Hey, check out this site!!

Wow!! I was watching Rachael Ray today, and she had this little segment on $5 dinners. Her guest is the host of this great website, 5dollardinners.com that has TONS of $5 dinner recipes. I'm adding it to my google reader and definitely planning on checking her out frequently. Goes right along with the coupon clipping that I seriously need to get involved in, what with the economy the way it is and food prices being so high.
Also, she's having a giveaway right now for a book about square foot gardeining. So go check it out if you're interested in something like that.

never leave your child unattended, not even for a minute

Ok, they weren't really unattended, we were all in the same room with them. It's just that we were all preoccupied with other things.

oh the fun we can get into.....
doesn't taste too good, but let's see how it looks mashed into the carpet

sheesh!!!

you'd think we broke some sort of law or something...

seriously???

we have to clean up our own mess????

aren't there child labor laws or something????

I am a Funky Bag Freak

ooohhh!!! I got me some awesome mail today!!!!

Lookie, lookie!!!!! Lucky me!!!!

I was the super duper fastasmagically lucky winner of

Funky Bag Freaks giveaway last week.

Look what she sent me.

I love this purse!!!

Have I ever mentioned I have a purse fetish?

This is a fabulous purse.

Lots of pockets inside, fun, fabulous funky fabric inside and outside.I love it!!!! Thanks FFB!!!!!Isn't that cute? That's on the back of the bag. What a nice touch.

And this was inside, sweet no?

(It says "Made just for you because you're...PRICELESS")

sweet! The cute little round bunny is adorable too, she threw that in just because.

Go check out her Etsy shop.

She's got some other fabulous bags for sale there.

Well, I must go fill up my new purse now. It's going to work with me tonight!

thanks again FFB!!!

I am this close to being all caught up with my laundry

It's only taken me about six weeks to get here.

and uh, yeah, my Christmas village IS still up, but my Easter decorations are down. Except for the wreath on the front door.

word verification

Sorry guys, I turned word verification back on.
Got a little spam from a nasty web address.
I want my blog to be family friendly.

Easter pics

Got Chocolate???

So, thought I'd catch up a bit and post our Easter pictures.

We don't usually do a whole lot on/for Easter. I was quite a bit more spiritually focused on it this year, and I credit General Conference for that. Some spectacular talks, Elder Holland's in particular really moved me.

Normally, and this year was no exception, the kids wake up to find their baskets on the table,

they get to rifle through them for a while,
then Jon will go hide some eggs in the grass for their Easter egg hunt.


This was the boys' first Easter egg hunt. They did pretty well. I think only a few eggs got cracked.

And that's pretty much it. We don't do a big Easter dinner. We did go to church, I stayed in the nursery this week and didn't get to hear the lessons in Sunday School or Relief Society. I was really hoping for a beautiful musical number during sacrament, but that didn't happen, so I was a little bummed. But that's ok. There were two good talks on the Atonement.

I need to incorporate some good Easter traditions into our yearly celebrations. When I was growing up, my dad would always hide our Easter baskets and we'd have to find them. That was always fun, I don't know why I don't do that. Maybe we'll have to start that next year. Mother Goose has some really terrific Easter traditions. I'm going to have to try a few of them next year. I really love the resurrection cookies she posts about. I'm definitely going to try that one.

Somewhere I saw a great idea for doing sort of an Easter advent using those plastic Easter eggs, and putting a scripture reference inside each one to read each day as you approach Easter. Fantastic!!! I'm going to do that next year too. Sorry to whoever it was that posted about that idea, I'd give you credit if I could remember where I saw it.

Now I just need to go take down my Easter decorations. Maybe I should take down my Christmas village while I'm at it....

Can you stand it?

Ok, you'll have to pause my player if you want to hear my horrible singing in the background.
Try to ignore how bad I am, just watch my guys.
Jason especially knows all the actions, guess he got a little camera shy here.
They LOVE this song.


yeah, sorry I'm such a lousy camera person.



I'm seriously going to try to get caught up with my blogging this week. The girls are back in school, so theoretically, I'll have a smidge more time for myself. Snort! Snort!! LOL LOL

My Redeemer Lives

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"He is not here, for He is risen..."

Matthew 28:6

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I Know that My Redeemer Lives

By: Samuel Medley

I know that my Redeemer lives!

What comfort this sweet sentence gives!

He lives, he lives, who once was dead;

He lives, my ever living head!

He lives to grant me rich supply;

He lives to guide me with his eye;

He lives to comfort me when faint;

He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.

He lives to silence all my fears;

He lives to wipe away my tears;

He lives to calm my troubled heart;

He lives all blessings to impart.

He lives to bless me with his love;

He lives to plead for me above;

He lives my hungry soul to feed;

He lives to help in time of need.

He lives, my kind, wise, heavenly friend;

He lives and loves me to the end;

He lives, and while he lives, I’ll sing;

He lives, my Prophet, Priest, and King!

He lives and grants me daily breath;

He lives, and I shall conquer death;

He lives my mansion to prepare;

He lives to bring me safely there.

He lives, all glory to his name!

He lives, my savior, still the same;

What joy this blest assurance gives:

I know that my Redeemer lives!

