Primary Ideas?

Hi Everyone,

I'm getting together with the rest of the Primary Presidency in my ward to brainstorm ideas for next year, and wanted to get feedback from you about anything that has worked out successfully in your wards.

*Activities

*Primary Room Decorations (our ward is in charge this year)

*Goals and Incentives (this year, all the kids who memorized the Articles of Faith got to have a popcorn party)

*Ideas to spotlight the children

Let me know some of your ideas!! Come on, don't be shy! And Thank You in advance!

What do YOU think?

Derrick and I are battling it out over what we are going to name this precious baby girl who's on her way, so we decided to enlist your help. We definitely like Ainsley, and we definitely like Earis (pronounced "Air"-iss). Here's the dilemma: Earis is Derrick's Great-Grandma's name, so we want to spell it the way she did. However, I am having issues with the fact that it looks like you would pronounce it "Ear"-iss. So I would much rather it be a middle name. Ainsley Earis Tornow. Fantastic, right? But Derrick prefers Earis Ainsley Tornow (BE SURE TO PRONOUNCE IT RIGHT!). We really do like both names, but I am just having this little issue. So how about you all let us know what you think? Would you go with Earis or Ainsley for the first name? Do you hate both names? Do you have any other suggestions? Who knows, this baby could come out looking like a Laquisha, so nothing is set in stone. But we'd like to at least have an idea of what we might call this kid!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! (a little late!)

I'm finally getting around to posting our Halloween pictures. Derrick and I dressed up this year because our friends, Nate & Sharon Allen had their first annual Alleween Halloween Party. We had a lot of fun. Let me know if you have a hard time guessing who we dressed up as (please ignore that fat pregnant belly of mine...as well as all the other chubby parts I wish I didn't have!):

Derrick won first prize for "best individual guy costume" and I won first place for "best individual girl costume"

On Halloween night, we went to our ward's Trunk-or-TreatAll tuckered out after a night full of excitement and sugar!If you look closely, you will see that she still has a sucker in her mouth. Is she not the cutest Raggedy Ann ever?

Is this a "Black Tie" Event?

I was just showing Cecily the pictures of her baby sister's ultrasound and I asked her what she thought. She answered: "Cute Dress."

And this is all I'm going to say...

Darn that Stephenie Meyer for writing the Twilight series, and darn that Shar Allen for making me start the first book!!!!! (Those posts I've been meaning to write are just going to have to wait a bit longer...)

SHOCKER!!

Um, so I was totally planning on this baby being a boy...

...but as you can see, that isn't the case. Yep! WE'RE HAVING A GIRL!!

Hooray!!!! I have to admit, I'm really excited! For the last couple of weeks when I have thought about this baby as a boy, I have gotten a little sad. Well, duh! That's because it's totally a girl! We had a hard time getting very good pictures because she kept putting her hand to her face. I am so curious what she will look like!! I guess we'll see around March 8th!

So Much to Post!

I have a ton of things I need to post about, but not a lot of time. So if you are interested in hearing about it all, just keep checking my blog these next couple of days, because I plan to write a few posts as I have the time.
So the biggest thing in our life right now has been the restaurant. We had our VIP night on Saturday, October 20th, and it went very well. We sent out invitations

to friends and family in the area, as well as people we felt would help get the word out such as dentists, doctors, city council members, newspaper people, etc. We had a great turnout, and can I just say (yet again) that I LOVE the people in Farmington? They are so supportive and just cool people! We have felt very fortunate to have many of our workers. They have really caught on, and get better each day. We opened our doors to several people who just happened to come by in the couple of days prior to VIP night, and they were able to get a free meal. This helped our workers train and practice making the different dishes. I have to admit it was fun to watch the people get to the register and realize that they didn't have to pay for their meal!

The restaurant really turned out looking beautiful. I don't know that these pictures really do it justice, but hopefully you can get the idea:

We officially opened for business on October 22nd. We totally blew away Costa Vida's record for first day and first week numbers. Derrick had made a goal of reaching a specific number, which if we are honest, we didn't think would be possible to reach. But guess what? We totally did it!! It was a real treat after all of the hard work Derrick and so many people have put into this project.

So now, we (and by that, I mean Derrick. He's the one doing all the work. Not me!) are trying to continue progressing so that all of the employees are up to speed and know their jobs. We have been particularly grateful to have Mike, our manager, on the team. Things seriously would not have gone as smoothly as they have, had we not had him around. I hope that we can continue to make it worthwhile for him to work with us, because we really want him to stay around! Costa Vida has been really great to work with as well. They have sent down a lot of people from corporate who helped with the opening and training our employees. We have been really glad that we went with this franchise.

I want Derrick to know how impressed I have been with him during this process. It has been so rewarding to me to see him enjoy this work. Although there have been MANY hangups and headaches, he has been so happy, and he has handled it all so well, without making me feel guilty that I'm at home doing the fun task of taking care of our darling girl. I am so glad he is supportive of my wish to be at home with Cecily, and that this is where he wants me to be. Cecily and I love him SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!! Thanks Daddy, and Good Job with the new restaurant!