Snow day!

Today was another snow day. We started out the morning with lots of snow, I think there is about 10 inches out there right now, we planned to stay inside. Brynlee and Gracen had some fun coloring. Gracen has had a few experiences with crayons since he got some for Christmas. He knows what to do with them and lasts a minute or two until he decides to eat them.

Picture of Brynlee's butterfly, as requested by Grandma and Grandpa. She has been reminding me quite often that she needs to draw one.

After the kids had naps I was trying to figure out if dance was going to be cancelled, Brynlee and I were talking about it when the phone rang, she said maybe that's Miss Ali, sure enough, it was and class was cancelled. So Brynlee was very dissappointed.

Off subject for a minute, yesterday when I took Brynlee to preschool no one came to let us in the door so we waited for a while. I had noticed that all of the curtains were closed so I thought maybe they were on lockdown or something, maybe some kind of drill, after waiting about 15 minutes and seeing about 10 police cars pull in the school parking lot, I decided preschool was cancelled. A lot of the other parents left at about that same time. As we drove around the back of the school, the police had dogs out sniffing the students cars. I am guessing they were searching for drugs and that is why the school was on lockdown. I am not sure how I feel about this. I am very grateful that Brynlee was not in there at the time, I think I would have had a melt down. Especially not knowing for sure what was going on. I love her preschool teacher and Brynlee loves it there too. I just hate to worry about her safety! Am I being too cautious? Should I be worried? I realize that bad things can happen anywhere, and this is probably typical of a high school. I am hoping that her teacher or someone else can tell me what was happening that day! Anyway, Brynlee was very dissapointed about this, she cried almost the whole way home. I felt bad, but there was nothing I could do!

**UPDATE** When I took Brynlee to preschool this morning, her teacher told me it was just a random drill set up by the police department. This usually happens once a year. I feel a little better knowing this, and it is good that they do this sort of thing.

So after we found out dance was cancelled(she handled this one much better than I thought she would!) I looked outside, and the snow had stopped coming down and the clouds were gone! It was beautiful out there, so we just had to go out and enjoy it.

Brynlee conquered the mountain of snow!

Gracen slid down the mountain!

Helping clean off the car.

Looks can be decieving, it was freezing outside and the wind was blowing just a bit. I had to talk the kids in to coming inside after I couldn't take it anymore. Brynlee and Gracen both had rosy cheeks and bright red noses. They love being outside!

Allergy Free!!

I am very happy to report, after the lab lost the first set of blood drawn and we had to go in and re-draw his labs, that we finally have the results and this little boy is allergy free!! No allergy to milk or soy, which means he has probably outgrown the allergy. The doctors keep telling me that it is normal for children to outgrow this type of allergy in the first year or two. It is such a relief to know that I can slowly start getting him onto a normal diet. He doesn't have his next GI doctor appointment until mid February so he will still be doing the same thing he has been until she tells me what to do next. He is currently still having 2 cups of Nutramagin formula a day and limited amounts of cooked dairy. At the last appointment the doctor wanted me to start giving him "tastes" of cold dairy.

Today we had to go in and get Gracen's immunizations updated. I went in a month ago and I didn't have his record with me so we had to reschedule. He is not a happy baby, he got one in each leg and one in each arm. It is really cold today, down into the single digits, so it was not fun to get in the car and drive on the icy roads to get there, but it needed to be done!

Brynlee has dance tonight, she is all dressed and ready, and it doesn't start for about 4 more hours! She just loves it so much! She had me practice with her earlier and if I wasn't doing it right she would let me know! She is still on the same milk/soy free diet she started a few months ago. We will keep her dairy free for about 6 months and try it again and see if she outgrows it like Gracen. The doctor said if she doesn't after 6 months, she probably never will. I hope that doesn't happen. Although it is hard to restrict her, she has been a really good sport about it!

She wanted me to take a picture of her and her baby.

Symphony Fudge...yum!

A few weeks after we moved here, I was given my first calling, enrichment leader. I wrote last week about the most recent calling as a sunbeam teacher. In a ward as small as the one we are in, a lot of people hold multiple callings to keep things going. So I am currently doing both callings. So far it has been pretty easy going as an enrichment leader. The first enrichment night was in December and we did Christmas crafts. The activity had already been planned before I was called so I just helped out with getting things ready for it. As a refreshment for the night I made this symphony fudge recipe that I got from my mother-in-law Valerie. I have never really been a big fudge eater, I really don't usually like it, but this recipe is sooo good! I had a lot of people asking for this recipe and, yes, I do share my recipes, sometimes it just takes me a while to get around to it...so here it is!


Symphony Fudge

4 Cups sugar
1 Pint whipping cream
2 Large symphony bars (16oz total) I use the ones with toffee and almonds, I think it has blue words on the wrapper.
2 Sticks butter

In a large pot, mix sugar and cream, stir well. Bring to a boil, add 2 sticks of butter. Boil to
235 F. (Soft ball) Do not touch sides or bottom of pan while stirring. Add broken up pieces of symphony bar and mix with electric mixer. Pour into pan.

It is pretty easy. I don't know if you have to stir it the entire time while you are waiting for it to boil, but I did.

There ya go! Save it for next Christmas... I promise, it will be worth it!

