RedsDirt

nursery age!

2012-01-23T17:20:00.000-08:00

Owen graduated from nursery, and Weston started nursery. This is very exciting! This active, non-lap sitting kid can now play during the 2nd and 3rd hours of church. We don't have to try to entertain him, keep him quiet, clean up drool off the seats, or wander the hallways with him. Separation anxiety or tears when we left him in nursery? Not a chance. He never looked back. The hard part is getting him to LEAVE nursery. Nursery is a great place to be!

sunbeam!

2012-01-23T15:38:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing lots of posts about new sunbeams - we've got one too. At the beginning of the year, Owen started going to primary. He's no longer in nursery, but is now with the 3 year old class. He's done great being in with the big kids. (Now, if only I could convince him to wear big kid underwear...)

The activity day girls helped make these picture ABC quiet books for the new sunbeams. The idea came from one of the young women at church in Oklahoma who made a book for each of the nursery kids (Jared got one). Here are a few of the pages.

weekend fun

2012-01-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of more pictures from the weekend when my parents were here. On Friday night, they watched the boys while Alex and I went to the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We can't remember the last time we went to see a movie in the theater. It was nice, except for being asked by someone in front of us to be more quiet with our popcorn bag. We didn't realize we were being so loud...

On Monday morning, we went on a short hike to see butterflies. Love butterflies. The boys loved picking up the ones off the ground with sticks.

(thanks for the picture Mom!)

We went out to eat on Saturday night to Chili's and to a local hamburger place on Monday for lunch (didn't take any pictures at lunch, but here's a funny one from Chili's). Weston loves chips & salsa!

It's great to be 8!

2012-01-22T18:48:00.000-08:00

My parents were here last weekend. It was great to have them here for Nathan's birthday party, but what they really came for was Nathan's baptism. We had his party in the morning and baptism in the afternoon. It was a busy weekend, but we loved it.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we believe that the age of accountability is 8 years old. When 8, children can choose to be baptized and then confirmed, which means to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. After Nathan was baptized and confirmed, he officially became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And while he may not fully understand this yet, he made promises to take upon him the name of Christ, to always remember Him, and keep the commandments. Here is a talk on baptism (being "born again") if you're interested.

The program was short and sweet. We sang a couple of primary songs about baptism and the Holy Ghost. I love the words to these songs, so I'll share those.

When I am Baptized

"I like to look for rainbows whenever there is rain and ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again... I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away, and I can be forgiven and improve myself each day. I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain. I want to be the best I can and live with God again."

The Holy Ghost

"When Christ was on the earth, He promised He would send the Holy Ghost to comfort us, our true, eternal friend. The Holy Spirit whispers with a still small voice. He testifies of God and Christ and makes our hearts rejoice. And when we are confirmed by sacred priesthood power, the Holy Ghost is given to us to guide us every hour. Oh, may I always listen to that still small voice. And with his light I'll do what's right each time I make a choice."

My dad gave a wonderful talk on baptism and the Holy Ghost (Nathan requested him to give the talk). Alex performed the baptism and confirmation. If you're wondering about that, Alex does have the priesthood authority to do that. We believe that you must be baptized by one holding the proper authority, just as Jesus sought out John the Baptist because he had the authority to baptize. I'm grateful that Alex is worthy to have the priesthood. (Not only can he baptize, but he can also give blessings of comfort or healing when we're sick or in special need. The kids receive blessings before the beginning of the school year. I have gotten a priesthood blessing before each of my C-sections. The boys will prepare to receive the Aaronic priesthood when they're 12, which will prepare them to receive the Melchizedek priesthood which Alex and many others hold. These priesthood blessings must be given by someone with proper authority, but can be given to anyone who asks. You don't have to be a member of the church to receive a priesthood blessing. So just in case any of you out there are in need of special comfort or blessings, ask a worthy priesthood holder in our church. We believe that these blessings are from God and it's comforting to know and feel of His love, and we can also gain direction or peace in the Lord's will for us personally.)

Anyway, I went off on a tangent, but it was neat to see Alex perform those ordinances. My dad also participated in the confirmation. My mom gave the closing prayer. We're glad they could be here. Nathan sang a solo as part of the program. He did a great job singing "I Will Follow God's Plan" - here are the words to that song:

"My life is a gift; my life has a plan. My life has a purpose; in heaven it began. My choice was to come to this lovely home on earth and seek for God's light to direct me from birth. I will follow God's plan for me, holding fast to his word and his love. I will work, and I will pray; I will always walk in his way. Then I will be happy on earth and in my home above."

We can't take pictures during the ordinances or the program, so I may have to get Nathan to sing the song again here at home.

We gave Nathan his own set of scriptures with his name on it. He has already started reading from them. Nathan is such a good kid, and it was great to see him make this important step in his life and set a good example for his younger brothers. We love you Nathan!

The big 8!

2012-01-21T00:32:00.000-08:00

Nathan turned 8 a couple weeks ago. Eight is a big birthday, because that's when you're old enough to be baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (more on the baptism later). The morning of his birthday was a little disappointing, besides the bacon, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast. Alex and Weston were still out of town on Nathan's birthday, so we didn't do all the presents right away. He was pretty disappointed to see "only 3 presents" on the table in the morning. I told him more were coming later. It was even more disappointing when 2 of them were clothes. He opened up the football later with Alex watching via Skype. He was excited to use a gift card to pick out a lego set. We had McDonald's for dinner, but his favorite part of the day was getting to watch the National Championship football game. The only problem was he was rooting for LSU. Not a great game for them. (Nathan has always really liked LSU. Originally I think he really liked their mascot, the tiger, but then jumped on the band wagon when he realized they were a really good team. Nathan loves to watch college sports. He begs to get on-line and watch games or check scores.)

Alex brought home a big lego set that Nathan loves. (We have legos everywhere now!)

Here's a picture of Nathan's party invite from the computer screen (can't figure out how to make a jpg out of the word document and the color cartridge is printing blue for the green).

We had Nathan's friend party on Saturday morning the 14th. He requested a football party, so we invited about 10 kids to play flag football at the park. Alex and my dad organized the game (thankfully). I made a football cake, which eventually came out (I ended up using a whole thing of chocolate frosting on the ball. The sides kept crumbling off, so I kept adding more frosting "mortar" until it stuck. It was a late night/early morning project.) We had "half time snacks" - orange slices, gatorade, chips, and cake. I made chocolate Rice Krispie footballs with white chocolate decorating for gift favors (these may be out there somewhere on-line, but as far as I know these were my own creation). I don't know if everyone loved playing football, but Nathan had a great time! We may have to get these boys together more often to play sports.

Here's one short little clip - It's hard to see who's who, but Nathan is there at the end, pulling the flag. He was pretty good at snatching the flags.

While Weston was gone...

2012-01-20T17:24:00.000-08:00

...Owen had one-on-one time with mama! We went on some extra outings to the park and zoo. It sure is much easier with one happy kid. Owen is a pretty good kid when he doesn't have those pesky brothers bothering him or stealing attention.

We always have to see the elephants, but this outing he really enjoyed the gorillas. I think we watched them for 30 minutes, especially since one of them came and sat right next to the glass.

Weston in OK

2012-01-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

Looking at the last post, it appears that Weston is still in Oklahoma... he is back home. He and Alex had a nice visit. They were there for almost a week. He got to open some more presents when he got there. He loved "helping" with some yardwork, otherwise known as clinging to a big shovel while Alex and uncle Jim worked. Weston had a cheese eating contest with Papa John and looked at goats and rocks with Grandma. I'm not sure what else they did, but they had a fun time!

Most of the time, Weston spent pointing at things. He followed the dogs around, trying to say dog, but with only "uhnnnnnn" coming out. He did go from a single grunt "uh" to a longer sound - progress. He sure loved the dogs!

off to OK...

2012-01-05T14:51:00.000-08:00

Two of my favorite people flew to Oklahoma to visit grandma and grandpa. Alex's parents hadn't met Weston yet, and we wanted to take advantage of Weston still flying for free. We'll see how he does without his brothers and mama. I think he was pretty clingy to Alex. I don't really know how he's doing, but I'm having attachment issues... miss my little guy. It's been a little strange not having him toddling around or sitting in my lap while I'm on the computer or drooling all over me or pointing at what he wants. I hope they're having fun! (I miss Alex too, but I'm used to him being gone and he's not with me 24/7.) :)

Joshua Tree

2012-01-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

We're making the most of the recreational opportunities in CA - we took a couple of days and visited Joshua Tree National Park. Desert is not my favorite landscape, but it does have its own beauty. It was interesting to see the difference between the Colorado and Mojave Deserts. I definitely liked the joshua trees in the Mojave Desert, but the cholla cactus garden in the Colorado desert was also interesting. I didn't get our own pictures of the cholla - unfortunately our camera got sand in the lens and broke halfway through the 1st day. (Luckily I had already taken several pictures before that to document our trip...) The boys loved climbing on the rocks and there was plenty of dirt!

Here are a couple of cool pictures that I found on-line of the cholla cactus garden:

2012 calendar (silly)

2012-01-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos, in case you need some for your custom-made calendar...

cover

jan

feb

mar

apr

may

jun

jul

aug

sept

oct

nov

dec

Alex's brother Jim is the lucky recipient of this fun calendar! It's in the mail.

Happy New Year!

another temple

2012-01-01T18:08:00.000-08:00

The Redlands, CA temple - I think this may be our 20th temple as a couple. The session I happened to be there for was a special Tongan session, which means I got to participate with a group of Tongan members of the church. It was interesting to hear it in Tongan (although I did have headphones to translate into English).

Grandpa Bob's gift

2012-01-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

My grandparents sent money to the boys for Christmas. Instead of buying more toys, we decided to buy an annual museum membership. We made our first visit and enjoyed it! They had a special Christmas pinata the day we went. The boys liked the archaeological dig (of course they all love dirt!) and we enjoyed all the animal exhibits. We are glad we can go back again - this is the gift that keeps giving all year.

Christmas morning

2012-01-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

We had Alex's family watching the present opening via Skype. (In one of the videos, you'll notice Owen taking his gift over to the computer to thank Aunt Jane.)

I also got to join in on my family's Christmas celebrating on Skype. My siblings and I put together a special gift for my parents, with written letters and a Willlow Tree nativity. We each wrote a note corresponding to one of the characters from the nativity. My person was Mary, so I related my experiences to her and to being a mother. We also shared our (written) testimonies of Jesus Christ, which went with the shepherds, who after seeing the Savior went and made known abroad what they had seen. I would have loved to actually be there with my family, but I was grateful to be able to watch and listen. Technology is amazing. I'm sure I missed a yummy dessert though...

Right before bed, the boys remembered about the race cars they got and had fun playing with them. The loop was a little hard to do with the crank shift power, so they had to keep manually moving the car back on the track. We got a kick out of Owen cheering "Go Dad-da go!"

My favorite toy of the day, and I don't even know who gave it to us, was this Perplexus ball:

It has a little metal ball that you have to work through a maze and into a little pocket at the end. I had to work on it until I was successful. Addicting toy.

Thank you for all the gifts - we are so spoiled!

Christmas Day

2012-01-01T00:32:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve traditions

2012-01-01T00:18:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve, we have a couple of traditions. One is from my family, a candlelight reading of the Christmas story along with singing hymns. Even though the boys don't sing much yet, I still love this tradition. Nathan was able to do some of the reading this year. I loved seeing Weston gaze into the candlelight. Another tradition is having a small party for Jesus, where we each make a "wish" - a New Year's resolution - followed by blowing out a candle. The boys love this, and you can see that Weston enjoyed his cupcake. Actually, he sneezed right into his cupcake and got frosting all over the side of his face. After cupcakes, we let the boys open a present - pajamas (and some other clothes). I always intend to make the party a little bit more fancy, but once again it was just a really simple party. Maybe better planning next year.

hoppin' December

2011-12-31T23:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more events from this past month...

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T17:46:00.000-08:00

Nathan and Jared sang this song, "Baby in a Manger" by Sally Deford in church today. They did a great job! Everyone thought they sounded like angels. I was really proud of them for singing in front of everyone. (We've been having some technical issues with the camera, so hopefully the picture and sound match up. We had to do each verse separately because of the 100 mb limitation for video.) Enjoy!

'twas the night before Christmas...

2011-12-24T23:31:00.000-08:00

...and all through the house, every creature was stirring, even the ~~mouse~~ rats. The stockings aren't hung yet by the chimney full of cobwebs, and hoping that cousin Nicholas is having fun in Spain! (Okay, so my brain is a bit fried at this point, but there's always some kind of drama going on. It's not the peaceful day/evening I'd hoped for. I actually think the rats in our garage are gone, but we had to deal with those recently. We worked on cleaning mold off a couple of walls today - didn't think I'd be doing that today. Yuck! Because of that, the boys are all in Weston's room tonight. The stockings really aren't out yet, nor are the presents wrapped. We're working on that. And cousin Nicholas really is in Spain for Christmas. Have fun you guys!)

So the boys got to open one present tonight - some clothes and pajamas. Here they are in them, sitting on these boxes that are perfect for taking pictures in front of the tree! We'll take the presents out of the boxes tonight, but we wanted to make sure they didn't get opened before Christmas. The boys are ready! I think I'll sleep good tomorrow night. This is a lot of work. It's worth it though. Just look at these boys!

