So much to tell!

I haven't been around the blog world for a while because I've been so busy with everything. I will probably need to spend the next several posts just catching up.
First of all, the wedding.
The ceremony wasn't until 1:00 p.m so I decided to take advantage of the early morning day after Thanksgiving sales. I got up bright and early and managed to get to Target right as it opened, most of what I needed on my list and then went to Wal Mart to get the rest and then back home by 9:00 a.m. All it takes is organization, and one can accomplish anything! (If it wasn't for those pesky contractions coming every 9 minutes or so, it would have been a perfect shopping trip)
The wedding was wonderful! Sariah was a vision of lovlieness. We even managed to get all of our crew standing still for a moment outside of the Temple to get a family portrait.
Well, at least we thought we had all of our crew. When we looked at the pictures later, Mosiah was missing. Is there anyone out there who might be willing to Photoshop him into the wedding picture? While you're at it, maybe you could Photoshop him out of the wedding picture of the other bride and groom. He somehow got mixed up and ended up with the wrong wedding party.
The wedding luncheon was quite nice. It was held at a nice restaurant, and I think Trevor's parents spent way too much. The main problem was that there wasn't enough room for our boy's singing group to sing at the luncheon as they had planned. The group had been practicing a two hour program of love songs through the ages, and all were disappointed that they weren't able entertain us.
It turned out OK because they were able to sing at the reception! Trevor's mom wanted to hire a harpist to come and play for the reception, but with the singing group available I didn't see the need.
My visiting teachers had come in earlier in the day and decorated the cultural hall so beautifully! The hand crocheted centerpieces on the tables were a big hit, and color coordinating the balloons with the tablecloths was pure genius.
We only ran into a few problems. Someone forgot to chill the sprite before making the Sprite and sherbet drinks, and the kitchen was covered with a sticky mess. The ladies in the kitchen made the best of it and just handed out extra napkins. I was glad that we ordered extra napkins that were stamped with Trevor and Sariah's names and the "Today I will marry my friend" poem.
The next problem we had was when we discovered someone had put the trays of Temple mints (remember the ones I spent hours making) on the stove in the church kitchen and then someone accidentally turned on the oven, and the bottom tray melted into globs of pink chocolate. Luckily, someone smelled the chocolate melting and saved the remaining mints just in time! I'm just so glad that it wasn't the Jell-O!
As we were standing in the reception line, greeting the wedding guests, Trevor's mother kept telling us that we didn't need to stand in the reception line for the entire reception. I thought she was a bit daft because duh! this is a reception, what else are we supposed to do?
The children's singing group was spectacular! They sang the entire time. They had even choreographed some dance moves with their songs. After the first 45 minutes, they did need to start their program over from the start because little Ashton Fredrickson's grandparents came late. The songs were just as good the second time around.
During the singing group's second break, we had quite the surprise. Just as Trevor's mother was going to get an aspirin from her purse, a man in a pink leotard and tights, a red tu tu, high top sneakers and fairy wings came dancing in and began singing to the bride and groom! It seems that my boys had all chipped in their lawn mowing/paper route money and bought a singing telegram for their sister and new brother in law!
I just found it so incredibly sweet! Trevor's mother didn't feel the same way, and she came over and started to tell me how they were being humiliated in front of some very important friends of theirs when Trevor and his father came over and gently guided her into another room to cool off.
Some people just don't appreciate a good singing telegram.

There were some other surprises at the reception, but I'll write about those later, right now I hear the baby crying and I'm making a special Jell-O for tomorrow's New Year's eve party.

Illegal activity

Last night after all of the kids were in bed, I got a call from my sister. She and her husband will be flying in tomorrow to be here for Thanksgiving and the wedding.
As we were chatting, I thought I could smell smoke. I mentioned this to LaMar, and he looked around for a minute and couldn't find anything wrong.
I continued to talk to my sister, but every once in a while, I would get a whiff of that smell that you get after a candle has been blown out.
Again, I asked LaMar to investigate, but since he had already looked, he didn't want to look again so he told me that it was probably some weird pregnancy thing making my nose over active.
I finally finished talking to my sister, and went through the house myself.
The smell seemed stronger by the stairs, so I went upstairs and the smell was coming from the older boy's room.
I opened the door to see them looking out the open window, and holding a pop bottle.
They were lighting bottle rockets out of their bedroom window!
Naturally, I was quite upset! Fireworks are illegal in this state!
I asked them where they got the bottle rockets, and they wouldn't tell me.
They didn't need to tell me where they got them from, it was quite obvious.
The Simpson family has relatives in Wyoming, and they're constantly bringing this sort of contraband into our community.

