Mentos + Diet Pepsi FHE Activity

Jeremy received a fun little birthday gift from my mom. It's called a Soda Shooter. We decided to try it out for our Family Home Evening activity this week. Enjoy a 1 minute video of our soda-spraying-ultimate-soda-fountain-non-sticky-because-it-was-diet-soda adventure.

(The geyser is tough to see, but it was an AWESOME 20 foot spray.)

You, Time-Out!

Thank you to Groupon for the excellent deal on tickets for our entire family to attend a basketball game! The kids were all excited to dress in the college colors and were feeling much school pride as we entered the arena.

The crowds have been VERY sparse at our local college basketball games... Which is fine by us because those sparse crowds worked to our advantage in several ways. The tix came at a great price, we did not loose a child in the crowd this time :/ ,and we got to meet Time-Out!

Time-Out was making his way through the crowd, talking to all the kids and taking pictures along the way. He spotted our eager children and came right over to them! What a sport! I was shocked when Time-Out leaned over to pick up Jackson and he jumped right into his arms. The kids were all in heaven. They've never had the chance to meet him up close. What a great night.

Oh, and we won the game too. That was just a bonus. Go Dogs.

Say Hello to....

Shelley!

We went to the pet store for FHE tonight and Trevor got to pick out a turtle for his new tank. Trevor was soooo excited that he couldn't sleep.

"Do turtles sleep underwater? Will he get cold at night? He's not eating his food - will he be hungry? Does he miss his mom and dad? He keeps messing up the decorations - what do we do? When I play with him do I wash my hands right after? Do I turn off the light now? Do I turn it on again in the morning? How much do I feed him? Will you lock the door so Jackson won't hurt him? What if he has babies? Can we sell them?"

FHE @ Maggie Moo's

Trevor wanted to bring his camera along on our Family Home Evening outing. He was quite proud of all his photography. Enjoy a slide show of his work... My favorites are of Jeremy swinging the kids. His head and stomach were a little woozy the rest of the night!

Strawberry Jam

This week for Family Home Evening (FHE) we decided to forgo our lesson and just have a nice family activity - making homemade strawberry freezer jam.

Jeremy grew up with homemade jam and has pushed us to keep this tradition in our family. We love the finished product and eat it year round as we store it in the freezer so it's fresh whenever we are ready for it.

I stopped at a local fruit stand and bought a whole flat of strawberries - they are $15/flat this year. Goodness! But you just can't beat a fresh picked strawberry from the field - they are so juicy and taste like summer!


Here we are prepping the berries. Can you see the 25 pound bag of sugar in the background?

This is the ingredient list. Notice the recipe requires almost twice as much sugar as fruit!

Jackson always loves to help too.



Even Jacob (a cousin) thought it looked like fun and had to get in on the action.

Daddy and Logan did a great job as they gradually stirred in the pectin.

Lizzie's job was to screw all the lids and rings onto the jars.

Daddy has the best steady hand for pouring the sticky jam into the jars.

Our finished product! I counted 22 cups of jam.

Trevor got the point of our "no lesson" FHE. Later last night he said to me,
"Mommy, I know why we didn't have a lesson tonight."
I said, "Why's that, Trevor?"
He said, "So we could have some fun family time together."
Ahhh. We are getting through to these kids after all!

We had just enough strawberries left over to have some strawberry shortcake for dessert. So, I whipped up a white cake mix and let it bake while we finished up canning our jam. FHE was good for the memories and the tastebuds! Mmmm....we love strawberry season!

Feelin' Green!

So we celebrated a early St. Patty's day this year. Jennifer and I are heading out of town on a couples trip and won't be around for St. Patrick's Day, and she couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat green eggs and ham. Jennifer bought some green bead necklaces for everyone to wear to get in the spirit of the event along with everything else that was green.
All were a little skeptic at first, I mean it goes against your better nature to eat green eggs and green pancakes, but all fears were washed away once they tried it.

The green milk is what did me in. Man that looked gross, but tasted the same (your shocked I know). Logan, waxing philosophical, or anatomical, or whatever, asked, "Dad what will this green food come out like once we eat it?" Ahh, good times.

2 0 0 8 R E S O L U T I O N S

Jeremy did a great Family Home Evening this week. He talked to us about the importance of setting and achieving goals. (This FHE may have been mostly for my benefit because of a small comment I made last week. I told Jeremy that I don't ever make New Year's resolutions because I know I'll never keep them!) He challenged us to think of 3 things we'd like to work on this year. Trevor, Logan, Mom and Dad all wrote down 3 goals we'd like to accomplish in 2008. (Well, he showed me! It was the "Triple Dog Dare" - will she commit? or look like a slacker in front of the kids? Of course I caved.) I thought it'd be a good idea to put them here for everyone to see and by so doing give the goals an added significance (and pressure to complete!).

