How cute is this apron?

Even cuter with the clever card "Thank you for serving us."

Today I was released from the young women's presidency. Bittersweet. It'll be nice not to worry about childcare when Rob, Robbie and I were all involved in Wednesday night activities. Even better not to have to hire sitters during the week of scout camp and girl's camp. But I will miss the girls and leaders.

Today I was actually glad that we had sacrament meeting first, so everyone heard the announcement, then during our young women's meeting the new presidency had a chance to introduce themselves and we had a chance to say goodbye. I wasn't expecting a present, but I love it!

As I shared my testimony, I told the girls about when I received this call. Rob was still in the EMBA program, and the bishop called asking him about his schedule. After a few minutes Rob said, "Bishop, if you have a calling for one of us, just make the call, we'll work out the scheduling. We've never had a calling that hasn't been a blessing to us. " And that is the truth. Clayton Christensen puts it much better than I can:

"Why do I choose to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an organized religion, rather than attempt as an individual to live a good life? It is because the church helps me understand and practice the essence of Christianity. The mechanism by which the organization achieves this is to have no professional clergy. We don’t hire ministers or priests to teach and care for us. This forces us to teach and care for each other – and in my view, this is the core of Christian living as Christ taught it. I actually have come to feel badly for my friends who belong to faiths in which professional clergy are employed – because they don’t know how much joy they miss when they “outsource” the teaching and care of the members of their church to specially trained professionals."

This is an excerpt from an article he wrote called Why I Belong and Why I Believe. Just click on the link to read the whole thing. And here's a link to one of my all-time favorite talks, also by Clayton Christensen, Decisions for Which I've Been Grateful. If you read these and like them as much as I do, go here and scroll down for even more inspiring messages.

So, I'm even grateful that I'm already jumping into my next calling, a den leader for the Bears. It might be the only way Joey gets his rank advancement. :)

Good morning

There were a couple of young women who had to be home last night, so after we watched the movie I drove them home (and got to sleep in my own bed—bonus!) After getting to bed around 1:45, I woke up at 6:45 and headed back to help with breakfast. Although I knew I wouldn't have to worry about traffic on I-15 I decided to go through Heber again and I'm so glad I did. I had to stop at Deer Creek for this photo.
Speaking of breakfast, if anyone wants a fabulous waffle recipe, go here.

But mom, you said we couldn't have sleepovers...

When I told the kids I'd be gone Friday night at a young women's retreat they immediately picked up on the injustice and hypocrisy. So we've amended our sleepover rule to include not only cousins, but church activities.
We left around 5:00 p.m. for Provo canyon via Heber. It's a beautiful drive, and we arrived at Virginia's cute 1938 stone cottage by dinner time. We had Brick Oven pizza, root beer, fresh fruit and a yummy salad, then headed outside to build a fire for s'mores.
I really want a fire pit in our yard. This is always a place where bonding happens. The s'mores are pretty good too.
Once we all smelled nice and smoky, we headed inside for the big reveal—the girl's had each drawn a secret sister the week before, and in addition to an anonymous service during the week, they found out three things about their sister and everyone had to guess who it was. They also found out their favorite treat and gave it to them. Becca e-mailed the husbands of the other leaders and surprised us with our favorite treats. Here are the three facts about me that Rob gave her:

1. When she was learning to drive, she high centered the car on an island in the high school parking lot. She and her dad could not get the car off the island, so her dad walked over and asked the football team who were practicing nearby to come lift the car off the island—all to Michelle's great embarrassment.

2. She speaks four languages: English, French, Italian, and Spanish. Sometimes she speaks all four at the same time, not remembering which words belong to each language.

3. She is unbeatable in Backgammon. Seriously. She will roll doubles like eight times everytime she plays. It's unreal. On the other hand, if you happen to beat her at chess, she will throw all the pieces on the ground in a huff.

As my favorite treat he recommended brownies, chocolate, caramel, marathon bars (if only they were still available!), mints or hot chocolate. I scored a box of After Eight Mints. Yum.

We settled in for a wall projector movie. We had about twenty great choices. You've Got Mail narrowly beat The Princess Bride in the voting. It was so funny to think about dial-up internet and see the huge computers. That was only twelve years ago!
It was fun. We have a great group of girls, and I love the leaders I get to work with too. I'm definitely okay sending my girls to this kind of sleepover. And glad that it won't be for another six years. :)

New Beginnings

I wonder if the person who named this annual young women's activity realized that it is redundant? Or if they knew how time-consuming it would be to plan and prepare? :) So worth it though, we have some great girls coming in this year.
We went with a Chinese new year theme, and Cara made us these awesome calligraphy signs for each of the values:

And, in other news, Rob is showing some signs of improvement. Food is starting to appeal to him again, and he perked up a bit when he saw the iPad. He has lost eleven pounds in six days on the I.P. (influenza/pneumonia) diet. He swears that it's not worth it, but if that's not a silver lining, I don't know what is. His office sent these pretty flowers...to me, with this message:

"Wishing you the best while you nurse your sick husband! We know he will get better, we hope you can recover too from your double duty. Rob, we hope you feel better soon! Friends at Logoworks"

I love it.

