{Piece of Heaven}

For conference weekend, we headed north for a little R&R.

We always hope to see a few of these:

{you get a dollar for every one you see..grandpa's game}

And take a few trips in this bad boy:

If we're really good, we might even get to help grandma make dinner.

{which is a treat because it doesn't happen too much...guess I should give in and let them help with dinner more often.}

And of course the lounging. No cell phone service. No internet.

Well, there is TV, but you need a little connection to the outside world, right.

It's such a beautiful place that brings us all closer together.

My Favorite Book

When I saw this book, I had a flashback of being at girl's camp and a junior leader reading this story. Although, it wasn't in book form, it was just a story printed out on the computer. I don't have the best memory, but I have honestly thought about this story many times throughout my life.

Well, when we lived in St. George, we were browsing Deseret Book and I happened to pick up this book. (Judging the cover of this book, they had me at 'chocolate'.) Lo and Behold, it was that story in picture book form.

Here's the book's description:

In this fictitious but true-to-life story, a young princess discovers that the little choices we make every day are often more important than we think. Any decision can make us stronger in our commitment to righteousness — or it can weaken our resolve to follow the strait and narrow path.

If you find yourself at the book store, check it out! It's basically a parable about chocolate cake, my kind of parable! I'm planning on using it in my next Relief Society lesson! Just thought I'd share!!

Big Girl Underwear

This little lady

is officially potty trained!!

For the longest time she was obsessed with wearing underwear over her diaper! She would tell everyone she was potty trained! Then one day we just gave it a whirl. I wanted to give up the first time she had an accident, but figured we'd push through.

Then you get to the point where you think, 'I'm too far in, I can't turn back.'

But needless to say, she was a pro! She hasn't had an accident through the night and it's been a month now and she's so great to just run in and use the bathroom, I hardly ever have to ask if she has to go. So we got lucky!! And now she can officially sport her big girl underwear!!

Let's be honest, is there anything cuter than a little kid booty??

Black Bean and Couscous Salad

Need a change from all that heavy food? This is so light and fresh, but will still satisfy your hunger!

Check it out at Eat At Moms if I just made your mouth water!

Road Trip: Girl Style

Erin convinced me to drive down to St. George and watch Abby play in a tennis tournament last weekend! So we packed up the 3 little ladies and headed south.

We had to let the girls cool off so we took them to the splash pad on Main.

i LOVE that place!

You don't have to worry about the kids drowning, they just get to run wild!

Pres in her tiny-weeny-itsy-bitsy black & white bikini

cute lil' bikini body!

Paityn making a funny face

aren't her freckles precious?

she's like "mom, they're going up to my eyebrows!"

The girls are at such a fun age. I love when they play together. Oh yes, they fight good too!

And little Miss Lottie May.

As if her name isn't cute enough, look at her!

The girls were SOO bored at the tennis matches.

Paityn said "mom, I thought you told me this was going to be fun"

It's a little rough taking kids to watch tennis...you can't run around like you're at a baseball game.

So they played in the water fountain.

There's our tennis pro Abby!

She plays doubles with a girl named Emily. They won ALL of their matches!

Way to go girls!

Viewmont High School Varsity Team

All About Paityn

I had to put together a page with pictures for Paityn.

It was so fun thinking about all the things that make her

~ who she is ~

Can you believe what a dark little monkey she was when she was born??

Best Object Lesson

I think I have practically told EVERYONE I know about this object lesson!

My neighbor used this in YW 2 years ago and it has honestly stuck with me!

I was getting it ready for Devin's seminary class and decided to use it on my Relief Society lesson that Sunday and it added SO much to my lesson!

So I love sharing things I LOVE!

Hopefully, someone will get to use this and it will work as great as it did for me!

If you do, let me know!

So here goes:

1. Count 1,380 M&M's and put them in a jar.

{To save you time: A big bag at Costco has a little over 600 in each bag. About 610. So that means you need 2 Costco bags and then 1 other bag at the store. I also prefer the peanut M&M's. They stand out more.)

2. Ask your class how many people they estimate are in the world today?

Tell the class that this jar of M&M's represents THE WORLD.

Each M on 1 M&M represents 5 MILLION PEOPLE.

There are approximately 6.9 BILLION PEOPLE ON THE EARTH TODAY.

3. Next, ask how many people live in the United States?

Tell them that there are approximately 310 million people that live in the United States.

That is approximately 62 M&M's.

4. You can narrow it down even more by asking how many people live in Utah?

There is approximately 2.7 million people living in Utah.

That is approximately 1/2 of M&M. (compared to the whole world)

Well, from here, it's your choice. You can use other statistics like these:

About 1/8 of the world have NO religion (780 million people; 156 M&Ms)

About 1/5 of the world are Muslim (1 billion 235 million; about 247 M&Ms)

About 1/8 of the world are Hindus (845 million; 169 M&Ms)

About 1/5 the world are made up of miscellaneous relgions (1 billion 365 million; 273 M&Ms)

About 1/3 the world is Christian: Believe in a Jesus Christ (2 billion 125 million; 425 M&Ms)

So after all of those statistics, HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE MORMONS, MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS?

Well as of December 2009, there are 13,824,854 MILLION MEMBERS.

Which equals a little less than 3 M&M'S.

SHOCKING!!

at least for me!

You can use this lesson in so many ways:

to show the missionary work that still needs to be done

the blessings of being one of the 3 M&M's

To be in the world, but not of the world...

the list goes on!

You can also, add or take away from what I put on here!

I hope this helps you in some way!