Buzz "wightyear" party

2011-12-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Owen's 3rd birthday last week. He requested a Buzz "wightyear" party (although the previous requests were Curious George and then Winnie the Pooh). Owen's l's come out as w's, so it's so cute to hear him talk about his buzz "wightyear" party. He couldn't stop talking about it, and really couldn't understand the concept of waiting until his birthday. When we'd look at cakes or something on-line, he'd say, "Go make my cake." I tried to explain that he had to wait, but that didn't register. The morning of his birthday, we had bacon, eggs, and pancakes, followed by opening his presents from family. Later, he had his friend party with 4 little friends. We got him a stomp rocket, which I had planned on the kids playing with, but it was a little too muddy and they kept losing the rockets in the tree or over the fence. I didn't have a chance to come up with any other games, but they had fun just playing with toys. I got some little finger lights that the kids loved playing with. We also had dinner for the kids - pigs in a blanket, cantaloupe, chips, and lime green Hawaiian punch. And of course we had cake! My mom sent a little Buzz toy that was perfect for the cake topper. I wasn't sure how I was going to put together an acceptable Buzz cake, but I snatched his toy and it all came together. One of Owen's favorite presents was a toy laser gun that I got from Michael's for $3 - it lights up and makes sounds. Annoying toy, but well worth seeing his amusement over it.

(I have a couple more cute pictures, but I can't find the camera's computer cord. They'll have to wait.)

2-0h-11 Christmas tree!

2011-12-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

ever had one?

2011-12-20T15:53:00.001-08:00

Artsy

2011-12-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

Jared was recognized for his artwork. Most of the kindergartener's pictures were similar, but the sentences were different. So Jared's was selected on what he said for "I am special because..." He is very proud that he can ride his bike to school. I'd add to it that he also knows his own lock combination. There's many reasons why Jared is special though! It was interesting to see what he came up with for why he's special. Jared may turn out to be our artsy kid. He seems to enjoy doing artwork, and he is very meticulous and likes to take his time and do it well.

rockin' runners

2011-12-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

Nathan and Jared had a fundraiser jog-a-thon at school, and they both did really awesome. They had to run as many mini laps as they could in 30 minutes. I'm not sure what the distance was, but Nathan did 50 laps (filled the card) and Jared did 35 laps. Nathan got 1st place out of all the 2nd graders (about 70?) and Jared got 3rd out of the kindergarteners (about 65?). I didn't imagine how proud I would feel at their determination and endurance. They both just kept running. Many puttered out after about 10 minutes, but Nathan and Jared kept going. After the first 10 minutes, they let the kids get water. Jared took a new cup after just about every lap, took a sip, and then chucked it over his shoulder. I was getting a kick out of that. He was just having fun out there. Nathan never even stopped for water. He and his friend took off at the beginning, slowed a little, and then kept a pretty steady pace. When they had the award ceremony later, I noticed that none of the girls in the school ran more laps than Nathan and only about 5 or 6 boys ran more laps (about 51-53 laps). One of the 5th (?) graders ran 61 laps. They did a great job - my rockin' runners!

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-03T13:22:00.000-08:00

We didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving this year. It was just us - which means I did all the cooking while the boys played. I sent them out so they wouldn't get in the way. Alex took them to their favorite hiking place and then played at the beach until the food was done.

The food turned out okay. I'm blaming the less-than-stellar results on our ancient Wedgewood Futura gas oven. The turkey was overdone on one side - I should have turned it midway through cooking. The green bean casserole also overcooked. The sweet potatoes were too soft and the pie filling bubbled out through the sides. It still tasted pretty good. The rolls and real mashed potatoes were great, as well as the fried chicken. I think next time I won't do turkey at all! We all liked the fried chicken drumsticks so much, and they were MUCH EASIER than the turkey. The boys wouldn't eat the sweet potato apple casserole, but I liked it (even though it was more like sweet potato applesauce). Jared and Owen loved the jello. I would have preferred cranberry sauce, but I knew they wouldn't eat that so jello seemed like a good alternative. So, there it is. A full day's work for a 20 minute meal.

Nothing fancy. You can see that we had a very casual feast, complete with Spiderman in attendance. :)

The day after Thanksgiving, we took the boys to a local park, which was packed. We forgot that our city is the place people want to come for Thanksgiving. I didn't take any pictures at the park, but we enjoyed playing tag amidst the crowd. We also stopped to see the turtles and ducks nearby. In the evening, we did a mini hike at the beach to watch the sunset. Beautiful place! Sure missed seeing family though.

We loved seeing Weston carry around the seaweed. Some kids carry blankets or toys around for security... Weston carries seaweed. :)

November activity days

2011-12-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

I'm still in charge of activities for the 8-11 year old girls. Besides not being able to relate to them very well, I'm enjoying the calling. This month, we made the "Give Thanks" frames using the $1 wooden frames from Michael's. We covered them with decorative paper and modpodge. I found the "thanks" sparkly letters on clearance at Michael's and printed out the "give" on the computer. I brought some buttons and other little embellishments, thinking they might like to put 2-3 of them on the frame. I'm pretty simplistic I guess. I forget that they like to put things all over. They also got pretty crazy with the distressing ink for the edges. Oh well. They also got gratitude journals which they were supposed to write in daily for November.

Our 2nd activity: We talked about the 13th article of faith -
"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

We focused on the "seek after these things" and did a scavenger hunt for some of the good things we seek after. They were given a clue and had to look by an item that went with that, such as seeking after good music (piano), seeking good friends (phone), seeking good books (bookshelf), seeking to keep our bodies healthy (fruit), etc. They had fun with it. When they found all their clues, they put it together to reveal where the treasure was, which was a gold treasure box with beads in it. They used the beads to make simple bracelets on memory wire. The wire was so easy to work with. We just bent one end of it with pliers, strung the beads on, and bent the other side. So easy. Not fancy, but simple.

We did a 3rd activity this month. We made advent calendar wreaths using clothespins. I pre-painted 25 clothespins for each wreath. We used a fake pine garland and cut off pieces (with wire cutters) to hot glue on each clothespin. Prior to that, we wrapped some little red and gold glitter balls around the pine piece (the balls were already on a wire and part of a decorative stem). We arranged the clothespins around a circular piece of covered cardboard (I used a cereal box and glued some scrapbook paper on). Then we stuck 1-25 under each of the clothespins - each day has a little service or activity to do to countdown the days until Christmas. Another pretty simple, but cute activity.

Weston is usually with Owen!

2011-12-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

The answer to the previous post is usually "with Owen." Weston and Owen are partners in crime, best buddies, and sometimes worst enemies. I think someone coined that "best frienemies" or something like that. It's fun to see their relationship grow.

Where's Waldo?

2011-12-01T21:29:00.000-08:00

Where's ~~Waldo~~ Weston?

He likes to get in and on anything and everything. I don't have a picture of him on the top bunk, but if we leave the ladder on, he loves to climb up there. He also likes to get on the table. In one of the pictures, you can see that he has only one shoe on (red plaid shirt picture). We call him "peg leg" sometimes because we can hear him clomping around with one shoe. Usually the question is, "Where is your other shoe?" He doesn't have any words yet, but we're not concerned about that. We're actually enjoying his silence for now, since his brothers talk non-stop. He does point and grunt "uhn" when he wants something. He will bring us Nutrigrain bars or boxes of pasta or whatever he can get in the cupboard when he's hungry. He really is a funny kid! He makes us laugh. I had to include the picture of him sleeping with his pants down!

What else did we do on Halloween?

2011-12-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

The boys didn't have school on Halloween, so we went to the zoo. I sometimes think the boys would get bored seeing the same animals again, but they always seem to be fascinated by something. They particularly enjoyed watching the otters.

I should mention that we went to the zoo after our annual trip to the doctor's office. We got to see all the nurses and doctors dressed up again. We were there last year on Halloween as well. I'm not sure nurses in costumes helps at all (aren't they already scared of them?) :)

13.1 and lessons learned

2011-11-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

I finished. I wasn't planning on doing the race until earlier this week when I decided I'd give it a try. I had been increasing my mileage and doing 6-7 mile runs. The most I did in training was about 9 miles. I thought I could push out the last part of the race. I was pretty nervous at the beginning of the race, not knowing if I'd have a good day or if my knee would allow me to finish. I've had problems with my right knee and have gradually tried to increase my mileage. It's been working. I just shouldn't have attempted a race I hadn't properly trained for. I did pretty well for the first 8-9 miles, but during the 9th mile, I knew my knee was about to start hurting. By the 10th mile, my knee checked out. Normally in my training, that's the point where I stop and walk and I'm done running. My pride just wouldn't allow me to do that in the race. I only had 3 miles left and I didn't want to quit. I ran-walked the last part of the race. I ran until the pain was unbearable, walked for a little bit and tried to run again. It was a pretty slow 3 miles. I couldn't bring myself to walk in front of the crowds at the finish, so I jogged about the last half mile, which was very painful. My knee almost completely gave out right at the end, but I did cross the finish. It was fun to see Alex and the boys there (Nathan was at a soccer game). I'm grateful that Alex has allowed me to take the time to go running.

You'd think I feel a sense of accomplishment for having finished, but I walked away feeling unfulfilled. That wasn't the feeling I was going for, but I guess my goal was just to finish and I did that. I was mostly disappointed that I couldn't finish out strong. I'm used to kicking it in at the end of a race and being totally exhausted. I still had energy left. Just makes me want to try again so I can do better.

Anyway, I did realize that not quite ready IS not quite ready. I shouldn't have tried something I wasn't properly trained for. But, I also know that a half marathon is a very do-able race. When you think about running 13 miles, it seems really overwhelming. But if you just gradually do a little bit more, you can keep increasing your mileage easily. When I first started jogging again a few months after Weston was born, I could barely run around the block. I felt awful. But it gets better as you keep at it. Don't immediately give up when you first start. It's no fun trying to start running, but you'll love the way you feel after you get into a rhythm.

In case you're wondering what I've been doing and how I've had time, here you go. My training has consisted of jogging for 5 days a week, just an easy pace. I never run on Sunday, and usually don't run on Wednesday either. So I have 2 days off. I have been getting up at about 6:00am and doing 3-4 miles before Alex leaves for work on Tuesday, Thursday, and Fridays (usually about 30-40 minutes of jogging). I push Weston and Owen in the jogging stroller on Monday morning. I did some longer runs (5-6 miles) with them, since I had more time and had to go more slowly. They have been good sports. I do my longer runs on Saturday, but didn't ever run more than about 1.5 hours. That's only 3.5 to at most 4 hours per week devoted to jogging - not that much time, considering it's easy to spend much more time on the computer... think about how much time you're on-line (or maybe watching TV or whatever).

The good thing about these endurance runs is you don't have to worry about going fast, at least not until you get serious and start trying to run for time. Just find a nice easy pace and go.

If you don't have other issues, like knee problems, you're golden. Go for it. Just don't try to do too much too soon, like I did.

I AM REALLY SORE TODAY.

raspberries and virtual birthday parties

2011-11-07T10:09:00.000-08:00

I got to watch my nephew Dallin's birthday party on-line last night. It was his 1st birthday and also a special gender reveal party for my sister Alison's 2nd baby. They had the ultrasound technician put the gender in an envelope, and then they gave that to a friend who made filled cupcakes for Alison and Micah with either raspberries or blueberries. Dallin got to dig into the cupcake to reveal whether he was getting a sister or brother. There were raspberries in the middle - another girl! We're all very excited because there is only one girl out of 10 amongst my siblings. Hailey will finally have a girl cousin. So fun!

The downside of these on-line birthday parties is not being able to eat any of the cupcakes! Owen was pretty disappointed he couldn't have a cupcake. "I want one Mama!" Good thing we still have plenty of halloween sweets around, right? Well, maybe not so much.

Rub-a-dub-dub...

2011-11-03T21:37:00.000-07:00

...FOUR boys in the tub!

Mostly, Nathan and Jared get in the shower together and Weston and Owen take a bath together. Occasionally, they all want to get in the tub together. I had to take a picture while I still have the opportunity. I bet Nathan won't want to take a bath with his brothers much longer.

caught being good

2011-11-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

Nathan has a cool reward system in his class at school. He can earn "money" based on good work and good behavior to be used at the teacher's "store" once a month. They can buy some really neat things, such as Legos. I have been really impressed with him. He buys one thing for himself and then buys things for his brothers. He knows Owen really likes Buzz Lightyear right now, so he bought that for him. He also got Jared a wooden toy that he can put together and paint - perfect for Jared because he seems to enjoy doing art and things like that. I love that he's thinking about his brothers.

On a side note, Nathan's teacher really has things figured out with this reward system. It's great motivation for Nathan, since he's reward-driven, so he does extra work to earn more money. But it also can work against you for poor behavior or choices. I guess one kid in his class brought a toy to school, which is not allowed. His teacher took the boy's toy and put it in her store. The other kids in her class can buy it if they want to! And they can also have money taken away from them. It's a pretty fair system and encourages good choices.

scripture power

2011-11-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

The primary children (ages 3-11) had their program in sacrament meeting this past Sunday. The primary theme for the year is "I know the scriptures are true." Nathan, Jared, and another boy named Justin started off the program singing a song called "Scripture Power". They did so well, and I'm proud of them for being brave enough to sing in front of everyone. They also did really well on their speaking parts. I had the opportunity to play the piano for the program since my new calling is the primary pianist (in addition to activity days leader). It has to be one of the best callings out there! I love hearing the kids sing, and I also get to hear the talks and prayers given by the kids and the sharing time lessons. It's so fun to be around the children.

Yes, it is hard to stand still though. :) Jared provides good support for Nathan.

October fun

2011-10-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

Nathan and Jared had a costume parade at school, including music from some of the high school band. The spiderweb was our trunk-or-treat creation. We thought Owen looked pretty cute in the wig - it wasn't really part of his costume.

The boys had a good time at their school carnival. I made this spider cake for the cake walk, Nathan was one of the few to hit the floating baseball into one of the holes in the baseball game, and Jared surprised us by wanting to participate in the pie eating contest. They were supposed to find a piece of bubblegum in the coolwhip without using their hands and then blow a bubble. He didn't win, but we had fun watching him.

We took a little outing to the local pumpkin patch. Nathan and Jared enjoyed the corn maze and they all had fun playing in the hay and picking out pumpkins.

Whew!

