I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am married to Moroni a wonderful man. I have 4 beautiful children, Crysania 12 Bowen 10 Elijah 7 and Sarah 3. I am very interested in Emergency preparedness and food storage. I love to Read, Paint, Scrapbook, and Sing, but most of the time I just end up cleaning the house and changing diapers. I love my family I love the gospel and I am so happy with the life I have been given.
We have had a lot of fun experiences the last few weeks. The kids and I made graham cracker houses last week, lots easier than trying to make ginger bread and the kids like them just as much.
We went to the Starks family Christmas party on Saturday. 11 out of 12 kids were there with their families the best turn out we have had for several years. It was so much fun to see all the cousins that live out of state and we hadn't seen for a while. We ate Pizza and treats, watched a church movie about the birth of Jesus and had an Ugly sweater contest. Moroni borrowed one of my dads old sweaters and won for the ugliest sweater.
This is the only picture I have of Moroni with his ugly sweater on, sorry it is kinda blurry.
Jared won with the most unusual. Broc and Summer Playing Pool Sherrie and Brian Starks and Kids Brennan, Maddox, Kya, and Crysania watching the Polar Express. On Sunday we had the Benson family party. Robyn, Lacy, and Kendra came to visit from Connecticut. We had dinner and desert and then exchanged presents. The kids had fun playing with their presents after opening them. All the older girls got a foam purse set, here they are putting them together. Aspen was helping. Robyn and Betty, taking pictures Moroni, Sarah and Aspen
I made the best dinner tonight and everything in it was from my food storage (except the cheese) It was beef burritos enchilada style with home made tortillas, so yummy and the whole family actually at it. Here is the recipe
Flour tortillas 1c whole wheat flour 1c white flour (you can use 2c of white flour if your family doesn't like wheat) 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 2 tsp vegetable oil 3/4 c water Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients Add wet to dry 1 TBsp at a time mixing with a fork (I use my kitchen aid) knead for 4-5 min. let rest 10-20 min roll out into tortillas
Filling 2 cans roast beef 1 can green chilies 1 tsp taco seasoning (or any other seasoning you want) Warm together on the stove until beef falls apart
1 can black beans 1 can green chili enchilada sauce Mozzerella cheese
Fill tortilla with beef mixture, beans, and cheese. Top with chili sauce and more cheese if desired. You can bake this like you would enchiladas or just make individually on a plate and then warm in the microwave if needed. Serve
Crysania loves her hair curled, she is always asking me to curl it for her. So for her birthday she decided she wanted to get a perm, so all of her grandparents gave her money as well as mom and dad. We went yesterday and had it done. It took 3 1/2 hours but she was a trooper and didn't complain at all. And here are the results, it looks super cute.
Bowen had his first day of cub scouts yesterday, doesn't he look spiffy in his uniform.
I am so proud of Bowen for choosing to get baptized. We had a good day and everything went smooth. I was afraid that someone in the family would be sick since we had sick family members all week, but everyone was well. We were going to have a get together after the baptism but decided not to because of the sickness. Since many of our friends and family were not able to come I thought I would share with you the talk I gave on baptism.>
There a few questions that I want to ask about baptism.
Why are we baptized? commandment
How are we baptized? By immersion
When are we baptized? When we are 8 or older
By what authority are we baptized? The priesthood
Why
2 Nephi 9:23 And he commandeth all men that they must repent and be baptized in his name, having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel, or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.
When Jesus was alive on the earth he went to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan River. John knew that Jesus was without sin, and so he was surprised when Jesus asked to be baptized. John knew that Jesus had never sinned, so he didn’t think Jesus would need to be baptized. But Jesus told John that being baptized was a commandment from Heavenly Father, and he wanted to obey all of Heavenly Father’s commandments.
When we are baptized we make covenants (promises) with Heavenly Father. We promise to obey his commandments, forgive others, and follow Jesus Christ. In return, he accepts us into the Church and promises to guide and help us.
