five

1- With it being the first week of October I felt that sloppy joes were in order.  I made this recipe and Bryan, the self-proclaimed sloppy joe hater, and Jilly, the picky toddler, scarfed them down.  Chalk one up for Rachel (and Mel.)

2- Mattie got her first little cut this week (we let her hold a straw and she used it to scrape her nose.)  Good thing she has a big sister around to hook her up with a Dora bandaid.  (Someone gave us these pajamas when Jilly was little and she wore them many times.  When I put them on Mattie I realized for the first time that they are definitely "boy pajamas"- nothing gets past me.) 

3- Pigtail braids made an appearance this week and it was love at first sight. (These pictures are at the zoo with Jilly's bestie Kylie)

 

4- Yesterday I heard Mattie on the monitor waking up from the world's shortest nap.  She was making happy noises so I just let her be until Jilly asked if she could go check on her.  Then I heard in the monitor, "YAY!!!  Baby Mattie is awake!  Hooray!"  For the next few minutes I heard Jilly talking and being silly while Mattie laughed so hard.  Sisters are the best best best.

5- This is one of my favorite weekends of the year; we get to stay at home and watch excellent messages from our church leaders.  If you'd like to learn more about what I believe, tune in!

 

Garden Party

I am in charge of the activities for the Relief Society in my church.  This month we had our annual Garden Party.  It was a ton of work, but I had a lot of fun planning a party on the church's dime. :)  Things were really crazy in the moments before the party so I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked to.  


We went with a summery theme- lots of pink, orange, and yellow.  The tables had bright tablecloths with white gardenias as the centerpieces.  I made a few pennant banners and we found some cute yellow lanterns at the dollar store.  We served Italian Sodas, which were so yummy and fun.  Luckily there was extra syrup so they will be making an encore at future activities!

The rest of the food was a-mazing too.  Someone in our ward is a caterer and he grilled chicken for us, the women signed up to bring salads, and for dessert we had lemonade pies.  We made them with raspberry lemonade and put cool whip and a raspberry on top (after I took the picture of course.)  These cute cups were from the dollar store

One of the best parts of the night was the Photo Booth.  I made fringe banners from this tutorial and hung them on the trellis (not that you can see them in this picture.)  The props were from here and here.  (Thank you pinterest!)

Conference

We had a lovely weekend watching General Conference. We ate to our hearts' content and then took a long walk to attempt to counteract those calories when it was all over. My favorite talk was Elder Cook's. Lately I've felt like I wasn't contributing very much to our family. It's very frustrating to feel like I'm constantly spending money but not helping to earn money. I also felt like my life was too easy and fun- so much of my day is spent just playing with and taking care of cute Jillian and not really accomplishing anything concrete. I love being a stay-at-home mom, but lately I've had creeping doubts that maybe my life is small and insignificant. As I sat listening to conference, Elder Cook's words perfectly calmed my worries.

“No woman should ever feel the need to apologize or to feel that her contribution is less significant because she is devoting her primary efforts to raising and nurturing children; Nothing could be more significant in our Father in Heaven’s plan.”

I feel so lucky that I get to spend all my time with Jilly and that I have the support of a hard-working husband and wise leaders.

nothing could be more significant