I think I'll put the remaining bottle rockets in a big box and mail them right back to Wyoming.
I won't tolerate illegal behavior in our home!

A sigh of relief

Yesterday Sariah called. She and Trevor had a long talk the night before because he wasn't thrilled with the idea of having a Twilight themed wedding reception.
Sariah admitted that she might have been a little excited after seeing the movie, and her friends were the ones who had suggested it in the first place.
I can't tell you how relieved I am.
The boys are rather disappointed. They were under the impression that they would get to come to the reception dressed as vampires and werewolves.

Today in church I got a rather shocking surprise.
We got to church a little late (not that that's unusual. We do have 10 people to get ready for church)
After the first meeting, I had several people come up and congratulate me on my new calling.
"What new calling?" I asked.
It seems that I was called to be the food storage specialist.
I went to the Bishop and asked him about this and told him that I didn't remember being asked to do this.
He looked at his counselor and said "I thought you called her." and he said "No, I thought you called her."
They argued back and forth for a few minutes before I stopped them and said that's OK, I'll be happy to do it.

So now I guess I'm the new food storage specialist.

Where can I find a vampire costume?

Sariah called me this morning. She was so excited that she could hardly speak!
She and some of her friends went to see that new Twilight movie last night at the 12:01 screening.
She said "Mom! I have the greatest idea! I want to change everything for the wedding reception to a have a "Twilight" theme!"
I asked her if she was sure that this was what she wanted and she assured me that it was, and then she added "If anyone can do this, Mom I know you can!"
I am more than happy to make this a dream wedding for my daughter, but I have a few problems. First of all, the wedding is one week from today. Not that that's a huge problem, because I'm quite sure that we could change everything in that amount of time.
The bigger problem is that I have not read the Twilight books, nor have I seen the movie, and I don't think I will see the movie because in my current state, I can't go more than 15 minutes without having to get up and go to the bathroom.
My dear friends, please help me! What can we do to give this wedding a Twilight theme?

More wedding plans

It's been quite the week.
Last week I took the boys to the doctor to get their flu shots. I guess the shots worked because they all got sick. I have had several boys home from school on any given day last week.
The good news is that they are all pretty much over it now.

I was able to finish Sariahs wedding dress this week, and most of the wedding plans have been finalized. I'm so grateful to my wonderful visiting teachers who are helping so much with the wedding!
I would also like to thank Sister Sorensen and the rest of the Enrichment committee for making those lovely centerpieces for the tables at the reception. I had no idea that all of you ladies could crochet that well! The centerpieces will look so nice with the balloons and plastic tablecloths that we got at the party store.

I contacted the director of children's singing group that the boys used to belong to. I asked her if it would be possible to have the group come and sing at the reception. Not only are they available, but she asked if our boys would be willing to join the group again!
I was elated! Not only will the boys be able to perform at the reception, but they will be able to participate in all of the Christmas concerts at the malls and Ward Christmas parties next month.
When I told the boys about this, they tried to act annoyed, but I know that deep down they were really excited.

Probably the biggest news of all this week is that today was my birthday!!
My family had a surprise party for me.
Sariah even made me a Jell-O poke cake, my favorite! I am so proud of my beautiful daughter, she will be such a wonderful wife!
I received several lovely gifts such as a new Christmas tree shaped Jell-O mold, and many beautiful hand made cards from my boys.
From other family members I received 4 copies of the movie "Emma Smith, my story" I didn't get to see the movie when it was still in the theaters, so I'm really excited to watch it.

We mailed all of the wedding invitations yesterday too. Less than two weeks to go!

One other thing, and I would like your advice if you can help me out with this.
As I have been reading the comments on other ladies blogs, I happened to find the blog of a former neighbor of ours. They lived next door to us for a few years, and they had more children than we do! They moved to the East East side of our little valley (some might refer to it as Snob Hill) and she is now the Relief Society resident in her ward.
I would have kept in touch, but they didn't leave a forwarding address, and she had her cell phone number changed.
When she lived next door to us I learned so much from her concerning food storage. She had a three year's supply of food saved up for every member of their family!
We haven't had any contact with her since they moved and I can't decide whether or not to send them an invitation to the wedding. Sariah used to babysit for them and we helped her out quite a bit after her triplets were born.
My dilemma is that even though she was such a good neighbor, faithful in her food storage and always helping everyone, she really irritated andannoyed me a little.
What do you think? Should I send them an invitation?

Showers

We've had such a busy week, I just haven't had much time to get on the computer.
I'll just give you the highlights.

Saturday, our ward Relief Society gave Sariah her first Bridal shower!

Sister Jensen made the most lovely decorations with balloons and curly ribbon all over the Relief Society room. I've asked her to help me with decorating the cultural hall for the reception. She does amazing things with craft foam and glitter.

