Days 5 thru 13

5th Day:

6th day:

7th day:

Here's us eating our cookies...

using caveman spoons, our fingers!

8th day: 

a Yogi Bear movie.

9th day:

a really fun activity sticker book and a "family talk" subject card game.

10th day:

Christmas Oranges movie.

We watched this movie on Sat after Christmas, then 2 kids gave primary

talks relating to the movie.

Haha, same talk: one junior primary, then one senior primary.

11th day:

macadamia nuts covered in chocolate!

Kams loved them.

So did Kashton. Here he is begging me for more.....

12th day: 

For some reason, my kids thought they got to share those mint Milanos.

I say: they get the movie and the popcorn and the music cd...

I get the cookies..... 

13th day: 

a big note that said not to open it till Christmas Day:

homemade whole wheat pretzel bread,

See's candy was to die for (never had the mints before),

a wooden checker box that has suitcase hinge closure and wooden checkers,

Kams was thrilled for the colorful dice and the dinger bell in the Bunco, me not so much,

connect 4 travel game.

I don't know how we didn't get any repeats of games or movies,

and lots of treats we've never tried before,

The kids had a blast getting something everyday.

The items usually came around 10:30 at night after we turned off the street lights lol.

Days 1 thru 4....

Day 1: soft cozy blanket. 

I had no idea what was going on...

2nd day of Christmas: 

Mr. Potato Head full of potato heads was a major hit, and still is.

Kamarie's favorite thing to do in the nursery.

Fruit by the foot is my kids favorite thing to sneak out of the pantry.

Kams loves to play Hedbanz. She just LOVES to tell people what they are...:) 

3rd day:

Kyson was especially excited since he had just been there to see the lights at the temple.

4th day:

Super cute books.

I LOVE look-alike books...

That's all for now...

I need to download

my card to get the rest.

It WORKS!!!!!!

I put up my "Let It Snow" sign, 

and within an hour, it started SNOWING!

It took me a stinkin' month, 

 but here it is.....

Those aren't dots on the sign post, they are inch increments to measure the snow...

just in case.

I have not tried these, BUT

it is the buzz in my neighborhood and apparently worth doing visiting teaching to get your hands on the recipe...lol

Let me know if they are worth the buzz.

Rolo Cookies

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Unwrap approximately 48 Rolo candies and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl add:

½ c. butter                                                  1 c. brown sugar

½ c. shortening                                           1 c. white sugar

cream the above ingredients until smooth.

Add:  2 tsp. vanilla                                      2 eggs

Mix until well blended.

Add following dry ingredients:

2 ½ c. flour                                                  ¾ c. cocoa

½ tsp. salt                                                   1 tsp. baking soda

Mix until combined well.  You may have to use your hands a bit.

Using approx. a tablespoon of dough, wrap the dough around a Rolo, covering the candy completely.  Repeat until all Rolos are used.  Place Rolo-wrapped dough balls on baking sheet, 2 inches apart. 

Bake for 6-8 minutes, or until the tops of cookies are just beginning to set.  (Do not overbake or the caramel will harden when the cookie cools.)  Let cookies cool on pan for at least 3 minutes before eating; otherwise, the caramel will burn you.

Optional:  Melt some white chocolate chips in a baggie.  Cut a small hole in one corner and squeeze out a squiggle onto each cookie.

 Store cookies in an air-tight container with a piece of bread to keep cookies soft.

**Also works with bite-size Snickers or Milky Way Bars instead of Rolo’s!

This extra warmth is killing me!!

Never, since I have put up decor on my lawn in December have I had to WAIT this LONG to put out my decorations.

The lights are on the house, but the leaves are still in the trees!!!!!

For those of you who are undecorators, that means if I try to put up all my lawn ornaments and stake them down, I will have to rake leaves in and out and around the decorations and the strings when they finally do fall. So, I just wait till the trees are empty, clean it up, then decorate. (remember, I have A LOT  of lawn ornaments...)

PS. The weather has to get COLD enough to kill the leaves, then the weather has to BLOW them down--IN THAT ORDER!

The wind has blown an itty bit, but it blew before it got cold enough to kill the leaves.

December 9th and we still have 25% of the leaves still hanging on the trees.

Cold spell tomorrow night....we need WiND!! BRiNG IT!!!

Things I have learned today...

