Seems like only yesterday...

Seems like only yesterday that cute little Matt was carrying around his mitt, ball and bat everywhere he went.  He even used to sleep with them!  At the time, his favorite movie was The Sandlot and he would watch it at least once a day. 

 

For years we followed Matt around the baseball diamond.  Later we added the basketball court and later still the majestic Utah mountain ranges as he broadened his horizons and added snowboarding to his ever-growing list of talents. 

 

The two hardest workers that I know are Matt and his older brother, Mason (who returned from the Ohio Columbus Mission in July 2012).  Mason started a lawn mowing business when he was 12 and Matt has always mowed right along side him.  They both saved and bought their own trucks when they were sixteen.  When Mason left on his mission, Matt held down the fort (with some help from his little brother, Connor) more than doubling the clientele, keeping up with his schoolwork and working another job that would enable him to earn a four year college scholarship upon graduation.  Here's the clincher:  During those two long years of getting up early, working late, staying up all night sometimes to finish homework, sweating, sweating, sweating in the hot Utah sun, Matt didn't pay himself from the lawn mowing business.  He wanted to make sure that there was enough in the account to help with Mason's mission and for college when he came home.  Brotherly love...

 

And now...this morning...our Stake President hit the "send" button and my little boy, my cute little Matthew is waiting for his own mission call...broadening his horizons yet again...and I'm sad.  You know that happy, ecstatic sad when you know that they are beginning a grand adventure that will change them and others forever but you can't go...and you're going to miss them...a lot.

 

So, Matthew...Go forth and conquer!  We can't wait to find out where you will serve, to hear about all of your adventures, your new friends, your ups and downs...can't wait to fast and pray for your investigators and read your emails as a family every Monday night and even though you don't think I will,  I promise, no matter where you go...

 

I will send packages!!

Here Comes the SUN!!

Did you know - according to Google, Finland only receives between four and six hours of daylight during the winter?  That is just crazy nuts!  I was raised in Alaska and I remember it would get a little light during lunch recess.  We walked to school in the dark and we walked home in the dark.  I can't remember it really bothering me too much when I was a kid but then again, it was all I knew.  I do remember loving the never ending daylight during our brief summers.  I recall my mother saying, on more than one occasion, "David?  It's two o'clock in the morning!  We've got to get these kids to bed!"  Funny how if it's light outside we think we need to be awake...and vice versa.

 

I'm currently serving as the Senior Primary Chorister (best job in the kingdom!) and our Primary pianist is serving a mission in Finland.  This week we also had the honor to host a new friend, Elder Nepia from New Zealand.  His plane arrived a day earlier than he needed to be at the MTC so we got to host him for the night.  Way fun!!  Well, it's summer in New Zealand and it is definatly NOT summer in Utah.   We decided to send them both a Box of Sunshine to help with the dark winter doldrums.  This package has been so much FUN to put together.  It's so bright and cheery!  How could you help but smile when you open this one?

 

 

I found this adorable printable (above) ready and waiting for me at olliebop.com.  CUTE!!  I printed them on card stock, cut them apart then handed them out to the Primary teachers.  The teachers had each of the kids write a short note or draw a picture to Sister Luedtke at the end of class time and then turned them back into me.  All I had left to do was tie them all together with a bow.  Ta daa!! Done.  You could easily hand these out to family, friends and neighbors instead of to a million kids.  Not everyone gets to serve in Primary.  I'm just really, really blessed.  For Elder Nepia, we just sent notes from our family.

 

 

While wandering around OllieBop.com (cute as heck site!) I also stumbled upon this free printable (above).  So, so cute and beyond perfect for the bottom of our Box of Sunshine.  Love it!  I just printed it out, trimmed the edges and put it at the bottom of our tissue lined box.  Awesome!  Thanks, OllieBop!! 

 

Now is the fun part.  Fill your box with goodies...just search for anything and everything that is yellow or orange.  Avoid reds.  It's not too long until the color scheme gets all muddy and the bright sunshiney effect starts to go away.  Note:  the green packages that you see in the background will get opened up and separated out into smaller bags (see below).  