How
By immersion. It is to represent the burial and resurrection of Christ. As he was buried in the tomb, so we are buried in the water. As he came forth from the tomb to a newness of life as a resurrected person, so we come forth from baptism in water to a newness of a religious life on earth, serving the Lord and keeping his commandments.
Our immersion is to help us remember the burial and resurrection of Christ.
When
Little children are sinless, they do not need to be baptized, but when we turn 8 we reach the age of accountability. That means we are old enough to be responsible for our own actions and therefore old enough to be baptized.
By what authority
When Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon with Oliver Cowdery, John the Baptist came to them and taught them the correct way to baptize. He gave them the priesthood so that they had the authority to baptize others. The priesthood has been given to other people so that we can have the privilege of being baptized by someone with the proper authority.
The person who baptizes each of you will have the same priesthood that John the Baptist had
I know that Bowen made the right choice to be baptized into this the true church or Jesus Christ, I am so proud of him. I love this gospel and I love my savior, I am grateful that he suffered for us so that we could return and live with him someday. Amen
Crysania chose to have a big birthday party and invite all her friends this year instead of going out with the family. She had 7 friends come and I think they all had a really good time.
Opening presents
Crysania chose the strawberry shortcake pan for her cake this year. I think this is the third year I have made this cake for her. They played several games. This is when they were playing the telephone game, they kept picking really easy things like "merry christmas" and when they would get to the end it would always be right, so it wasn't very funny for them, or when they would whisper it in the other persons ear everyone in the room could hear it so everyone knew what it was supposed to be. I thought it was hillarious. This is Emily, Hannah, Becky, and Shellby Here they are hitting the pinata, it was a Hannah Montana guitar. Alec is hitting with Bowen, Shellby and Victoria in the background We did makeup, hair, and nail booths. Here is Jessica putting on Crysanias makeup, notice the Hannah Montana shirt, we had a theme going on here.
This year Elijah decided to have dinner out at Carls Jr. for his birthday. Then we went to walmart and got icecream for his treat instead of a cake. This is the boys up in the play ground Crysania and Sarah
Long time no post. What a wonderful long weekend where I got to relax (for the most part) and spend time with my family. For thanksgiving day we went to Grandma and Grandpa Starks house out in Levan. We only had 3 families there so it was a nice cozy dinner with only a few kids around and they were on the nintendo or watching TV the whole time so it was pretty quiet. We got to sit around and talk for hours, The guys even took their guns out and went shooting for a few hours, so we had some girl time.
Friday Moroni and I finally got around to putting the floor boards back on and some of the molding, 3 months after we put our new floor down. Then we went and watched twilight with his mom, sister, and brother in law. I could do a whole post just on my thoughts about the movie, but I won't, suffice it to say they could have done a better job but I liked it overall. Now I want to read the book again. We also went to Los Amigos (our favorite) for dinner.
Saturday moroni spent the day with his friend, so I took the kids to my sisters and spent the day shopping and hanging out with her. I went to the craft fair in SF they had tons of great gift ideas and some really fun stuff, I spent more than I was planning on but I did get the one thing I was really wanting so I was happy.
Sunday was church and just hanging around the house relaxing until about 8:00 when Elijah and Sarah both started puking a bunch. We stayed up till 11:00 with them while they threw up periodically, luckily we only had one that didn't make it into the container. (sorry if that was too gross for anyone) When we finally did go to bed they kept waking up off and on until 4am when the both finally got it out of their system and slept. So today has been a lazy day for me since I am not feeling well myself and I was up half the night.
A few days ago when Moroni and I were at the one man band restraunt, the juke box turned on and sarah started shaking her head from side to side. It took me a minute but eventually I realized that she was dancing, since she can't stand up yet the only way for her to dance is with her head. Here is a video of her "dancing". (Sorry it is not the best quality)
On Monday Aunt Mary came to visit. We had a good time hanging out and going to McDonald's for lunch.
