The Harlin Family

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Layla's Birthday!

Today is Layla's birthday and she is now 6!! She is such a beautiful girl! If you haven't met her, she will love you the moment you meet her. Her heart is bigger than anyone's I know. She loves everyone! She wants everyone to be happy! She is truly a special girl! I am so glad she's in our family and a part of my life. Every day she is a light in my life, and she teaches me the importance of love and laughter!

Opening her gifts!

The computer she got from Grandma and Grandpa Lorimer (which she and her sisters love!)

Layla wanted me to take homemade donuts to school for her class. I explained that I didn't think I would have time to make the donuts before I had to get them to school. So I took rainbow cupcakes, which were a HUGE hit! Then, Layla insisted that I make donuts for her birthday treat and that we put candles on them! She loved them and so did the family! It's a good thing I don't make them very often or we'd all weigh 600 lbs! :)

Layla got a K'Nex kit for her birthday! They are like the old Erector sets for those of you old enough to remember those. (I had to look them up on line!) So this afternoon, Layla, Lylli and Shane put together the roller coaster! Shane said that the girls did most of the work.

They really had a good time and Layla LOVES it!!!

Layla's Birthday Rollercoaster

Friday, May 13, 2011

Lylli Rager in Huckleberry Finn

Lylli participated in another drama production. She did a great job. Since it was too long of a show I couldn't upload it onto youtube, but I cut and pasted Lylli's parts so you could see her. You can watch the whole thing another time if you want. I'll have it on my computer!
She had the first and the last line, and that made her nervous. But she did a GREAT job! I'm proud of her!

I added several posts tonight, so make sure and scroll down to check out what we've been up to!

SO Far Behind - AGAIN!

No one really minds a post with just pictures, right? That's usually everyone's favorite part anyway. (At least it's mine!) So since I found so many pictures on my phone and camera, I thought I'd just post some of them!

This is Lylli. We were at Layla's friend's birthday party. Her grandpa has an indoor (and outdoor, but who's keeping track) pool. We have gone over several times this winter and the girls LOVE it!!

Seryn in the kiddy pool.

Layla and her friend, Aydra Hill.

We were in Casper the last part of April for a funeral. We didn't stay long, but we had a good time with our families. The first morning in Casper, Seryn fell off the bed and hit her head on a table and got a little bruise. Later that night, she was tired and jumping from couch to couch at Nana's and face planted!! Her goose egg was HUGE and stuck around for a couple days. We have since learned (I hope) that monkeys don't jump on couches or beds!!! I'm amazed this kid hasn't ever broken anything. If something is going to happen, it ALWAYS happens to Seryn!

Our kitty is getting SO big, but everyone still loves him! We have put him outside, and he is not a fan! But he's getting use to it and has proven himself equal to the dog. (There was a pretty big fight over sleeping arrangements the first night, and I'm pretty sure the cat won.) So they pretty much just avoid each other!

This is Layla holding baby Nolan. (He's a friend's baby. My girls love babies. But I'm DONE! YES, that's an announcement! And very official!)

It was FINALLY warm enough last weekend to get out the pool. The girls had a BLAST!

We have been doing some renovations on our house. One of which was to put up moulding in the house. This is Seryn helping her dad remove the partial pieces in the kitchen! She's a GREAT helper! (Shane also put in tile in the bathrooms and I have been painting!)

These were the rainbow cupcakes I made for Layla's class. They were lots of fun. Just take a white cake mix, divide it into bowls, add lots of food color until you have the colors you want. Then layer them into the cupcake wrappers. The kids LOVED them!

I did red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple.

May Scripture Story

SAMUEL THE LAMANITE

Helaman 13-16

1. What did Samuel tell the people to do?

2. Why were people shooting arrows at him?

3. Why didn't the arrows hit him?

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter

We had our typical Easter weekend. We colored eggs on Friday night.

The Easter Bunny came Saturday morning and we found baskets, ate cinnomon rolls and boiled eggs for breakfast.

Then tonight, we had our big Easter dinner with some friends. We had such a fabulous dinner!! I posted the recipes on the family recipe blog, so you can get them there if they interest you.

I didn't want to buy a $30 ham, but Jerry brought us some meat a couple months back and brought a leg of lamb, so we had Herb Crusted Leg of Lamb. We had Twice Baked Potatos which I made up as I went along. But I do that with everthing. We had Deviled Eggs, compliments of Betty Crocker. When we went out for our anniversary dinner, Shane got some Butter Maple Carrots, so I came up with a recipe for those and her really liked them! We had a Fruit Salad and Feather Light Rolls.

