Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Habits

Our Stake Activity and here's my Rebecca helping me out by colouring all my Habit signs we made for the doors! We were working with Stephen Covey's son Sean's book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. We asked 7 different people and couples to come up with a 15 min. presentation and it was so fun to sit in on them and see all their different ideas. We had Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, Put First Things First, Think Win/Win, Seek First to Understand then to be Understood, Synergize, and Sharpen Your Saw.

A big thank you to all our presenters..... I think they all felt their last presentation was much better than their first but that's what happens when you give the same speech 7 times!!! They really tried to make it fun for the kids, with games, props and keeping them involved. We just hope they had fun and learned lots.....


Vanessa's friend Sophie came along!The only one missing was Theresa who had to work because Melissa was here too......


Just loved Melodie and Mikael Lamb who presented theirs on a survivor theme! ( I had a little trouble grasping it since I never watch Survivor!) They started with this crazy game, assigned everyone a tribe and then they had to work as a team to get everyone through these ropes as many times as possible without touching the ropes..... the kids loved it and it was neat to see them working together!

Don loves being with the youth so here he is with his bunch, he went along with every presentation as well, it gives you a real feel for what's going on. I think this is what I admire about him the most....his total involvement......when I am off chatting with the adults Don is out there with the kids talking, playing, listening and teaching, he just really loves them and wants to be with them. I don't think he realizes how special he is to them.....
My partner in crime......I just love Nadine Edis, sometimes you just find someone that you just click so well with! Nadine is one of my "kindred spirits" as Anne would say. How lucky is that and we even get to work together......I am so happy to be secretary to her President (she is the Vernon Stake Young Women President right now!)

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Clutter is really not conducive to creativity.....

I thought you might like to see where I work sometimes, this is my craft, scrapbooking, sewing and creating spot. It is more often messy than not, I like to work in order but find it counterproductive to put everything away when I haven't finished a project yet! The problem is I take too long to finish projects.....this is the little music dress I have been making for a couple of weeks for Vanessa's piano teacher's new baby ( Mitchell took the picture for me, which is why it's down going up!...lol).

This area is found in our downstairs family room, the theory being I could be creating while my family was watching TV....which would work if I would get to it more, instead of being lured by a good book to my bed!! My little shelf which you can't see reads,"Creative Clutter is Better than Idle Neatness!"....which I believe somewhat but I'm finding that I really don't work as well in clutter or disorganization! As well, I really need to take a picture of me at the computer, because frankly I spend more time there!!

Have to admit, I'm always surprised by people who say they are bored at home...I always have so many projects, books, chores and things to do! I am so grateful that I have been able to be a stay at home Mom and that Don has been so supportive of me!

Have a great day, I'm off to organize my Stake YW Secretary Binder which really needs it because we have a huge youth activity in Vernon today, we are having workshops on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.......

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Young Women in Excellence

Melodie is our Young Women Secretary right now and she and the presidency put together our Young Women in Excellence program last night. They did a wonderful job! They asked each parent to compare our daughter to a flower and list some of her attributes, have to admit it wasn't easy and had to really think about it. We came up with "SUNFLOWER" for Vanessa because she is so bright, cheerful and fun. ( I say WE very loosely because Don took one look at the sheet I was supposed to fill out and said: "You women are wacked........no way would we ever put ourselves through that!!......to which I wanted to reply, that's why you marry us, because we actually brighten your dull, dreary life, but I restrained myself!!) I was amazed at how many flowers were out there, there were only a couple duplicated and when you think we have about over 20 girls........
Kind of funny because I took one look at this display and thought to myself, this would have looked much nicer with flowers!!......then they proceeded to put flowers in the flowerpots while they were giving the talks on the 7 values!! The presidency went to a lot of work, they had to try and find all these flowers. When asked if they wanted to put on a program for the boys, Don said yeah.......only we're comparing them to ROCKS!!! lol..........


Here's our cute little Vanessa holding her sunflower! She had to run over from school because she just finished basketball practice, she is trying to make the senior team now that she is in Grade 11.

My two beautiful flowers!!

Rebecca will be here next year.........sure miss Danielle!!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Creamy or Crunchy?


Decided to add a light hearted post... thinking of what we do every day and this caught my eye!! We love peanut butter in our house...... funny but lately I have had a craving for peanut butter and molasses! We used to mix these together when I was a kid and spread it on toast (not sure why, were we out of jam Mom?) and I haven't had it in years when all of a sudden I tried it again and now am having it every day. It has a wierd taste I guess, none of my kids really like it, they just laugh at me (never mind that they eat jam and cheese whiz, shudder, shudder) but it brings back memories.... maybe I am missing something nutrionally that I don't know about!
My family has been not been happy with me....... they all love crunchy peanut butter and we have 3 big 2kg. jars of creamy on our shelf (Costco had them on sale, what can I say..... like I'll miss that kind of deal just because it was creamy!!!) so I listen to a lot of grumbling every time they break out the peanut butter!

