Tender Mercies.

{Lamoreaux family 2012}.

My family experienced a pretty neat 'Tender Mercy' last night.

It's one we'll never forget.

"The Lord's tender mercies do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence"

- David A. Bednar

{Please watch}.

xoxo

Ryan's FIESTA!

Last night we hosted a {Going Away} FIESTA for my nephew Ryan.

He leaves this week for a 2 year Mormon Mission in Barcelona, Spain.

We are SO proud of him!

Seems like just yesterday I was changing his diapers...and NOW look at him...

As for the 'party details'....

I made a really simple banner with a free printable font from HERE.

I just printed the letters onto 8.5 x 11" card stock and cut the bottoms to how I wanted them.

We had a BUILD YOUR OWN NACHOS bar.

Complete with ALL the fixings.

Sweet Pork {super easy - 1 cup brown sugar, 1 jar of red salsa...cooked in a crock pot all day and then shredded}

Homemade Refried beans that my mom made up from THIS recipe ...they are TO DIE for YUMMY!

Nacho Cheese Sauce - if you're doing this for a big group...just buy the big ole can from Costco.  It. Is. Delish!

Green Salsa. Red Salsa.  Chopped onions.  Lettuce.  Tomatoes.  Sour Cream.

Yummy. Yummy. Cupcakes that my sister and brother made up.

{I could pretty much eat that chocolate frosting by the spoonful it was so good}.

I tried to have different pics of Ryan all around the house.  

Printable quote found HERE.

I tried to decorate everything in YELLOW and RED....

the colors of the SPAIN flag.

I found these cute missionary tag printables from Sugardoodle and made em into water bottle labels.

Uncle Kirk with his nieces and nephews.

Ryan and some of his peeps.

  

The cute fiesta banners hanging from my ceiling were made by my ever so talented sister-in-law Jenny. 

Not sure what Joe's gonna do without his sidekick for 2 years.

Uncle + Nephew = best of friends.

We are so proud of you Ryan and can't wait to hear all about your AWESOME experiences in Barcleona. You will make such a GREAT missionary!!!

French Toast Roll-Ups.

French Toast Roll-Ups are one of my very favorite things to make when I have a lot of people over for breakfast.  

They're super tasty AND pretty easy to make.  

{I originally found this yummy recipe from THIS gal.}

When I made these up last weekend, I thought...'hey...why not take some step by step pictures so YOU can SEE how to do it?'  I'm a 'visual' person and I always get lots of questions on these puppies. So ask no further...here ya go!

{Warning:  I am SOOOO not a food photographer.  Nor do I ever intend to be.  So don't judge. Just trying to give you an idea here.}

*Any type of white bread will work.

I always buy whatever is cheapest.

Don't buy wheat.  They don't turn out as good.

*When doubling this recipe {which you should always do for a large crowd!} buy 2 loaves.

* These are especially great because you can make them up the night ahead.

Just place in the refrigerator covered with tin foil until you're ready to bake!

This Weekend + First Day of School Festivities...

* I took the kids school shopping.  Mainly for supplies and that kind of fun stuff. I don't really take them 'clothes shopping' still it starts to get cold here.  Which usually isn't until November.  For now, they each picked out two new shirts and, man are they proud of them! {See later pics..}

* Stayed in the rest of the day to get ready for THIS fun event.

* Satuday, after the festivities I snuck in a 3 hour nap.  With London.  It was bliss.

* Date night with Joe HERE.  It rained Saturday night too, which was a bonus! {We don't see much rain in this neck of the woods!}

* Attended my nephew Ryan's missionary farewell talk.  Hands down one of the best talks I've heard in a LONG time.  Barcelona, Spain is so lucky to get him.

Grateful to have such a NEAT family.

And our kids are SO blessed to have such GREAT cousins to look up to!

*Brunch at my sister Tori's afterwards.

I tried THIS new recipe and it was a HIT and SO easy.

{Note: if you make it, double the brown sugar and butter that you layer at the bottom}.

I'll definitely be making it again.

* Packed backpacks and filled out paper work for the kids' first day of school.

*Father's Blessings

* Kids in bed Sunday night by 7:00. {Yahoo!}

Needless to say...we were ALL excited for the first day today.  

And as excited as I get to send them off to school...I do hate the very fact that they are growing up before my very own eyes.  

These two are the BEST of friends and I LOVE that they're only 1 grade apart.

Such handsome boys, huh?

It helps that they have two of the VERY BEST teachers at school...

We are blessed indeed.

As for me and this one....

I'm sure we'll find PLENTY to keep us busy!! 

{SmiLe!}

Back to School BREAKFAST.

Yes...school starts tomorrow.

{Can you BeLiEvE it?!}

I had our Young Women over on Saturday morning for a little Back to School Breakfast.

I wanted something to get them motivated...both spiritually and physically....for the new school year.

Here's a peek at some of the details:

I  covered the tables with red and white polka dot wrapping paper, found in the $1 bins at Michaels.

The brown paper bags that the utensils are placed in are from Hobby Lobby.

My 'place mats' are 12 x 12 pieces of scrapbook paper.

Handwriting strips are from the Dollar Tree.

The printable circles are from TomKat Studio.

Water bottle labels are from Tip Junkie via Love Party Printable.

Pencil tags are from eighteen25.

As for centerpieces, I did an assortment of apples, crayons and glue sticks.

{Because if THAT doesn't scream Back To School...I dunno WHAT does, right?}

Silver chalkboard pails were found in the $ bins at Target.

Framed printable is from eighteen25.

As the girls arrived, I had them each take my BACK TO SCHOOL is COOL quiz.

Prizes {extras of what our YW closet has collected in the last year} were given out to the top 3 highest scores.  It was a good little sumthin to keep the girls occupied while the food finished and everyone arrived.

 

Printable banners are from TomKat Studio.

As for the spread - we served: Blueberry muffins, fresh fruit, Egg and Hashbrown casserole and French Toast Roll ups.

Once the girls were finished eating, we had a small 'program' of sorts.

My counselors and I each took a couple of 'subjects' and spent 5-10 minutes discussing.

Subjects covered were:

Fashion Merchandising - modesty

English - not swearing and not gossiping

P.E. - Praying Earnestly

Social Studies - making good friends

Creative Writing - keeping a good journal 

I wrapped up the morning by showing THIS message.

It's my all time favorite and I really felt like the girls could benefit from seeing and hearing it.

COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT.

That's what I enoucraged them to do this  year...despite their trials and adversities that may come with friends, classes, teachers....

COME WHAT MAY AND LOVE IT.

Don't we have THE CUTEST girls?!?

Linking up to Lil Luna.

Rootbeer Back to School Treat.

We had a super fun Back to School Breakfast at my house this morning. All of our cute church girls {the YW} were invited!  

{Pics of ALL the details....coming soon!}

I knew I wanted to give them some type of uplifting handout to take home at the end of the breakfast.....to kind of match THIS one that I handed out last year.  After scouring the soda aisles at my local grocery store and putting my PUN-brain {as my husband likes to call it} to use...this is what I came up with:

If you'd like a copy of the printable...please...

 1) become a follower of my blog 

and 

2) leave a comment with your email address.

xoxoxoxo

Linking up to Lil Luna.

Back 2 School Teacher gifts.

It never hurts to butter a teacher up before school begins, right?

That's what I thought.

Last night we had our 

MEET the TEACHER NIGHT

and the boys brought these jars in....

{Bless those teachers hearts...they deserve WAY more than bubble gum.} 

The printable tag is from eighteen25 - - they have THE BEST back to school printables and ideas HERE.

My cute friend Emily posted what she made up for her kids' teachers on Facebook and I instantly fell in love with it:

Tag reads: Sometimes I can be a LEMONHEAD but this year looks BRIGHT with YOU as my teacher.

How adorable, right?  The glass jar light bulbs can purchased at Hobby Lobby and I just so happened to be there this week {surprise, surprise!} and they are HALF OFF!

Fill er up with Lemonhead candies and you've got yourself a TREAT!

Creative Summer Cakes.

I'm up to my eyeballs in BACK to SCHOOL stuff this week.

I'm hosting a Young Womens church breakfast on Saturday and the kiddos start school on Monday!

Where does the time go?!?

Here's some DARLING summertime cakes featured over at Family Fun. 

Clever AND Cute.

{My favorite combination}!

Flip Flop Cookies

Made outta oval shaped cookies, frosting and rope licorice!

BBQ Cupcakes

Loving the hot tamales with the 'grill' marks on em.

Pail of Sand Cake

How fun would little ones of these be for individual cakes at a kids party?? I've seen chocolate molds for the sea shells too!

Snorkeler Cake

LOOOVE that they used Hershey Kisses for the spikey hair!

Corn on the Cobcake

ADORBS!!!  White and yellow jellybeans are used for the 'kernels'. A yellow Starburst is used for the buttah.

Sand Castle Cake

Although this one is a 'Sand Castle' cake..I'm totally remembering this for London's next birthday party.  She's already informed me that she wants it to be...surprise! surprise!....a PRINCESS party.  You could make a DARLING princess castle cake outta these sugar cones.  So CLEVER!

Ultimate Beach Cupcakes

Ok...this one had me at the Fruit Striped gum as the beach chair.

HOW.  MUCH.  FUN!!!

This Weekend...

* We got to go through the Temple with my nephew, who was going through for the very first time ever!

Dad, Mom, Ryan and sister Tori

It was SUCH a neat experience and we couldn't be more proud of him.

*After the temple, Joe and I had a lunch date at Mangos in Mesa.

How is it that we've JUST discovered that place?!

It is some GOooOOd mexican food.

The smothered burrito is my fave!

*Took the kids to see Ice Age:Continental Drift.

You can't go wrong with the Ice Age series.  They're funny!

Especially John Leguizamo as Syd. He's hysterical.

*The kiddos had a sleep-over at Aunt Tori's.

{Woot!}

Needless to say...they didn't want to come home in the morning.

They LOOOVE spending time with their relatives!!

Joe and I watched TV, vegged out and slept in.  It was bliss.

* We attended my nephew Mitch's baptism.

Mitch. Carson. Grant

It's always such a neat experience watching someone get baptized!

*Attended church and taught THIS lesson.

*Tried to take a nap.

{TRIED} being the key word.

London had other ideas for she and I.

Needless to say, it was an hour and a half wasted of falling asleep, waking back up and trying to fall back asleep again.

 {I'm getting a padlock on my bedroom door!}

*Had some of our favorite friends over for Sunday dinner.

We made THESE tacos.

They made homemade Butterfinger ice-cream for dessert.

It was de-lish!

The weather was actually so nice and breezy outside that we sat out on the front porch while the kids played around us.

I love nights like that.
It's the perfect way to end the weekend!

Testimony Handout.

Today I taught my cute girls at church Lesson #26 from Manual 1 on 

TESTIMONY.

Since there was an analogy in the lesson to comparing our testimony to a tiny little seed...and watching it grow by nourishing it daily, I decided to attach my handout to a bag of Sunflower seeds. 

{Because lets be honest.  I'm all about the edible handouts.}

I had high hopes of buying a fresh bouquet of sunflowers from my grocery store and giving each girl a sunflower to take home as well but.....I didn't quite make it out late last night. Oh well!