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     July 4th, Independence Day, is Tuesday!  We have been talking about what to do for it this year and what our favorite memories from years past have been! 

Favorite Memories of Fourth of July!

     Some of my favorite memories are crafting things to display and add as a reminder of the day! The red, white and blue and the beautiful colors of the fireworks fill me with exhilaration and excitement. Family times together in a free land have always been important to me.  The photo above is something I made two years ago while I was staying with Alicia after she had given birth to my grandson.  Her husband was playing in a locally popular band that year in Provo and they were able to perform in the preliminary show ahead of Journey in the BYU stadium! That is an exciting memory!     You can go to the directions for the patriotic wall hanging here.  You can find other patriotic plans and songs here and here.  Don't forget our free printable and frame idea here! 

     Alicia says that she loves a good barbecue and swim party on the Fourth.  I am with her.  Here in Phoenix, you can't have a barbecue without the swimming, or you will die.  But, anywhere you are, swimming and food are always fun to enjoy together before the fireworks. 

     Maddy says that part of that barbecue food should be pie! Her favorite pie is Strawberry Rhubarb! We did an entire series on pies, plus we have added a few more.  You can find them all here.  But, Lindsey is the one who makes a mean Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie in this family and the recipe isn't on our blog yet.  So, maybe we are just going to have to have her put it on here as one of Renny's Recipes soon. 

     Lindsey says she loves a good fireworks show! Growing up in Phoenix, we were never able to do our own fireworks.  Just recently they have been made legal again.  But, we would take the kids, when Glen didn't have to work, to watch one of the big shows somewhere.  Lindsey says it was always exciting. Now, even if it isn't July 4th, fireworks make her feel very patriotic. 

     What do you love to do on Independence Day?  Whatever you do, do it safely and have fun and remember to give pause and think about our free land! Talk to you next week! 

If you get our newsletter then you read about my big announcement that PH and I are expecting our first child, a little girl coming at the end of December. If you don't get our newsletter, what are you waiting for? Look up and slightly to the right and you'll see where you can enter your email and subscribe.
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Well I am not going to lie to you, I am over the moon about having a baby. We're very happy and excited. I am also exhausted, and often sick, and more than once I have dissolved into tears while my husband sat there in  terror wondering 1) what happened to the person he married, 2) what did he do wrong, and 3) how can he fix it? 
Well as you saw a few weeks ago he took it upon himself to not only make me dinner but take pictures so I would have something to blog about, since he is the best husband ever and he takes really good care of me even though I get home from work and lay down and do nothing because I am dead tired and dreading that I have to do it all again tomorrow. He doesn't complain when I ruin our trip to France by being sick, or when he makes me a nice dinner and I eat three bites and then can't stomach anymore of what I would, under normal circumstances, devour (because my husband is no slouch in the kitchen my friends.)
He is helping me bear this burden as best he can, and we are looking forward to when our sweet little one arrives and these days of sickness are long forgotten as she keeps us up at night, but we just find her so beautiful that we're still feeling happy and blessed despite our mutual exhaustion.

Now that I have thoroughly terrified anyone reading this who has not yet been pregnant, let me talk about the plus sides of pregnancy.
You can take naps whenever you want.
People have to move and give you their seat because you are pregnant and they are not.
You can eat popsicles and ice cream because it is hot, and you are pregnant, and nobody can judge you!
My food palate this last 14 weeks has been interesting. While in France cheese made me sick, just the smell of it made me want to die (which by the way, is very depressing, especially in France, the land of cheese.) However, string cheese sticks helped with nausea. I could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which makes packing my lunch every day much easier. Also, I bought a box of Otter Pops, and found out they took out all the food coloring so now all Otter Pops are white.

Needless to say, making ANYTHING has been a struggle for me lately. Except Sunday I made cookies because I was craving cookie dough and I had to make the recipe without eggs so I could eat some of the dough. They turned out great, so I'll share some recipes like that with you soon.
Anyway, if  you too are pregnant, enjoy! And eat an Otter Pop!
If you're not pregnant but thinking about it don't let my description scare you off. Everyone says the first trimester is the hardest, and now that I am entering the second trimester zone I am starting to feel more normal. It's all worth it in the end, because we're going to be able to bring our sweet little girl home in December.

Speaking of which, remember when Alicia talked about the Amazon baby registry? Well, I made one!!! Now, I am not posting the link to mine here to say you must buy me something from it. (But if you wanted to I wouldn't stop you). It is more to show you how one looks and let you know how easy it was to do. As I went through Amazon even had a checklist of items for me to consider adding. They have categories to take you through and it really helps. They even offer suggestions, plus, they give you free stuff, who doesn't love that? So take a look and then hop on getting your own registry together!

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     Yesterday I wrote about my experience at Girls Camp. One thing I left out of that post is what I am going to write about today, because believe me, this thing deserves its own post!  One night, the leaders of the camp came around to each tent site and gave each person a thing called a Stuff 'em Stick! Along with the stick, they gave us biscuit dough, pie fillings and whipped topping and explained to us how to roast the biscuits over the coals of the campfire and make ourselves mini cobblers.  It was so much fun and amazing! Our camp leaders made us these sticks and engraved the theme of the camp on each one.  

You use them by taking a can of biscuit dough and cutting each biscuit in half.  At least, at camp we used biscuit dough, but I heard a rumor that crescent dough is better and so I tried it, and guess what! I liked it even better!  But, either one will work and in a minute I will show you some other variations! 

