The Book of Mormon and your Cell Phone

I found this on a different person's blog and I really liked it. I just need to apply it in my own life.

Wonder what would happen if we treated our Book of Mormon like our cell
phones?

What if we carried it around in our purses or pockets?

What if we turned back to get it if we forgot it?

What if we flipped through it several times a day?

What if we spent an hour or more using it each day?

What if we used it to receive messages from its text?

What if we treated it like we couldn't live without it?

What if we gave it to kids as gifts?

What if we used it as we traveled?

What if we used it in case of an emergency?

This is something to make you go ...Hummm...where is my Book of Mormon?

My backyard friend.....Pablo

Last night Crystal and I decided to carve pumpkins. Here was the problem...I had a short skinny pumpkin. How am I supposed to carve something fancy schmancey in a small pupmkin? Well, I didn't. I tried to carve Dora, and she started out great, but as I tried to add the face, all her features were crowding fast. So, in the end, she was evil Dora. She is now in the trash can.

This morning I went and bought a new TALL pumpkin and tried again. I had decided that since Crystal had done Dora as well last night, that I would try someone new today.

This is Kasen and I prepping the pumpkin for surgery.

BEFORE.....<
He wasn't quite sure what to think of the gooey mess in the pumpkin. He's a very clean kid.

Me showing Kasen it was ok to have messy hands, mommy did too!

The bowl of mess...

AFTER...Pablo from Backyardigans


I'm giving myself a pat on the back for this one. Even though it's not perfect, let me PROMISE you that it's a million times better than the EVIL Dora one last night!

Bates Nut Farm with the Fam

On Saturday, we went to Bates with my family. My sister Jen and her family came down from Lake Elsinore, and my sister in law Jeanine and 2 out of 3 of her kids came down from Laguna Hills. (my brother Greg and my nephew went to the UCLA game). Zac and his family came from with and so did my parents. It was so fun. Crazy packed full of people, but fun.

It's a tradition to take family pictures when we are there. Pictures of the kids playing and posing with the pumpkins too. Here are some of the MANY we took!


The two men in my life!


We had all the men gather pumpkins in a pile so we would have the perfect picture spot.

Kasen and a few of his cousins...

My happy family!!

Silly boy!! Right after that he fell of the pumpkin backwards!

He made up with the pumpkin by giving it a kiss



He just LOVES these slides!

Giddy and jumping after flying down the slide

Happy Birthday to ME!

My Birthday was last week. Thursday to be exact. It's pretty sad how birthdays aren't that exciting to me anymore. Up to about 2-3 years ago they were BIG time. It seems like now that I have Kasen and his birthday is 3 weeks after mine, his takes precedence over mine. I am totally ok with that. He has more fun with it.

I went to lunch with some friends at Olive Garden, and then went to dinner with my sweet husband. We went to a place called Rei do Gado. It's a Brazillian place down in the gaslamp district. They have a salad bar with some fruit and a few other random fish items. The idea is meat. They come around with meat on skewers. Every sort of meat. Tri tip, ham and pineapple, turkey wrapped in bacon, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, sirloin, garlic sirloin, skirt steak, pork sausage, chicken with cheese, pork tenderloin. You get the idea. It was sooooo dang tasty! I want to go back! I doubt we will, but I want to!!!

I got some great gifts, and had a lot of fun!! Thanks to everyone who made a special effort to make my day fabulous!

Here is a picture of Jeremy and I after dinner.

More Fires!

The Fire Dept just said that he is pretty sure these fires will reach the coast before it's over with. This is the fire up in Poway he is talking about. So Del Mar, La Jolla. Places over there are threatened as well from a different fire. Scary stuff!

Local Fires

For those who haven't heard. There are quite a few local fires burning. It's been about 4 years since we had this problem, this bad. This year it's worse.

These are some pictures from our house, and from the corner gas station. It's bad. Ashes in the air. Smoke EVERYWHERE. Our neighbors are packing their cars. My parents got all their important papers together in a pile. We went and filled all the cars up with gas, while we were there, cars were lining up, and they raised the gas prices. We are about 5 miles away from the path where a fire is. If the wind shifts, our neighbor told us we will be in danger. Kinda freaky really. My allergies are going crazy!!!! The santa ana winds are gusting. This is the WORST fire North County has ever seen, the news just said.

I keep praying that we will be ok, and that those who HAVE evacuated will be ok and be comforted.

Kasen's Beach Pics!

Elijah

I can't believe he is 4 months already. He is such a sweet little boy and is always smiling and giggling for me. I know I say this all the time but he looks SO much like Zac. This is a picture I took of him last night and his eyes look so gorgeous here. Such an adorable baby!!

I love you

Kasen is such a sweet boy. He has emotions that I never knew a 2 year old could have. He seems like such an old soul to me. He understands a lot. He comprehends more than I give him credit for. I love him so much. He loves me too!!

Cousins!!

I love that Kasen is so close to his cousins. He loves Brielle to death! He loves Braxton to death!! They have been buddies since they were tiny! They fight, yes, but they are also 2. Kasen asks about Brielle and Braxton all the time. A few days ago I was looking through old pictures and reminiscing and this is what I found!!




Those pictures are when Kasen and Brielle are about 3 months and newborn. Braxton and Kasen are about 5 mos and Braxton 3 mos.


These are recent pictures of them together. I love that they have so much fun together.




I hope they all stay close and they grow even closer as they get older!!

Coooookies

Kasen, like most 2-3 year olds I think, has a fetish with cookies. Grandpa came home from work last night and brought him some cookies! It was something that a client of his gave him and he decided to share them with Kasen. They were in a cute little package from Starbucks.


Kasen wasn't allowed to have his cookie until he finished his dinner. For those of you who have never eaten around Kasen, he takes FOREVER to eat. I think he would so much rather be doing something else. So he takes his sweet time. BUT...last night he finished his pasta in RECORD timing! He wanted that cookie SO bad. They were sugar cinnamon cookies. I can't stop smelling them. Yummy!

I gave Kasen his cookie and it had some green frsoting on it in case you couldn't tell. His mouth was stained like that all night long!

Not the most flattering picture, I know. But he is still cute.

My Cute Computer Nerd

About two weeks ago, I decided to let Kasen play a game on the computer while I was trying to do the dishes. It was almost bedtime and he was getting pretty cranky, but I wanted to finish the dishes before he went to bed since I had already started them. So we went to www.mickeymouseclubhouse.com (surprise, surprise, I know!) and we found a couple Mickey games for him to play. After about a 5 minute tutorial on how to use the mouse and the arrow and how to click, he was off! He was SO intrigued by the game that he wouldn't even blink. It was pretty funny. Since then he has to fight his daddy for the computer because his daddy likes to play the Diego games!

Look a like meter

This is interesting to me because I have always thought Kasen looks A LOT like Jeremy. Guess not, according to Heritage.com!



I especially thought that Kasen looked like his daddy when he was a baby, but apparently heritage.com thinks he looked MORE like me when he was little.

I don't get it.

2 year old writing skills....

Kasen has been very interested in writing and learning lately. He always has been, but especially since he started preschool. His friend Luc had a birthday party a couple weeks ago and Kasen made the card for it. He knew a few letters on his own, but the ones he didn't know, I sat down with him and taught him. We practiced on a different sheet of paper, and then he wrote it on the card.



I am totally not trying to brag, well maybe a little. I don't know. But I am just REALLY impressed by my two year old and his writing!