Category: 2018

October General Conference Weekend Part 2

*Elder Oaks (Women’s Broadcast)

God placed divine traits in women that are magnified and expressed to their fullness in motherhood.

  • Quiet strength
  • refinement
  • peace
  • goodness
  • virtue
  • truth
  • love
  1. Spend less time on your phone
  2. Be Kind.

*President Nelson (Women’s Conference)

He gave the sisters a personal challenge like he did for the youth a few months ago. He challenged us to do four things.

  1. Fast from Social Media for 10 days. My first thought when he said this was “That won’t be to bad.” I don’t do twitter, snap chat, instagram at all and I have Facebook but could go without no problem.  I felt like he was implying that it was a fast from whatever it is that is taking to much of my time, and then I had the thought come to me that I could do it for TV. I do like my TV.
  2. Read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. Listen and FOLLOW THROUGH on every prompting you have while doing this. I need to do this. It has been a long time since I have read the Book of Mormon that quickly. I am past due. One of the sisters spoke about any good thing comes from Christ so it doesn’t matter if something is a prompting or ‘just our thought’, if it is good, just do it.
  3. Schedule regular temple attendance. Since school started and I have more time without my kids at home I have been trying to decide how to schedule the temple so I make it there more regularly. I am going to make my goal going 1-2 times a  month.
  4. Participate in RS and be an active member.

My desire and motivation to do better at…life…everything, was renewed and greatly motivated after the Women’s Conference. I always have the urge to get a plaque or sign for our house after General Conference with some quote or saying that stuck out to me. Some day I am going to figure out how to have a giant quote wall in my house (it has to be organized/aesthetic or it will drive me crazy). After the talks today one of the plaques I want to have  displayed somewhere is “How can I be kind today?” Another thing that was said several times in this session is to ACT and FOLLOW THROUGH when we have a thought or prompting to do something for our kids, families, or others. I need to improve and that.

*Elder Ballard: Loss of loved ones

NOTES: Joseph F Smith stories and history. Received revelation and vision for redemption for the the dead on October 3, 1918. Families can be eternal and we can see our loved ones again after they leave this earth.

*Sister Cordon:Ministering

NOTES:Walk into moments of service with honesty and love, not just a plate of brownies.

*Elder Holland: Be a Peacemaker 

NOTES: Don’t be immobilized wondering if we should swim the dog paddle or breast stroke. Just swim and follow the guidelines given. Anger if not restrained is often more destructive than the incident that caused it. Our relationship with Christ is effected by our relationship with others. Heal wounds caused by you or others and move on. The true path of healing includes forgiveness. Get over your spite, pride, hurt, or whatever it is and fix those situations so you and others can move on. Do not with hold forgiveness from others or yourself. Care for one another in love. Be peacemakers.

*Elder Bowen: Study the Book of Mormon

*Elder Anderson: No wound to our soul can not be healed by the Savior

NOTES: Couple missionaries took other missionaries to Brussels airport when a bomb went off. Our lives are full of many blessings and happiness but there will be times when our souls are wounded. No one is immune it is part of our mortal experience. Our trials are often our greatest teachers. Whatever our trials are we are not meant to perish spiritually. They are meant to help us thrive and grow. The Savior can heal all wounds, there is no sorrow he can not heal. Remember you proved your worthiness in the Pre-mortal existence. You may be exhausted but don’t ever give up.

*President Nelson: What’s in a name, everything.

NOTES: A few weeks ago a letter was sent out reminding what the proper and correct name of the church is and we should use. THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS. Mixed ‘reviews’ on that letter. The name of the church was chosen by the Savior, no one else. Nick names take His name from the church, which is a big deal. This is an offense to God. It is His church with his power, using the full name will help us remember and others realize this.

*Elder Eyring: Take the Lords name upon you

*Elder Ashton: God’s attributes and character, becoming like Him.

*Elder Gay: Take the Lords name upon you

NOTES: Without Christ you can have joy for a season but you will not have true eternal joy. There is no one that can not receive joy by turning themselves to Christ. Choose to increase your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

*Elder Carpenter: Repentance is how our spirits are healed.

NOTES: Story of son having a stroke on his mission. Repentance is how the spirit heals. Don’t with hold healing from your spirit.

