TOO late Tuesday! (for random monday!)

1.) Y.W. in Excellence!

These Y.W. really are excellent!

We had our Y.W. in excellence on Sunday. I am So glad to have it done! Our theme was: PURSEuit of excellence through PURSEonal progress.

Each leader was assigned several YW to interview and work with to make sure each girl would have a 10 hour project to display. The girls worked SO hard and all of their projects were AMAZING!

A small sample of the 110 PURSE cookies made for refreshments!

Another part of our beautiful refreshment table!
(I have the BEST women to work with!)

My own three daughters 10 hour projects
All the YW sang a song by Jenny Phillip called: Like the stars. It was SOOOO beautiful!
Listening to the girls PRACTICE every week made me cry, EVERY WEEK!
Brittany's 10 hour project was to learn the piano music and accompany the girls. She did a GREAT JOB!

Hailey's project was to gather, read and learn about some ancestors. She chose two of her great grandfathers. One from my side of the family: Abner Harley Baird. And one from Brian's side of the family, Alma L. Pond. She called and emailed grandparents to get stories and pictures. She typed it up, copied it and had it put in a spiral bound book. She wanted to do more but it was getting time consuming. So, she decided that for some future projects she will do more ancestors and then when she had a few small books of several ancestors she will have it all bound in one big , hard bound book! VERY COOL!

Brooklynn's project was a hard bound book. She titled it: Together Forever.

It has seasons, and sport and travels and all kinds of fun family pictures gathered from the past several years. She talked about things that we do together as a family. She also took most of the pictures. It turned out REALLY AWESOME!

When I think about the stress in our home to get these 3, 10 hr. projects done, it makes me think of the HUNDREDS of hours ALL the girls together put in learning about a value that will help them learn,grow,serve,and all in becoming great women!

2.) Chicken salad!
So, last week as I was reading everyones blogs, I came across a giant picture of a really yummy looking peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Christy was CALLING for HELP for ideas for school lunches. I MUST say as yummy as that PB&J looked, I was in the same boat! I read one of the comments and someone had suggested chicken salad sandwich! K, THAT sounded good to ALL of my kids! So, of course I was all over that!

I recently had a friend who was buying in BULK 25 lbs blocks of frozen chicken. I bought 2 blocks. SO, I pulled one out of the freezer and spent several hours yesterday slow cooking the chicken, shredding it and making chicken salad and FINALLY putting it on some croissants!

THANKS Christy for the call for help and tell who ever gave the idea, WE LOVED IT!!!!

3.) Bella

We visited Bella at Ray and Amber's farm. She is a BEAUTIFUL dog. It made me realize though, how glad I am that she is there. At least FOR NOW. Ray says, she (Bella) will play out in the rain for hours while all the other dogs watch her from the barn! Hailey wants to make sure Bella will always remember us, so, we have visited a couple times and will continue to do so.

4.) Kitchen remodel

We are drawing up plans, looking at DOZENS and DOZENS of pictures and getting ready to take the plunge! I am EXCITED!!!!!! I KNOW it will be STRESS but, for now, I am enjoying the thought!!

5.) Pineapple fire hose

So, we are continuing to enjoy amazing fall weather! My nephew lived with us 2 years ago and we just got a letter from him reminding us that the November he lived here we got like 14 inches of rain (or something crazy like that). Besides this past Wednesday, which Brittany told me was called the "pineapple fire hose", its been amazingly good weather! The pineapple fire hose means, we were getting DUMPED ON! Over an inch of rain in one day! BUT, the temps were like 68 degrees! It was CRAZY! It was like we weren't even on the same hemisphere from Wednesday to Thursday. And THANKFULLY the rest of this week! The weird thing about living in Oregon, it's like we KNOW when we have such great weather, we'll PAY FOR IT later!!!!