*Monday Memos*

*MONDAY MEMOS*

   

 (If pictures are too small, just click to enlarge) 
Weekly recap of my rather crazy, insane, but fun and rewarding life!

dear monday, look what arrived?!!!!  So excited!  (sorry if already posted this!)

I also got my Boston Magazine with my name in it as a finisher!!! They don't come at the same time, so it's kind of like a double treat!  It's always so exciting when this arrives!  

Today is Carson's 5th birthday and I didn't even get to see him because they spent the day at Lagoon. I called him though and he was cute.  Sadly, the next day Sarah text me and thanked me for calling him and said I was the only one that did.  I wanted to cry!  So so sad.  Not his dad or even grandmas or anyone from California.  Breaks my heart.  Just not right!  We are having his party on Sunday with Taylor's.  My computer memory is almost completely gone and I need to find a good chunk of time to delete photo duplicates.  It is going to take forever!!!  Groan.

dear tuesday, I got in a six mile mostly run this morning.  It felt good to run.  I knew my physical therapy was going to make me sore anyway, so I figured, what the heck?  

At my appointment I wore some sweats and that was a huge mistake because he had me on the treadmill and I was sweating up a storm.  He had me do the exercises as well and then did some soft tissue massage and ice. I hope it's helping. I have to do the exercises at home of course as well, but it seems like I need to be doing more to get this thing healed. He did tell me I can no longer be bending, twisting and lifting in the laundry at the temple or it will become a chronic thing.  Yikes!  I really don't want that to happen.  I headed to RS as soon as I got home and we had a thing on "Waffling through Life".  

We had yummy waffles and then a discussion on various topics. Audrey and I got one about family scripture study. I said we did waffle a lot on it but had success when we did scriptures on tape and when we did it early in the a.m. and how bribery also worked at times. Haha  There were only a few of us there. I am not sure why the numbers have dropped down so much, but I wonder if it's because the younger sisters don't attend and they are the main bulk of the ward now. 

dear wednesday, my alarm went off at 3:45 a.m. but I was awake at 3:00.  On my way into the temple at 4:45 a.m., I had a feeling I should drive down Main Street to see if they happened to be filming the Hallmark movie and sure enough they were.  They were in front of the courthouse and there were tons and tons of peeps dressed in full winter gear in 80 degrees. I took a video as I drove by.  Now, I wish I would have stopped and turned around and got out of my car to get a better video. It's still cool!  The movie is called, Miracle of Music and I think it airs this Christmas.

We were short handed today but luckily it wasn't crazy busy like last week.  Jean took me up to all the floors and showed me what she does each morning (gather the soiled things and replace packets etc.).  We were on the third floor at 5 a.m. and we were about the only ones there. It was so peaceful and so nice. President Stuart did walk down the hall and greet us.  I loved it. I wish I could do that more often.  But then we headed back into the laundry and got busy doing the laundry. I was good to not lift or bend and twist.  It was fun.  

I went to Ogden later to lunch with the Sistas at the Beez Cafe.  We have been having a hey day with it and both Dawn and I brought them all Bit O Honey's with cute Bee tags.  I couldn't BEElieve we were once again on the same wave length. Lisa Bo BEEsa ended up not making it after we changed the time for her. Oh well.  We face-timed her and had some good laughs about it.  We had fun and Lori brought me the prettiest purple jewelry holder just to be nice.  So sweet.  

 I have some un-BEE-lievable friends

Giving Lisa a hard time.  

 Face-timing Lisa Bo Beesa

The pretty little jewelry box Lori gave me.  She's so sweet. I love it!

I had to get a bunch of birthday and baby gifts and so I headed to do some shopping after.  Hot Hot Hot day. It was 100 degrees!  I was melting all day.  On my way home I stopped in Perry for Crystal's surprise party.  I mainly went to see Carson.  They were already there. The cake her sister made was so cute and had the best frosting.  We chatted with a cute mom and tried some Mochi Balls?  Quite interesting but good. I ate so much junk.  But it was really good food.  

 It was fun.  We haven't really seen much of these guys (Crystal and Jeremy) since we stayed with them and Sky in Hawaii.

