This is REIL fun

Saturday, September 19, 2015

What's in a name?

Noé got this book as a birthday gift and has had so much fun with it! You can learn things about yourself, how compatible you and your true love are, what your vampire name would be, what your candy name would be, and lots more. She found out what each of our family names would be as candy and I thought they were so funny I had to share!

Leonard: Flaky Chocolate Gummy Globs

Jennifer: Hot Cinnamon Chewy Chunks

Kaleb: Peanut Butter Mega Truffles

Noé: Crunchy Cherry Slurpy Goop

Gavin: Coconut Crème Crumb Clusters

Teague: Juicy Lemon Chomp Bar

Hiram: Squirty Orange Melty Drops

Ali: Raspberry Ripple Gooey Hearts

I'm hungry for some candy now, ha!

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Beehives

Noé invited all the girls from the Beehive class at church over for an evening. A couple weren't able to make it, but these girls had a blast and they are such good girls!

Even with their silly faces!

Meili, Emma, Brooklyn, and Noé.

Bubble Bath Girl

It was time to take Ali's picture to add to our bubble bath wall.

Except, we were out of bubble bath and her body wash didn't make very many bubbles and some of the pictures turned out blurry, but she's still pretty cute.

Precious profile.

Cheese!

Hey, hey, hey!

Little Angel.

Nice to meet ya!

(This is the one that's framed on the wall of fame.)

Big Splash!

That was so cool.

Bye-bye.

Go here to see Hiram's pics and here to see Teague's pics and here to see some of Gavin, Kaleb, and Noé. Even when they're taller than me, they will always be my babies!

Summer Soccer

From about the last weekend of May until the last weekend of August, our 3 musketeers played soccer with some of their friends from church.

Gavin, Moses, Logan, Friend #1 (I need to learn some names), Teague, Friend #2, Coach Symonds.

Let's play.

Nice kick Teague!

Len helped coach the little guys.

Coach Reil, Hiram, Knox, Coach Elliott, Owyn, and Friend #3.

Dribble the ball down.

Good job!

We're not a very sporty family, but this was good for our boys to get some exercise, and begin to learn some sports skills, and team skills. I think Len might just want to sleep in next summer though, ha!

Big 80's Hair

Ali woke up from her nap, so Noé went up to get her.

She came down looking like she just got back from an 80's party!

When I was in 8th grade I would have loved to have worn this hair style (my hair was pretty big itself!).

Love my beautiful girls!

The Purge of 2015

For the first 15 years of our marriage I went through all of our belongings every year and purged what we were no longer using. I don't know what happened the past 3 years, but I didn't do it. So this year was a major 3 year purge for a family of 8. For 2 weeks I went through every room in our home, closets, drawers, cupboards, etc. The above picture is about half of what we gave away. We gave away a bunch of baby stuff before this, then donated this stuff to a friend's garage sale for another friend that moved (this tarp is 9' x 12'), then we took another load about half this size to Value Village. I still have things to go through in our storage rooms (holiday décor, craft items, books, and lots of file folders and pictures!).

It feels good to purge, but it's also sad letting go of sentimental things. I'm learning I don't have to be an "all or nothing" girl though. I used to think I had to keep it all or get rid of it all, now I'm learning we can keep some special things and let other special things go. I still remember giving away my childhood stuffies, sniff sniff. This huge pile was all of my kids' stuffies. We gave away half of them, but kept the other half for now. They all fit nice and neat in a big toy box, so we no longer have the daily mess in the bedrooms and the mad dash to put them up on their dressers each night.

We also gave away a ton of toys and games. However, these McDonald's toys will always be keepers. Leonard's mom used to collect these and they came from her.

The Disney gang in their international Epcot costumes.

The Sesame Street crew.

(I added Elmo and Zoe later, they were after our time.)

Muppet Babies!

I had this set when I was growing up too.

(The only Happy Meal set I ever completed, ha!)

Fraggle Rock, do you remember these guys?

We also got this rainbow of Teenie Beanie Babies from Marlene.

We got this set when we lived in Taiwan. I loved that we finally had Happy Meal toys of the McDonald's characters!

We rarely eat at McDonald's and we definitely don't collect their Happy Meal toys, but these will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

20 Reasons

In the summer of 2014 I saw a poster with 20 flavors of Lindor truffles with the caption "20 Reasons to Love Lindor". I didn't need 20 reasons, I already loved Lindor, but I was on a mission after that to sample all 20 flavors and this summer I completed that mission!