2011-10-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

What an exhausting, exhilarating, expensive, and emotion-filled experience! A couple of weeks ago, we took the boys out of school for 2 days to go to Disneyland. We have wanted to take them and knew it would be a necessary adventure since we live in CA, but we were hoping to avoid some of the crowds. We hate crowds. I'm not sure what it's like when school's out, but it was pretty crowded. Talking to some of the people in line, some of the schools in Utah and Arizona (at least) were on fall break. Maybe we caught a lot of fall breakers, or school skippers like us, or maybe Disneyland is just always pretty busy. Understandable, because it's a kid's dream and there is so much to see and do. You can't see everything in 2 days. We probably experienced about 1/4 of each of the Disneyland Resort Park and Adventure Park next door. We didn't go on any of the big roller coasters or Tower of Terror (Alex and I didn't want to stand in line for just one of us to do those when we were there for the boys to have fun). It really is a magical place for kids and pretty fun for adults too, if you don't get too exhausted by dealing with kids (which we did). It was challenging with 4, especially since Weston had to be in the stroller most of the time and Nathan was the only one tall enough to do all the rides. Jared was still too short for some of them, which is sad because he's the brave one and wanted to go on them. Nathan was more tentative, although he did go on the Indiana Jones ride with me. His head was down most of that ride. There was no way he was going on any of the big roller coasters. Both of them did the raft ride at the Adventure Park and Splash Mountain and their very first roller coaster "Goofy's Flight School".

We had to take turns taking Nathan and Jared on rides. We took advantage of the fast passes, but it was still hard for Owen and Weston to wait for us to get done. Weston was quite a trooper, having to spend most of the time in the stroller. When he did go on rides, it was hard to hold him for the 10-15 minutes or whatever the wait was, because you have to park the stroller and then stand in line. Imagine trying to keep a toddler who has just been sitting in his stroller for 2-3 hours confined to the line. He went on some rides like the caterpillar in "A Bug's Land," the Ferris wheel, Winnie the Pooh, and the carousel. He seemed to like getting wet in the water play areas in "A Bug's Land" and wandering around "Innoventions" looking at the lighted blue floor. It's tough to be too small at Disneyland. Most of the rides were still too scary for Owen. Even the mild story rides usually had a scary character in it, like Ursula in the Little Mermaid. He got to the point where we would be walking, and he'd see something that looked scary. He'd stop right there, frozen in place, and scream, "I don't want to go on that!" Owen's favorite was probably Winnie the Pooh, but he also seemed to like the Dumbo ride, which I thought might be too scary for him. He liked most of the things in "A Bug's Land," although he wouldn't play in the water area. Actually, I think Owen's most favorite thing of all was popcorn! (We were just glad that he's still under 3, so we didn't have to buy a ticket for him.)

Speaking of "A Bug's Land," there is a show about bugs in that area that we tried to see. Since that whole area is geared towards the younger kids, I thought it would be a fun show. I tried to take Nathan, Jared, and Owen to see it. When we got inside, they warned us it might be scary for the little ones. I didn't know just how scary it would be. It was a 3-D show, complete with effects such as air blowing on you. You really feel like you're in the show. The very 1st scene was a giant poisonous spider that shoots out venom at its prey, and "it never misses". As soon as we got "sprayed with the venom," Owen AND Jared were both screaming in my lap. I scooped them up and got out of there. I have to admit, it was really scary. I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed sitting through the show with spiders and bugs coming after me. If you're ever at the Adventure Park with kids younger than about 8, DO NOT take them to see this show!

The 3-D show that we did enjoy was Star Tours, a motion simulator ride on a spaceship, where you feel like you're in a Star Wars scene - very cool. The technology for these rides is amazing. We also saw a theater performance of Aladdin - also really good. Owen even enjoyed that one and wasn't too scared of Jafar. I loved the World of Color show at night, with water, lights, and music. Unfortunately, even though we got advance "tickets" for an area and sat there for about 45 minutes before the show started, we still couldn't see it very well. I took a couple of videos of the ending (while holding Weston), mainly just so Alex and Jared could see it. Jared seemed to have to go to the bathroom at the most inconvenient times - one of those times was the finale to the show.

We stayed until about 10:00pm both nights, to try to get our money's worth. That's a really long day for kiddos whose bedtime is normally 7:30. We stayed one night at a cheap motel called Zaby's Motor Lodge, which turned out to be very convenient for us. It was only about a 1/2 mile from the park, so we could walk to Disneyland AND it was only about $60. They let us check in early on the 1st day and park our van there all day both days (even after check-out). I thought it decently clean too - we'd stay there again, IF we go again. I'm sure we'll go again eventually, but it was really exhausting - I compared the experience to childbirth. You swear you'll never do it again, but then a little while later, you're right back there. And look at us... 4 kids later. I guess if we stopped having kids, our Disneyland experience wouldn't be so hard either, right? Oh well. Did I mention that it was 95 degrees on the first day? Hot and crowded. Just what you associate with amusement parks. But now Alex and the boys can say they have been to Disneyland (it was my 2nd time, although the last time I was there was maybe 28 years ago. When did we go Mom?)

Anyway, enjoy the Splash Mountain pictures, especially the one of Nathan and me. Love it.

Can you read the captions under the character names?
Donald - "impatient, irascible and hard to understand"
Goofy - "sincere, good-natured and lovably bumbling
Pluto - "faithful hound and best friend"

Besides Nathan not being a "hound", those describe their personalities pretty well.

BOW WOW

2011-10-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

Nathan and Jared's school have a thing on Wednesdays called BOW WOW, bike or walk Wednesdays. We walk most days, so it's not an unusual thing for us, but it seems like the kick off day for BOW WOW is always raining. I think we walked in the rain last year too. The kick off day is when they get prizes and things, so we HAD to walk. We couldn't miss out on toys and stickers...

Nathan and Jared both walked under an umbrella, and Owen held the umbrella over him and Weston. Guess who got wet? Me.

Oh well. It's a good tradition and good exercise. Owen sure loved holding that umbrella!

On Saturdays...

2011-10-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

...you can find us at the soccer fields, sometime between 8:00am and 3:00pm. We decided to do the "expensive" soccer this year. It's not cheap to do AYSO, but the season is long (from the end of August to the end of November), they get a real jersey, and standard pictures are included in the price.

Jared is in U-6 and his team is the Green Dragons. He seems to enjoy playing and does well when he's paying attention. Sometimes he's in his own little world or more interested in goofing off with his teammates. His coach handles them really well and asks each of them to tell something they learned after every practice and game.

Nathan is in U-8 (which is just 7 year olds since they had so many teams - there is also U-7 this year) and his team is the Blue Jets. Nathan has really improved this year and is always really focused and aggressive. He likes to play defense and also likes to play goalie. He hasn't had much practice as goalie, but he's good with his hands and can punt it well. He needs more experience knowing when to come out and get the ball and when to stay back in the goal. It's really fun to watch him play. His coach is pretty competitive, but seems to also handle these boys well.

They have one practice a week, and they couldn't be more convenient. They practice at the same time at the same place, and we can walk there. We're enjoying it!

Here are a few videos - not very good quality, but just a little peek at what it's like to watch them play. Enjoy the pack ball soccer... go U6! :)

storage quota

2011-10-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

I got a message saying I had reached my photo upload quota (or something like that) with Picasa Web Albums. (But then I was able to make the previous post with a photo, so I'm not sure what's going on). When I tried to edit the pictures of the boys on the side, the quota message comes up.

Is there any way around that or do you just have to pay for extra storage? I thought about just starting a new blog, but I don't think that will help. I'm not sure how Picasa and blogger are connected, but it seems like it's not the blog's problem. I don't want to start deleting photos either, because I think they'll be removed from my blog as well. So someone tell me what I need to do... :)

or there will be no more pictures.

why not?

2011-10-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

Why not read books in the entryway? Guess I should leave our newly acquired library books in a better location. They pulled them out right where they found them. I love that they love to read.

twins?

2011-10-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

No, but I get that question all the time with Owen and Weston in the stroller or in a shopping cart. Can you tell who's who in the picture above?

Here is a little bit more perspective...

Did you get it right?

Owen fell asleep in the stroller, but the funny thing is when I told Weston to smile, Owen smiled in his sleep (look at the 2nd picture). You have to wonder what's going on in those cute little heads (which do look very similar from the top...)

September birthdays

2011-10-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

Birthdays just aren't that exciting anymore. But they still happen once a year, so we have to at least try to make them better than the average day. That mostly involves extra food - just what we need for our slowing metabolism... :) For Alex's birthday, I made Mexican stuffed green peppers for dinner (his favorite). For dessert, Alex wanted my new recipe - chocolate chip Twix cheesecake bars (I added M&M's as well). We went to the beach after dinner. What could be better than playing around in the dirt?

On my birthday, my only request was to go to I-Hop for breakfast so I could get the stuffed french toast. We headed out the door at 6:50am so we could still get the boys to school in time (what, you think I was going to sleep in on my b-day? No, I actually still got up around 6:00 and went for a jog before breakfast). Later, I watched Winnie the Pooh with Owen while Weston was napping. I was going to watch Nanny Diaries at the same time, but the computer wouldn't work and I didn't have the heart to pull Owen's movie out of the DVD player. (By the way, Nanny Diaries was a pretty good movie. Alex even liked it, so you know it has to be pretty decent.) I didn't actually watch much of Owen's movie. Instead, I resorted to checking facebook birthday wishes, which was nice to know that others had paid attention to the reminder and made the effort to comment. ;) Really, it was nice to read all the comments. For dinner, we had sweet & sour chicken and egg rolls. And I made my own dessert this year (no box cake this time*). I tried out a new recipe - raspberry cream cheese pie. It was pretty tasty!

* So, there's a little story behind the box cake. I really don't mind them, but it's not my favorite. I actually like pie better or cake with fruit on it. Anyway, a funny little miscommunication between Alex and me happened sometime early on in our marriage. For the first 3 or 4 years on my birthday, Alex made me a strawberry cake out of the box (the cake is pink and strawberry flavored). Not wanting to seem ungrateful for his efforts, I didn't say anything. But after the first few years of him making the strawberry box cake, I finally asked him why he kept making that. He thought it was my favorite. I'm not sure where he got that idea, but I probably did say that I liked strawberry cake, meaning that I like cake WITH REAL STRAWBERRIES on top. We had a good laugh when we discovered that little miscommunication. I don't think I've had a strawberry box cake since then.

critters

2011-10-03T10:31:00.000-07:00

We discovered this one day as we were getting ready for soccer... it scared me at first glance. It was just sitting there on the soccer ball, but I wasn't expecting it to be there. I was so glad it was a lizard and not a snake, although I still couldn't bring myself to pick it up. All of us were hesitant to touch him, although Jared was the most brave. The boys liked watching it and trying to play with him - I just tried to make sure they didn't hurt him. For some reason, the boys like to poke things.

We have no shortage of critters around here - I don't mind the lizards.

new used car

2011-09-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

We couldn't pass up this deal! Less than $2, straight out-of-pocket. No monthly payments. Fuel efficient. Sure, it has pretty high mileage, a little wear & tear, not your bright shiny new car. But the price was right, and I think we can get some more mileage out of this little car. The only drawback is the lack of passenger seating... Now they just need a license to drive. Watch out!

activity day fun

2011-09-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

I'm still in charge of activity days two Wednesday afternoons a month. Here are a few of our recent activities.

Right before school started, we did a back-to-school pizza & priorities party. We made homemade pizza, which got dubbed as "Miss Annie's pizza" when we were in Oklahoma. I don't remember where the recipe came from originally, but we really like it. (I have modified it slightly.) We also talked about priorities and tried to make daily schedules. That didn't work as well as I thought, since the girls didn't even have a set time to get up or bedtime - at least they didn't know what time that was. Also, the girls weren't in any after-school activities, so they didn't have much to schedule. But that led nicely into making choices about what to do with their free time. I made a little bookmark for them with a picture of a sliced pizza. It said, "Think of your day like a pizza. A pizza wouldn't be right without bread and sauce and cheese, just as there are some things that are essential for your day. You have to eat, sleep, work, and go to school. You divide your pizza into slices just as your time gets divided. The toppings on a pizza, like pepperoni or olives, are extras. They make the pizza taste yummy. Just as you choose your toppings, you have time in your day to choose extra things to do. Choose wisely to make the best day! And don't forget to make prayer and scriptures a part of your day. They're so important that if left out, it's like forgetting to put the pizza in the oven!"

Homemade Pizza

Dough: 3 ¾ tsp yeast * (about 1 ½ pkgs. yeast, if using the pkgs), 1 ½ cup water, 3 TBSP oil, 1 ½ tsp.
sugar, 1 ½ tsp. salt, 3 ¾ cups flour

Sauce: 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. garlic powder, 1/8 tsp. pepper, 1/4 cup finely chopped onions, 1 cup tomato
sauce (8 oz) – this makes a thin layer of sauce, so you may want to prepare extra if you like more sauce.
Divide sauce in half.

Topping: 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, 3 cups mozzarella cheese, 2 tsp. oregano (divide topping in half),
other desired toppings (like pepperoni, olives, etc.)

Heat oven to 425. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in remaining dough ingredients. Beat vigorously
until blended. Allow dough to rest about 5 minutes. Lightly grease 2 pizza pans (can also be sprinkled with corn meal).

Divide dough in half. On a pastry mat or clean surface, knead dough just until smooth. Add flour as
needed if it’s sticky. Make sure you have plenty of flour on the surface underneath the dough. Roll out
thin and gently transfer (pull up with fingers) flattened dough to 2 baking sheets. Continue to pat and
spread dough to the edges of the pan (10-12 inch pan) with floured fingers. Pre-bake crust about 10
minutes. While the crust is baking, mix sauce ingredients.

Spread sauce on and sprinkle with parmesan cheese and oregano. Add desired toppings and mozzarella. Bake 15 minutes.

