Happy Valentine's Day!

This photo was taken the day we were flying a kite at the beach and the light was fading fast. I'll have to take another.

The other day Madison told me in the car with her best tattle tale voice, "Mommy, today at school Evan called me Madison Lee Tooty-Face." Now our girls do not do name calling (better keep my fingers crossed!) and I haven't called anyone names since I was a kid so this struck me very funny and I burst out laughing. Madison, of course, was affronted. "Mommy, it's not funny!" she said. "I told Evan I don't like being called Madison Lee Tooty-Face and then I made him invisible." So then I laughed even harder.

Name calling must the most annoying thing in the world to a parent or a teacher. But the names kids come up with are pretty funny. I can't remember all of them but we used "Cucumber Face", "Sassy Pea", "Miss Priss", and the highly insulting "Tyler Face", "Wendi Face" or "Alana Face" when talking to that particular person. Why it was so offensive remains a mystery because, after all my face is my face. The neat thing is that I'm sure most of our names were original to our family and that other family's had their own to annoy each other with. Feel free to let me know what names you used as kids! I'd love a laugh!

Cooking Less Effectively with Alana

Yesterday is one for the books in regards to my cooking abilities. A culinary chef I am not but I try. It's not as bad as the time I set a cake on fire but it's just that every meal took a beating!

So first things first. Breakfast at 7:00am. I made everyone oatmeal and the girls like it a lot. I decided that I would add a little cinnamon for a change and as I was shaking it into the pot I suddenly noticed that I couldn't see the cinnamon coming out. I kept shaking and then realized that it was a really pale color. Huh? I looked at the label and saw that I had added garlic powder instead of cinnamon. Nasty! I casually asked Madison if she would like grape jelly mixed in with her oatmeal today. That sounded exciting to her as we've never done that! So though I tried to mask the garlic taste it didn't work quite as well as I had hoped. Madison said "Mommy, wherever there is no jelly in my oatmeal it tastes yucky," So more jelly was added. I put in a lot more grape jelly in Celina's and amazingly both girls ate it all gone! The smell in the kitchen was awful. Garlic is not a smell I enjoy first thing in the morning!

For lunch, Scott told Celina that Mommy would take her to McD's for lunch.... I am really trying to watch what I eat so this did not help me. I would rather eat a salad at home for free than pay for a dried out one at McDonald's. Well, Celina was happy. My fish sandwich can technically be called a sandwich, I guess. Parts of the fish were sort of between the buns.

For dinner I had been anticipating a yummy beef stew all day. This time Madison requested turnips be added. Okay, we can do that! (She turned down a cookie a few days ago. She didn't get that from me!) I made the stew and it turned out to be the WORST stew I have ever made! The celery I used was bought from a farm stand outside of St. Augustine. It was the hugest bunch I have ever seen and super dark green. That should have tipped me off but of course it didn't. The celery was super bitter! It ruined the whole stew! I don't think the turnip had much to do with it as it tasted really mild but I could be wrong. Madison and Celina managed to choke it down but I can't stand the thought of eating it again so into the garbage it will go.

I thought that maybe we could have a treat to make up for the nasty food I had served all day and so I decided to make tex mex sundaes. We saw Paula Deen make them on her show and it looked so easy. It's a fried tortilla sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar with ice cream and chocolate sauce on top. Apparently in the south you can't serve anything unless you fry it first which makes me feel ill. I figured one tortilla split between the three of us would be plenty. So I heated up the oil and burnt the tortilla. After all, why stop now? Luckily, I saved it before it got too too bad and gave myself the worst share of it. I figured that was fair since I made my children eat garlic flavored oatmeal but couldn't stomach it myself. The sundaes were pretty good actually. The burnt part just gave it a roasted flavor.

The St. Augustine Ward

I realized as I have thought about how long we have been here now (a little over 6 months) that I haven't shared anything about our new ward. When we first moved in we were AMAZED at how huge this ward was. If you were late, good luck even finding a seat in the foyer. People who had no seats were even roaming the halls! We soon discovered that we had come at the height of tourist season. It was difficult for the members to know who was visiting, who had just moved in, who was investigating or who had just joined the church. Even without extra visitors the ward was HUGE. A month later the ward was divided and what a difference that made! A while later the Relief Society was able to move back into the Relief Society room. (We had been meeting in the chapel.)

We also were enjoying the fact that we seemed to have arrived during a missionary boom as there were people welcomed into the ward as new members almost every week! This, however, has not stopped and our ward was blessed with 42 baptisms last year!!! I am not trying to brag but am so excited with the blessings of new members of the church! The new members who join are then bringing friends or family in to the church. Every week in Relief Society the sisters see to it that the new investigators and newly baptized sisters are recognized. That has been really helpful to us as members so that we can make an extra special effort to welcome them and get to know them. So the ward is pretty diverse. There are people who have been members their whole lives and members who have been so for maybe a year, 6 months, 3 months, or a week.

Another awesome thing is that we also have the deaf branch in our ward. We have the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine so seeing people do sign language in Walmart, for example, is not an uncommon thing. We have interpreters for RS, Primary, Young Men, and Elders Quorum. Lots of members know sign so they can communicate with them too. We need an enrichment night so more people (like me!) can learn too!

Madison gave a talk today and did such a great job! Celina has been happy to be in Sunbeams until these last two weeks. She wants to go back to nursery. It's like she thinks that while Primary was fun for a few weeks, she would prefer Nursery. Today when I was trying to leave after Madison's talk she burst into tears. Groan! I felt so bad! But if I stay then she learns that Mommy must be able to be there with her every week and if I take her with me to my class, well, how long will that go on? Luckily, both my girls adapt quickly and her teacher said her tears only lasted a couple of minutes. Whew! We'll have to play up Sunbeams a bit more this week! Fingers crossed!

FHE

Last week for Family Home Evening we read about Joseph Smith and how as a young boy he had to have his leg operated on. We talked about it and the last picture showed a picture of him pulling the stick with one of his brothers. I can't remember what this game is called but Madison said it looked like fun so Scott went into the garage and pulled the handle off a broom and we played the game for our activity. As you can see the girls LOVED it!

Pull, Celina, pull!



Oh, no!



Let's see who is the strongest....



Not Celina though she is one tough little girl!



Two against Daddy!



Can they do it?



Aw, shucks! Hold on tight, you're going down!