the hardest part, with guest blogger Grace

Grace and I are laying in bed talking about the day.  We have a three day weekend and we think we'll go to the movies today.

Noah and Reggie

There is one hard thing about our life, a glaring hole.  Mom, that's a lie, there is more than one hard thing. School. Life.
But we digress, the thing I was going to say was that we live so far away from our family.  They all live relatively close to each other (same coast of the U.S.) and can with a small amount of effort visit one another. We have to get a second job to see anyone.  No! What about Jenna? Is she on a different coast?!

Hey! I have an idea we should move across North America?? Can we? We live where dad's job is.

Scarlett

But these kissable cheeks close enough to see a couple times a year would be awesome!! Scar is almost 1 and Deo just turned 2.  Cute babies!

Deo

Spencer, Kenz and Tanner

These rug rats are almost grown up.  They are tons of fun.  I can not believe that Tanner will be going on a mission in 2 year...or less.  I remember when we just found out he was coming to earth and how excited we all were to have a boy! I bought him some cute little basketball tennis shoes/crib shoes.  This picture is from our summer vacay, August at Lake Tahoe, looks warm and toasty right? It wasn't too toasty in the water.  

Penny

Penny is going to be a Crood for Halloween. So next year we have baby boy arriving, Sierra's graduation, mom and dad's 50th, all far far away. I can not get to all those places from here with out a second job, owning my own plane or growing wings.  Or you could just get a real job!

• for the record this is only a small photo sampling of westies, that's what I just started calling the west coast contingent of the family. Like we call the folks from France the frenchies and two little girls the sassy pants.

is that something that normal humans call them or just you and Val?

sugar cookie recipe

Shirley's Sugar Cookies
2 cups shortening (I buy the crisco sticks...they are great!)
3 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
12 TBS milk
2 TBS baking powder
5-6 cups flour
1 heaping tsp salt
Directions:
Cream sugar and shortening together. Add eggs, vanilla and milk. Mix. Add baking powder and salt, mix. Add Flour until dough is pliable. it may not take all 6 cups. You want it a little sticky. 
Sprinkle flour on counter top and roll out your cookies. I like to do them a little thick so they don't burn. It just depends on whether you prefer crisp or soft. cut into desired shapes and Bake at 350 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden on the bottom. Even if it feels like you've taken them out too soon they will firm up when cool. 

Icing
4T meringue powder
1/2 cup of water
7-8 cups confectioner's sugar
1 t vanilla
2 T crisco
2 T light corn syrup

whip the meringue powder and the water on high speed for a long time until it's fluffy and peaks form.  Gradually add the rest of the ingredients.

slowly add water if needed to get the consistency you need:

For piping you want it the consistency of toothpaste
for flooding the consistency of honey

Cookies!

I've been wanting to decorate cookies, like really cute ones.  I've pinned a lot of them lately.  Last week Jodie said to me that she wanted to do it too so we decided to give it a go.
I had never successfully made sugar cookies that I liked and decorating?? forget about it.
We studied up (Internet) and set the date.
Last night I stayed up until 1am making my cookies.  I used Johnna's mom, Shirley's, cookie recipe and it was  great!
Jod came over and we frosted our little hearts out.  We had some mess ups but also some really cute ones.  I was really pleased.  We worked from 10- 4, with a lunch break, and now she has cookies to send to Rachel (on her mission) and I had some to send with Rob as he went home teaching, and we have some for our families and some to share.  They tasted great too.

some of my favorites

It was a fun, fun day.

Tonight the kids had mutual.  They played fear factor and enjoyed it.  Ethan and Hannah get along really well and it is such a delight.  They were walking into the church holding hands and I looked at them and just smiled.

my good friend Jodie

It's been raining, the water down at the wharf today was up over the sides of the embankment.  I love the different seasons  here.  The way the trees and the water change.  It's been such a blessing and delight to live on the East Coast and see the beauty all around us every day.

tombstones

This is the kind of trees I grew up with :)  My kids, these three younger ones, do not know what a Joshua tree is.  It's unique to the Mojave Desert and very beautiful too, in a stark way.  It was named by the Mormon pioneers who crossed the Mojave and thought it looked like Joshua of the old testament raising his hands in prayer. Interestingly it's recently split into two distinct subspecies.  Heavenly Father's creations all over the world are so amazing!