* I use Fleischmann's Instant Dry Yeast from Sam's Club- you can buy 2 lbs of it for about $4.50. They seem to last well in the fridge after the package has been opened. I haven't checked out Costco's yet since I still have a bunch from Sam's, but I imagine it might be a good deal as well.

Another activity we did was hair accessories. There are tons of websites out there for making these. I chose one that looked really simple from this site. They didn't turn out as cute as I would have liked. I forgot that 10-11 year old girls like lots of sparkly things. They didn't want to put just one gem in the center of the flower - they wanted them all over. The loopy flower turned out to be too hard for them (I thought they were really easy). I couldn't find the site I used, but here's a similar tutorial here. And again, it wasn't my idea to put a little rose in the center of those, but the girls made them how they wanted to. In conjunction with the hair clips, we had flower birthday cupcakes for one of the girls. If they didn't enjoy making the hair clips, I KNOW they loved the cupcakes!

Our most recent activity was making family trees. The girls sponge painted the leaves and sky. Then we glued on the tree and pasted the apples on the branches. The names (up to their great grandparents) were written on the apples. I might have to send the one I did to Mom and Dad. The five apples on the bottom are my siblings and me. We also briefly shared something about one of our ancestors. The girls liked the picture of my great grandmother's wedding dress. Lulu's dress is over 100 years old. This was also my grammy Evelyn's wedding dress. (My sister Ashley is holding the dress.)

lost carrots

2011-09-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

Owen helped himself to carrots and dressing one day. He came running in to me, exclaiming in a bit of a panic, "Mama, I can't find my carrots!" I had no idea what he was talking about... until he directed me to the bowl full of salad dressing. After we funneled it back in the container, we found the missing carrots!

Now, we give the LIGHT ranch dressing to our guests... ha ha! ;)

My Cinderella story

2011-09-19T00:46:00.000-07:00

Some friends of ours hosted a summer dessert competition, which was held one evening a month. It was really fun (although totally NOT for anyone on a diet) - a picnic in the park followed by dessert competition. This is a dessert lover's dream - tasting several different kinds of desserts. The first 3 competitions had a particular theme - cookies/bars/brownies, cakes/tortes, and pies/cheesecakes. The desserts were assigned a number and then we all voted on our favorite. The top 3 desserts in each round were qualified for the final competition. I entered in all of the competitions and didn't make it in the top three UNTIL the 3rd round, when I was one of the ONLY two desserts that were made. That doesn't count, right? I wasn't voted in, but they were insistent that I was indeed in the final round. Oh great. I'm not a great baker. I don't even like to cook. And I surely didn't have a WOW recipe sitting in my recipe box. Nathan even commented, "Now you're going to have to think of something good, Mama." Thanks Nathan. (I really was thinking in my mind that I could come in as the "Cinderella" of the competition and win it.)

I thought I'd get out of it, since I didn't think we'd make it back in time. But since it looked like we might make it, I decided to go ahead and make something ahead of time. I didn't have a special family recipe sitting around that I hadn't used already (mom's cherry pie), so I went on-line in search of an "award-winning" recipe. What I ended up choosing was not because it sounded gourmet, but because it sounded really easy to make. The recipe called for a package of refrigerated cookie dough and a cheesecake filling. You layer half of the cookie dough on the bottom, topped by cheesecake layer, topped with the other half of the dough. I did tweak the recipe. I used my mom's chocolate chip cookie recipe and decided to also put crumbled Twix bars on the top. This is really unhealthy. If you're trying to lose weight, DO NOT make this. One square is like eating 2-4 chocolate chip cookies, a slice of cheesecake, and a Twix bar at the same time.

Anyway, I made it at 6:30am the day of, and didn't think it turned out. Having never made it before, I wasn't sure what the crust was supposed to look like - it seemed too soft. I stuck it in the fridge anyway. We got back into town at 6:15pm. The dessert competition started at 6:00. I almost said "forget it" but then I thought about that whole pan of dessert sitting in the fridge AND the fact that I got up early to make it. We went home and tasted it - if it was yucky, I wasn't going to go. But surprisingly, it was really yummy. We still had to eat dinner, so we picked up pizza on the way. By the time we got to the park, it was 6:50. I had no intention of being in the competition - I only wanted to share my dessert so we wouldn't be forced to eat all of it ourselves. But upon arrival, they immediately said, "We have a late arrival! Don't tally up the votes yet!" It really was kind-of embarrassing. But with technically 10 minutes of voting left, my dessert got a number.

And then... I won.

(Okay, so there were only 6 desserts to choose from I think, but I guess I still had the most votes.)

I got to stand in front of everyone with a silly (yet very fun and creative) hat while everyone applauded and I opened my prize. And people asked about my recipe. Well... I found it on-line. Just a lucky pick and lucky that it turned out. And smart enough to add Twix bars on top! :) Who doesn't love those?

When I got home, I was reminded of how not-so-great I am at baking when I picked up the rock solid strawberry shortcake crust from the previous night's baking... oh well.

My prince charming requested the chocolate chip Twix cheesecake bars for his birthday instead of his all-time favorite M&M cookies - sweet victory.

I'll share the recipe when I get around to FINDING it and adding my revisions.

Auntie Ali & Micah and cousin Dal

2011-09-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

At the end of August, my sister and her family came for a quick visit. The main reason for their trip was a friend's wedding at the LA Temple. We went with them and watched Dallin while they were in the temple, and they also watched our boys for us so we could do some temple work. Pretty nice exchange. We had to take a picture of them in this amazing tree, since Micah proposed to Alison in a tree. And look at them now... all that K-I-S-S-I-N-G...baby makes 3 AND they have one on the way!

It also happened to be Alison's birthday again (she was here on her birthday last year too). I attempted to make strawberry shortcake - the second crust turned out okay. It was surprisingly similar to her cake with strawberries on it last year. I must be making what I love - I hope she likes it as much as I do.

Anyway, it was fun to see them and hear their exciting news! They make really cute babies.

Best Buddies

2011-09-18T23:04:00.000-07:00

It seems a little strange to be posting knowing my #1 fan won't be reading and commenting on my blog right now... my Mom is in China with my Dad who is recovering from an appendectomy. Anyway, I guess she'll have some fun things to catch up on when they get back. Here's 2 of her favorite grandsons.

While Nathan and Jared are at school, Owen is the "man of the house." He loves being the boss, having free reign over the Legos, and bossing Weston around. Well, he doesn't really have to boss him around. Weston just follows Owen wherever he goes. It was so cute to peek in on them in Owen's fort. I caught a pretty ornery grin from Owen too. It's fun to see them play with each other - they're becoming good buddies!

Life's trials and unanswered prayers

2011-09-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

Here we go - another spiritual post. This was sparked by a friend's post, which got me thinking about things, like how the Lord knows us personally when we are "the dust of the earth" or why our prayers don't seem to be answered, even when our desires are righteous. These are hard questions, for which I don't have all the answers. We can't comprehend all the things that the Lord can comprehend. What I can say is that I know when the Lord promises something, it will be fulfilled, but in His time and according to His will. I believe that we knew before we were born that we'd have trials here on earth, maybe even knew some of the trials we'd have and accepted the challenge. That's part of life's test to see if we can endure our trials, the very things tailor-made for our personal growth. I don't know why certain things happen or why others seem to get more than their fair share of trials, but there's purpose behind them and things happen for a reason.

Thinking about these things, I went to the scriptures in search of further understanding. I landed in the first chapters in Mosiah, in the Book of Mormon. King Benjamin, a prophet, is teaching his people about what they need to do to gain salvation and about the Atonement of Christ. In chapter 4, after hearing the teachings, the people had a greater understanding of who they were. They viewed themselves "even less than the dust of the earth." They had come into the depths of humility, recognizing their complete dependence on God for all that they are and have. The more they understood the goodness of God and His glory, the more they were awakened to the sense of their own nothingness and worthless and fallen state. This "state of being nothing", worthless and fallen, seems to contradict with what we're taught - that we do have value and are significant, that we do exist as children of God, that we are worth far more than nothing. Upon first reading it, we might think it's saying that WE are nothing, that WE are worthless. But it doesn't say that - they only viewed themselves less than the dust of the earth, recognizing their dependence on God. As an individual, we have great worth, but we are in a worthless and fallen STATE because we can't do anything on our own to gain salvation. There are things we can do to gain eternal life and live with our families with God again, but we can't save ourselves from sin. The only way out is through the Atonement of Christ. The more we understand the plan of salvation, the more we realize our state of nothingness and the role of the Savior in saving us from our fallen state. Mosiah 3:17 ...there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ." (also Acts 4:12)

If we look back in Mosiah chapter 2, in verse 23, it tells us that we are indebted unto God for our lives. In verse 25, we are reminded that we were created of the dust of the earth, and the dust of the earth belongeth to him that created us. To be of the dust of the earth isn't insignificant - we were created from that dust and it belongs to God. God doesn't create junk! And it is an even greater testimony to me of the power of God in knowing that although we are in number as the sands of the sea and dust of the earth, He still knows each and every one of us personally.

As far as "unanswered prayers" - there aren't really unanswered prayers. We just don't always get the answer we want. Sometimes the answer is "yes", sometimes it's "no", and sometimes it's "not now". Since God is our Father and we are His children, it's helpful for me to think of things in terms of the parent/child relationship. Just as we don't immediately give our children everything they ask for, so Heavenly Father doesn't always give us what we ask for when we want it (even righteous things).

I was trying to think of a specific example and here's what came to mind: The other day, I was doing the dishes. Nathan asked if he could do them (yes, he did want to do the dishes...). That's a very helpful and righteous thing to ask, right? You'd think that I'd say "sure", but I didn't because I wanted his help with something else. Sometimes he has other priorities, like homework and sometimes I need his help elsewhere. This time, I wanted him to just play with and keep an eye on his little brothers. Yes, I could have handed the task over the Nathan - many times I let him do that. But this time, I told him "No, not right now." It doesn't mean he can't help another time. And sometimes Owen or Weston want to help with the dishes. As a matter of safety (think broken glass), I may not think it's best for them to help and the answer is "no". In this case, my "knowledge" and "judgement" overruled their "righteous desire", based on what I saw as best. This may not be the best example, but hopefully you can relate this to our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Many times we get what we ask for, sometimes we don't, and sometimes the answer is "not now". We may not understand the reasons behind the answers, but it could be that we are needed for something else. I also was just thinking about persistence. When my kids are really persistent, I'm often likely to give in. While I don't know if that's the case with God, I imagine if we keep asking, we may get what we want. We just better be prepared for whatever consequences that may bring! We better try to find out if it's the Lord's will... We know all things are done in wisdom and order, so we better just be patient.

Perhaps one of the more challenging things to deal with is infertility. I have only experienced this in a small way - obviously with 4 kids that problem has gone away. But I know some of you are dealing with it in a much greater way, and my heart goes out to you. I came across this article that really touched me. Even if you aren't going through this, it's a good example of "unanswered prayers." Hopefully you can find answers to your prayers, comfort and peace, and discover God's plan for you. He loves you and knows what's best!

Mastering Leptin

2011-09-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

So... just a few quick questions to start off with:

Are you trying to lose weight? Have you lost weight and then gain it all back? Do you have cravings? Do you have low energy, feel sluggish or have a hard time getting going in the morning? Do you have problems with sleeping, fibromyalgia, or other health or hormonal problems?

I'm guessing most of you can answer yes to one or all of these questions (and most likely with a big SIGH of frustration because you've tried overcoming these and haven't had success.) I was recently introduced to a book called "Mastering Leptin" by Byron Richards - thanks Ray & Warren for passing the book along. It presents the Leptin Diet, which is "a common-sense way to eat that enables metabolism to run faster on less food. It improves energy, mood, vitality, and the feeling of good health, and significantly reduces the risk for the primary diseases of aging."

First, I have to say that I cannot tell you from personal experience that the principles in this book work. I haven't had a chance to test it all out yet. But after reading it, I didn't want to wait to pass along the resource, because it seems like their Leptin theory has the science to back it up - the back of the book is filled with lots of references. And you know how sometimes when you read something, it just sounds right? I had that feeling when I was reading, that it just made sense. My hope is that it will help someone out there who is struggling or who just wants to be more healthy (and shouldn't we all?). Our bodies are truly a gift from God, so we need to do all we can to take care of them. Besides, health and happiness go hand in hand. And we want to be at our best to be able to be there for and help others, like our children.

Here is their website - www.WellnessResources.com/leptin. Go check it out.

I know a few of you may be rolling your eyes and/or won't go check it out, so here are some quotes from the book and some notes I took, if you're willing to keep reading.

First off, I'm sure you're wondering what leptin is - it's a hormone secreted by fat cells, and the most important of hormones because of its regulating effect on other hormones. Leptin provides communication within the body and controls energy balance and metabolism. Leptin tells the brain how much fat is in reserve. Problems with leptin involve loss of natural balance in regulating food intake, fat storage, and metabolic rate throughout the body. Most overweight people have too much leptin. When the balance is off, the brain doesn't sense leptin levels correctly, building resistance to the hormone. When there's leptin resistance, the signal to stop eating is missing. Overweight people are leptin resistant (brain) and insulin resistant (body). The leptin solution is "science based on restoring health by fixing problems in natural balance... Drugs will always have a relevant place, but not as a prime force in solving the emerging obesity epidemic.... there is no quick fix for obesity."

"Obesity may soon overtake smoking as the number-one cause of preventable death in America. In addition to mortality, quality of life is seriously affected even in people who are simply overweight and not obese: fatigue, stress, depression, sleep apnea, snoring, and arthritis are just a few of the inflammatory problems directly caused by obesity... It is now recognized in the scientific literature that leptin problems are a primary cause of cardiovascular disease. Leptin problems are directly involved with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and risk for stroke and heart attack. Doctors are complacently handing out cardiovascular medication without understanding of the most current underlying scientific principles actually causing the problems. While they are asleep on their watch, heart disease continues to be the number-one killer in America."

