New Blog Background and an update

Hey Everyone, notice my New Blog Background. I made it using a new scrapbook kit I have designed. I will be giving away pieces of the kit FREE every day next week on my Digi Scrap Blog. Go check it out here.

Things are good here in the Sims palace. JK Mike has been home this week so it is fun. he is home, but he is working from home. We are hoping to take the kids to see a movie later this week. We are going to see Bedtime Stories. Have any of you seen it yet? It looks really cute. Anyway, I will update on that later.

I am perplexed, Kyle has a rash all over his body. He has had it for a couple of days and I have been treating it as I would allergies, (it started at the same time he had a reaction to the nickle on the snap of his pants-stupid nickle allergy) but the Claritin isn't working. I called the doc today and they didn't have any appointments available and since tomorrow is a holiday, I have to call at 7:00 am to try to get in tomorrow as they are taking "same day only appointments" (what the heck is that?) tomorrow. Hopefully I can get in so we can see what is going on.

Kaylee's ankle seems to be doing a bit better. She is able to put a little bit of weight on it now, but still not much. My brother said she needs to "man up". I think that is hilarious.

As for me, I am awaiting an appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon next Wednesday to find out what the next step will be for my dang elbow problems. When I saw the neurologist last week he did some tests. Not fun ones either. The man put needles (yes I said needles) in my arm and sent electric currents through them to see how my muscles and nerves reacted to it. It was quite painful and my arm hurt the rest of that day and the next because of it. The test really didn't tell us much of anything except that, so far, I do not have any conductivity loss in that nerve. That is a good thing, it means that the damage to my nerves is not too severe yet. I do however have 50% sensitivity loss and about 30% strength loss in that arm. I'm not sure what the surgeon will say but it sounds like there may be a couple of options. 1) surgery to reposition the nerve at my elbow or 2) casting for a few weeks to see if the rest will help the nerve to heal. Honestly, I am not sure which options sound better to me. I guess we will see what he suggests.

In FHE (Family Home Evening) last night we talked a bit about resolutions and goals. We will be talking more about it next week as we will discuss what goals each of the children are setting for themselves. I have set a couple for myself as well. 1)I am going to read my scriptures everyday (I hope) 2) I am going to do my best to be more soft spoken. (I tend to yell a bit and I hate it, so does everyone else) 3) of course is to try to exercises a bit every day. Yikes!! I hope I can do it. We also set a couple of family goals and I am excited to see how those go over too.

Oh one last thing before I go. Jacob had a birthday on Sunday. He turned 7, I can hardly believe it. We celebrated with cake and his choice of dinner (Norwegian Pancakes) and we watched the video of his birth. Wow it is truly amazing how the time flies. He got a bike and roller blades which should go really nicely with the skateboard and ramp he just got for Christmas. Are we Crazy or what?! We are already pinching pennies to plan for the ER visits we are sure to have this next year over these gifts. YIKES!

Okay I am off. C ya next time!!!

Christmas and a Trip to Urgent Care

We had a great Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had Mike's sister Kari and her husband Deron and his parents over for dinner. We had a yummy meal check out the spread.

After dinner, we read the story of the birth of Christ. Then following tradition we gathered to sing Christmas carols while we awaited a visit from Santa. Mike went out to "hold the reindeer" and Santa came in with gifts for the kids. Here are some pictures of the kids with Santa.

After Santa left we visited for a bit and then the kids headed off to bed. Well they kind of headed off to bed. We later found them all slumbering in Kaylee's room on the floor. It was so cute. They did go to sleep well though and slept until 7:30 on Christmas morning. Yeah, we got to sleep in!! Then we opened presents and had yummy scones and sausage for breakfast. All the kids were very happy with their gifts and we spent the rest of the day lounging and enjoying what they all got.

One of the things Jake got was a skateboard and skateboard ramp. We are kind of holding our breaths waiting for the accidents to happen, but he also got some good protective gear and a helmet so hopefully he will be safe.

Kaylee, on the other hand, we hadn't worried much about and she is the one that got hurt. She was simply trying out the skateboard (not even on the ramp I might add) and she fell off and landed on her butt. The problem was that under her butt was her foot. She hopped around the rest of the day because her parents were too mean and didn't take her to the hospital on Christmas to get it checked. First thing on Friday we took her to urgent care and thankfully there were no broken bones. Just a really good sprain. So she is now on crutches and in an air cast.

