Thursday, October 28, 2010

Halloween Cupcakes

When I saw the recipe for these spiky monster cupcakes, I knew I had to make them. Logan's 3rd grade Halloween party needed treats so, two dozen cupcakes later, I had a blast. I am thinking I need to make another batch to give to neighbors. I hope the kids like them as much as I liked making them!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

General Conference

We were sitting down for the first session of General Conference when Dylan, looking at the t.v. during the opening hymn says, "That man has a lot of arms." A lot of what? He was a bit concerned until Gary told him that there were two men sitting there, playing the hymn together. I just had to laugh. During that and the next session today, every time a hymn played, I smiled watching the organists play. The innocence of youth.

I especially loved the talk today by President Monson about an attitude of gratitude. How often are we depressed because we don't have such and such or we don't live somewhere or this or that or the other. We are so blessed to live in this time, even with the economic hardships that are happening right now. We live in a world filled with modern technology. We have comfortable homes and food to eat. We have loving families that just want our time. Like we also heard in conference, "You spell love t - i - m - e." We can be grateful that we have time to show those around us how much we do love them.

I am grateful I am in a place I can watch all the sessions of conference. I can listen to the messages, tape them on my DVR fore later, make a disk to share with branch members who had to work, and, most importantly, have my children see and hear the words of the prophet while their testimonies are developing and growing. I'm very grateful we are blessed with this opportunity every six months and I'm already looking forward to it in April!

Saturday, October 2, 2010

A Sign from Above

Today was General Conference. We all sat down to watch the morning session together. The boys had their conference booklets and Gary and I settled in to watch and listen to the messages. The boys made it almost to the end before we released them to go outside and play. A huge improvement over years gone by. Maybe it was because this is the first time in recent memory that Gary was able to watch the Saturday afternoon session with us. It was great having him home.

During the break between sessions, we had lunch and started playing a fun domino type game called triominoes. After lunch and after Dylan was sleeping, we thought we'd play one more round before starting conference. I love having our DVR so we can watch and rewind and pause when the phone rings and start a few minutes late if we need to.

Well, we sat down to play and the thunder started to roll into the neighborhood. We continued playing and the hail began to fall. Another turn and the hail became bigger. Someone else played a piece and the thunder became louder. Next player and the lightening was no longer something that was hitting in the forest somewhere. It hit in our backyard. Gary saw it and is pretty sure it hit our laundry line. Wow was the thunder loud. Luckily it didn't hit one of the dozen trees or the house. The electronics are all fine. There was no fire. No tree toppled over onto our house. No worse for the wear.

I'm thinking it was a sign from above that it was time to put away the games and get to conference. Maybe next time we won't delay the start of the session to meet the recreational desires of our little family.