Valentines is in the air...

Well really I am not a big Valentines day person. I don't need all the flowers and candy stuff. But I saw these fun Valentine treats and wanted to try and make them. Mike also thought they were fun, so he pitched in and helped put them together. When I saw them, they used an ice cream sundae glass but we didn't want to have to buy them. But we had these glasses that we have not used. So we thought we'd try it out. This is how they turned out. I think they are pretty cute. These are some of the things that I am trying to fill my hours with now that I am graduated and just waiting for our little girl to come.

More fun pics!

Brody is just so fun and entertaining. He always keeps us on our toes with different things he likes to do. So here are some of the things we were able to catch in picture...

Brody is beginning to really know what to do with his clothes, can't you tell. ;-) He thought he was the funniest person around. He just laughed at himself all night.

Brody loves ravioli... He will eat every last bit of it, even down to licking the plate. And this is how he usually looks after eating it. He is always so proud of himself. I did have to give him a bath after he ate, I couldn't get all the sauce out of his hair.

So we usually keep the bathrooms all shut and with the child proof doors. I guess the door was not latched all the way. He was, one minute playing in his room while I was doing some laundry, the next playing in the tub with all of his bath toys and no water. He was having a blast!!!

Oh Boy!

Our Happy Helper...

Brody is getting so big and wants to be involved in everything we are doing. The other day I was trying to sweep and he kept grabbing for the broom and just yelling at me because I asked him to go back into the living room, at that time I did not realize that all he wanted to do is sweep. So I finished up and gave him the broom and he started sweeping with the biggest smile ever. And every time I would point the camera at him he would stop and say cheese... So needless to say this was the best picture I got of him sweeping. Hopefully soon I will not have to do it at all because he will always want to do it, for awhile at least.

Our creative little guy...

Brody also loves to draw and write. One night I was sitting at the computer which is now next to our bed and Brody wanted to be on the computer and I just needed to finish what I was doing. So I put him on our bed so I could finish, he wasn't having any of that either. So I gave him a pencil and paper and he laid back on the pillows and began to create. He was so into his drawing that he even talked to himself. He would stop look at the paper and then add more to it. I didn't think about taking a picture of what his creation was, so you will just have to imagine what an almost two year old could possibly draw.

Great Big Bro...

Brody is going to be a great big brother. We babysat cousin Isabella one morning while her mom had an appointment. Once Aunt Kathy and Uncle Jeff left I was holding Isabella and Brody wanted up in my lap. Well that doesn't work very well right now since I am huge. So I told him to sit next to me on the couch. He climbed up and held his arms out like he knew what to do. He wanted to hold the baby. So I put her in his lap and he just sat there holding her with a proud smile 0n his face. I am sure this is what he will want to do when his little sister comes.

72 hr kits

Mike and I are the emergency preparedness couple for our ward. For the past year we have been teaching every 5th Sunday on something to do with emergency preparedness. It has been a fun task to do. We of course are probably the ones that learn the most from this calling, and we love doing it.

Mike has really used his organization skills to put together a ward emergency plan. It is using what the stake is putting into place, but adding his own flare to make it fit our ward situation. Our ward is unique due to the fact that our entire ward is comprised of several apartment/condo complexes. This makes it a little difficult, for example it would not be only one family displaced by a fire, it could be anywhere from 6 to 10 families displaced. So it has been a lot of work to get things started and on its way.

But this last Sunday we were trying to think of what would be a good thing to teach on. We feel we have touched on a lot of stuff and were struggling to know what to teach on. So we decided to teach on 72 hr kits. Side note: we did decide on this before the disaster that hit in Haiti. So we had used our resources and found a few people that had theirs put together and had them explain what they did to get theirs ready. It worked great. There were all different stages of personal kits put together.