Well, I suppose that is all for now. I hope you all had as nice a Christmas as we did.

Merry Christmas

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas. We have a had a great day so far. I just thought I would pop up a little post for now and I will come back later with details and pictures.

My Cafe Press Shop

My T-Shirt shop on Cafe Press is doing so well. I have just added some new designs and gift ideas to the shop. You can see previews of most of the designs in the slide show to the right of this post.

I just want to briefly tell you all about a couple of the things I have added.

1-I have added some great LDS YW theme related gifts. One has all the values on it including the new value, Virtue, which has been recently added to the YW theme and Personal Progress Program. The second is a design incorporating the nine B's from President Hinckley's talk "Way to Be".
2-I have also designed a shirt and some gift items based on the LDS Mutual Theme of 2009, "Be thou an example." I will be expanding this section with some other designs in the near future.
3-I have added a section of babysitter gifts. This section includes gifts you could give to your favorite babysitter and bags for girls who are babysitters. There are a couple of fun designs so check them out. I thought a great gift for my daughter would be to get her a bag and fill it with activities for the kids when she is babysitting. If you are looking for an idea for your teenage daughter, maybe you could do that too.
4-I added some reusable grocery bag designs. No more paper or plastic, go for canvas.
5-The last thing is that I will be taking orders for custom designs. If you need shirts for a family event, vacation or reunion, or any other kind of event, let me design a shirt for you. Prices are somewhat negotiable based on the quantity of items ordered for custom designs.

So that's it, but I also want to ask that everyone spread the word about my shop. I appreciate any referrals. To visit my shop click here.

Sims Family Update

We have been busy, busy, busy. I guess that just comes with the time of year. All of the kids have had their Winter concerts (except Kyle, his sing along is going to be this week.) Kaylee had her Choir concert last week and I was able to go with Grandma Sims, Kari and Deron. It was a great concert and lots of fun. The other three kids had their elementary school concert the week before that. They did a great job as well. Tiffany actually had a solo to sing and she did wonderfully.

Mike has been working Monday through Thursday the last couple of weeks in Las Vegas and even though he is gone those days, it has been really nice to have him home an extra day each week. We miss him so much when he is gone.

I am in the middle of doing Christmas Cards and letters and for some reason this year I really find myself dragging to get these things done. I may end up doing a new years' card instead this year. Who knows.

On another note, I am so excited that I finally got my new camera. Mike got me this for my birthday and Christmas this year. I am so excited but at the same time a little bit overwhelmed. There is so much to learn to operate one of these things. (at least to use it to its full potential). I am very excited to start using it though and look forward to taking some (hopefully) great photos. I think I am going to look into taking a photography class.

Speaking of Birthdays, it was my 37th on Friday. I can hardly believe I am that old!!! I really felt my age though last week when Kaylee turned 13. I actually have a full fledged teenager in my home now. That is scary. Well not scary really, I just can't believe she is already 13. Well, I suppose I ought to get going. I hope everyone hasa Merry Christmas and a wonderful and prosperous new year.

Hooray, I have a new niece

I have a new niece. Yippee! Addison Kate was born yesterday. Isn't she beautiful?!! Congrats Debbie and Darren.

In shock and amazed!!!

So a couple of weeks ago (on Nov. 18th to be exact) on a whim I decided to set up a cafe press shop and see if I could sell my t-shirts designs that I had ceated for our Twilight GNO. I thought if people like my shirts, maybe I can sell a few. I really did not have very high expectations at all. That little bit of inspiration has paid off for me though. As of tonight, I have sold a total of 213 products through my little shop(17 today, 25 yesterday!). Most of that has been this one design.

That was the one I did for my own shirt for GNO. I loved it when I created it and aparently other people do too. I have since come up with a few other designs. Check them out.

This is one of my favorites:

So far most of my designs have been Twilight related, just because I have Twilight on the brain, but I am interested in branching out. I am good at the designs, but not always good at the creative side...coming up with the ideas. So if anyone is interested in teaming up with me on some designs, let me know.

You can click on the individual pictures above to be taken to that design section in my shop or

Click here to visit my shop.

I have a couple of other designs up as well, so check it out.

