WHATEVER, LOSER!

Well, it is Monday again, which in our house means Family Home Evening Night; tonight I was in charge of the lesson, so I took a part of my lesson I taught on Sunday and tweaked it. First I showed Braden my CTR ring and asked him what it stood for; he told me that it meant choose the right. We then talked about how by choosing the right we stay on the path back to Heavenly Father. I told him that Heavenly Father wants us to make good choices, so we can return to him. We then talked about how Satan wants us to do what is wrong and make bad choices, so we can't return to Heavenly Father; he wants us to be miserable just like him. I then showed Braden and Brooke one of their blocks (they look like bricks) and asked them what it was; we talked about how they were "bricks", and that we had to be strong like bricks to return to Heavenly Father. We talked about how making good choices makes us stronger and making bad choices make us weaker. After that we talked a little more about Satan and how he tries to get us to make bad choices, but we are going to be strong (imagine us all flexing our muscles) and resist Satan's temptations; whenever Satan tries to get us to make a bad choice, we are going to flex our muscles, and say, "WHATEVER LOSER!" Next, I had the cuties select a slip of paper out of a bag, which I read. If it was a good choice, they got to add a "brick" to their wall, and if it was a bad choice, they had to take a "brick" off their wall. Some of the choices were:

You hit your brother, because you are mad.
You help your daddy unload the dishwasher.
You help your mommy clean your room.
You call somebody stupid.
When your mommy is asking you to do something, you say, “Whatever!” and walk away.
You take something that doesn’t belong to you and break it.
When you break your brother’s toy, you do jobs to get money to buy a new toy.
You yell and scream in the middle of church.
You sit quietly during sacrament and think about Jesus.
When you don’t get what you want, you fall on the floor and have a tantrum.
When you get scared, you say a prayer to Heavenly Father.
You read your scriptures every day with your family.
You throw a ball at your sister or brother and hit them in the head.
You say a prayer every morning and every night.

After they finished their wall, I had them think of good choices they could make; they then got to add a few more bricks for each good choice they could think of. I then bore my testimony of how making good choices does make us stronger, it brings us closer to Heavenly Father, and it helps us return to Heavenly Father and Jesus. I then, in my best cheerleader voice, asked,

"What team are we on?"

"The Family Team!"

"And who wants to return to live with Heavenly Father?"

"WE DO!"

"What kind of choices do we need to make?"

"Good choices!"

"Making good choices makes us what?"

"Strong!" (more flexing)

"Who wants us to make bad choices?"

"Satan!"

"What do we say when Satan tries to get us to make bad choices?"

"WHATEVER LOSER!"

Yes, I understand that not everyone teaches their children to say, "Whatever Loser!" to Satan, but for us, it works. They really enjoyed the lesson, and they both left with a drive to make good choices; I guess I should point out that we also discussed returning to Heavenly Father as a family. Well, after my lesson, we sang a song, Braden said our closing prayer, and then Rich had the kids make a cinnamon toast tower (Rich was in charge of the treat).

Here are some pictures of the cinnamon toast tower building.

The Masedas Do LOVE to Dance!

For those that may not know, we love to dance! We believe in shaking our booties when we hear a good song, we believe in taking short breaks from working to shake our booties, we believe in shaking our booties while we work, and we basically believe in dancing whenever the mood hits us! Here is a video of Braden getting down yesterday, during one of our breaks from cleaning the kitchen; you will notice, that Emma also joins in on the act for a few moments.

(you may want to turn the music off at the bottom before watching)

Tie Dye Fun

Yesterday the cuties and I went over to Cindy's house to tie dye some t-shirts. Here are the pictures from our day, including the kitchen picnic we had after cleaning up all of the mess. I will post pictures of the finished products later.

Our Little Book Lover

Emma continues to love books! In fact, her new nap time routine includes looking at a book before dozing off to sleep; it makes life easy on me. I just put her in the crib, give her a kiss, cover her with a blanket (she usually kicks the covers off), and hand Emma her book of choice; usually 20 minutes later, she has dozed off to sleep.

Maseda Family Fun Weekend

This weekend was devoted to family time and fun; Rich has been super busy lately with work and with his bishop duties, so we felt that a family weekend was in order. Friday night we went to go see, drum roll please...

We LOVED it! It was most definitely one of those movies you leave thinking, 'When that movie comes out on DVD, I am soooooooooo buying it!' I would recommend it to everyone; its not just a kid movie. I would also recommend going by the store and buying candy to stuff your bag with; I can't believe how much candy and popcorn costs, can you say outrageous?! We made a little pit stop on the way, where Rich picked up some contraband for us; it's hard to feel guilty about sneaking food in, when they want you to take out a second mortgage on your home to buy snacks and drinks for your family. Overall, I would give the movie 5 stars; if you haven't seen it, put it on your to do list.

