mormal

On Friday Megan went to Mormal (Mormon + Formal = Mormal)  4 local stakes (congregations) from Mission Viejo,  Rancho Santa Margarita, Laguna Niguel and San Clemente) put it on every year.  The dance was at Soka University - a beautiful campus.

Before the dance the kids went to Dana Point to take pictures.

Friends from church & school.

Love these pictures of Megan with her cousin Dusty

  Dusty & Megan and their dates

As the sun went down it got cold, very cold.  The girls were shivering in their dresses.

We found the cowboy booys on ebay and Megan was beyond excited to wear them.

out of the frying pan into the fire...

or is it the other way around?  

Today I was sustained in church as the Primary President.  I thought I'd escaped any demanding callings (for the rest of my life) because of Prop 8 but that seems to not be the case.  The verdict is still out whether I am going from frying pan to fire or fire to frying pan - my guess, Prop 8 (fire) to Primary (frying pan)

I have amazing women serving with me in the Presidency and 112 great kids that we get to help grow in the gospel.  I'm excited!

just for kari

Friday night we had a church activity...a Hawaiian luau. Entertainment was by Le Polynesia. The drummer in the group is in our ward.  We enjoyed good food and fun entertainment. We all enjoyed ourselves until Erik (the drummer from our ward) started calling a few men up to perform at & at that point I think Derek quit enjoying himself :)

We all got a good laugh watching some of the men of our ward perform.  In my opinion Derek's hula'ing skills were far superior but I realize others (namely the other wives of dancers) might feel differently.

conference

The conference talks are now online for anyone interested.

missing in action

Road Shows... 

Derek - High Councilman over it

Denise - costumes 

Megan - in it

Emily, Nate and Luke - patiently (most of the time) dealing with it

This is why there is a serious lack of posts - life is basically revolving around road shows.  They are next Friday and Saturday and we are crossing our fingers that life at the Baker home returns to normal.

a fond farewell

We got the call from my mom Sunday night that President Hinckley had passed away.  We are saddened at his passing but a smile creeps in when we think of him being reunited with his sweetheart - I am sure it was a joyous reunion.

We are grateful for his leadership and counsel all these years.  Our kids know no other prophet (although he was the 3rd prophet in Megan's life span - she is just too young to remember Pres. Benson and Pres. Hunter)  We are grateful that we got to hear him speak 2 weeks ago at our Stake Conference (broadcast to numerous Stakes in Southern California)  We will miss his voice at General Conferences (his last conference messages can be found here, here and here but know that the Lord will continue to speak to us through a new prophet.

new year, new calling

Last Sunday I was released from my calling as Enrichment Leader and put into Primary. I am teaching the Valiant 12 girls. This is the group of girls that are 11 yrs old but will turn 12 this year and start going to Young Women's. I am teaching a great group of girls, one of them being Emily so it should be a really fun year. I enjoyed my time as Enrichment Leader but am excited about this new opportunity to teach in the Primary.

Since we are on the topic of church...I have to speak at Stake Conference this weekend. I'm feeling scared and nervous so hopefully all will go well. My talk is written. I spend time each day going over it so that I will be comfortable once I am standing at the podium. I wish I was like Derek - he doesn't mind speaking, what a great gift.

enrichment night and thank yous

Last night was our quarterly enrichment activity (that's when the women of our church get together for some type of activity) I am the enrichment leader so I have been busy with all the planning and stuff (along with the counselor over enrichment) We started the evening with dinner (a big thanks to my sister in law Gail for loaning us her mugs - we used them to serve soup) We also had salad, homemade rolls and a yummy blueberry, peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream - mmmm!We based the program that followed dinner on this song, My Sister's Hands and had some women sing it. They were followed by my friend Kelly, who has definitely been touched by "her sister's hands" this past year. Kelly spoke of her experience with her girls Emma, Maddie and Abby It was a touching talk and stressed how much a kind word, a hug, or a meal can mean to someone who is in need physically or emotionally.

The enrichment counselor also spoke and she did a really great job. She shared the kind acts of service that are happening everyday in our ward that most of us are not aware of. (she didn't share names but it was nice to hear what sisters were doing to lift one another)

We ended the meeting having each sister (all 60 of them) make a simple card - we had put packets together ahead of time with all the paper cut and with adhesive, etc. We included a stamped envelope and encouraged all of them to send their card to another sister this week to say thanks for something or just to say thinking of you.

Our enrichment committee did a ton of work to help pull the night off so here is the thank you that the counselor and I are giving them. I know, I know, stop it already with the take out boxes - but I love them!

The label reads "it's our good fortune to work with you" and the inside is filled with soap fortune cookiesIt has been trial and error today as I have made the soap. It is a little tricky figuring out when to start molding the soap into cookies - it has to be firm enough to handle but still soft to not break. I got most of them done today but have a few more to make tomorrow. On the inside of each "cookie" we put a fortune. The 3 fortunes said one of the following Rona, Denise and Confucius say (followed by ...many blessings come from service...thank you for all your help...we love you _________) The we love you fortune is personalized for each sister with her name.

Visiting Teaching

I visit the greatest ladies for VT and I have an amazing companion. I love getting together each month and sharing gospel conversation with them as well as a lot of tears and laughter. I wanted to show my appreciation for them so I put together these little gifts. It's a box filled with a cute candle that says "lucky" and then some chocolate coins.I made a happy st. patty's day paper wrap to wrap around the box and then added a tag and ribbon. It was a simple, inexpensive project - I love the computer, you can do so much with it and a stack of paper. I may try to do something similar for the kids teachers at school and at church if I can recover from enrichment night last night (more on that later)