I LOVE my candle warmer.
It made a nice smooth candle out of my ugly messily unevenly burnt candle.
The fumes from the melting wax with a lighted wick burn my throat, and so far,
 the candle warmer has not burned my throat.
AND I can't wait to use it to keep my mug of hot chocolate warm when it finally cools off enough here to drink hot chocolate.


You'd think that since crusty honey softens and liquefies in the microwave that the bottom scrapings of the Nutella bottle would do the same.......I learned that I will NOT find out.
Let's just say that it's a good thing I was standing by the microwave "in case" I needed to put out a fire that started because of the teensy weensy microscopic piece of foil that was left on the rim of the jar.

I SUCK at cooking white beans with ham! I don't cook beans a lot because
Hubby is DEATHLY ALLERGIC TO BEANS! He would DIE if he ever had to eat one.
At least he said he would RATHER die than eat a bean.
Who knew all the water would cook off while I was gone to the store and the beans would burn.
HAHAHAHA now you know WHY I learned item number 1 !!!!!!!! lololol

I have exceeded my photo uploading limit

but I can upgrade on Picasa for more storage space for an amount of money. I don't know how much. I was too frustrated to read further.

They got me.

The trickery of that store, they got me!

I didn't read the fine print on Kohl's cash.

I didn't realize that Kohl's cash was NOT like real cash at all.

First, I spent $106 and earned $30 in K cash. ($15 for every $50 spent)

The regional manager who was working the register when I checked out asked if I wanted to

apply for a Kohl's card and save $20 off this purchase.

Normally, I am NOT going to get one. But $20 seemed worth my time of 5 minutes.

After it's all said and done, I only got $15 in K cash.

I asked the guy why, and he said that it took the $20 off before the total. 

I looked at him dumbfounded.

I felt like I was uninformed or even tricked.

I told him right there that I would never have signed up for only $5.

Twenty dollars off my purchase instead of $15 in cash back =$5.

Besides the fact that I could have gotten another $15 dress shirt, 

and gotten another $15 back in K. cash. So basically a free shirt!

I hate gimmicks so bad, and I avoid them as best I can, but Kohl's got me on this one.

Then, I went to get my favorite bra that no one else in town carries. I expected to pay $2 for it.

I cost me $7.

They got me again!

When you use Kohl's cash, it takes the price down to a new price before they give you the

15% off for applying for a Kohl's card.

So, I got 15% off of $9 instead of 15% off $24.

Lame.

Obviously, I only shop at Kohl's a couple of times a year.

Obviously, that stat is not going up any time soon.

Brain shut down has a name

It's called "micro sleeping".

I saw a blip on abc this morning that described it.

It is exactly my conversation with Hubby every trip home from Logan.

I call it "my brain shut down".

When I am driving late at night, I can tell when it's time to turn over the driving to

Hubby when the lights on the cars and lights on anything get distorted and turn into what looks like forks.

Our trips to Logan, however, I am sleep deprived before the trip even starts.

I can't fall to sleep till about 2 a.m. when we need to get up at 4 a.m.

Then we drive home the same day just 20 hours later.

Hubby and I will take turns driving home when someone gets too tired to continue.

I described my need to stop driving as "my brain shut down."

My eyes are still fine, no distortion with the lights, 

but I can't get the car to turn when it needs

to turn. My eyes are still open, but it's like I lose consciousness.

So, now that I saw that story on abc, I now know that it is called "micro sleeping."

It is the number one cause of accidents when people are driving tired.

Our last trip to Logan was a little different.

We took ALL the kids. 

We had our "connection" get us all tickets to the championship football game at 1 p.m.

and he also got us tickets to the basketball game at 7 p.m.

All for free.

After the basketball game, we did something we don't normally do: 

we took a nap in the game room of

Kyson's dorm house.

We didn't leave till midnight as usual,

but this trip, we were both out of safe driving skills by 4:00 a.m.

We were only to Beaver, so we checked in with our SDABUS

"Sleepy Driving Adults' Back-Up System."

His name is Koby, and he is 16!

He is normally up at that time everyday anyway going to swimming practice.

He was tired still too, but he was able to drive us home from Beaver.

I don't let my young drivers drive our whole family in the car on long trips

for several reasons:

It puts either Hubby or myself in the back with the pack.

The seats in the back don't recline.

The seats are a lot less comfortable.

I can't sleep in a car unless it is Hubby driving or my dad. 

(weird, I think it has to do with trust and feeling safe.

