Soccer Saturdays

If you're the little brother who is missing a nap to go to watch your big sister play in a soccer game, what are you going to do to keep entertained?

Of course, you're going to eat ALL of the orange sections that your sister's teammates didn't eat during half time. It took him all of 5 minutes to finish them off. (We brought the oranges to the game.) His sister scored 3 of the 4 goals that her team made.

Sabrina's Birthday Dress

In our hurried preparations to get out the door for our trip to Utah, combined with Roderic spilling water all over himself while buckled in the car, we left our camera, video camera and laptop cord at home. Thankfully, family members took pictures of the baptism with their cameras, but I don't have any of the after baptism pictures taken. These were taken by Ryan last Sunday, when I said that I wanted a picture of Sabrina in her dress.

Wearing the CTR mood necklace from Aanja and the Baptism bracelet from Sister Rogers.

"Two Lots"

Roderic has discovered that with his mastery of letters, numbers and colors at a young age, he can become lazy in his replies when anyone asks him a question of how many. His reply? "Two lots." Which means "There is more than one, but I don't want to take the time to properly count them and tell you the number." Example: "How many crayons are in the box?" "Two lots."

Crisis Mode: Trip to Utah

So, I'm not following correct protocol on the day before a trip to Utah. I should be faithfully checking off my list of things that MUST be done before we go on our trip tomorrow at 12noon. Instead I want to brag about the dress I made for Sabrina. (At least the clothes are being washed now.)

In February, I took Sabrina to a fabric store to pick out fabric for a dress for her birthday. I've discovered over the years that if I don't have her choose the fabric, she doesn't seem to like the item that I've sewed. I steered her towards a beautiful display of crushed velvet-like fabric and she chose cream. They had blues, pinks, purples and greens also. I explained to her that the cream fabric would be see-through and asked if she'd like to choose a different color. She really wanted cream. So, I came up with a compromise: have the dress be 2 colors! She chose blue and cream.

Before being able to begin sewing, I needed to have my sewing machine tuned-up, so I took it into the shop and they wanted it for 2 whole weeks. Luckily, it was the 2nd of March when I took it in, so I had time to wait - although it was painful to wait. When I got it back on the 16th, other things had become priorities, so I barely got to it last week. Sewing every possible moment this week, and I finished it yesterday afternoon! I think it is the most beautiful dress I've ever made for Sabrina. She tried it on (to check the hem length), but I didn't take any pictures. So I'll have to post one after her baptism.

Now its off to finish packing, cleaning, etc.

Green and Purple Pancakes

A few days ago, I was telling my family about a St. Patrick's Day Breakfast treat that the Kellis Family tried this year... Green Pancakes. Ryan must have been intrigued and thought it would be good for an April Fool's breakfast, because this morning I awoke to green and purple pancakes. They tasted delicious!
And this is not an April Fools Joke!

Conference Preparations

In order to have a more enjoyable General Conference Weekend where conference is not broadcast over the radio, a few things must be planned in advance.

Things we did wrong yesterday:
1) Malauna was sick all day on Friday, so dinner didn't get made on time, the kids didn't go to bed until late, then Hyrum was up cranky a lot of the night, so we didn't get out of bed until after 9 am.
2) Lunch was not ready to eat right at 12 noon.
3) Fondue Party preparations were not finalized. i.e. Malauna had to go to the store at 4:45pm to get whipping cream, caramel sauce and angel food cake.
4) All the yard work that Ryan has wanted to do for weeks was not able to be done (and next weekend we'll be out of town!)
5) Dinner was not ready to eat at 5 pm - Ryan hardly got a bite before leaving with the neighbor for the General Priesthood session.
6) Due to a late wake up, another late bedtime - at least we didn't have to bother with Daylight Saving Time. ;)

Even with all of this room for improvement, the spirit was strong in our house during the conference sessions and I did really like that. Roderic would shout out any time he heard the words "Holy Ghost," "Book of Mormon," "Baptism," or "President Hinckley." I was able to finish cutting out the fabric for Sabrina's birthday dress. Sabrina was able to make progress on her Fourth Article of Faith cross-stitch. And Ryan did some good work on our computer.

Today went much better.

Puke

The hardest/worst part about being Mom is PUKE. Watching children puke, cleaning up puke, having sympathetic puke. It's just no fun.
Roderic started this episode on Sunday morning - a day when we were having some good friends over for dinner. Luckily, my darling husband, Ryan cleaned up his puke. We were hoping for one and done, but it was not to be. While Ryan was getting ready for church, Roderic puked and I got to clean it up. I got to attend sacrament meeting with Sabrina and Hyrum, and then shortly after Ryan left for church (he got to go to Priesthood meeting) Roderic puked again. Our friends still came over and Roderic really wanted to eat so we gave in - NEVER DO THIS UNLESS YOU WANT TO CLEAN UP MORE PUKE - and let him eat some of the food for dinner. Right at the end of the meal, he puked again, but at least this time it was in the bathroom so cleanup was easier, and Ryan got to do most of it.
Monday morning all was fine and no puke. I thought we were done. Wrong. Today Sabrina complained of an upset stomach - but it didn't come to a head until after swimming lessons. She took a nap and afterwards, puke. At least she is almost 8 and can carry a bowl around and make it to the toilet as well. She's now puked 4 times in 2 hours and Roderic, not wanting to be left out, puked again about 20 minutes ago.
...Hyrum's spit-up is starting to smell like puke.