We finished with an Angel Food Torte, that was fabulous!!! I have recently become enamored with angel food cakes from scratch. I have always been afraid to make them because they call for so many egg whites. I will never care again! The last time I made a box mix, it was spongy and had a weird flavor, due to the powder egg whites, or something. Anyway, a real one if FABULOUS! My Betty Crocker recipe calls for vanilla flavor and almond. I've replaced the almond with orange. I'd like to replace it with coconut. I also like to fold in shaved chocolate. Leaving the chocolate in chips or chunks is too heavy. But the shavings are wonderful.

All in all we had a great Easter!!

Oh, this week, I also made Toffee, Peanut Butter Eggs, and Cadburry Eggs! Yummy!!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Scripture Stories

I'm late posting this month's scripture stories because we had General Conference, then we were in Casper for a funeral, and then we had Stake Conference. I had to call my friend to get the scripture stories this month.

So first, we are reading

Daniel 6 (Daniel and the Lion's Den).

Then we're reading

1 Samuel 17 (David and Goliath).

We'll probably push David to next week so we can read the Easter story this week too! Lots of reading! The girls are EXCITED!

A Season For Love

“Are you a daddy?” Lark asked, once they pulled into the parking lot and started to get out of the car.
“No, angel. I’m not.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I can’t be a daddy without a mommy.”
“What ‘bout Mommy?” Lavender asked. “You be a daddy with Mommy.”
Jerrick chuckled nervously but Rhianna looked over at Lark and felt concerned. The look on her oldest daughter’s face told her that a confrontation was soon at hand. Lark’s eyes were suddenly shooting daggers into the back of Jerrick’s head. Rhianna changed the subject. “What do you girls want for lunch?”
The subject was seemingly forgotten until after the waitress had taken their orders and the girls sat coloring some pictures. Lark suddenly looked up and glared at Jerrick for a few minutes. Rhianna, discussing the progress of her latest book, did not see her daughter and was caught off guard when the girl spoke.
“We already have a daddy!” Lark said definitely.
“Lark, honey.” Rhianna knew where the conversation was sure to go from here. “We’ve talked about this.”
“But I already have a daddy. I don’t want another one.”
“That’s fine, honey. No one said they wanted to take Daddy’s place.”
“But he said…” Lark began as she pointed to Jerrick and her eyes filled with tears.
“I said that I’m not a daddy, angel. That’s all,” Jerrick said understandingly. “I do have some little nieces and a nephew though. And I think one of them might be about your age.”
“My age?” Lark asked with skepticism. “Are they my friends?”
“Well, I suppose if you met them and liked them they would be your friends,” Jerrick said with a smile. Rhianna gave him a smile, relieved that he had so elegantly changed the subject and they had not created a big scene.
“Can we, Mommy? Can we play with my new friends?” Lark asked excitedly, for she called every young child her friend.
Rhianna looked first to Lark’s eager face, then to Lavender who seemed oblivious to the conversation and finally to Jerrick who looked completely amused. “Well, I…” Rhianna began.
“Actually,” Jerrick interrupted. “Perhaps now is as good of a time as any to reveal my secret motive behind asking you girls to lunch.”
“A secret motive?” Rhianna eyed him warily.
Jerrick suddenly seemed to squirm in his seat but gained composure quickly. “Well, kitten,” he began.
“Mommy’s not a kitten,” Lark said in disgust as she wrinkled her nose.
Jerrick chuckled. “No, she’s not.” Turning his attention back to Rhianna he said, “Anna, I hesitate to bring this up because I know it’s a delicate subject but…” He hesitated and Rhianna wondered what he might possibly say.
“Yes?”
“Well, this is the thing. My family has been hounding me incessantly about not having a wife or even a girlfriend.” Rhianna nodded, still unsure of his venue for conversation. “So I was wondering, if you didn’t have other plans, if you and your girls would like to accompany me to my parent’s cabin for Thanksgiving?”
“Spend Thanksgiving with you?” Rhianna asked, surprised at the suggestion.
“Me and my family, yes. Everyone is planning to be there; Joey’s family and Andy and his roommate. And I was hoping that maybe you would enjoy role playing with me. Just for the weekend. You know, to get them off my back for a while.”
“I wanna go!” Lavender smiled.
Rhianna thought for a moment. She had no family, outside of her great-aunt Sophie who was in a nursing home. Her mother-in-law lived in another state, and given Rhianna’s current mood toward the approaching holidays, she had no desire to entertain visiting her in-laws. The proposition Jerrick made was enticing. Her girls would receive a good Thanksgiving memory, and she could sit back and ignore her surroundings. Plus, she would have Jerrick to help keep her mind off past memories and the loss of her husband.
“There will be kids for the girls to play with and Joey’s wife, Mindy, will be there.”
“You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend for the weekend?” she asked after a few minutes.
"Crazy idea, huh. What do you say?"