Here's a few ideas to get your juices flowing:



Frito's Corn Chips

Cheddar Cheese Pringle's

Cheeto's

Dot's

Lemon Head's

Orange Slices

Trident Tropical Twist gum

Butterfinger

Butterscotch candies

Lifesavers "Orange" Mints

Orange flavored Tic Tac's

Quacker Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip granola bars

Starburst candies (original flavor)

Kit Kat bars

Almonds

Apricot or Peach Fruit Leather

Reese's

Ritz Crackers

Goldfish Crackers

Wheat Thin Crackers

Trisket Crackers

Skittle's Riddles

orange juice

Koolaid Orange or Lemonade mix

Crystal Light individual drink mixes

Lemonaid soda

Orange soda

Orange Crush soda

Mandarin Orange Slice soda

Lemon Cookies

Oreo Cookies - you know, the yellow ones

 

*Note:  Do NOT send fresh fruit of any kind.

 

lotion

soap

Burt's Bee's

(everything comes in that cherry yellow packaging)

shower gel

Hawaiian Breeze air freshener

(it smells just like summer...or Hawaii, I forget which)

Post it Notes

small notebook

...you get the idea.

 

 

Some of the bags of treats had way too much in them for one person and I wanted to make it easier for Sister Luedtke and Elder Nepia to share with their companions.  I made two sets of bag toppers that are designed to fit over the top of a Ziploc Snack size baggie.  I dumped all the candy into piles, divided them up into individual bags for each person, zipped them close and placed one bag topper over two candy bags and stapled them shut.  Is that as clear as mud?  Two bags of the same candy will be attached together with one bag topper.  Better?  You can download the bag topper here = click here for #1 and here for #2.  Print onto cardstock.

 

Note:  Line up the 'fold line' on the bag topper with a straight egde.

Run your finger over the edge to create a nice straight fold.

 



 

Fold the tissue over the top of your package and place a cover letter on top introducing the treasures found inside.  You can click here for the printable.  Your printable will print out as 8 1/2 x 11.  Just jot your message on a document and run the printable through your printer.  Easy peasy!!  What a FUN package to put together.

 

 

Peanut Blossom Cookies with HEART

We love Peanut Blossoms around here.  They are just plain YUM!!  Peanut butter.  Chocolate.  What's NOT to love?  Instead of topping your Peanut Blossom with a Hershey's Kiss, celebrate the season of love by using a heart shaped chocolate candy instead. 

 

This is Grandma Brown's recipe so it's tried and true and oh, so loved by everyone.  From our house to yours, we hope you and your missionary enjoy!

 

 

Peanut Blossom Cookies

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

2 Tbs milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 3/4 cup flour

48 chocolate candies, unwrapped

(like Hershey's kisses or hearts)

 

 



Combine all ingredients except the candy in a large bowl. (Yup, you heard right.  This is a 'dump and mix' recipe.  Love those!)  Mix on lowest speed of mixer until dough forms.  Shape dough into balls using a rounded teaspoon full for each. (I use a small scoop - Crestware 18/8.   It's about 1 1/4" across the bowl of the scoop.  Makes them the absolute perfect size for mailing in a can.)  Roll balls in white sugar to coat.  Place on ungreased cookie sheet (I line a cookie sheet with parchment paper so I don't have to wash it...I'm lazy like that).  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.  Top each cookie immediately with a candy kiss or other chocolate candy.  Press down firmly so the cookie cracks around the edges.

Never mailed cookies to your missionary before? 

You should really read 'A Word About Mailing Cookies' prior to baking. 

 



 



 

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is fast approaching so I thought I'd share what we sent to our missionaries and their companions last year.  (I had to save a FEW things so I'd have something to blog about after Mason came home, right?)

 

I had everything on hand for the "letter/craft" so I only needed to purchase the food items I was sending.  Overall a pretty inexpensive project and something a little different from a normal letter or email. The "letter/craft" was a little labor intensive but only because I was doing everything x4.  If you're only doing one for your missionary, you should be able to whip it up in a jiffy no problem.  If you're anything like me - time is totally an issue.