*Elder Renlund:

NOTES: Mary Poppins. Heavenly Father’s hope for us is not to make us do right, but for us to choose to do right. 

*President Nelson: Closing remarks.

NOTES: Study the messages you have heard today. The changes today will help and strengthen families. Sabbath days will be a delight and the influence of the adversary will decrease. Visit the temple regularly. Twelve new temples announced.

 

October General Conference Weekend Part 1

Today is Saturday and the first day of conference.  There have been whisperings of some big changes happening to organization and things so I have been looking forward to Conference. It has been a while since I have been able to sit and watch conference live on Saturday. Usually we record it and watch it later. It was going to be a pretty busy day with a baseball tournament and football game, but we had a big storm system with lots of rain move in and settle here for awhile so the activities have all been cancelled and our day opened up. It has been a great day so far.

We have a few traditions for watching conference. The kids like to get 5 or 6 bowls with a different treat in each one, and each bowl has a word they might hear in conference like prayer, temple, Savior, ministering, etc. Then when you hear the word that goes with the bowl you can take a treat out of that bowl. I print out conference activity pages too for them to take notes on or color or do whatever activity is on the sheet while they listen, or at least sit in the room and be quiet so I can listen.

*President Nelson.

NOTES: Home centered church supported plan. We are responsible for our own spiritual growth. Parents are responsible for children.

*Elder Cook-Deepen Your Conversion

NOTES: The purpose of the meeting adjustments is to deepen personal conversation to the Savior and faith in Christ, allow more time for home focus curriculum, and continue to honor the sabbath day, do family history work, study the gospel and have FHE or family councils. New ‘Come Follow Me’ curriculum coming out, with a home study gospel plan too. Deepen personal study and testimonies and conversion, be more purposeful with our time. Family religious observance needs to be more powerful. Want to balance church and home experience. If desired you can study informally in groups together. Make homes place of spiritual strength.  New curriculum hopes to help families progress from reading scriptures to studying scriptures. Deep and lasting conversion.

The thing that stood out to me the most in his talk is how many times he said ‘deepen your conversion’. I think/worry about this a lot with my kids. I want them to have their own strong personal testimony. I am really excited about the new curriculum, it sounds like it will be really awesome. I love that everything will coordinate and work together with family study, FHE, and church classes.

*Elder Borough- We have to do hard things.

NOTES: Sometimes we are asked to do hard things, or our choices or others choices cause hard things that we have to do (ex: Nephi and his brothers).  Face hard things first by forgiving others, and second by turning our hearts to the Lord. We can and should find joy when we face hard things.

I love this. Sometimes you don’t need to be coerced, begged, rewarded, convinced, told, asked, or want to do things. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it. Life isn’t about the easiest way and we will be better and stronger by challenging ourselves.

*Elder Bangerter- Use traditions to make a strong foundation.

NOTES: We should make strong sure foundations for our lives and beliefs in CHRIST. We need to so small and simple things, they WILL make our homes sanctuaries of faith-scriptures, prayers, church, learn together, etc. Have consistent wholesome family traditions that strengthen families and build testimonies. Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it.  The things we talk, teach and preach will become us. It isn’t so important to focus on if they are ‘getting it’ in the moment as much as that it is consistently being done.

I have a lot of faith in the ‘Train up a child…” quote. Whenever we are doing something whether it is loading the dishwasher or having FHE, or sitting reverently in church and it blows up like a nuclear explosion I lean on this quote. I hope somewhere along the way we are instilling a habit or thought or something that will sink into their little heads and start growing. I like the way he said to make things we do that strengthen families and testimonies a tradition. Sometimes I get caught up in the ‘check list’ of things that we need to get done. Thinking of family prayer, or reading scriptures, or brushing teeth all together, or whatever it is that ‘has to be done’ as a family tradition is a more pleasant way to look at it. It makes it seem more doable to me.

*Elder Rasband- Overcoming Fear

NOTES: Following the prophet will relieve our fear. The promises made to us for obeying what we are told will be answered. Stand in holy places. Gods love is in his holy places (church, homes, temples) and perfect love casteth out all fear. Be of good cheer and be not troubled. Remember those that believe and follow Him on this earth and the other side of the veil are more powerful than wickedness. Trust the Lord in his promises. All promises to us will be fulfilled if we are righteous.

