thoughts about Halloween on Sunday

I was very surprised to see the handout from my ward about the trunk or treat actually read at the top “help the kids celebrate Halloween on Saturday instead of Sunday this year by attending the wards trunk or treat” while I actually happen to agree with it the whole idea of it, I thought it rather bold to assume that kind of, decision making for the whole ward like that. Not everyone feels the same on the subject.

But since it’s brought up, how does everyone view the Halloween on Sunday situation?

For Me and my family personally, we have decided to not do trick or treating on Sunday nights. If it falls on a Sunday, then the wards truck or treat (which mostly likely will fall on the Saturday beforehand anyhow) will be our Halloween night and we won’t go out on Sunday night to trick or treat. “WHY?” I think mostly because we just don’t want to interact, see or dress up in things that just DON’T tie into what the church is about, cause then, to us, that just doesn’t feel like the Sabbath Day is being kept holy. It being a “family activity” just really isn’t enough to sway us to go out cause then, going to a baseball game, or out to dinner, or playing football and all those other things that we don’t do on Sunday would be just as justifiable ya know?

But this is just US, I won’t shame anyone who thinks otherwise. Growing up, I think (pretty sure about it) that my parents never drew a line in the sand about it, and we came out just fine.

Halloween wallpaper

Sorry this is overdue, but here are a couple of my favorite Halloween wallpapers you can use to decorate your own computers. Just click on the picture and copy and past to your pictures files.

Pomegranate season!

I’ve mentioned without all the decorations around my house to get me in the mood for Halloween, this is a different kind of holiday for me. but I finally remembered something that brings a little bit of home here, I found it when walking thru the grocery store *Pomegranates*! My birthday fruit how could I forget!? I bought one and shared it with my kids. It certainly helped me feel like it was October. And my kids LOVE it too!

Did you know of all the wonderful things pomegranate do for your health, mainly breast health. The best thing I think my mom ever forwarded to me was a slide show called “God’s Pharmacy”, it was all about how many fruits and veggies actually resemble the organ that they promote health in. it was fascinating, I love it. But I think they totally missed out of the correlation of pomegranates and breasts. If you’ve ever seen a doctors picture of what the woman’s breast looks like with the skin off? It looks exactly like a pomegranate when it’s outer skin is peeled off. Really thought provoking isn’t it. Start thinking about some things you eat and what it looks like, you might be surprised that they’re more to your food than meets the eye.

Andrew's Halloween PJS

Arnt these too cute? They have little bats, cats, ghosts and pumpkins on it. The butt says “BOO” and there are pumpkin faces on the feet! I love it!

… and this… is Andrew running with a trash can on his head. I was using it to hold my tutu in progress… yeah… crazy kid.

General Conference

I was thinking about GC a lot lately. We had a really great conference by the way. I think our family handled it the best we ever have this year. My prepared packet of coloring pages helped us out a lot. Did anyone get that in time to use it? I hope it was helpful to someone out there. I felt like many of the talks where uplifting and encouraging to rise above and be better at the things you know you should do, more than a talk that was just ALL dedicated to one subject like genealogy or something like that. I think that’s what I needed to hear so that’s probably just what stuck out to me the most ya know? What stuck out to you guys? Did anyone have a favorite talk?

PS - just got this from my sister (thanks Melissa!) it's a 16 minute clip of the highlights of G.C. way cool! someone should do this for EVERY conference.
http://new.lds.org/general-conference/highlights/october2010?lang=eng

soup of the day – cabbage

Mom’s Cabbage Soup with Nikki’s twist:

NEED:
 8 cups Chicken stock
 4 strips Bacon
 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
 1 Onions, half moon sliced
 1 Green Bell Peppers, chopped
 1 tsp minced Garlic
 2 long thin Carrots, chopped
 1 Red Cabbage
 1 Green Cabbage
 Season with salt & pepper
 Cayenne to taste

MAKE:
• In a big soup pot pour 8 cups chicken stock, put it on high heat.
• In a frying pan cook bacon, set aside on paper towels. Scrape out pan.
• In the same frying pan lightly caramelize in E.V.O.O.: onions, bell peppers, garlic, and carrots, over medium heat. When soft add to the chicken stock.
• Clean out pan heat up E.V.O.O. on medium heat. Chop cabbages in half. Remove heart. Chop into small inch by inch pieces. Place in the frying pan, add lid and sauté until soft and slightly lippy. Season w/ salt & pepper. When ready, add cabbage to the chicken stock.
• Chop up bacon and add to the top of the soup.
• cayenne is to spice up individual bowls of soup to your likings.

NY: SAT – The Palmyra Temple

This is a very beautiful small temple. It’s right on the hill next to the Smith farms and is the ONLY temple in the WORLD that has a CLEAR window in the sacred rooms. The window overlooks the sacred grove! Cool hu? All temples have stain-glass windows so light can come in, while yet providing privacy to what’s inside, and also it provide additional art work for the temple. But this temple has one small clear glass window, and it makes that temple VERY unique.

My only regret is that we didn’t get to do service in the temple while we were there. Time-wise and engergy-wise, it just wasnt goign to work. But who knows, maybe we’ll get to go back there before coming back to TX. Maybe we’ll go again when it snows, ooo, wouldn’t that be pretty!

NY: SAT – the church meeting house

Not only is this meeting house BIG and beautiful, it’s RIGHT across the street from the Palmyra Temple, and very close to the Smith Fame. How cool would it be to go to church every Sunday here? So cool!

NY: SAT – the Book of Mormon Printing Press

We got to go to the same printing press that printed the very FIRST Book of Mormon! They printed 3,000 books, and now our membership is in the millions, amazing!

You wanna hear something funny? While we were listening to what a hard and meticulous thing it was to set up the printing letter stamps, we got to hold them and pass them around. What makes it SO hard is that the letters and words are placed in to be upside down and backwards! And guess what? I was a PRO at reading it!! FINALLY! I have found my GIFT in having dyslexia! Lol. I bet a lot of printers were dyslexic.

The Book of Mormon was printed on a LARGE sheet of paper and then folded and then cut and binded to make the book. ALL folding was done by HAND. Amanda got to fold the first 16 pages (printed from the printing press) and got to KEEP it!