A Christmas Gift

Here is what my cute missionary made and sent me for Christmas.

Isn't that a great idea? I absolutely love it!
(But like a typical Mum, I'm also thinking - he probably needs another white shirt! haha)

Christmas Spirit

Merry Christmas everyone! May you feel the Spirit of Christ this season.

The Work in Australia

Here are some snippets from the last few emails Jared has sent us. He's still the same Jared, but I can see the growth in him and feel his excitement as he is fully immersed in the Gospel and serving the Lord, and witnesses the miracle of conversion and how true testimony changes lives.
He still relates goofy experiences too, which is very "Jared" as he finds joy in the funny, simple things of life.

"Right now we have 4 people with a baptismal date, we have this awesome guy named Mark. He's Philippino. We taught him the restoration the other day and we asked him to read and pray about Joseph Smith. He's like I'll read and pray but I don't really need to I already know it's true. That was awesome. But he's still going to read.
Ben, he's Australian, he loves the good book and loves talking about the book of revelations and the millenium. He's really funny. Some J.W's popped by his house the other day and they showed him the thing at the end of the book of revelations and he was like why are you trying to slam the book of mormon, it's a good book as well. He's solid as.
We have this guy named George that is kinda torn between the catholic church and us. But he'll come around.
And then there is Fred that seems like he's drunk 24/7 but he believes that we have the authority."

"Okay, so we had an investigator named Fu, he couldn't ever come to church because he worked at a bar, got off at 4am and would go to bed so he wouldn't wake up in time to go to church. So me and Elder Peterson prayed and fasted that he would get a job and guess what? He is getting another job. And he suffered from crazy bad depression. And now he's reading the Book of Mormon and he's as happy as can be."

"So we talked to this Indian guy named Gary. He lives in the same set of flats that we do and we gave him a Joy to the World dvd. On friday we went over to check up on him to see if he had a chance to watch it. Gary wasn't home but Sami was, he was with Gary that same night. Sami invited us in and we taught him and Gary's sister Jessie the restoration. and asked them both to read the introduction (the last two paragraphs) and 3 Nephi 11. We were coming home late saturday night and they just got home as well. Jessie came up to me and said. I have something to tell you. " In my country our parents discourage any of us to join any form of christian religion. Because if we join and we go back to our country they will kill us." She continued.. "but after reading the pages you left me I know that it is true and I want to join your church."
Freaking booya. It was so freaking cool. I freaking love Jessie."

"Last week Bernard came to church, and the Christmas party. We took Bernard to a baptism and then had a restoration lesson with him afterward. He had heaps of questions which was really good. Because of time we couldn't answer them all but it was pretty good to see how sincere he was. We took him to the Christmas devotional where the prophet spoke. And me and Elder Peterson sat on either side of him. He said that he felt that two angels were sitting on both sides of him, and that he could feel God's love in the chapel. He told us that he wants to be baptized but that he wants to learn more first.
It was awesome."

"k, so me and my comp are running for this tram and we totally missed it. But that was because God wanted us to miss it. We ran into a member from the east mission and she tells us that her husband just had surgery and that he wanted a blessing. We go and give him a blessing and then give him the sacrament on Sunday. He was so freaking cool. That guy was faithful to the days."

"So at church the other day some kid let off the fire extingusher. There was smoke and powder everywhere. Our investigator Matt was like, I need to come to church more often, this is awesome. hahaha. It was funny, got some pics of it hahaha."

To Dye For

The other day I found this sign posted on the freezer door.

Inside was a big balloon filled with water
in the process of being frozen!
Everyone has one of these in their freezers right?

Here is a video of one of the frozen balloons.
( I say "one of" as there have been several!)
Caleb peeled the balloon off to reveal
an egg shaped block of ice.
It wasn't frozen all the way through and still had
water in the middle.
So Caleb and his friend drilled a hole into it and added
red food colouring.
I have no idea why, but I must admit it looked pretty cool.

Silly boys!




Yesterday Rachael was boiling some eggs.
She left the kitchen for a few minutes and
when she went back in her I heard her exclaim
"What the heck???"
The phantom red food colouring had struck again.

She was so surprised, I think her initial thought was that somehow the eggs were bleeding!

Pancake Breakfast

It's my birthday! Yay!

Seems like the older I get, more it means to me to receive something thoughtful, something from the heart. It doesn't even have to cost anything! So when I had breakfast made for me this morning -homemade chocolate chip pancakes (made from scratch, I might add) with strawberries and whipped cream, I was in heaven! Yum! Thank you sweet daughter of mine!

