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.