My fears are manifested as anxiety most of the time.  I remember hearing adults say things like they wish the second coming would just come, or it will be nice when it finally happens, and it gave me a lot of anxiety because of all the unknowns involved with that. I like my life, and it is weird and nerve racking to think of not having things the way I have always known them to be. I do believe that everything will work out and be okay in the end. It is the stuff that has to happen before he comes that is nerve racking. As far as the world going down the toilet, at this point in my life I worry sometimes but don’t focus on it to much. It is sad and I worry about the influences on my kids but the fact that it is happening is less alarming to me, more a matter of fact or sign of what we are told will happen then when I was younger. Some might think this is naive but if we keep doing what we are supposed to do and following the gospel I really do believe it will all work out like Elder Rasband said-all promises will be fulfilled.

*Elder Bednar- Individual strings put together make a strong rope

NOTES: Gospel of Jesus Christ offers the greatest perspective of truth and blessings. Shortened meeting schedule is making it available for us to enhance our Sunday study. It is to allow us to love and serve more completely. Don’t get caught up in ‘checking off the list’. Our lives are like a tapestry. As we learn and strengthen conversion, the tapestry becomes more clear and more detailed. Exercising faith in Christ is trusting and relying and following and pressing forward in him-through repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost (fourth article of faith). Each  of those things are like individual strands, when put together they make a strong rope. Promised us increased perspective, power and understanding by following and embracing these new changes.

It requires a lot of focus for me to follow him when he speaks because of his vocabulary. The way he speaks is…poetic and visual. I like the perspective he gave of all the changes that have happened over the last few decades. They aren’t random, it is all a plan to continue to move the gospel and how we understand and live it further along in His plan. I think this new change will help us be better at teaching and learning more in our homes in case it ever comes to the point we can’t meet for some reason or other.

*Elder Oaks- Eternal Truths.

NOTES: Be cautious of motivation and source of truths. Religious truth should come from prayer, revelation from holy ghost, scriptures, and modern revelation. Science without religion is ignoring part of truth. God is real and the father of everyone. Gender is eternal. The family is ordained of God. Celestial life or exaltation is ONLY possible through a temple marriage of a man and a woman. All people have been given the right to exercise their free agency. Mortal life is sacred- we oppose abortion and euthanasia. Men and women relationships, identities and functions are essential to gods plan. Nurturing children is an important responsibility of a mother and father. Opposition to these beliefs is expected but will not change them. Don’t try and change the church to your beliefs. Hold fast to what you know and wait for what you don’t know. What we know always trumps what we don’t.

Bam! This talk will be in my top favorites for the weekend I think. I loved it. As we have been reading the scriptures lately, similarities of the pride cycle and people turning their focus from the gospel seem obviously parallel to more and more of the way things are now. This seems especially true within the church itself. Granted it could have been like this when I was younger I just didn’t notice because I was young and less aware, but it seems like there are so many more people in the church diverting off on their own little path and trying to match the world more. I love that he said, ‘Opposition in our beliefs is expected but will not change them.’ Nothing in his talk was new information really but it clarified, emphasized, reminded, and reinforced that the gospel is ETERNAL and all the grumblings and wishing, hoping, whining, complaining, reinventing or flat out ignoring those truths does not and will not change them.

*Elder Christofferson- Live a gospel centered life

NOTES: Prophet Elijah tells people to choose if they believe in the Savior or not and worship Him correctly if they do. He challenges worshipers of Baal to build an alter and see who’s god would light the fire. We need to decide if the Savior is real, if the Book of Mormon is true, etc, and if it is follow the Savior and His teachings. The gospel shouldn’t be one of many influences in our lives, it should be the defining focus of our lives.

There is no more time for playing both sides. We have to decide and know what we believe then DO IT.

*Elder Davies- Follow the prophet

President Nelson is a prophet of God and he is leading His church. If we listen and follow the prophet we will have direction and purpose and peace in our lives.

