UNITY THROUGH SERVICE

"Unity which comes to a family or to a people softened by the Spirit will bring great power. With that power will come recognition from the world. Whether that recognition brings praise or envy, it could lead us to pride. That would offend the Spirit. But there is a protection against pride, that sure source of disunity. It is to see the bounties which God pours upon us not only as a mark of His favor but an opportunity to join with those around us in greater service."

President Henry B. Eyring

SERIOUS FASHION STATEMENT!

I was debating whether or not to post the pictures of my pre and post surgery but after all the HOOPLA going around about Sarah Palin, I felt that she needed some competition. Nothing says style like a surgery "shower cap"!

I look HOT! (who's with me?)
Sarah Palin WHO?
("Seriously Mom? You're embarrassing me!")
Even this guy wanted in on the action...
I thought you'd appreciate the post shower cap/surgery/drugged look I got going on.
This my friends is what the port actually looks like. My surgeon kindly sterilized it for me so that I could bring it home for my children to see.

The End!:)

NICE KNOWIN' YA!

Hello my dear friend Port...today is the day you must come out. You've been a great friend, really you have! You were there when I needed you most. Unfortuanately for me, this was nothing but a friendship of convience and now that I no longer have a need for you...I must kick you to the curb. I'm sorry if this hurts, maybe even stings a little...but think about all the times you hurt me...there, now we're even. Maybe someday we'll meet again. (I'll have my people call your people.)

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Port, it's been nice knowin' ya!

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS...

Unanswered questions

I have been thinking about this topic for a long, long time. Six years to be exact. When Ben was born, many tests were done to find out why? Why was he born with a brain that didn't grow in utero? Was it something that I did? Or didn't do? For the first couple of years, I was stuck on why? Not that having any answers would change anything, not that I would want it to and not that I would worry about it happening again. I think maybe it's my

type A personality. Eventually I was able to let go.

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Fast forward 6 1/2 years later and here I am again. I just got a call from my "high risk" OB doctor up at DHMC letting me know the results of my pathology report - on the baby and placenta. When I lost the baby, we agreed to full testing of both to see if we could find some answers. Well...according to the reports, they weren't able to come up with any reason. Of course as I delved further, I found that they didn't end up testing the baby even though Steve and I had requested it. The placenta reports are being forwarded to a pathologist that specializes in placentas and my dr. also explained more in detail my pregnancy and how sick I was to him. She's hoping that maybe he'll be able to find something that the others didn't. Receiving this phone call was actually really hard and affected me in a way that I never would have thought. Maybe because I still don't know why? There isn't some obvious answer that would maybe give me closure. I guess this is where faith comes in to play. I do have faith that whatever happened was in God's plan and somehow I am able to take comfort in that...

MY STRIPPLING WARRIOR

I can't help but feel so grateful that while I was sick, this little fighter stayed well. This is the first year of his entire life that he has not been hospitalized once for an illness. Now if that's not a miracle, then I don't know what is.

MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING

Not MY best friend silly...Steve's best friend. Chris Noyes was married this weekend to his new bride, Meghan Howe. Chris works with Steve at the police department and the two have become really close over the years. Steve was honored to be one of Chris' ushers for his wedding. We had a blast and really enjoyed being part of their special day.

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Steve paid a dollar (he's cheap like that:)) to dance with his best friend

This was before the wedding, waiting for the bride to arrive. Does Steve seem to dwarf all other groomsmen or is it just me?:)
Chris and Meghan love the Red Sox and had a Red Sox theme...hence the "red socks".
Becky and Steve
After the ceremony...
Becky and Allison toasting the happy couple. (virgin strawberry daiquiris...my favorite!)

GOODBYE SUMMER

It's always a sad time at the Orton house when this time of year rolls around. I think I'm just as bad as my kids if not worse in not wanting them to go back to school. This year has been harder than in years past because I was sick all summer. Thanks to many family members and lots of friends, my kids were able to still have a fantastic summer.

Ben hanging with us at our local Gilford Beach.
I LOVE this boy!
Orton and Hutchins' children having some good bonding time.
More time spent with the Hutchins' cousins. We love these girls!!

The LAST HURRAH of summer. Rachael and her girls, Jenny and her girls and my mom all came up to my neck of the woods for one last beach day together.

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GOODBYE SUMMER...hope to see you again REAL SOON!!!

CHaD GOLF TOURNAMENT

Been a while since you've seen Ben, huh? Well...today was his big DEBUT at the Loudon, NH CHaD (Children's Hospital at Dartmouth) Golf Tournament. Why were we there? I got a phone call late last week asking us if we would be willing to come and represent the children that are helped by CHaD. I told him we would LOVE to go...on one condition..."Please don't make me speak." He chuckled and said that would be fine. Today was the day and so Ben, Stevie and I drove 30 minutes to Loudon and spent the afternoon hanging around and getting to meet some really nice people.

Here is Ben...looking so grown up!
Stevie was SO bored waiting more than an hour for the event to start so she passed her time taking pictures...lots of pictures...so many that you'd be here all day looking at them if I posted them. I'm sure you have better things to do so I'll spare you the pain and only post a few.
I had to take my turn photographing my cute daughter. She never fails to "strike a pose" when she sees the camera pointed at her...
Stevie loves this picture because if you look in the lens of my glasses, you can see her reflection - "how cool is that?" says she...
I love the way Stevie LOVES her brother...
"Yo Dude, I've got my eye on YOU!"
Before the luncheon/raffle/auction got under way, Stevie worked the crowd handing out CHaD flyers and pins...
My favorite part? When they kept calling her "Stephanie"...she hates being called "Stephanie". After a couple of hours of being there the golfers finally got it right.:)
For the raffle, Stevie was asked to draw out the tickets from this big box. We had a few tickets of our own but didn't win anything this time.
Stevie reading off the numbers of the ticket.

