Katrina's "friend party"

So, I finally did it. With our trip to Hawaii coming up so fast, I decided I couldn't put it off any longer so we had "the dreaded friend party." (it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be... still some work, and we gave those poor girls WAY to much sugar... but they had fun. Here are a few of the many pictures from the party:

Party rule #1 - make sure dad is home... I don't think I would have made it out alive without his help.

While we were waiting for everyone to get there, and as the first game, we played "DON'T EAT THE KITTEN" (originally known as "Don't Eat Pete" which rolls off the tongue better, but didn't match the theme of the party...) To play the the game you write out a numbered grid, send one person out of the room while the rest pick out a number that is "Pete" or in our case "the kitten." The person comes back in and one by one eats the fishes (or mini m&m's), trying to NOT eat the kitten. When they reach out to eat the kitten, everyone else yells "DON"T EAT THE KITTEN!!!!" (nearly scares the poor kid to death every time - but it's fun.)


We all know that kittens love to chase and bite things tied to a string...
so here you go: doughnut on a string. (I love the look on Bryan's face in this picture.)


After they got cleaned up from the doughnut game, they each made a kitten collar and got their faces painted. Here are all of the girls in their face paint and ears. (Chloe is wearing her collar, the rest were still drying - lots and lots of glitter glue on some of them) We ended up missing about 1/2 of the girls Katrina invited, but in my opinion, it was better that way - a little less crazy. not to mention that these four are the ones she really plays with the most.

The next game was "feed the hungry kitty." We had some stretchy rats and the girls tried to flip them (or just throw them) through the kitten's empty tummy. It turned out that the rats would often stick to the poster board, and the girls thought that was HILARIOUS! (in a gross disgusting way. They would shriek and say "eewwww gross, it stuck to _______ (name the body part)," then they would laugh and laugh.) It was pretty funny to watch. The funniest was the mouse that got his tail stuck just above the stomach hole and it was swinging in and out of the hole. (didn't get a picture in time on that one)


For the next activity, each girl got to decorate her own kitten cupcake. Some actually looked kind of like kittens, others, not so much... (actually, looking at Katrina's now, I can see a kitten. look hard - it's like one of those "perspective" pictures, you know the one "do you see the young beautiful woman or the old hag? - if you have no clue what I'm talking about let me know and I'll post it)


Others still were just opportunities to "create" and get a sugar high.

After cupcakes we went downstairs and Katrina got to open her presents.

Katrina with Sadie,

and Jaislyn,

and Chloe,
and Sydney.

All in all I would say the party was a success. When it was over, all of the girls stayed for at least an hour longer just playing. It was fun. Katrina was happy with it, and that is all that mattered. This last picture is obviously Katrina the Kitty, holding Mystery - they took turns being the STAR of the party. we ended up taking a photo of each girl holding Mystery and they turned out cute. I'm thinking about getting a print made of each of those to send as the "thank you" note. (we'll see if I get around to it or not:)


Happy birthday my sweet kitty princess! We love you!

Poor Black Beauty...

I have sad news today, but before I can share it - I have to give a little background and tell you that we got some little chicks last spring. (I was such a lousy blogger for SO long, I just never got around to sharing that info...) Here are some pictures that I kept meaning to post.

Katrina with her chick, Goldie

Another shot of Goldie - resting IN the food...
Caleb holding his little black chick, Hopper

Caleb staring intently at all 5 chicks - 2 red (little Ann and Big Red), 2 black(hopper and Black Beauty), and one yellow (Goldie)

Anyway, they have been fun and entertaining. They are now 6 months old and we are getting plenty of eggs (have given away several dozen too, when we can't fit more in the fridge) Goldie lays the white eggs and the rest lay brown.


When they first started laying, they didn't seem to like the nesting box and we got to go on a lot of "Easter egg hunts." One afternoon, I saw Little Ann up in my Bluebeard's Blue Mist Spirea bush.

Here is a photo of the nest we found.

They have actually been really quite tame, - not loving all the attention they get, but tolerating it for the most part.

Here is Bryan holding his chicken. She has changed names LOTS of times. Big Red, Red, Billy Bob Joe, and her current name is "Robert."

