I was recently tagged by Anissa to post my fourth picture in my fourth picture folder. Here it is! This is Spencer when he was about 2 months old. He was laying on a pillow in the Marriott Hotel where we were staying during a trip to Washington D.C. to attend the temple. He was such a cute baby! Most of my friends have done this already so if you haven't, consider yourself tagged.

Sunday is over again? Awwww :-( The weekend goes by way too fast! It was a good one. Poor Paul's been sick with the same thing I've had for more than a week and he's pretty miserable. Despite that, he rented a trailer on Saturday, hired a kid from my ward and collected all the dead stuff from the garden, tree limbs, etc. and took it to the township yard waste place and dumped it. . . all in the pouring rain. My guy is such a hard worker! He then went to the doctor.

I went to a wedding shower on Saturday, watched the awesome BYU game and went grocery shopping very late Saturday night. It was a good day.

It was the primary program today, always a highlight of the year. Spencer and Rachel did a great job saying their parts. Rachel also played her violin and she did a terrific job. It was fun to watch Spencer on the stand. He made it known to me and everyone else by his facial expressions that he was bored. But he hung in there and made it through sacrament meeting without causing any disruptions. He even sang most of the songs or at least pretended to. He's not a fan of singing even though he has a nice voice. He was pretty disappointed that he still had to go to primary when it was over. He thought church was over for the day and was ready to head for home after sacrament meeting.

Today I had the fun opportunity of teaching the 16-18 year olds in Sunday School with no notice. It actually turned out to be a pretty good lesson despite having no preparation time. We talked about the pride cycle and some chapters in Helaman. Once again, I was reminded how much the book of Helaman is like our time. The wicked judges, the secret combinations, etc. I emphasized being steadfast and immovable and lifting each other up so we can face today's world. The kids were all participating and commenting so it made things a lot easier.

Relief Society was about the second coming. I have been thinking about the second coming a lot lately. I often wonder if people are recognizing the signs of the times. It made me more determined to be ready to see the Savior and to help fortify my family to keep them strong despite the wickedness all around us. There are so many things I can do better as a mom and personally so I just need to start each day fresh and not waste the time I have.

Choir practice went very well today even though we didn't have that many people there. We just keep going, going, going and pretty soon, we have music learned. Today was one of those great days when a couple of our Christmas songs began sounding really good. It made me feel more confident that we will get everything learned in time for Christmas.

And now I must head to bed. Hopefully, we will all wake up tomorrow with no more coughing!

A new definition for Kerri

Today Courtney and Caitlin were pretending that Caitlin was the Mommy and Courtney was the baby. Courtney came up to me and said, "You're Kerri, okay? That means Mommy in Spanish." I thought it was pretty funny!

Yes, I'm still here!

Okay--so I haven't written in a week. I've been sick for 8 days if that's any excuse but I've still been doing all the required mommy jobs during this time so I guess it was the blog that had to go. There's been some great things that happened this week. Here are some highlights:

1. Rachel and I went to see High School Musical 3 with my friend and her two daughters. It was a fun Saturday evening activity even though I missed an important part of it when I stepped out during a coughing attack.
2. I went to Spencer's parent-teacher conference on Monday. . .and hooray, he's doing great! Miss Smith had nothing but good things to say about him. Yes, Yes, Yes! My favorite quote of the conference was, "He's so mellow." If you would have told me this would be my first kindergarten conference two years ago, I would have never believed it! He has gotten more mellow with age.
3. Way to go Rachel! Her report card arrived yesterday--all wonderful grades as usual. I guess she's getting the hang of middle school.
4. All four of my bathrooms are clean today! That's a big deal, at least to me. We'll see how long it lasts.
5. I had some friends over yesterday to hang out, scrapbook, knit, crochet or whatever (mostly to chat and eat lunch together.) It was so much fun!
6. I just finished cleaning up the eight tortillas the twins just ripped up and tossed around the main floor for fun while I was typing numbers 1-5. They were "feeding them to Sugar" (who obviously couldn't eat them all!) And, as an added benefit, my floor is now swept!

Now, on to the laundry mountain. It took me four trips to get it all downstairs so you can imagine how long it's going to take to get it all clean! Wish me luck.

For a good laugh, click here!

