For Valentine’s Day, Darrel and I attended the Stake Sweetheart Dinner and Dance. We had a great time. They had someone there taking pictures. Here are a few of us:
Darrel played DJ for the adult dance and then the next night for the youth dance. That’s what this picture is from.
Laynee has an amazing memory. She memorized the 13th Article of Faith, which is quite long.
so I could dance and not care what I looked like. Isn’t she adorable?
Here is McKinley trying to sing “I Am a Child of God.” I was trying to help her but she kept shushing me. The song is not recognizable but she was cute just singing gibberish.
Okay, so I finally got a video downloaded using photobucket.com. Now every pervert in the world shouldn’t have free access to videos of my kids. I “shared” it with my blog and because of the way my blog was set up, only the left 2/3rds of the video would show. It completely cut Laynee out. So I had to reset up my entire blog. Not sure sharing my videos is worth all this hassle.
Laynee’s preschool Christmas program was so cute, I had to post it. I thought the kids did a great job with the singing, actions and also holding still.
So I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out the easiest and fastest ways to post videos to my blog. I use Windows Live Writer to do blog posts and there’s an option to post videos using Live Writer. When I clicked the icon, it told me that the site it uses is “youtube.com” to post videos. I thought I could just download the videos, mark them “private” on the youtube website and then every sicko wouldn’t be able to see my kids’ videos. Well, that worked except no one else could see the videos either. I’ve now deleted the videos from youtube and also deleted the posts on my blog with the videos in the them. I’m back to square one. Anyone have any good ideas on how to quickly post videos to a blog?
So starting in January we started having church services from 1pm-4pm. I've had the struggle most moms have, which is "What do we do all morning long that enables us to still keep the Sabbath Day holy?" I've decided to do something my mom did with us. I've made a Sunday Idea jar. Basically you put a bunch of Sunday appropriate ideas in a jar and let your kids pick one, and then you do it. I realize I'll probably have to add more ideas and adapt the ideas as my kids get older, but for now hopefully it will make Sundays a little easier. Here are the ideas I came up with:
Watch a church video
Listen to a scripture story on friend.lds.org
Do a game on friend.lds.org
Write a letter or color a picture for a family member
Color a gospel-themed coloring page
Write a thank you card to your primary teacher.
Write a thank you card to your Bishop.
Read the Friend together.
Walk outside and enjoy Jesus' creations.
Draw a picture of things you're grateful for.
Read 3 books.
Read scripture stories with mom.
Work on memorizing a new scripture.
Work on memorizing an Article of Faith.
Sing Primary songs with mom.
Call a family member.
Quietly sit and listen to hymns or other church music.
Play a board game or card game.
So does anyone have other ideas that would work for a 5 year old and a 2 year old?
As the Christmas season approached, I started thinking about how I was going to handle Christmas cards this year. With getting divorced this year and then remarried to a man (Darrel Moss) who had kids of his own, I was unsure what the politically correct thing was to do. It seemed there were so many people whose feelings I needed to be concerned with. I had many questions in my mind.
Do I include a picture of our new blended family of my kids, Darrel’s kids, Darrel and I?
Since our marriage is fairly recent, I decided this might make everyone involved feel that the “family” thing was a bit too forced. I skipped this for this year. (Not that I don’t totally adore Darrel’s kids, they’re great kids.)
Do I have Darrel in the pictures with my girls and I?
There were 2 reasons I didn’t opt to do this. #1) I thought this might hurt Darrel’s kids’ feelings. I would never want his kids to feel that they are in any way being replaced. So this idea was out. (However, my family all received an individual picture of Darrel and I from our wedding. The picture I sent is one that I posted on an earlier posting.) #2) I wouldn’t want to send some message to my kids that I was trying to replace their dad with Darrel.
Do I include a picture of me with the girls on the card or just have pictures of the girls like I did last year?
Since I’ve continued having good relationships with most of my ex’s family, I decided that anyone I was sending a card to wouldn’t mind seeing a picture of me along with the girls.
How would I explain to people why I did what I did with Christmas cards?
Instead of doing the traditional Christmas letter and explaining all of this in that, I thought I would print our blog address on the card. I figured anyone that was curious would come here and look.
Would you have ever guessed that Christmas cards could be so tricky?
I’m guessing anyone who hasn’t been through a divorce (lucky you) and hasn’t had the opportunity of having a blended family would even think about all these crazy issues. Plus, I tend to over think everything.
Merry Christmas!
So I’ve had my hair highlighted since July and decided to go back to my natural brown color. I thought “It can’t be THAT hard to color your own hair.” So I bought a kit and with Laynee’s help dyed my own hair.
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The solution is in, now I’m just waiting for it to work. 
The after shot: %5B2%5D.jpg "IMG00033-20091119-1236 (3)")
It actually looked pretty good for about a week and then the color faded. It doesn’t look quite as highlighted now as it did before but you can still see my brown roots. Dang. I guess I’ll have to have a professional do it next time. I should just feel lucky that it didn’t turn my hair orange.
McKinley LOVES M&Ms but she doesn’t know how to say M&Ms so she calls them num-nums.
Laynee calls elevators alligators. We’ll be at my or Darrel’s work and she’ll say she wants to ride the alligator. I’ve tried correcting her but she doesn’t remember. Now I think it’s pretty cute.
I debated on whether or not to post these Christmas pictures yet since I haven’t mailed out my cards with the pictures in them. However, the cards should be going out in the next day or two so I thought “Why not?”
Laynee’s preschool took them to an apple orchard where they got to pick apples, peel and slice apples and make applesauce and apple cider. Then they got to sit inside and eat their yummy treats.
Staci Hunter cut about 4 inches off Laynee’s hair. The finished product was quite cute.
Staci Hunter gave McKinley her first haircut in October. She actually did pretty well. I think these pictures of her are pretty hilarious.
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My sweet little princesses in dresses their Grandma Bell made.
Laynee and McKinley got to wear make-up for Halloween. They had fun getting it put on. Laynee even helped McKinley put on chapstick.
Playgroup Halloween Party at the church 
Laynee’s Preschool Party
Laynee insisted on sitting out the front porch and giving out candy after we got back from trick or treating. I think she enjoyed giving out candy almost as much as getting it.
The girls are lucky they live so close to Grandma and Grandpa Bell. They were able to come over and carve pumpkins with us one night in preparation for Halloween. I thought McKinley wouldn’t want to sit still but she enjoyed it.
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Walking to the game with Grandma and Grandpa Bell
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April Skinner, Laynee, Haven and McKinley watching the ski divers come into the stadium.
Me and the girls
McKinley and Mom
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