And here is Caleb holding Black Beauty. (We put little colored bands on their legs so we could tell them apart)

So, background in place, here is the SAD NEWS. They didn't get shut into their pen last night (My fault, I was being lazy and they've been left out before and nothing happened...) An animal of some kind got Black Beauty. (she was my chick) At first I thought it was Jasmine, but I really don't think it was. It was too neatly done, and the Hen was really well buried. It was sad.

I know it's "just a chicken..."

but for us... it is sad.

Katrina's birthday "Mystery"

Seven years ago, (last Friday) our sweet little princess Katrina was born. As the only girl in our family, we are ever grateful for her "feminine influence." (I was certain she was going to be a boy. After she was born I kept saying, "are you sure it's a girl?") I can still remember the amazing feelings I had when she was born. Just something amazing and powerful. She has such an incredible spirit. So full of love and a desire to do what is right. I feel so blessed to be her mother. She teaches me SO much.

This year she gets a "friend party," but it hasn't happened yet. (I'm not good at planning parties anyway, and the whole "girl thing" is just WAY beyond my comfort zone!) Now that people are finally getting over this flu-like bug, I'll have to plan something.

So, she got to pick her birthday meal (she chose cheese stuffed pasta shells, with garlic bread, and salad + strawberry cake for dessert.)



The greatest part of the day was her present. She has been wanting a kitten for a LONG time. I considered it for her last birthday, but Tim wasn't ready for it. I tried again for Christmas, but again... NO. I asked again this birthday and my dear, sweet, PATIENT husband said I could get one! I found this sweet little baby girl online and went and picked her up on Friday morning. Her mom was a mix of Ocicat and Egyptian Mau. I had never heard of the Ocicat breed, but reading online that they are often considered a "dog personality" in a cat's body, I thought this might be the perfect cat for us. She is just the sweetest little thing, and Katrina was SO thrilled when she saw her. I just told Katrina that her present was in on her bed. She walked in the room got the BIGGEST grin on her face.

"A real ALIVE kitten!"

(Tim took a video of it, but I don't know how to find that so I can't post it here. maybe later)


She named her kitten "Mystery Joy Mellor" She is just a little ball of energy and fun. Katrina came in yesterday morning and said she was awake "all night" because Mystery kept trying to groom her. Mystery was holding Katrina's hand in her paws and kept licking.

Mystery and Jasmine are starting to come to terms with each other, but they are not all the way there yet.

Here is Mystery exploring the doll house. she was running up and down the stairs...
it was fun to watch

Katrina and Caleb by the "cat tree" that Katrina got with the kitten and other kitten supplies. It goes from floor to ceiling with 3 "shelves" or tiers that the cat can sit on. I thought it would be a while before Mystery figured it out, but nope, she just climbs (runs) to the top and back down like it's nothing...

playing with her new toy.
I went in that first night and Mystery was just curled up, sleeping by Katrina. SO sweet! (wish we could figure out how to stop that thumb sucking...)

She loves to sit and sleep on the windowsills.

the fruits of my labors...

So - last night I didn't think I had it in me, but I guess somewhere - deep down... it was there. (barely) It doesn't look like much when you consider it took me from 6 am - 5pm, but here it is. 12 quarts of peaches, 23 quarts of pears, 4 pints of peach jam, and 4 pints of peach/pear butter.


Aaron took the picture of my jars, then he wanted to be in one, so here is my happy little photographer... (unfortunately, not a "canning helper" - this was a SOLO project, but the kids did help by keeping themselves mostly entertained throughout the day, and it only looks like a Severe Tropical Storm blew through, not a category 5 hurricane. I suppose "post storm clean-up efforts" will begin tomorrow. Wonder if the Red Cross or "federal disaster Relief funds" cover this type of "disaster."


Good night! I sure hope all the kids sleep through the night. I really need another good nights rest - and 5am walking comes awfully EARLY! There's a good question for you... why can't 5 am be LATER in the day???


Here's hoping Katrina can go back to school tomorrow...

just FYI

one day into this "new week"... it's not calming down much. After volunteering at school today, cleaning carpets, running carpools, FHE, homework, some other random house cleaning (most of which has already been UN-done), and other miscellaneous stuff... I believe I am more tired tonight than I was last night... if that is even humanly possible!



