Friendship

Shop Calico

My friend Cally Cruze is seriously the most amazing crafty person that I can call my real life friend.
Her creativity just never ends.
And it is always just perfectly cute and/or classy!

Go to her blog Calico..you will not be disappointed.

Cally has just committed herself to a long life at the sewing machine. (even with 5 kids under 8) I told you she was amazing.

The more you buy from Cally, the more I can laugh at her (while her life gets hectic with sewing in every spare minute), and you all know how I like to laugh.

If you don’t want to buy anything, (or plan to start stashing out some of your grocery budget before you splurge a little later) leave her a comment saying that you came over because of me…she will love that…and I am trying to prove that I am still the blogging queen! (I just want to do one thing better than her – just one, is that too much for a girl to ask?)

I wish you only 4 leaf clovers!
We are on spring break and so today has been one of my favorite kinds.
A long enjoyable lazy day full of green sugar:

Cinnamon Rolls from the Mall

Dough
1 T. dry yeast
1 cup warm milk
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
4 cups flour
Dissolve yeast in warm milk. Add the rest if the ingredients and mix well. Knead into a ball. Let rise until double in size. When ready, roll out to about 1/4 inch thick. Spread with filling as described below.

Filling
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3 T. cinnamon
 Spread butter on dough evenly. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over dough evenly. Roll dough up. Slice roll into 1 inch slices. Place on a greased pan. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

Icing
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 oz. cream cheese
2 T. whipping cream
 1 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Beat until fluffy. When rolls are hot, spread lots of icing on them.

Thanks to Kristen for sending me on a search for

Here’s the song for your St Patrick’s enjoyment:

Oh the comfort of a man!

I found this picture a couple of weeks ago while organizing all of our digital family photos. I thought it was so darling. Kitty Bear is just teeny and LG looks 10 years younger. (Wow, I know that law school took forever but I just didn’t realize just how long the law school phase of our lives has been!)


I just had to smile when looking at this photo because I think I have 3 other identical pictures, except for the other three photos are of LG and his other 3 babies: Abigail, Sophia, and Bella. To find those photos I would have to dig out the Tupperware, search, and scan; and because of the complications associated with retrieving medieval family photos, you will just have to trust me that these photos do actually exist.


Here is one previously scanned of LG and Abigail when she was not so baby, but nevertheless, it is still a cute picture.

So, I know my cute hubby, cat, or kids don’t make for the most interesting post. (most of you have probably already quit reading)

Back to the original post, not that it will interest you that much more. Our friends just blessed our lives in the most magnificent way. They gave us their 3 month old mattress! If you could only see the old cheap mattress that we have been using for the past 8 years, you would know how much of a real blessing this nice new pillow top feels to us. And, if any of you have the heebie jeebies thinking about accepting someones used mattress, then you obviously have not been as poor as we are. (So, please be kind with the comments)

We figure if we are poor, we also should let our children have a little taste of the poverty. Abigail has been complaining about her mattress for months. We finally got her an egg crate on top of it this week. While testing our new and improved mattress, Abigail squeezed right in between LG and I. I took the opportunity to ask her about her new egg crate bed. Her reply was simple, “Oh, I love the egg crate, now, I can’t feel the springs in my back!” Yes, we are equally pathetic around here! It’s no wonder a friend took pity.

Anyhow, I really wished I could post the look on LG’s face when he climbed into bed tonight: the look was that of pure elation! I have never seen him look more happy and comfortable at the same time. (A BIG THANKS to our anonymous bed givers!!!)

So, after we tried laying on the bed for a few minutes, we got the kids to bed. LG and I both headed to the bathroom for the nightly bed preparation. (brushing teeth, using the potty, taking the medicine) While LG was finishing up, I came out to check my e-mail and my blog. When LG appeared a little later, he inquired as to what I was doing. When I said oh so non-chalantly “oh, just checking my e-mail”, (notice I left out the blogging, not that LG didn’t read right through that) LG said, “O.k. I will wait up for you”.

