Books I love - It's All Too Much

As we've been going through, organizing, and getting rid of stuff for this move, I've been rereading one of my favorite books - It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh. It's helped me get rid of a ton of extra stuff we don't really need. I first read this book a couple years ago, and have reread it several times since. I love it.

Peter Walsh, the author, is a professional organizer. He used to be on the TLC show Clean Sweep. Did you ever watch that show? It was one of me and Alyse's favorites.  They would come help people deeply declutter their houses. Not hoarders - just normal people whose houses had normal stuff in them. They'd pull everything out and sort everything into three piles: trash, yard sale, and keep. A lot more stuff went into the yard sale and trash piles than into the keep pile. And at the end of the show, you'd get to see the nice, new, decluttered rooms. It was super satisfying.

In It's All Too Much, Walsh helps you do the same thing with your own stuff. He doesn't just tell you how to organize. He helps you understand your relationship to each of the things you own, and helps you overcome all of the excuses you have for holding on to unnecessary things. He helps you own your stuff, rather than your stuff owning you.

Each time I've read this book, I've been so motivated afterwards and been able to get rid of a lot of stuff that had built up over the years.  And each time I've used the advice from the book to really purge our house of unnecessary stuff, I've felt so good afterwards and like a literal weight has been lifted off my shoulders. With all that unnecessary stuff gone, I feel lighter and freer.

I really recommend this book, especially if you have any kind of cleaning/organization inkling right now. It's amazingly helpful.

What We Believe - the Book of Mormon

Good morning! I know it's been a while since I've done a post explaining more about what we believe, but I really want to start doing that again, so here we go! Today I wanted to talk to you about the Book of Mormon.

I've already explained what we believe about God, and Jesus Christ, and God's plan for us. I've talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how living prophets teach us today. I explained how God established his full gospel on the earth again after centuries of pieces of it missing, by calling Joseph Smith as a prophet and restoring his (God's) priesthood authority upon the earth. And I've given a short history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

So where does the Book of Mormon fit in? Why is our church so well known for this book? If you've heard of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you have almost certainly heard of The Book of Mormon. It is, after all, where we get our nickname - "Mormons."

All pictures in this post are from the image library on lds.org.

So what is The Book of Mormon? What's in it? How do we have it? Why do we believe it?

In a nutshell, The Book of Mormon is the historical record of a people that lived in ancient America. It is another testament of Jesus Christ, just like the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Book of Mormon and the Bible go hand in hand. One is the record of God's dealings with the people in ancient Israel, and one is the record of God's dealings with the people in ancient America.

The Book of Mormon was written and recorded by ancient prophets, just like the Bible. It follows the stories of a group of people who God led out of Jerusalem before the city was destroyed in 600 BC. He led them to America, and the Book of Mormon covers their history from about 600 BC to 400 AD. And it's awesome.

It's got Nephi, who was seriously rock solid. He followed God's commandments even when it meant living in the desert on raw meat. And building a boat and sailing across an OCEAN. And having his brothers try to kill him a bunch of times.

And Abinidi, who stood up to a wicked king and his corrupt priests.

And these people, who all secretly got baptized while hiding from the king and his soldiers.

And Ammon, who saved a bunch of sheep and cut off a bunch of people's arms.

And Captain Moroni! Who was awesome!

And the two thousand stripling warriors! Who were also awesome! ("Stripling" means young, by the way. And I LOVE these guys! They're my favorite!!!)

And Samuel the prophet, who stood on the wall of a wicked city to tell them that Christ would be born in five years.

By far the biggest moment of the Book of Mormon is when Christ personally visits the people. After his death and resurrection in Jerusalem, he came to the people of the Americas. He taught them personally and ministered to them.

For several hundred years after his coming, the people lived in righteousness. But then they fell into wickedness again, and then they became really wicked. The two great nations of the Book of Mormon - the Lamanites and Nephites - had a huge war until almost all of the Nephites were destroyed.

Finally there were only a handful of Nephites left, including Mormon and Moroni, two righteous men whom God had protected. Mormon was in charge of the record of their people, which had been handed down from prophet to prophet to prophet over hundreds of years. He abridged and edited all the records together. The resulting book is named after him - The Book of Mormon. He gave those records to his son Moroni to finish writing and to protect.