 I could never sleep on the school bus on long trips either.)

{I should probably note that I don't sleep well with Hubby driving either.

 I wake at every turn taken too fast, or every town with lights,

 or every wiggle wobble while passing another car,

 AND EVERY LANE CHANGE! Yes, I am yelling. 

I finally had to ask him to stop using the blinker every time he changed lanes 

when there was no one around to see the blinker. lol  It always wakes me up.}

If something happened, it would put a lot of guilt on a youngster.

There's too much (like 9 of us) at stake.

Kyson wanted to drive us up to Logan, but I wouldn't let him.

He felt under appreciated, especially when he found out that Koby drove home.

We are always in a hurry to get to Logan.

It always takes me longer to get stuff together than I thought.

I won't allow my teenagers to drive when there is intentional speeding involved.

:)

Besides, the price of insurance going up because of the speeding ticket

 just past Toquerville will be less for a 45 year old man,

 than it will for an 18 yr-old man. :)

PS. I sleep a lot better in the car now that I've figured out how to keep 

the lights from every town out of my eyes:

I use a headband that is designed to keep ears warm and pull it down over my eyes!

My super smart son!!!

I wrote a little letter...

haha... have you heard that one before?

The region women's volleyball tournament is this weekend. That shouldn't matter to me, my team didn't make it into the tournament. (Hallelujah)

Now, we find out that we are in charge of bringing a ref for each team we sent to the tournament.

WHAT?!

It is a "region" tournament. The "region" people should be in charge of that. Ya'd think...!

So, now, I am expected to cancel my Fri. night plans to be there for the tournament to ref (I am the assistant stake sports director) for my stake's team. (found out on Wed night.)

(We won't mention the fact, right here, that I am also expected to be there to ref from 9 a.m. till 8 p.m. on Saturday for the girls tournament. WHAT?!)

I wrote a little letter to the woman in charge of  it and suggested that since there were only 3 teams in the women's tournament (yeah.....that's right...... only 3 teams.....and 2 of them are from my stake) that the team that is NOT playing at the time can provide the two refs for the teams that ARE playing since they WILL ALL BE THERE ANY WAY!!! Then I don't have to change my plans to be there while 10 capable ladies sit around and watch.

The stake sports person, over me, told me there was NO way that J. would go for that idea.... and then she proceeded to lay on the serious pressure for me to be there --plans or no plans.

J messaged her right after that pressure call to tell her she liked my idea and she's going with it.

HA!

The girl's tournament is another story. My daughter's team will be there. I will be there to watch my daughter play. While my daughter's team is playing I am expected to be reffing the same time on the OTHER court! So, I won't even get to see her play! Besides the fact that I am committed to be at my rec team's last game at the rec center in the middle of all this and for pictures.

It doesn't make sense to have each team bring a person to ref every two or three hours....... maybe.

Our refs only need to stay to ref if our stake;s teams keep winning.

JEEPS! (short for jeepers) Find 8 capable ladies and have them come for 4  hours each!!!

I had plans for my last warm Saturday. It involved around 10,000 lights on my house!!!!

Nope, each team brings a ref and if there's not a ref, the team does not play.

So, how come it falls on ME? Well, since the guy who accepted the call from the stake presidency to find refs for ALL the sports is new and has not done any of his calling in the last 6 weeks and won't return phone calls to us for help, we have to do it ourselves. Me and DH who is over stake sports.

I kept telling her to call all these other people to do it for us for a couple of hours each, but she wouldn't. So, I found someone to come do it for me while I was at the rec center. Now, DH is expecting me to split the difference!!!

WHAT?!

I found someone to take 3 of my 8-10 hours; she refused to, and now I am supposed to take part of hers to make up for it? Every time I tried to explain my position, I found her talking right over the top of me. So frustrating.

Another thing:
Every girl in this tournament has played on halfsies courts. Now that we are in a playoff situation, the guy in charge of it all ??? has scheduled for them to play on full sized courts.

WHAT?

They can barely cover the holes in a halfsies court. They don't even know to move to the ball.....

This should be interesting.

Now, I remember why I have avoided church sports for the past 8 years.

Something's wrong with my ward.

It seems to be cursed with WAY too much tragedy.
Diabetes death of 14-yr-old, cancer death of 45-yr-old, suicide of 16-yr-old, auto-pedestrian-near-death of 16-yr-old accident, divorce, now murder?