So, when I used the crescent roll dough, I took one big triangle of the dough and I cut it in half and then wrapped it and squeezed it around the large knob of the Stuff 'em Stick.  The sticks had been soaked in oil, so there is no need to spray it, but you can if you want.  Maybe as it gets older and starts to dry out I will have to soak it again or spray it.  So far, there has been no sticking.

I decided that apple pie filling would be delicious is a cinnamon roll crust! 
I simply opened a can of refrigerated cinnamon rolls and smashed a roll flat in my hand.  Then, I wrapped it around the Stuff 'em stick.  Make sure to stick the layers of the spiral roll together! 

    I think that another beauty of these sticks is that you don't have to worry about kids stabbing each other in the eye like you do when you are using marshmallow roasting sticks! Plus, there are so many other variations!  Wouldn't it be great to use cookie dough to make the shell for the chocolate pudding?  Add marshmallows and you have a s'more like final result! Since you use only half a crescent roll, one can of dough will make 16 Stuff 'ems.  Here are a few more photos:

     You can make these sticks, like our leaders did, for yourself! That is what I want to do as gifts to my family.  Or, you can order them from a couple of places.

   What a fun party around the campfire, either in your own backyard or up camping! I fell in love with this Stuff 'em Stick idea! You could even do little pot pies or brownie cups! The possibilities are endless! Let me know what your ideas are! 

     I am home from our church's girls camp! It was a lot of fun, yet a lot of work! We were in a beautiful area of Arizona, with lakes, streams, tall pines, billions of stars and bumpy roads.  As you can see from the photos above, I loved being by the water.  There weren't too many days when I could just sit and dip my toes in the water, but I did it when I could.  We thought that there was going to be mostly cool temperatures up there, but a high pressure ridge over AZ made it very warm. We were thankful not to be in the 120 degree weather of Phoenix, though.  And, the rain that came a couple of times helped to cool things off.

     When you are working with a bunch of teenage girls and their leaders, there are bound to be some tears and frustrations to deal with.  The first day we were there, as my partner leader and I tried to get the girls busy doing their tasks, I found myself getting frustrated less with the girls and more with some of the other adult chaperones.  I knew that it was because I was tired from the long day of getting up there and the long weeks of preparation.  I hated feeling irritated like I did.  It was silly and I knew that I didn't want to ruin my entire week and possibly the week of everyone else by being a grouch.  I needed a positive attitude and fast! 

     That was the theme of camp this year.  I knew that I lacked wisdom.  I needed to know the best way to lead my girls.  I needed to know the best way to connect with the other leaders and how to be positive and humble and to have a good attitude.  So, that evening I poured my heart out in fervent prayer.  I knew that the only way to change how I felt was to change myself.  So, I prayed and then I got some sleep! The next morning, my perspective had changed and the fun of camp really started. I tried harder to talk to people one on one to understand them and share good times.  I especially tried to connect with people who I was feeling self conscious around and I learned that they are just real people, too and I didn't need to feel bad about myself at all.  I had nice conversations with the girls and listened to their ideas and feelings.  They often helped me to feel less worried or confused about our schedule and the way we needed to be organized.  One of my girls had given us a daily devotional idea that went as follows: "Compliment, don't compare.  Look for Christ in others."  I tried to implement that in my perspective.  I tried to find the good attributes in everyone.  My partner, Jazmin, also helped me in that area.  She noticed good qualities about people and pointed them out to me, too.  The answer to my prayers came quickly and life was so much better.
     

Here are some other great things about camp:

• My friend Neomi who was there did a remarkable service for me.  She contacted all 6 of my children, 5 of my grandchildren and talked to my husband and had them write me letters! She gave me some each day while we were at camp.  (In other words, she made me cry everyday!)  I will cherish those letters for the rest of my life!  
• We had some really awesome wilderness survival people at camp who taught so well that the girls were completely mesmerized at every class I witnessed.  We all learned new skills.
• The girls had no cell service or electronics.  They interacted with each other and with nature in a way that city girls ever get a chance to do! It was awesome.  There was a creek running through camp from which many crawdads were captured! 
• There were wonderful spiritual experiences throughout the week for everyone, besides my own personal answers to prayer. One of my favorite moments was listening to my group of girls leading the rest of the camp in hymns as we prepared for a spiritual trek through the forest.  They sounded beautiful and as we were the last group to leave on the trek, they told me about special memories that they have had with some of those hymns that we had sung. I felt honored to be with them at that moment. Then the trek itself was so great, as we trekked and stopped at sites where people portrayed characters from the scriptures and history who had faith in prayer and the answers they received.  I was amazed by it all and so touched by the Spirit.
• In our church, we address one another as "Sister".  So, as I served in this assignment over these 16-18 year old girls, I grew to love them so much and every time they needed something, they would call, "Sister Reynolds?"  And I just loved to hear them call me like that and know that they were trusting me to help them.  It made me remember two things.  1st: We come to love who we serve.  2nd:  Our Heavenly Father loves for us to call on him.  
• The food was really, really good.  There wasn't even a kitchen so our cooks had to use grills, camp stoves and all kinds of improvised ways of cooking and they did a fantastic job! What an act of service on their parts.

     Camp was such a great experience and although I started to feel my age as I walked over all of the bumpy ground and dealt with high altitudes, I am so glad I went and learned the things I learned.  Even old ladies like me have a lot to learn! What a blessing these girls have been to my life this summer! 
     Even if you don't have the opportunity to go to a church camp like I have, there are a lot of lessons to learn by being in the great outdoors and by turning our thoughts to our Heavenly Father who blessed us with the beauties of this earth.  I hope you can take the time to get out in it, turn off the electronics and just commune with the Spirit and with your loved ones and remember what is really important in life! 
     P.S.  The camp bags I made were a hit!