Look at these four handsome boys. Conner, Brennan, Elijah, and Bowen Don't Mary and Crysania look a lot alike. She definitely takes after Moroni's side of the family Do you remember making cushion forts? I do, and my kids love to make them as well. I am constantly putting the cushions back on the couch. This is Elijah bringing the cushions up stairs because apparently the three couches upstairs don't have enough cushions.
My mom sent me a email that had the top 10 puns. This was my favorite, so I thought I would share it with you and give you all a laugh.
Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is SO BAD, it's good) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
On Saturday we celebrated Bowens birthday. He decided that instead of having a party at home he wanted to go to Jumping Jacks. The kids all had a really fun time jumping on all the blow up toys. And miraculously there were no injuries. After the fun we went to Del Taco for dinner, to open presents and eat brownies (He chose brownies instead of cake this year) Here is Bowen with his two friends that we brought along, Josh and Nate Parsons
Today we went to the Springville art museum for our field trip. They have a new exhibit of Utah children book illustrators. They have a room set aside with art from several illustrators and they also have all the books there for you to read. We sat for about 30 minutes reading fun books. I would tell the kids to look at the art on the wall and find their favorite, then we would try to find the book that went along with that picture. When we were leaving I let the kids go in the gift shop and pick out thier favorite book to buy, so now we have three great new books. What a great field trip idea THANKS MOM for letting me know about it.
I was too busy trying to manage four kids to think about taking pictures, until the very end. So these aren't the best pictures but they are kinda cute, and they are the only ones I got.
I hope every one got around to voting today. Although I felt dumb using the electronic voting machine, I messed up and then couldn't get it to fix my mistake. Every time I would go back to fix it, the machine would just buzz at me. But I was too embarrassed to ask someone for help. Oh well.
I feel so blessed to have four such wonderful kids, that I wanted this blog to be all about them and how special they are.
Sarah is so cute!!! I can just sit for hours watching her play. She makes the cutest faces. She doesn't crawl yet but she has sure figured out how to get every where she wants by rolling. Her new trick is patting her mouth and saying ahh, like an indian, but she doesn't use the front of her had she uses the back, so cute.
Crysania new love is sewing, she has been getting the sewing machine out everyday this week and using old scrap material she is sewing crazy hats and purses and what ever else her imagination can think of. Elijah is my quiet kid. He will just go off by himself and disappear for hours. Mostly he is playing on the computer downstairs. He usually only comes around when he is hungry or if I make him come upstairs. It is a good thing we have a ton of educational games for that kid.
Bowen is the most loving kid in the world. When he was little he would walk up to people in church or walking down the street and give them hugs, and he still love to give hugs. He will come up to me in the kitchen while I am working and give me a hug and kiss, I just love it!! He is also my biggest helper around the house and with Sarah.
Sarah was a cute little Poodle I don't usually dress up for halloween but the kids kept asking me what I was going to be. So I bought this pirate stuff for bowen but he decided he didn't want it. Since I could just wear my regular clothes I figured this was a good costume for me to wear. Here are the boys playing nintendo before the halloween party with their friend Nathan. Bowen was Harry Potter and Elijah was the Increadable Hulk, but he was also Darth Vadar later on that night. Crysania was a vampire, her make up started making her eyes and nose water later on and she had tear streaks running down her face This is Crysanias fake nails that she insisted on having. She has been wanting to get fake nails ever since I had some about a year and a half ago. I figured Halloween was the only time she would actually get to have some. She loved them, but she couldn't do anything with them on.