Committing

They say if you write a goal down, you are more likely to keep it. And if you say you're going to do something and other people hear it, it helps you get it done. It puts your intention out into the universe and holds you accountable to your actions so you can't flake out on yourself so easily.
So here goes..... I am going to do a triathlon on February 27th 2010! There I said it. Now I actually have to do some serious work getting ready so I don't die during the race!

Horsing Around in Melbourne

This is a snippet from Jared's latest email:

"So on Melbourne Cup day (big horse race event), we woke up in the morning and went for a run. But then we found out that we locked ourselves out of the flat. So we ran 7 kms to the others flat to call someone to get our flat open, then we went to our ward picnic. That was heaps of fun and we had a good time. It was a really good turn out too.
Then we went on the trains to talk to people. The Cup had just ended and we got on the train and this drunk lady started talking to us asking us random questions and was telling us what a good job we were doing. Then she turns to her friends and says hey these Jehovah Witnesses are nice. We were just like ya, we're not J.W's and then one of her drunk friends was like oh, they're Mormons. Then this one lady that was with them was actually interested in what we were doing. So it turned into a massive Q and A in which the whole train was over hearing and this one girl got up to leave and she gave her number to Elder Fenochietti. We called her up later that night and she said she was interested in what we were saying. So we are meeting with her this week.
So that was cool.
Gotta love those drunk people. hahaha"

The Walking Yearbook

Today was Caleb's last day of school for the year. He goes back just for exams over the next 2 weeks, but classes are finished. So he came home looking like this! His school shirt was signed in lieu of a yearbook!

Witch Hat Cookies

Here is a Halloween treat that is "frightfully" easy to make, and fun to give away to neighbours or people you visit.

Start with some round chocolate cookies and chocolate kisses.

Stick the kisses onto the cookies using frosting.

Pipe a ribbon of orange coloured frosting around the peak of the hat.

Watch them magically "fly" off the plate in no time!

Pumpkin Shaped Rolls

These bread rolls are a favourite of ours around Halloween or even Thanksgiving. They are really easy and even easier if you use a packet of frozen bread roll dough.
"Paint" your un-risen rolls with orange food colouring. Then score them with a knife.These marks become the grooves of the pumpkin once they are risen. Hopefully the picture shows what I mean.



Leave enough extra dough to make stems. "Paint" the stems with green food colouring. Let the rolls rise. As thy rise the score marks become more visible and they look more like pumpkins. Poke a hole in the top of the roll and put the stem in.

Bake the rolls according to recipe instructions. Enjoy!

Our Homemade Halloween.

I love Halloween.
I know, I know, it's a pagan festival. But it's so much fun! Halloween isn't big here in NZ, but that won't stop me from having my bit of fun. Sure, my neighbours must think I am some sort of whacko, but hey what's new!
The challenge is finding cute decorations in shops. So I made my own!

Welcome to our little piece of Halloween

A painted polystyrene wreathe with spider garland

Pipe cleaner web and spider

Funky paper mache Jack-O-Lantern!

A few bats from the dollar store

I know this mantle is tame compared to most Halloween mantles!

Aren't these paper pumpkins the cutest things? I found the idea here.

Scrapbook paper strips around my candles

This was inspired from this lovely blog.

More bits and bobs. Now I am more into the spirit (pardon the pun) of Halloween!

Our own version of Twilight

A while ago I posted about a photo from the 1800's that looked spookily like Jared. Rachael joked that maybe he is really a 100 year old vampire.
About a week ago Rachael was over at a friend's house and their dog bit her. It was more of a scrape than a full blown bite. She was describing this dog to me, how big and huge it was. I suggested maybe it was an Irish Wolfhound.
So now I might have a son who is a vampire and a daughter who was bitten by a wolf! The next full moon should be interesting !! hahaha

Carve A Cyber-Pumpkin

Enjoy the fun of carving a pumpkin without all the seeds and slime and mess!!

Go here and go crazy!

Football Season

It's football season again and Caleb is playing in a seven a side, under 19's team.

For most of his team mates, it's the first time they've ever played American Football, so they're learning. In the video, Caleb is playing QB and is wearing a black jersey number 11.

We are talented fools!

Last night our branch had a talent night. Our family decided to do a skit that I had done with the YW and the Bishopric in the KBP ward a couple of years ago.

Caleb was such a good sport to do this. And his performance was so funny and so good.