Saturday we gathered a few items.

Water Balloons

Bubbles

Sidewalk Chalk

Add to this a ...

Backyard,

Sprinklers, Hamburgers, Chips, Green Beans (the kids would have been happy if we would have forgotten that item), Soda, and a Water Hose, and we were all set for Maseda Family Olympics.

We filled the water balloons, seasoned the hamburger meat, and began. First the cuties played hopscotch, and then we commenced with the...

Water Balloon Toss.

Initially we were going to have a Water Balloon Fight, but Braden informed Rich and I that it wouldn't be nice. Don't worry, Rich found a way around that; he would "accidentally" throw the balloon just a little short, and it would just "happen" to get one of the cuties wet. Braden and Brooke didn't seem to mind. Here are some pictures I took; these are the only ones I took, because it became a wet danger zone for my camera.

After our water balloon games (Rich came up with some other creative ways to play with the water balloons), we had the sprinkler obstacle course, which the cuties did not like at all! They were scared that Rich was going to spray them with the water hose (they were right to be scared) while they were trying to gather the balls off of the obstacle course. Finally, Rich grilled the hamburgers, we ate lunch, and then headed to the neighborhood pool (yes, we forgot all about the bubbles, Braden pointed that out to us several times). The Olympics were nice, simple, and fun, but wait, the weekend wasn't over yet; we still had a Spaghetti Dinner and Auction to go to at church, so we quickly came home, showered, I made some goodies for the Auction, and we headed to the church. It was nice getting to see everyone, we came home with 3 baked good wins, and three bags of spaghetti sauce, a bag of rolls, and a bag of salad that they had left over; SCORE! Let's just say, I didn't have to worry about what we were having for lunch today or supper tonight. All in all, it was a great weekend; we spent time together, had fun, and were reminded how grateful we are to be an eternal family, and now we all need a LONG NAP!

Disaster Averted~FOR NOW

Not even 30 minutes ago, I Super Mama came to the rescue and bravely faced danger and disaster; because of my heroics, disaster was averted, for now. Okay, I might be going slightly overboard, okay way over board! It would have been disaster for the Maseda household though. Here is the scenario: I am at the sink washing dishes (where I spend a lot of time), the kids are playing happily around the house, and Rich is outside cutting grass. Then all of a sudden something (the spirit) tells me to turn around, and what do I see, to my horror Brooke has scissors in her hands and is getting ready to cut off all of her beautiful, blond, curly bangs. In two seconds I am across the kitchen and have the scissors in my hands, the one thing I had in my court and to my advantage is that Brooke is not sufficient in cutting yet; she was still trying to master the art of closing the scissors when I caught her! As the story continues, I breathed a huge sigh of relief, and she and I had a very long talk. You know the one, "What are these for?" "Paper." You get the picture; I saw, I rescued, we talked, and the lesson was learned (or so I think, but I guess only time will tell). Gotta love that Super Mama! :)

Brooke's Words of Wisdom

Every time Rich leaves to go to work Brooke shares words of wisdom with him, which are as follows, "Daddy, don't let anybody at work call you poopy or stupid!"

Better Late than Never

I can't believe it has taken me this long to post these pictures, but hey, better late than never. Back in May, Rich's sister Heidi, her husband George, and their 3 cuties came to visit (Courtney, Ashley, and Cody); we tried to convince them to stay in the South with us and not return to California, but it didn't work (we haven't completely given up hope yet though). It was so nice getting to have them come and visit; I just wish we would have spent the whole time in Myrtle Beach, but we will know for next time. It was nice getting to show them my ol' stompin' grounds where I grew up; I absolutely love Myrtle Beach, why in the world did I ever leave? Oh yeah, the spirit was leading me to my stud. Okay, it was worth leaving, but nothing will stop me from going back several times a year to visit. While in Myrtle Beach, we enjoyed the sand, the surf, and the sights; Friday night we went to Dixie Stampede, and Saturday we played on the beach, went to Broadway at the Beach, played putt-putt (okay, I actually shopped while they played putt-putt), and we ate seafood (George didn't want to leave without some good seafood). I tried to get Rich to extend our trip, but he had church duties calling; oh well, next time we will prepare ahead! Hey maybe we can have a Maseda Family Reunion in Myrtle Beach, maybe summer of 2011; what do you think Masedas? You'd never run out of things to do! Just think about it. :)

After coming home from Myrtle Beach, we still had a few days to spend together; we played games, the cousins played as much as they could, Ashley and Brooke (mainly Ashley) helped me make supper, we took a trolley tour in Savannah, we walked to our neighborhood playground, and we just enjoyed being together. We had a lot of fun, but it went by way too fast!