"Drugs given to 'manage the symptoms' of a problem frequently adversely interact with leptin, making underlying health problems worse."

I think we all know that obesity is a problem, but how we're trying to overcome it is wrong. Drugs, fad diets, and inconsistent exercise won't work. There's not an easy way - if you want to lose weight and keep it off, you have to have BOTH consistent exercise and eating right. You can't have one without the other, although you can lose weight temporarily with just one or the other. But you're likely to actually gain MORE weight in the process if you don't do things the right way. (But if you're lucky to have naturally good metabolism, you may be able to eat poorly and still maintain normal weight - like me.) Part of this I have already discovered from personal experience. I've lost all my pregnancy weight by exercising, but it hasn't been quick weight loss either. I have been jogging 3-4 times a week for about 10 months. The part that I have NOT been good at is eating right. I may look healthy, but I don't FEEL healthy. I'm hoping that I can gain some more energy and get rid of some of my cravings (especially for sugar).

Back to my notes... some of these may be random points that I wrote down... if you want to know more about it, you'll have to go read up on it.

- "Because of the function of leptin in muscle, the necessity of consistent exercise to maintain health has never been more important."

- The food pyramid induces serious health issues. There's only one healthy way to eat - to maximize efficient function of leptin.

- Low fat diets (as well as high fat diets) are incredibly destructive.

- Leptin causes metabolism to slow down.

- Eating after dinner seriously disturbs leptin function.

- Eating too many carbs or sweets throws off body rhythm.

- Why diets don't work: You will initially burn stored fat because your metabolism is set for a higher calorie amount. As the diet continues, leptin levels drop, initiating genetic response to starvation. This slows down stimulation of fat cells to conserve fuel. Metabolism slows down and weight loss stops. This is why you may hit a plateau 15-25 lbs. from your goal, even though starving on a low calorie diet.

- Ideal aerobics for weight loss: 3 times a week for 1-2 hours duration. The timing is important too. You should exercise between meals (on empty stomach) or first thing in morning before eating. After exercising, don't eat until you get a hunger signal.
- Consistency in exercise is more important than intensity (longer rather than faster). This is good news for those who don't like to run. You can benefit just as much by walking for 1-2 hours as you can from a quick jog. (I personally don't have time for 1-2 hours of walking or aerobic exercise, so I have to jog). However, even small amounts of exercise helps with insulin resistance. Exercise beyond 20 minutes is good, but 30-40 minutes is better, and 1 hour 3 times a week is best. Antioxidants prior to exercise may help (they suggest co-enzyme Q-10).

Craving food before bed is a sign of leptin resistance.

Properly functioning leptin enables a person to not crave sweets.

Morning fatigue or taking a long time to feel energized are signs that cortisol is poor.

AVOID aspartame, MSG, all soda pop, high fructose sweetened beverages, artificial sweeteners, high salt, high fat, high sugar foods, potato chips and french fries.

Here are the leptin rules:

1. Don't eat after dinner. Allow 11-12 hours between dinner and breakfast. Finish dinner at least 3 hours before bed. (sleep is prime metabolic time. The fastest way to disrupt sleep is to eat after dinner, eat too large a meal, or too late - it increases leptin resistance, raises adrenaline, which causes insomnia, light or restless sleep, sleep apnea)

2. Eat 3 meals a day. Allow 5-6 hours in between. Don't snack. (pancreas doesn't have time to prepare insulin for next meal. Even a healthy snack is a problem - the snack causes insulin to rise and the liver to excessively secrete cholesterol. The book says you might have to work up to just eating 3 meals, starting with 4 meals.)

3. Don't eat large meals. Finish when slightly less than full. Eat slowly.

4. Eat a breakfast containing protein. (Protein helps metabolism turn on. Metabolism can increase by 30% for as long as 12 hours from a high protein meal, the calorie-burning equivalent of a 3-4 mile jog. It also says to avoid fruit juice at breakfast. It recommends eggs or cottage cheese.)

5. Reduce carbohydrates.

-It's not just the amount of calories that influences ability to lose weight, but the type of calorie and timing of eating.

- Higher calcium intake improves thyroid function and metabolism; settle down excess production of adrenaline. Vitamin D (from the sun) enhances calcium absorption.

Here's some leptin diet recommendations:

milk (doesn't have to be skim), eggs, lean meat, chicken, turkey, fish, seafood, cottage cheese, pork, veal, lamb (only occasionally - cheese, cream cheese, peanut butter, nuts, avocado, hamburgers, steak)

6-8 glasses of water, avoid all fruit juice, avoid all soda pops regardless of sweeteners, avoid alcohol (I would add avoid coffee and tea - I don't know why, but it's in our religious code of health, which we believe is inspired revelation. I'm going to trust that God knows more about that than we do.)

eat veggies and salads (unlimited with meals, except carrots, corn, peas, pumpkin)

2 fruit servings a day with meals - don't snack on fruit

Go easy on salad dressing. Avoid partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

Carbs: whole grain wheat product, pasta, oats, yogurt, milk, tomato soup, chicken noodle soup, sweet potato, beans, carrots (only occasionally - rice, peas, corn, potatoes, low sugar cereals)

sweeteners: chocolate, honey, maple syrup, white sugar (it says for serious weight loss, avoid all sweeteners. Occasional thumb-sized portion acceptable). Learn to use herbs, which enhance flavor, to help control cravings

Avoid ice cream (ouch! that's a hard one...)

Butter and olive oil - good
Omega 3 oils

Minimize fried foods

Things that will halt weight loss: lack of sleep, infection, backed-up toxins (no bowel movement = no progress), stress, sugar, high fat

The Leptin Diet is friendly on vitamin supplements, depending on your specific need. It minimizes use of drugs (although they may be used temporarily). It aims for the restoration of natural balance in your body.

The main thing I got out of this book is that balancing leptin is a lifestyle change. Whether you like it or not, you have to exercise AND eat right, but timing is also important. There's no easy solution - if you want to lose weight and be healthy, it's going to take time and consistency to get everything in balance.

back to school

2011-09-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

I'm behind on the posts by a couple of weeks... school started 2 weeks ago. Nathan and Jared were very eager and excited to go to school. I planned on doing a little extra for breakfast the 1st day of school - nothing really fancy, but just a few pencil and apple decorations, along with eggs and pancakes. I set my alarm for 5:30am so I could get things ready (and have time for a quick jog), but guess who was up before me? Nathan. I have yet to make it up before him on a first day of school. I told him to go back to bed. He came out again 5 minutes later saying he couldn't sleep anymore and asked if he could get dressed. I love his enthusiasm.

Jared started kindergarten this year. I kept thinking he might get a little nervous and looked for any signs of anxiety - none. He was ready to go. Thursdays are usually Alex's day to take the boys to school, so he was going to walk them over. But I decided I wanted to go too to see Jared off on his very first day. Nathan and Jared asked, "Why is Mama coming too?" I just told them, "It's a mom thing." So we all headed out the door.

When we got to school, I asked if Jared wanted to walk to Nathan's classroom first to drop him off. "No. I'm going to go play." He headed to the kindergarten playground and didn't look back. I came back after dropping Nathan off and watched him play for a few minutes. It was interesting to see the kindergarten playground. There were parents everywhere standing around, snapping pictures (I was one of those), and some had kids clinging to them. I'm not sure if Jared even knew I was there. As the bell was ringing, the teachers said the parents could walk to the classroom door with them, but then they had to say good-bye. Jared was already waving bye to me. We let him go... I didn't cry, but as we walked home, it was hard to imagine another one of my boys not at home. And then I got home and 2 kids at home felt pretty good... Owen sure loves being the "man of the house" during the day. Time flies though - my boys are growing up.

Nathan and Jared both had a great first day. They like their teachers, love recess, didn't learn a thing :) and already have friends. Jared's buddy is named Connor.

off to Africa

2011-09-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad we got to see my brother and his family again before they moved to Angola. They've been so busy trying to get everything ready to go, but we were able to squeeze in a short visit- lunch at the park. I'm not sure when we'll see them again - they are there for 3-4 years. I hope it's not that long before we see them, but it may be tricky meeting up with them, unless we win a trip to Africa or something...

The boys loved playing with Nicholas and Ryan and Cheerio (the dog). Best couple of hours of the week!

I think they actually got to Angola today, with tons of stuff, their 2 boys, and dog. I don't know how they got everything there, but they arrived safely. We'll miss them!

600th post... Big (for) Sur-e...picture overload

2011-09-01T16:47:00.000-07:00

Another one of our summer activities was a camping trip along the central coast, in the Big Sur area. We had a good time, for the most part, but we only ended up camping 2 nights. Our first mistake was that we didn't plan our trip in advance. In our naivety, we headed out on a Monday, thinking we'd camp most of the week. Back in Oklahoma, campgrounds were always available - in fact, you're lucky if you're not the ONLY one there. Anyway, the first campground we had in mind was full, so we had to backtrack about an hour to find one with vacant sites. Once again we had to put the tent up in the dark and we were next to the bathrooms, so we got a nice waft every so often from those. Blah. In the morning, our campsite was full of bees, so breakfast was interesting. Besides the bees, the boys were absolutely loving it. Weston had a nice nap while we were packing things up - pretty rough life. :)

We continued along the coast, enjoying the views and some clouds (the clouds seem to follow us on our scenic trips) and letting the boys play. We also hunted for a camping spot. Every single place was full. And we didn't want to spend $250 to stay in the coastal motels. We were starting to get discouraged and then Nathan suggested we say a prayer that we could find a spot. The simple faith of a child - we pulled into the Limekiln State Park campground and they had one spot left, due to a cancellation.

We loved camping at Limekiln, nestled among the tall trees, with hiking on one side of the state park and beach on the other side. We probably could have stayed there all week, but unfortunately we could only stay one night due to everything being reserved. That was the next hard thing about our week. We had to keep setting everything up and taking it down every day - very tiresome.

We enjoyed the state park while we were there - perfect hike for the boys, with lots of things to climb over and under and on and a waterfall at the end to throw rocks. They also loved the beach, which had shallow water pools to play in. After a campfire we went to bed early, but the night was pretty cold, so we didn't sleep great. It was nice to get a warm 6 minute (50 cents) shower in the morning.

On Wednesday, we loaded up again and headed out for more coastal fun. We explored Point Lobos State Reserve - the boys loved seeing all the crabs in the tide pools and hiding under the rocks. We also enjoyed watching the harbor seals and listening to the barking sea lions. One gentleman that walked by said one of the seals was named Leo and if you called out his name, he'd move. The boys got a kick out of hollering at "Leo" and watching his flipper or head move. The favorite spot was Sea Lion Cove, with plenty of rocks for everyone! (Owen is holding a shell in his grubby little hands.)

On Wednesday, we continued to look for a place to camp, but everything was full. And after 2 nights of unloading, setting up, and loading up again, we were tired. We stayed inland at a cheap motel in Salinas, thinking we might go back to Monterey on Thursday. Instead of doing that, it worked out to have lunch with my brother and his family, who recently moved to Angola. After seeing them, we drove to Pinnacles National Monument, and did a short hike. The boys were excited to use their flashlights in the Balconies Cave. We didn't actually do the whole thing - it got pretty tricky and too challenging with Weston in the backpack and all of the boys needing help. Being there in the late afternoon, the colors were gorgeous on the red rocks, which are the remains of an extinct volcano.

Instead of spending another night camping or at a motel, we headed home, opting to do some fun things at home with the boys on Friday (bowling, swimming, park, ice cream, and movie). The boys had a great time - I decided I don't like camping much anymore. It's too much work. It took us 7 hours to get everything ready, lots of time setting up and taking down, being crammed in the van with all of our stuff at our feet, and at least 2 days to put everything away. One side benefit - we realized our camping and 72 hour kit (mostly non-existent until now) are mostly the same stuff. If it took us that long to get ready for camping, we'd never be ready for an emergency. We organized some things into containers and bags, even clothes and extra shoes - it shouldn't take us 7 hours next time to get out the door. We may have to do a test run and see how we do with what we've got...

We did have a fun week! Tiring, but good quality time with the boys. And Weston - I've never seen a kid happier to be outside.

summer fun

2011-09-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

We got in another hike before school started, as well as a dip in the pool. Unfortunately, this was the ONLY time they went swimming this summer. I wasn't willing to take all of them by myself, and we just didn't plan any trips to the pool. But it wasn't 100 degrees either - more like 70, so an unheated pool didn't feel very good anyway. At least we made it once to the pool.

bedtime shenanigans

2011-08-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

I never know what I'm going to find when I check on the boys before I go to bed... you'd never believe the room started out (mostly) clean. All the things on the floor were evidence of the what they did while going to bed. And Nathan and Jared even ended up asleep on the floor. In this picture, Weston is asleep in the pack 'n play - he doesn't usually sleep in there, but when we have guests in the "baby room", they all go in one room.

And other times I find them together in the same bed:

I guess it doesn't matter too much as long as they go to sleep!

Ray and Warren

2011-08-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

We've enjoyed visits from family this summer - some for 2 hours, some for 2 days, some for 2 weeks. No matter the length, we love seeing family. Ray and Warren, Alex's aunt and uncle, stayed with us for 2 weeks - we hope you enjoyed your time here! Thanks for making the trek all the way from Florida. Ray and Warren are great with tech support, so they fixed most of our computers and gadgets. They even set up wireless for us, which we hadn't bothered to do yet. And (perhaps unfortunately) :) they got the Leap Frog video game working again, and the boys are hooked to that. At least I have a new motivator for chores, as they will be earning time on the game. Warren also introduced Nathan to on-line chess and played several games with him, coaching him on strategy. I thought the boys might run them off, especially since the boys don't understand personal space, but I guess they didn't mind too much having them constantly looking over their shoulder or playing with toys in their room. I did take the boys on some extra outings for the good of all...