I was not the least bit surprised when approximately 5 minutes later (no joke, no longer than 5 minutes) I hear the sound of pure exultation coming from my husband’s large frame….what is that noise exactly?, you ask….well, it’s close to the sound of a bear in hibernation…just one BIG snore after another! And, yes, I can hear it on the opposite end of the house.

I hurried and closed out my google reader to climb into bed with LG. (I hoped LG would have lost track of time and fall for the just checking e-mail thing) I also hoped that when I crawled into bed with LG that he would want to take advantage of some alone time. (wink, wink, if you know what I mean) Wow, I really must have been hallucinating. I should have known better. The guy has never owned a comfortable mattress of his own.

It took only 2.2 minutes and a nightly prayer for me to realize that I would NOT be able to keep LG’s interest tonight! The snoring immediately continued and provided all the answer I needed…so, here I am, blogging one very boring post.

The moral of the post: if you want to get some attention from your hubby, keep the old mattress…thanks again my anonymous friend, my love life is officially OVER!

But, oh, my hubby is SO comfortable, and now I have more time to blog. How can a woman complain?

lisa leonard…no way!

Look at what Cally got for her birthday…We are all so jealous!

Really, Cally, you should have let Lori get one first, she was the one to tell us about lisa leonard. But, I guess you can’t control the best sister ever. Can you ask her to share her love language with us on our next birthdays? (LG, I know you are reading…FYI…I just read this page and I think I would love any love language you want to give:) I’m not picky, I’ll take whatever it is you want to give….a gift of value, a date, a massage, words of affirmation, whatever, you are so good at all of them)

Speaking of lisaleanord, check out her latest post about her son…so sweet!

The Sabbath
Deuteronomy 5: 14 14 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.

As Mormons, we take this scripture literally. We do not do anything on the Sabbath that requires others to work: eat out, shop, or any type of recreation. It is a frequent debate between members about how elaborate of a meal should even be made on a Sunday. Some people seem to think that even cooking a roast is too much work.

This strict Sabbath Day observence is sometimes hard for our children to understand. They understand that God has asked this of us in the Bible and our kids love God but, they just don’t get why no one else around them seems to care.

All of our kids have had to miss out on a lot of birthday parties, but none was as hard for me as the one that Allie celebrated last month. Allie is Sophia’s best friend. Allie is riot; we just love her. Sophia, being the shy kid that she is, just loves Allie; and Allie being as outgoing as she is, is a wonderful influence for Sophia. Sophia has proudly exclaimed repeatedly since the 2nd week of school that Allie is her best friend. I have never seen a happier child than Sophia when she brought home Allie’s birthday invitation to the ice-skating rink. My excitement for Sophia being able to participate in the simple joy of life we call the birthday party was shattered when I referred to the calendar and saw that it would take place on a Sunday.

So, what did we do? We took Allie out to McDonald’s after school on Friday instead. [ALL kids love McDonald’s] We blew out a candle in her kids’ meal hamburger and had ice-cream. Allie opened her gift and then, to pass time before we had to go back to meet her mom, we walked around K-mart and got some clearance Christmas candy. I guess this made an impression enough because yesterday when I took the girls back to this K-mart that we don’t frequent, all Sophia and Bella could talk about was the day that we had brought Allie there. “Remember, this is where Allie hid. This is where we chased Allie. This is where we found the candy that we got with Allie.”

So, I guess I dodged another birthday party bullet. Phew.

On another Sabbath day note:

On Sunday night, LG went to the Stake Bishopric training without me by his side to attend the simultaneous Wive’s Training. I originally typed this post on Sunday evening, but according to my hubby’s counsel I toned it down before publishing it.

