YOUNG WOMEN IN EXCELLENCE

Key Lime Pie is truly an amazing Young Woman! She is only 13 years old and has already finished five projects (out of eight) of the Personal Progress program. She is in progress with the remaining three. She scrapbooked each project and was able to display her talents and accomplishments for Young Women in Excellence this evening.There are some things every young woman needs.
#1 GOOD FRIENDS! Applesauce is one of Key Lime Pie's best friends in Kentucky! We are so glad she is in our lives!
Good friends are friends who make you a better person. And these young women do! From left to right: Applesauce, Nettie, Key Lime Pie, and Maple Syrup. #2 ROLE MODEL
Nettie is an amazing Young Woman. She is a senior in high school and will be leaving for college soon... but my daughter looks up to her sooooo much! I'm glad! I couldn't pick a better role model for her to emulate!#3 GREAT LEADERS
Roxy Shiffer and Karen Dupre are AMAZING leaders! Key Lime Pie loves them!#4 GOALS!
We loved this quote next to the temple: "If this is not your castle, then you are not my prince!" The temple is an important goal in Key Lime Pie's life! She has such a fabulous testimony of the gospel! We are blessed to have her in our life!

Tonight was wonderful. I'm grateful for the Young Women's program! I'm grateful Key Lime Pie has such great opportunities!

FINISHED

My novel is written! I completed my 50K words last night. It was not easy. There were times when I felt that the best part of my novel was the page numbering.

I have a new found appreciation for novelists now. As I walked through the book section of our local Walmart yesterday, I realized the time, blood, sweat, and tears that went into each of those books.

I really like what John Steinbeck said of writing, "The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business."

I don't think I'll be writing another novel any time soon.... But my youngest daughter will probably be a famous novelist one day! I'll appreciate it all the more... and get autographed copies of her books.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is finished in five more days... Once I finish my 50,000 words I'll post again. Sorry for the delay! :-)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! We are truly grateful for so much!

NO TIME TO BLOG

No time to blog this week... we are in the middle of NaNoWriMo. Here is a SHORT excerpt from my novel:

Chandra was keeping watch as her sister slept. The moon was full and the sky was clear. Chandra could hear her black wolf wail from a distance. Everywhere she looked, she saw more deserted wasteland. She was tired of the dry, flat moorland. She longed to see rivers, and trees, and mountains, and hills.

In the distance Chandra saw something moving towards their camp. It seemed far away, but was moving quickly. It looked like a rider on a horse, but as the creature got nearer, she knew it was not human or a horse. Her pulse began to race, as she detected something unnatural about the beast. She instinctively reached for her dagger as she moved closer to her sister.

Lupita woke up feeling uneasy. When she noticed her sister’s tense posture, she knew something was wrong. She reached for her bow and stood to look in the direction her sister faced. She couldn’t believe her eyes. A colossal scorpion was heading for them. The scorpion’s blood-red eyes had murder in them. It’s giant pinchers were clacking as they reached out towards the twins. Chandra hacked at the claws with her dagger, but the scorpion was too quick for her.
Lupita loaded an arrow into her bow and aimed for the demon’s heart, but the outer shell of the scorpion protected it against the sharp metal arrow. The venomous stinger lunged towards Lupita, but she narrowly jumped out of the way. Her only option was to call the wolves. She wailed in the wolven language she had been practicing. The wolves answered but the distance seemed insurmountable. She was sure they would both be dead before the wolves could help. She howled again as she dodged a second attack from the gigantic tail. Chandra was busy hacking at the monstrous pincers.

“Watch out!” Chandra cried as the scorpion turned it’s pincers towards Lupita. Chandra whacked at the tail before jumping out of the way of a deadly sting. As Lupita twirled her body to avoid the claws, she saw two boys running across the barren expanse. Their speed was astonishing. When they reached the battle scene with the scorpion, they began to help the twins fight the beast. The dark-haired youth managed to jump up on the abdomen of the monster and began to blind it with a wooden stick. While the creature was struggling to rid itself
of the rider, the blonde young man began to hack at the pincers with Chandra. Lupita grabbed one of her arrows and pushed it as hard as she could into the heart of the scorpion. The beast began to convulse, throwing the black haired boy off. It shook for a few minutes as the four youth watched. And finally the scorpion fell deathly still.

TO DO LISTS

To Do Lists really work around our house. I love them and my daughters love them. They keep us focused on what we are supposed to be doing for school and for homemaking. The other day both daughters claimed that they LOVED making their daily To Do Lists because they get so much more done when they do!