This is absolutely hilarious. If you want to spend a couple of minutes laughing like crazy, watch this ward talent show spoof on synchronized swimming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f86qKQJg3Z8

Pictures from last week

Spencer wouldn't pose for a Halloween picture so here's a ship he made today out of Legos.

He's really an outstanding lego builder.

My Halloween Beauties



Rachel's entire costume

Isn't that tree a perfect background?

The kids had a preschool parade with goblin costumes they painted and made themselves. This is Courtney.

Here's Caitlin (center)

Candy, Candy Everywhere, Busy Days, and an Answered Prayer

These are a couple of pictures of the quiet book I worked on the ENTIRE Super Saturday at church.

We had a great weekend. Friday, of course, was Halloween with all its busyness and fun. Then Caitlin was up practically all night with a cough so by Saturday morning, we were a little exhausted. Alas, there is no rest for the weary. . .Rachel had two soccer games beginning at 8 a.m. After the second game, I started looking for my cell phone. Rachel had borrowed my jacket because she was cold and it fell out of the pocket. By this time, we had been to two soccer locations (including one where about 10 games were going on) and the grocery store to buy apples for the food tent. I backtracked everywhere except the grocery store in an attempt to find the phone to no avail. I was really concerned because it would be the second phone that I lost. We just barely found the one that went missing at the beginning of the summer in the backyard in the bottom of a doll stroller (thanks Caitlin!) So I prayed that it would be found and someone would call us.

Feeling quite dejected after fruitless frantic searching, I headed for the Relief Society Super Saturday. When I got there, I called Paul who told me that someone at the grocery store heard the phone ringing in the parking lot and turned it in to customer service. What a relief! I'm so glad the person took the time to call and let us know they had found it. The Lord does answer prayers.

At the Super Saturday, I spent the entire time assembling a busy book. Unfortunately, I didn't complete it and neither did anyone else. Even though I was warned that it would take longer than the Super Saturday, I felt confident that I could finish it and even do another project. Wrong! I do not like having unfinished projects sitting around so I'm going to have to put it where I can't see it or I'll go insane. We aren't getting together to work on them again until December. I worked furiously but I'm still one page short and need to sew it all together. On the bright side, it is cute. My friends, Tammy and Grace, felt sorry for me because I didn't get to do my other project so they made my Christmas centerpiece for me. I'm sure it turned out better than it would have had I made it. Aren't they the best ever? I do have such sweet friends.

After I left the church, I took Rachel to her last game of the day which ended in a tie--the second one of the day--at least they didn't lose. We came home, she changed and I took her to watch her friends Lauren and Gina perform in a play at their church (St. John's Lutheran.) They did such a great job! The musical was called "Malice in the Palace" and it was the story of Esther. It was performed by kids from about age 5 to probably 16. The girl who played Esther is 11 years old and her voice was absolutely stunning. I have never heard such a gorgeous voice on a girl so young. I was impressed with the performance of all the children. The message of courageously standing for the right even when facing opposition (and even death) is an excellent one for all of us, but especially for kids today.

I stopped at Walmart on the way home from the play to buy groceries. Of course, I walked out of there with a lot more what I planned to buy. I can't get out of Walmart without spending a ton of money. I always find things that I never knew that I absolutely need! I can't believe how many people shop at Walmart at 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night. The lines were ridiculous. When I got home, Paul relayed a message reminding me I was supposed to go into YW and help them learn a song I arranged for YW in Excellence. They asked me to arrange a medley of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and "I am Like a Star." I did my best. I haven't really done much arranging but I came up with a very simple arrangement and added some different lyrics to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." However, I never actually wrote the music down so I had to get it notated before church. I was too tired that night so I set the alarm for 4 a.m. When I peeled my eyes open in pitch dark morning, I found a notation program on the internet and got it printed in time for church. It's not perfect and I don't know how to fix it but the gist of it was there for the girls to practice. After a great day at church, I was wiped out.

Wouldn't you know that Rachel would miss the bus today? It's good she did or we wouldn't have heard this cute oxymoron from Spencer as we were all shivering in the cold car on the way to Rachel's school. "Hurry Mom, turn on the hot air conditioning!" Rachel and I kept giggling about it the whole way to school.