Time Out for Me and a Primary Program

This last weekend (Friday night and Saturday) I went to Time Out for Women with my mother-in-law and some of her friends. It's kind of like an EFY for women. I've never been before, but I'm so glad I went. And boy did I want to back out on it this last week! If I hadn't already paid $47 to go do it, I probably would have too. Ric encouraged me to go do it, but then it turned out that he had a camp out with the young men Friday and Saturday... during my thing, of course. So I had to get babysitters, which is always a pain - and I'm cheap so I hate paying for babysitters (Especially when all they seem capable of doing is sitting my children in front of the t.v. from the moment I walk out the door until bedtime - forget putting away the dinner, clearing the dishes, or picking up the toys!! - Argh! This is my latest pet peeve.) Anyway, Friday night Sheri Dew and Wendy Watson Nelson spoke. That was fabulous! Sister Nelson spoke on our roles as women. Some of my favorite thoughts from her were: "Stop trying to make your husband into your girlfriend.... Just enjoy him being a man." "If we could look at our 'premortal DVD' for just ten minutes and see who we really are, all of our present problems would fall away." And, "We, as women, need to be hyper-vigilant about who comes into our homes - through cell phones, movies, t.v., music, and so forth." Sister Dew spoke about the power of influence. She talked a lot about how we need to go to our Heavenly Father and plead with Him for an understanding of who we are and what it means to be women of God. And then once we have that knowledge, go and find every teenage girl you can and teach them because they're not getting it from anywhere else. Teach them through the way we dress, how we act, and what our priorities are. Also, "[Living the gospel] is not always easy, but it will be much harder if we don't." Quoting Elder Jeffrey R. Holland at a funeral, "Sometimes we act as though we are going to stay here and we aren't and we can't and we won't." Saturday was Hillary Weeks, Mary Ellen Edmunds, S. Michael Wilcox, Emily Watts, and Kris Belcher. They were also powerful speakers and I learned a lot and really had my cup filled. Yesterday was the primary program at church. I didn't really think of it as a big deal, but my mom had asked me just last week when it was because she wanted to come see Stratton, so I told her and my mother-in-law about it. Well they both came, as did my dad and one of my brothers. It was fun to have them there. And can I just say, from a completely biased perspective, that Stratton was absolutely adorable! He sat up there with the rest of the sunbeams, just grinning away, totally thrilled to have such a captive audience. Oh how I love that big sunshine smile! And, due to our small primary, he had three speaking parts. Even though he couldn't really see over the podium, he said them just fine. And Creighton was absolutely enthralled with watching his big brother up on the stand - he was standing up on our laps with big grin on his face, pointing and saying, "Bubba! Bubba!" over and over. Lots of fun. I sure love my boys!

Halloween and Since

Well we survived Halloween! Now we just need to survive the sugar shock. Creighton was a cow. It's his favorite animal sound to make (consequently, most animals "moo" in his book). I made his costume and thought it turned out rather cute - even if it was a bit simple (sticky felt white spots on brown clothes, a tail and ears out of felt, and hooves from that craft foam stuff). I'm glad Creighton's costume wasn't too difficult to bring together because Stratton's costume totally overshadowed everything else - and everyone else around.

Stratton was Bumblebee, the Transformer, and Ric spent hours last week working on it! And to tell the truth, I don't know who was more excited about it - Ric or Stratton! Ric went and got some commercial styrofoam and cut it with a hot wire to form the body of the car. That was glued and screwed to a diaper box that Stratton wore on his back like a backpack. When he went down on his hands and knees, the sides of the box fell around him, encasing him in the car shape. When he stood up, I had made him a chestplate and armbands and drawn the transformers symbol on a foam helmet, so he looked like the robot. It was pretty impressive. Everybody had to see him transform and talked about how ingenious Ric was in making it - major payoffs for all the time spent on it. I don't know how he'll top it next year! (I'll try to locate some pictures.)

I was a cracked egg. I think Ric was embarrassed, so I didn't make it a really obvious costume. I just wore black sweat pants, a white sweatshirt and drew a crack around my pregnant middle, and made some felt chicken feet and taped them to my shoes. A few people asked what I was and even fewer got it after I said something. I thought I was funny... at least my family appreciated my creative sense of humor!

I don't know if it's that pregnancy nesting instinct hitting me early or if it's just that I can no longer stand my cluttered house, but I have been working quite earnestly at organizing this last week. Today I tackled my bedroom closet - the small one, and minor parts of the walk through one. I also finally cleaned off the top of my dresser. Of course as a result my children and the rest of the house were severely neglected and the damage they did probably negated all my work in my bedroom today, but at least my sweet hubby was impressed when he got home!

I'm reading a really good book right now: The Undaunted by Gerald Lund*. I had to be on a massively long wait list through the public library to get it and it's a rather daunting size (802 pages), but I started it yesterday and haven't been able to stop thinking about it and am about 200 pages into it. It's an historical fiction about the story of people who settled Lake Powell area, which was evidently an extremely challenging location. I'm excited to learn more about it. In addition, it's kind of fun to let myself get swept away in an 800 page novel now and then - a rare treat!

*I have a huge respect for pioneers and love reading about this topic. Gerald Lund has also written other books on this subject that I really enjoy. Also, one of my other all-time favorites is A Lantern In Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich.