Another Crazy Day at the Fackrells

This morning Ashdon came in my room to announce that his cake was due today!  I knew the deadline was looming, but did not know today was the day. Oh great!  This caused for a very eventful morning.  We whipped up the first cake with no problems.  Luckily I have cake mix on hand.  But then how does he make the mountains for the state of Utah?  Well, the solution was not too difficult.  I have small bundt cake pans and we filled them half full with cake mix and produced 6 bundt cakes.  By then, 8:00 had hit and the other troops were up.  Of course there was a hubbub about who would lick the bowl, which ended with cake mix in Ashdon's hair. We made another 7 cupcakes.  I thought all was well and was quite pleased with my accomplishment.  Then Ashdon added, "The cake has to be frosted when we bring it school and it can't be chocolate."  Of course, with Murphy's Law you know the only kind of frosting I had was chocolate on hand.  So I went to the Internet to find a recipe for powder sugar frosting.  Not too difficult to make, but time was running short.  The cake wasn't quite cool when we frosted it and we managed to make several small bags of blue, green, and red frosting along with all sorts of sparkles for the top of the cake.  My sister Kristen came to the rescue and took the first load to school and then Ashdon in the second load to school. (She is an angel.) Ash got off to school, and I zoomed off to my first major presentation as a PhD student.  All and all it was eventful.  The cake actually turned out great.  After school he was proud to display his cake.  He was also excited that he won for the highest mountains.

That's all I will report on today.

Love

Tam

Never Have a Bad Day Again

About one year ago, I decided to take up the goal of never having a bad day again.  I do this by making a bad ten minutes, not a bad hour and a bad hour not a bad two hours.  I have learned extreme self mastery over my emotions and can self soothe myself about things in minutes.  I have a list of things that I enjoy that help to calm the trouble waters.  Some of these include: taking a hot bath, going jogging, eating ice cream, doing something fun with the kids, going on a date, etc.

So far so good!  I am happy to report I have not had a bad day since I set this goal.  It is amazing how much I can control the outcome of my day.

Join me in this goal and let me know how it goes.

Love

Tamara

Amazing Experience

I was able to sing in the world-wide broadcast for the Relief Society General Meeting.  We learned to sing with our eyes and our faces.  If you see it on lds.org you can only see me in the last song.  I am on the left hand side middle.  You can see my bangs in a lot of the other shots :).  This was a great dream come true for me to be able to sing at the Conference Center.  Also earlier this year I was able to play the organ on Temple square.  That is two dreams in one year.  Kind of fun!

Our director was an amazing woman.  She gave us a quote by Brigham Young, "Let us speak words of comfort or consolation.  When you are influenced by the Spirit of Holiness and purity, let your light shine: but if ye are tried and tempted and buffeted by Satan, keep your thoughts to yourselves- keep your mouth closed; for speaking produces fruit, either of a good or evil character." (Brigham Young Discourses 166).  She talked us about being mindful of leaving good or bad fruit wherever we are.  We all have a presence.  We either add or subtract to the room.  So let's do more to add good fruit into our lives and the lives of others.

Fackrell Family Favorite Toys

Geo Trax has been one of the best toy investments our family has ever made.  It has several different options for tracks and many toy trains to choose from.  We have had hundreds of hours of fun with Geo Trax.  They are a toy that we keep up when we are not playing with them, but the trains that go back and forth are always a winner.

Our second favorite toy is Magnetix.  I buy most of these at Robert's Crafts with the 40% off coupon that comes each month.  Then Target has a great supplement with Magnetix dinosaurs and cars that work wonders with the Magnetix toys.  They are always hit, regardless of the age.

Our third favorite toy is the bug catcher vacuum and bug world, also a Target purchase.  We are able to catch all sorts of bugs with the bug vacuum.  Recently we caught four frogs who lived in the bug world.  We then used the bug catcher to feed the frogs.  The family thought this was a lot of fun.

Please share your favorite toys!

Much Love

Tamara

The Best Play Dough Recipe! Proven for 12 years and running!

Today I was able to make play dough with Presdon.  It is one of our families absolute favorite things to do and I have the best recipe!  I thought I should share it with you.

Large Recipe

4 cups of flour  

4 cups of water

4 tablespoons oil

1 cup salt

1 packet of Koolaid

Small Recipe

1 cup flour

1 cup water

1 tablespooon oil

1/4 cup salt

1 packet Koolaid

Mix all of the ingredients over the stove on medium heat.  Cook until it is not sticky.  (Cook a little longer than you think. Between 10 and 20 minutes.)  The Koolaid gives it a fragrant smell so the smell of salt is not so strong.  It also gives it coloring. Let the play dough cool. Then, use any color of dye to make color variations.  Store the finished product in ziplocks in the refrigerator. It lasts up to two weeks!   Use cookie cutters, garlic press, pizza cutters, potato masher and other kitchen gadgets to make the play dough into many fun and exciting shapes.

If you use the recipe, please report, even if we are not yet friends.

Much happiness to you all,

Tamara

The Accident!

Ouch!  I fell down cement stairs in the dark and my hands were full.  I hit my head and got a gash!  I was in and out of consciousness.  My black eye lasted for three weeks.  Jake and I had to go to the hospital emergency room for his kidney stones and the all the staff asked if his kidney stones were payback for my black eye.  Of course, Jake was nothing but amazing when the fall occurred.  As for Jake, he had to get emergency lithotripsy.  He is doing well now, I am happy to report and everyone else is healthy.

Home With the Kids and Caterpillars

Today I am enjoying motherhood.  I have my three nieces visiting from Texas.  They have been occupied all morning by catching caterpillars.  They have caught over 10.  I just hope they turn into butterflies and not some unattractive moth.  My husband has been out of town most of the week and during this time Mac and Cheese for dinner is a nice reprieve.  Yesterday, my son was carrying in the groceries and one of the bag ripped open.  The largest glass bottle of olive oil was smashed all over the driveway.  In these types of occurrences, I like to first make sure my son survived.  We looked at his foot and got it all patched up.  Then it was cleaning up the mess!  All the days work of a busy mother of six.  I love motherhood, yet at night when my head hits the pillow I am ready for some dreams.