Joshua Tree

Columbus Day

sisters

We woke up today with no real plans.  I had an appointment in the morning but that was it.  Laura called to see if Daniel could spend the day with us and that was agreeable.  So the day began.
And the children played video games or fought.  The dishes looked at me and the house felt oppressive.  I heard a lot of "mom, can I.....s" and "mom, he's _______", "mom tell her to stop!", "MoM!!!"
until I couldn't take it any more and I told everyone to get on their shoes.  There was a lot of complaining and where are we going and I don't want to go-ing, except Hannah was agreeable to a change of scenery.

So we went to St Mary's City and walked around.

It was beautiful, quiet (it's not open today but the grounds are) and peaceful.  The boys ran from tree to tree, found "natures baseball" and threw it around.

The girls meandered and talked nicely.

Z sniffed every tree and rock and bush.

Daniel, Ethan and Ziva

We walked down to a little beachy spot and they dug for snails and crabs and played in the sand and water for a long time.

treasure hunting

We found a trail called "swamp trail" that really was.  Mud covered shoes and dog were the price we paid for that little adventure.  A bargain!

entrance to swamp trail, deceptively clean

cute building

Before we could let Harry the dirty dog into the car we had to give her a puddle bath, she was thrilled.

a puddle bath
She had a real bath when we got home

Then we stopped by Brusters for a treat on the way home.  When we pulled in the neighborhood I dropped the boys at the green and we all came home happy and full of fresh air and ice cream.

Brusters for all, including a puppy Sundae

Dinner:)

Homecoming Dance!

Chelsea, Loraine, Ashley, and Hannah

Getting ready with friends, pictures at the wharf, dinner with the parents at Cheeseburger in Paradise and then tonight dancing!!

a place I haven't seen a lot of the last two days

This has been a week that has been a little busier than is normal. I had 5 nights where I had the opportuity to be out of the home on a church assignment, plus the days were busy too.  Now I was not gone 5 nights, but that's still a lot.  It's YWIE season so that means a lot of extra visiting.  Tuesday LP ward had theirs, Becky and Jamie went.  Wednesday was our regular mutual night.  I went and sat at the church as all the children had meetings.  Ethan had his board of review or star, and he passed.  He's moving right along. Thursday we had AP/YW meeting which was good and needed but I got home late. We alwyays have good gospel discussions and plan a lot of great things for the  youth.  Friday I had a girl scout training in the middle of DC.  I left that house at 5:30 am and spent the day getting first aid and CPR trained.  To take our girls anywhere we needed a first aider and to camp we needed a camp trained person.  At first Teresa and I were both going to do both. The camper was two weekends in a row including Sundays.  The first aider cost money and was in DC.  We decdied to divide the duties and I quickly volunteered for first aid, I would rather pay and have Sunday for the Lord.  She was also thrielled with the arangment so that worked out well. Anyway the trainging was fine.  Interesting enough and the drive there and parking wasn't bad.  The drive out was a bit painful.  Particularly when I lost my gps for a minute (because R called and I ansewered, on blue tooth) and so I ended up seeing a new monument, Iwo Jima, which was cool, except it wasn't and the traffic was bad and I was not happy about more time in it!

I went straight from there to Tara's house and she Becky and I spent the evening making stuff for our stake youth actiivty and for the stake auxiallary training.  We had a great time together.  We got it all done (mostly) and laughed a lot and talked a lot.  Joe, Tara's husband, got new orders and they are moving after Christmas, to Missouri.  I will miss that girl A LOT!!!

So I got home at 11 and it was a long but productive day.  Rob held down the fort and caught dinner with his trusty little fishing buddy!

Home coming week continues with zoo day.  They also had spirit day and wacky tacky day!

zoo day