Well yesterday was Halloween. FINALLY!!! My kids have been driving me crazy talking about it all the time. We had a ward Trunk-or-treat party that the kids were so excited about. We had dinner first and then went out in the parking lot and did the treats. I was giving out glow in the dark sticks and not really paying much attention to the kids, I just assumed they were all together going around to the cars. Well after we were done I was trying to round up the kids to head over to Nana's house. So I found Crysania and Bowen but we couldn't find Elijah. I sent Bowen to look around the church and I went home to see if he was there. When I got home I found out that after the dinner Elijah couldn't find anyone so he went home and was sitting in his bedroom crying. Moroni went home early and was trying to convince him to go back to the church but he wouldn't. So apperently he didn't get to do any trick-or-treating. I felt really bad, that I hadn't noticed that he wasn't there. What a bad mom I am. When we went over to Nana's house the church by her house was still doing there trunk or treating so we stopped and I let the kids go around there, so at least Elijah got to do some. Then we went to Aunt Kays, Nanas, Granma Bensons and Aunt Deborahs houses and let the kids trick or treat there.
Well we finally got around to creating the crazy critters that we collected the sticks and leaves for. I helped the kids some at first but then their friends came over and they went crazy creating all kinds of fun little guys. These are just the first few they made, I didn't get pictures of the rest. I hate our trees!! In the spring they drop seeds everywhere, in the summer it is sticks and in the fall we have leaves. Now don't get me wrong, I do love the shade they provide, but when you have 14 huge elm trees, that is just a little bit too much. I have no idea what to do with all the leaves after I rake them up, there are just too many. I will spend hours raking and the next day there are so many leaves on the ground again you would think I hadn't done anything. I don't think we knew what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to buy this house, some days I miss our tiny yard in Magna with its one tree. On a positive note it has been great weather so I have loved being outside. To bad today is not shaping up to be a great day for Halloween, I just hope it doesn't rain.
Crysania has a fascination and fear of death. Every time she hears about someone dying she asks a million questions. If anyone ever dies in a movie she will always close her eyes or leave the room. Last week there was a baby born in our ward that died after only living for a day. Since I am the compassionate service leader in our ward I was helping at the funeral for several hours. Every time I would see Crysania she would ask me question after question about the baby. Most of which I couldn't answer since I didn't know the family and wasn't aware of what happened. So I was just wondering if this is a normal thing for kids of this age or is it just her?
On a happier note, santaquin has an annual halloween party that we went to on saturday. They had blow up toys that the boys played on most of the time. They had games for the kids to play, along with a spook alley, costume contest, and food to eat. I think the kids had a good time and it was beautiful weather so it felt nice to sit out in the sun while the kids played.
Our dogs are escape artists!!! we just spent a week and over $100 to fix their pen, thinking that they would not be able to get out anymore. So we put them in the newly fixed pen for the first time monday night. Tuesday they both got out. Moroni fixed the spot where he thought they were getting out when he got home that night. Well this morning one of them got out again. I looked all along the fence and could not see anywhere that he could have gotten out of. UGHH!! now what are we going to do, keep them chained up all the time? Did I ever tell you I HATE DOGS!
In the family fun magazine they have a really cute idea of using sticks, rocks, leaves, and other natural items to make some cute little critters. All you need is glue and googly eyes. So I decided to take the kids up the canyon to collect the stuff we needed. And being the social bug that my kids are they wanted to invite some friends, so we called up Tami Gause and invited her family to come along with us. I thought the kids would have fun looking for stuff to bring home, filling up their bags with treasures, but Bowen only wanted to get rocks and Elijah didn't want to get anything at all. Crysania only wanted to get pretty things so she just got a couple of leaves. Well so much for moms great idea, Oh well. I threw a few things in their bags any way and tomorrow we will see if they will help me put together some cute little critters. The kids did have fun exploring around the little area we were at and looking at the river, so it wasn't a total bust. Plus it was beautiful and great to get outside in this wonderful weather.
When it was time to go, we started back up to the car up the super steep hill that the kids kept sliding back down, when Elijah got a bee on his face and just stood there crying and I had no idea what was wrong. Then Bowen hurt his toe somehow and just sat down in the middle of the path so no one could get past him. Then when we eventually got back to the cars there were bees or wasps or what ever they were flying all around the cars and the kids were freaking out. Aren't kids great!!
Brennan, Maddox, Kya, and Crysania watching the Polar Express.