A while back a friend and I were talking about a lot of the ‘hot topics’ going on at the time. I don’t remember which topic we were talking about specifically but we came to the conclusion together that a huge block in our foundation is whether or not we believe that the Prophet is called of God. If he is then when something isn’t quite clear or you are unsure you can fall on your testimony that if you are following the prophet you are going in the right direction. If you don’t believe the prophet is called of God then you are unsure of your direction. I do believe in the truth that God has a living prophet and he will never lead us astray, so when I’m not sure where to go with something I can always look to him to get my bearings and a heading. I know President Benson, President Hunter, President Hinckley, President Monson and all the other presidents before that were Prophets of God. I know President Nelson is our living prophet right now and that we will always have a living prophet on the earth until the Savior comes again.

 

There were a few more talks in the afternoon session but the same friend I had the above mentioned conversation with called me to come watch her kids while she went to have a baby at the hospital at 4:30 this morning so I could not keep my eyes open for the rest of the afternoon session, so no ‘live’ notes on those talks. For the Saturday sessions the theme that stuck out to me over and over again was the importance and focus that should be put on families working together to help each individual have a DEEP personal conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think it is going to become more and more important to be able to KNOW your beliefs and be able to stand on your own in those beliefs if necessary, and having those beliefs will continue to separate us more and more from the world.

 

 

September Memorable Moments.

  1. Emilee is sitting on the floor staring at her feet. All of the sudden she gets quite concerned and says, “Mom my toes are broken and I don’t know what happened to them.” Apparently she was trying to spread her toes and she could spread the ones on her right foot but not her left, after trying many times she was concerned they were broken. I explained to her that they were not broken sometimes you just can’t spread your toes. Every now and then I ask her if she ever got her toes fixed and she usually says something along the lines of, “No. I don’t know what is going on with those toes.”  She says it in a very matter of fact tone, like she has been putting a lot of thought into it on a regular basis.
  2. Matthew has a blanket that he fell in love with the second it touched him when he was just a few weeks old. He has slept with it since then and the think looks like it has been ‘loved’ to death. I have sewn it almost as much as I can to keep it in one piece, but it is getting pretty shredded. I went into say goodnight to him one night and was laying by him and talking for a little bit. He was twisting his blanket around in his hands and there was a lull in the conversation. Then he said, “Mom just feel this blanket, rub it with your fingers just like this, and twist it around your wrist.” I tried to do what he was showing me and he said, “Isn’t that amazing how comfortable and satisfying that feels!” He then showed me all the favorite parts of his blankets and the best way to sleep with it. I loved that he tried to explain the amazingness of his blanket to me. It made me chuckle.
  3. I was working in the yard and Emilee called me to see something. I walked around to where she was at, she was pointing at a tiny little hole she had found by the window and said she thought that is how all the flies were getting into our house. I told her I thought it was because of the door she left wide open behind her while she looked for little holes.
  4. This one isn’t even my kid but it made me laugh anyways. I went to lunch with Allison at school the other day. Towards the end of our lunch the next group of kids came in and sat down to start eating. I would guess they were second graders. As we were sitting there visiting I noticed one boy who had brought his lunch from home take the apple out of his lunch and make a ‘ewe gross’ face. Then he casually took the apple and hung it from his hand behind him as low as it would go then dropped it on the floor under the table. Allison saw it too and we both looked at each other and laughed. She knew exactly why he dropped it and thought it was hilarious. Little stinker, I should have figured out who it was and told his mom. He would have wondered how in the heck she found out. Hahaha! The mom network, that’s how! Anyway, I told Alli to just bring her food home if she wasn’t going to eat it, and we finished our lunch.
  5. Emilee has always been a momma’s girl. Being in my presence is great but we have a family joke (that is kind of true) she prefers to be physically touching me whenever possible. While this is sweet, it can be frustrating at times too. Like in church when it isn’t her turn to sit right next to me she holds her hand out in my direction and gives me ‘puppy dog eyes’ and silently sobs for all of sacrament. All day kindergarten has been a big adjustment for her. Once she is there she does fine and has a great day but bedtime before and the morning of can be a little rough. She has said things like this many times but one night it made me smile when she was being particularly dramatic and said, “Mom, I can’t go to school tomorrow. It is so long. I can’t go that long with out touching you!”
  6. Emilee is not a morning person. This was one of her funnier ways of showing us she still wanted to be in bed rather than up eating breakfast.

How many packs do you have?

So Matthew works out a lot for baseball and football and he has recently become interested in getting strong well defined muscles like his arms and his abs. The other day he was explaining his plan to turn his four pack into a six pack and then an eight pack to Ryan and I. It was a very entertaining conversation. Allison and Emilee overheard it and Allison decided she was going to get an eight pack first and then keep going until she had a twelve pack. So the past week or so we have seen a lot of sit ups and crunches and many unknown exercises that apparently strengthen your abs. The funny part is the way they talk about it, they don’t really know what they are talking about. Allison skipped up and told me that she her two pack was now a three pack after doing sit ups for thirty seconds. I play smacked Matthew in the stomach the other day when he was being a smart mouth. He quickly replied that I missed because he blocked it with one of his packs.  Emilee asks us to tell her how many packs she has all the time or just picks a random number to say she has. What a bunch of goof balls.

Matthew’s Football

Matthew decided to try football this year. It is a little crazy with practice and game schedules because he is doing baseball too. He is liking it but hasn’t taken to it as easily as other things he has tried. He is a little nervous about contact but he is getting better. His last game he recovered a fumble and scored with a touch down. He was pretty excited. We happened to be playing a team that one of his baseball team mates is on, his dad is one of his baseball coaches actually. He also likes to take pictures so he took some of Matthew for us and got some of his touchdown run too. Someday I might add becoming a better photographer to my list of things to learn to do. I really appreciate all the people that take pictures for us.

Fall FINALLY arrived!

The past few years I have noticed that I really enjoy the changing of the seasons. I am ready for the change and the different activities with each one.We were at a baseball tournament and football game a few weeks ago. The temperature was 89 but with the heat index it felt like over 100. It was so humid and stagnant. Ugg! It was like that from the beginning of September to just this week. Then we had a little rain storm and it cooled down and the next morning it had that cool crisp fresh feeling in the morning. Aaahhh! I love it.  We got the Fall decorations out, I put Mums in my planters, we have been having yummy soups for dinner, and going on walks to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Allison has decided that her new gymnastics place is better than she thought. She is progressing quickly. I felt like she was on the cusp of being able to do a lot of things for a while at the last place we went for gymnastics. I switched her to a new place I thought would be a little more aggressive in getting them to progress. I started Emilee in a class too. Allison was pretty upset at first and said it was awful and they didn’t know what they were doing. I told her to give it 6 months before she ‘insisted on switching back’. She has been there almost two months now and a few weeks ago she admitted its pretty fun. Her and Emilee both look forward to it every week. Now I am trying to get her to do the same thing for her new piano teacher.

Matthew and his friends like to play night games sometimes. Another fun Fall activity is having an evening fire pit with the neighbors and roasting some marshmallows.

We usually take turns eating dinner with Ross and Lauren at one of our houses on Fast Sunday. This month we went to their house. When we were cleaning up dishes I was wiping off a counter and when I looked up this little guy was hanging on the rim of the cabinet.  He is probably only about an inch tall. Ross got him at a white elephant party. He is a drink marker, he hangs on the edge of your cup. The one he happened to get at the party had Ryan’s name on it. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

I volunteered for a few things since school started. I am enjoying it trying some new things. I volunteered to do dental screenings at elementary schools. I go and evaluate the kids teeth and let their parents know if they need to see a dentist. I am going to be a co-leader for Emilee’s girl scout troop. That one makes me a little nervous. I think it will be fun but it is a pretty big troop-17 girls. I hope I don’t go crazy. I am helping two of the kindergarten teachers once a week with prep work stuff too-copying, laminating, whatever they need. I have a goal of helping at Harvesters Food Bank once a month too if I can. That with all my regular stuff keeps me pretty busy. I like it.

That’s right!

Today I took apart my dryer and fixed it. That’s right, you read that correctly. I took it apart, fixed it, and put it back together. I didn’t have any extra parts when I was done either. Booyah! High five for myself.

September Happenings.

Wow! The last few weeks have flown by. School and activities and other things are in full swing now. There is always something going on.

We finished the last weekend in August off by going to The Great Wolf Lodge for Aaron’s birthday. We had a great time! We tried all the slides, all the pools, and tried almost every kind of ice cream by the time we were done. Matthew was done around 3 after a full day of swimming. We had to drag the girls away at 4 to get back in time for baseball practice. Six hours of swimming wasn’t enough.