Also, as you can guess, I am looking to build traffic to my site. I would be very grateful to anyone who can advertise for me on their blog or website. Just a little blurb and a link would be great. You could copy a picture too if you want. Is that too much to ask of a friend? ; )

Numb Fingers and growing older

So today makes 5 weeks since I woke up with that asleep, numb, tingly feeling in my last two fingers on y left hand. You know that funny bone feeling, or how your hand feels when it falls asleep. I have had that constantly for 5 weeks!!! It is really starting to be a nuisance. Actually, it has been that all along, now I am just getting sick of it. After 4 days, I went to the doctor. She sent me for xrays to make sure there were no bones problems causing the compression on the ulnar nerve. 4 days later when I finally heard back from the office about my xrays, I was referred to a neurologist. Of course it was a Friday and already past five so I had to wait until Monday to make the appointment. When I called, I was told the earliest appointment was over 2 weeks away. So I made the appointment and proceeded to wait all the while hoping my hand would just wake up. In the meantime, I decided to try a chiropractor. I had considered that the volleyball I had taken to the face 2 weeks prior to the numbness may have caused some issues in my neck that were now inflamed and compressing that nerve. I called the chiropractor and got in the next day. He fixed me up, my neck was out in two places, my back out in two places and my hip was out as well. Imagine that. Anyway, I have never been to a chiropractor before and had no idea what to expect. After two visits, I felt better in many ways, but my hand was still numb. I decided to wait it out until I would see the neurologist the next week. The Neurologist performed some tests and determined the compression on the nerve is at the elbow. He also told me that I have weakness in that hand, almost half the strength of my right hand, all due to the "neuropathy" as he called it. He called his occupational therapist and got me an appointment later that day for therapy to try and resolve the compression without surgery. Well, that was now 10 days ago and I am still numb. I have had two visits to the therapist, I wear a stupid looking padded sock thing over my elbow to protect the area all the time, and I have to sleep with a splint on my arm to keep my elbow almost straight. That is no fun at all. Anyway, I just wanted to complain a bit. Sorry for the long drawn out story. I am just tired of this feeling in my fingers. There is also sometimes severe pain and cramping episodes. The pains are in my hand, wrist and elbow. ugh!! If it's not one thing it's another lately.

It seems like ever since I hit 30 (a few years ago) my body has been falling apart. A couple of years ago I had to have my gall bladder out, it just quit working. I had a hysterectomy because my female parts couldn't figure out that a month should be 28-30 days, instead of 14, I have had shoulder problems, foot problems, wrist problems, & digestive issues galore. I broke a toe and my foot, sprained my wrist, fought carpal tunnel, now cubital tunnel and had miscellaneous aches, pains and illnesses. And I am not even that old!!!! I am still only 36 (for a few more days anyway) and I feel like I am falling apart. I wonder what I will be like when I am 50 or 60 or 80 for that matter. Well enough of that. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back to cleaning house.

On the bright side, I am hosting our ward Relief Society Enrichment Christmas Activity in my home tonight. My house is nearly clean, yeah! Mike will be home tonight(if the weather doesn't delay him). We woke up to a blanket of snow all over Loveland today(I think this is a good thing though I hate driving in it) It is a beautiful sight and the snow continues to fall. My house is all decorated for Christmas, and I am feeling the Christmas Spirit. My children are wonderful, happy and healthy. My family and extended family are amazing and I have wonderful friends. I have the light of the gospel in my life and a Heavenly Father who loves me. What's a little feeling old or a numb hand when you have so much!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Wow, the weekend is over! We had a great Thanksgiving week. It was so nice to have Mike home all week too. Mike's sister Teresa and her family came in on Tuesday for the Holiday. We had a great visit and spent lots of time together. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins. pete and Mel were up Thursday and Friday as well.

We had a pretty big group on Thanksgiving Day for Lunch/Dinner. There were 23 of us all together. The nice thing about having so many people for Thanksgiving is that you can split up the meal. Many hands mak light work. We had so much food some of it barely got touched. Of course that was great for all the after Thanksgiving meals the next couple of days. Anyway, we had a great time and enjoyed the company of so many this year.

On Friday, I had a near death experience, well not really, but it was somewhat scary. I am sure most people have read about the trampling death of a Wal-Mart employee on Black Friday. Well, I had my own Wal-Mart experience. I was there at 4:30 in the morning for a key item that was on sale. I was standing 2 feet away from it on the opposite side of the rope to hold people back. When the clock struck 5 and the rope dropped, I took my two steps forward to grab the item. Just as I grabbed it, I was shoved forward an downward over the pallet by 3 other people behind me trying to reach over me. I yelled, "You know if you let me up, you could get to it much easier." I fought my way out and headed off to explore the other Black Friday Deals. It truly is amazing that people get so selfish, careless, and impatient that they would trample a person that way. Just run over him. It is sad.

