Young Womens

The new theme for this year is 'Come unto Christ and be perfected in Him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness,' Moroni 10:32. I love this new theme. As a presidency we wanted to do a banner that we could hang each Sunday to help remind the Young Women about our theme. This is what I came up with.

Feel free to download it here and use it for your own classes. It is a pdf file and can be printed on 8.5x11 cardstock (there are two letters to a page, 8 pages total). It is a big file, but that allows you to enlarge them when you print them, although I would not recommend that unless you want a very large banner! Enjoy! -Audri P.S. Click Here for matching Binder Covers for the 2014 Theme. Click Here for the Happy Birthday Card file.

Can you say, "Delicious"?

I LOVE to bake...love, love, love it! I may, or may not, have purchased half a dozen cooking magazines during the holidays because there were SO many yummy looking treats to make. These little babies were one of my favorites...Yum! They're a twist on Baklava. [Side note: It took me nearly 13 years to get up the nerve to make Baklava and I'm still mad I waited so long. It's definitely time consuming, but SO worth the time]. These use the same Phyllo dough, but are filled with Granny Smith apples that have been sauted with walnuts and dried cherries. Once they've baked you pour a DELICIOUS cinnamon infused honey glaze over them that is divine. I just can't say enough yummy things about them. So good. I can't remember which magazine I got the recipe from, but I will be sure and post it if I remember to find it in the morning (I just checked the clock and it is telling me I stayed up WAY too late). Off to bed I go!

Snow...

I think we've had almost three feet of snow since Thursday. School was cancelled today and my back really hurts from shoveling. The piles of snow are now taller than me and I had to start pushing snow across the street to the other sidewalk because I couldn't lift the snow onto my huge piles. Crazy. I also got a coldsore that I believe is attempting a hostil take over of my face. I had a bad sinus infection and all of those Kleenex's dried my poor nose so much it didn't stand a chance. I think I need to go to bed and get some sleep...I think I'm going to be doing a lot of shoveling in the morning, the snow still hasn't let up. Nighty Night.

We're Back!

I can't believe I have neglected this poor blog for almost an entire year...ouch. In stead of boring you (if there is anyone out there who is still checking in, that is) with a full year of updates, I figure I'll just start up as though I never neglected my blog in the first place.

I found this SUPER cute pattern for a Christmas Tree Skirt on Pinterest and decided that I HAD to make it. I love the 'rustic' look that the burlap gives it. For those 'non-sewers' it is perfect because the original was done with hot glue - no sewing. I am in a rather serious love/hate relationship with hot glue and decided it was in my best interest to sew mine, but it is unnecessary and very simple either way (although it is time consuming). I sewed mine up in about 4-5 hrs. I just worked on it after the kids went to bed for a few hrs each night and it took me two nights...not bad. I'm super excited for the holidays. I have been baking up a storm and making as many new holiday treat recipes as I can find time for (or make time for). I will definitely try and post some of those soon! Happy Holiday Crafting!

Poor Thing...

I've never been much of a cat lover (being allergic does that to you), but I have to admit I felt very sorry for this poor cat. Max wasn't being mean to him, but Max's version of love isn't always gentle, soft or wanted! He is so darn happy with that cat!!! I couldn't stop laughing as he hauled this cat around. He would lose his grip and drop it, then pick it back up, for about fifteen minutes they did this...poor thing.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Clay the Lacrosse Player, Quin the Skeleton, Ali the Snow White Princess, Jack the Batman Superhero, Max the Bat and Heidi the Cow...momentarily not a mad cow.

Hope yours was as good as ours!!

Every Year...

It seems like the beginning of each new school year always brings along some outbreak or pandemic of illness.

Seriously, you have perfectly healthy kids all summer long and as soon as you send them off to hang out for 7+ hours of the day in close quarters with hundreds of other children, they all of a sudden get sick...it never fails!

And this year is no exception. Clay woke up around 4am Saturday morning barfing his brains out all over our family room. He is usually pretty good about making it to the toilet, but there wasn't enough time, it hit him fast and hard. He spent a good half hour in the shower throwing up and crying - long enough for Joe and I to clean everything up and throw in a load of dirty laundry.

Clay was feeling poorly most of Saturday, but seemed to have recovered fully by Sunday morning. We sort of hoped he had just eaten something bad and that was the end of it...not so.

Max woke up and got in bed with me Monday at 12:30am. I had just washed all of my bedding and was worried he might get a bloody nose, so I brought him back to his own crib. A few minutes later he started to cry and yell for daddy. I went in his room and he had vomited all over in his bed. Yum. I had Joe bring him in and shower him off while I cleaned up his bed and threw in a load of laundry. I made him a little bed on our floor and we all went back to bed...until 1:30am, 3am and again at 4:30am. He threw up four times that night, I did four loads of laundry that night and no one got a whole lot of sleep.

Max seemed just fine today, although he had another bloody nose last night and, of course, he came and got into my bed around 4am...Joe and I stripped the bed and I did ANOTHER load of laundry. I am telling you, I have done WAY too much laundry over the past three days. Unacceptable.

The worst part though, Joe and I are both feeling very queezy and have terrible headaches...ya! It looks like the school year has most definitely begun!