At the shower, they played such fun games! I LOVE SHOWER GAMES!

They played that memory game where Sariah walked around with a tray full of items and then she left the room and we had to remember everything on the tray.
Then they pulled out several rolls of toilet paper and made her a wedding dress. The ladies did an amazingly good job, considering the materials they had to work with.
Except for sister Simpson, who tried to convince everyone that the sleeves should be shorter. She even made a few inappropriate comments to Sariah concerning their "after the reception" activities.
I can certainly see why her girls dress and act the way that they do.
She brought the most bizarre gift too. It was a perfectly lovely candy dish filled with green m&ms. So strange because Sariah doesn't really like m&ms and green is not one of her favorite colors.

Sariah received such lovely gifts! It was a kitchen/grocery shower and some of the ladies made one of those really cute "Broom ladies" Where they put a face on the broom and put it in a bucket then dress it with an apron and rubber gloves and then fill the bucket with cleaning products.
I was a little concerned about the fact that the only Jell-O mold she received was from me. I will need to make sure that they have registered for at least a few, or I might just get her a few more myself.
The refreshments were delightful. The ladies outdid themselves with their attention to detail.
Trevor's mother managed to make it to the shower. She was pleasant enough, I guess, but I'm pretty sure I caught her rolling her eyes several times.

She has continued to be difficult concerning wedding plans. She tried to convince the kids to get married in the Salt Lake Temple instead of Mt. Timpanogos because they wanted to host the wedding breakfast at The Smith building.
Sariah has had her heart set on being married in the Mt. Timpanogos temple ever since it was built.
And besides, I already made all of the candy mints for the reception in the shape of the Timpanogos temple.
I suggested that they just have the breakfast at our Stake center. I told her that our RS could probably handle that too, but she declined.

Sunday evening, she had Trevor and Sariah to their house in Salt Lake for dinner. According to Sariah, she spent the entire time telling Sariah that everything we were doing for the wedding was wrong and that she should stand up to me and tell me that the wedding should be done the way the bride wants it, not the bride's mother.

The nerve!!

I guess Sariah was very close to tears when she told her future mother in law that the wedding was exactly what she wanted, and Trevor's mom got angry and said "couldn't possibly want all the silly things we had planned and that she should really stand up to her mother!"

Then Trevor told her she should stay the heck out of the wedding plans and leave Sariah alone!
(Even though I don't approve of his strong language, I was so proud of him!)

He took Sariah by the hand and put her coat on her and led her to the door. As they were leaving, Trevor's mother said "What are you doing?"
And Trevor said, "I'm standing up to my mother and planning the wedding the way the bride wants it!"

He's such a fine young man!

Lost him again!

Well, I spoke too soon. We lost Mosiah again yesterday.
I guess we didn't really lose him, it was more like he escaped.
Early yesterday morning as I was making nutritious lunches for all of the boys to take to school, Mosiah got out of the house. We do have an alarm system which will sound an alarm whenever someone opens any of the doors, but it looks like someone (LaMar) forgot to turn it on last night.
Anyway, from what we can tell, Mosiah escaped the house and went over to the neighbors house. He climbed in through the dog door and got into their pantry, eating half a package of Oreos, a bunch of captain crunch and a few dog biscuits.
He then got into their refrigerator where he managed to open a can of Pepsi and drank most of it.

When our neighbor Tammy got home from the gym, she found Mosiah patiently sitting on the toilet waiting for someone to come and wipe him.
Naturally, by then, we were looking frantically all over the house for him, so I was so grateful to see her carrying him across our lawn to the front door.
At least it wasn't as embarrassing as last summer when he got out of the house, went down to the neighborhood park and took off his clothes.
That time, a police officer rang every doorbell on the street trying to find where he belonged.

Yesterday, due to all of the sugar he had eaten and the caffeine in the Pepsi (It was STRAIGHT PEPSI! It wasn't even diet!) Mosiah was much more energetic than usual.
I needed to go vote, and I took Mosiah and Alma with me. People were so kind, they were practically begging me to go to the front of the line.

Now for the update on the wedding plans. Trevor's mom continues to be a huge, obnoxious, pain in the but bit concerned with the reception. She called me today and expressed her concerns that the reception wouldn't be "classy" enough. (That isn't exactly what she said, but it was what she meant.)
So I called Sister Jensen in the ward and asked her if we could borrow her chocolate fountain. As far as I'm concerned, a chocolate fountain is about as fancy as you can get!
Now we just need to figure out what we can get to dip in the fountain. Any suggestions?

I wonder how well Jell-O jigglers would work with the chocolate fountain?