Ray & Warren did some of their own exploring, we took them to the beach a couple of times, and they took us out to eat at a yummy pizza place and a great Italian place downtown. Alex did a few little trips with them as well. We also enjoyed homemade dinner on our anniversary, the house special, "Ray's Rotel-Roni" (okay, I made up the name...) but it was a very tasty spaghetti with pepperoni and Rotel. (They also didn't know it was our anniversary, but it worked out nice to have them make dinner that night.) Thanks! We hope you enjoyed our "bed-and-make-your-own-breakfast" with little critters running around. ;)

(thanks for taking our picture Ray!)

on our 11th anniversary

summer stuff

2011-08-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

After our Europe trip, I had a chance to just hang out with the boys. The rest of the summer we spent going to the library, the park, the zoo, and lots of playing.

The boys loved playing in the tree house papa built, but sadly (and a little to my relief) we had to take it down. Our landlord was concerned about someone getting hurt on the property - I was a little worried about it too, so it wasn't too hard for me, but the boys were sad. Nathan wanted to draw a picture of it before we took it down. I actually had to get up in the tree to help take it down.

The weather here is so nice all year round (I know many of you have had really hot yucky summers - sorry), but we have been taking full advantage of the beautiful weather at different parks. I even let the boys ride a carousel, which sadly was their very first time riding one. I have always rejected their plea to ride since the price to ride seemed a lot for the time they get to ride. Even though it was $2 each for 5 minutes, it was worth it to see the joy on their faces. I underestimated how much they would enjoy it and how it was the highlight of their day.

Weston LOVES being outside and he thinks he a big kid. He's starting to climb and play on the playground equipment - this is the age that makes me really nervous. He's big enough to get UP, but you have to watch him constantly so he doesn't come DOWN wrong.

I'm still the activity day leader at church. One of our activities this summer was tie dye t-shirts (thanks Kaitlyn for showing us how to do it). I did some for the boys (out of their stained white shirts). Here's my tie-dye crew.

Another park... Weston toppled over on the pine needles and decided to just lounge around for a while on the cozy bed of pine needles. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew decided to pile the pine needles on the slide and plow through them. I love how easily entertained they are.

We had to see the dinosaur at the zoo - a few different times! The boys didn't seem to mind seeing the show again. My favorite is still the elephants. The boys enjoyed the play area, where they could slide down a hill on cardboard.

friends...

2011-08-21T20:07:00.000-07:00

...come and go.

We miss you! Jared's "buddy Tru" and his family moved this summer. Carrie and Tyson have 4 boys and 1 girl (Taylee, the girl Owen's age, and the newborn boy Tripp weren't in the picture above.) The boys had so much fun playing with this crew. I guess it's a good thing they moved though... their boys had too much of an influence on our boys. I remember one conversation Nathan and Jared had. Jared said something like, "Tru knows everything." Nathan corrected him, saying Tru didn't know everything, but Trey does. :) Trey is the oldest boy, a couple years older than Nathan. And the mischief they got into together... the time Jared and Tru found a steak knife in Tru's backyard and they were running around with it... and the time Jared got a bloody ear while rough housing on their trampoline... and the boys trying to ride tricycles down the slope in our backyard... and Trey getting cut while climbing over our barb wire fence to fetch a ball... and the boys rigging up a bucket swing in our tree and attempting to "pulley up" Taylee and Owen... Nathan and Jared really looked up to these boys. Yep, just too much influence, too much mischief, too much fun! Good thing they moved. ;)

Really though, I'm really grateful for this family - they have moved around A LOT (I think this was their 20th move in 11-12 years of marriage?). I'm glad one stop was in our "port" because this family was just what I needed to help make a smooth transition from our move last year. Carrie and I swapped baby-sitting quite a bit and we were also visiting teaching companions. At times when Alex was out of town, Carrie watched the boys so I could go jogging or to the grocery store. Their family was also a great example, particularly of service. If there was a service opportunity, they were there. If someone needed a meal, they provided one. There was one service project that our ward participated in that involved manual labor. Carrie, about 8.75 months pregnant, was there with her kids (without her husband who was working that morning). She would have had the best excuse not to be there, but not only was she there, but she never sat down all morning - we were there for about 3 hours. Just amazing.

I think the one flaw with this family is that they only have one girl - only one chance of merging families... at least we have a few good men to choose from... :)

It's good to have friends who just seem to understand you and put up with your flaws (I really am too busy to get to the phone most of the time....) and friends who would drop everything if you ever needed anything (in fact, when Jared had to get stitches, I was chastised for NOT calling her to watch the other kids). Thanks for your friendship! We hope move #21 will be BACK to here...

buzz!

2011-08-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

I finally gave Weston his first haircut, although no scissors were involved. It was much safer to use the buzzer on a moving target. After dinner, he was headed to the bath anyway, so I decided to give him a haircut. I should have at least washed off his face, since we were taking pictures, but didn't think about that. He's just a mess. He wasn't thrilled about getting his haircut, but I think it turned out okay considering he wasn't sitting still through most of it. Nathan tried to entertain him by making faces and noises at his feet. It was pretty much chaos, but we got the job done. Although he did look cute with the longer hair that sometimes curled, it was just becoming a mess as he got food and dirt stuck in it. I think he looks pretty handsome with his haircut.

hot dog anyone?

2011-08-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when your 2 year old tries to warm up his own hot dog in the microwave...

souvenirs

2011-08-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

We didn't bring back very many souvenirs from our trip, but we did bring home 4 wooden swords. The boys were pretty excited. Even Weston seemed to know what to do with it - poke things and people. We may regret bringing these home...

Europe - day 10

2011-08-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

We were hoping to "go out with a bang" - but instead it was more like a fizzle, a balloon deflating... we spent most of the day staring out the window of the Glacier Express at rain and clouds. We had to make advance reservations for the trip, so unless we wanted to blow off the money we spent, we had to go. We still saw some pretty landscape, but it wasn't nearly the spectacular scenery that it should have been. The best part was probably our lunch - yummy soup and bread. We had the goulash soup a couple different times, and it was really good. Our Glacier Express began in Zermatt and ended in Chur (about a 6 hour trip).

We headed back through Zurich - we wandered around the city, pushed our way through the crowds. Too many people for us. We bought some really expensive chocolate from the famous Sprungli shop. The 4 pieces below were about $7 - they were good, but I wouldn't buy them again for that price. The whole city was VERY expensive.

When we got back to Bern, we headed over to the bear park (Baren Park), which someone told us we had to see. We didn't know about it previously, so we hoped we could see it before we left. It started pouring just after we got there, but I snapped a few pictures. The bear is essentially Bern's mascot, and bears have been kept in the city since 1513. The legend is that a bear was the first animal to be caught by the city's founder during a hunting expedition, so that's how the city got its name (in 1191). "Baren" is the German plural of "bears". In 1513, a living bear was carried home with spoils of war in a triumphal procession of winning the Battle of Novara. They kept the bear in a pit in the city. From that time, bears have been in the city for all but about 7 years (when the French kidnapped them and moved them to Paris in 1798). At times there have been 12 or more bears in the Bern Bear Pit, but they are no longer kept in the legendary bear pit. In 2009, they opened up a park for the bears. Pretty cool tradition and fun to see bears in the middle of the city!

Europe - day 9

2011-08-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Alex was busy with his conference, so I had the day to do something. I got up early and headed down to Zermatt. I took the train to Gornegrat Station (a 45 minute ride up). It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the views of the Matterhorn. From there, I headed back to the Interlaken area, hoping the weather would hold up. It didn't. The clouds moved in and it wasn't worth it to take a cable car ride to any of the peaks. I got a closer look at Staubbach Falls in Lauterbrunnen and then headed back to Bern.

In the evening, we were able to go to the Bern, Switzerland Temple. We really enjoyed it - of course it was in German, so we had to wear headphones to translate into English. What was amazing was half of the other people also had to use headphones - there were at least 5 different languages - German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian. And I think these were "locals" - there's quite a few different languages just in Switzerland and the area the temple serves. It was amazing to think that the Lord was hearing each of these languages, and the covenants and promises are the same no matter the language. The Lord hears us and loves us all.

Europe - day 8

2011-08-03T18:26:00.000-07:00

This day was supposed to be one of our most scenic. We planned to see the Interlaken area and take a cogwheel train to the top of Jungfraujoch (the "Top of Europe") - but it was rainy... the webcam at the top showed nothing but white. We decided not to pay $200 to see clouds. What we did see instead was Trummelbach Falls, which were pretty amazing - glacier waterfalls inside a mountain. We took a lift inside the mountain and then walked through the tunnels and out onto the platforms to see the falls twisting and rushing through the rocks. Pretty cool.

We weren't sure what else to do - we did get some peeks at the peaks.

By lunchtime it was drizzly and yucky and you couldn't see anything, so I took pictures of wildflowers and birds and of Staubbach Falls. And we ate. Since we weren't spending $$ on the cable car rides, we figured we could spend $45 for lunch and dessert. We tried Rosti, which is like hashbrowns with cheese. This dish had a fried egg on top as well. It was pretty good, and it felt good to have food in my tummy, since we'd mostly been scrimping on meals.

It was still cloudy in the afternoon, so we decided to take a boat ride. Turned out to be a really relaxing thing to do (and it was free, since we had a Swiss Pass). It was a 3 hour ride (if I'm remembering correctly) on Lake Brienz. We thought about getting off on the other side of the lake and taking the train back, but we're glad we stayed on. Despite just going back the way we came, this time we saw a cool rainbow - one nice little benefit of the rain. And what was cool was you could see both ends of it.

Europe - day 7

2011-08-02T01:03:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday evening, the place we stayed at was actually in Austria, in a little town called Jungholz. The GPS couldn't find the address we put in, but at least we got to the town and then a kind German lady who was out walking in the rain was able to point us in the right direction. We were lucky to find it because we forgot to print out directions. It was one of our more enjoyable places to stay - it was cheaper than any of our other accommodations and it included breakfast. That was huge, since most of the places charged about $15 each for breakfast, which meant we didn't eat breakfast usually or had store bought muffins. It was also run by a family, and the friendly gentleman had 4 kids, so we had something in common.

Our plans to do the luge (on wheels) for Wednesday was spoiled by rain, so we decided to drive to the tiny country of Liechenstein. Who can say they've been to Liechenstein? The country is in between Austria and Switzerland with Germany to the north but not bordering Germany. We visited the capital, Vaduz, and got our passports stamped in the Liechenstein Center. We were only there for about an hour.

We then headed towards Zurich Airport to return our rental car, but stopped at Rhine Falls on the way. Rhine Falls is near Schauffhausen and not far from Zurich. Pretty neat falls - nothing spectacular, but we enjoyed seeing them.

From Zurich, we began our train travel. The transportation system is really amazing in Switzerland. It was easy to get around by trains, trams, or bus, and the Swiss Rail Pass allowed us to use any of those. By Wednesday evening, we were in Bern, the location of Alex's second conference. We walked around the city for a little bit in the evening. At first I wasn't too impressed, but it does seem to have a certain charm to it and the lights at night were pretty. We had a 7 minute train ride from the city center to the front door of our hotel, which was connected to a mall. We were in for a shock when we went to get something to eat. We wandered around the restaurants in the mall and everything was so expensive. We finally settled on an italian place, and I ordered the cheapest pasta dish on the menu. It was about 12 swiss francs, which was about $15 US dollars. For that amount, I was expecting to get a lot of food. Nope. It was a small bowl of pasta with a couple of tomatoes on it. Alex got a pizza for about the same price, which was pretty much like cardboard with a little bit of cheese on it. We never ordered a drink anywhere - the sodas were about $5.75. We ended up eating cheeseburgers from McDonald's a few times, because they were only about $3.25 (for the $1 menu burgers). Luckily the grocery stores weren't as bad and we bought some things for breakfast. I think we still ended up missing a meal every day we were in Switzerland, either for lack of time or trying to save money.

Europe - day 6

2011-08-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

While in Germany, we had to have the German autobahn experience. In general, on the autobahn (freeway) they don't have speed limits, although they do post recommended speeds. I think what happens is you don't get speeding tickets, but if you're in an accident and were going over the posted speed, insurance will not cover you. The recommended speed in many places is about 80 mph - it's pretty crazy. They drive SO FAST. You don't want to get in the way either. They don't go around - they push through. Actually I think it's illegal to pass on the right most of the time anyway. Luckily they drive on the same side of the road as us (it was tricky in Scotland for Alex to drive a standard on the left side of the road - I don't know how he managed the gear shift with his left hand.) Anyway, we had about a 5 hour drive from Cochem down to southern Germany, so Alex had a chance to cruise along the autobahn. He got up to about 120 mph in a few places. Most of the time we were going the recommended speed, although in a few open areas, Alex tested out how fast he could go. We made sure there wasn't much traffic around while flying down the road at 120mph. It wouldn't go much faster and we were on a downhill slope when he got to 195km. Really crazy and dangerous! We were driving in this Golf VW car (without hubcaps) that had 6 gears. You'll see he almost got to 200km.

Our itinerary for the day was to tour a couple of castles in southern Germany, near Fussen in Bavaria. We mostly wanted to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, built by King Ludwig II (also known as Mad King Ludwig). We also saw Hohenschwangau, which was Ludwig's boyhood home. Both were impressive, but Neuschwanstein was just incredible. It was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and other Walt Disney castles. We couldn't take pictures inside the castles, but the intricate details of the painting and architecture were just amazing. The N castle was built in honor of and inspired by the composer Richard Wagner, so many of the paintings were characters from Wagner's operas. The story of the castle and Mad King Ludwig is an interesting one. (I had to go back and look up some of the details.)