On a happier note ,today we trimmed our tree in preparation for Christmas. It is so fun. I love this season so much. Christmas truly is my favorite time of the year. Here are a couple of pictures.

Twilight...aaah

Friday was the big day. I took my daughters at 12:15 to see Twilight, they loved it. I took a lot of flack for "bailing" on my ladies and was called a "traitor" for going with Kaylee and Tiff before seeing it with my lady friends for our GNO. That's okay though.

We had a great time Friday night. There were 12 of us that met at the Olive Garden for dinner and despite very poor, very slow service we still had a great dinner. The excitement in the air over the movie was almost visible.

After dinner we headed over to the theatre where we were crammed in like sardines to wait for the movie. There were several people ahead of us in line, but we had a pretty good spot. Eventually, the lines were out the door. We had a blast showing off our shirts (made especially for this night) and talking Twilight. Finally we were allowed into the theatre for the final waiting period. The time went so slow, but we had fun. When the movie started cheers went up in the theatre.

Overall, I really thought the movie was pretty good. The book is definitely better!! There were some things I didn't like, especially the bug eyed way they portrayed Jasper every time he was on screen. I also felt like there were some really cheesy scenes, and lots of the story missing or jumbled. But considering the low budget they had to work with and how much they had to try and cram into 2 hours, I think they did a pretty good job. I was very excited to read that they have announced that they will be moving forward with the production of New Moon. Maybe they will be able to make that one a little bit better. Anyway, here are my scrap booked pages of the pics from our GNO.

Thanks Ladies for a great Girls' Night Out. It was a blast as always. So what are we doing next time?

If you like my page layouts, they are available for Download as quick pages from my Digi Scrap Blog here.

Where is your Spot?

I found a link to this survey on Michelle's blog. This was fun and it's nice to know that I am actually living in my ideal spot. (as if I didn't know that already) Loveland ranked number 3 behind St. George, Ut. and Ft. Collins, Co. (which is our neighboring town) Several other Colorado and Utah cities were in my top 20 with a couple in Idaho and Montana as well. Go check it out and see where your ideal place to live is, then come back and leave a comment to tell me what you found. Click the link to go to the survey.

Blog background

I made this blog background, isn't it great? If you want to snag it for your blog just copy the code below and add it as an HTML Gadget in your layout editor.

<style type="text/css">body {background-image: url("http://i484.photobucket.com/albums/rr204/mleilanis/Twilightblogbackground300.jpg "); background-position: center; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed; }</style>

Need a Twilight T?

Check out my t-shirt store. Right now all the designs are Twilight related because it is at the forefront of my mind these days. But I am sure I will be making other designs too, so check back there often.

http://www.cafepress.com/MLSDesigns

Digi Scrap Freebies

Hello Everyone, I just wanted to let all my friends and family know that I have officially completed a full week of freebie giveaways on my digi scrap blog. I am loving this designing thing. It is so much fun!!! I think I have a new obsession, I mean hobby. ; ) If you are into digi scrappin or want to do it in the future. Go check it all out here. Also, I could really use some help getting the word out about my new blog, so please tell your friends to come see me there too. In addition, I will have a new kit that will be given away next week. It is Twilight inspired, so if you like Twilight, you will definitely want to visit there next week. I am really excited about how that one came together at 1:00 in the morning the other night. (I couldn't sleep) Well, I am off to see the wizard...I mean take the kids to school. See ya!

2 days in a row with doctors

Well, I decided to go to the doctor yesterday, for myself, which is something I really don't like to do. However for the last 6 days now I have had numbness in my left hand. It is constant and very annoying. So I called the doctor and went for my appointment which led to x-rays and further tests. I do not have answers yet other than the logical guess that it is a compressed nerve somewhere between my neck and my fingers. I hope to get this figured out and fixed soon because I am tired of the constant feeling that my hand is asleep. meanwhile, I have been trying to figure out what I might have done that could have injured my neck , shoulder, or elbow and all I can think of is a couple of weeks ago when I was coaching volleyball and took one of Kaylee's bullet overhand serves to the jaw. It definitely jarred my neck and hurt for a couple of days, but then it seemed fine for a week or two. My neck is sore again so I don't know if that is related to my numbness or not. I guess we will see.