I still forget to take photos

I thought about pulling out my camera and setting it on the counter several times before Peggy came over, but didn't do it, and it wasn't until she was backing out of the driveway that I turned to Melissa and said "Shoot, I forgot to take pictures!" Peggy's been baking homemade wheat bread for twenty years and offered to teach us how, even coming to my house to do it, and grinding fresh wheat flour for both of us. I don't even deserve the title of photo nazi after this. Seriously.

So instead, here's my photo-of-the-day:
Our joint YM/YW activity tonight was a speaker. He's a retired prison warden, and had a powerful message about how we allow ourselves to become bound, and the key to escaping our bonds. He could have benefitted from some organized notes, but I think the kids got the point. Handcuffs are a memorable object lesson.

Procrastinated project

This year we are giving the young women in our ward cute, paper-covered, pocked-size (military edition) Books of Mormon for their birthdays. One of the wards in our stake had made them at an activity, and we got a copy to look at, assuming that we could figure out how to do it. I could see how it was put together, but didn't know what kind of adhesive to use. I searched online, knowing that we are not the first to do this (while I was at the distribution center picking up the books, there was a lady ahead of me in line with at least 30 of them in her basket, and she told me they were making them for each girl in her stake). I had no luck finding any reference or instruction for this, so I'm posting my trial-and-error results in case anyone else is in the same boat.

Here are the supplies you'll need for each book:

1) a military-sized Book of Mormon

2) a cute piece of cardstock

3) a paper cutter and scissors

4) ribbon

5) two brads

6) a small hole punch

7) adhesive (I used Krylon High Strength Spray Adhesive, which worked great).

First, I bought a variety of cute 12x12 paper (all on sale or clearance) and had the YW write their name on a piece that they liked (without telling them what it was for—we told them it didn't have to match their room or anything, just something they liked).

Next I laid the book on the opposite side of the paper and traced the spine and both sides to make a template. I cut the paper about 1/2" bigger than what I traced, using my paper cutter, so the edges would be straight. Then I used the scissors to cut off the corners, just leaving the traced point. Cut a notch where the spine is, as pictured below.

This next step may seem sacrilegious, and definitely felt wrong to someone who doesn't even like to bend pages or crack the spine of a book, but I couldn't figure out a way around it. I had to rip out the first and last pages, because they were glued to the cover about a quarter-inch in, so there was no way to fit the cover on. I can only hope that if the young women need to look up referenced to ziff, zion or zoram, they have a standard size set of scriptures at home.

After desecrating the holy book, take the paper, lining up the notches for the spine, and fold the edge in around the cover, so that they are creased.

Here's what it should look like:


Once you know it fits properly, I recommend removing the paper and using it to make as many templates as you need, so you don't have to repeat the tracing step each time.


Next, place your ribbon around the book, leaving enough length to tie a small bow where the pages open. Use the hole punch (a small one—I think mine is 1/8", or maybe even 1/16th") to punch through the ribbon, paper and cover, as below on both the front and back (don't worry, this will get covered):

Cut two coordinating pieces of cardstock (often two-sided, so you may be able to use the opposite side) to use on the inside of the cover. I cut mine 3 1/4" x 5". Then spray these pieces with adhesive and apply immediately (the directions say it will be a stronger bond if you wait 30 seconds before applying, but I found it was too tacky to position and made a mess). There is no need to glue the outside cover first, the inside cover will hold it in place. I used a piece of wax paper to set the inside pieces on while I sprayed them. Also, while we're on the adhesive, I mentioned trial and error, and I don't recommend a glue gun—it'll work, but it's too thick.

Here's the finished product:

I think they turned out super-cute, and they're just the right size to carry in a purse. Ellie is begging me to make one for her. She may get the one I used the glue-gun on for now.

Youth Conference

There are some people who love serving with the youth because it makes them feel young. For me, it's just a reminder of how old I am! I do feel lucky though, we have really amazing kids in our ward, and great leaders (I'm the exception to the rule). Of course the fabulous vacations are a real perk too. This year we went to Manti. We drove down in Sunday dress, had lunch at the park, then headed to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.



I didn't bring my nice camera, so when Christianne got there with hers I quit taking photos. A few other highlights were:
yummy dutch oven cooking, Forever Strong on the lawn, the "faith" hike, boating, a killer bonfire with smores and a great testimony meeting.

Fruit Pizza

Last night was New Beginnings for the young women. We served this:

They're a little time consuming to make, but so pretty, and yummy too. Christianne came over to help cut fruit and assemble them, and we had a great time. Here's the recipe:

To tired to be decisive

The beauty of posting the daily photo here is that, if I want to, I can actually post more than one. It doesn't happen often, but I did two fun things in the same day...

First, lunch with Amy and Char—it's been way too long!


And pedicures with the YW:

I still don't have any really artistic shots, but at least I'm taking photos again!

I am old

You know you're old when a sleepover doesn't sound like fun. Yet, except for the lack of sleep, the YW christmas party was fun. We had to cancel our trip downtown to see the lights because of the massive snowstorm, but we had a yummy dinner, exchanged white elephant gifts, played "The Sassy Experience" and watched an awesome slideshow/movie summarizing the year. I got to go home and sleep in my own bed for a few hours before heading back for a waffle breakfast. We don't have many young women, but they are stellar. And I feel so lucky to work with some of my favorite people in the ward.