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.

These are a few of my Favortie Things...

I thought you'd enjoy seeing a picture of some of the things my sweetheart brought back for me from the states. "Well, at least you could pretend you are interested!" {Oh. please excuse me, I thought I was talking to my pre-teen} My mom used that sentence on me a few times. I feel it's my ancestral duty to pass it along to my little ones.

The book is by Sheri Dew, "God needs a Powerful People". I loved her book entitled "No On Can Take Your Place". Great book. {It's 1 am my time and that's the closest you are going to get to a book review}

I had him bring back 3 cans of Comstock Cherry Pie Filling. Get this, they charge over $8.00 per can here!

Pick yourself up off the floor!

Can you believe it!?!?!?! I have a delish cherry cheesecake recipe I'll share with you soon. But at $16.00 just for the topping, my famous dessert wasn't ever going to make it to our table. {We really have 4 cans but 3 photographed better}

I requested Raid fumigator because, yes I'll admit it, we have cockroaches. And not the tiny little ones from the states, but the 4-5 inch ones that make everyone here head for higher ground in .2 seconds flat! Even Paige my "bug hunter" gets out of the way.

My honey brought "MILK" chocolate chips. 2 bags even! Most of you know how picky I am with my chocolate chip cookies. I like them perfect! I makes me feel closer to my mother since hers were always perfect. In order to make them perfect, I have to have milk chocolate. I'm not a fan of semi-sweet. Who would want to be semi anything? Always do things 100% !

Above the {MILK} chocolate chips is my breakfast secret. Crumbled, home cooked bacon, that I didn't have to cook. You can find this large bag at Costco or Sam's Club and it's worth the money. I am a supporter of the homemade breakfast before school {work} and this makes life so much easier for me.
===================== ======== ======Opps, forgive me, I was daydreaming of the days my kids trotted off to public school.

So, once opened, keep the bag in the refrigerator and anytime you cook scrambled eggs, omelets, egg skillets and such sprinkle them in the mixture. Your family still gets the bacon, you save money, time and bacon house smell!

I also have brown sugar {it just isn't the same here}, deodorant {do I need to explain?}, bleach pen {I'm going to draw some designs on my shirt that has a stain on it. See if I can make the stain look cool} and erasable pens {they are supposed to be easier for kids to write with than pencils}.

So have a GREAT week everyone! And if you see my AWESOME friend MaryAnn, wish her a happy birthday today!

Friends and Food Storage

Well, we have started our Costa Rican food storage. It consists of these humongous bags of rice and beans. When we first arrived my son Troy couldn't stand rice and beans {a main staple of most 3rd world countries}. Now he LOVES them. He loves them with eggs for breakfast, by themself or with chicken for dinner. He does not love them with sour cream which is how they eat it here. It's so yummy. { I wonder if when your kids are adults you just automatically stop using words like "yummy", "owie" & "tummy".} Humm...

I want to introduce you to a friend of ours. Everyone say hello to Gene. "Hello Gene!"

Gene is our bus driver. Yes he owns and drives the vomit comet. The bus is used for his business but he so kindly uses it on Sunday to take those of us who would otherwise have to take a taxi (or not come). I'm sure you like him already!

He is a card. Gene loves to mess around with everyone and is well liked. He lives part time in the states the other here in Costa Rica. When he isn't here, Wes gets to transport everyone in the VC.

Gene decided to surprise us with a succulent roasted chicken for our Sunday meal. WOW! A man that can cook. Yaowzers!!

Needless to say, we had a wonderful meal. I even pulled out all the stops and turned over our silk curtain and used it as a tablecloth. Fancy huh?

Anyone want to cone to dinner?

Desperate times call for Desperate Measures

I just designed this {beautiful, family harmonizing} quote to go on the inside of my toilet lid. My friend Christina owns a vinyl lettering business and is creating this for me. Isn't it cute??? When you have 5 males living in your home, sometimes it just comes down to this!

If you need a similar reminder in your home, go to her website and email her and let her know.

Mother's of BOYS, unite!!!

{I'll post pictures when it's all set up!}

Found My Camera Battery...

Whew! I'm so relieved!!! Of course it was exactly where I put it just hidden under 10 rolls of paper towels. What a crime to be a photographer, in Costa Rica, without a camera.

So watch out, I will probably bombard you with pictures these next few weeks.

I've started working with parents that are struggling with teens addicted to drugs. It's tough but I feel like I'm helping.

So here is my work station. It's about 2 feet wide and in between my fridge and microwave. I had to laugh when Landon decided to do my work for me.

Then of course Aiden wants to pose for a photo op!

We have had trouble with our 2nd bathroom {we added on a few months ago} so the boys couldn't sleep in their room for a few days. We dragged their mattress out into our {large, hee, hee} living area and made do. I couldn't help but take a picture of where Aiden felt most safe at night.
Here you can see how Costa Rica living has made it's way into my children's imagination. Here are Paige's princess dolls in a "sparkly" carriage being pulled by lizard. I love finding things like this around the house. I once opened my microwave and found the power rangers duking it out inside. The joys of motherhood.