After Mormon died, Moroni wandered around as the very last of his people. He finished the record and sealed it up, burying it in the earth so that it could come forth at the right time according to God's purposes. 

When Joseph Smith prayed to God in the early 1800s asking him which church to join (you can read my blog post about that here), the time had come. Joseph was instructed where to find the records abridged by Mormon, and was able to translate the book with God's help.

The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, that was written specifically for us - the people living now at this time.

It was written to help us understand Christ's mission, and to gain testimonies of him. It was written, as Moroni said, "[to convince] the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations."

The only way you can know for yourself whether the Book of Mormon is true or not is to read it, and then ask God if it is true. Moroni, the prophet who finished the Book of Mormon, promised this:

"And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

So see for yourself. Request a free copy of the Book of Mormon here. Read it. Read all about Nephi, and Mosiah, and Helaman and his two thousand warriors, and Alma and Ammon and Captain Moroni and Mormon, and most importantly - read their testimonies. Read their witnesses of Christ. And then "with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ," ask if it is true.


Further Resources:
1. This page, Mormon.org: The Book of Mormon, has very clear explanations of where the Book of Mormon came from and what it is. 
2. This video rocks.

Because of Him

Because of him I get to live with my loved ones forever.

Because of him I can be forgiven of the mistakes I have made and will make in the future.

Because of him I have hope.

Because of him I have joy.

Because of him I know that my life has meaning.

I know that Christ lives. I know that he really is the son of God. He lived a perfect life and suffered for our sins so that we can be forgiven through his sacrifice.

He loves us. He loves you. And I know that with absolutely everything that I am.

Melting Crayons

Last week I did a little craft project. I melted down Toddler's broken crayons into new, unbroken shapes.

This is what they looked like before:

They were actually even worse because in this picture I'd already taken out all of the smallest, most broken pieces.

I then chopped them up even more so they would fit in the silicone mold better:

I then put them in the silicone mold I got from the dollar store (which was from Halloween and was a mold of pumpkin shapes. Toddler saw it and said "Balloons!" though, so they're balloons. Which is better than pumpkins.) and put it in the oven at 275 degrees for about ten minutes:

Took them out, swirled the colors with a toothpick, and let them cool on the stove top. Once they'd cooled for about 25 minutes, I put them in the fridge to cool them even faster. (If they cool too fast in the beginning they might crack.) Then I popped them out. And we have balloon crayons!

All of Toddler's crayons filled three batches of the silicone mold. I don't know if it was just cause it was a cheapy silicone mold from the dollar store, or if it was something about the crayons, but after I was finished it was kind of twisted and warped and I just tossed it. But it totally worked for this craft! A dollar well spent.

Toddler really likes her new balloon crayons. She played with them for like an hour on the day that I did this.

Two new quiet book pages & Giveaway

A little while ago I was contacted by Amy Pincock from the popular craft blog Serving Pink Lemonade. She asked if I'd like to do a review and giveaway of her new book, Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children, for my Quiet Book Blog. I said yes! 

I got her adorable book in the mail a couple weeks ago, and this weekend I made two quiet book pages using her templates and instructions. I really like how they turned out; I think they're really cute and I think Toddler and Baby will have fun playing with them. I'm glad I had this motivation to make some more quiet book pages.

I made a sock matching page:

And a "seasons tree" page:

I really like them. I've wanted to do pages like them for a long time, but haven't actually started because they seemed like too much work. The templates and instructions from the book were really helpful and gave me the boost I need to make them!

I think I'm going to make a washing machine page (like this one) to go next to the socks. I want to do another page to go with the seasons tree, but I'm not sure what yet. I'll figure it out.

And (how cool is this) I get to do a giveaway of this book, too! If you head over to this page on my Quiet Book Blog, you can enter to win a copy of Quiet Book Patterns: 25 Easy-to-Make Activities for Your Children.

Go enter! You might win!

Homemade Toffee

This week on Monday I was able to reintroduce milk into my diet. It's the first food I'm reintroducing and we're watching right now and for the next couple days to see if Baby has a reaction to it.

To celebrate, that night I made some toffee.