I also talked to the doctor about some digestive issues I have been experiencing for many months and she is doing testing to get to the bottom of that as well. Oh joy!

Last night, Kyle was up a lot of the night with a croupy cough and trouble breathing, so it was back to the doctor again today. She put him on Orapred and hopefully tonight will be better. He sounded so terrible last night, I felt so bad for him that I let him sleep in my bed so I could have him close to me in case he had any more problems.

I've been busy, busy on my scrapbooking blog so go see what I have been up to. I think I have found another great hobby. Maybe this one can one day make me some money. Who knows.

Well, I guess that is it for now. See Ya!

I'm So Slow...Halloween and more

Wow, It has been a crazy week and a half. I have been busy working on stuff for my new Digi Scrap blog, PTO Book Fair, teaching my quarterly YW joint lesson, YW in Excellence, Halloween, Halloween Parties, preparing for Tiff's B-day party this week, and making preparations for a digi scrap Christmas Card Class I am teaching tomorrow night for our ward RS Enrichment Night. So, I just need to catch up on what has been going on in our Crazy, Wonderful Life.

First off, after about 3 weeks of working from home, Mike is officially traveling again. He is now working on a job in Las Vegas managing the remodel of 54 McDonald's to add the new McCafe. He is taking over for someone who is far less organized than him and the last 2 weeks have been long and busy. He has still made it home for weekends though which makes me happy. The advantage to working on a job in Vegas is that we have friends and family there that he can visit making his evenings much less lonely. Yeah!

Kaylee started with a new Volleyball team practicing in a nearby town. She LOVES volleyball and just can't seem to get enough of it. She had a super Halloween Bash on Halloween here at our house. Several of her friends came over for the night. They seemed to have a lot of fun. We had set up the unfinished basement as a movie theater for the night. We moved the extra couches from the loft down to the basement, used a carpet scrap and projected a movie on the basement walls. It was pretty cool. In addition we strung cobwebs, hung spooky lights, and had dry ice in the punch.

Tiffany is getting ready for her birthday party this week. She is excited to be turning 11 on Monday. YIKES!!! She is loving being the Student Council President at school and is enjoying reading Twilight.

Ryan is obsessed with Legos lately. He made a plane and has not let anyone take it apart.

Jake is running constantly. He enjoys the park across the street and playing with his new friend Daniel.

Kyle has finally learned to say his K and G sounds. I was beginning to wonder if those sounds would ever come to him, but he finally got them. I am still reminding him of proper pronunciation when he says words using these sounds, but he can say them and he is getting it. How nice it is to hear him say his name as Kyle not Tile.

We had a great ward party and trunk or treat. The theme was Indiana Jones and they had lots of carnival type games for the kids to play. It was a super fun night! Halloween was lots of fun. The kids got way too much candy. Here are some pictures of them in their costumes.

Kyle the Bat, Ryan as Harry Potter, Jake the Power Ranger, and Tiffany the cheerleader. KAylee decided she was too old to dress up this year. Tear Tear, no pictures of her.

So like I said in the beginning, I have been pretty busy. I have been busy designing for my new scrapbook blog and have a scrapbook kit that I hope to release next week. If you are into Digital Scrapbooking, you will have to bookmark my blog and check back often for Freebies. You ca find it at JustForYouDigiScraps.blogspot.com Tomorrow night I am teaching a class for our RS Enrichment about making your own Photo Christmas Cards. I am really excited about it and hope it turns out to be fun. I am also really excited because the other night I bought my tickets fr Twilight the movie. I cannot wait to see it yippee! Well, I suppose I better run for now. See Ya!

My first Digi Scrap Freebie

I posted my first ever scrapbook freebie on my new scrapbooking blog. It is a really cute Quick Page. Check it out here. Here is what they completed layout looks like.

New Blog

Well, I have been busy improving my skills in digital scrapbooking and finally feel confident enough to start sharing some of my designs. I will start by just featuring some of my layouts and eventually start offering quick pages and scrapbook kits. I will also share links for some great places to find scrapbook stuff on the web and hopefully eventually some tips for the trade.

I love to digi-scrap. It makes scrapbooking so fun and easy. So check out my new blog. I will try to past something at least once a week. You can find it here or by the link on my links list.

