Basa body stick ala coconut oil.

One of the things I really like about spring and summer is that there
are so many cute shoes to wear. This leads to cute nail polish too.
And more reasons to get the foot massaging pedicure. :). But sadly
wearing the sandles and flip flops leads to a bad thing- rough ugly
feet Not This Year! I hope

My little sister Krista married in to a family that is really very
charitable. Her in laws have been helping some people in Africa for
years. (they also own the human slingshot in springville- google it)
The in laws are actually living in Africa right now. They live every
day helping the African people. I don't know all they have done, but I
do know they provide "micro-loans" for some very poor people. Another
one of their ventures is selling coconut oil that is ahhh? ...
produced (?) in Africa. I recently got the two items available. I'll
tell you how happy this one makes me. It's the pure coconut oil stick
Every night I put some on the rough parts of my feet and put little
cotton footies on on top. So far my feet have avoided the typical dry
edged cracked skin. (I hope wearing the socks to bed aren't too hard
on the marriage)
I'll keep ya posted how the skin softening part is working as
I'll start to wear the cute feet-exposing-shoes more and more for the
next 5 or 6 months. I hope it works. Maybe I'll still get the
dremmell to sand my feet smooth.

Ah come on

Look what came in the mail today. Can not believe it. All I can day is
we are not signing up.

I'm still a wimpy crying mom

Today had a few surprises in it. One of which was going over to the old Albertsons, for the grand opening of the new FreshMarket. Joseph and the percussion section of the Lehi HS band were going to play there. Jacob and I just finished a surprise scout physical and went over to see Joseph. They had a little ribbon cutting, and Jacob and I were sure to be on the outside of the official ribbon, so we didnt look like ribbon jumpers. The cutting went along without a hitch, and then without much warning the drummers came in playing really loudly. When I saw my boy, the tears started coming but I squelched them pretty well. It was really pretty dramatic and loud. I caught a little bit on tape, but it really doesn't catch the whole feel of the event. (I mean the drumming event, not the ribbon cutting for a store that has been open for about six months.) Later the teacher had them play a little bit outside and Joseph had a surprise drum solo. He tryed to get out of it, but then just went for it. He ended up busting one of the drum heads. (A drum head is the tight top of the drum.) He started cracking up when that happened, as well as the other drummers, and happily so did the teacher. That was the happiest I have seen him while playing drums. It did my heart a world of good.

A childs work is play

Many moons ago when I was in high school, taking child development I
was told a truth I have always remembered. A childs work is play.

Sidenote
I had an assignment in that class to finish the following sentence.
"The greatest thing a father can do for his children is....". I wrote
in something I had always heard my own dad say- and now I think it's
really from one of the church leaders. I wrote the greatest thing a
father can do for his children is to love their mother. This was at a
HS in southern Cali and my teacher was very impressed with the
insight. Sidenote over

Our little man Jack comes to see me for just two or three hours
every week. I try and make sure he works very hard! Today while he
was sleeping I thought how thankful I was to be able to watch him. For
him to have to be in any kind of day care would certainly break my
heart. I think of day care as a situation when tiny kids have to take
care of themselves, kinda be on their own. I've never had a problem
with this possible part of grandma hood. I saw my own mom help out
with all of her grandkids. My sisters have all watched their
grandkids. It's just one if the perks of the calling ;) I am thankful
he comes to see me. He keeps the uncles in line.

The telemarket call

While joseph was "putting the chicken away" he answered a call from an
obvious telemarketing company. He was very kind and happy and
enthusiastic with the caller. Then he moment came he was waiting for.
No he was not the adult male of the house, nor was he even 18 years
old. As for the caller jacob would say "fail!" I was really
surprised to see his side of my jokster son.

Another new recipe

Costco snagged me with a sample of the pandaexpress orange chicken
sauce a couple weeks ago. I bought the sauce.