My dear friend, Madelin, died early Halloween morning.
I was so busy with the final details of my Halloween frenzy that I did not notice the police cars flying by my house just before 9 am.

Man charged with killing his wife

6:54 PM, Oct 31, 2012   |  

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Jud Burkett / The Spectrum

Written by

Samantha Sadlier

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Washington City Homicide: Washington City Homicide

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Neighbors watch as Washington City Police investigate a homicide at 2188 Alamosa Drive Wednesday. David Benson, 76, was arrested for first-degree murder after his wife was found dead inside their home. / Jud Burkett / The Spectrum & Daily News

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• Benson makes first court appearance

A 76-year-old Washington City man was arrested and charged with first-degree murder Wednesday morning after his wife was found dead in their Pine View Estates home at 2188 Alamosa Drive.

A Washington City Police Department press release said the woman died from “trauma inflicted with a blunt object.”

David Benson was booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility on $500,000 bond. Public records list his wife as Madeline Benson.

The call reporting the incident was initially made at about 8:45 a.m. Wednesday by a family member who was not in the home at the time of the incident, said Ed Kantor, Washington City Police Department public information officer.

Washington City officers stood guard at the home while detectives and Washington County Deputy Attorney Brian Filter investigated the scene.

Neighbors in the area told The Spectrum the Bensons are long-time residents in the neighborhood and described them as “kind and friendly.”

"He was protective of her and he's had some struggles and couldn't get on top of it," Brittney Rivers said. "Withhold judgment because they are great people and this doesn't need to be their legacy. Now I just think about how to tell our children."

Rivers said they were seen regularly in the neighborhood. "They would walk around twice a day holding hands," she said.

Neighbor Shelly Kirton described them as “very thoughtful people (who would) go out of their way to help others."

Several neighbors in the area told The Spectrum they believed the cause for Benson’s alleged behavior could be related to an adverse reaction to medications he may have been on at the time.

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20121031/NEWS01/121031001/Man-charged-killing-his-wife?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFrontpage
.
I had my Halloween makeup done perfectly.
My fake eye lashes were beautiful and it was easier than I thought it would be to put them on for the first time.
My face was a perfect shade of pale white.
I checked online at 4:00 p.m. to see what my character's eye shadow should look like.
Facebook is set to come up on the screen.
The local news on a facebook page mentioned a murder in my area of town.
My curiosity peeked.
As I read further, the article mentioned that it took place in my subdivision.
I have lived in this subdivision long enough to know every 76 -yr-old, so I searched the article for any names. It didn't have any.
I went straight to the page where it shows the jail bookings in my county, and there he was...
I knew immediately that it was Madelin that had been killed.
I dialed up my visiting teacher companion to get more info. My vt comp. had found out about it that morning about as soon as the next door neighbors had. She was with the bishop's wife, (the neighbors were trying to get a hold of the bishop) and felt the info was confidential.
I feel kind of betrayed.
I am Madelin's visiting teacher, and no one let me know of this situation earlier.
I had to find out about it on facebook....
I bawled for almost an hour. Uncontrollably.
My kids just stood and watched the mess happen.
My eye lashes slid off my face and eventually got lost.
I had streaks of mascara in every direction across my white make up.
I had to start over with all of it, and the makeup would not stick, cause I could not stop crying.

I enjoyed being her visiting teacher WAY more than I should have.
I hung on every word she said. I soaked it all in like a sponge. I wanted to hear more, more, more. She loved to talk about her wonderful life and her 6 amazing sons, and I loved listening to her stories.

She bragged as much about her husband as she did about her kids.

He has a tremendous talent for carving wood and has an overabundance of it all over their home. He was always in the "office" working on something whenever we would come over to visit teach. He would always tease us for our imperfections such as not being on time.

They seemed happy. As happy as an older couple could be that didn't live amongst their kids and grandkids.

Their offspring was scattered around the world. They are all multimillionaires and did it without college degrees.

One of Madelin's sons invented the Crikut crafting tool.
One of her son's is part owner of several casinos in Las Vegas.

Madelin would always scoop up a pile of homemade beanie lizards for Kamarie to play with while we were there. "Kids don't have to sit still in MY house," she told me last week. She always made sure toys were aplenty for Kams.

She was a very happy, fun-loving person. I could tell she loved me just by watching her eyes as she greeted me. She was teaching me so much about life and raising kids. I wished I could visit every week instead of every month.