Ludwig II became king of Bavaria at the age of 18. He later began construction of the N castle, but it was never fully completed inside (I think he actually only lived there for about 6 months). Ludwig had gone heavily into debt with the construction of castle, and instead of halting work on it, he pressed on trying to force loans from all of Europe's royalty. When threatening to dismiss his entire cabinet, they decided to act first and try to de-throne Ludwig by means of declaring him unfit to rule. They succeeded and he was declared mentally insane (without a medical exam) and he was to be replaced on the throne. Shortly after that declaration, Ludwig was found dead (at the age of 40). He and the physician who had proclaimed him insane were found floating in a lake near Munich, a mysterious death (likely murder/suicide, but there were controversial reports).

Anyway, whether he was actually insane or not is unknown, but his eccentric personality contributed to this incredible design of the N castle. It's interesting - he meant the castle to be a private refuge, but only about 7 weeks after his death, it was opened to the public. And now millions of people have been through there - I think more than one million visitors every year!

Overlooking the N castle is a bridge, called Marienbrucke, which Ludwig II's father built as a present for his wife Marie (hence Mary's Bridge). Ludwig later replaced the wooden bridge with steel. We loved the view of the N castle from the bridge. (I have a picture of the H castle in this collage too - the small yellow blob, but you couldn't actually see it from the bridge.)

Europe - day 5

2011-07-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

On Monday morning, we drove west of Frankfurt to some small cities in the Rhineland-Palatinate. Our main objective was to tour another castle, Burg Eltz. The castle was a little out in the middle of nowhere, between Cochem and Koblenz. We had a short half mile hike to get to the castle; loved the setting in the forest. Burg Eltz is a fairy tale-like castle that has been in the Eltz family for over 800 years. Unfortunately it's undergoing renovation (notice the crane & plastic covering one side of the castle) so we didn't get to see all of it, but what we saw was very cool. A couple of interesting things we learned - they built mini chapels in bay windows because they believed that no one should live above God (they could place these on lower floors because of the bay window extension). Also, we learned that the spiral staircases were designed specifically with protection in mind. Intruders would have to hold their sword in their left hand while going up the stairs while the homeowner (castle owner?) had the advantage of being able to hold their sword in their right hand while coming down towards an intruder.

I hope you're not getting tired of the arm's length photos or my blue-green jacket. :) The jacket shows up quite often; I didn't expect to wear it very much, but it was chilly or rainy enough to need it most of the places we went. You'll probably be castled out by the time I'm done too - I'll admit I wasn't interested in seeing any other castles after the ones we saw (and we didn't even tour all the ones we took pictures of). But we did enjoy each of them.

We took over 2000 pictures on our trip, so I really had to pick and choose. Here's just a few things from inside the castle. And I had to include a picture of our dessert - so yummy. I don't remember the names of our cake/pie (everything was in German - we did a lot of pointing... we'll take one of those.) :)

The little town of Cochem was another favorite of our trip, where we stayed at a bed & breakfast on Monday night. The Mosel River ran through the city, which was filled with touristy shops and restaurants. It was fun to walk across the bridge and watch the boats and the see the reflection of the brightly colored buildings in the water. We walked along both sides of the city - on one side was the Cochem Reichsburg Castle and the other was filled with vineyards (and shops and restaurants). We enjoyed walking up above the vineyard and just gazing out over the city and to the castle on the other side - very peaceful and romantic spot... ;)

The cool little orange car was just something we saw while out walking - we saw so many little cars while in Europe. In fact our rental car in Scotland was a little mini thing. We didn't see very many big cars, trucks, or vans in Europe.

We didn't actually tour this castle - it was after hours when we got there, but it was fun to explore the outer courtyard area, and also provided another great view of the city.

Europe - day 4

2011-07-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

On Sunday morning, we went to church at the Livingston Ward (Livingston is about 30 minutes west of Edinburgh). In the afternoon, we flew from Edinburgh to Frankfurt, Germany. I wasn't sure if they'd allow us to stay in Germany - the customs guy didn't know where Cochem or Fussen was when we told him where we'd be visiting. At least he knew where Frankfurt was and we eventually got our passports stamped...

Late in the evening, we went to the Women's World Cup Final, which we were lucky enough to be able to watch USA vs. Japan. We had to buy the tickets in advance, of course not knowing who would make it to the final. We lucked out and got to cheer on our own team, but then had the unlucky result of losing to Japan in the penalty kick shoot out. It was a fun game to watch and really an amazing experience just to be there (although I wished it wasn't on Sunday). The crowd was great too - a lot of Germans (of course hoping Germany had made it), some cheering for us and some for Japan. Directly on the right side of us were USA fans and sitting on our left were fans cheering for Japan. The whole stadium was interspersed with fans cheering for opposite teams (many not even their own country). USA should have won it - we were so close (tied 2 to 2 at the end of overtime), but couldn't make our penalty kicks. The interlude and postlude to the game were cool to watch - with sparkly things, lights, music, cameras flashing, and flags waving. It was just a little bit magical - I don't even know how to describe it.

It's amazing that we were even at the game. We never set out to be there. It just happened to work out just right for us. When we were planning our trip, we originally planned on taking a train from Edinburgh through London through Paris to Frankfurt. It was going to cost about $700 and take quite a bit of time. We decided to look into flying. Plane tickets ended up being a much better deal and saving us time, so we bought the tickets. It was only after we had already purchased our plane tickets to Frankfurt that we thought about the World Cup going on in Germany. We curiously looked at the schedule to see when and where the games were being played. Turns out the final was that night we were flying in to Frankfurt. A quick look at ticket prices and just the fact that it wasn't a normal Sunday activity for us turned us away, at first. But I couldn't stop thinking about how coincidental it was that we would be in Frankfurt that day (and I love soccer - I think most soccer fans dream of being at a world cup game) - the temptation was just too much for me and I bought the very expensive tickets to the game. So much for trying to save money by flying...

We had a fun time and I'm still amazed that we even got to cheer on the USA. Now if they had only won it... almost perfect.

You might want to turn the volume down a little bit... here's the replay of our 1st goal. The second video is just a little after game stuff. (The better after-game video was too big to post).

Europe - day 3

2011-07-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

Day 3 was one of my favorites. We continued to drive through the western highlands and to the Isle of Skye. It was not highly recommended in the book we looked at, but we knew we didn't want to miss out on it as much as we loved the outdoors. We weren't disappointed, although we did get rain half the day. We stopped by the Eilean Donan Castle, we ate fish & chips in Portree Harbor with the seagulls, drove by the famous landmark "Old Man of Storr", castle ruins, and Kilt Rock & Mealt Falls. So beautiful! We also loved how peaceful it was and the lack of crowds. We didn't have time to see everything we wanted to - we had to make our way back to Edinburgh. (It took about 6 hours to get back to Livingston, just outside of Edinburgh).

Europe - day 2

2011-07-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

While Alex was at his conference on Friday morning, I toured the Edinburgh Castle, a military fortress on the top of an extinct volcano. Some of the highlights I couldn't take pictures of, such as the Stone of destiny, crown jewels of Scotland, or War Memorial. I was able to take a picture of Mons Meg, a 550 year old cannon which at one time shot a distance of about 2 miles. I stayed for the One o'clock Gun, which has fired 6 days a week since 1861. (It doesn't fire on Sundays, Christmas, or Good Friday.) Impressive castle!

We spent the afternoon and evening driving towards Inverness. Despite the one lane road (with 2 way traffic at times), we enjoyed the pretty drive. The bed and breakfast we stayed at overlooked Loch Ness.

We didn't see the Loch Ness monster...

Europe trip - day 1

2011-07-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

Here's the first post about our recent trip to Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland! I don't know how many you'll get at a time, but here's the first day at least. (If I get going on these, you could get a bunch at once).

Most of my first day was spent on the plane getting there. I left Wednesday evening and got to Edinburgh, Scotland on Thursday evening. Alex was already there (and surprised me by meeting me at the bus stop). Our whole trip was in conjunction with 2 conferences he had - the first was in Edinburgh and the second was in Bern, Switzerland. I met him at the tail end of his first conference and left at the beginning of his second one. So we didn't get to fly together, but I was just grateful we were able to go without kids. Thanks mom and dad for watching the boys! As far as the time change (Scotland is 8 hours ahead of us), my plan was to not sleep at all on the plane, so I'd be ready to sleep when I got there. I was tired, but we realized we wouldn't get to see Edinburgh together if we didn't get out on Thursday evening. So despite being up all night, we walked the Royal Mile in Old Town Edinburgh (a walk just over a mile that connects the Edinburgh castle with several other streets - the streets are lined with little shops, restaurants, churches, and other government and historical buildings). For dinner, we had pizza while overlooking the city - loved the architecture! We stayed at the Point Hotel, which was only about 0.5 mile from the Edinburgh Castle. Not a bad start to our trip (my 1st time ever to set foot in Europe)!

credit where credit is due

2011-07-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

The lovely flowers in a previous post were actually from my DAD. He picked those up on one of his trips to Home Depot, likely one of his outings to replace the windshield wipers on our van. I just discovered that today. What else did you do Dad? Thanks! By the way, it was also clever of you to add the $1 to the top of the cash I left for you to use, which you didn't use. I saw that and was happy that you had used some of it, only to find out I had only acquired an extra dollar.

Big boy Weston

2011-07-25T23:26:00.000-07:00

Before I post about our trip, this little man deserves the spotlight. He turned one on the day I flew to Europe. I felt guilty about doing that, but at least we got to celebrate earlier in the day. He LOVED the cake and immediately dug into it. He didn't have a clue how to unwrap presents, but his brothers were happy to help.

Here's a look at his growth - amazing how much they change in just one year.

Good to be home

2011-07-25T17:34:00.000-07:00

I missed my boys! I couldn't sleep very well on the plane and only got a few hours sleep the night before, so I had been up for at least 24 hours. When I got home, the boys couldn't stop talking, but it was great to be home. While I missed all of them, I have to admit it was hardest to be away from Weston. It was hard not having my baby cuddles.

My parents were real troopers and entertained the boys while we were gone. They also left things better than they found them - typical. My dad fixed several things - the trampoline enclosure, the leaky washer, the disposal, and built a tree house for the boys. My mom left new things around the house, like flowers, soap dish and dispenser, cups, toys, and games for the boys, toothbrushes, organizer buckets, shoes for Weston, towel rack, and bath mat. And they got a heavy duty cleaner for the hard to scrub spots in the shower. Basically, if they saw something that needed to be fixed or replaced, they did it. And I'm still finding more things - I probably didn't name everything. Baba and Papa need to visit more often. I highly recommend borrowing them for a week or two... :)

The boys had a great time and they miss them already. They loved going to the zoo, baseball game, the park, the beach, McDonald's, Wendy's, bowling, watching movies, playing in their new tree house, playing baseball, watching sports on-line, games, and eating treats. After we dropped Baba and Papa off at the airport this morning, Nathan asked, "Do we have to go back to the regular rules now?" Yep. Back to boring.

They had the best 2 weeks of the year. Thanks for coming Baba and Papa!

Just so you know...

2011-07-15T07:01:00.000-07:00

My parents are watching the boys for a couple of weeks while Alex and I are in Scotland, Germany, and Switzerland. I'm so grateful they allowed us to do that. I won't be able to post pics until after we get home. But if you're curious about what the boys are doing, my mom will probably post on her blog www.debnronilylt.blogspot.com.

Full update later! Check back in a couple of weeks...

Mama's weekend out

2011-07-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

I spent the 4th of July weekend in Colorado - Alex stayed home with the boys. It was nice not having to worry about kids, but I did feel little lonely without them. Loved spending time with family though. My sisters were all there, and I got to meet Eli (Audrey & Sam's new little guy). We stayed at Grandpa Bob's "ranch", one of my most favorite places, but the special occasion was my cousin Enola's wedding. Congrats to Enola & Cris for (finally) tying the knot! :) I also got to see my uncles Doug & Gary (don't know why I didn't get pics of them) - thanks to them for carting me to and from the airport and feeding me. It was a fun mama's weekend out, but I sure did miss my babies!

Superman, sticks & stones

2011-07-09T23:08:00.000-07:00

One of the fun things about being a mom is hearing the funny things your kids say. Jared has no shortage of funny things that comes out. Here's a couple of his recent "sayings":

"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but birds will never hurt me."

Talking with Nathan: "There's only two things that can hurt Superman - kryptonite and his mom."

Ready for grandma?

2011-07-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

We're getting ready for a visit from Baba and Papa... or should we just box up these dirty boys and ship them? We'll overnight them - handle with care!

sweet angry Owen

2011-06-27T10:31:00.000-07:00

Owen was on this anger kick one evening, which we thought was hilarious. Nathan and Jared were egging him on. Of course, the first time I tried to get it on camera, saying "show me your angry face" this is what I got:

For my dad

2011-06-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

Still daddy's girl... just a bit older now.

It was a little hard to find some old pictures. In particular, I was thinking of this one of my dad and I running in a race (I think I was about 6 or 7?). We ran together most mornings throughout my childhood. I didn't always appreciate it at the time; I had several mornings I didn't feel like getting out there to run. But I sure appreciate it now - that foundation of discipline, of hanging in there when I felt like giving up, of working hard and just the time with my dad. When I finally found the picture in one of my scrapbooks, close to it was a quote about discipline. And while it may not be the very most important thing in success in life (aside from faith), I think discipline is one of my core qualities that I learned from my dad. He taught me to always do my best, and if I was going to do something, don't do it halfway. That's carried over in more areas of my life than athletics and education. That discipline now helps me endure the trials of motherhood.

And it's funny (and maybe Mike will agree), I still want to get up and run in the morning. It just seems like the right way to start the day... ("...train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" ?)

Thanks Dad for teaching me how to work hard and endure to the end! (And I'm blaming you though for my bad knee that's holding me back. Somehow, I think that's your fault...don't you have a bum knee too?) :) But I'm pretty persistent/stubborn, so I'll figure out how to keep running.

Happy Father's Day!

We want to be just like you Dad!

2011-06-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day!

future 6'1" ?