So tonight I cut up some chicken, cooked it through on the stove top
then poured some of the sauce on top. As I slipped it into the oven to
keep warm, I realized what I had prepared would probably not be enough
for my three guys. I quickly started to defrost and cook up more
chicken. I also started the veggie part of the meal. I prepared the
thai peanut sauce with the coconut milk, and pored some on top of some
sauté ing mixed veggies. The veggies turned out really well. Jacob and
Dave had two servings. Joseph had none- huge surprise ;). Overall the
two dishes we received very well. Next time I'll use less sauce on the
vegs. The boys finished eating before David and I, so I asked Joseph
to put away the extra chicken and Jacob the extra rice. They both
chose just to finish up the food rather than put it in a ziplock--
funny boys

My newest project

Back in January I went out to one of my favorite fabric stores in
Draper. They were set up with all the new for the year classes. I saw
a quilt block made up of some fabric I liked and saw that it was a
block of the month type offer. (BOTM). It was $10 a month for the
material and the instructions to make 12 different blocks through the
year. If you actually made the block and brought it into the store,
the next botm kit would only be $8. I thought it was a good project
to join - so I signed up. The financial insentive to knock out each
botm was a great plus for me. Plus! All the fabric was pre selected!
(kinda tricky for me) Plus! It was fabric I really liked. So I got my
January kit home- looked through it and realized all the instructions
were based on using a template kit! Cheesh! (Templates use a little
cut-around piece of plastic instead of cutting each piece to a certain
demention like a 2 inch square, does that make sense?). I think
templates used to be popular, but not so much anymore. I go back to
the store and they are out of the templates.... What? Anyway I just
picked up my March kit at the end of last month and am working on
block #3. It won't be done for 9 more months. I'm sure to have a few
projects come and go before I can show you this finished baby.

Dear Aunt Connie,

Dear Aunt Connie,

I had the best dream. I dreamed that I was at the utah airport and I
walked out into the parking lot and saw you and aunt Laurie and aunt
Kari and aunt Krista all standing there SO happy to see me. I realized
how much I missed you. Then today I found a birthday card you sent me
on my first birthday and I almost started crying. Not many girls love
their great- aunts a s much as I do. Hope to see you really soon. Love
you

Em

I got this email this morning it made my heart sooo happy. My sweet
great niece lives a few states away so i hardly see her. I miss her
and miss seeing her grow up. Thankfully she has a blog as well as her
grandma, so I get to see little bits of her life. She is an angel and
a true princess.

Like I said, I am so blessed to have so many awesome people in my
life

Connie

The two birthdays

I have two younger siblings. Jim is 3 yrs younger than me and Krista
is 9 years younger. They are two of my beat friends in this whole
World. I love them so much. They are both so great and fun and
strong and great examples to me. And! And! They are very funny and
quick witted. We three went few some hard times when we lived
together- things that really knit us tight.
Krista and Jim have birthdays right by each other, March 28 & 29.
We had a group party lunch today. It was lots of fun as always. I am
so lucky to have so many people I love near by and in my life.

Sisters day and cookies

As you probably know, I meet with my sisters, friends, cousins, nieces
and my Mom at least once a week. We are always looking for new ideas
to learn. I have messed with the whole smooth frosted cookie thing a
few times, so tomorrow I'll show what I've learned. I'm still very
very inept, but a little experienced so hopefully it will be helpful
to share. I quickly worked on these today, to practice for
tomorrow. Some of the cookies look a little 3 yr oldish, but my good
husband was very impressed with them all.
I'll try to post pictures of what our group comes up with tomorrow!

A mighty army of elect daughters of God

Tonight I am alone david is out with the scouts for the evening.

