Friends, Food and Activity Days

One of our goals this year is to go out on more double dates with friends so that we can get to know them better. With that in mind, we made plans to go to dinner with Bronson and Wendy Brown from our ward. I specifically wanted to go to Applebee's this time because it was close to my birthday, and I wanted the Sizzlin Butter Pecan Blondie.  It's a blonde brownie that comes out on a hot plate with ice cream and pecans on top. It was so good! I was willing to share but Wendy and Curtis only took one bite each and Bronson declined, so I got the rest. Happy early birthday to me! I did really good on my eating that day so that I could have my dessert. 

Wendy and Bronson Brown. He is a counselor in our bishopric. They are also one of the of the people who gave us a boat ride last summer. Super nice people!

One nice thing about having a glass screen door on our front door is that even on super cold days, we can open our front door but leave the glass door closed when the sun is directly coming through the glass, and it will help warm our house up. The girls, Sage and Milo all hung out on the stairs after we got home from church last Sunday. 

Reading their new books that someone gave away at church.

Milo loves to sit on the stairs even when there's no sun.

Monday was my first official day as an activity day leader. There are now 3 leaders which is great because there are so many girls! We have 15 on the list and most of them came on Monday. A few of them brought friends, so we had our hands full, but it was fun. Since no one had school because of the holiday we made it an hour longer because they never seem to have time to finish everything they try to do. We started this activity out with the girls painting their own picture frames where they will hang little affirmation notes. On the back they attached an envelope with more notes so they can switch them out. While the frames were drying, we played a game. Curtis helped me make a "Get to Know You Bingo" game. They had to go around the room and ask the other girls if they did something that was written on the Bingo card and then write their name down for whoever has. After they got a Bingo and got at least 5 different names on the paper they won a treat. When the game was done, we all went to the kitchen to have a snack and then I grabbed one of the Bingo sheets and just went over each one on the paper to see who had done each thing by raise of hand. We had some extra time, so the girls went back to the gym to play some other games.

Here's Alice with her frame.

And Charlotte with her frame.

I'm not sure what we're going to do for our next activity but that will be a week from tomorrow. I'm sure Sister Gale has ideas already and I'll have to ask her. 

Tuesday the kids were back to school, and I saw in the forecast that we would be getting snow, possibly 5-8 inches by the weekend. The first snow was supposed to arrive on Wednesday, so I decided I better get a dinner menu made and go shopping. I was able to go after the boys got home and before it got dark. I went to Costco first and then to WinCo. It feels so much better when I have a dinner menu made and shopped for instead of winging it all of the time. And I feel better to have food ready for when the weather gets bad, and I don't want to drive in it.