Every morning we write out two lists. One is a To Do List - Have To Do and the other list is a To Do List - For Fun. The rule we have is that in order to do anything on the second list the first list has to be done. It works for us!

Here are a few tricks we have learned:
1. Everyone makes their own To Do List. Ownership of the tasks is half the battle in our house.
2. Be specific with your To Do List. We achieve more that way. We try to make our To Do Lists achievable so we break down our goals into smaller steps.
3. Having two lists helps us to PRIORITIZE. :-)
4. Be flexible. If we don't accomplish everything on our lists at the end of the day, we don't beat ourselves up. We just write it down for the following day, until it is crossed out.

We have found that making our To Do Lists helps us to be more focused! What works for you?

MICHAEL VEY BOOK REVIEW

Wow! I just finished reading Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans and I couldn't go to bed until I blogged about it. It was great! As a parent of two daughters, I have been concerned with the decline of positive media options available to my kids. The story of Michael Vey is very exciting and enjoyable to read, but on a different level the book also teaches and reinforces positive values. It shows that it is okay to love your family and that it is cool to be smart. It encourages personal integrity and the courage to stand up for what you believe. I also liked how the hero of the book suffered from Tourette's Syndrome. I would recommend this book to everyone. I can't wait for my girls to read it! And I can't wait for the next book in the series.

WEEK IN REVIEW

It has been a VERY busy week for us. Scott had surgery on his knee (Tuesday morning). We left for the hospital at 8:15 a.m. and didn't get home until 6:30 p.m. He is in a lot of pain, but they cleaned out all the mess in his knee. He took the entire week off of work, but plans to return to work tomorrow (Monday).

We are still trying to move in. It's difficult with an "disabled" husband. To make things more difficult, I injured my back moving boxes last week. My doctor told me to take it easy (ie. not lifting boxes or bending over, etc.). Needless to say, we are still living out of boxes. Hopefully this week will be more productive...
On Thursday morning, Key Lime Pie and Kotten Kandy made t-shirt dresses. They learned how to make them from Jan M. (a wonderful woman in our ward). I thought the dresses turned out really cute. They got tons of compliments on them at church today. They also made a cute baby gift for Brandie's baby shower on Friday. They made a Noah's Ark pillow toy.
Speaking of Brandie's shower, it went well. Amy B. and I made TONS of delicious food. And it looked really cute! We had about 30 people attend. We played "Name That Disney Tune." I LOVE that game! And Amy played a matching game complete with candy bars to go with the matches. For example: Matching "First Time Dad" = Butterfinger. Matching "Breastfeeding" = Milky Way. Matching "Nursing Bra" = Reece's Big Cup. Matching "Triplets" = 3 Musketeers. And my favorite: Matching "Conception" = Score. It was really funny! And Brandie was spoiled! I'm glad. She is such a sweet person! And we are excited to hold her new baby boy in about a month!

NaNoWriMo is still going strong in our house. Writing is our main thing right now. It seems like that is all we do. Today was my first day of real "writer's block." I'm hoping tomorrow will be a better day.

LOTS OF HALLOWEEN PICTURES

Kotten Kandy and Key Lime Pie at the Pumpkin Patch

What BEAUTIFUL girls... inside and out!

Believe it or not, my daughters had NEVER been to a "real" pumpkin patch. We've always purchased our pumpkins from the grocery store. It was fun to walk through the patch and pick the "perfect" pumpkin!

We love our good friends... Key Lime Pie and Kotten Kandy with Marmalade and Nuts!

My best friend Amy B. with her sister dressed up as Renaissance Queens. Amy is the one on the right!

Key Lime Pie and Kotten Kandy picked out and made Marmalade's costume! They loved playing with their live "doll!"

Isn't Marmalade sooooooooooooo cute?! The tutu was my daughters' major contribution along with the hat and tights!

Witchy Women!

Kotten Kandy - Me - Key Lime Pie

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) is an annual internet-based creative writing project which challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel between November 1 and November 30. The project started in July 1999 with just 21 participants, but by the 2010 event over 200,000 people took part. Writers wishing to participate first register on the project's website (www.nanowrimo.org), where they can post profiles and information about their novels, including synopsis and excerpts. Word counts are validated on the site, with writers submitting a copy of their novel for automatic counting.

So... for school this month, Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy and I (along with our good friend Amy B.) have decided to take the challenge. Today is Day 1! I will be daily updating our progress for you - check out the side-bar for our numbers. In order to finish writing our novels by November 3oth, we need to write 1667 words per day. Our goal is a bit more ambitious - we're shooting for 2000 words per day.

This video describes it all! Check it out....