As LG was leaving the meeting, he saw a friend of ours. He asked her what I had missed from the women’s meeting when she asked where I was. LG told her that I had taken courage from a talk today in church. The regional rep’s wife talked about resting from our labors on Sunday and when LG got home from church I explained to him that his calling in the Bishopric is one of my greatest labors. I was resting tonight! I needed to be home with my kids, not take them off to a sitter on Sunday. (If I am to be totally honest, I would have preferred to have LG home with us too, but I can’t control him or his desire to attend his meetings)

Our friend told LG that the wives’ meeting was about righteous selfishness. (I still don’t think this is exactly the correct term) The friend explained, “The jist of the meeting was that when a woman has a husband in such a busy calling, it is o.k. for her to act selfishly sometimes if it is to meet the needs of the family. “

LG replied, “Oh good, I guess it was o.k. for Alice to miss this one. She’s got that one down. In fact, she is practicing that right now.”

Yeah for me: I am a great Sabbath Day keeper! Yes, I do a lot of other things wrong, and I may even receive criticism for my choice to not go to the meeting. But by golly, I am teaching my kids that the Sabbath is the day for a family to worship together, not to go to parties or be carted off to the sitter.

Dead People

Abigail went out with her group of church girls last night and sang to some people at a nursing home. (This picture is not from last night, but from a school thing last year – I included the pic. to give you the idea of how cute 8-11 year olds) Aren’t they darling? I am sure the nursing home loved their company last night.

Anyhow, on the way home, I was very impressed with Abigail’s observations of the night. She was telling me all about the people that she met.

“Mom, there was this really old guy who was 97. There was a lady who was deaf and they had to write everything on a paper for her. There was a black guy, and it was his birthday.” She even told me the people’s names.

Sophia and Bella were listening to the conversation and started asking Abigail questions about her adventure. Bella being inquisitive about the aforementioned deaf person asked me, “Mom why would they sing to a dead person?”

I was glad that the girls were paying attention to Abigail’s story, but who would have guessed the dead person association of my 4 year old? I guess I better start writing my mommy speech now for reassuring Bella when it is her turn to go to a nursing home to sing. Really, how am I going to handle this with honesty? It’s not like I can say, “No Bella, don’t worry, there aren’t any dead people at nursing homes.”

This reminds me of another story. Back in December, we had an unfortunate death in the congregation that shares our building. I was in charge of our ward party that was to happen the evening following the funeral. I had a bunch of things that I needed to drop of at the church early because I had to work the next morning. So I stopped by the church late after the funeral was over.

I wasn’t sure if they would have left the casket at the church overnight until the following day’s graveside service. (I believe they did this with Grandma Gold in VA – every state law is different to this effect and I wasn’t sure what TN law was) As my girls love to run the round hallways as soon as they get into the church, I warned them to stay close by because there may be a casket in the cultural hall. You can imagine where the conversation went from there…

“Mom, what’s a casket?” “Why do dead people sleep in a casket?” “Why do they leave dead people in the church?” “What’s a funeral?”

I had tried to play off all the questions so that they wouldn’t be too afraid of ever entering the church ever again. I had told the girls that a funeral would be over the next morning and there was no reason to be afraid because a funeral is “like a party for dead people”. O.k. hindsight is always 20/20! Yes, I could and should have given a better explanation than that.

If you couple Bella’s amazing imagination with her slight anxiety, you can imagine what she thought was going on in the church at the party for dead people. I was surprised that she still wanted to go inside when I had given her the chance to just stay in the car while I ran a few things in. Do you think that she was showing bravery or did the sure terror of being alone in the van when the party all came out of the building egged her forward into the building with mom? I think it must have been the latter, the way she was clinging to my leg.

Either way, whenever I die, I hope all my girls will remember that they are invited to my party for dead people.

Christmas Ornaments

I just found these darling ornaments by linking this site from Rita’s.

I love these great ornaments. They may really come in handy as replacements for Katie in New York, who put her Christmas tree up 2 weeks ago. And, she has two toddler sons. What was she thinking? I think that all of my girls are finally old enough to respect that Christmas ornaments break. Now, if I could just teach the cat to leave the tree alone, I may be motivated to put my tree up on Thanksgiving weekend like the rest of the country.