Do GOOD

I was reading Bishop McMullin's talk from the priesthood session, and I fell in love with this line from Joseph F. Smith "I felt as though I wanted to do good everywhere to everybody and to everything." I loved it so much I decided to make my self a little reminder... THIS is what I want to do.

Dinner for Bishop McMullin

My Dad serves in a Stake Presidency, and his stake had the opportunity to have Bishop McMullin come visit for their stake conference! The Stake Presidency hosts a dinner for presiding authorities before the adult session on Saturday evening. My parents asked if Jeremy and I would help out in the kitchen!

This was the AWESOME crew... us, President Hill's kids, and President Short's two daughters. We worked really well together and had a lot of fun. We served all the food, cleared all the plates, and cleaned up the kitchen!!

Here is Bishop McMullin pictures in the center. (The short one!) It was a great opportunity to shake his hand! What an amazing person he is. I was quite surprised by the things he did during the stake conference... if he ever visits your stake, be on your toes... you never know what he will do next!

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The best part of the night for me was hearing my Dad speak. He gave an amazing talk that I think everyone needs to here. I am going to try and summarize it, but I probably won't do it justice.

He talked about the things he has in his living room and what each of those things mean to him. Such as the picture of his family, and individual pictures of his grandkids, picture of the temple, the cute stuff my Mom puts out, the fireplace, ect...

Then he talked about his symbolic "shelf." On this shelf he has a statue of a young mother with two young boys, a picture of the man from UP, a picture of his parents, and also his mother and father in-law.

The young mother of course represents Natalia with Logan an Mason. Why did she have to die so young?

The picture from UP is to represent his question of why can't a worthy couple can't have kids, but a young teenage girl can?

The picture of his parents and parents-in-law represent his question of why did they have to die the way they did? (cancer, tree cutting accident, multiple strokes, alzheimers)

He talked about how these are things he doesn't understand right now, and he has to put them on the shelf next to Christ. He has to give these troubles to Christ, otherwise he can't progress, he can't move forward, and he can't enjoy all those other wonderful things on his shelves in the living room such as his family and the gospel.

We all have things we don't understand. Maybe it's a gospel principle, maybe it's a trial, whatever it is we need to put it on the shelf... we need to give it away to Christ and understand that someday we WILL understand, and we will no longer need that shelf. We can't let one trial, or one test of faith, stop us from enjoying all the blessings the gospel has to offer, and all life has to give us. We need to put it on our shelf, and move forward with faith...

Halloween Songs!

Please Note...

I have lots of new blog posts... in fact they all don't show up on the first page... so at the bottom of the screen click 'Older Posts" to see more if you are interested.

One post I know a lot of you would like to see is "Service for Natalia." So I'm giving you a link to that post so you can get their quickly;
http://your-neighbor.blogspot.com/2011/11/happy-birthday-natalia-345-acts-of.html

Also my spell check on my blog isn't working?? (Anyone know how to fix hat?) So please excuse the mis-spellings.

Halloween

The kids and I had a rather relaxing Halloween...

We went and got square pumpkins at Arctic Circle!

Since that wasn't unhealthy enough, we went to Macey's to get a Texas Ring!!! The 3 of us ate half of the donut!

The real fun happpened Halloween night when we went to Jeremy's brother's house for a Halloween Party! Jeremy dressed up like his Dad... and acted like his Dad the whole night! It was the highlight of the event! SO FUNNY!!!

Lots of crazy and cute costumes!

Boston thought it was pretty cool when his Uncle Josh showed up in a Buzz Lightyear costume too!!

We had lots of fun Trick of Treating! The kids both LOVED it! Hadley would scream at the top of her lungs "YAY, I GOT ANOTHER SUCKER!!!" She was so thrilled about this whole candy thing!!

Oh what a loot they got!

Jeremy came in 2nd place, next to Lily's Mom... the chef! What a chef she is too! She always makes the best Enchiladas for our party!

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It was a really fun Halloween night! Thanks David and Lily for hosting!!

Garner Family Monster Bash!

On Saturday October 29th my family had their Halloween party!!!

The details were amazing! Monster feet leading us to the door, monsters in the window and on the door, monster books, monster's hanging from the ceiling... just SO CUTE!!

My amazing parents (mostly my Mom) that put it all together!

The 10 adorable grandkids!

All of the Adults!

Eating our YUMMY Chicken Chilli Lunch!!

Reading a Monster book with Grandma!

Then we went on a scavenger hunt to find all sorts of gross stuff to make our Monster Potion!