Tonight, Sariah and Trevor are coming over to help finish and address the invitations and finalize all of the wedding plans.
For dinner I'm making the raspberry Jell-O salad with pretzels in the bottom.

Good news, bad news and two angels

I feel so bad that I haven't updated this blog more recently, but we've had a most unfortunate run of events lately.
The good news is that we have managed to keep track of Mosiah for the last few days! We haven't lost him since that incident at the mall.
Whew!
The bad news is that Wednesday morning I started having some pretty strong contractions. I went to my Doctor and he checked me out and said that I wasn't dilated at all so I was not in labor. He told me I needed to take it easy for a few days and put me on bed rest.
I told my doctor that this was not a good time for me to be "resting"
I have a wedding to organize!
He threatened to put me in the hospital, so I stopped arguing. Besides I was able to pull the laptop in bed with me and managed to get the wedding invitations designed and the guest list finalized.
This may have just been a blessing in disguise.
Since I missed the Enrichment activity Wednesday night the Relief Society President found out about my condition and arranged for dinners to be brought to us for a few days.
I felt so bad that I wasn't able to make matching Halloween costumes for all of my kids this year. One year I dressed my kids as Snow White and the seven dwarfs.
I like theme costumes.
The boys told me that I didn't need to worry about me making them costumes, (they were practically begging! They are such sweet boys, I know they were only concerned about my welfare) but I came up with a great idea that wouldn't take much work.
I sent one of the boys down to the storage room to get a box of black Hefty garbage bags, then I had another get their bow ties from that time I forced them to they begged to join that children's performing group. (I just LOVE children's singing groups! )
I cut arm holes and holes for their heads, put bow ties and sunglasses on them and they went trick-r-treating as the California raisins!
LaMar even dressed up as the head raisin. The older boys pretended to be embarrassed but I know that deep down inside they really enjoyed the family activity.
Since I was still supposed to be resting, Sariah and Trevor came over to help hand out candy. They dressed as Ken and Barbie. (modest Barbie of course)
SO CUTE!!
I guess Trevor told his mom that I had been put on bed rest because Saturday afternoon she showed up and basically told me that she was taking over the wedding plans because I was in "no condition to pull this thing off!"
Well! I never........
She said that she had already arranged for the clubhouse at their Country Club for the reception and had a caterer who said that they would be willing to take care of the wedding at this late date.
I told her that we already had everything under control and while I appreciated her concern (not really, I just said that to be nice) everything was set and besides, we had just printed the invitations from our home computer that morning, and it would be a shame to waste all that paper.
She then told me that they had many important friends that will be inconvenienced by having to come all the way down to Pleasant Grove from their palaces homes on the east side of Salt Lake, and it would just make more sense to have the reception up there, and then I told her that I would prefer to not subject my family to the evil influences of the big city any more times than necessary, besides our friends and family all live in this area and Sariah and Trevor's friends all go to BYU here in UTAH COUNTY and..............
Just then the doorbell rang. It was two angels of mercy in the form of my visiting teachers!!
They were bringing us dinner.
When I introduced them to Trevor's mom, she explained to them what her plans were, and couldn't they "convince me that I shouldn't be taking on all the stress of this wedding?"
They laughed and told her that they would take care of anything that I couldn't handle.
See?
Angels.

Does anyone know where I can find a candy mold of the Timpanogos temple? I'm going to make temple mints for the reception this week.

Slippery slope

Yesterday afternoon something terrible happened.
The boys were all home from school, the dinner casserole was in the oven and I was starting to work on Sariah's wedding dress.
I needed my dress form which was in the storage room. As I got closer to the door, I could hear some muffled giggles from inside the storage room.
The boys know that they are not allowed to play in the storage room, so I was a little confused.
When I walked in, I was shocked at what I saw.
Jacob, Ammon and Malachi were sitting in a darkened corner of the storage room and they were drinking something from cans.


My heart stopped.


When I got closer, they tried to hide the cans from me, but it was too late. I already saw what they were drinking.



Mountain Dew.



I was furious! I knew exactly where they got them from, because I have my stash hidden there in the storage room behind the bags of rice.
I confiscated the cans and gave them a lecture on honesty and not taking things that they know don't belong to them, and why on earth were they snooping around in the storage room and when they find something that isn't theirs they should just leave it alone.
I then talked about how they KNOW very well that they aren't allowed to drink caffeinated beverages and it's bad for their growing bodies, then I made them dump the cans down the sink and sent them to clean out the garage.

I was so angry! I've hidden that Mountain Dew there so I can have some when I really need it. It's strictly for medicinal purposes only! The boys have never seen me drink it because I'm very discreet when I do and then I put the empty cans in the neighbor's recycle bin so nobody knows I drank any.