Sky and crew came over for a bit after and just hung out for a bit. Dave was at meetings until after 10 and so he missed them.  The Shepherd's made me a mini chocolate cake that was delish!  I bought some cupcakes from them as well.  Mmm.... 

dear thursday, I only got in a short walk this morning.  But, at least I am starting to get used to the heat some. I came home and did my PT and a bunch of other stuff before getting in the shower. I was going to make Amish Bread today as part of Dave's parents dinner but really didn't want to heat the house up and so I made Barf Balls instead.  They sound disgusting, but they are incredibly delicious!  I will add the recipe.  Yum!  My friend Shauna gave me the recipe.  

Barf Balls (aka Special K Bars)

1 cup of butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 cups marshmallows

Bring to boil. Cook for 3 minutes stirring constantly.  Pour over a mixture of:

4 cups Special K cereal

1/2 cups chopped nuts

Sky and crew stopped by on their way to go camping to pick Taylor up.  It's so much work to camp and he did it all by himself.  He cleaned out the Escalade before he left and so I took Carson with me to the Primary party at the church. It was an outdoor water one and he didn't have on his suit, but I let him get wet anyway.  Sky wasn't super thrilled about it, but he is only four...five now...and he wanted to have fun.  They picked him up on their way out and so he got to stay for awhile.  I stayed and helped with the others and my cute little Sunbeams were so adorable.  After, Julie started a water fight with the leaders. She got me good but I got her right back. I was soaked. Haha  

 Carson working on his bravery to do the cold slip and slide. Like me, he is not a fan of cold water.

 Just monkeying around...

Carson on the water while they were camping. 

I worked a bit on editing Taylor's papers for his med school application. Man, that kid amazes me!  I can not believe all the stuff he has done and how much hard stuff he has done as far as volunteering and etc.  Just to name a few, he did a huge research project on siblings, the MDA camp last summer, the food pantry, put together a huge medical fair at USU and was elected to be the entire event organizer, volunteered in the ER, at the elementary school, at the hospital radiology department, job shadowed a physician, started up his own business (White Pine Hammocks) with CJ and they won the competition Startup Challenge, served a two year mission, and it goes on and on and on.  It makes me such a proud mama when I realize how amazing that kid is. After reading all that, I told him I would admit him immediately into med school because it is very very impressive. Just wow.  I had Dave drop off dinner to his parents.

dear friday, I got in almost five miles this morning.  It has been so brutally hot this month!  It's usually mid 80's before I get done.  I am really missing my normal running schedule. 

I saw the mama and baby deer again as well as a guy doing bee stuff.

I wanted to make either cookies or Amish Bread and take some to a cute mom in our ward who just had a baby, but I ran out of time.  I got the present together and went and got my friend Julie to take the gift but when we knocked no one was home. We came back and chatted and she took me on a tour of her basement to show me their new bathroom and her plan for fixing it all up. It's nice.  She has a ton of room.  I came home and did some cleaning and then Taylor and Sky and crew all got back from camping. Carson wanted to play and so I let him open one of his presents.  It was the Melissa and Doug Diner toy.  It is really cute.  We had fun playing with it for a long time and then Chayden joined us for a bit.  They didn't stay super long and I was going to get started on Carson's Spiderman cake but the pan I ordered didn't come yet.  Dang.

dear saturday, I headed out earlier than normal and got in almost five again.  I am having a lot of pain behind my knee...in my hamstring back there. It started when I basically quit running and started walking.  I tell ya, if it's not one thing, it's another.  But, I did hit the jackpot in coins.

I got Taylor's cake made since I was still waiting for Carson's pan to arrive. When I was at Walmart it hit me that they said it was going to be delivered on Friday the 27th and for some reason I was thinking yesterday was the 27th!  Seriously!  Lovely, just lovely.  So I had to scramble and decide how I was going to make his cake without a pan.  I decided to use either my Superman pan or the Handsome Man pan.  I chose the latter.   Taylor's cake worked out spectacularly.  I was so excited because I the last time I did a stacked cake, it bulged.  Not this time. I have never done a drip cake and I really wanted to try it and I was happy I did because it was a success! I was really happy with it.  He wanted a red velvet cake with Funfetti frosting and so I put the Funfetti frosting between the layers and on the top and did the rest with buttercream.  

I started on Carson's cake pretty late.  He wanted a blue velvet cake.  I wasn't confident my artistic skills would pull off a Spiderman since I had nothing to go by other then a man shaped body. When I got it done, I was not happy with it.  I thought it looked like a Chewbacca Spiderman.  I realized I didn't cut the neck in like I needed to and so once I did that, it looked much better.  