Jeremy:
(He had to limit himself with only 3 goals - you should see his "Life List" of goals - it goes on forever!)
1. Read the Book of Mormon
2. Plant 100 trees at school
3. Run in a half marathon

Jennifer:
1. Read the scriptures every day
2. Refinish the kitchen table and chairs
3. Be more healthy - be conscious of food and excercise

Trevor:
1. Become a wolf (in cub scouts)
2. Be reverent in church
3. Be a good swimmer

Logan:
1. Get lots of "A"s
2. Read the Book of Mormon
3. Ride a horse in Montana


So check up on us if you please. Ask how we're doing. Help us keep these goals! And don't be shy... what were some of your resolutions?

Not My Gum Drop Buttons!

Run run as fast as you can, before Jackson slimes you with his icing and saliva laced hand!


So Logan has been wanting to make ginger bread cookies for a week or so now since he read a story with his class about, you guessed it, the ginger bread man.

It took some coaxing but Jennifer agreed. Not because she couldn't, she did a heck of a job with the cookies, they were the best I have ever tasted. (Although admittedly we don't delve into foods involving ginger often)

Mostly because the process of making ginger bread cookies stinks...literally. I mean when was the last time you smelled molasses? Honestly, who ever decided that molasses, vinegar, ground cloves and ginger should be combined for a sweet treat? Probably the same person that after tasting their creation decided that the product was better suited for home siding (thus the ginger bread house) then actual food.

Lizzie would check the oven during the cooking process often to make sure no cookies were moving around, it was quite cute. Anyhow, the decorating of the ginger bread cookies was a messy hit. We had Emma, Maddy and Ben over to help us with the decorating as well. Emma, Maddy and Lizzie were quite meticulous with their icing and decorating of their cookies.

Trevor, Logan and Ben were more into "abstract" decorating, that is to say sprinkle and coat things all over the place and they take on a form of art in and of themselves. It was quite fun to watch.
The only one not enjoying himself was Jackson. This was mainly due to the fact that he kept trying to "jack" everyone else's cookies and was sternly told by the whole group, "No No Jackson!" (See the picture above of him feeling sorry for himself) He got over it though once he found the icing bowl and began to turn himself into a ginger bread man.

Tradition. Tradition!

Every year we love to fulfill our family traditions. They are small, but sweet and memorable - we hope - especially for the kids. One of our favorites falls on the day we decorate our family Christmas Tree. The night begins with a super fancy dinner party - prepared by me, the mama. The table is dressed to the hilt complete with goblets for our sparkling cider. We dine by candlelight, listen to Christmas music and visit with each other in a more civilized manner than usual. Burping is curbed to a minimum (2 per child). (My personal favorite part of the evening is the pre-dinner lecture by Jeremy. He lays down all the rules before we eat. 1. no elbows on the table 2. no saying rude things 3. you will eat slowly 4. try very hard not to spill or drop your glass! He is so serious when he tells the kids these things and they return his seriousness - it's all I can do to keep from giggling through the whole thing - they are all so sweet as they listen and try their best to be good dinner guests!) After dinner we adjourn to the family room and let the tree decorating commence! It is usually a flurry of tissue paper and plastic ornaments with this year being no exception. So here's how this year went down...

The table was dressed in our festive holiday theme: Red runner with candles, cranberries, twinkle lights, gold toulle, and floral picks. So lovely if I do say so myself!

We started with a (from scratch) creamy vegetable soup and homemade rolls. For the main course we had Chicken Pillows, red potatoes, gravy and a Harvest Salad. Only a few belches were heard and not one glass tipped!

After dinner the kids opened their new ornaments. Trevor got Optimus Prime and Logan got Bumble Bee. Lizzie got Minnie Mouse and Jackson, Mickey.

The kids embraced my red and white theme and loved every minute. They so enjoy pulling out all their old ornaments and see picutres of themselves when they were younger. My favorites are their Star Wars ornaments. Does anyone else have Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker on their tree? Come on. How cool is that?

Notice the pink princess ornament - I'm pretty sure that will always be her favorite. She fussed and fussed to make it hang just right. Love it!