When LaMar got home, I informed him that the lesson for FHE would need to be changed to one about honesty, with a bonus discussion on the Word of Wisdom.
We had a really good discussion about those things in FHE and the boys apologized for doing something that they knew was wrong. All things were harmonious in our home again.
Later, after the kids all went to bed, I went to the storage room to get some canned fruit for tomorrows Jell-O and I looked behind the rice to see exactly how much of my Mountain Dew they had taken.
Imagine my shock when I saw that there wasn't any missing. It was all there!

The boys hadn't found my stash after all.
Then I was completely embarrassed. They must have been so confused about me lecturing them about honesty and not snooping through the storage room and taking things that don't belong to them................

Then I got to thinking. WHERE did they get the stuff? They must have bought it at the gas station down the road or the grocery store.
This really upsets me because I can't believe that they allowed my children to purchase such an item without the consent of an adult.

Today they let them buy Mountain Dew and then tomorrow, what?

Energy drinks?

Oh my!! They wouldn't allow children to buy energy drinks??

Would they?

Nothing good ever happens when we leave Happy Valley......

Yesterday, Sariah came over and we went into Sandy to look for bridesmaid dresses.
Against my better judgement, we went to the mall. LaMar hadn't made it home from work yet, so I had several of the younger boys with us. I forget how many.
We went to a store at the end of the mall and Sariah found the exact dress that she wanted for her bridesmaids. It was lovely, and more modest that I thought we might find in Salt Lake.
As we were putting the dresses on hold for her friends to come and try on, I realized that I didn't see Mosiah.
We looked all through the clothes racks and the dressing rooms, because he loves to play in those, and he wasn't there.
We looked out in the mall where they have the little kiddie rides, he wasn't there either, we looked all over in the immediate area, and he was gone!
Naturally at that point, I panicked and the girl working at the bridal shop called mall security.
They started looking too. We went upstairs because Mosiah is obsessed with escalators and will ride them all day if he could.
He wasn't at the food court by the merry go round.
He wasn't at the toy store.
He wasn't anywhere!!!!

Then I got a call on my cell phone from mall security.
They found him!!

He had made his way down the mall and was playing in the display window of Victoria's Secret.

I knew we shouldn't have left Utah County.

Wedding plans!

Oh my! I've had such a busy week that I haven't had time to write anything here. I have a few minutes right now, so I'll give a quick report on the last few days.

Monday evening we had the pleasure of meeting our daughter's future in-laws. They are very lovely people, although Trevor's mom seems a bit uptight. She feels that we should be having the wedding reception at some place like the Joseph Smith Building, The McCune Mansion, the Rice Eccles Stadium Tower, or the 23rd floor of the Wells Fargo building in downtown Salt Lake.
I think I might have offended her a bit when I said that I couldn't see the point in spending so much money when we can get the church building for free.
She then offered to pay for the reception. I told her that it wasn't a matter of having enough money, but more a matter of being frugal. Why spend all that money on one day?

I told her that we can get the church and rent a few backdrops, and if we can't find any backdrops, we can just hang crepe paper from the basketball hoop and call it good. Right about then, Trevor's mom made a funny choking noise and the veins in her neck started to pop out.
She managed to take a deep breath and offered to find a caterer for the food. I told her that we had that all covered because one of my visiting teachers used to work for a caterer and between her and the other ladies in the ward, we would make some nice refreshments.
Besides, I used to be a Pampered Chef consultant, and I have a few tricks that I learned from doing that.
Then Trevor's mom raised an eyebrow looked at my enormous belly and said "I really don't think that you should be taking on such a project in your..........current condition!"
I told her that I was "perfectly capable of such a project, thank you very much!"

The other issue that we were having was the date of the wedding. Trevor's younger brother Easton will be leaving for his mission the second week of December, and Trevor really wants his brother to be there. Right now, we have the wedding tentatively set for the day after Thanksgiving. We will have some family in town that week, so that will be perfect! Plus, it will still be a month before the baby is due. I usually go at least a week past my due date anyway.

The only problem with the wedding being so soon is that I will only have time to make Sariah's dress. I would have liked to make the bridesmaids dresses for her three best friends too, but after discussing this with Sariah, we have decided to buy the dresses instead. This afternoon, we will venture north of the point of the mountain into Salt Lake county to look for bridesmaid dresses. While we are there, we will go buy the fabric for her dress too.