 

I found something similar to this last year on Pinterest, alas it is no longer there.  Have any of you ever lost multiple items that you've pinned.  Strange.  I would love to give credit where credit is due so if anyone has the link pinned somewhere, please drop me a line and let me know.  OK...hang onto your pants and jacket...here we GO!

 

 

Items needed:

lunch sacks

scissors

decorative scissors (optional)

glue stick or tape runner

cardstock (to match your project)

ribbon - wide (about 1" x 5")

ribbon - narrow (for pull tabs)

embellishments (optional)



 

 

Using an ordinary lunch sack, fold the bottom flap down.

 

 

Cut off the bottom flap along your fold line.  This will make your bag 'open' on both ends and when the sack is folded in half will give you "pockets" for your letters.

 

 

Trim the bottom and the top edge of the sack with decorative scissors if desired.  I desired 'cause I'm kind of a dork that way...God is in the details, right?

 

 

Fold the bag in half and glue along the two edges that weren't trimmed

thus creating your "pocket."

 

 

Now you're going to have to do a bit of math.  It's OK.  You're big.  You can handle it. 

Each sack will make at least three "pockets."  If you need space for more than three letters, then you will need an additional sack(s) which will actually give you four more "pockets" per extra sack - because the back side of the first sack and the front side of the second sack can now be glued along the edges becoming a fourth "pocket".  Still with me?

 

Once you've figured out how many sacks you need, stack them all neatly together and stitch them together using your sewing machine.  Don't worry...I needed 10 "pockets" (3 sacks) and my wimpy little sewing machine handled it just fine.

 

 

Now use a scrap of decorative ribbon and fold it over the seam edge and stitch in place.

 

Decorate.  Remember those details? 

 I just cut out a simple felt heart and used letter stamps to spell out L O V E.  Easy.

I'm sure yours will look much more beautiful.

 



 

Using white cardstock, cut to the size of the pocket. 

My lunch sacks were just the average, run-of-the-mill size.  I cut my note cards 3.75" x 4".

Using scraps of ribbon, staple "pull tabs" to the edge of each notecard.  Make sure that you gradate them so they are staggered as shown.  Embelish.

 

 

All done!  There, that wasn't too bad was it?  Way cute!



"Girlfriend? You need a business card!"

How often does your missionary come up in every day conversation? I mean seriously! What did I ever talk about BEFORE I had a missionary? Invariably I share my blog ideas and pick their brain for their ideas. I get so excited! I am really a nut about my missionary but it truly does make the time go by faster when I am thinking up ways to make their day brighter rather than thinking about how much I miss my little boy...

 

Personally, I think my blog title is a fairly simple one but I guess it can be quite a mouthful and might be a little tricky to remember all the way home from wherever we met soooooo...one day after repeating the title, then repeating it again, and then writing it down I thought, "Girlfriend? You need a business card." So here it is...

 

 

While watching the last General Conference on TV, a commercial came on for Vistaprint.com They make business cards and other business forms so I jotted down the web address and tossed it on the desk.  Today while going through the 'never-ending-plethora-of-miscellaneous-papers-that-seem-to-congregate-on-my-desk' pile, I came upon the web address.  Well, there's no time like the present (and in all honesty it distracted me from the 'never-ending-pile...')  The site was amazing and easy to navigate. There seemed to be millions of templates for any kind of business form you can imagine.  Each template is easy to manipulate with full editing capabilities and the price was awesome starting as low as $9.99 for 250 cards.  Need a new business card?  Here's a link for $5 off your order.  http://vistaprint.tellapal.com/a/clk/VTz21  Now...back to the pile.



Heart Attack!

My current ward calling is Primary Chorister...it is also my all-time FAVORITE calling.  My Primary Pianist is currently serving a mission in Finland and the Primary kiddos have had so much fun sending "our" missionary bits of LOVE to show our support.