Here's a run down of the colors and flavors and how much I enjoyed them on a scale of 1-3 kisses. 3 kisses are my favorites; 2 kisses are dang good; 1 kiss means it's still Lindt and it's some of the best chocolate on the planet!

Red- Milk chocolate shell, milk chocolate center; 2 kisses

Dark Orange- Milk chocolate shell, peanut butter center; 3 kisses (My heart breaks for people with peanut allergies!)

Orange- Dark chocolate shell, orange center; 1 kiss

Dark Gold- Milk chocolate shell, caramel center; 3 kisses

Light Gold- White chocolate shell, white chocolate center; 2 kisses

Light Green- White chocolate shell, citrus center; 3 kisses (You might think lime & chocolate is a weird combo, but it is divine!)

Green- Milk chocolate shell, mint center; 1 kiss

Aqua- Milk chocolate shell, coconut center; 2 kisses (I wish this had a white chocolate shell and shredded coconut in it.)

Light Blue- Stracciatella shell (like cookies & cream), white chocolate center; 2 kisses

Medium Blue- Milk chocolate shell, sea salt center; 3 kisses (Whoever invented sea salt desserts is a hero!)

Dark Blue- Dark chocolate shell, dark chocolate center; 1 kiss

Dark Purple- White chocolate shell, vanilla center; 1 kiss (Very bland compared to the other white chocolate flavors.)

Light Purple- Milk chocolate shell, almond center; 3 kisses (I was expecting this to have almond chunks in it, but it is smooth with more of an Amaretto flavor. It reminds me of chocolate-covered cherries.)

Dark Pink- Dark chocolate shell, raspberry center; 1 kiss (This is my least favorite of all 20.)

Medium Pink- White chocolate shell; strawberry center; 3 kisses (I was nervous about this since I don't care much for the raspberry one, but this one is one of my all-time favorites! So good and it even has strawberry seeds in it, so you know it has fresh strawberries as one of its ingredients.)

Light Pink- Milk chocolate shell, Irish Cream center; 2 kisses (I don't drink alcohol, but I know the Amaretto and Irish Cream flavors from my days working in the Frozen Yogurt industry.)

Light Brown- White chocolate shell, cappuccino center; 1 kiss (I don't drink coffee, so this one is pretty blech.)

Medium Brown- Milk chocolate shell, hazelnut center; 2 kisses (I was thinking this would have a smooth Nutella flavor, but this is the one with chunks in it.)

Dark Brown- Milk chocolate shell, coffee center; 1 kiss (See note on cappuccino flavor.)

Black- 60% Dark chocolate shell, dark chocolate center; 1 kiss (I know dark chocolate is supposedly a "health" food, but come on- chocolate needs cream and sugar!)

Lindor has even more flavors than these 20. They have a seasonal flavor that is a milk chocolate shell with a white chocolate center. It comes in holiday wrappers- Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas. At Christmas time they also have 2 of my all-time favorites: Smooth Dark Peppermint and Crunchy White Peppermint. They're always coming up with new flavors too. In fact, there is already a new Turquoise truffle- Caramel with Sea Salt, sounds yummy to me! I'm really not that picky though when it comes to Lindor :).

Camporee

Kaleb got to participate in a 4-day LDS International Camporee this summer. There were young men from Palmyra, New York; Rochester, New York; Montreal, Quebec; Toronto, Ontario; and Ottawa, Ontario. Logan, Solomon, Hayden, Jonathan, Brother Stiles, Xavier, Garicci, Duncan, Kaleb, and Jean.

Our ward is so CHILL (Chapel Hill) that they won the best camp entrance award!

For part of the camp they took the visiting youth to see downtown Ottawa. They got to watch the marching band,

and toured the Parliament buildings.

They also went on a photo scavenger hunt. I like this cool aboriginal statue it reminds me of a totem pole.

Ottawa has lots of beautiful old churches.

The whole group!

The camp was for the Deacons and Teachers. The Priests helped out as the Youth Service Corps. The Cub Scouts were invited up for the last evening for games and the campfire. Gavin was thrilled to go with 10 other Cubs from our ward. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of them, but here's one last one of our group.

Kaleb, Brother Stiles, Jonathan, Brother Elliott, Garicci, Logan, Hayden, Xavier, Jean, and Duncan in front.

Kaleb had a blast (and when he came home I have never smelled such stink in my life, ha ha)!!

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Leg Warmers

My friend Rita gave Ali these leg warmers and I could squeal they are so cute!

I had to buy this white dress so I could put together this outfit with these darling leg warmers, her newborn ruffle bloomers & hair bow, and her birthday bubble gum necklace! She looked so cute at church!