I am dreading waking up in the morning - as I have a big box of pears and a smaller box of peaches, all waiting in the kitchen to be bottled.

I honestly don't know if I have it in me... I'll let you know how it goes.

glad it's a new week...

It was a LONG, EXHAUSTING weekend! Friday was Katrina's birthday. I will devote a separate post to that, since who wants their "birthday post" to have rumblings of THROW-UP it it???

ya, that's what I thought! NO ONE...

Just FYI... this is a long, not really interesting to anyone but me, "journal" post - so here is the abridged version: I was running around like crazy all weekend and we have sick people at my house... There you go. Now you can click on your way and skip everything else... you are of course welcome to read on... but if you get bored it is your own fault.)


As a precursor, I will add in here that Thursday night was not a good one for sleeping - Caleb was up and down multiple times and I just didn't get a good nights sleep, so what I am saying, is that I was already pretty sleep deprived before this story begin. so... without further ado -

Friday was crazy busy- driving Bryan to preschool, driving over to AF to pick up Katrina's birthday present, then back to pick up Bryan, then to the store to buy some other birthday items and ingredients for Katrina's requested birthday meal. Then home to drop everything off, then off to pick up the kids from school. (plus two extra boys who needed to come to my house that afternoon while their mom worked. bake Katrina's cake and put the dinner together, then off to drop off the boys and take Aaron to learning technics. home at 5:30, get rest of dinner put together. Finally, sitting down to eat, Trina only picked at her food, and in the back of my mind I wondered why. It tasted fine to me... (I found out why, later that night) I had Bountiful Baskets on Saturday morning and it was my week to be in charge, so at 10:00 I started printing out all the reports and paperwork I would need. I was IN bed ready to crash by 11:00, and was excited that I'd be able to get 7 hours of sleep! It was not meant to be. by 11:30 Katrina was throwing up. she was up and down all night. Caleb also woke up 2 or 3 times, for drinks, tummy hurting, wanting mommy to sleep with him, you name it... it was NOT FUN!
I got up at 6 and finished getting my stuff ready to go. Got to BB (late, I might add) and found that I had not been firing on all cylinders when getting things ready - - I had forgotten several things... but nothing we couldn't handle, thank heavens. Got home from baskets at 10, to find Caleb now throwing up too.

On Friday, a neighbor had given us a turtle, but we needed to get a good home fro him. he was just in a big plastic bin... I found a great deal on an aquarium online, and the guy called back Saturday morning and said we could come get it - right then... so Aaron and I went out and bought a new aquarium, then went to the pet store to buy the special UVB bulb and water filter we needed, then hauled everything back home. We then spent the next hour + setting the tank up. I think it looks cool and Aaron loves it - so that's all good I guess. (Tim is ready to disown me for allowing yet another animal into the menagerie.)

So there I was... 2:30 in the afternoon, house of sick people and messy messy MESS everywhere... No nap for me! I listened to the BYU football game while I cleaned the kitchen. (Total bummer of a game, but I did get my kitchen clean, all the way to mopping the floor... so it's not ALL bad!) By this point in the afternoon, Tim was feeling sick too...

I then went out to rent a carpet cleaner, cause Trina has gotten horribly stinky vomit all over her carpet and the room just REEKED! It was so NASTY! I got her room done (smells MUCH better today, and I'll do an second run tomorrow before I return the machine) and the downstairs family room done. (it is the room where we finally put in the new carpet... and the very next week jasmine peed on it. dumb dog! It will need a second run tomorrow too...) I'm also hoping to do a once over on the carpet in the front room before taking it back... but we'll see how much I can actually get done!

SO - I collapsed into bed last night at 10:30 and was instantly OUT! I don't think anyone woke up during the night. If they did - I slept through it!