2011-06-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've heard to predict a child's adult height, you should double their height at 2.5 years. If that's true, then Owen may be 6'1 or 6'2. He's almost 37" now. Looking at on-line height predictors though, most of them estimate 5'11 - likely based on my height (5'5.5) and Alex (5'11.5). They say that 70% is based on heredity and the other 30% is environmental factors (like exercise and eating habits).

While most predicted 5'11 for all the boys, www.babycenter.com predicted Owen's height as 6'0. Another website (can't remember which one now) had slightly different heights - 5'11.5 for Nathan, 5'9.3 for Jared, and 5'11.6 for Owen. That seems the most fitting to me, as I think Jared is a little bit shorter for his age than Nathan and Jared.

Anyway, we'll let you know in about 15.5 years if the prediction for Owen was right... :)

Mr. Weston

2011-06-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Sunday brought some laughs because of Mr. Weston... on the way home from church, I gave him a Nutrigrain bar to snack on. Bad idea. When I went to bring him in, I saw this...

I debated what to do... clean him off and risk waking this snoozing gem (he hadn't napped all day) or just leave him sleeping in the carseat? I knew he wouldn't stay asleep very long in there AND he's so heavy to carry in the seat. So I had to ever so carefully clean him off. I did it. This is talent folks. :) His toes, by the way, were the only part of him that were still clean. After his little snooze in the car seat, he still transferred to his bed.

We also had fun at church. During the 3rd hour, he was active as usual, not wanting to be held. I let him get down and explore a little. I had a hard time keeping him away from the purses on the floor - I particularly wanted to keep him away from the Vera Wang purse (aren't those expensive?). He was entertained by another baby's car seat for a while, but then he spit up all over it. Just as I got done wiping it up the best I could, the next thing I saw was a pantless baby standing there. Weston had somehow crawled right out of his pants. He looked so funny standing there with no pants. As hard as I tried, I couldn't hold it together - it just sparked a laugh inside (and my friend next to me) and I had to scoop him up and leave before I made an outburst. I rushed out of there, redfaced and dying of laughter inside. I felt bad for the lady who was in the middle of sharing her tender feelings about her son on a mission. I know we were quite the distraction; someone clear on the other side of the room later mentioned she wished she'd had a camera. And it wasn't even that funny, but it was just one of those things that sparks a laugh that can't be extinguished. (It made me think of a Seinfeld episode, the one with Elaine and the PEZ dispenser, about 4:20 into the video).

I love this little messy active boy though - now 11 months old.

vowel e

2011-06-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Nathan is out of school, but we're continuing on with Jared's joy school. We finished the alphabet, but decided to do the vowels. We read and made the little red hen (who has ten finger feathers), made soft pretzel "e" rolls, colored short "e" word pages, and played a lemon game.

cousins!

2011-06-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

We enjoyed a quick visit from my brother and his family (Nicholas and Ryan, the baby). It was tough trying to get a picture of all the boys together. I also tried to get a picture of Weston and Cheerio (the dog) - both Westies. :) Westie loved Ryan, but treated him like a doll, crawling over him and trying to poke his eyes and grab at his face. We had cupcakes for Mike's birthday. We don't make our kids wait until their 1st birthday for cake, so Westie enjoyed those cupcakes (he'll be all ready for his b-day).

Memorial Day adventures

2011-06-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

We decided to go hiking on Memorial Day. We went to a spot where the boys could get in the water, which was cold, but they didn't seem to mind. We had a couple of little mishaps along the way. My hiking boots decided to fall apart; the soles detached from the boot. I guess after 11 years, they'd had it, although I haven't used them that much. Luckily there was still a little bit of the sole covering my feet. The other little mishap was Owen cutting his finger on a little piece of glass. He was having fun throwing rocks in the water and got cut by a little piece as he was picking up rocks. (I happened to be videoing at the time. You'll see him trying to brush it off.) It was bleeding pretty good, and of course we didn't have our little first aid kit like we usually do, so we didn't have any band-aids. And we had already hiked about 2 miles in. What to do? We used the next best thing - part of a diaper. I tore off part where the velcro was and wrapped it around his finger. Worked pretty well. (Note to self: you can use a diaper in a pinch! :)) The boys had a great time and they were all exhausted by the time we got done (we ended up hiking about 5 miles).

But... that didn't keep us from going to the park later and then out for ice cream. Fun day!

fantastic first grader

2011-06-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Nathan had such a great year. He made friends easily, had great teachers, and was eager to learn. He said his favorite thing to learn about was money. He is really good at math. He said what he'd miss the most about 1st grade is the books. He does love to read. He also loved recess, playing sports with his friends. He came home each day reporting what had happened in his games. He was very proud of winning a medal for 3rd place in the jog-a-thon. He said next year he plans to "learn how to run faster," although he's already pretty fast. I can't catch him. One notable thing was his spelling - he got 100% on all his tests! Looks like he may have my spelling genes, luckily! :) He brought home several pieces of artwork, which were fun to see his creativity. I think Nathan is pretty well-rounded (creativity, language arts, and athletic skills from me :) and math and science and social skills from Alex). Nathan will talk your ear off as soon as he gets warmed up to you! We also were impressed by his independence, making his own lunch every day and often walking most of the way home from school by himself. We're so glad he loves school and had a successful year.

chopped!

2011-06-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

I didn't give you much time to weigh in to my last post - once I decide to get it cut, I just have to do it so I don't talk myself out of it. I think Owen was probably right. When he saw me he said, "Mama, you look funny." Yep, it's much different than before. I'll get used to it. It never looks like the picture I take in - my hair is just so thin and my forehead long. I chickened out on the shortest cut, but thought I'd go for this:

I need a haircut!

2011-06-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

It's time to chop it off again... but I'm undecided on what to do with it. I copied and pasted a little bit... here's some possible choices. Which do you like best, if any?
Here's the original lovely ladies...

Memorial Day poppies

2011-05-30T10:49:00.000-07:00

We're going hiking... and today these flowers are going with me.

Happy Memorial Day!

2011-05-30T10:13:00.000-07:00

For activity days this past week, we talked about Memorial Day and the girls made poppy wreaths, since the red poppy is the memorial flower. It was interesting to read about the history of the red poppy. Here are some excerpts from different sources:

"This is the story of how the red field poppy came to be known as an internationally recognized symbol of Remembrance. From its association with poppies flowering in the spring of 1915 on the battlefields of Belgium, France and Gallipoli this vivid red flower has become synonymous with great loss of life in war.
Yet the scope of the poppy and its connection with the memory of those who have died in war has been expanded to help the living too. It was the inspiration and dedication of two women who promoted this same “Memorial Flower” as the means by which funds could be raised to support those in need of help, most especially servicemen and civilians suffering from physical and mental hardship as a result of war.

The spring of 1915 was the first time that warm weather began to warm up the countryside after the cold winter at war in 1914-1915. In the region around Ypres in Belgian Flanders the months of April and May 1915 were unusually warm. Farmers were plowing their fields close up to the front lines and new life was starting to grow. One of the plants that began to grow in clusters on and around the battle zones were the red field or corn poppy (its species name is: papaver rhoeas). It is often to be found in or on the edges of fields where grain is grown.
The field poppy is an annual plant which flowers each year between about May and August. Its seeds are disseminated on the wind and can lie dormant in the ground for a long time. If the ground is disturbed from the early spring the seeds will germinate and the poppy flowers will grow. This is what happened in parts of the front lines in Belgium and France. Once the ground was disturbed by the fighting, the poppy seeds lying in the ground began to germinate and grow during the warm weather in the spring and summer months of 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918. The field poppy was also blooming in parts of the Turkish battlefields on the Gallipoli peninsular when the ANZAC and British Forces arrived at the start of the campaign in April 1915.
The sight of these delicate, vibrant red flowers growing on the shattered ground caught the attention of a Canadian soldier by the name of John McCrae. He noticed how they had sprung up in the disturbed ground of the burials around the artillery position he was in. It was during the warm days of early May 1915 when he found himself with his artillery brigade near to the Ypres-Yser canal. He is believed to have composed a poem “In Flanders Fields” following the death of a friend at that time. The first lines of the poem have become some of the most famous lines written in relation to the First World War.

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The Flanders Fields Red Poppy was first created as a symbol of Remembrance by an American teacher, Miss Moina Belle Michael.

Moina described the way that the idea for a memorial emblem of the red poppy came to her in a moment of revelation. Moina's fascinating autobiography, ”The Miracle Flower, The Story of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy” was published in 1941. Moina dedicates the book to the late Colonel John McCrae, whose poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ was the inspiration for her idea of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy.

As a result of Moina Michael's tireless campaigning, her complete dedication to the cause and the inspiration her idea gave to others, the delicate flower of the red field poppy has become an internationally-recognized symbol of Remembrance and welfare for war veterans.

“I read the poem, which I had read many times previously, and studied its graphic picturization. The last verse transfixed me — ‘To you from failing hands we throw the Torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Fields’.

This was for me a full spiritual experience. It seemed as though the silent voices again were vocal, whispering, in sighs of anxiety unto anguish, ‘To you from failing hands we throw the Torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders Fields’.

Alone, again, in a high moment of white resolve I pledged to KEEP THE FAITH and always to wear a red poppy of Flanders Fields as a sign of remembrance and the emblem of ‘keeping the faith with all who died’.

In hectic times as were those times, great emotional impacts may be obliterated by succeeding greater ones. So I felt impelled to make note of my pledge. I reached for a used yellow envelope, turned the blank side up and hastily scribbled my pledge to keep the faith with all who died.”

We Shall Keep the Faith
Moina Michael, November 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

As a result of Moina's inspirational idea on 9th November 1918 the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy was adopted by many organizations. It was taken on as an way of fund raising by numerous veterans' organizations after the First World War and over the 90 years since that time the poppy has raised large amounts of money to help ex-servicemen and women in need of physical and mental welfare support.
She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it.

Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country. To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence."

I think we have become neglectful in our observance of Memorial Day. I also was not aware of the red poppy as the memorial flower. Did you know about the red poppy? I didn't. Maybe it's more common on Veterans Day, but it is the internationally recognized memorial flower. In honor of the holiday, yesterday at church I made this barrette to wear in my hair. I saw a lot of red, white, and blue, but I didn't see any red poppies. I love the simple beauty of this symbol of remembrance and the idea that beautiful life can spring forth after death, the same way these poppies bloomed on the battlefields. We can honor those who died by the way we keep the faith. I'd like to be one to "...cherish too the poppy red" and "keep the faith with all who died." I hope we can each find a small way to remember and honor those who fought and died for our freedom.

Jared's new skill

2011-05-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

Jared learned how to tie his shoes today - this is the first time we've tried. It only took about 10 minutes for him to figure it out. Either Jared is really talented or I'm a really good teacher! Probably both. :) Nathan was the same way - when we finally sat down to teach him, it didn't take long at all. I guess Jared is officially ready for kindergarten. Tying his shoes was about the only thing on a preparing-for-kindergarten list that he didn't know.

5 years

2011-05-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Jared turned five last week! Unfortunately he wasn't feeling great on his birthday (you can see the half glazed over look) - pretty much the only thing he ate all day was a little bit of waffle, watermelon, and ice cream. I also did a crumb cake for breakfast so we could sing to him and he opened presents. He didn't feel up to going out to eat, so we went to McDonald's the next day.

He was ready and feeling good for his party on Saturday, at one of the local parks. They had a great time sledding down the pine needles on cardboard boxes. I constructed a couple of shoddy looking batmobiles at the last minute. The cake also was a little shabby looking and didn't make the transport very well. Having the party at a park was mostly a good idea, but I didn't count on the wind blowing the tablecloth, tableware, and balloons everywhere. The kids got to take home frosting covered balloons... I think the kids had fun. I know Jared loved it, so that's all that matters!

10 months

2011-05-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

Weston's latest trick is waving. He recognizes the word "wave" because he can do it just by asking. I think it's so cute. I've been trying some signs lately and waving is similar to "play," but either is effective in getting praise and attention. I love his little toothy grin.

He's eating most of the things we eat now in small bites. He experienced his first McDonald's fries and hamburger, although I'm not sure he was tasting - just shoveling in and swallowing. He can really put down some food. Lately he ate about 2 whole squares of lasagna and was fussing for more.

He pulls up to stand and walk along things and pull things off the shelves... not thrilled about this pre-toddler get into everything stage, but we love all 20 lbs. of him (latest weight stat). And we can't complain about his 10-11 hour nights - a good sleeper!

creative problem solving

2011-05-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know how it is in your home (for those with little kids), but I'm finding that my boys are constantly bickering and fighting over toys. It seems like someone is always crying or tattling about something, and lately I'm just really tired of it. My response has been, "you work it out" or "figure out how to play together." It doesn't work very well, but it is fun to see them try to work out their own problems. Here are a couple of their attempts:

Nathan and Jared were fighting over a pillow at bedtime. After unsuccessfully trying to get me to solve the problem ("You work it out boys..."), I overheard their resolution. Nathan said, "Jared, I'll have it half of the night, and then I'll give it to you in the middle of the night." Jared accepted that. Good thinking Nathan... :)

The next attempt isn't quite as funny, but it's fun to see the thought process. Owen took Jared's toy and Jared was trying to get it back. While they usually end up wrestling over it or hitting or flinging toys at each other, Jared was trying to bargain with Owen. Jared said, "Give me my toy and I'll buy you a new coloring book." Good try, but Owen didn't accept that deal. Owen is really hard to bargain with these days. I don't blame Nathan and Jared for getting frustrated with him. My solution to his tantrums usually involves putting him in time-out in the closet...

Also, Owen is figuring out how to blame others for things. When questioned about a broken toy or other mishap, Owen says, "Westie did it." And recently, while getting ready for bedtime, Owen had pulled his diaper off and peed on the floor (while I was putting Weston to bed). Alex got home in the middle of the bedtime chaos, saw Owen running around naked and saw the wet spot on the floor. Alex asked, "Is this PEE on the floor? Owen, did you pee on the floor?!" Owen's response, "No, mama did."