I almost forgot about what else happened Monday. One of the boys came and told me that there was something wrong with the toilet. When I went to investigate, sure enough, there was a huge glob of something white in the toilet. I got a bucket and started scooping it out because I was pretty sure that it wasn't going to flush down.
Then, I noticed the empty can of potato pearls sitting behind the bathroom door. It seems that one of my darling boys raided the food storage and dumped an entire can of instant potatoes in the toilet.
I scooped out as much as I could but the toilet still wouldn't flush. I finally called our home teacher Brother Jeppson who is a plumber and he came over to look at it. He tried all of his nifty plumber tricks then decided that the best way to fix the clog would be to remove the toilet. When he got it off, along with the mashed potatoes he found a stash of legos and toy cars hiding inside.
Anyway, because of that, I didn't have much time to make dinner. We had ham, green bean casserole and Jell-O salad. (I had planned on making mashed potatoes too, but after that afternoon, it will be along time before I eat mashed potatoes again) I wasn't able to make anything really fancy with the Jell-O. That's probably why Trevor's mom felt that I couldn't handle a catering project.
This was the Jell-O salad that I made.




Take a can of pineapple and drain off the juice. Mix in one package of Jell-O with the pineapple until it's dissolved, then fold in a tub of cool whip. You can add a can or two of mandarin oranges and mini marshmallows if you want too, but I decided to keep it simple.

Yummy!!

Thank you to those of you who suggested that I make the jell-O in the shape of a Temple. I think I will save that for the wedding.
I'm considering making the wedding cake out of Jell-O. What do you think?
I could make several tiers and frost them with cool whip.
I'm open for suggestions.

As for the name of our baby, we were thinking about Sam Teancum Pearson, however, we are open to suggestions for that too.

Lost sheep and big news!!

This weekend turned out to be full of surprises!

Our Primary program turned out quite good, with the exception of little Ashton Willardson who got up to the pulpit and refused to say his part. He just stood there staring at the microphone until he finally pulled it close to his mouth and did a very loud burp.
His parents were horrified but a few people were impressed that he had been able to wake up Brother Olson on the back row.
After church I sent LaMar home with the boys, and then I met with the Bishop who told me that next week I would be released from my calling as Primary President. I started to protest, but he said that with the demands of my family and the new baby coming soon that the Bishopric thought that they would give me several months without a calling.
When he put it that way, how could I refuse.
I went home and started working on dinner. I put a roast in the oven and made a lovely jello salad.
We sat down to dinner and noticed that Mosiah was missing. We looked all over the house for him. We looked in all of his normal hiding places and he wasn't in any of them. We looked outside all around the house and he wasn't there.
We were starting to go get the neighbors to help us look for him when we got a phone call from the Bishop.
It seems that when LaMar took the boys home, he didn't bother to make a head count. Mosiah had wandered back into the primary room and sat on the front row with the Sunbeams from the 3rd ward. The Primary presidency asked him his name and they thought his last name was Peterson and they assumed that he was there visiting with the Peterson family.
They even had him come to the front of the primary and they sang him the welcome song.
Long story short, after the 3rd ward primary was over, the Sunbeam teacher took him to Sister Peterson who had no idea who he was and eventually our Bishop saw him and called us.
I need to get some sort of GPS unit to sew into his clothes.

After dinner Sariah called to say she was on her way to visit and was bringing a friend! I hurried and made a double batch of peanut butter rice crispy treats with chocolate on top, because I know how much her roommates enjoyed those the last time I sent some home with her, but when she got here, she hadn't brought any of her roommates.
Sariah walked in the house on the arm of a very handsome young man and she had a huge diamond engagement ring on her finger!

Oh my! Such exciting news!
His name is Trevor Erickson, and he's recently returned from his mission in Argentina. He seems like such a nice young man and I've never seen Sariah so happy!
Trevor comes from a very small family, he only has one brother, but he seemed right at home with the rest of our boys. He really liked the rice crispy treats so when they left I wrapped up a big plateful for him to take home.
Tonight we are going to have Trevor and his family over for dinner so we can start to plan the wedding!
I need to go get out my Jell-o cookbook and find something really special to make for them.

Putting the "fun" in funeral

Here it is! I'm finally posting the recipe for my Ward famous funeral potatoes.
It might seem strange of me to put this recipe here since practically everyone that lives in Utah knows how to make these, but my sister who lives in a different state has told me that she knows tons of people that have never even heard of funeral potatoes!
Can you believe that? They have never heard of funeral potatoes.
It's really quite sad when you think about it.

I like to think that my recipe is just a little bit better than everyone else's. I'm not sure why, because I think that for the most part the ingredients are the same, but for some reason mine is just better. It's probably because I make them with love.
Whenever we have a Ward pot-Luck, and I sit my potatoes next to the other 16 casserole dishes with funeral potatoes, mine always look the best, and are the first ones to be eaten.
When anyone tells me how wonderful my potatoes are, I act very gracious and say that mine aren't really that good, there are plenty of other potatoes that are so much yummier, because humility is one of my best qualities. (but we all know which potatoes are superior)

To start, take a 2 lb bag of frozen hash brown potatoes and thaw them in the microwave.
Next, open 2 cans of cream of chicken soup. You don't have to use cream of chicken, cream of pretty much anything will work. For this batch, I used 1 can of cream of mushroom and one can of cream of celery, and it was yummy!