I also worked on my lesson and got my Sunbeam picture sticks done.  I can't wait for them to see them tomorrow! Taylor wants meatloaf tomorrow and so I had to ask Dave to make it because I did not have a spare second today.

Mr. Cat loves Chayden

dear happy 25th birthday to taylor!  I can't believe he's 25!  This here is ONE AMAZING KID!!!  I'm so very proud of him!  Here's my posts:

•★ * ░H░A░P░P░Y░ 25th ░B░I░R░T░H░D░A░Y░*★ to this amazing son of mine! We are so grateful to have him as part of our family and to actually have him home this year to celebrate with us. I have never seen anyone more dedicated to accomplishing their goals than this kid. He sets his mind to something and goes for it. He lives his life to the fullest and is always up for any and all adventures. He has had to put that on hold the past year while he finished his degree and studied basically round the clock to prepare for the MCAT. He barely came up for air. The longest I ever saw him go without food was when he was at the library for 7 hours straight. He set a new record! His previous one was one hour and 19 minutes. ;) JK He really is an amazing, talented, hard working and outstanding kid and we couldn't be more proud of him! •★ * Feliz Aniversário!!! •★ * We love you Taylor Wilding!!!

25 pix from this past year for his 25 years!

dear sunday, I got up early and had to fix the Spiderman cake.  I am too much of a perfectionist not to.  Chayden got up right after me and he was a good helper.  He had some good ideas.  I figured out I didn't put the neck in and so I cut off part of it and it helped a lot. Then I had to redo the webbing and wanted it perfect even though it was far from it.  Not sure why I get so nit picky. But I do.  It looked much better though.  Taylor got up and I told Carson to tell him Happy Birthday but he said that it was his birthday and not Taylor's.  I guess it's a little much to ask a five year old to share their birthday.  I feel bad we did that.  We should have had his very own last week, but Sky and Sarah wanted to do it with Taylor's.  

I had to finish my lesson, make Rice Krispy Treat temples, and a million other things.  I know I've said it before but I will say it again, Sunday is NOT a day of rest!  I was a busy bee from the second I got up.  And I still was almost late to church.  The RK treat temples turned out cute.  We headed to church and I was so tired I almost dozed off.  Primary was crazy but fun.  We went on a tour of the church, with Dave as our tour guide.  They were supposed to pretend they were in the temple and had to whisper.  They really get into the pretending thing and it was amazing how quiet they were (even Sam!).  We went in Dave's office, the baptismal font, the gym, the chapel, the Bishop's office, the furnace room, the janitor room, and the kitchen.  They loved it all. It was so cute.  Cheryl sent me a text later that said, "Cute lesson today.  The twins told their mom that got to go on a pretend temple tour and be really quiet."  Haha  When I got home, I hurried and got dinner ready with Dave's help.  My parents didn't show up on time and so I called and my mom said she thought I said 7:00.  I told her the party is at 7:00. They were late but the meatloaf wasn't done yet and do that was good.  While we waited for them, Carson and Taylor opened their presents.  

I also gave my Dad the rest of his Father's Day gift (I never found the purple shirt) and then they also opened the personalized anniversary clock I gave them.

We then rushed to the park for the party.  The Garrett's, and Brian and Becki came along with Dave's parents and of course mine.  We opened presents, sang, and then had cake.  It was a bit windy and so we couldn't do the sparkler candles I bought for Taylor's cake. Oh well.  Picture overload ahead.  I am sorry but I can't choose between all of these cute faces and so I have to post them all!  

Dave and Chayden stayed and played birdie golf but the rest of us came home. I changed my clothes and went back because Carson had gone back as well and I really needed to get out of the hot house and a walk.  When I got there Dave and Chayden were playing but Carson was on the playground thing underneath with three burnout teenagers.  Hmmm... I got him out of there and we walked around the park and then watched the Hendrick's fireworks.  Grant came over and chatted for quite a while.  When Dave and Chayden left we headed to grab a ride. Dave let Carson "drive" home and I ran along the side of them.  Another busy Sunday. I was beat by the time I hit the hay.
What a difference a year makes!  He has changed and grown up so much in just one short year, it makes me sad.

 BIRTHDAY BOYS!