Catching Up with Pics!

This is what happens when you leave your "just turned 12" year old son home with 4 crazy kids while you get out of the house with your sweetie for that much needed alone time.

They will get a lesson in how to repair a broken window the following day. At $200 a lesson, not bad for a night out!

Landon {the youngest} threw a shoe at Aiden {the next in line} and Aiden ducked! We've now taught Aiden not to duck and take it like a man. :)

This is Troy and Dallin at the amusement park with some Costa Rican spending cash, a little under $20.00. I failed to mention earlier that not only is the park inexpensive but so is the food! You can get a HUGE drink for about $1.75. Not too shabby! Most entertainment here is inexpensive. Movies are $4.00 for adults. NICE! {Especially when you are carting around a familia of 7.

Speaking of cart {did you get that lead in to the next pic? hee, hee} Here my kids are on a traditional Costa Rican cart.

I'm thinking of getting one for us. What do you think? I believe they don't try and charge the 80% vehicle tax on these.

Gotta love this! I don't know if you can see all of my "boys" but it starts with Wes in the far left, Troy, Dallin, and Aiden. They all slept over at Rusti's and this is the shot she got in the morning.

Have a great day everyone!!!

Some More Pics...

of our little get away. We all had so much fun!!!! This shot was taken right as we got there. The weather was just beautiful and believe it or not, not too HOT. Can I kiss the feet of the "woman" who thought to make a stroller into a car! Please, I love ya!!!
Paige having a blast on one of the kiddie rides. She is my little dare devil, who would have guessed, huh? She went on absolutely everything she could, and as you can imagine, the height restrictions here are lower. You would faint at some of the rides they deem safe for little ones.
My only girl, what a sweetie {when I'm not trying to force math on her}. "Love ya, Paigee pooh!"
Landon thought a ride was too loud. Quite ingenious to use what he already had on hand, his ears.

Dallin, again playing the survivor man and trying to catch dinner.

In The Mood for Chocolate Pudding...

here's a little tip.

Of course you are using the Jello brand that you cook.  I know none of my friends would stoop to the instant pudding.  

Right?

So when you are adding the milk, use half canned condensed milk and half regular milk.  Oh, you'll never go back.  It's so much thicker and creamier and if you put it in the fridge to get cold, it won't separate and get watery like it does with 100% regular milk.

Just a little tip from little ol' domestic me.  :)

Enjoy!

We Had a GREAT time...

this weekend. Rusti has a rental house in San Jose {about a 2.5 hour drive} from here. We packed up our stuff, rented a car, and left. Did I mention we rented a car? I'm not sure I did.

WE RENTED A CAR!!

Yippe!!! It was the most exciting part of the trip for me. No, I'm just kidding.

Actually I'm not!

We haven't bought a car here {yet} because with the 80% tax, I really didn't feel like paying almost double for a vehicle. I did decide to keep our rental car for another day after we came home. Heck, it's only $35 a day, and I couldn't believe the freedom that $35 bought.

I even went to the hardware store and bought PVC pipe and connecters to make a mini closet for my boys. Remember, closets are a rare commodity here. How much fun is that?!?!?! Whew, relax Shawna.

Baby CASH should be here in about 8 weeks. We are so EXCITED!!!!

This is Landon riding the kiddie train, although he took the faster roller coaster quite well too. {Better than Aiden} One of our stops was to San Jose's amusemnt park, better than Disneyland in my view. Not as elaborate but I didn't have the constant nagging feeling of being ripped off. Only $10 to get in with unlimited rides. Very nice.
Before we dropped off my sweetheart we stopped and fed the ducks. I forget how nice {and CHEAP} it is to do this.

The main reason for going to San Jose was to drop Wes off at the airport for a Miami business trip. So in the 48 hours he has been gone, we've had the internet disappear forever, a large earthquake, my house flood and 2 pipes burst. Oh the adventure!

We are off...

on a little {much needed} trip. We are getting out of dodge, as they say.

I thought I'd post 1 more of my "organizing" ideas.

Since doing our laundry is such a difficult task for us right now, I get so {irritated} concerned when I wash towels that don't look or smell dirty. Sometimes they even make it into the laundry pile still folded. I'm sure none of you women out there know what I'm talking about.

So I painted each of my kid's names on a towel. It's been great, I now know who left their damp towel mushed up on the bathroom floor. Hee.. Hee! {said with a crackling witch voice}

And the kids get this towel for the week! Yep, you might find that unhealthy, but I've found if you hang it up to air dry, the towel is actually still nice, even by Friday. It might be the heat here that drys everything so fast. Either way, this is it, all they get.

