Family Home Evening with our 18 month old - Wonder Color and Clay

Tonight we finally ACTUALLY had family home evening.

Its been difficult to find things to do with Kaleb, but now that hes a bit older I've been able to expand our activities.

We started by praying. Kaleb has been folding his arms for prayer for about a month now, but hes just starting to kneel with us. I dont even know how to express my feelings the first time he did it. I was proud of my son, I was thankful that my husband joined me in teaching him these good things and I was grateful that I, myself had been taught these things. 

We went into a lesson about how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ cerated our home (world) and how they put love into it because they wanted it to be beautiful for us. (I'm unsure Kaleb was listening, but I said it anyway) then we started creating our own "beautiful things" with clay and color wonder markers and paper (my new favorite) 

Blake made a blue cat / dog / horse thing that Kaleb loved and gave it a kiss. 

This is my attempt to take a family picture while coloring. . . Blake suggested another angle

There we go!

(iPhone front camera has crappy low light)

No Relief in Society: A Ward Gone Mad

Writing with Becky, Filming, and Editing with Blake...

This short little video we made for the Relief Society dinner consumed or lives this past week. 

We've been working on it the past month, but it really came down to the wire

However, when all was said and done, it really was so much fun.
So, Enjoy!

(in case you can"t tell, the premise of the film is based on "A Day Without A Mexican")

What do you think?

Do we have a ward of actors or what? 


and in case you were wondering, we sot with our Sony a33 and Flip camera. Everything was edited in iMovie. (cause thats how we roll.)

First hand out, First shoot, First Bacon drink

I should be writing my Relief Society lesson for tomorrow.
I teach the "Teaching for our times" lesson once a month, where you create a lesson from conference talks... yeah. I don't even have a lesson book to fall back on.

Tomorrows (Today's?) lesson is based on Elder Uchtdorf's October 2011 General Conference talk "Forget Me Not"

I did manage to cut out a large Forget-me-not for the board and make these hand outs for the "Group Discussion", other wise known as the "please-talk-for-a-long-time-because-I-didn't-prepare-much-else" time. 

Its the first hand out I've ever made. Simple, I know, but it took, like... three hours.

I also want to shorten the video of the talk to show a portion of it in class... so I have that uploading to iMovie... should in done in about two hours.

*Note to self: don't wait 'till the last minute to prepare lessons. Or if you do, don't insist on elaborate lessons.*

Anyway,  last night (Friday night) was awful. 

Kaleb now refuses to sleep in his crib longer than an hour, but thats a different post, what I'm getting to is the fact that I was completely exhausted this morning. 

Basically I had a rough start to what ended up being a good day.

Blake left in the morning to play basketball, so when he came home around 10am, I had finally gotten Kaleb to sleep for his first nap. I'm completely drained and Blake's like: 

"So how was your workout time?"

Granted "Paige's Workout Time" in on the schedule I put on the wall, but I still felt so defensive and snappy. I believe my response was some sort of guttural noise... he didn't press the issue.

So, I'm feeling crappy because I didn't work out and was kinda called on it. 

I go to the kitchen to make breakfast and our sink is FULL of dishes. Completely overflowing on both sides. Now, I dont know why I just expect Blake to do them, but he knows how much I detest doing them so I think he should always just do them. 

Apparently I'm wrong.

I asked him (probably accusatorially) why the dishes weren't done and he says something to the effect of "I don't know why aren't they done?"

Not a pleasant morning.

But then I started getting our cameras ready and getting pumped for the day's engagement session. 

I was honestly really excited. 

It was my first engagement session since I had Kaleb.

And these clients are pretty rock'in.

So we dropped the little dude off with Grandma and Grandpa Green for safe keeping until we returned.

Well, the session was fun, and I found my groove easier and more smoothly then I had anticipated. 

We shot in Old Town Orange where the shops and street make for good times.

It also really helped that these particular clients were attractive and fun.

I'd probably hang out with them even if they didn't pay me.

We ended the shoot at Old Towne Grinder and Ice Cream Parlor. Hands down best part of the shoot. 

Its this cool place with a million different varieties of bottled soda (or "pop". When I say "bottled" I just feel like "pop" sounds better than "soda"... anyway...) and after we got some cool shots, Blake and I decided to get a bottle ourselves. 

I chose this deliciously refreshing pottle of pumpkin pie soda. So yummy. 

But Blake chose this. This nasty bottle of Bacon Soda. In his defense, he was looking for black licorice soda, but our clients... with some help from me... convinced that he should get bacon soda just for the bragging rights. 

Blake made us all drink some too.

It smelled like gym feet.

It tasted like carbonated liquid smoke.

Blake kept burping and shivering in disgust.

It was freaking hilarious. :D 

Our clients, tasting the nasty Bacon Soda.

On the way home, I told Blake I wanted a picture of the two of us.
Something I hadn't done in years.

I try to avoid pictures as much as possible, unless its some kind of special occasion or my son is with me.

I avoided being infront of the camera because I was so embarrassed and hated how I looked.
Well, I still hate how I look, but I'm not embarrassed so much.

I think my previous post was some kind of liberation. I mean, everyone knows my secret shame now, might as well stop pretending.

Thats not to say I'm going to stop trying (though at the Elders Quorum activity I ate pasta, bread, cake and ice cream all before I even realized what I was doing... lame.) But I might as well stop hiding and document my life with out fear.

and my progress too. :D

So here's my "happy day and no makeup" picture, at a red light with my awesome husband who often tells me he loves me and that I'm beautiful. 

So, yeah. Overall... Good day. 

Oh, and here's one of my favorite's from today's session! 

*On a completely different side note: I changed the sidebar of this blog a bit. I gave Blake and I our own picture (from our last professional shoot right before I got pregnant, November 2010), I updated Kaleb's  picture and I added two new tracker thingies. One for how long we've been married (under Blake's picture) and one for my fitness goal (weight) progress (under my picture).*

Kaleb's Baby Blessing

Kaleb was blessed on the last Sunday of October (the day before Halloween)

Blake's Parents, Jordan and Freesia were able to make it, along with my Grandma, My father and his family and a few aunts and cousins. 

Blake did a wonderful job!

It was such an amazing feeling, seeing my husband with our little son in his arms, Blessing him like I'd imagined him doing for months (well… years really)

I sat there and listened to Blake's encouraging words and was so thankful for my Husband and my baby son.

After the initial blessing, Blake prayed:

Kaleb, we pray for the spirit to be with us as we give this blessing. 
We bless you that you will recognize and be drawn to all things good, and the spirit of truth.  
We bless your body to meet the needs of your spirit throughout your life, and that you will be healthy.  
We bless you with a desire for knowledge.  
You are already very blessed with family who love you, and who care about you, and we bless you that you will look to these family members for guidance, that they may be good examples for you in your life.  
We also bless you that you will make good decisions in your life. 
We leave these blessings upon you and all blessings that your Father in Heaven has in store for you, and we do so in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 




After Church, Mom and Pop Green had a lovely lunch and get together at they're place

The Clausen's came by with their little darling… Not sure how Kaleb felt about it...

Blake and I with our little blessed boy

My favorite part! Kaleb was blessed in my father's baptismal gown. Yes, my father wore that gown over 50 years ago when he was baptized into the Catholic church. It was WONDERFUL having a piece of Barrera up there with Kaleb.

I think my Dad liked it too. :D

Also… I made amazing pumpkin sugar cookies… FROM SCRATCH! No pictures of them but this is the recipe, and they were fabulous.