Fall has Arrived

I guess Fall has officially arrived here in Colorado. The leaves have changed and are falling to the ground. The temperatures are dropping and the kids are upset that I won't let them wear shorts anymore. I hate the colder temps but I do love the fall. This is the lovely view I have from my front porch. Isn't it beautiful?This last week we had some wind and the big pine tree in our back yard decided to shed some needles. It was a mess. The yard was covered with needles everywhere. Today, I raked them all up. Here is a picture of the pile of pine needles.

I guess you will have to look at it sideways, because no matter what I do, it keeps turning the picture when I upload it. Sorry. I can't believe how many pine needles there were. It is amazing there are still needles on the tree. Unfortunately there are plenty more where these came from, I just hope the rest decide to stick with the tree.

Kyle at the Pumpkin Patch and Wishing Fountain

On Wednesday I had the chance to go with Kyle on a field trip for preschool. We went to a little pumpkin patch. They had a maze and a couple of spooky shacks the kids could walk in. It was fun. Kyle reaction to some of the spooky stuff was so funny. He was the first person in our group to find his way through the maze including adults. Good Job Kyle!! Here are a couple of pictures. The first one is a picture of Kyle and the pumpkin he chose. There were pumpkins of all sizes, but he wanted the littlest pumpkin, "just like the book we got from the library, mom." he said On Friday, Kyle and I went out to the mall. He saw the fountain and said "a wishing fountain, can I make a wish?" So I gave him a couple of pennies, he closed his eyes and tossed in his penny. It was so cute I had to grab a picture. Afterwards, he told me that he wished he was Spiderman so he climb up the buildings. He is so cute.

Free Online Class

JessicaSprague.com is offering a free class about telling your family stories. She has some great classes on digital scrapbooking too. I am hoping to sign up for one of those classes soon too, but this one is free so I figure I should check it out. It sounds interesting so I thought I would pass on the information to all of you. You can check it out here.

Is it a fire...

So last night after going to bed very late (1 am) I was rudely awakened at 3 am to the smoke alarms going off. My heart was racing as I ran through the house to make sure everything was okay. Mike had just changed the battery in one of the alarms before we went to bed because it was beeping, so I don't know why they were going off.

Anyway the alarms went off full signal startling both Mike and I from dead sleep. Everything in the house appeared to be fine so we went back to bed. (By the way Kaylee is the only one of the kids who woke up, YIKES!!)

So I laid in bed thinking I smelled smoke and scared that maybe something was really wrong and we just missed it, then about 4:00 the alarms sounded again. Mike and I both walked through the house and still found nothing.

Fast forward another hour and yes you guessed it, alarms again. This time Ryan woke up too. His comment, "Mom the alarms are giving me a headache." My response "Yes son, I know, I have been up dealing with it since 3 am, I have a headache too. Go back to bed, everything is fine."

I don't really understand what it is that was making the alarms sound, but it was a completely ridiculous night. But wait, the night isn't over yet. Again at 6 the alarms sounded for the 4th time. Mike decided to disconnect the alarms completely so we could sleep for the last hour of the night. Then of course, I was stressed over "what if something were to really happen now and we don't have smoke detectors hooked up." Needless to say we made it through the night, but I was not happy when my alarm sounded at 7 am for me to get up and get ready for church, and neither were the kids.

So here is the question. Why does this always happen at night? I never have these issues during the daytime (unless I burn the toast or something, but at least then there is a logical reason for the alarms to go off). Can't they put a clock or meter on the detectors that can tell you the battery is going to die during the night, let's just take care of this BEFORE you go to bed. I mean seriously, this has only ever happened to us in the middle of the night. What is that all about? And if Mike just replaced the battery in one before we went to bed because it was beeping, was it dying batteries causing the alarms during the night or what else could it have been? Wouldn't the next one needing a battery just start beeping too.

On another note, we did make it to church on time (9 am) despite being really tired. Today was the Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. Once a year our sacrament meeting is done by the children in our ward. The adult leaders over the primary (children ages 3-12) write a program and give each of the children a small part to say and they all sing songs to go along with the program. This year the program theme was "I am a Child of God." It was really well done and all our kids did a great job saying their parts. It was really fun to watch them sing all the songs they have been learning in primary this year. Great job guys. I was so proud of all of the kids, but especially proud of Kyle and Jacob as they stood and repeated the parts they had memorized.

After church I came home and took a much needed nap.