Already my laundry pile is down about 2 loads, and hey, I'll take that!!!!

If I lived in the states I would call my friend Linda Burgess who has a embroidery company out of her home {I'm not sure if that is true yet, but the business women in me has tried to push her into it} and have her embroider my kid's names on their towels. When Dallin was baptized, I had her embroider his name and baptism date along with a "choose the right" logo on it. It turned out awesome.

So there you go. I hope your Friday is going well and wish you all a moment of bliss today.

Court is in session...

please come to ORDER!

We {I} am finally getting my hind end in gear. It's almost like I'm nesting {though, NO, I'm not pregnant.} That rumor already went flying around my home base, Riverside, a few months back. I might
be getting those desires while watching Rusti rearrange her house.

We have been in desperate need of change here and since my most desired form of change {moving} looks like it might be farther off than I'd hope {yesterday}, something else has to budge. So I have created forms. Yep, you saw my dinner plan form a few weeks ago, now I have a cleaning schedule, house of order plan {rules}, home school schedule, monthly planner, and my most prized, a Family Home Evening planner with an odd and even month so that we all rotate evenly. Tahdah!!!!!


O.K. now I'll get down off my chair and put my arms down, but hey, "isn't this GREAT kids?!?!"

Oh the groans that can come out of their mouths. Amazing.

In fact tied for first place with my FHE planner, would be my House of Order Form. It's just a nicer way to say, "Our Family Rules".

Instead of saying "We will not lie", I stated, We will tell the truth." All of our rules are what we WILL do not what we WILL NOT do. I like to concentrate on the positive.

I had just finished typing out our 11 rules and pushed print when Paige grabbed the list out of our printer before it was done and left it smeared and wrinkled. I raised my voice {ever so slightly, ahemm} and realized the list was incomplete. I then added "We will speak softly to one another" and had to giggle.

Since then I have added 2 more rules:

We will treat animals with respect &
We will not put our bodily fluids or gasses in other's spaces. (I had to do a NOT in this one)

So when my sweet, adoring little ones disobey one of these rules they get to write them 25 times, (give or take their age and the situation) Let's just say Troy has that second one down pat today!

The other one they've written a lot of is "We will complete our responsibilities without being reminded". Thank heavens for our "Family House of Order Plan", now all I say is give me 25 of number 7, you haven't done your dishes yet. :)

It is so much better than, "Did you do your dishes?" "Where's Dallin?", "Why aren't your dished done?" "I've now added another day." "Anybody know where Dallin is???"

Dallin has added so many days of dishes that instead of having them for a week, it's been over 5 weeks! See my problem with the previous system?

IT'S NOT WORKING!"

So here's to implementing new systems.

I forgot to mention that I made all these charts on 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper, put them into a 3 ring binder, bent it backwards so it stands like a presentation on our kitchen table and we can easily flip through each plastic protected chart. Oh, life is good.

Happy days are here again....
If you want a copy of any or all of these, just email me and I'll shoot it over.

Enjoy your day!!!

It's Family Night...

Tonight is our "service" family home evening.

{For those of you who don't know, every Monday night we make sure not to plan anything so we can be together as a family, hence the title, Family Night or Family Home Evening.} If you want a great place to get more family night ideas you can go HERE or my FAVORITE place LDS Living Magazine. I love LDS Living Magazine because they not only have great lessons, but they have a scripture, thought, object lesson, story and directions for dessert. Does it get easier than that?

So tonight we're having our "service" family night. We are making these DELISH homemade doughnuts and then delivering them to some of the families here.


I believe I have posted this before but I'm going to give you my FAMOUS {in my own mind} doughnut recipe.

First for the dough you can either buy a pre-made biscuit dough, use your favorite bread dough recipe or use mine.

Shawna's Homemade Bread Dough

in your bread machine pan add the following:
1 cup of warm water
2 teaspoons of yeast
3 tablespoons of sugar

Stir a few times and let sit for 10 minutes.

Now add
3 cups of flour
1/4 cup of oil
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Now push the dough setting on your breadmaker and in 1.5 hours, it's done.

How's that for easy?

Now flour the counter slightly and roll the dough out to about an inch think. Dip your large cup into flour and cut out the doughnut shape. Now find a smaller size to cut out the doughnut hole. (I used a lid from a container in my bathroom {which I washed thoroughly!}

Lay them out on a cookie sheet and let them rise for 15 minute in a slightly warm oven. (only if you use bread dough)

Heat oil in a small pot on your stove, about 4 inches high. My burner goes from 1-6 and I cook between 4-5) Carefully place your doughnut in the hot oil and rotate from front to back until dark golden. Then place on your cookie rack {that is on top of your cookie sheet}

Now, what makes these doughnuts so YUMMY is the topping. I got this from Pioneer Women Cooks, it's her recipes for her homemade brownie topping.