Flower Power

Every Sunday our Relief Society President does a lovely flower arrangement to put on the table next to the pulpit for Sacrament Meeting. She's very talented and I have admired her various arrangements for quite a while. She took me to a Floral Art demonstration and helped to inspire me to try some arrangements at home. This past week she asked if I would like to do the flowers for church. I looked online for some ideas and this is what I came up with.

She told me to be sure and take a photo of it so I have a record of my creation. So then I thought, why not record it on my blog. I'm quite pleased with how it came out if I do say so myself!

Home Decor Projects

In July we moved house. The previous house we were renting was quite small but came fully furnished. This one is much bigger but unfurnished. So we scrambled to furnish it and managed to do so quite well with the help of scrounging stuff off kind-hearted family members, some church members and some great garage sales. I love to have art work on my walls, but I'm not willing to pay hundreds of dollars for it, so I often make my own. We have a spacious dining with one big empty wall. This room also houses the piano. Rachael showed me an idea for some art work that she saw on someone's blog (don't remember where) but it is made from cutting pieces of artificial fruit in half and gluing it onto old style paper.

So this is what we came up with: fruit on old style sheet music, to go in our musical dining room.

It's certainly a conversation piece!

I really miss having a Deseret Bookstore conveniently down the road from us! I was looking at deseretbook.com and drooling over some of the cute home decor stuff that they have. I could order it and have it shipped, but ouch again to the cost!

So again I improvised and made my own piece of inspirational decor. This is a ceramic tile with stick on foam letters.


A church member gave us a couple of storage cabinets. But they looked like they would just love a make-over

Lately I am in love with the colour "apple green" as an accent colour. So here is the made over cabinet which stores DVD's and video games.

Strange Look Alike

A lady in the ward Jared is serving in, has photos of her ancestors dating back to 1880. She showed Jared this photo - the resemblance is uncanny! He said when he saw it he was laughing for the rest of the day.

I added one of Jared in a similar pose, just for fun!

* Rachael emailed Jared and said that maybe he is really a vampire who was bitten back in 1880! haha (She watches too many vampire shows!!)

Father's Day Treats

This Sunday it is Father's Day in New Zealand. (I have no idea why Mother's Day is pretty universal in many countries, but dates for Father's Day differ).

Anyway, we (Relief Society Presidency) spent yesterday morning making these for the Dads in our Branch:

Cute little origami white shirts and ties.

A little poem printed on the back

And a mini chocolate bar with custom wrapper,
tucked inside the shirt.
Too cute!

Spring is in the Air

When I lived in Arizona, Fall was my favourite season. It was lovely to have the temperature cool down after a long hot summer. I could turn off the A/C and open the doors and windows and sit outside and enjoy the cool evenings and see some of the leaves change colour.
Now in NZ, Spring has to be my favourite season. After a long cold, wet winter, Spring brings the promise of sunshine, warmer weather and longer days.
And the garden comes alive with these beauties:








I just love trees in full blossom, don't you? It really does look like popcorn doesn't it!

Sister's Conference

We had a Sister's Conference this weekend and it was based on the scripture in D&C 88:119 "Organize yourselves, prepare every needful thing. Establish a house,..." We had speakers talk on the different topics such as "House of Fasting", "House of Prayer" etc. It was such an uplifting meeting. I laughed, I cried, I was inspired. It's so great to be part of something like that and when you are involved in the organization of it all, its wonderful when it all comes together.

The lady at theideadoor.com has put some lovely aged temple images on her site. I was delighted to see the New Zealand Temple was one that she had done.
So I used her image and made up some scrapbook paper covered frames, and gave them as thank you gifts to the guest speakers at the conference.

I think they turned out really cute. The ladies loved them!

All in all, it's been a great day!

A Day in the Life of a Missionary

Today, much to my delight, we received a USB flash drive full of photos that Jared has taken on his Mission so far. There are literally hundreds of photos! I will definitely have to ask him about some of the more unusual ones!! But here is a small sample for your enjoyment. You can click on the photos to view them bigger and in more detail.

Being embraced by the locals



Taken during the 6 weeks he spent in the Chinese program

You know what they say about all work and no play...!




Well it looks like he can find time to play.....

....and hone his teaching AND photographic skills

Is this a comment on how the teacher becomes the student? Too funny!



This is definitely one to click so you can see it bigger.
It's sort of like a "Where's Waldo"
but instead it's "Count the Elder Balls"
Is this what it means to Magnify your calling?
No, more like Multiply your calling!