A year or two ago Mike’s mom gave us food for our 72 hr kit. So we tucked it away and really forgot about it, until this lesson. Well come to find out that ALL of the food had expired and many of the items had exploded. Whoops!!! So we had decided to save some money to get everything back in order. We really thought it was going to take a ton of money to get it all back together. We were pleasantly surprised…

This is the outline that we used to put together our food part of the kits…

72 Hour Emergency Food Pack

Day 1

Breakfast: granola bar, hot chocolate, orange juice
Lunch: 2 beef jerky, trail mix, fruit cup
Dinner: ravioli, crackers with peanut butter, fruit snack, bottled water
Snack: gum, candy pieces

Day 2

Breakfast: instant oatmeal, hot chocolate, orange juice
Lunch: 2 beef jerky, crackers with peanut butter
Dinner: ramon noodles, apple sauce, bottled water
Snack: gum, m&m’s

Day 3

Breakfast: granola bar, hot chocolate, orange juice
Lunch: 2 beef jerky, peanuts, fruit cup
Dinner: cup of soup, crackers with peanut butter, bottled water
Snack: gum, candy pieces

MISC: emergency blanket, tooth brush, tooth paste, 6 spoons

Of course you can change things around and make it fit your own families, but this was simple and so cheap. Each bag only cost about $16. Not bad at all, I know. We have to finish getting everything else in our 72 hr kits. But we have food at least.

Well I hope that everyone as some plan together for their families needs in case of an emergency…

Can I get a Woot Woot!!!!

Well, with the time and credits I have spent on getting my diploma I probably should have come a way with triple majors. But that is not how it worked. I only have one, and that is OK by me because I am now finished. I really couldn't be more ecstatic with just finally finishing. I really have a love for learning and enjoy taking classes. But I really hate writing papers and taking test. On that aspect I am glad I am done. I will have to find other ways to fulfill my love of learning and being active. I already have lots of ideas of what I want to do to keep me busy.

Oh and yes I am very proud of myself... And oh so humble too...

Christmas

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Well, we had a great Christmas together with family… We spent Christmas Eve with Mike’s family and enjoyed the company of his family.  Brody loved being able to run and play with his cousins and smile at his brand new cousin Isabella, this might be fun to explain to him.  He now has cousins on both sides now that go by Izzy.  He is pretty smart he should catch on fast. 

Brody loves playing the piano! He would quietly sneak away and next thing we all heard was the piano.  So this will be fun when we move in with my parents in June.  There will have to be lots of patience as we teach him he can’t always play the piano.  He also found he has a new love of drawing on the chalkboard.  He got real angry when I had to take him away so we could go home. 

I do have to admit that this Christmas was even more fun with Brody. His face was priceless each time he opened a new gift.  He even gave the best smile when he opened up his new PJ’s before he went to bed on Christmas Eve.  He was so inquisitive about all that he got.  He wanted to play with each thing he opened before he would touch another gift.  It was so much fun.  Mike and I wanted him to go faster than he did.  I’m sure this is going to change when he gets older and it is a race to open all of his gifts, and all I want him to do is slow down.

On Christmas Day we had lunch with my aunt and uncle and their children.  Always fun to be with family…  Brody again loves to run and play with all of the other kids. 

On a more spiritual side, we also wanted to start our own traditions with our little family.  So we tried to think of things we wanted to do.  This being difficult because Brody is still young and does not sit for long or is too young to really get into things.  We decided this year to try and read Luke 2, it was helpful that we had a picture book that had the pictures of the story.  He loved the pictures and had no idea about the story.  We of course will keep trying to find the traditions that will work for our family. 

It was just great to be together.  That was truly our favorite part. 

Getting Christmas Up!

This year was a blast with putting up Christmas! Brody wanted to be involved and help with everything. And we all know that this made it a little more difficult to get things done in any kind of timely manner. But he had so much fun, how could we pass up all the smiles and laughter we saw and heard? He even helped with putting up the lights he didn't know what to do with that and finally handed the lights back to Mike. We had our Christmas music going and we all sang and danced and had so much fun!!!

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