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!)

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.......

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!!

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!

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!!

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.......

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!!!

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.

Babysitter Extraordinaire

I know Vanessa is looking pretty calm and relaxed here but she had some crazy happenings last week and all while she was babysitting! The first one took place a week ago Wednesday when she was babysitting for the Noble family. Their son Kent (who is 9) has diabetes and she noticed that the site for his pump had come off, he told her that happens sometimes but he couldn't put it back on himself. She phoned his parents on their cell phone but couldn't get through so then tried a few friends she knew with diabetes and they both said it was probably okay as long it wasn't too long. Kent's blood sugars are supposed to run around 5-7 and they sometimes go higher his mom told Vanessa.......absolutely call us if they get up to 18. So Vanessa played with the three kids (2boys and a girl) and then got them ready for bed. While putting Kent to bed she told him that maybe they should test his blood sugar levels........ they were 31.5... so she was definitely worried and when she asked Kent he said YES, that was bad!! She kept trying to reach his parents and couldn't..... so she called 911 and they said they would send an ambulance (she asked them to send it quietly, lol) right away. Then she called us and I drove over...... to be with the kids or to go with Kent. The paramedics were wonderful, they can't give insulin but they took Kent's vitals and talked to him and decided to wait for his parents..... Vanessa was doing fine when I got there, calm but worried how the Nobles would feel! They rushed home when they got the message and Diane gave Vanessa a great big hug and told her she did the exact right thing!!! My only regret is that I didn't get a picture....... isn't it awful, it was the first thing I thought of but then didn't because I thought it might be tacky. Next time I'll just do it.....

Sooooo........ two days later Vanessa is babysitting for us when we went to Seattle for a temple trip. She had her friend Theresa come over and was waiting for her friend Sophie while Mitchelll and his friend Brayden were playing downstairs. When the doorbell rang she answered it thinking it was Sophie....... in walks this little old drunk lady in her pajamas and bare feet, she hands Vanessa her purse, lays down on the couch and goes to sleep! So you guessed it....... Vanessa has to call 911 again!! The police came, took the old lady into their car, asked Vanessa if she wanted to press charges and she said No........ 5 minutes later (whoever is in the area responds) an ambulance shows up and the paramedics come to the door! Yes, one of them was the same one who had been at the Nobles...... Vanessa laughed when she saw her and said, "Yes, I'm having a bad week!"

We couldn't believe it when we came home........in all my years of babysitting I have never had to call 911, I told Vanessa and here she had to twice in one week!!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful day.......well I cooked all day and the kids ate it all up in about 15 minutes! We also had Vanessa's friend's Theresa and Sophie over and our missionaries Elder Magnusson and Elder Seitz. The sister missionaries came over a little later and so did the Lamb family. We played soccer and had lots of pie!

The Big Arm Wrestling Championship!
Mitchell loves having older boys around to wrestle with, his sister just aren't as interested....here he is with Steven.

Summer is Slipping Away

Well the summer is going fast again! We spent the afternoon in the pool yesterday.....had a bunch of teenagers over so that kept it loud and fun! I like to get in if its really hot out and if the pool is warm enough........I know really picky but I don't like a cold pool and I don't like being cold getting out, sound pretty spoiled don't I!! As you can see the kids have no such reservations, they just love it.........cold or hot. One of the things I love about Don is that he just gets right in there and loves to be with the kids! He had yesterday off work so he was right in the pool, cannonballing, back diving and having a ton of fun with the kids....... and they are just right there with him. I had fun trying to take action shots but most of them turned out blurry, got a few fun ones though........
Kathy is visiting right now, so will have to get some pictures! She took us to Minos (wonderful Greek restaurant) and The Bourne Ultimatum last night......
And the best part of the summer was.........you guessed it, reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows together as a family, of course some of us cheated and read ahead but we won't name names but ........still, we all LOVED the book. We will miss Harry but look forward to reading about him all over again........

Memories of Dad

Clayton Stamper.......November 9, 1928-July 17, 2007

I haven't written in a while.....I've been finding it difficult! I've been wanting to sit down, find some pictures and include some memories of Dad, but knew it would be hard. Am sitting down today missing Dad as I go through all these pictures........will also include these on facebook, if anyone out there has more will you please post them! I thought my family especially might like to see some of these. This is one I found of Dad and Lee! This is a really old one I found that was taken in Moncton when Grandmaman Aurelie Granger was living with us.... This is Elder Bjorn and Elder Smith with our family at Billy's baptism, one of the few of our whole family......the only one missing is Eddie.......sorry Ed! This is one of my wedding pictures with Dad, this was taken in front of the Washington Temple on August 16, 1985. It was a beautiful day! Here is one with Dad at the hotel with Don and I.
This is Dad with Vera, Don's Mom. They were both visiting for Thanksgiving and decided to give us a hand in the kitchen, like I minded.........happy to have them take over. They did quite well together considering they were both chefs and not used to being the sous-chef, I just remember it was a wonderful dinner. We were living in Lethbridge in our first townhouse, we would have just had Danielle and Melodie then. Here we have one of my few family pictures, Josee's family was with us and Dad and Bill were visiting as well. All these babies are just big kids now! This was a trip I went on with Dad to Nauvoo, Illinois in May of 1990 with Danielle and Melodie. It was pretty fun, we left Don at home in Lethbridge because he was in the middle of finals and went and visited all the LDS historic sites in Nauvoo. I am including some that were taken at Ted's wedding to Page in May of 1998. I really think this is one of the last ones we had taken together of our family........actually it will be the last one we ever have.........hard to believe it....... Dad and Lee........Ted had a medieval wedding theme!......I'm sure Dad loved it, he was a Lord of the Rings fan and I think one of his favourite characters was Gandalf! So the chance to dress up and be Gandalf for the day would have been fun..........