I hope you have a beautiful and joyous Easter!

Always Remember

On this day, Christ's last day in this mortal realm He is tried and condemned by the Jews. He is taken before Pilate and then Herod and returned to Pilot again. Pilot condemns him and delivers him to be crucified--in the place of a murderer. He goes to Calvary and is crucified.

Again, I cannot begin to fathom the breadth and depth of His suffering for us. For me.

Already he has endured his sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane, sweat drops of blood because the agony of bearing our sins was so great. Already, he has been mistreated and abused, his body broken.

He could have stopped this at any moment. He didn't have to do it, and yet he did have to do it.

So he goes on. Up to Calvary, carrying his cross. Nailed upon it. And then, perhaps the most unbearable part. When His Father had to withdraw his spirit. Can you imagine? All His life, he has felt His Father there with Him. I would imagine He was the source of untold support. To be competely and utterly alone in the face of all that He was doing--when He was a perfect being, when nothing He ever did warranted such injustice--this must have been devastating.

This wonderful, horrible thing He did for us, guarantees us all forgiveness of our sins, if only we will believe, if only we will accept his sacrifice. If only we will covenant with Him, to always remember Him. The only thanks we can truly offer our Savior, is to accept his great gift. We can certainly never repay him. The cost is too high.

He is then buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea. There His body will reside until Sunday morning when He will take it up again, thus granting us all everlasting life.

I love my Savior.

I am SO grateful for his great atoning sacrifice.

I am SO grateful for his magnificent, matchless love.

I pray I can thank Him sufficiently.

Tonight

Tonight, in the last week of Christ's mortal ministry, He came here.......

(sorry if this picture came out ginormous!)

On this fateful night, he washed his disciple's feet, ate the Passover meal and instituted the sacrament. He revealed that Judas would betray Him and Peter would deny Him. He entered the Garden where he began the horrendous ordeal of taking upon Himself all our sins and woes. I cannot even begin to fathom such an ordeal.

He was betrayed, and arrested. About midnight, he would be taken to Jerusalem where he would be tried, mocked and beaten.

Just venting

So, I watched this special on the Discovery Channel tonight-"The Real Jesus" it was called. I was kind of excited going in, just thinking that it would be interesting to watch. What was I thinking? I should have realized it was THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL!!!! Now, I like the Discovery Channel, don't get me wrong. But, of course, you're coming from the perspective of science when dealing with anything on there right? It was interesting from an archaelogical point of view, but when they start dissecting why Jesus might have taught the things he taught, and where his views might have come from, well let's just say it left a lot to be desired for me.
Of course they can't prove he's the Son of God, and they weren't really trying to do that. I don't think they were trying to disprove it either. I think they were just trying to establish the political climate of the time. What just really chapped my hide I guess is that they just didn't get it! They seemed to think that He just kind of dreamed up his entire gospel based on his human background, no clue did they have that the Gospel came from His father. Our father. That it was established long before Christ even began His mortal ministry. They hint that he just sort of picked up where John the Baptist left off, and took things from there. At one point some stupid comment was made that his "agenda" included free health care, free food and something else--I can't even remember the exact phrase anymore. It was just ridiculous to me.

Anyway,,,, I'm just SO grateful to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!!!!!

Beautiful Sunday

Was Conference wonderful or what???? I loved this mornings session. President Uchtdorf's message started my tears rolling, and Elder Hollands message just topped it off. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

What a wonderful way to head into Easter week. I'm striving to keep Christ at the center of our celebration this year. I think it would be cool to find and read scripture references each day this week that would help put us there, 2000 years ago as Christ entered the last week of his mortal ministry.

What are your Easter traditions?

A tutorial

So, I tried to do a little strikethrough tutorial just now, but it just doesn't work.
Trying to show you how to do a strikethrough actually makes the strikethrough, and the html code disappears so you can't see the code you need to use. Did that make ANY sense?
So, if you'd like to learn how to do it, shoot me an email { firelein6(@)cox(dot)net } and I'll email you the instructions.

Hope you're all having a wonderful weeken.

I'm thoroughly enjoying General Conference, it's the first time in a year I haven't had to work one or the other, or both days. Well, I did have to go to work on Saturday, but I caught the morning session and half of the afternoon session. ☺

this is a test

WhooHooo!!! Thanks Tammy!!!
uh oh!! how do I turn it off?
ok, there we go. Thanks Tammy!!

A tutorial of sorts

SO, a few of you mentioned in the comments from on my last post that you don't know yet how to get your pictures off of your cell phones. Well, this is how I do it. In your contacts on your cell phone, add your email address as one of your contacts. Then, whenever you have a picture you want to transfer to your computer, simply send it to your email address. Voila'!
(hope it's that simple on your phones).


So, I have a couple questions for anyone who might have an answer for me.

1. How do you do that little strike through thingy on Blogger?
2. How do you protect your blog from people who might try to copy it? I know there's some way to actually stop people from copying your stuff. Not that I've written anything anybody wants to copy as of yet, but maybe someday I'll actually write something intelligent and want to protect it.

I think those are the only questions I have right now. But, if you know any other cool little tips or tricks, please feel free to mention them.