Quote for the day

I got this in my email today. I liked it a lot. And so this is my message to you today: 

"For those who are discouraged by their circumstances and are therefore tempted to feel they cannot serve the Lord this day, I make you two promises. Hard as things seem today, they will be better in the next day if you choose to serve the Lord this day with your whole heart. Your circumstances may not be improved in all the ways which you desire. But you will have been given new strength to carry your burdens and new confidence that when your burdens become too heavy, the Lord, whom you have served, will carry what you cannot. He knows how. He prepared long ago. He suffered your infirmities and your sorrows when He was in the flesh so that He would know how to succor you." 

--Henry B. Eyring, "This Day", Ensign, May 2007, 89–91

Recipes

I have uncooked ham sitting in my freezer waiting to be cooked. I would eat it but I haven't found any recipes involving ham that I like. So I'm asking, if you have a good ham recipe-- send it my way!

Also... i have 3.4 lbs of kiwi in my fridge, if you  have any kiwi recipes send them along too. As well as anything involving cucumbers. I have a lot of cucumbers but I don't like to eat them plain...

so start sending some recipes my way!!! thanks

-cucumbers
-kiwis
-ham

Little moments with Abby

Water:
abby: "mom... MOOOM!!!!! WATER!!!! WATER!!!"
me: "what? did you leave water running" (an unfortunate common occurance)
*abby grabs my hand and drags me outside*
abby: "MOM! WATER!!!"
..... ......
me: "yes dear, it's called rain".

crazy desert child.

Rat:

abby: "MOM!"
*silence*
abby: "MOM!!!"
*silence*
abby: "MOOOOOOOOOMMMM!!! LOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!"
mom in an annoyed "don't wear out my name" tone of voice: "what is it abby?!"
*mom looks. mom screams in a unpleasant, high pitch, squealed, shrill cry*
mom: "ABBY DON'T TOUCH!!!! THROW THAT OUTSIDE NOW!"
*abby holding a flattened, dried out bloody (dry blood, but still blood) RAT that she had in a toy shovel but had picked it up with her hands to show me*
abby: "but mom! look!!"
mom: "i SEE, throw it out NOW"
*abby, confused and slightly nervous, puts rat on couch arm rest instead of outside*
*mom grabs shovel and shoves rat on the shovel. then chucks over the fence*
*shiver *

(i hate rats!)

Bunny!

abby in angry and slightly frantic, scared voice: "MOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
mom: "what is it abby?"
abby: "mom! bunny!"
mom: "what are you talking about?"
abby: "MOM! Maddie! Shelby!!! mom!!!"
abby *SHRILLED VOICE*: "MOM BUNNY!!! LOOK!!
*dogs running a-muck. lapping the yard with her pink stuffed bunny. playing tug of war. ripping the bunny apart to shreds with little white cotten flying in the air*
abby with a look 3 times more serious than in the picture to the right: "DOGS! bad dogs! maddie shelby-- NO!"
*takes the bunny away, rounds the dogs up, kicks them both in the bottom and then shoves them into time out*

Abby takes her stuffed animals very seriously. And she's VERY good at taking action to keep those dogs in line! Don't mess with abby or her stuffed animals.

Halloween Pictures

We went trick or treating with our friends, the Lawton's, in Gilbert, AZ. Abby had a lot of fun and started to understand how to trick or treat because of all the older kids around to show her. She really enjoyed getting all that candy. And she had "ick o eat" and "anx" down pat by the end of the night.

Hannah Lawton is the skeleton, Sam Lawton is the fairy, CJ Lawton is spiderman, and Abby is the cat.

eaves dropping

<a href="http://www.cmt.com/video/" target="_blank">Tom Mabe: Eavesdropping</a>

Tom Mabe: Eavesdropping

this video is all about eaves dropping. it made my day. i thought it was hilarious. hope you enjoy.

First Prayer

I don't know why, but I never thought to ask Abby to say a prayer... until last week.

She said her first prayer last week at grandma's... unfortunately grandma wasn't there to hear it but she said it! I think she will be saying them more often from now on... mainly because they're always short and cute. :)

Yesterday she said the prayer and it went like this:
fa-der, eease bless you aunhhhh (with tongue sticking out and pointing to her tongue), geesus, AMEN! (in a loud screaming voice, throwing her hands in the air like it was a surprise party).

With the interpretation of tongues I can tell you that means: father, please bless the food, in jesus' name, amen.

at grandma's last week, she just said bless without the you, but last night she decided to say bless you like you sneezed. Also at grandma's the first time she actually said food, but yesterday she reverted back to her old ways of saying food-- which is to say aunhhh with her pointing to her tongue that is sticking out.

None the less, it's a good step in the right direction.

After Disneyland

After Disneyland, on a whim, we decided to visit Grandma Cowles and San Diego some more instead of going home. It was Andrew's birthday on Thursday so we celebrated by going to Seaworld and having dinner with my brother Daniel's family, as well as Grandma. Christina made a delicious meatloaf and we had cake. It's great to be able to celebrate with family-- not a luxury we get here in Phoenix.

Happy Birthday Andrew!

The next day, yesterday, Friday... we went straight to the beach and had fun making a family castle in the sand with 2 plastic cups, sea shells, and seaweed. The seagulls ate our lunch we brought but that was the only downer. We had fun wading in the cold waves for a little while and collecting sea shells and sand dollars. Andrew thought we weren't going to stay long so he insisted that we didn't need sunscreen. ... We ended up having more fun than we thought and stayed out in the sun much longer than expected. Abby and I are very sun burnt. :) but we loved every minute of it.

Thank you to Grandma who let us, uninvited guests stay at your house.

pictures to come.

Disneyland!!

On a more last minute decision, we decided to go to Disneyland this last week with Brian, Katie and Ty. We had a blast. Abby learned to love rides and met a lot of the Disney characters. Abby and Andrew had never been so it was a good experience for them.

Thanks for letting us come with you to Disneyland, Butlers!!

We did a lot of walking and trying to keep up with Brian's long legs. It was good we did a lot of walking with all the must haves at Disneyland--cotton candy, lollipops, ice cream (with a lot of sprinkles), churros, popcorn, and hand dipped corn dogs.

Pictures will come later.

Just some photos I was playing with

angelic:

From

bored angel:

From playing around

I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen:

From playing around

Cowles Family Reunion in UT

Here are pictures that David or I took while in Utah at the reunion.

You can see them three ways:

1. by pressing play on my blog.
   
2. going to my picasa album-- you can also print from picasa
3. they're in my facebook pics, but I haven't tagged anyone.
   

Sorry, no captions or anything. mei you shi jian.