I just want to take this opportunity to tell you how much I don't like the easy open tabs on the top of the soup cans. It makes it much too easy for a small child to go in to the pantry and pull the tab up on about a dozen cans, and not have me notice for several days so we need to throw away all of the cans because the soup has gone bad. We got one of those fun plastic doorknobs on the pantry door now too.

Mix the two cans of cream of whatever soup with one pint of sour cream. Be sure to rinse out the sour cream container and save it. There are so many things that these can be used for! I like to keep a stash in the back of the van for when we have some sort of ward dinner, and there's food left over. I get those empty containers out of the back of the car, and we fill them up with food and send them home with everyone. I can't tell you how many craft projects we've made with empty sour cream containers. Their uses are endless!

My recipe calls for one cube of melted butter or margerine. Several years ago, we had a nutritionist come and talk to us for Enrichment meeting and she told us that the only reason to add the butter or margerine was to add more fat to the potatoes, and we probably didn't want to do that. I haven't used the butter in the potatoes since then, and I haven't really noticed a difference. If you really want to use the butter, go ahead. It will just make your hind quarters larger.

Next, add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 Tablespoons of dried onion. Sometimes, I just use onion powder instead, but not 2 Tablespoons of onion powder, more like 1/2 teaspoon.
If I'm making these the same night as a combined activity for Mutual, I might sometimes add just a little extra onion powder to the potatoes. No need for the girls in the ward to get too close to my boys now is there?

Next you add 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese, and mix well. Sometimes I use a bit more.
Stir in the hash brown potatoes and put them in a 9x13 pan. Be sure that your name is on the pan if you're taking it somewhere. I really hate it when I take a pan of potatoes somewhere and when I get the pan back, its not mine. I really don't understand how this happens because I have "L Pearson" written in large letters with a sharpie on every casserole dish that I own.
Now the very last thing you do is to put a heavy layer of corn flakes over the top of the potatoes. The recipe says this is optional, but it really isn't. Don't skimp, use plenty, this is what makes them good.

Now bake them in a 350* oven until hot and bubbly. I think about 20-30 minutes. I just watch them until they look right.

When they are done baking, they should look like this.




Yummy! Yummy! Yummy!

I got a phone call while I was trying to write this recipe. It was the Ward Executive secretary brother Peterson, asking if I could meet with Bishop Christiansen after church this Sunday. I wonder what he wants to talk to me about. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with that song that the Sunbeams were singing in their class last Sunday. Honestly, I wonder where these little kids learn songs with inappropriate lyrics like that. They probably have cable television in their home. Oh well, at least by the time I meet with the Bishop, the Primary program will be over.

Tonight, is the Father's and son's campout! LaMar is taking the 7 older boys and I'm staying home with Mosiah and Alma. I will put them to bed early then do something by myself. I invited Sariah to come over so we could do some scrapbooking together, but she has a date.

I think I'll make myself a batch of brownies. This is the first pregnancy since I was pregnant with Sariah that I have craved chocolate this much! With most of the boys gone tonight, I might be able to eat as many as I like.

One of those days

Today was one of those days where I needed to go get a Mountain Dew from the stash I have hidden behind a big bag of rice in the storage room. Officially, we don't believe in drinking anything with caffeine so I just don't let anyone know about it.
We had another bathroom incident with Alma today. We put the doorknob covers on the bathroom doors, but somebody forgot to close the door and he got in anyway. I will never understand this child's fascination with water. I found him in the bathroom splashing his hands in the toilet. When I got closer I saw that he had dumped a bunch of legos in the toilet and was stirring them around. At least he didn't flush them. I wonder if Lowe's sells anything I could install on the door that would make it close automatically.
I had a Primary presidency meeting today, and found out that the Jacobson family has decided to go out of town the this weekend and they are taking the kids with them which means that in the next few days we need to find replacements for their four children who all had some of the main speaking parts for the program. Now we're scrambling to find four kids who can take their parts.