Then we played a mummy game where we would unwrap the toliet paper onto ourselves until we saw money, then we would take the money, and tear it off and hand the roll to the next person!

This game we had 10 halloween shapes we had to suck up with a straw and put them into a cup!

This game each kid had a "Monster" on the end of his string... when the music stopped they had to pull their monster out of the white circle before the Monster Buster caught them!

The Bean Bag Toss is always a hit! It was such a fun party!!! I'm so glad everyone could come!!

I was in charge of the treat, and I made Monster eye balls (cake balls) and Monster Brownies (Peanut Butter Brownies) The Brownies were so yummy!! So I wanted to share the recipe for the frosting! Just make a normal batch of brownies, then put this frosting on top...

Peanut Butter Icing Recipe

from Tate’s Bakeshop Cookbook

Yields 2 cups
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (Do not use old-fashioned or freshly ground)

1/4 cup salted butter, room temp

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup heavy cream (I used evaporated milk)
Put the confectioner’s sugar, peanut butter, butter and vanilla in a small bowl. With an electric mixer, beat the ingredients until they are creamy. Add the heavy cream and beat the mixture till it is soft and creamy.

If you want, add crushed Reese' Peanut Butter cups on top!! Oh YUM!!

Jack-o-Lanterns

On October 28th we spent the night carving our pumpkins!!!

One of my favorite parts of Halloween!

Boston's Preschool Hallloween Program and Party

On October 29th, Boston's preschool had a Halloween program! It was SO CUTE!!! They learned tons of Halloween songs and performed them of us! Here is a sample...

Then it was time for the party to begin!!

They had TONS of games, a cake walk, fish pond, cotton candy, a spook alley, 2 bounce houses, and a bounce slide... and yes... Hadley was invited too!!

The kids were sad when it was time to leave! Boston's preshool really knows how to party!

Chocolate Appreciation Lunch

The Armatage girls that live close get together every other month for a lunch!

It was my Mom's turn to host and we had YUMMY soup, rolls, and chocolate pie for lunch!! (Sorry the one picture I took of the girls is blurry...)

Boston and Trevor eating their PB and J

Hadly and Ty eating their hands!

Also to celebrate Chocolate Appreciation day, we each brought a chocolate treat for everyone to take home with them! SO YUMMY!!!!!

I am so lucky to be surrounded by such great women!

Randomness

I just love the Smith's little shopping carts!!!

I just love finding Boston and his unusal pillows for T.V. watching...

I just love Boston's best friend Alexa!! (Oh and Hadley would claim her has a BFF too!)

I just love all the fun Halloween treats and crafts!!

New Church

A few months ago our ward switched buildings... and since I spend 1/2 of my life at these buildings I wanted to document about the change!

It's not very fun to pick up in move... especially when you are in the primary. We had our room deocrated just how we liked it... and are stuff organized into the closets... then we had to pick up and leave our nice new building to go to an older building.

Advantages:

-It's closer to our house

-More class rooms

-Has a nice bowery and baseball field on the same lot

-Only have to share with one other ward

Disadvantages:

-Not a full size gym

-It's Older, run down, terribly faded pictures

-Super outdated bathrooms that don't even have changing tables

-Smaller primary room

-Super hard to control the temperature!

All in all the change has gone well... just pray that my petition for a changing table goes through!

Library Halloween Party

Have I ever mentioned that my library rocks?!

Each year they have a special story time where the kids wear their costumes, they read Halloween books, make a Halloween craft, and play Halloween games! The kiddos love it!

Pumpkin Cookies!

On October 24th we spent our Family Night havinga short lesson and then frosting sugar cookies! We always did this growing up, and I love doing it with my kids!! We then took plate of them around to neighbors! So fun!

Pumpkin Land!

During Fall Break for the kids, Logan and Mason got to spend some special Grandma Time with her, while the other kiddos spent time with their other Grandma. I was lucky enough that my Mom would share some of that special time with me!! I was so excited!

Last minute my friend told me about this place called Pumpkin Land, and that if you dress up you get a dollar off... so we scrounged up some costumes and went!!

They had lots of fun blow up halloween things, and my kids LOVE Snoopy, so we had to get a picture with him!

Fun times with Grandma!

There was lots of farm animals to see!!

The kids had so much fun in the corn maze reading riddles along the way...

striking a pose...

and finding the secret room with the magic beans! We took theses back to the front for a special treat! (Best Corn Maze idea ever!)

Photo Opp...

They had lots of fun things to play on and do, including a "Light Alley"

The boys especially enjoyed the bouncy stuff!!! What a fun day!!

Super fun place. Affordable. And Not Crowded! Will for sure go again next year!