For Valentine's Day we sent her a "Heart Attack!"  So much fun and SO incredibly EASY.  I went to my local craft store and used their die-cut machine to cut out tons and TONS of hearts.  This is usually a free service but sometimes you have to buy the paper through the craft store in order to get it for "free" so you might want to check first.  When scrapbooking was all the rage, you used to have to sign up for a time slot but that hasn't been a requirement at my craft store for quite some time now.  Better safe than sorry...a few minutes on the phone could save you some pennies/dollars as well as time driving back and forth.  The paper that I brought with me was in a pad that had a variety of Valentine paper to choose from.  I just cut as many hearts as I could from each sheet of paper.  You can usually load the die-cut machine with 2-3 sheets at a time depending on how old (sharp) the die is.  Make sure that the paper is only one-sided so that you and the kiddos can write personal messages to your missionary on the other side.

In Primary* I passed out the hearts to the teachers and they used the very end of class-time to write letters or draw pictures to our cute Sister Luedtke.  At home I lined a small box (VHS size available at the Post Office) with tissue paper, put in our "Love Notes," filled in the spaces with loose Valentine candy, folded the tissue over and topped it all off with a cute note card.  See?  Told 'ya it was easy!

(click here to download the "Heart Attack" note card

with a slightly different font 'cause the original was having "issues")

*NOTE:  You don't have to be in Primary to make this care package be a huge hit.  Just take hearts to neighbors, friends and extended family and have them write personal messages to your missionary.

4th of July

Dear Reader:  My wholehearted apologies...I started this post ages ago and thought I had posted it.  Alas, I had not.  I am a slacker!  Slap me silly with a wet, soggy noodle and consider yourself way ahead of the game with tons of ideas for NEXT year's 4th of July festivities.

The kids helped me get a 4th of July package together for our missionaries - my son, his girlfriend and my parents.  Wow!  I can't believe it's July already.  Mason comes home in just a few very short weeks.  We are so excited around here...but also just a little sad.  I will miss having a missionary BUT we still have my parents and his "friend that's a girl but not his girlfriend" so I will still try my best to come up with creative, fun package and letter ideas.

This one is oh, so easy to pull together.  Red, white and blue everything.  Grab some festive patterned or plain paper/card stock and some coordinating tissue paper and you're good to go.

Suggested Contents:

small flags

Cracker Jack

Firecracker Cookies

(see recipe below)

*place cookies in an empty Pringle's Chip can

Red Licorice

Cinnamon Bears

Peanuts

Pistachio's

Hershey kisses

Salt water Taffy

Peppermint swirls

football

Frisbee

squirt guns

Patriotic ties

...is that enough to get your creative juices flowing?

Firecracker Cookies:

I found the recipe for these delicious cookies on Pinterest (of course!) from the Cookin' Cowgirl.  They were so easy to whip up and look so festive for the holiday.  The recipe calls for an 18.25 oz. box of cake mix.  I don't know about your local grocer but mine only carries the 15.25 oz. size.  I added an extra 1/4 cup flour and they turned out just perfect.  The recipe also calls for lots and lots of sprinkles that are added to the cookie batter.  Each container was $2.49...yikes!!  And I needed 6 of them because I was making a double batch.  I grabbed two and headed to the bakery to see if they had any that I could buy.  They had a mix of red, white and blue stars.  One cup for .99 ...score!!

Firecracker Cookies:

1 box French Vanilla cake mix

     (18.25 oz. size or 15.25 oz. and 1/4 cup flour)

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup red sprinkles

1/2 cup blue sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, mix together cake mix and baking powder.  In another bowl, mix together eggs, oil and vanilla.  Combine mixtures and blend.  Stir in the sprinkles and drop by rounded teaspoon or small cookie scoop* onto a greased or parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool completely.  Place inside a clean Pringle's potato chip canister that you have covered in colored/patterned paper.  Reseal.

*I use a #60 scoop (the higher the number the smaller the scoop)



More ideas to spark your creative genius:

Do you prefer Red Vines or Twizzlers?  Either way, these are so CUTE!!

Candy Rockets

    

 

Lifesaver Fire Crackers

Iced Sugar Cookies

"Oh Snap!"  bag topper for Poppers

Patriotic Pretzel Rods

Patriotic Popcorn

Firecracker Favors

(with free printable)



Stars & Stripes bag topper

(with free printable)