I flipped the channels on the tv and came upon the rebroadcast of
the young womans conference. I knew some of the girls in our ward
would be in the choir, but I was very surprised at my response. I saw
some girls up there singing that I had seen grow up from the time they
were tiny. Some girls I knew from the Jr high. My heart was so
touched, tears quickly slid down my cheeks. They haven't stopped
yet. They are so good. The world needs to take a good look and take
a lesson of true power, true courage, and true strength, and true
beauty. They are truely a royal army. I know there are many many
young women of the church that are exactly the same, and also part of
Gods mighty army. My own courage is strengthened at the thought of
this wonderful truth.

Six thumbs up or thumbs up all around

You may know already, but for the last several years we have
"Tex- Mex Tuesday" almost every week., for our dinner. We usually
have, in decending order- enchalada burritos, soft shell tacos or
crockpot salsa chicken.

I recently decided to have
" breakfast-for-dinner" on Mondays. Here's a recipe I saw and tasted
at a Maceys cooking class.
Stuffed french toast.
2 loaves of cheap squishy bread
8 oz cream cheese
1/4 c white sugar
A little vanilla
And
Your favorite mixture for french toast, like eggs milk and vanilla.

Combine cream cheese sugar and vanilla. Mix well.

Put a few tablespoons on the center of a few slices of bread. Top each
with another slice of bread. Use a cookie cutter or a little sandwich
maker to cut the crusts off the bread. You could use a fork to crimp
the edges if you want. You want to seal the edges of each little
packet. Dip each packetpocket in the french toast egg mixture, and
cook up in a skillet just as you do regulate french toast. I kept the
first few warm in the oven. I served them with warm maple syrup much
to the delight of the men in the family. Everyone votes I make these
again.

My warm heart from Megan

I recently got this text from my sister. While I struggle with a certain worry, this comment from Meggie did me a world of good. Their family was recently blessed with a second batch of baby kittens. I keep it here so I can read it over and over. You just have to read it once ; )

Sorry I missed your text earlier. I want to come next time! Tonight we were talking about why we can't keep all the kittens. Ang said we can't keep them all or we will end up with tons of cats like Connie. Meg said so ernestly I want to turn out like Connie! It was so sweet.

Connie

See what happens when you are casual about math

I'm trying to finish up this quilt top. I'm adding boarders to enlarge
the postage stamp size pieced part. I was about 8 inches short on my
calculations for the red fabric-- grr. Went to the nearby quilt store
and they had never seen that print. So I wentniver the the place in A
F where I had purchased it last week. The bolt was g o n e.. Couldn't
find it. Thankfully there was one. One! Fat quarter that I snagged. I
think it will work out just fine. One more boarder to add, then the
top will be done I didnt realize how much the two boarders are alike.
I guess I like that sort off look. Ahh well it's ok i guess.

What I'm working on

Here is my current project. I am making it from one of the jelly rolls
I got a christmas. It is turning out smaller than I thought it would,
but I figure by adding boarders, I can bump up the size. Because it
uses so many fabrics, I also thought I wouldn't end up with the
fabrics lining up next to each other. Ah well.. I've decided I'm gonna
like it anyway ;)

A little trick so I don't have to play the game

I have lost my car at Walmart far too many times. I hate not
remembering where I parked. I hate wandering around like a fool.
Especially walking back towards the store with my cart full of
groceries. I once downloaded an application that was supposed to help
a person remember where they parked but it did not work so well. So I
came up with an amazing trick. Thankfully my Walmart has each row
numbered. Why I can't just remember that number I don't know. After I
park I look to see what row I'm on. Then as I walk to the store I
count each parking space I pass on that row as I pass them. I then
figure some relation of the two numbers to help me remember them.
Today I was on row 4, car space 12. I remembered 4/12 by thinking
4x3=12. Really odd that this works but when I use this trick I find my
car really fast.

I wonder if this post makes me sound more like the old granny I am,
but this works for me

Wish I could believe this

I talked myself into going to the gym today. I snapped this picture
cause it was so unbelievable. 596 calories burned in 36 minutes on
the treadmill. Hummmm.... And I have no idea what mets (the middle
4.1) means. I think I lasted for 2 miles. I'll use a different machine
next time