General Conference

2008

2009

2010

Stay tuned for this years 2011 general conference fun.  I've got so many great quotes to share!

Preparedness

Part of "getting our feet back under us" has been building up our food storage and other emergency items that we needed.  I've said it before, but I love, love, love having shelves!  In Arizona you can't really keep food storage due to the heat so we've had fun building up a supply of food. Even my pantry was small and most people I know in AZ used a linen closet to also store food in or built a wall to create one out of a great room.   I think we probably have 6 months worth at this point.  We also now have a car kit in one car for snow trouble.  The kids for family night one night made safety kid books with their fingerprints and DNA samples (a lock of hair) and Carter filled out the forms for a cub scout badge.  I've had those forever and never filled them out.  I don't have pics of it, but after many hours without electricity one week, we loaded up on candles, a lantern, and flashlights with batteries.

Goals by the end of the year for preparedness:  shelves in our new house, water storage, canning equipment like a cold pack, vacuum sealer and dehydrator, another car kit, possibly a generator, update our 72 hour kits.  I heard a good suggestion for that.  Take out your 72 hour kit at every General Conference and make sure everything in there is fresh (like the food) and up to date (like the kid clothing sizes).  Then you know that every six months you've kept it up to date.

Louis

Louis is growing up fast.  He'll go to the cupboard, grab a stool, climb up to reach high things, find a snack he wants and bring it to you to open for him.  He is a kid that knows what he wants.  He thinks he can talk like everyone else and knows quite a few words but assumes you know exactly what he wants.  We usually do too because his face is so expressive.  He understands everything we say though.  He loves the snow and will find a patch of it, and stomp in it over and over while laughing his loud belly chuckle the whole time.  I think he likes the sound of the crunching and thinks it's funny. 

Some things you might not know about Louis:

--He can climb stairs up and down very fast, almost like a slide.
--He does kiss rotations.  It you ask him to give you a kiss or hug, he will and then continue on to whoever else in the room, round and round till he gets distracted.
--The kids think he is the cutest baby and like to get him to copy them doing things like dance, raise hands, smile, scream, hug, spit, say bad words like "poo poo" or whatever else they can get him to copy.
--He loves his "ba ba" (pacifier) and will use it all day long if he had his way.  He doesn't mind sharing it for a second or two but will quickly yank it back and pop it in after you've tried it.  If you try to take it out, he'll bite down with jaws of steel and you'll never retrieve it.
--His latest thing is to grab a fork and eat off his Daddy's plate.  He can eat a whole plate from Olive Garden!