Festival of Books

Today was the annual Festival of Books.  We always head for the children's section as soon as we get there and look what we found:

The girls could read to a dog.  Isn't that sweet?  Sophia chose a book immediately and got started.

Caroline read a book to the brown dog.  Notice everyone is wearing a jacket or hoodie?  Usually we get a sunburn at this event, but today's weather was quite cool and it sprinkled off and on.  Elizabeth didn't actually need to have her hood up, but I'm sure it felt cozy.

We stopped by to see the Chik Fil A cow.  We love eating at Chick Fil A although it's a ways away and we don't make it there often.

We were generally headed toward the car when I saw the science section that we had skipped on our way to the children's section.  Last year was the first year for that, I think, and we really liked it.  This year was the same.  We got to see a real human brain and even touch it through some plastic wrap.  We saw ice cream made with liquid nitrogen.  We learned about weather.  We mixed up some hand sanitizer gel.  The guy said it was 5 cents of materials--that's all!

Last of all we stopped by the rock and mineral museum on campus.  My girls played with the interactive displays while I looked at the stunning rocks and minerals on display.  Last of all, Caroline scaled the climbing wall.

Tiny little organizing job

I love coupons.  I love to match coupons with sales and get rock-bottom prices.  I *don't* love the organization of my coupon inserts.  Here they are stacked in among my books on the office bookcase.  I stack them by the quarter with dates written on the front so I can easily access them.  Easy to use, but hard on the eyes.

My $1 Target find.  A magazine holder made of sturdy cardboard.

Here are the previous two quarters of coupon inserts.  Ignore that dust, okay?  Doesn't that look a lot better?  They are still nearby, but look so much better.

Here is my current quarter.  I decided to leave them facing out because I get into them frequently.  Or maybe I'll just learn to pull them in and out and put them pretty side out anyway.

Progress is progress!

It's a good thing I love my missionary!

That would be my son Kevin who is serving an LDS mission in Brazil right now.  He has a birthday coming up and put in his request for a few items.

A month or so ago the letter postage rates went up about 5%, from $1.05 to $1.10 for international mail from the United States, so based on that, I figured the $16.95 I paid to send a "small flat rate box" at Christmas time would probably run me a dollar or maybe two dollars more this time.  I want to point out his box is just a little bigger than a VHS video box.  It's not a big box you can put a pair of shoes in.  Imagine my surprise when THIS amount is what showed up on the computer screen!

I paid it anyway because I wanted to get those things to Kevin for his birthday.  And because he's coming home in just over 6 months this is the last package I'll send.  So Kevin, take a look at the list in the first picture and you can see what is in the box.  Oh, now that I look at it, I see I forgot to list a small extra item you'll like.  It's green.

The only thing that made me happy at the post office today was finding out there are now international "forever" stamps and they are ROUND!!  I've never seen a round American stamp before.  It's not just the printing that's circular, the stamp you peel off the backing is also circular.  Very cool.

One of the down sides of having chickens

The little girls like to eat!  I let them out often so they can eat as many bugs as they can find.  I like that they get good (free) protein AND it reduces the bug population in the yard.  Oh, and they leave nice little bits of fertilizer here and there as well. ;-)

However, commercial feed is the mainstay of their diet.  I buy a 50 pound bag about once every two months.  Luckily the feed store is very close to my house, so it is not a big deal.

In addition, a woman I know likes to buy my chickens' eggs and I often have enough egg money to pay for their food.  I think that's what farm wives have been doing for centuries, isn't it?

Clean bears

We try not to wash the stuffed animals too often because the fur gets more matted down with each washing, but Sophia thought these two really needed it.

This is the beloved Cubbie.  She had a little make up and general dirt on her.

And this is Sparkles.  She had quite a bit of make up on her fuzzy face.

I always put each animal in a mesh bag before washing them.  It protects their fur a little bit, while allowing them to get very clean.

After they were washed I put them in the sun to dry.

Result:  two nice clean bears that have clean faces and smell fresh and sweet.

When is the last time you did this kind of math homework?

If I missed one, pipe up and let me know! 

The girls are reviewing for a big test coming up and I had to refresh my memory as well. ;-)

0-4  >  The target number one previous stays the same.
5-9  ^  The target number one previous goes up by one.

Be sure to check which number is the target number.  Underline it.  Then look at the next number to the right to tell if your target number will stay the same or go up one.  Once you know that, copy the numbers from the largest (left side) to your target, write the target number or one greater, depending on the next number, then follow your target with a zero for each number to the right of the target.

Round to the nearest million:
412,579,539 = 413,000,000

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday:  Hot and spicy Szechwan chicken (Sunbird), fried rice

Tuesday:  Lasagne from the freezer, salad, garlic cheese bread

Wednesday:  Chicken and rice soup from the freezer, rolls

Thursday:  Leftovers, if no leftovers then an egg and bread "breakfast" casserole

Friday:  Pot luck dinner at church.  I think we're going to take pizza and crepes.  Great combo, huh?

Wild and wacky stake conference!

Stake conference is held twice a year and all the members of our stake (like a diocese) are invited to come to the conference.  Typically there are hundreds of people in attendance and things run like clockwork.

Not so this time!

1.  Two people were asked to give a prayer but at least one of them was not told it was to be the closing prayer, not the opening, so two people walked up to offer an opening prayer.
2.  The business part of the meeting (5 minutes or less) was forgotten until midway through the meeting.  It's usually done at the beginning of the meeting.
3.  Our excellent choir director brought the choir in a measure early on a loud, exultant piece.  Oops!  I was paying attention to her and came in early, along with about half the choir.
4.  A girl was accompanying her singing sister on the piano and the air conditioner kept blowing the sheet music around.  The piano was right in front of the choir but the people closest to the piano didn't notice the problem until the pianist had to quickly push the music back with her hand while still playing.  Then someone sat with her to manage her music and it was fine.
5.  The meeting ran overtime by about 9 minutes.  It usually ends right on time.

Despite everything, it was a delightful meeting.  The speakers gave us practical advice for raising our children, nurturing our marriages, sharing the gospel, finding hope for blessings in the future, and news about the temple that will be built in our area (nothing firm yet, other than one *will* be built) and how the expansion of the missionary program is going (swimmingly).

Here is my favorite of the three choral numbers we performed today:
http://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise?lang=eng
We used this sheet music from Sonos.

This post gives the recipe and the first steps for these delicious cake pops.

This is how many cake pops a 7 oz package of Wilton Candy Melts covers.  I'd like to get the coating thinner so it would go further, but this is as thin as I could get it.  Sure makes for a nice bite when eating.

I bought some Easter sprinkles and this is how they turned out:

The three day cake pop project

Sophia wanted to make a cake for dessert.  I encourage that kind of behavior.  Unfortunately she read "1/2 cup oil" as "1 1/2 cups oil" as she was mixing thing up.  I managed to pour off 1/2 cup of oil, but to deal with the rest, I had her double the rest of the ingredients.  That meant an extra cake.

If you have an extra cake, you'd better make cake pops!

Easy recipe:
1 cake, crumbled into tiny crumbs
1/2 can frosting or an equivalent amount of homemade frosting

Icing:
melted candy coating

Mix the cake crumbs and frosting with your hands until it creates a dough.  Form into small balls and insert a wood or paper stick, then refrigerate them for 1 hour. Take out of the fridge.  Dip in melted candy coating to cover, then sprinkle with colored sugar or little decorations.

Here is the second step, making the balls:

Check back tomorrow for the last step.  Well, second-to-last because the last is eating them.