(The mini chocolate chips were Jason's addition.)

I remember my mom making toffee one time when I was a kid. It was so delicious and I hoped that she'd make it all the time. That was the only time I remember her making it, haha. :) But because of that time, I knew you can make it at home.

I looked up some recipes on Monday and decided to try this one: Best Toffee Ever - Super Easy. I didn't do the chocolate or the nuts, and I scaled it down to a 1/4 recipe, so the ingredients I ended up using were 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt.

The first batch turned out horrible. Instructions on the internet were totally contradictory, some saying stir the whole time, some saying only stir once in a while, and I got confused and didn't know what to do and the sugar and butter separated and then the whole thing burned and smelled bad and I got super frustrated at the internet for lying lies to me.

The second batch turned out perfect, though! What I did was this: I put everything (the sugar, stick of butter, and salt) into a pot. I turned the heat on low-medium and stirred slowly with a wooden spoon the entire time. In the beginning when the butter and sugar were still a bit separated, I tipped the pot and mixed it all together really good every 30 seconds or so until they were fully mixed together. And then I stirred and stirred and stirred until the mixture turned a caramelly-color and got a bit thicker, and then poured it out onto a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. I spread it out with the wooden spoon I had been using to stir. And then I let it cool!

And it is gooood.

And that is the story of the two (well, now three) batches of toffee I've made this week.

Homemade Playdough

Toddler got a play-doh set for Christmas, and she loves it. It's a little jungle set with a tree that makes "caterpillars" (ropes of play-doh) come out the top, an elephant you press down to make play-doh ears, hair, trunk, and tail, and a little turtle you press down on to make play-doh turtle legs. It also comes with some play-doh tools (like really blunt plastic knives, and a roller) to work with the play-doh.

Toddler's favorite things to do are make play-doh caterpillars with the three, squish the turtle, and press the knives into the play-doh to make random animals (which don't look anything like animals, but Toddler tells me what they are {like, "I made a dog!"}, so they're animals).

The kit came with four play-doh colors: a big thing of dark green, a small light green, a small blue, and a small orange. We lose a bit each time we play, though, as little chunks break off and get overlooked and then dry out on the kitchen floor. Even though we started out with enough dough to work with, our supply is quickly shrinking. Plus, I kind of want some more colors than the few we have.

So, vaguely remembering things I saw on pinterest a long time ago, I turned to the internet for a homemade playdough recipe. I used the first one at the top of the google page: How to Make Playdough (Play-doh), and it turned out great!

Here's the recipe (mostly for my own reference in the future):

2 cups flour

2 cups warm water

1 cup salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon cream of tartar (optional for improved elasticity)

food coloring

scented oils (optional)

"Mix all the ingredients together" (I saved food coloring for after, though, so I could make multiple colors) "and stir over low heat. The dough will begin to thicken until it resembles mashed potatoes. When the dough pulls away from the sides and clumps in the center, remove the pan from heat and allow the dough to cool enough to handle. Important note: If your playdough is still sticky, you simply need to cook it longer!"

At first it was all liquid-y...

But in just a couple minutes it got a lot thicker...

And pretty soon it was done and ready for food coloring!

I split the batch into three parts and made yellow, pink, and (a kind of ugly) purple, but it makes so much that you could easily split it into four or five or six colors.

Then I just packaged the colors in random tupperware containers...

And it was ready to go!

I thought I was going to like the brand-name "Play-doh" dough better when compared to this homemade playdough, but boy was I wrong! I love the homemade playdough! My favorite thing about it is that it's softer and easier to work with. Toddler can make shapes and animals a lot easier (as can I), and the playdough goes through the little play-doh machines so much easier. Pushing down on the elephant and the tree, which was quite difficult before, is now very easy. And you might be worried that if it's softer, this homemade playdough doesn't hold its shape as well - but it does! The animals and shapes we've made with it are just as sturdy and totally hold their shape as well as the store-bought kind. I'm so impressed.

I really do love this homemade playdough. It was so easy to make and now we have such a large supply. I'm totally going to make this in the future instead of buying the brand name play-doh (even though I'm sure I'll get more little plastic play-doh sets and tools).

I totally recommend this as a quick and easy recipe to make great playdough for little kids!