Hot Glue and Egg Nog French Toast

I love finding things that are (1) easy, and (2) make me happy. Here are two recent ones:

Egg Nog French Toast

from pinch of yum

I don't know why I've never heard of this before, but, why not?!

We ate our raspberries the day before :)

so we had fresh squeezed orange juice syrup (google it - it's easy and delicious) with pomegranates on top

I LOVE pomegranates at Christmas!

They're so pretty and yummy.

I discovered the joy of decorating with hot glue

for stockings!
Genius!! It took seconds to hang stockings that had no room to be hung.
and peels off easily afterwards.
(Also used it to hang red ribbon wrapped outside around a pole. Handy stuff.)

What else should I use you for, glue gun?

I carefully decorated our quality Walmart-for-20-bucks-10-years-ago tree

and then the kids improved it.

It's pretty much magazine quality. :p

(They love hanging their ornaments.)

Happy Day!

Christ in Christmas - Scripture Putty

I love the idea of making Christmas Eve about Christ

and Christmas morning about Santa.

When we read the scriptures we've been playing with putty. It is a great quiet activity to keep busy hands occupied.

(Lately, I've also been giving the kids a back rub one at a time while I read. Anything to make them enjoy this time!)

For Christmas they are getting their own scripture package.

We'll open these on Christmas eve with christmas pajamas.

They have a small fascination with bookmarks, so hopefully they like having one!

Also, in an effort to help them listen better, I told them if they hear a phrase or word they really like, to let me know, and we'll highlight it.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a real Bethlehem supper, but I don't know how that will fly with my eldest child, er, my husband. :)

Thankful

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire.

If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something.

It gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.

During those times you grow.

 Be thankful for your limitations.

Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge.

Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes.

They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary.

Because it means you've made a difference.

It's easy to be thankful for the good things. 

A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.

Find a way to be thankful for your troubles

and they can become your blessings.

~Author Unknown

Homefront

I saw this idea over at makeit-loveit

and decided it would be a perfect way to tell a story on our wall.

10 years of marriage in 5 states

 Cody was born in Utah, Macey in Washington and Mackayla in Oklahoma...just missed the last two:)

Oregon is upside down. Oops. I'll fix that. Next month.

 In Utah my sister-in-law told me about her 'kid drawer' in the kitchen. Did everyone but me know about this?! For those of us with little kids, this is genius. Now they can get their own drinks.

I imagine this would be even more handy with a new baby. 

Last but not least -

Carpet stains.

We have beautiful beige carpet. The person that invented this color of carpet never had children. To instantly clean up the never ending array of things that can be flung on carpet:

Get ammonia, a towel, and an iron.

Mix ammonia and hot water and pour it on. Put the towel on top and iron over the towel.

Weirdly, I actually enjoy doing it.

This and other pretty cool cleaning tips here.

We went to our Frozen Movie in the Park last night with our cute friends!
After an early morning long run for me and some on call work for Ben, we actually snoozed a little while the kids watched it;)

"Colors"

This is one of my kids' favorite activities.

You need a cookie sheet to hold all the pouring spills.

Good activity to get good at pouring.

I got some little clear containers from BiMart, but I'm sure you could find them anywhere.

 And saved a bunch of medicine containers and all those baby medicine paraphernalia.

Fill a few of the containers and add one or two drops of food coloring to them.

 Teaches coordination and color knowledge.

It's actually one of Macey's favorite things to do.

 This is an awesome winter activity...now that winter is over!

Small Lessons

I have been thinking a lot lately about all the INCREDIBLE people we have met living here this year. I am fascinated with people's stories; what they do, what makes them tick, what they've been through.
There are SOOO many people here that I admire.
Many of them have taught me life lessons. Here's a couple:
One friend taught me:  cooking meat should either go low and slow or fast with high heat (a very practical piece of advice but literally has changed cooking for me!). Sometimes depression is simply a need to take a walk outside every day consistently. Exercise and fresh air can do wonders. She teaches my son in primary and said the secret to keeping their attention is to study and know your stuff and then just talk and teach without the book. She truly teaches by the spirit. Cody still talks about old lessons they had from her.

Another friend told me once about a friend she had with lots of questions about the church. She had to do a LOT of studying and praying and would come up with tiny bits of answers from hours of time and effort. This friend is very smart and I'm sure some of that is attributed to her diligent effort.