The tree, surprisingly enough, turned out really nice and just how I wanted. It looked like peppermint striped candy! (Make sure to notice our tree topper. I made that when I was 13 or 14 years old as a craft project at church. I am so proud of that rustic looking angel every year she comes out!)

So many memories in one little tree.

We wound down the evening with some homemade cinnnamon rolls for dessert and sat back to admire our good work.

Check. Another tradition done for 2007.

The Snowman Song

"Snowman" must be sung at each Family Home Evening in the Ward home. No lesson or other activity can take place until "Snowman" is complete, even in August when its 100 degrees outside. As you will see, the only ones doing any of the singing are Jennifer and I, the kids just love falling all over the place. Pay close attention to Trevor as he gives a little peace out to his homies at the end. Before anyone asks, no, Logan does not wear glasses, he bought those at the dollar store. Apparently he prefers the more studious look.

Cuh-rayzee Carvers!

It's only 2 days before Halloween 2007! We got out our pumpkin knives and creative carving juices for this year's Jack-o-Lantern night. Here are the crazies getting their carving on!

Logan got all into it this time around. He drew out his design on the newspaper and then copied that onto his pumpkin. It turned out just like his drawing!

Trevor decided on a bat pumpkin. His turned out really cool too!






















Jackson was diggin' all the pumpkin guts and seeds. He thought it was so gross!















Lizzie just wanted a simple design. The first thing mommy drew is what she chose. We tried to put pretty eyelashes on it, but it just wouldn't work.

Jeremy got the best idea from the Extreme Pumpkin website. He so badly wanted to do the flaming pumpkin. He designed an evil face and carved flames coming out the top of the head. He then soaked a roll of TP in some gasoline and stuck that inside the pumpkin for the light source. Check out the picture for the awesome "FLAMING PUMPKIN!" He was just like a kid on Christmas morning. He was almost giddy! That thang burned for almost 20 minutes - believe it or not.

Halloween HERE WE COME!

The Great Duckie Race

We held the first (and possibly last) Great Duckie Race for family home evening last week. Family and friends came with their decorated ducks to race them down a very small section of the the Friant-Gould Canal behind the house. The wind blew against the current and thus the ducks, causing many of the ducks to get stuck against the side of the canal. Dad took top honors for winning the race with his "Elvis" duck. Dad, true to his Macgyver self, attached a plastic bag to the bottom of his duck which acted like a under water sail catching the current and carrying his duck along down the canal quite a bit faster then anyone else's. Seeing that Dad was kicking everyone else's trash, the kids all began to throw rocks at "Elvis Duck" trying to make it sink to no avail. My duck, the "Dastardly Duck", took fourth behind Kelly's "Harry Potterduck". Lizzie (and mommy) designed her duck to be a princess. Logan made "Anakin Skyduck", and sticking with the Star Wars theme, Trevor made "R2-D2 Duck". My favorite design was Samuel's "Fetus Duck". Samuel spent some time working his duck inside a balloon which he later blew up attempting to make it look like a uterus. Unfortunately, Logan popped the fetus duck before it ever gave birth. Mica attached a balloon to a straw on the back of her duck to get a little extra propulsion. Unfortunately the balloon was spent before the ducks ever started to flow. We called it a night after Jared took four or five trips up and down the side of the canal fishing out the "dead" ducks and giving them back to their owners. Dad was rewarded with a bag of chocolates for finishing first. Julio was also rewarded with a bag of chocolates as a consolation prize for his duck sinking at the starting line. Julio tried to stream line his duck by cutting off all all the "unnecessary" parts. After taking one look at it, I named Julio's duck, "Vincent Van Duck" for the chopped off body parts. Sadly, Vincent Van Duck still remains at the bottom of the canal.

Easter Eggstravaganza!

Easter Sunday festivities at the Ward home began with egg decoration on Saturday night. Trevor, Logan and Lizzie enjoyed dunking their eggs in every possible color turning each a very interesting color. The kids woke up Sunday morning and found their easter baskets on the kitchen table. We then rushed to get the kids bathed and dressed for easter pictures and off to church. Jennifer and I were shocked that we were only five minutes late to church. After our own family easter egg hunt inside our home, all of the cousins joined together to do our annual egg hunt with the Ward family. We then had a special Easter Sunday family home evening and enjoyed dinner with the wards and dessert with the Duran's. Jennifer and I are both very grateful that there is no school tomorrow, we are ready for a vacation from our vacation.

Family Bike Ride

The whole family went for a bike ride on our Monday off. Our ride ended up at the corner gas station for some treats. This is one of Jennifer's favorite pics.