Kyle's New Passion

Yes, my four year old son, Kyle has developed a passion. I always said that the wooden train set we bought years ago was one of the best toys we ever purchased, but over the last couple of years, use has been tapering off to several months of no use at all. I was even considering getting rid of the train tracks and table since it takes up a bit of space in the boys' room. That is until a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly, Kyle is completely into trains. He is not happy building track on the train table either. "The table is too small, I can't build a big enough track on it." So he has taken over the bedroom, well most of it anyway. He has played with his trains every day for about 2 weeks now and is asking for more tracks for Christmas so he can make his track bigger. For the most part he has created his own railroad even taking it under the bed around the bed leg. I must admit he has been very creative about this. I helped him a bit yesterday to tie in a couple of dead ends, but he built this track system virtually by himself. Check it out in the pictures below.

At least this makes Christmas easy for him this year.

Photoshop Elements

I have Photoshop Elements which I have never used yet for digital scrapbooking. I love so many of the elements on the web for scrapbooking and really want to start using this program to make my layouts. I have a huge collection of digital scrapbook papers and elements that I really want to make the most of. Up until now I have been using the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Designer which I love and was so easy to pick up on. It just can't do everything I know elements can do. I usually pick up on these types of things pretty quickly, but I am so lost here with this software, I just want to scream. I have even tried following some online tutorials and still can't figure things out. Ugh!!! I can't imagine it is that hard to figure out, but so far it is just way over my head!! Am I just dumb or what?

My GNO Creation

Here is a picture of the platter I painted at our Girls' Night Out on the third. I think it turned out pretty good. It sure was a fun night. It was fun in a different way than our other nights thus far have been. It was fun to do something creative.

New Look for Fall

I just switched out my header and my background. Perhaps you noticed the change. I hope you enjoy it.

I am Such a Slacker!!!

I am not really a slacker, I have just neglected my blog the last couple weeks because I have been so busy with stuff for the kids' schools. So here is a quick update on what's been going on.

• Parent Helped in Kyle's preschool class on the 1st.
• October 3rd Girls' Night Out with my friends. You can read about it and see pictures here since I forgot my camera that night.
• October 4th and 5th LDS General Conference. There were some great talks and it is always wonderful to listen to our prophet. Read what our church leaders had to say here.
• Dinner with the Sims' to celebrate Eric's birthday. Good times with Pete, Mel, Kensie, Eric, and Mom and Dad Sims on the 5th.
• Shopped the grocery store sales on the 7th and 8th in preparation for our Group OAMC Cook Day. Spent $733 for 5 families 20 meals each. Hooray for the miles on my Frontier card.
• Group OAMC Cook Day on the 9th. 5 families it went great we had 100 dinners prepared by 1:00 in the afternoon.
• October 10th two of my brothers and one nephew came to visit from Vegas. We had a relaxing weekend and they have already gone home. (tear tear)

Add to that mix a day of separating and delivering t-shirts for the school t-shirt order, a PTO officer's meeting, a PTO meeting, a Young Women activity, a YW Presidency meeting, 2 YW volleyball games, a preschool board meeting, a pro photo shoot for the kids, and all the regular everyday things like driving kids to and from school and activities, cleaning house, preparing meals, etc. It has been a busy time. I am hoping things will slow down a bit for a while now. Of course, Mike is now gone today through Saturday for work, so it could be a long week.

Here is a picture of me and my brothers.

It's Here...The new Twilight Trailer!!!!

[ SEE THIS VIDEO ON TWILIGHTERSANONYMOUS.COM - FIRST SITE TO PUBLISH IT ]

Phenominal...I cannot wait to see this movie!!!!!

New Feature to my Blog

I added a new feature to my blog. You can see it just to the right of this post. If you regularly read my blog, click on the link that says "Follow this Blog" and it will add your picture. This will allow me to see who is following my blog.

A Homecoming and Family Gathering

Mike's parents spoke in church this past Sunday. Their talks were really great about how their lives have been blessed and how their testimonies have grown through their missionary service. We had several family member come into town to support them and welcome them home. Both of David's brothers and their wives and Mike's sister Teresa and her family came over from Utah. On Sunday, Pete and Eric came up from Broomfield and one of Mike's cousins who lives up in Laramie, Wy. came down with his whole family. It was so great to see some of the family that we haven't seen in long time. After church we had a big lunch together. It was over 30 people. We had Hawaiian Haystacks and was so yummy. Here are a couple of pictures from our gathering.