Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam

So I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but for the past year I have been in the Primary in our ward. Today I was doing Sharing Time. (If you've ever served in Primary, you know how nerve-wracking this can be. Oh, and did I mention there are over 100 kids in our Primary? It's a three-ring circus.)You know those people who get up and go on and on about how much they LOVE being in Primary, yada yada? Yeah-I'm not one of 'em. Don't get me wrong, it's great, but have you ever gotten up and done a tap dance in front of a crowd and they didn't even notice you were there? That would be a good way to describe the scene in our Primary. A member of the bishopric even had to stand up halfway through and reprimand the kids for their disrespect...humiliation. (Am I really that bad at crowd control? Ugh.) Anyways, between classes I left to go to the bathroom (practically in tears) and came back in to Singing Time and sat back down, before round 2 began. Then I looked over and saw the cutest little redhead looking over at me and waving, quietly sitting in a little chair next to his fellow nursery 'graduates', singing along with the chorister. My heart melted. I didn't know they were going to bring the new Sunbeams in for singing time today. All my frustration and embarrassment dissolved as I looked into the face of my sweet little child. It was then that I realized that every single well-intentioned, (albeit rowdy) kid in that room was someone else's sweet little child. It kind of put things into perspective for me. Even though I think about being released more than I care to admit, I know I have this calling for a reason. I just keep telling myself that, at very least, I am learning how to teach my own children, and just how much I should expect from them. Hopefully I hope to continue to learn and grow from this time spent serving these little ones. In the meantime, perhaps from now on I will remember to bring a chair and a whip.

Happy Birthday, Bubba!

My little boy is three! It's hard to believe, yet at the same time, I can't really remember life before him. What a joy he is to have in our lives, and what fun we had celebrating his birthday last Thursday with a little Thomas the Train party with some of his little neighborhood friends.



Marshall and I stayed up late the night before his birthday decorating the house so that we could start celebrating right away the next morning! Of course we got his some Thomas balloons, and, you guessed it- most of his presents were trains! He was in heaven.

After searching the world over for a cool Thomas cake, I decided the coolest thing of all would be to make my own. Not bad for my first attempt at cake decorating!

Little boys enjoying some cake and ice cream.

Thomas party blowers. Why are these things so much fun?

Gathered around the train table playing with the new birthday loot.

Rockin the party hats (left over from his 1st birthday- sweet!)

Ready to dig in!

I was so excited to surprise him with this cake- I waited until he took is nap to decorate it.

Happy Birthday, Bubba! We love you so much!!!

The Polar Express

Let me just begin this post by saying that last night was one of the most memorable nights of my life...I think this was because I got my first real taste of living vicariously through my child. For lack of a better word, the entire evening was magical. My little boy LOVES trains. Ever since we read the Polar Express for the first time a while back, then watched the movie, he has been in love with this classic story, (and all things train.) Up in Heber City, every year they do the Polar Express ride. They set up the Heber Creeper to look just like the actual train in the story, complete with all the characters from the movie in costume. They went the whole nine yards-from the conductor with his lantern, to the guys in chefs' hats serving hot chocolate, to the little elves, and, of course, the Big Man himself. (Santa Claus, in case you forgot.) Words can't express how cool it was to be able to keep this a secret from our little boy, and the look on his face when I pulled him out of the car and he saw this enormous train right before his eyes...it was priceless. At one point, during the 90 minute ride he thought he had lost his ticket, and that that meant they would have to throw him off the train ("It's standard procedure," for those of you that are familiar with the movie...) Upon realizing this, he burst into tears. It was the saddest/cutest thing I have ever seen. We soon found the ticket though, (phew!) and the day was saved. Anyways, it was one of the coolest things I have ever done, and well worth the money. I will let the pictures explain the rest...

Santa, Urine For a Surprise!

Honestly, do I even need a caption for this one? When I saw this picture, I nearly did the same thing (but it was only because I was laughing so hard...)

Happy Holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November has been a very busy month, and December is looking to be even more busy. I just wanted to do a quick post to include some of the fun things we have been up to this month. We enjoyed a fun Thanksgiving down in Cedar City with my parents, and my brother and his family. We also were the Griswold family by getting a permit and going up to Yankee Meadows to cut down a Christmas tree (and no, our car didn't make it up the hill, and yes, we ended up cutting down a tree from a campground at a lower elevation (don't tell!) but at least someone remembered to bring a saw, and the hot chocolate was yummy. Also included here are a few other random pictures we took this past month. Enjoy!

Call Me Martha

My first entirely homemade pie- I am thinking it will be very well received...

Zappos.com

Ok, so I don't usually post about this kind of stuff, but I was so impressed I just had to share. If you ever (or think you might ever want to) buy shoes online, do I have the site for you! It's http://www.zappos.com . There are a few reasons why I am so impressed with these guys. #1 is that they do free shipping (both ways! If they don't fit, or you don't like them or whatever, no worries- you can send them back on their dime.) I have never heard of anyone doing this before, but I love it. Having 2 kids has made shopping at the mall feel like nothing but work (never thought I'd hear myself even THINK something like that-how depressing) and so it's much easier just to shop online these days, but I absolutley HATE paying for shipping, so I don't do it as much as I would like to. #2 Great thing about them is that they have thousands of shoes to choose from, mens, women's, kids, babies, etc. and you can search by size, color, brand, style, etc. And their prices are pretty competitive, too. And even better is that it is a great site, and it shows each pair of shoes from about 7 different angles, and close-up so you can see EXACTLY what you will be getting (another drawback of online shopping; often what you see on the screen doesn't quite look the same in person.) Ok, and here is the reason why I decided that this website is so blog-worthy: I ordered a pair of shoes yesterday afternoon at around 4 p.m., and lo and behold, who rang my doorbell this morning at 11 am? Why, it was the FedEx guy with my shoes, of course! From a click of the mouse to a ring of the doorbell in just 19 hours? How is that even possible? It would practically take me that long to prepare for a shopping trip to the mall...! I looked at the packing slip, and apparently they came from Kentucky. If that isn't a speedy delivery, I don't know what is. So, I would admonish you to check them out next time you want to order some shoes. I am totally sold.