My husband's gone tonight and I can never sleep well when he's not here. So, after feeding, bathing and putting 2 sick children to bed (2.5 hours ago) I'm STILL up. I'm tired and I've tried everything to shut my mind off and get some sleep before my 6 AM wake-up call named Lil G comes back to life. Maybe I'll start over with eating more cookies ;), watching Disney Channel movies, and playing games on my phone. Wish me LUCK!

food: Cookies!

Today's project was Chocolate Chip Cookies (whole wheat of course!) Check out the fruits of our labors!






Culinary Tip: Cream the fat (butter) with the sugar eggs and vanilla for a significant amount of time (at least 5 but can up to 15 minutes) before adding the dry ingredients. Creaming the fats and sugars together give the sugar time to dissolve and distribute evenly. Allowing the sugar to dissolve adds moisture to your cookies and the cookies will brown evenly in the oven. It makes the prefect balance of softness and crunch! We like SOFT cookies.

Also, add your dry ingredients at the very end of mixing. Being careful not to over mix at this stage will prevent your cookies from developing too much gluten. Too much gluten results in gummy cookies.

craft: Volcano

Who remembers this oldie but goodie? Salt Dough!

1 Cups Salt

2 Cups Flour

1 Cup Water

Combine salt and flour then add water SLOWLY until you have stiff dough. To color dough, add food coloring to the water before mixing. Create then bake at 325 for 2 hours to make your form permanent. If you desire, color your creation after it has baked then coat with a layer of lacquer.

We made a VOLCANO! Look at it EXPLODE! (Baking soda and vinegar. We added a little red food coloring to the vinegar to get read "lava")

craft: Masks

Love these masks. Simple as pie! I was hoping to get a picture of us all in our cute Goldilocks and the 3 Bears masks but Lil G wouldn't keep his on =(. Here's how we did it:

Materials:

Paper Plates
Scissors
Hole Punch
Markers
Construction paper
String or elastic
Easter basket filling or gift bag raffia or yarn, for hair
Glue

Cut out 2 eye circles in a paper plate.
Decorate silly, sad, happy, or mad.
Punch a small hole on each side of the face, close to the edge, just higher than the eyes.
Tie a piece of string from one hole to the next for a strap to keep your mask on.

"Remember Lot's Wife"

Our family is sick today-each with something different. As J lies in bed trying to survive, I took the children out to our living room and provided activities for both. I settled in with a blanket and started my Sunday with a BYU Devotional. BYUTV was broadcasting “Remember Lot’s Wife” by Elder Holland. At the end of his devotional he recounted a personal story in which he compared himself to Lot’s wife. In essence his young self said, "Let's go back, let’s give up, let’s go home." Isn't that what Lot's wife did? Longed for Home although there was a better place prepared for them? Elder Holland explained, “What was wrong with Lot’s wife is that she wasn't just looking back, but that in her heart she wanted to go back....[Lot’s wife] doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she had.” In contrast, "faith builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ is the 'high priest of good things to come.'" How grateful I am to live in this place. This GREAT place where there are so many opportunities, so many good gifts, and so many great examples. I will always long for family but I am going to start longing for my future here, with my husband, friends and opportunities for growth.

Adoption

Some of you may notice that I have added a few adoption links on my blog. I love, love, love, reading these amazing women's stories. If you'd like to check them out click here and here.

foster: Loving Children

I LOVE this quote from "Unable to Have Children" by Areth G. Kapp: "You do not need to possess children to love them. Loving is not synonymous with possessing, and possessing is not necessarily loving. The world is filled with people to be loved, guided, taught, lifted and inspired." We are all children of a loving Heavenly Father. I hope that we can find room in our lives to make Heavenly Father's Children feel "loved, guided, taught, lifted [or] inspired."

fun: Discovery Gateway

Monday of Spring Break we went the the Children's Museum in SLC. It was so fun! We spent about 3 hours there but the kids could have stayed ALL day! The downstairs has a lot of imagination play: A store, a house, a farm, a construction site, a model of the water system. This is by far what both kids liked the most. We spent the most time down there. Lil G was able to play and I could keep an eye on G. It was soooo CROWDED, mainly because there were at least 3 school groups there with us. OI! By the time we made it upstairs to the Media section, so had 2 school groups. It was too crowded for G to get to do much but we did have fun making animated movies! Next time I'm bringing a MOM friend with me. Oh, and I'll go during summer when, hopefully, there won't be many school groups!

trip: Moab

Last week was SPRING BREAK! What a blast. We did so many fun things but G's FAVORITE was CAMPING! Our friends invited us to stay in camp ground with cabins and a SWIMMING pool. It was a little cold and windy and miserable (for the Adults) the first few days. Luckily, Saturday warmed up and G was so excited to swim. We will have to get a pool pass this summer.

Because this was my first time camping with kids I thought I'd opt for one of the $40 cabins. These cabins were PERFECT! They had 2 full beds and heat. G had a blast with campfire cooking. She was so excited to roast a hotdog over the camp fire. And of course she loved the SMORES' and hot chocolate! Lil G did great learning about fire. He was so careful around the fire by the time we left. He loved being "ou-side" all day!

We had a chance to visit Arches NP. We are so lucky to live here in Utah with so many beautiful things to see and so many opportunities for children. Here are some pictures of the arches we saw. We all can't wait to go back and visit again!

While hiking in Arches we saw these cool Ute Indian drawings!

G was so excited to tell all she knew about rocks. I regret not preparing to do some teaching while there. You learn so much more when learning corresponds with seeing or doing. Oh well, next time!

foster: Keep or Not to Keep

I had a friend tell me the other day that she hopes we get to adopt the kids. I had an opportunity to share with her my feelings on the foster care program in Utah. Utah's foster program is geared toward reunification with the family. I whole heartily support that goal. As long as the family situation is safe, children should go home. I believe that no one can parent a child as well as that child's parent (again as long as it is SAFE). There are some people who abuse their children and parental rights are frequently terminated. There are some parents who just make some choices and are unable to give the children proper care. Those children need a safe environment while Mom or Dad or both get the help they need. This doesn't mean Mom and Dad shouldn't be parents. It means they have a problem that they need to solve before they can be good parents. I sincerely hope that G and Lil G get to go home to a safe environment.

The last few weeks Lil G has been calling everyone MaMa. Me, J, G our neighbors we spend a lot of time with, anyone he thinks is cool or special gets called MaMa. I think it's funny. We'd like to teach him MaMa E- for me, and sister for G. That way it isn't confusing when he goes home. J is trying to get him to say DaDa J. He'll call J "JJ" sometimes but not consistently. Pretty Cute!