Whatever it Takes

Well, at least he's eating dinner.

I know my family is all laughing at this one because I was certainly the worst eater in my house and it is only fitting that I got one of my own.

I Know it's Not Halloween

But who can resist playing dress up?

You'd think I would have learned by now

This summer we had some crayons go through the dryer. Yes we had melted crayon over everything. I wanted to cry. Actually I may have cried, I don't remember. I did my research on the Internet to try and find a solution to getting crayon out of clothing, and there are about a million ideas out there including using gasoline (no thank you). So I decided to just use my favorite stand by stain solution and it worked! Only one shirt out of the whole load ended up having to be thrown away.

You think I would have learned my lesson but even though the kids are absolutely forbidden to put crayons in their pockets (like that makes a difference) I did laundry last week and sure enough we had a crayon go through the dryer again. I don't like doing laundry as is but having to check all the pockets adds like half an hour. So I came up with two lessons I learned from this experience.

1. Check the pockets before I do laundry
2. NEVER buy cargo shorts/pants for my kids (way to many pockets to check and my kids will always use the most obscure one to hide things in).

If you want to know my fantastic stain removal recipe it comes from the Tightwad Gazette

Add one cup each of powdered Cascade and Clorox II to 5 gallons of the hottest water to come out of your faucet. Soak overnight (or a couple days in my case), and launder as usual. This has worked great for me with the crayons as well as a myriad of other stains.

A First for Everything

There are a lot of firsts in Kindergarten. The first day of school, first loose tooth, and of course a first love letter.

I'm curious to see if the letter actually gets delivered. He has a tendency to be in love one minute and forget about it the next. I'm glad I got to archive this though.

Fresh and Easy

Do you have a Fresh and Easy near you? It’s my new favorite store. One was built near us last spring, but sounded kind of expensive to me so I didn’t go for a while. I finally went a few months later because someone had said that they had awesome flowers and I needed to buy flowers for someone. I was just going to buy flowers and check out the store but ended up filling my cart. You see they have theses fantastic 50% off deals. If food hasn’t sold by the “sell by” date it goes on 50% off. And it just so happened that I went a few days after Memorial Day, so all of the meat that they packaged on Memorial Day needed to sell. I bought about 15 lbs of meat and came home and froze it.


This last time I went there were a lot of breads at 50% off, french bread, wheat bread, tortillas, naan (they have great naan), and pita bread. And all that stuff freezes great! And if you need to pick up something else at the store, their normal prices are . . . well, normal. $1.59 for a dozen eggs (unfortunately that’s normal now), $1.15 for a cake mix. They are really decent prices. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Fresh and Easy has coupons for $5 off $20 or more. I get them frequently in the mail and you can always get some at the store food for the next week. Last time I went I forgot my coupon (curses!). At the check out they asked me if I had a coupon (even though 90% of what was in my cart was already 50% off), I said I didn’t, so he gave one to me! Did I mention that they have great customer service? I have at least 3 people ask me if they can help me every time I am in the store.

They even do 50% off with flowers. These only cost me $2.00!

FYI the best time to go is around 10 am. They have normally finished marking products down but they haven’t all sold yet. Don’t worry if they aren’t done yet. If you see something that isn’t marked down but should be, just ask. OK I’m done advertising, just check out the store if you get the chance.

How to ensure laughter to the point of tears

Have your 5 year old teach the lesson for Family Home Evening.

Don't you just love school pictures? They are never really great shots but they always bring great memories.

We let Alan teach FHE once before (when neither John nor I had really planned anything) and it consisted of Alan rambling on about dogs. Well Alan has been asking again to teach and we told him that he could but he needs to prepare with one of us before. He remembered yesterday and worked to prepare a lesson (from the nursery manual) about feelings.

When it was time for Alan to teach he stood up on the step stool and did really well. He held up pictures that he drew of different feelings and asked as when we have felt this way.

Alan: This is scared. When do you feel scared? Dad?

Dad: I feel scared when I see my kids doing something dangerous.

Alan: Very good Dad. Mom?

Mom: I feel scared when my little boys run off and I don’t know where they are.

Alan: I already knew that Mom, you’re going to have to think of something else.

Hyrum: I feel scared when my bad guys . . . yadda yadda yadda.

Well it sure is more entertaining when he teaches.