Dad and Lee were visiting with us a few years ago and I took some pictures up on top of Kamloops, here is their yorkshire terrier that had only 3 legs (I've forgotten his name, will someone let me know.......)

Dad was the traveller, nothing he liked better than driving somewhere! I think that's why we moved so many times. It helped in these later years because we would usually see him every couple of years even if he lived in Oklahoma because he would make the 3 days drive! He loved to visit and especially loved to come in fruit season, one year he picked 9 buckets of cherries off my tree all in a couple of hours, I had to tell him to stop! There was nothing he liked better than to pick apricots off the tree for breakfast to go with his coffee!

We will all miss him.........but I am sure he is in heaven driving somewhere! My heart goes out to my family and to Lee as we all go through this tough grieving time. No matter how prepared you think you are, it doesn't seem possible that we will never see Dad again in this life...........how can he not be pulling up in my driveway one last time...........

Rough Day........

DAD died last night.......... can't believe he's gone. We all knew he was so sick and thought we were prepared but I don't think anyone really is. I miss him. Wish I could say goodbye one last time...........love you Dad.

Stake Young Woman Camp 07

We had Stake Young Women's Camp this last week and what a blast! We arrived last Tuesday and were there until Friday morning! Here it is Monday morning and I still think I haven't caught up on the sleep I missed! We had 83 girls registered and about 20 leaders there. Hectic but so fun and lots of wonderful friendships forged and strengthened.

Nadine Edis is our President and Ladene Rempel her first counselor. Carma Hughes her second counselor wasn't able to make it and I serve as the Stake YW secretary. I sure love these ladies, they have been such a wonderful example to me! I even love our meetings (that I have to drive an hour and a half to get to) because I go away feeling spiritually fed, nourished and strengthened. I think the sign of a good friend is that they make you want to be better.........and these two ladies sure do that for me. They are kind, insightful, patient and so friendly! I am too often impatient and dictatorial..........so I am hoping their patience will rub off on me. I think that one of the best parts of this camp was the wonderful visits I could have with the sweet ladies there. Woman talk!!.... it will keep me going for a while!

The different wards were asked to come up with a skit for one of the nights......and the girls were such a hoot! All kinds of ideas....... the girls in green laying on the grass in this picture are a RUG! Vanessa is the coffee table! Don't ask...........Our mess hall...........meal times were pretty noisy and busy........the worst part was that crazy song they sing when they catch you with your elbows on the table! Many girls were running around the cook house because of it!

Always lots of games, here's one of their clapping ones..........

Ladene and I were asked to take all the girls pictures looking like this so we could put them in a pretty shadow box.........so 83 pictures later!!!!! Of course, the hardest one was my own daughter (surprise, surprise) because Vanessa didn't want to take her hat off!

Our nature hike was walking along the beach, problem was some of it we actually had to walk in the water.....it actually ended up being fun! Refreshing and good to be in the water!
Here I am with my only young woman right now.......my sweet Vanessa! Have to admit sure miss my three girls being along.......nice to know Rebecca will be here next year!
I was glad Melodie was able to make it up on Thursday! She has been called to be the Young Woman secretary in our ward.......so she came as a leader! Have to admit, kind of funny to us, not so much to Vanessa!
I am sitting with Carol Jensen and Kailey Pinegar after our hike. Carol was our second in command with Sue Ferguson as our Stake Camp Director. They were so enthused, bubbly and organized! They worked soooo hard. Kailey here is our new young woman president and she did a wonderful job at camp! Really spent some good time with all the girls, so wonderful with our Gina and was our lifeguard for most of the swimming........not only that, she just told us she is pregnant so I think lots of this was done while she was tired!!

Here are some of our young women canoeing.......have to admit, canoeing is one of my most favourites! I just love being on the lake paddling slow (no tipping Brittney and Taryn!!!!) and just enjoying being in the great outdoors.

Makes it all worthwhile for me! Almost as fulfilling as testimony meeting! I feel so blessed that each of my girls stands up every Sunday and recites the Young Woman's theme which says that they are daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves them and they love Him and the values they believe in! I was so thankful for all the wonderful people that put time and love into making this happen. It was a wonderful camp!