Today I had to be at church early to practice with the ward choir as we were singing today, then 3 hours of church (Tim was still not feeling well, so he stayed home with the sick kids) After church it was a quick lunch, then off to choir practice. I ran home, grabbed my music, then drove around to pick up all the kids in my children's choir. (9 of them) no, I didn't have quite that many seat belts... shhhh! don't tell! We practiced at the church so that they were already there at 4:30 when we had a primary training meeting. My sweet little choir sang the opening song. They did "Teacher, Do You Love Me?", with a handful of teachers singing the teachers part. I thought they did a great job and really invited the spirit into the meeting. Then the children went home and I stayed for the rest of the meeting. Home at 4:45, and luckily for me, my friend Holly brought us over some dinner so I wouldn't have to cook. I just feel bad - with so many sick people, only and Aaron and I ate much. I should have just told her not to worry about it and Aaron and I could have eaten leftovers. Oh well - her soup was way more yummy than leftovers!

Now the dishwashers is running, table is wiped off, Aaron's done his learning technic exercises, kids (except Caleb, who is still wandering around) are tucked in bed and I am almost done writing in my "journal... aka blog. Then I am going to BED! Although I did get a pretty good nights sleep last night, I figure two in a row would be sheer bliss!!! so that's what I'm going for.

If you made it this far - thanks for lending an empathetic ear.

Here's hoping the bug quickly passes from our house and we can go back to normal life. (still crazy, but without the BARF!)

Ok - I lied. Apparently all those kids that were tucked in, un-tucked themselves and are still awake. I've now sent them off to bed again - and now I think it is safe to say that this day (and this weekend) is DONE!

an inspirational conference: part 4 (last one)

So - the final speaker was President Boyd K. Packer. He kind of jumped around a lot, but here are a few things that stood out...

in questioning when he had done "enough" and could give up on a particularly disruptive boy in his seminary class, "What if that boy was YOUR son?"

The Lord's voting for you, Satan's voting against you, you have the deciding vote...

The devil can't make you do anything. can only entice, he has his limits and can only do what we let him do - only has the power we let him have.

We should pattern our lives in a way that Satan can't be in it. develop self-control and eliminate negative influences.

"Are you so touchy that you don't like to be corrected?"

"The easy times are in the past" - he mentioned this several times, recalled the pioneer stories already shared and said that it was harder now. that we must be strong and faithful.

I think it is interesting when we compare the pioneer hardships with our current challenges. they are both hard. but very different. I think the biggest difference is that they battled constantly with PHYSICAL things. Today we are battling more against spiritual and moral issues. (I always thing of the scripture about putting on the armor of God, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.")

In those days it was a daily battle to stay alive. Now it is a daily battle to keep your head straight about what is right and wrong. To somehow see through all of Satan's lies and deceptions. We are bombarded on all sides with "political correctness," and "tolerance" (which turns rapidly into failure to stand up for anything on any sort of moral basis). I watched how torn apart many people (in the church) became over the prop 8 thing in California. People, GOOD people, seriously didn't know which way was "right" -
* defending the moral position that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that Procreation (sexual relations) is sacred and must only take place between a married man and woman. (the family:a proclamation to the world)
or
* defending people's right to exercise their "agency" to live in a manner that is in opposition to this moral position.

Talk about the lines between black and white, right and wrong, becoming so blurred that it is difficult to know which side to be on. I was on the debate team in High school (love it!) and I actually really enjoyed the challenge of defending a point of view that I (personally) didn't actually agree with. I can honestly understand how good, faithful, temple recommend holding members, could be on BOTH sides of this issue and feel that they were "right" and the other side is "Wrong."

In Isaiah chapter 5 we read:
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

21Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

22Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:

23Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!

I believe that THIS is why we are living in more difficult times... back then, right and wrong were more defined. Roles were more defined. moral boundaries (even among the varied religions) were defined and expected. In our day, are absolutely fulfilling the prophesy of Isaiah - that people call good evil and evil good.

I believe President's Packer's message of warning is that we MUST know the difference between right and wrong and we MUST chose the right. This is not something can be done sporadically or haphazardly. It requires faith, diligence, Study and prayer, obedience, and perseverance. We can't give up on one another either.

Wow - I'm really going after this tonight... Just for the record, the one liners up at the top are the notes - everything else is just kinda what came rolling out of my brain tonight. I think perhaps I should calm down and go to bed.

G'nite!