Melt 1 3/4 sticks butter in a saucepan.
Add 4 tablespoons cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat.
Add:
6 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lb minus 3/4 cup powdered sugar
{here I add a little less powdered sugar than it calls for, you want the topping to easily adhear to the doughnut without being too watery that it doesn't stick}

Stir together then dip doughnuts into topping. Put sprinkles or chopped nuts on top if you'd like and ENJOY!!

Happy Family Night!!!!

I have Been Humbled...

Last night I grabbed one of the "free" tico newspapers around here, flipped through the pages and was stunned by a photograph.

It was a picture of a little girl about the age of my little girl, sick and miserable in a petite dirt floored hut. What got me was her younger brother, maybe 5, holding a cloth to her head taking care of her. I don't know where their mother was. The desperation in his face was not a trait a 5 year old should even know how to portray.

I was emotionally humbled and glad that I couldn't read the words depicting more of their situation. The 1,000 {words} the photograph released was all I could bear.

It categorized my previous {whinny} post, irrelevant!

My friend Costa Rica has painfully schooled me again. I do have it all. Our living conditions are bearable and even if we complete our entire stay here, I will be FINE.

Last night during prayers, I scratched off my once important desire for a bigger place, and replaced it with a simple plea for these 2 children battling the world.

I wonder what God thinks when he hears our prayers sometimes.

I'm Trying to Be Patient...

but sometimes it's so hard! We have been living in a "very appreciated" but tiny place for the last 3 months. {actually 94 days, 17 hours and 32 no, 38 seconds} But who's counting?

In fact I told my sweetheart not to tell me the actual square feet we were living in, I knew it would make it more tough. My theory is similar for the birthing process, "No I don't want to "see" are you crazy? Then I'll really be in pain!!!"

So for these 90 days I've managed the niceties that are attached to living here. I won't go in to them or you have no option but to either consider me not tough enough or shutter in utter sympathy to my plight. Let's leave it as life has been interesting. So interesting that the internal timer inside me went off and I announced to the love of my life that our time here {in this house} is done!!!

Now when I'm ready to move along, I'm ready. I get things done! Now. That's just how I work. Costa Rica however has a different plan. She continues to teach me qualities like PATIENCE.


This is the house we almost rented. That is until they found out we have 5 children. What a let down!! Not that I have 5 kids, I've known that for awhile. :) But to have DENIED stamped on our parental foreheads, yeah, that was tough. I've been dreaming of the dishwasher, large fridge, nice bathrooms, space, cupboards, closets {yes a closet!!!} space, bathroom cabinets, washer and dryer, ohhh, somebody stop me!!!!

Well, that was last month. Now we have been set back on yet another moving opportunity. We were so close too. I've learned not to get my hopes up until I have moved in the first blue bin of clothes.

So this is my mission now, to quickly learn whatever it is I need to learn from this house, then get mine, my kid's and my honey's rear ends out of here as quickly as possible!!!

For me it's a gringo house or BUST!!! {literally}

Last Sunday...

was a memorable day for our family. Our oldest received the priesthood. {Love the "corny" pose he did for me!}
Boy 12 years have flown by {even though at times, the minutes seemed to take hours}. I have been so impressed with this child of mine. He has many leadership qualities already built in to who he is. It has been difficult yet exciting to watch him become more independent from Wes and I.

Here is a shot of Wes, Troy and Dallin. {Hey Dallin, what's going on with your shirt buddy? }




We grabbed a quick photo of all of us after church.


Here is really how the photo went.
I had to post this. We all have these, right? Paige is having a little temper tantrum, Wes is saying something to the effect of, "you better smile right now missy!" {yeah, that always works!} and Landon is planning his escape. But we are a FAMILY and this is the best we can do sometimes.

I need to apologize here for my lack of substantial posts lately. I can blame it on the Internet being out for a week, my new (part time job) or the funk I've been in. I haven't decided yet. I'll let you know.

Last Sunday we also had our primary program. For those of you who don't know it's when the young kids age 3-11 speak and sing during our main meeting and let the congregation know what they've been learning all year.
{Here is our little CREW, aren't they just the cutest?}
I mentioned earlier that I was the music leader. Let's talk about that a little. Me, the one who just learned {sorta} how to lead music by opening the back of the hymnal and trying to follow the tutorial. Me, the one who doesn't really know ANY Spanish. Me, the one who just came in to the primary presidency and hasn't been around as the kids have been learning the songs.

