Kids session

Kenzie was renting a really nice lens last week, so she asked if I wanted to do a kids pic session the next day. Uh, heck yes! I don't have the CD yet, but here is a small preview of what's coming:

Darling, right?!
I'm so excited to post the rest!

Steph's Shower

My friend, Steph, was told a long time ago that she couldn't have kids. After trying for nearly ten years of marriage, she had accepted that fact. So it was my immense pleasure to throw her a baby shower yesterday. :D We waited ten years for this! She and her hubby are thrilled to be having a baby girl in December and it's fun for me to watch her finally experience pregnancy. They will both be wonderful parents. 

We did the baby shower this early (she is just barely 20 weeks...halfway, YAY!) because she was in town from Wisconsin and won't be back before Baby Girl is born. We had the shower at her Aunt Sue's house so that my three little monsters wouldn't disturb anything. ;)

Gift table decor

Creepy babies all over! hahaha

Steph's thank you gift for everyone

Yummy smelling lotions!

The spread...

We made sure to have some options for the diabetics in attendance.

Steph's sister-in-law, Holly, made these and they were yummy!

Cookies, creme puffs, mini-cinnamon rolls, and brownies.

I made these. A better alternative to soda!

Steph on her throne. ;)

Playing "What's in my purse?"

I didn't get a picture after all the presents were there, but this was about 3/4 of them I think.

Steph's SIL, Kristen, and Kristen's two girls, Sarah (hiding) and Emma. They're teenagers and that explains their attitudes. ;)

The Outsource Gang. (Steph and Shane's former work.)

Lori, Jeff, and my momma.

Holly (SIL), Hannah, and Lori (their mom).

Steph's Aunt Claudia and mother-in-law, Delaine.

Exersaucer!

VERY nice monitor.

It was a good shower and I'm so, so excited for Steph to have this baby!!

While this was going on, by the way, our cute little neighbor was having her 4th birthday party! I got the kids ready before I left and only got one picture when I got home, but here's what I know about it: the kids were instructed to come wearing costumes, then have swimming suits for a water portion later. I just put their suits on under their costumes to make life easier all around. They were there for three hours and had a BLAST. Besides all of that stuff, there was an ice cream cake, a face painter, and a pinata.

The paint is smeared from the water part of the day, but still cute. :)

Needless to say, everyone was exhausted last night. :D

When Life Hands You Lemons...

Back in May I was put in as the head of the Relief Society activities. It was the end of May and our activities are the first Tuesday of the month, so I didn't have to worry about June's activity. We didn't have one in July, so this month was my first month to show the RS Presidency and the ward what I can do. I might have set the bar slightly high for myself. ;) Oops!

I went through tons and tons of ideas online (because, seriously, like I can come up with this on my own) and found a creative spin on the old "Lemons into lemonade" thing. There weren't many pictures, so I did have to figure out most of my own decorations.

I made about 55 of these for people to take at church on Sundays.

I made two of these and put them on either side of the chapel before church for three straight weeks before the activity.

I also made mini-versions of the posters (minus the cereal and fake lemons) that went up in the rooms around the church.

We had more than enough food, but that's always better than not enough!

As part of the night, we had three lemony mini-classes. The first one was how to make your own bath bombs taught by a woman in the ward who makes them all the time with her kids, so I knew she would do the best job since they're kind of complicated at first (she added lemon and lavender oil to keep with the theme of the night, plus it smells SO good).

The second class was all about using lemons in your beauty routine. It was really informative and the woman teaching is on my committee. She had been terrified to teach it, but she did a great job and said that she learned a lot.

The third class was all about household cleaning with lemons. This one was also taught my someone on my committee and she did great as well. Everyone in the neighborhood is going to have fresh, lemony smelling homes this week! haha

We made sure there were handouts in each class so the women could have the recipes and everything to take home, and the beauty class had a sample of a lemon face scrub to take home.

Lemon bath bombs!

This is Kasey, from my committee, teaching the lemon beauty class.

This is Kristi, also on my committee, teaching the household lemon uses class.

After everyone had a turn in each class, we went into the gym for a speaker. Now, the speaker had called five minutes before the activity started to say that she wouldn't be there because her step-dad was having a heart attack and they were going to the hospital to be with him.

Okay.....no problem?

The Relief Society President, Kristi (not the same one as above), knew the speaker and said that she would take care of everything. On the way to the hospital, the speaker still swung by and dropped off the items she had been planning on bringing to help Kristi out.

Long story short, this woman's family is missing a gene that fights cancer, so every one of her kids has had cancer (they said they get it like others get the common cold), and two have died from it (as well as her husband). She lost a 2 year old daughter a couple of years ago, her daughter had breast cancer when she was 12 (and had to have a mastectomy, but is in remission now), and in 2011 her then 12 year old son was diagnosed with cancer. 

This past February, her son used his Wish from Make-A-Wish to go to Farmington Station and hand out lemons. There was a news clip shown from the event and the son (who turned 15 at the beginning of February) was too sick to go out and hand out the lemons himself, so he sat in a nearby car while TONS of people helped out. There were t-shirts and lemons and it looked like a great day. 

Four days later, he died.

To honor him and his life motto, everyone at his school brought a lemon to school the day of his funeral. This wonderful kid had an amazing attitude all throughout his fight and never gave up. In 2012 he had to have his entire leg amputated, but instead of sitting home feeling sorry for himself, his family had every type of prosthetic made for him that they could so he could still go hunting and skiing and live his life.

It was a great way to wrap up the evening and more than one person was in tears. 

We had the treats afterwards and mingled for a while. 

 All in all, I think it was a successful activity! On to next month!

Porter Reunion

The annual Porter Family Reunion at Surf-N-Swim was tonight. 

Last year, if you remember, was horrible. I mean, HORRIBLE. I dreaded this night for the previous two weeks at least. I asked Shane's mom to bring their kid life jackets for our kids, so I knew that would help some of my stress level.

The dinner part beforehand was changed, and we all met as individual families and did our own thing. Shane's parents decided to BBQ, which was fine with me. :)

Literally one bite into my hot dog, Kaden said, "I need to go potty."

*sigh*

All I could do was laugh because, OF COURSE this would happen. If you never saw last year's post about this, basically Lexi went to the bathroom every 2.5 minutes and, since Shane is blind, I always am the one to take the kids in public places. She had blow-out diarrhea all night and guess who got to clean her up? Yeah. Me. I even had to go home at one point to bath her (before she could get in the pool) and get a new suit. It was a very, very long night.

Anyway, I took Kaden and Lexi on a walk to the bathrooms. When we returned, I sat down, took another bite of my hot dog, and Ari said, "Mommy? I need to go potty."

Shane, remembering last year, jumped up and said he'd take her since he was all done eating, which made me all sorts of happy. 

And no one had explosive diarrhea this time. ;)

We headed over to Surf-N-Swim, despite the darkening clouds coming our way.

The waves came on. haha

Getting so brave.

After they all tested out the water a bit, we put their life jackets on and I could breathe a sigh of relief knowing they were that much safer. We played for about an hour (we're usually there for three) before the storm really hit us and they evacuated the pool. I got my shivering girls dressed and made sure their bellies were happy.

Granola bars and water! Yum!

Lexi and Ryley

Kaden's shirt was wet from Ryley's hair. hahaha I didn't feel bad for him since he was trying to give her bunny ears.. ;)

Even though it was cut short, it was a great night and it went SO much better than last year!