Friday, November 16, 2007

My To Do List

When I opened up my blogger the other day they were talking about a to-do-list blog and I went and took a look at it, it was such a hoot! What was funny was that many of the items on her survey I actually do with my own lists, like write it in pen even though I'm a computeraholic, and writing things down that I've already done so I can cross them off triumphantly! I don't write in code on my daily to do lists but I do on my grocery lists and I definitely feel better if I have written a list and actually accomplished some of the things on it. I didn't always keep lists, it's just been in the last few years that I've been more regular......flylady has made a big difference. So I guess I've evolved into a listmaker and like it about myself. Don't keep one everyday but I would say 4-5 days out of 7 I do. I'm especially grateful for them on days that I have a lot to do, they really help me stay focused and to remember things I would forget otherwise.
So here is a sample list of my daily life:
  • Newspapers (I deliver papers every morning)
  • Scriptures
  • Lunches (getting everyone out the door with a lunch)
  • Dishes (cleaning up kitchen)
  • Exercise (just putting it down every day makes it look like I'm trying!!)
  • Laundry (starting a load of laundry)
  • Shower
  • Blog (as you can see by its scarcity this is another one that I write down to remind me that some day maybe I'll do it, it happens in fits and starts kind of like my exercising!!)
  • Supper (at least looking at the calendar to see if I can start it)
  • Email
  • Don's Business Books (this gets shuffled a lot!)
  • Sew dress (I am working on a little baby dress for Vanessa's piano teacher, found the cutest black material with treble clefs all over it!)
  • Phone calls
  • Mail letters
  • Vacuum main floor
  • Clean bathroom
  • Lunch duty (which I do every other week at Parkcrest)
  • Bank balance
  • Stake meeting (once a month in Vernon, since I'm the Stake YW Secretary that means doing whatever I have put off and preparing agendas)
  • ETC

That's looks totally crazy......... like I said this is my ideal list, I am just happy to cross some of them off!! My first ones are ones I do every morning, the second half is the one that changes depending on the day. Also this is basically what I try to take care of while everybody is gone to work or school, I will add to my list if I have specific things at night like a PAC Mtg, piano lesson, or dance class but big things that I know I'll remember (like dinner out with Don!!) I don't always write down.

So there you have it, a day in my life........Wonder what this will look like when I'm 80!!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Puzzling Together


We just finished a puzzle that Tim and Danielle sent home with us. It is a "Wasgij" puzzle, in other words the picture isn't on the front of the box, the puzzle is what the people on the box are looking at! It was crazy and we spent about 3 days on it.... I just needed to get it done because I was hooked every time I sat down! So when the kids came home from school everybody worked on it and we finished it!

I was pretty impressed with Mitchell and Brayden (Mitchell's friend) who for 2 little 8 year old boys were pretty amazing because they sat and worked on this for about 2 hours! Brayden does puzzles at home obviously! They had such fun and really did find lots of pieces.

I love puzzles because it brings back wonderful memories of my Mom and I working on puzzles together! It is such nice family time and I can remember spending hours with Mom just talking while we did puzzles...... she heard all about Don and then some when I was home for the summer engaged to him but oh so far away! So puzzle time is family bonding time.......

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Mitchell's Sick Day last week!

Well here is Mitchell home from school last week! He woke up with a stomach ache and said he didn't feell well and wanted to stay home. So I had to include the pictures of what he did that day, sick at home! I let him watch some TV in the morning but then they have to nap after lunch, I really don't want home more fun than school. Anyway I think he got a little bored because he roped me into a game of Jumping Monkeys.......he won of course, seems to me the rules kept changing!

Here he is hiding in his box house. He ended up playing with our cat, Ginny and then decided this would make a great cat house. So he trucked it upstairs and put her basket in the house. Now I have this big box in my kitchen, arghhhh that is going to be hard to get rid of!!!! Let's not count the huge box in his room as well.......
So why do we buy them expensive toys?
Last of all he ended up in the tub.......and was in there for a good long while. When he came out he was prune man so we took pictures of his wrinkled hands! Not sure he actually used any soap, sigh, oh well at least he's cleaner even if he doesn't smell squeaky clean!
I sent him to school the next day, that's it, no temperature then you're off!!!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Calgary Weekend

Don and I just returned from a quick weekend in Calgary. We really wanted to visit with Danielle and Tim because we hadn't seen them in a while so we decided to leave Friday right after work and then come back Monday. It was tons of driving because we also picked up Danielle and drove down to Cardston for a visit to the temple on Saturday. I wasn't thinking though because I hardly took any pictures and of course thought of it just as we were leaving! Since Danielle and Tim had just got up they really didn't want any pictures taken of them, surprise, surprise but I did get some of Don and I!

Here we are in Canmore where we stopped Friday night. The mountains are soooo beautiful (not our car!!) but driving in the dark we didn't get to see much.

Behind me are the mountains called the Three Sisters, we have a beautiful picture of our older three girls in front of it when we stayed with the LeMays who used to live in Canmore! (I need to scan it and put it on my computer!)


This is Monday morning at Tim and Danielle's apartment before we left. Danielle has beautiful framed pictures all over! She gave me a great 5 ingredient recipe for chili, easy.... just the kind I like. We also learned how to play the Settlers of Zarahemla while we were there. They are great game gurus!!!

On the way home Don and I hit terrible wind storms and then snow storms. These pictures were taken at Rogers Pass on Monday..... there was very little snow when we went through on Friday so they must have had lots over the weekend. So glad Don was driving!!!

We were so grateful to have Terry, Mary and Kevin Smith (in Salmon Arm) take our kids for the weekend. Mary had her two little grandsons over so Mitchell was just tickled to be an older brother for a few days. Apparently Kevin, his dad Terry, and Terry's Dad all went goose hunting and they took Melodie with them.......she didn't really want to shoot so she ended up being the retriever and had to go get the geese after they had been shot. Then she and Vanessa spent several hours helping by plucking the feathers and down off of them. Quite the experience for two town girls!! Now they know why as a country kid growing up and plucking chickens on the farm I am happy to go and buy them from the store!! When we drove in Monday afternoon, Kevin happily suggested rides on Charlie his horse, even in the rain. They too had a really fun weekend.





LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...