Her gaze and her smile will forever haunt my thoughts as this was a life cut short way before it's time.

I don't get it. That's why I am still awake at 2 a.m.

They walked our neighborhood holding hands twice a day. They had served a service mission at a girl's camp a year or so ago, and they had stayed in a big 5th wheel camp trailer. They were gonna sell it since they weren't gonna be using it much any more; I don't remember why. But, she gave me a bunch of little pots, spatulas, and misc. kitchen items out of her trailer to use in mine. Treasures to me now.

Last month, they had two sets of family members visit their house at the same time. She was bragging how she fit 14 people in her little house at once.

Rumors are saying he was struggling with depression and or dementia. He always seemed normal and fine to me. He always asked me point blank how work was for my husband. He didn't ask just to be nice, he really wanted to know. He used to own large construction companies. I think they even built churches. He knows what a construction life is, and he could relate to ours. He even would give me advice on certain things about work, too.
Hubby reminded me that when they built their house, that Hubby was the one who did the concrete for them. There is a LOT of concrete at that house.

The picture of him at his booking, I don't know that guy. I've never seen that guy. I've never heard of that guy that killed his wife. Him killing his wife would be akin to my Hubby killing me. It just isn't in their being. It couldn't have been him that did it. It had to be something else. Like a chemical reaction in his brain to maybe something he was taking to make him be better.

I know that she was all he had. At least here in town. I am guessing that he will never recover from this. I am guessing that he realizes what he has done- that he took her away from him himself. I don't know  how a person can live with that in their mind. He will be sooo extremely lonely without her, and it was his own doing. How can he face the ward members ever again? I can't be mad at him. All I can feel for him is sorrow. Extreme sorrow.
He lived such a legacy of a life. So many good things accomplished. It is sad that this is what people will remember him by, and describe him by.

She made crafts and sold them in mail order catalogues most of her life and used the money to pay for 6 missions. Some of those missions back in the day were pricey like Japan. She sewed her own clothes. She made collections of toys for her grandkids.

Everyone loved Madelin. I didn't know her super well, we were just put into this ward a year ago. I have only been her VT for almost a year. I knew her a bit when we were in the same ward 8 years ago, but I don't remember much from 8 years ago. I do know that I hung on every word she spoke. I wanted to learn from her every thing I could. She was BRILLIANT!

I LOVE HOW MUCH MONEY GOOGLE SAVES ME!

This post could be continued several times every month.

This time, however, I fixed my cruise control for $18.21.

Yes, that's right, I , I , I  fixed it.

Well, me and Mr. Google.

I refused to take another trip in my 5 year old Suburban if the 

cruise control did not work.

I was needed to help drive the cheer team to the state playoffs for football, so there were some

things that needed to be done: oil changed, tires rotated, evidence of 7 children cleaned out, but

most importantly, the cruise fixed!

I found a forum where the people were talking about the cruise control not working on this year of Suburban, and some of them said to try checking the brake light switch.

I knew ours was having problems for years, cause the trailer brake

we have in it has a light that stays on all the time.

I took Kams and we went to the Chevy store and bought the part

the "forum" had said to buy.

Hubby switched out the part, and I couldn't wait to try it out.

Hubby also did all the other "honey do's" on the list. 

In the morning, I got a phone call telling me to bring my little car instead.

HA!

I had to wait an extra day to even find out if the new switch fixed

my cruise control.

It did!!!

I can't be a happy driver without my cruise control and that's that.

Hubby wanted to take over driving on our last long trip to Logan, cause I

was too tired to drive.

He thought I was too tired to drive, cause I couldn't keep the car on the road.

I explained to him that it is impossible for me to keep it on the road when

I have to look down at the speedometer every 20 seconds to see how fast

I am going (late at night with no one to follow.)

Up a hill down a hill up a hill down a hill....

You know how it is in Utah....

Yay for Google, and yay for cruise control.

HalloweenJunkie dot blogspot

I made a new site for my Halloween projects and their detailed instructions.

I did this so everyone on pinterest doesn't visit my family's adventures/gossip column site.

So, if you feel like you want to see more pics of the mausoleum in progress, check out my halloweenjunkie site.

Candy Corn Creations! HA! I think it's a funny title! Cause seriously, I am sooo creative sometimes. Unfortunately, it really is a "seasonal" creativity that only comes once a year.

Mausoleum Close Ups