Give her a HAND

The second week of March my mom had surgery. For anyone that knows my mom knows that this is a big deal. She is terrified of Doctors. Granted she has had some bad experiences but I cannot remember her to ever go to the doctor growing up, let alone now. SO I am super super proud of her for finally doing something for herself.
She has had carpal tunnel syndrome for a super long time and has need to do something for awhile. So she finally did it! She got both of her hands done and then came to stay with us so that I could help her cause if you can't use either of your hands there is alot of stuff that you cannot do for yourself. . . dressing, eating, driving, ect. She stayed for two weeks and the kids loved it!! I hope we didn't drive her too crazy. She seems to be doing really good.

My parents went to pheonix this last week and will get back on Saturday, then it is her BIRTHDAY on Sunday! So we are going to have a little HAND party for her. Josie and I "Hand" made invtations of Josie hands and inside put this little poem:

Cheryl’s back from the land of Sand

So let party and give her a big HAND

Be sure to “NAIL” down the date

Sunday, March 22, 5:30 ‘til late

At her house we’ll have FINGER food and cake

You can give her a THUMBS up and a HAND SHAKE

We’ll sing Happy Birthday till she feels gay

Hope to see you all OK?

Give me a RING if I’ve forgotten something!

I think that I will have finger sandwiches and chips, some relish trays and dips. I want to make tumbprint cookies...but I don't know what to do for a cake or activities (other than thumbwars hee hee) so if any of you have some good suggestions of how to make this little party cooler please let me know!! Hee hee I think that it will be fun and will let her know we love her!

Ahhh NUTS!!

I have wondered if I shouldn't post this cause I don't want anyone to be offended so if you find an innocent girl's comment to be offensive please don't want read on.

Josie has some allergies. She has mostly grown out of alot of them, but the Nut one remains. She is really good about staying away from things that have nuts in them. And even is a little dramatic about it but I am glad that she knows. We are careful too to not keep them around our house.
My sister lives on the other side of town. She had 4 boys and Josie loves them lots. She calls them "my boys" or "the boys".
The other day she really wanted to go and play with them. So I dropped her off at Tara's house so she could play for a little while. Tara called a few minutes later to tell me that there had been a bag of unshelled nuts out and Josie had gotten them on her hands and had a rash. So I went over to pick her up.
As I walked through the door Josie runs to me and says in a pouty little voice,

"The boys made me touch their NUTS mom!"

I couldn't help but laugh. She didn't think it was funny but it was just the way she said it. I made sure to tell her later that she shouldn't touch anyones nuts. hee hee

Personal Progress Pirates

I know that it has been a super long time since I blogged and I have my excuses like everyone else but I am going to post one here.

We had our New Beginnings last week, and I have been super busy trying to get things ready for it! I think that it turned out a HUGE success and hope that everyone there had as much fun as I did.
We decided(or shall I say I) hee that we would do something a little different and fun this year. We did not have any new Beehives come in to YW this year to highlight and so all of the parents already know about the young womens program. . . . so I thought that we could "review" the values a little different and spunky way!

We did a treasure theme. We had the YW and their parents shipwreck on Value Island!! We gave them invitations in bottles with sand and had them hand-delivered by two very handsome pirates--(thanks again Nick and Joshy) Our decorations where super cool. We had 10 footish palm trees around, waves on the stage, tables with sand, seashell, treasure boxes (with candy jewels and coins that the girls later got to take home for a jewelry box) pineapples, and scroll programs. We then had our program, where the leaders were personal progress pirates and we each dressed in a color and did a little pirate jig to sing about each "Value" as a Treasure. Since there is a new value Virtue, Brother Johnson was our "Gold Captain". He really made the skit!! Then Sis Martin (thanks Beck) gave a wonderful talk about virtue treasure and Bishop gave some closing remarks. We then had some fruity drink with umbrellas and some pineapple cake!! I think it was pretty fun and really hope the girls will remember it. If nothing else hopefully they remember that they have leaders that love them enough to make fools of themselves. hee hee

I really love our young women. I am so grateful that I have gotten to know them. We really don't have very many, but it is so fun to get to know them so well. I am so impressed by their talents and perspectives. They really do have testimonies and are living the gospel!! I only wish that I could have been friends with them in my YW years! They are great examples!!


P.S. So I tried for a whole day to get the skit video to load on this page but it won't so I guess you'll just have to trust me it was super cute and super funny!

Giraffe tongues and poky plants

So here goes another one of my purges.
In Mid-January we went down to Arizona with my parents for a vacation. I was semi-excited about it cause well, we were going to fly which I wasn't so sure about and we haven't really traveled much with Troop--he isn't a trooper when it comes to car rides--hee hee and I haven't ever been to Phoenix before. However we had a blast!! Of course there were some funny stuff but all in all we had a great time.

The flight was of course nerve racking for me. Both our kids on that tiny plane, pretty early in the morning, You just never know what to expect, and of course you never know how the other people will react too. I have been on airplanes with other peoples kids--it is just different when they are your own--you know what I mean?!! Anyway our kids did great!! And the people on the plane were great to them. Makes me want to be sure to be more helpful to others when I am flying. Joshy would disagree with me but our flight attendant was super rude. Even the lady behind us complained to me afterward that she was MEAN. Seriously I was almost in tears one of the times she made a comment to me, but soon that sadness turned to rage. Luckily the flight was short and soon we were in Sunny Arizona!


It was high 70's to low 80s the whole week, hich in January is freaken awesome! The house where we stayed is really fun. It has a nice HEATED pool in the backyard, it is in an awesome community that has these groomed bike trails, and super cool parks for kids all over. We mostly just spent lots of time play and relaxing. It was so fun. We did manage to go to a wildlife park and we got to hand feed the giraffes and pet stingrays!! Josie and Troop loved that. We went to the Mesa Temple and also did some Shopping! We ate tree riped oranges and examined the "Poky" plants. We had a great time. Josh and I even thought about moving there--but then we decided that we had better visit in the summer months when it is like 120 before we make that decision. hee hee
Thanks Mom and Dad we cannot wait to go again.


My only regret! WE didn't take hardly any pictures!! So sorry there were very few to choose from!!!
Josie wouldn't look at the camera when the giraffes where around so we tried to ask her about it later--this is what we got!


Here is the petting of the string rays Josie says that they were all waving to her.