Allison and Matthew seem to have adjusted to school and handle their schedules pretty well. Emilee is still struggling a little bit. She seems to have a little bit of separation anxiety. She was nervous but doing okay, until last Friday I left her crying on the curb at school and thought she was going to follow me home. A teacher helped her make it to class but her teacher said it was a rough start to the day. Monday I walked her into class. The rest of this week I told her if she was a brave girl and got out of the car everyday this week and walked in like a big girl, I would come eat lunch with her on Friday. That worked pretty good. I think that will be our deal for the next couple weeks. Once she gets there and going she does great and has a good day. It is just hard to wake up and go in the mornings. We invited a friend Laney over today that she met in class. They are pretty good buddies and she lives just around the corner so that will be nice to have a friend close by.

Emilee having a hard time accepting it is time to wake up and get ready for school.

Emilee went to a birthday party last week and was so excited to tell me that she got to fight Darth Vader with a purple sword when she got home. I love it when kids get so excited over fun simple things like that.

Last week was really rainy so football and baseball were canceled and moved to this week. That makes this week extra busy, but Matthew had his first football game last night. His coach has been talking with him about needing to be more aggressive and commit to his tackles more. He has been struggling with that and getting pretty frustrated. Last night at his game he was not going to play to much because his coach wanted him to get a little better at tackling first. Another player broke his arm at school so Matthew took his place. He is still a little timid but he did better than he has ever done at tackling. He took a couple people down and evaded a couple tackles. He was pretty proud of himself, so were we and so was his coach. His coach told him he figured out Matthew was a little surprise he wasn’t expecting.

I was going through some papers the other day and I found this little note that Matthew wrote for his dad. Every year on Matthew’s birthday they have a race because Matthew thinks he is faster than Ryan and Ryan has to prove he isn’t.  Matthew wrote this for Ryan to intimidate him before their next race. Hahaha!

Matthew’s intimidation note to Ryan.

My birthday was nice. Ryan gave me an Apple Watch, it is pretty handy. He said I have no excuse for not answering or texting him back quickly now. I spent the day reading and relaxing and watching chick flicks. I went to lunch with some friends and we went to dinner as a family. The kids cleaned my car really well for my present. It was at my request and it is still a work in progress but they said they would get it done by this weekend. I watched a movie called, ‘All About Steve’ as part of my relaxing. It has Sandra Bullock in it, who I really like. The reviews were not good but I decided to watch it anyway and it was hilarious. It was supposed to be more ridiculous humor, and it must have been right up my alley because I was laughing a lot. It was a nice day. I did notice that most people asked me how young I was, instead of how old I am. I’ll take that as a sign that I am starting to head more towards the ‘older’ category instead of the ‘younger’ category.

I started the next phase of repainting my house. I picked the colors when we bought it and I still like them but the builders painted with flat paint. So I have been gradually repainting everything with a better paint when the wall gets so dirty that I can’t stand it anymore. I really hate painting, but I love a freshly painted wall. Especially one that I can wash when it get dirty. I also put most of my Fall decorations up. Not my Halloween yet, just Fall. I love Fall. I love being able to sit out on the porch and relax and enjoy the weather. I love that the Holidays are getting ready to start too.

Allison is really liking gymnastics. I switched where she was taking classes because she had stalled in her progression for a while. She wasn’t happy about it but I told her she had to give it a few months and she would notice lots of improvement. She has been there for about a month now, she is not complaining when I pick her up any more and she has gotten better in several areas. She is excited about it again and work on it at home a lot more. She is often doing sit-ups or arm exercises to help herself get stronger.

 

Genetics are strong.

Many years ago my two sisters came upon some stink bombs that they were very excited to put to good use. I was not living at home anymore but they filled me in later. I can’t remember what they did with all of them but I know one ended up in the 18 hole at a mini putt putt golf course and could be smelled from the parking lot, where they observed from afar and laughed their heads off. Another one ended up in my brothers room and I have been told many times since that was probably the maddest they had ever seen him. They still laughed their heads off, just at a safe distance.

