Lesson Learned

I've been meaning to write this ever since it happened, but I finally have a moment I can think and write.  Saturday morning our Stake (A group of congregations or wards, generally about three thousand to five thousand members in five to ten congregations in the LDS Church.) had an Activity Day for all the 8 - 11 year old girls.  So I took my girls along with several of the neighbor girls over to the Stake Center and figured I would just stay since technincally they haven't released me yet as Activity Day Leader. 

They had 4 outdoor activities set up for the girls.  I was asked to help with the 'Blind Ball Retrieval' game.  The girls were divided into two groups and one girl was blindfolded.  Then the other girls in her group had to direct her to where the ball was in the field and direct her to put it in the basket and then the next girl would go.  I was in the field and would throw the ball out once the girl was blindfolded.  As I stood there it was interesting to hear the girls try to direct the one blindfolded.  Sometimes she would follow directions exactly as she was told and sometimes the girl did what she thought the girls meant, even though it wasn't what they wanted her to do.  Often the girl would get close to me without ever knowing I was there.  At first it was really hard for me not to help her out especially when she was way off track.  And sometimes the girl would be right over the ball and had no idea where it was.  I wanted so much to reach out and help her or give her some direction, but I had to just stand there and watch her struggle.

As I stood there I started thinking about our Heavenly Father and how this must be how He feels.  So often in our lives we are wandering around blindly and He is right there, if we would just ask.  But if we don't ask He has to stand there and watch us struggle.  He wants to help us so much.  And sometimes we ask and think we know the answer we want to hear and we go in that direction when really He meant for us to do something else.  At that moment in time, standing in the hot sun in the middle of the grassy field I felt my Heavenly Father's love for me so strongly.

I know these activities were put together for the girls to learn something and to be together, but it was me that walked away with a new understanding.  Thank you!

If pumpkin is a veggie, does that make this healthy?

Mark has a pot luck tomorrow at work, so a dish was requested. Of course I forgot about it (even though it was on the calendar) until about 6:30 pm tonight. My focus today was Activity Days and Thursday just seemed so far off earlier in the week.


And may I say Activity Days was awesome today. I had a cute gal in our ward, Erin, that teaches sign language at a high school come and talk to the girls. Erin is amazing and has also started a non profit organization called Signs of Hope International. So we talked about the 7th Article of Faith and believing in the gift of tongues. Then Erin talked to the girls about sign language and her organization and showed a DVD of the cute kids in Africa that they help. Then the girls learned the alphabet in sign and signed their names and a few other signs. It was awesome. Thanks so much for sharing your amazing talents Erin!


Okay, back to the original point of this post. After deliberating over several recipes to make we finally landed on Pumpkin Bars. Mark fell in love with the ones at the Thanksgiving Point Bakery a few years back. He finally managed to get his hands on the recipe. They only make them during the Fall, so we thought it would be funny if he brought a bakery recipe to the work pot luck! Hopefully they will be as good as theirs. So I thought I would share the recipe. I'm adding my cream cheese frosting since we prefer it to the one that came with the original recipe.


Pumpkin Bars from Thanksgiving Point
Recipe By : Pillsbury
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 cup oil
2 cups pumpkin
4 eggs

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Prepare 15x10 pan (large sheet) Blend all bar ingredients and mix at low speed for 2 minutes. Pour into pan and bake 25-30 minutes. Cool.



Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1 lb powdered sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla (can you ever add too much vanilla?)

Cream butter and cream cheese together until fluffy. Add powdered sugar and vanilla; mix on low until sugar is combined and then mix on high until fluffy.


Spread Frosting over cooled bars. Store in refrigerator.


These are so good. And I always have the struggle because the small can of pumpkin is too little but the big can of pumpkin is too much, you end up with 1 cup of extra pumpkin. So tonight I made one and a half recipes and will send the big one to work and we can enjoy the small one here. I wasn't going to include a picture because mine aren't frosted yet, but Google Images are amazing and I found one that looks just like mine, thanks!