Gardner Village...

Last week I invited some friends to go with us to our annual visit to Gardner Village to do the witches scavenger hunt and get a cookie.  It's much more fun to go with other people.  The families we invited all have kids the same age as mine (Sara is older than all of them, but she's still friends with them so it worked).  It was really fun.  We need to have more outings to get us out of the house.

My newest toy..

If you'll recall a few months ago I was putting link on my blog to try to win one of these.....

 A Silhouette SD craft cutter machine.  Well, that picture was taken in my front room with MY Silhouette SD hard at work cutting some vinyl.  I WON one!!!  It sat in my room for a couple months waiting until I had time to get it out and figure out how to use it.  I finally decided to pull it out when I really wanted to cut some cute cupcake wrappers for my sister's bridal shower. 

 

It was awesome!  I uploaded a cupcake wrapper template into the software, loaded the paper into the cutter, pressed cut, and voila!  I had some super cute cupcake wrappers for her shower.  It was so easy and made the cupcakes look so cute.  I forgot to take a picture of them all done and decorated, but here's a picture of the cupcakes without the frosting but with the adorable wrappers.

Then I was dying to see how it worked cutting vinyl.  Once again, I uploaded the design I wanted, loaded the vinyl into the machine, pressed cut, and here you go....

 Just a little bit of added decoration on top of a mirror in our living room. (Don't worry, I painted the ghost onto the mirror for Halloween.  It will be washed off after the holiday and repainted for Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and so on.)

I'm so excited to get some more vinyl projects done I already have in the works.

A small review...

Holy cow!!  It is so easy to get behind.  We haven't had much happening, hence the blogging break.

We had a great bounty one day from our cherry tomato plant.  Only Ben and Sara like tomatoes in our house and Sara absolutely loves them so she was really excited we were able to pick so many for dinner.  Even though I really dislike tomatoes, these look really good - nice and round and red. 

Three weeks ago I hit my toe - hard - on the washing machine while I was doing laundry.  I mean hard.  I honestly thought I could have broken it.  It hurt so bad I crawled up the stairs to get the phone and called Ben at work just wanting to talk to him and secretly wishing he would come home for a little bit.  Sure enough, five minutes after I hung up he was coming in the door.  (It's so nice having him work so close.)  He made me sit down and elevate my foot and put on the TV for me to watch.  Then he left and came back with a book from the library. What a good man!  

It's not the best picture, but you can kind of see the big bruise on the right side of my foot and the swollen toes.  It has now been almost 3 1/2 weeks and I still have a hard time wearing certain toes.  I had to walk around barefoot in primary because I couldn't wear my Sunday shoes comfortably.  I'm glad it's getting better but I wish it would just heal completely.  It's really annoying.  Who knew being a housewife could be so dangerous?

Last week Miles must have been really tired.  It was 6:30 and I was just reading to the kids on the couch.  He laid down on the floor and stayed there for about 20 minutes before he fell asleep.  The kids were even running around and being their normal loud, crazy selves and he still just laid there following them with his eyes. He was too tired to even lift his head.  I wish he would sleep in past 6:30 am.  He obviously needs it!

Validation...

Conference this weekend was wonderful!  Even though I don't always get to hear every word said do to having four kids needing to be taken care of as well, it's nice to be able to listen to prophets and leaders of the church.  There were a few things in particular that stood out.  Number one being the concept of "courageous parenting".  There have been times when people have thought of Ben and I as "closed-minded" (and told us) or people who think we are too careful or whatever about the things we watch, listen to, see, hear, etc. and the things we let our kids participate in as well.  And times when the kids have been disappointed and I had the thought, "Is it really that bad to let them do?"  I don't remember the person who gave the talk, but he talked about having the courage as a parent to do what you think is right no matter what others say or how upset your kids might get at you - being a courageous parent.  This gave me a phrase to put into my mind when I need a little reminder that I shouldn't give in just because others don't like what I'm doing - or not doing.

Along those lines, someone (maybe the same guy, maybe someone different, I don't remember) also talked about supporting your spouse in decisions.  He talked in particular about video games and how the wife didn't like them and would often hide the controllers but the husband wouldn't listen and kept getting them out for the kids.  Ben looked at me and asked if there was anything I didn't agree with that he was doing.  There wasn't/isn't, but in the past I think we have subconsciously been living by this guideline (I can think of atleast one time) and supporting each other (in righteous decisions) even if we don't full-heartedly agree.  There was some good validation for me.

The third one would be the talk by Larry Lawrence.  Ben and I have always thought we wouldn't let our kids have sleepovers.  But I knew it might be hard when the kids get older and have more opportunities for sleepovers to stick to the rule.  It is still going to take some "courageous parenting" when the kids beg us to let them "just once".  But, now we have a talk from conference we can pull out and show them "NO SLEEPOVERS".  I usually just thought about it as avoiding something bad happening TO them.  But I had a "DUH" moment during the talk.  It's not just other people doing things to them, but them doing things.  Being home with the family will help them be safe.





All this probably doesn't make sense.  It's just the musings going on in my head that I wanted to get written down for my own sake.  I got validation that even though there are days I feel like the worst mom/person ever and I haven't done one thing right, there are some things I am doing right.  I love the November and May ensigns and love rereading the talks and can't wait for this one to come.