This morning I started to make the potatoes that I've been promising to make for the last few days and realized that we were out of potatoes so after I picked up Jared from kindergarten, we went to Wal-Mart to do some shopping.
I need to apologize to anyone who was shopping at Wal-Mart today who might have been stuck inside while the store locked down due to the Code Adam.
Yes, my three year old snuck away from me somehow and we couldn't find him. We looked everywhere! We thought that he would be in the toy department for sure, but he wasn't there. A store employee finally located him inside one of the dressing rooms wearing a witch hat he picked up in the Halloween isle. I'm beginning to wonder if this kid can make himself invisible so he get away and hide without anyone seeing him.
During all of the ruckus, I forgot to buy potatoes but still managed to spend over $100.00.
I made a breakfast casserole for dinner, because it uses some of the same ingredients as the potatoes, except potatoes.
I had planned on posting the recipe, but the last Mountain Dew I drank has just worn off, and I'm really tired, so I'll post it tomorrow. I even got a few pictures that I can share if I can figure out how to get them on here.

When food doesn't happen

I had planned on writing my first recipe tutorial today, but life got in the way, and we ended up eating hot dogs tonight instead of the yummy ham and potatoes that I was planning for dinner.

Please realize that with the number of kids that I have, disasters can happen at any given moment, such as the one that happened this afternoon involving a backed up toilet, and a toddler who enjoys flushing repeatedly.
Two things will be happening this week. First of all, we will be putting those annoying white doorknob covers on the bathroom doors to keep Alma out of the bathrooms and second, I will be fixing a menu of high fiber foods in the next few days.
Nobody laid claim to the "blockage" so I'm feeding the fiber to everyone!

After the disaster clean up was finished, and the kids snarfed down their microwaved hot dogs, we sat down for Family Home Evening.
The subject for the lesson?
"Reverence"
We had another subject scheduled for the lesson tonight, however, we decided to change it to reverence mostly due to the "incident" during church yesterday. What "incident" you might ask?
I'm not exactly sure which one of the boys brought the bubbles to church. None of them will admit to it, but I did see which one was blowing the bubbles out into the congregation.
I didn't notice at first because I was busy with the two youngest boys. The baby was chewing on the hymnbook and so I was trying to pry it out of his chubby little hands and he suddenly let go of the book which made me knock it into Mosiah which sent his cup of cheerios flying into the air all over the floor, and as I was consoling my screaming baby while trying to bend over and pick up the cheerios in my current state of pregnantness, the baby found out that they made a really neat crunching sound as he walked all over them on the carpet. Oh well, at least that stopped him from screaming.
(Really, I think it would probably be quite fair of me if I signed us up to clean the church twice a month instead of twice a year because my family is most likely responsible for most of the stuff that needs to be cleaned up.)
Anyway, as I'm trying not to pass out while leaning over to clean up the cheerio dust, and feeling bad for anyone sitting near us who might have been fasting because the cheerios were smelling pretty good, I look up briefly to breathe, and I see bubbles floating in the air.
Then I looked up at the stand to see the Bishopric who seemed rather amused. I could see that they were trying their hardest not to laugh out loud.
I guess I should be glad that our family provides so much entertainment for the rest of the ward. We cause laughter, which makes people feel happy right?
(Right about now, I'm really missing Sariah, she had always been such a great help to me in Sacrament meeting. I am so happy with how well she's fitting in with her student ward, but I do really miss her)
LaMar woke up and confiscated the bubbles, and we were able to get most of the cheerios cleaned up.
It's times like these that I'm extra grateful to be Primary President, because I can leave the meeting during the closing song to prepare for Primary. That way, I don't have the opportunity to enjoy all the clever/funny/sarcastic comments from the people sitting behind us.

Tomorrow, I will get the post up about the potatoes.

Hi! I'm LaDawn!

Well, this is it! My very first blog post.
I can start by giving you a little background on my family.

I grew up in LaVerkin, Utah. I am the second out of seven kids. My maiden name is Smith, and I'm a direct descendant of Hyrum Smith.
I met my husband LaMar while attending my first year at BYU where I was persuing a degree in early childhood development.
We were married three months later, and the following year, we welcomed our first child (and only Daughter Sariah, (18) who is currently a Freshman at BYU.
In the years since then, we have added to our family with 9 more children, all boys! I like to call them my "Stripling Warriors." They are Helaman (17) Nephi (15) Moroni (14) Jacob (11) Ammon (9) Malachi (7) Jared (5) Mosiah (3) and Alma (18 months). They are all as incredibly handsome as their father.
In a few months, our family will reach 13 members, as we are expecting our 11 child. Sariah was really hoping for a little sister, but it looks like we will bring our total number of boys to ten when Sam is born at the end of the year.

I am currently serving as the Primary President in our Ward. I have served there for just over three years.

My original reason for starting this blog was to share my recipes and vast knowledge of cooking and other homemaking arts, but just so you know, I will be writing about my family too. They are my life, and everything I do revolves around them. Besides, they are the ones that I cook for most of the time, so I feel like I need to include them too.

( I might just include a little bit of Ward gossip too;)