That hurt!

Surprise! I'm back again already. I just had to post these pictures to show you poor Sara's nose. Jared took the kids bike riding yesterday, and even gave some refresher courses in the how-to's and what-not. After the first little hill dumped Sara off into the grass, Brakes 101 was offered again, but somehow at the next little hill (and I mean little), she forgot all she had learned. Instead of braking she cranked the handlebars to turn, which just dumped her off to slide down the rest of the hill on her nose. OUCH! I don't even want to think how much worse this could have been if she hadn't been wearing a helmet, but she was, thank goodness. John was very sweet to her when it happened and even said she could watch Sleeping Beauty when they got home. Aww.

Luckily she took it all in stride, and I don't think she'll be too traumatized. She did get a lot of attention at church today though! :o)

March 2010--private jets, origami, and monkeys under the bed

First things first. So, we have always been lucky to have the BEST, coolest, most amazing friends ever, and so far, Minnesota has kept that streak going. Our friend is a pilot who flies corporate execs around in sweet private jets, and he took us to the hangar to check them out! How cool is that? Jared had borrowed a torque wrench from him (which he borrowed from his work buddy) to work on (and fix--go Jared!) his broken seatbelt in his car. Do you follow? Anyway, we all went to return the tool. We got a glimpse of the good life, and the kids were pretty excited, and I hope Jared and I kept our cool a little, although we were pretty impressed as well. Too bad we didn't get a "ride" exactly, but this friend does have his own small plane, which he is very generous with. He actually took Jared on a Saturday back in December, but it was so cold, they couldn't get it started.

Check out the pix...








Oh, yeah, I have gone blonde again..do you like?

And, then we'll show you some of the other random pix from March. The sock puppets we made in joy school:

John has become a fan of origami, you might say. A few people at church gave him cranes, and then I thought we could find some library books, and then we found movies. Anyway, we've learned a lot. He made all of these himself. Seriously. And Jared and I've made a million other ones. When he tires of one, he graciously gives it to Sara. What a thoughtful big brother.

I love the mohawk look!


And then this: Can you tell what it is?

One night Sara was playing on her bed instead of sleeping (mind you, in the dark and quietly since John was sleeping) --"I'm not tired," she said. So I let her, and then went back in to check on her at the next commercial break, and I couldn't find her anywhere. What the? Where does a four year old go? I was pretty sure I hadn't heard her come out of their room, since I knew she was awake, so I was kind of tuned in. Finally, we found her under John's bed. But not just under his bed on the floor, she had brought a pillow and a blanket, and tucked herself in. We could not stop laughing. We woke John up so Jared could lift the bed up so we could get these pix...


And then we really laughed when we took the blanket off her, and she had on her Cinderella slippers. She never could give a reasonable explanation! :o)

And, finally, here is some artwork of late:
Sara's

And John's:
(He drew this after watching "The Rescuers")




And he painted this guy--that's my kind of pet!

A little idea sharing/bragging

So, at the beginning of Feb. I saw a lot of cute Chinese cartons around since it was the Chinese New Year on Feb 14th, so I really wanted to get some to use as goody boxes to take to all the YW, but they were pretty pricey. Then my genius counselor found them on clearance after V-Day, so she bought 15 and we filled them up with several kinds of cookies. I was still thinking it just needed something more, and then it came to me--get some fortune cookies and put in a note how "FORTUNE-ate" we are to be their YW leaders. I thought it was a pretty good one, maybe a teeny bit cheesy, or a lot, but anyway, there's the idea. It could easily be used for any number of other occasions, and you could just use cartons from your local favorite dive. The restaurant by me sold me 30 cookies for $2, which I certainly thought was a steal. Anyway, I had fun with it, and it was a fun way to introduce myself to the girls I didn't know, and to let all the girls know we appreciate them and love them.

The other idea was also genius, but I'll take no credit. I stole this from LeShel, who did an Activity Day thing with it, that I keep on my fridge still. See how cute? So I thought I could adapt it to a Personal Progress kind of chart thing.



If it's hard to tell what it is, it is sheet metal (I bought a sheet from Home Depot for less than $7) which was cut down to size (with tin snips). This stuff is VERY sharp , so I think she taped each edge with duct tape, I used electrical tape. I should say Jared used electrical tape, because he actually did that part. He was a ton of help with this one--thanks, Babe! Then I covered it with scrapbooking paper. I learned the hard way (although it's pretty obvious) that you have to make sure the paper will not bulge out from the metal or the magnets won't stick, so I started putting that adhesive tape runner stuff on the front side of the metal to keep the paper nice and snug. Then I put on the little word strips with the individual magnets. That way, they can move things around as they complete things. So, right now mine just says I'm working on Faith (I have the other values stuck on the back of mine). After I finish that, I can move it to the completed side and add another.

Those took a little bit of time, but they're not expensive and I thought they were cool. I'm still making some extras to have for the incoming girls through this year, so maybe I'll take more pictures of each step.



Consider yourself TAGGED to share a good idea on your blog! :o)