I'm adding this late because Stevie requested it. (probably cuz she took the video) If you watch it closely, about half way through you'll see her get really close to Ben's face. Now...just in case you aren't a professional "lip reader", let me translate. This is what Ben is saying to his dear sister. "Take the camera out of my face before I lick your nose with my tongue!"

SPONTANEOUS NIGHT OUT

Okay all you blogging friends out there, don't judge me for what I am about to admit...Steve and I abandoned FHE tonight for a deal that we couldn't turn down. (don't worry, we postponed FHE for FHD - that'd be Family Home Day, happening tomorrow, we have all day together.) Anyway, our friends the Palisi's invited us out on their boat. It was a beautiful night and we had the HUGE lake of Winnipesaukee all to ourselves because it was a bit breezy which made the lake choppy. (nobody wanted to be out on the choppy lake I guess) But...it was still so much fun to be out on our beautiful lake and see all the islands and mountains surrounding us. We had a great time!

Steve and I hung out in the back while the Palisi's drove us all around. We got a bit wet here and there but didn't care because it was so beautiful. (I'm totally LOVING my comb over bangs!:)
This is my good friend Sharon, she lost her son Nicholas two years ago at the age of 6 to brain/spine cancer. We have been through a lot together.
This is Sharon's husband Joe - he was the captain for the night. I can't tell you how healing it was to be out amongst the amazing creations of our Heavenly Father. I could've sat out there forever just basking in the beauty of it all. To cap off a perfect night, my hubby took me out to dinner at our favorite restaurant. Nothing like having a fun spontaneous night out and having kids that are very forgiving/understanding.

Here's a brief clip of us out on the boat...

FOOD STORAGE

UPDATE:

After posting about my food storage I was feeling a little unprepared for my year's supply so I did what any good woman would do...I jumped into action. (now I'm jumping into bed...) I made 2 batches of blackberry jam, 2 batches of peach jam, two quarts of peach syrup (YUM!), sliced and froze 6 quart bags of yellow/zucchini squash, made three batches of zucchini bread and peeled/sliced 12 quart bags of fresh frozen peaches. There...now I feel better.

Look at all this deliciousness. I promise to share if you come visit me...
Nothing says lovin' like bread from the oven! (amen sister)
My frozen peaches - just waiting for pies or smoothies...mmm...
Frozen summer/zuchinni squash. This makes my heart swell just looking at it...
At the end of the day I was left with this, took me over an hour to finish the thousands of pots and pans and bowls needed for my day in the kitchen. (can you even believe I made it out of the house for a night out with my husband?)

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Here's a little game I like to call..."Take a picture of your food storage and share for all the world to see". As you probably have noticed, I don't have more than 3 months here - although I do have buckets of wheat, rice, pasta and a few other things that are stored in my crawl space....but I am NOT crawling in there to take a picture of it. (that's what I have children for) Anyway, I wanted to throw the challenge out to

you

to do a post on your food storage because it's always a good motivator to try and do better.

Here is our pantry. It is located in our basement underneath the stairs. It was a perfect little spot to turn into a place for food storage. I love the #10 cans that fit perfectly underneath the stairs - click on the picture and you can see it better. (don't judge me that I have froot loops and corn pops in my storage - that's my husband's purchase)
This little spot is located in my wash room - we have extra shelves for our paper goods but I didn't take a picture of those because I am really embarrased for you to know that we have probably two weeks left of toilet paper. (I'm on it, alright? Back off!) But...I didn't want to leave my sweet Benjamin out. Since he can't eat what we eat, I am showing you that yes...I do have food storage for him too. I only have 4 months supply here, I'm still working on that too. He uses a formula, pictured in the white boxes, protein and fiber supplements in the cans and the box in the middle is his feeding bags.

Besides working on my "dry" stuff, I also have a freezer that is full of beans, yellow squash and other goodies from my garden and sister Jenny's orchard. I really probably should be canning this stuff so it can sit on my shelves but I am a sucker for "fresh" fruit and vegies in the winter. (it would be a problem if my power went out for days...then I would lose all of it.)
Behind my house I have numerous amounts of rasberry and blackberry bushes. I take full advantage of this free fruit and like to make jam with it. I send my kids out every day in the month of August and they bring me back cups full of berries to work with. (they love me for this, really they do...especially when their cups aren't full enough, then I send them back out into the wilderness where they crawl through the noxious weeds. Good times I tell you!)
Here is the finished product...aren't they beautiful? I will probably get around 20 pints this year as the town cut some of the berry bushes down.
Here is a picture of my sister Amy Jo...I am including her in my blog today because she is the one that sent me this email below. Look, she's actually telling me to go and share. She's shy like that. So...here I am, dutifully sharing, and now I'm passing the torch to you, my dear bloggers. Do share...really, it's fun. (fun tied in with a little bit of pain -

knowing I'm not totally prepared, but hey...I'm working on it!)

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(Church Public Affairs is asking Church members to share their experiences with maintaining and utilizing food storage by posting video, text or other content on personal blogs, video-sharing sites like YouTube, social media sites like Facebook, or other Internet sites. Members can then e-mail a link to their story to publicaffairs-slc@ldschurch.org. The Newsroom site may link to some of them in an upcoming Web package on the Church welfare program, but in any case the stories may be beneficial to others who read them on the Web.The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long encouraged its members to store extra food to provide for possible future needs caused by economic hardship, disasters or other emergencies. Encouraging individual members to be prepared is part of the Church's overall welfare plan.

http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/sharing-food-storage-preparedness-stories-with-new-media)