Well I had two other options, 1 to play the piano {peter peter pumpkin eater is all I know} or 2, to help the children read their parts, in Spanish.

So that is how I became the music leader. Everything went off without a hitch, pretty much.

Paige decided to act like she had stage fright when it was her turn to speak and boy did she ham it up! She batted her eyes nervously, looked around like she was scared, moved the microphone away from her and got tears to well up in her eyes. It was a show stopper folks. She was amazing. It surely was an award winning performance. She stayed up there enjoying her time in the spotlight for about 3 {very long} minutes, before I had to go up and relieve the situation. {So much fun for me}


Here is a pic I took facing the back of our {vomit comet} bus. We still had a few more patrons to fit in, usually we have standing room only by the time we pull up to our beautiful chapel.

I do love you BUS, even though I tease you often. I promise to be a better friend from now on.

Welcome Missionaries!!!!

On Troy's birthday {2 weeks ago} we had our missionaries and the missionaries that serve in the Quepos area {about an hour south of us} over for a special "P" day. Their entire district was getting together the month before for a temple and movie experience. Because of a situation beyond their control, they were the only four missionaries who missed out. Bummer.

So, their mission president agreed to let them spend their P-day with us, definitely not as great as a reward, but they were smart to take what they could get!

They played football in the rain & mud with my older two boys while waiting for my honey to arrive.
Did I mention we have the BEST missionaries?

They had permission to watch Disney's "Remember the Titans", which is one of our top 5 favorite movies and we happened to bring it with us here. {Of course when it came time to show it, we had to rent it because somehow we misplaced it!} I need to mention that Remember the Titans is the "motivational" movie for our Costa Rican missionaries here. They use the {awesome} quotes to motivate each other, and that is why they got permission to watch it.
It was so funny, when they first arrived, one elder said, "Sweet!!! We are in a gringo home!" That really hit me funny. To hear someone so excited to be in our {tiny} home and see it as an awesome experience for them. WHAT!?!?!

O.K. lesson learned, it's all about perspective. I needed to change my perspective. So I squinted and struggled...

but my perspective is still the same. I'm glad I have a roof over my head, but I strongly dislike this house. :)

When I asked Elder Howell what food he wanted, he stated, "anything from the states". So that is what I served! We had "homemade" corn dogs, pizza, nachos, Cinnamon rolls, french fries and chocolate malts. They ate, and ate and ate. Anytime I put something down, it was gone!!! I kept thinking that soon they wouldn't be able to fit anymore food in.

I was wrong, whatever I put down, they ate!

I don't know how they did it but somehow they managed to play ping pong on our kitchen table when the movie was over.

So to the mother's of these 4 wonderful young men I say, "Thank you for being brave {and wise} enough to let them serve the Lord here in this land. {not that at their age you could stop them} We love having them in our home! They are a shining example that not only is missionary work hard, but it's fun too. Very important for my boys to see. I have the most respect for you and will do my best to keep an eye on your {babies} sons.

Our Monkey Friends...

The pictures you are about to see don't do our experience justice! It was amazing. Thanks to Chino {who speaks very good English I might add}. Last Saturday we hopped on a 20 seater boat and headed out to see our monkey friends. We had to search for them for quite awhile before we hit jackpot. The kids didn't mind, the boat ride brought lots of other interesting insects and animals into our view.
Landon is holding a grasshopper made out of palm frond. {is that spelled right?} He wouldn't let it out of his site. Funny how the youngest of 5 learns the rule, "you put it down, it's fair game" so quickly. Landon loves his aunt Rusti.
Here I am with my "Hayley Mills" bangs. {remember her from the "old" parent trap?} Her bangs would curl up and it used to bug me the way it looked. {I love Hayley Mills though} Now I've inherited her bangs. It drives me crazy!!!
Please forgive my rudeness...let me introduce you. These are the white faced monkeys otherwise known as the Capuchin monkey. You can learn more about them on wikipedia, but I'm to tired today to link it for you. Please forgive...again. They are so cute and friendly. We fed the alpha male a banana first, then we were safe to feed the rest. They climbed all over the boat...over us...and seemed to really love Landon's hair. I've got incredible video to show you...funny thing is my expensive video camera doesn't "bond" with my Mac computer. That's the first time I've said..."doesn't work with my MAC". It's been a difficult concept for me.

So hopefully in a few weeks I will have video footage for you also.

Arrissa, the kid's cousin just did a report in school on these beautiful monkey's. "Hi Arrissa!" from Troy, Dallin and Paige.