

Little William is 5 months old now!!

I can't believe how time flies. He's getting so big, and so heavy. At his last Doctor's appointment he was 17 lbs. He wears 9-12 month sized clothes. He's rolling over and of course putting everything in his mouth. He's a joy to have around.

Sarah's Butterfly Project

For Sarah's homework this week, she had to look up a specific type of butterfly and make something to show what it looks like. She decided to do the "Blue Morpho" butterfly. So we looked it up on the internet, printed out a picture of it. I decided to cut her a mini puzzle and let her paint it. I got out some nice shades of blue paint and just let her half fun.

Here's the finished puzzle. You can't really see it, but I engraved "Sarah Rose" in the bottom of it with a little rose next to it. Sarah really liked that.

Half Dozen Cousins

Alan, William, Alexander

Robby, Kaitlyn, Sarah

These are just the cousins on the McGiffin side of the family. My brothers are finally married and catching up with us in the kid's department. (The Rose cousin count still have the McGiffin's beat by far. My kids have 13 cousins on the Rose side of the family. )

Strawberry Jam

Kaitlyn and I made strawberry jam yesterday. The first time I ever made jam was with the Griffin's when I was pregnant with Kaitlyn. They took us out to a strawberry farm, and we picked them, then came back and made a big batch together. It was so much fun, that I decided to do it every year after that.

This year I didn't pick the strawberries like we usually do, because it costs more in gas to go all the way out to the farm than it does to buy them here in the grocery store.

So, we washed the strawberries, cut them, and put them in our huge pot. Then I got out the potato masher and let Kaitlyn go at it. She had a great time. We both got strawberry juice all over our clothes, but it was fun. An hour later, we had some yummy jam!

Planting the Garden...

Every spring I have high hopes for a garden that
we plan and plant. This year I have two garden spots because I wanted to be able to plant everything. My goal is to be able to grow enough food that I can can use some of it for food storage. I've really been thinking about the neccessity of food storage lately. I want to try to turn our tomatoes into tomato sauce and salsa. I want to be able to pickle our carrots, and can our green beans and peas. We'll see if it works this year. Last year it was so hot, and the drought was so bad, that I had to let the garden go because we weren't allowed to water anything.

Kaitlyn enjoys playing in the dirt as she "helps" me in the garden.

The sprinkler does double duty as it waters the garden, and provides a great place to play!!

Check out my Slide Show!

We Love The Ocean!

Alan on the beach playing, with Tom and Kaitlyn in the background contemplating the waves.

Pictures of our Room

Here's a few pictures of our room. It was called a condo, but it was very small for a condo. The front room was nice with a sleeper couch
(that we didn't use) and a view of the ocean. The kitchen was very small, but it was big enough for us to save money making our own meals in it. The bedroom had two queen beds, and a nice bathroom with a double vanity.

Playing in the waves

This is another picture you'll have to click on to get a better view. Alan is on the right running from the waves, and I'm holding Kaitlyn on the left just getting hit by one. Kaitlyn for the first 2 days of our trip called the waves "wales".

Tom holding William at the beach for the first time

Flying Kites on the Beach

Tom and Alan let nearly all of the 200ft string out when flying a kite on the beach. We actually had two of them, but the strings crossed, and one of them broke off and flew away. It was so windy that there was no way we could get it. That's ok, because we still had the one flying really high. The best place to fly a kite is definitely at the ocean!!

Here's another picture of Sarah in the Sand in front of our umbrella. I'm holding William safe in the shade. Like all the pictures on this blog, you can click on it and it will get bigger so you can see it more clearly.