June 30. 2012 Got the Newsletters Copied Today

Here are a few the cute graphics I used in my newsletter.

I got the newsletters copied today and will give them to the people who hand them out tomorrow.  

                                                Anyway, Happy Fourth of July a few days early.

Friday, June 29-Ward Newsletter Time

     I write the newsletter for my ward and it comes out at the end of the month, so that has been my project today.  I collect all sorts of things over the month and put them together the last couple days of the month.  We always have a message from a member of our bishopric and one other member of the ward leadership.  Sometimes Russell even gets a chance to add a message.  I am big on graphics and calendaring and cool thoughts so I spend a fair amount of time looking for that kind of stuff on the internet.  Pinterest has been a great source of neat thoughts.  I always have a theme so that helps while looking for fun thing to use.  This month is about Pioneers and Independence Day. ( Real original huh?)
      Anyway, it may seem like it wouldn't be a very spiritually uplifting calling but it actually is.  I try to make a cute quote box for each of the month's Ensign messages so I really study those each month and then try to add something that might help be uplifting to others as they study the messages themselves.  I am also really trying to keep track of the goings on of our ward so that keeps me on my toes.
     One thing that is interesting about this newsletter is that I have a older gentleman that lives in our ward, (my building), who does not come to church but has started giving me information for the newsletter.  He does not have a computer so does not have the internet or an email address so he leaves me health related articles under my door.  He does not have long distance on his phone so he can't call me because I have an Idaho phone number.  We have actually never met but he seems like a really nice guy.  I know he is pretty old and has lived in our condo for over 30 years.  I was just 24, 30 years ago.....
     Another cool thing about doing the newsletter is that it use to be hand delivered and is now sent to over 150 email addresses of ward members.  That was a pretty big job, setting up all the email addresses and then correcting all the ones that were incorrect but I liked doing it.  We still hand deliver about 95 newsletters each month, which is understandable considering the average age of my ward is 76 so many older people do not have email addresses or computers.  Anyway, the story I wanted to tell about doing the newsletter over email is that one month I got a reply from a ward member who was in the armed forces and he had been deployed and had just read the newsletter where ever he was.  He just wanted to say thanks and that he appreciated being able to keep in touch with the events happening in our ward.   I have also gotten thanks from ward members who are on missions who are able to keep in touch through the newsletter, so it is a pretty rewarding thing to be a part of.  
     It isn't really anything I can put on my blog but just wanted to write a little about it....it is something I love doing.

Hello out there.....back to town and sanity!

The past week has been one busy week!  My birthday was last week, we had lots of fun company, Russell and I went out of town and now, I am back home.  What a busy time that all was.  I am entering this post during a lunch break at a computer class I am attending today so  don't have access to my pictures so will put them on at a later time.  Just know we had such fun with the kids here last week.  We had:
Meredith, Wes, Saria, Easton, Sadie, Kennedy, Brittany, Colby, Jim, Kimber, Blake, Lindsey, Caleb, Spencer and Ethan all together and it was CRAZY FUN!  Sure love them all and am so thankful for the chance to spend some time with them last week. 
Thanks for coming to celebrate Wes, Easton and my birthdays.  Colby made the famous Munson yellow cake with chocolate sauce for my birthday and it was delish!!! I haven't made that for a long time.  We had another cake for Wes on his birthday so we were caked out, it was all yummy though.
After a church meeting on Sunday morning Russell and I headed to Sun Valley to the Utah Bankers Convention for four days. We luck out when we go there because it gives us a chance to spend some time with Eric, Chandra, Ali and Myah while we are there since they live close to Sun Valley. 
Now back to real life......atleast until the next fun adventure next week at the Munson Family Reunion.  Can't wait.

Thursday, June 21, 2012 Cutie Little Hootie Owls

Today my project has been to finish up some little hoot owls I have been trying to get finished for little baby Kennedy.  Before she was born her mommy made her some really cute bumper pads for her crib and a matching blanky.  The fabric has really cute little hoot owls on them (see the blue owl above), so I decided to make her some little matching owls for her bed.  The owls were already cut out when I started working on them so I just had to sew the wings, add the nose and eyes and sew them together.  Saria and Easton, who are here to visit for the weekend, helped me stuff them later this afternoon.  One more project on my summer list finished. Yeah!!!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012 Cookie Day!

I have lived in my condo since October and I can not remember baking cookies since moving in.  Well, I know I have made several batches of sugar cookies, (my favorite!!!) but not any other kind of cookie.  We are expecting quite a crowd around here the next couple of days so I decided to bake some cookies for the masses.  It was quite nice working in my newly organized kitchen. I made one batch of cookies and while those were finishing up baking I made another batch.  I just hope they taste okay, like I said I haven't baked cookies forever.  I was planning on making chocolate chip cookies tonight but then I remembered that two of my daughters that will be visiting are nursing babies and so are not eating chocolate so I decided I better make another kind of cookie and decided on oatmeal. Something else that is kind of funny is that Russell is on a no eating diet for two days so I have had to bake them while he is gone to a meeting so he wasn't tempted to eat them.  The cookies are done and ready to be refrigerated until the company gets here. They look good, just hope they taste good.

 

Also today, I left this morning and headed to Provo to visit Colby and Kimber.  We had a fun day together.  Here is a funny picture of Kimber.  Study it carefully.  She was laying on her tummy and rolled her stomach and head over but her legs are stilling facing down. Kind of freaky!!! She is one limber Kimber. 

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Tuesday, June 19th, Happy Birthday to my big sis, Kimmey Wood, also, my cupboard makeover....

Today is my sister Kim's birthday.  Happy Birthday Kimmey!!!! June is a big birthday month for my family. I have nephews and nieces galore with birthdays this month.  My birthday is coming up and is followed by one of my son in laws.  Phew, thats a lot of birthdays...
Anyway, today I worked on redoing my kitchen cupboards and found lots of extra space.  I think I have three or four drawers with nothing in them and several shelves empty also.  One of the things that was so attractive about the condo we bought is all the cupboard space.  It is crazy some of it is still empty.  I am sure I will find something to fill it up with.  I wish I would have take photos before I started the whole project so you could see what actually ended up getting done but I just took a few in the middle of the process.  Here they are:

Before

After

Before

After

 Of course there are many more cupboards and drawers I cleaned out.  I moved all kinds of stuff from one cupboard to another and got out  baskets to help organize things.  They really help things look better.  Happy Day everyone.

Monday, June 18th, Happy Birthday Easton and Getting Ready for our Week With the Grandkids...

Today is our grandson, Easton's birthday.  He is turning 8 years old.  Just to freak out his mother, I made this funny picture of him, that he may look like in say,,,,10 years or so.

I am on a mission to do some funny stuff for the week the grand-kids come in August and turning them into super heroes is part of the fun.  My plan has been to cartoon them into super heroes but I couldn't really find anything I liked on the internet so I downloaded an app on my iPad and had quite a good time transforming my sweet little grand-kids into the beginning of :   
THE FANTASTIC FOUR


                         Meet the ASTONISHING ALI
 

                       

 the STUPENDOUS SARIA
                               

                       

the EXCELLENT EASTON

                              

 and the MAGNIFICENT MYAH

                                   

I still need to do some photo editing, like taking out the long blond hair on Myah, but that shouldn't be to hard.  These are going to be super heroes that make good choices, help others and hopefully will continue to be the best friends ever.  Yeah for the Fantastic Four

PS: I also started a major redo of all the contents of my kitchen cupboards, to be continued tomorrow.