Niagara Falls

One of my favorite things about living in the Midwest is all of the fun places we have been able to visit! Since we didn't go back home for Christmas, we thought we would take advantage of Nate's time off, pray for some decent weather, and go somewhere fun. It was between Niagara Falls and Gettysburg. When we saw that the weekend weather was going to be in the 50's we decided to take the 5 hour drive up to Niagara Falls.

We figured that this time of year wouldn't be too busy there, so we looked up a few hotels on hotels.com and took the phone number to call and reserve a room while we were driving. I called and told the guy we wanted a room in Niagara Falls, NY and he got it all set up for me, told me his spill about the cancellation policy, (of which I didn't listen to well, we knew we would be there) no problem...at least we thought! We got there at about lunch time, so the first thing we did was grab some lunch. The kids got a kids meal to share at Burger King, they loved the toy and still fight over it more than anything else they got for Christmas. Its a little toy that shoots a wheel looking thing up into the air. They think it is fun to push the button and watch it go flying, maybe I should just start buying Christmas gifts with happy meals. ;)

Back to the story...we left Burger King and when we were in the parking lot, we put the address to the hotel into the GPS and it wouldn't bring up anything. I kept trying it, but nothing. We stopped at a grocery store just down the street to look it up in a phone book and to try calling hotels.com. Nate found a different address so we put it in and headed to it. It was no where to be found! We finally went in to a Denny's and Nate asked about the hotel and they told him it had closed a few years ago. We looked up the same address we originally had and put in Canada instead of NY and there it was in Canada, where we couldn't go! Great! What do we do now?

After a few tries, and being hung up on 3 times I was finally able to get someone from hotels.com to stay on the phone with me. I told him what was going on and that I had told the guy I talked to we wanted a hotel in NY and that we couldn't go to Canada. Luckily, he was able to cancel it with no charges, otherwise we'd have been paying for 2 hotels or making a long trip back home that same night!

We got all set up in a different hotel, on the American side, and walked down to see the falls. We had heard that it is better to see from the Canada side, but didn't look in to what we would need to take the kids across the border. We figured it would still be fun either way. It was warm and kinda windy so just ignore the fact that my hair is crazy in some of the pictures!

I know, you are so jealous of the crazy hair!

Brynlee thought it was pretty fun to look out and see the waterfall. Gracen didn't know what to think, he was just hanging out in the stroller, he even fell asleep for part of the ride!

Even though the water wasn't as clear as it would be in the summer, and we couldn't see it from the Canada side, (and some hotel issues) it was great to go somewhere as a family and spend time together seeing something as amazing as Niagara Falls. It really was a fun place! We decided we will probably try to make it out there in the spring or summer and even over to the Canada side sometime before we leave the Midwest. We have lots of other places on our list of places to see, Chicago(if I can talk Nate into it), Gettysburg, Columbus, Amish country, Nate wants to see a Cleveland Indians game...the list goes on! Hopefully we can make it back and enjoy it again!

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam...

Today was Brynlee's first day in Primary! We have been talking about it for a few weeks now so she would know that she would be going into primary and not going to nursery today. She has been pretty good about it and seemed excited...until this morning! She asked Nate if mommy could take her to nursery today, he told her that she wouldn't be going, that she was going to primary. She lost it, full on tantrum on the floor, crying and not letting us talk to her for nothing. Finally I explained to her that we were going to go to Primary with the big kids and that her friends from nursery would be there too. She was finally okay with it, and got back to her normal self.

And, Guess who the lucky teacher of all those cute little sunbeams is, you guessed it... it's me! We had a really interesting day. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. We had 9 kids show up today, they did pretty good. We had a few crying right at first through sharing time, then we went to class for the lesson, that was...well, interesting. I don't know how else to explain it. I have never been in primary or taught primary, I was inactive as a child so I rarely attended. I know what I can expect from Brynlee, and 2 of her friends in the class, so I planned something I thought would work and it didn't go as well as planned, but we survived with only 1 kid crying(because he got bit) and just a few climbing on the table. The rest were really good! I learned a lot about how to plan for next week, and hopefully I can keep their attention a little longer! In all, we survived! I think with all the excitement of a new class and new teachers all of the kids were pretty wound up, so hopefully next week will go a little smoother! With the help of Sister Anderson(she is amazing, and saved me a couple of times today!) were going to figure it out!

Brynlee did really well, I didn't have to get after her at all and she didn't seem too worried about the fact that her mommy was holding and sitting next to the other kids! Sister Anderson went to get some crackers for a snack, and I was passing out the last little bit toward the end of class. I realized I was getting low, I had to give the kids just one cracker each to try to stretch them out and when I got to Brynlee I didn't have any more. Poor girl! I felt horrible and I told her I had some goldfish in my diaper bag(which was with Nate) that she could have after class. She didn't even make a face or cry, nothing! My little girl just sat there and was okay with it! I was purely amazed! She just said, "We have fish in the other bag." WOW!! She is such a good girl!

I am excited for this calling, I know I will be able to learn a lot! I always hear some of the funniest stories about the sunbeams and their funny answers to questions. I love how small children have such a simple faith in the things they are learning about the gospel and how they are so excited about it! Wish me luck next week!!