Fast forward a decade or so and…

Allison wanted to do a little shopping with some of her money that she had recently acquired. It usually starts burning a hole in her pocket the second she gets it so she wanted to go to 5 Below and see what treasures she could find (5 Below is a step or two above a dollar store, but everything is $5 or less) She meandered around and eventually found the prank aisle and thought she had enough money to get a whoopee cushion, fake little pieces of poop, and a small aerosol can of ‘fart smell’. (Insert emoji slapping its forehead) Luckily, she did not have enough to get all of those things, but despite my efforts to find something not in the poop category to spend her money on she put back the whoopee cushion and took the other two up to the front to pay.

When she checked out she actually only had enough money for one. I again told her we could go find something else but she agonized for what I am sure the people behind us in line felt like was forever over her decision until finally deciding to just buy the stinky spray (insert emoji with fallen disappointed face) After making her purchase she then skipped out to the car pleased as punch with herself.

On the way home she decided to test it. I should have seen this coming but didn’t think through needing possible rules for the stinky spray before we even got home. She sprayed it in the car and immediately started complaining that it didn’t even stink and she was going to email the company and tell them ‘their fart spray stinks because it doesn’t stink.’ Mean while, I am driving the van and was unfortunately sitting in a location in front of the direction she sprayed the stuff. It did stink! It was foul and disgusting and unlike a ‘real fart’ it didn’t dissipate after a few seconds (actually got stronger), or by rolling the windows down. It was disgusting and of course Allison thought it was hilarious. I immediately laid down some ‘stinky spray rules’ (never saw that coming before I became a mom) and told her no more spraying it in the car or other enclosed spaces.

Allison is the worlds best negotiator though and she baked up some story to spray a little in Matthew’s room as a joke on him because he pulls little pranks on her all the time. I could tell this was the entire grand plan behind getting the stuff in the first place so I told her she could do it one time. Matthew does pull lots of pranks on her.

Allison decided to sneak in his room when he went down for breakfast on Sunday morning before church. She sprayed some stench in his room them came down to eat. Matthew went upstairs to shower. Alli was bouncing with excitement waiting to hear his yell, or gagging sound or something. Nothing. He showered and got dressed then came out. I figured he tried the ‘just ignore it’ tactic to make Allison mad. I forgot about it and finished getting ready in my room. Allison was not ready to just move on though. She went in his room and sprayed some more. She made up some excuse to have Matthew come upstairs to his room, which he did…nothing. Didn’t react in anyway. He went back downstairs. Allison was not to be deterred though. She sprayed more, a lot more. So much more that it came out of Matthew’s room and down the hall and Ryan started to smell it from his closet. (Side note, Ryan was not happy I ‘let’ her buy the stink spray. He said it was a ‘bad choice’ and he ‘wished I wouldn’t have let her do that’ (insert emoji rolling eyes)) He came out to see what was going on and was ‘assaulted’ by the horrible smell now filling the hall and floating down the stairs. I don’t know what reaction she wanted from Matthew but she got one from Ryan. All previous stinky spray rules were erased and a new one was put in place.

NO stinky smell sprays are allowed to be used, stored, or even brought into the house or they will be thrown away and destroyed immediately with no compensation to the owner.

Apparently bad smells make Ryan pretty grumpy. That isn’t a big surprise, he is always telling the kids, ‘Don’t be the stinky kid.’ By this time everyone was getting annoyed and gagging at the smell, except for Matthew who was down stairs with his nose in a book oblivious to everything. While I was opening windows and getting some Febreeze I asked Matthew if his book was so good he couldn’t smell the stench overtaking the house. He said, “No, but my allergies are so bad that I can’t smell anything.”  I told Allison why her prank didn’t work and she was pretty annoyed. HAHAHA!

So we finished getting ready for church and headed out the door. When we got to church Matthew came and sat between Ryan and I.  I kept catching whiffs of the smell. I guess there was some that settled on his clothes when he was in his room and hadn’t had enough time to go away yet. Alli sprayed A LOT of it.  I was making a game plan to get some smelly lotion or oils from someone to help cover the smell but by the time sacrament was over the luckily the smell was gone. By the time we got home the smell was gone from the house too. I did one more round of Febreeze in Matthew’s room so that he was safe from being the stinky kid after sleeping in his room all night. Allison’s remaining spray may or may not have been misplaced. All in all though I think she felt like it was a great purchase.