From the Mouths of Babes

We have had a great week so far. On Sunday, I was able to play my flute in Sacrament Meeting with another sister and a two others were singing. It was such a beautiful fun thing.

On Monday the boys went to school and the girls and I started going through all the toys to get rid of the broken ones and the ones that nobody plays with anymore. We also made some orange rolls with cranberries in them for dessert. We had a fun family home evening and then went to bed.

On Tuesday, I let the boys play hookie from school and we went to the zoo in the morning and then went to McDonald's for lunch. After that we went to the Science Museum until it closed at 5:00. We went to the store after that to get things for baking today. By the time the kids got home, they were really tired and Dave got them some food and turned on a movie for them (I was still finishing up at the store since Dave met me there and took the kids home.) Jonathan told me as we were going to lunch that it was the best day ever. He said, "The zoo, McDonald's, the HOwells (friends who went with us) and the Omniplex. This is how every Tuesday should be." Needless to say, all the kids had a great day and loved it.

Today we are going to finish going through all the toys and get the family room as ready as we can for a remodel. We plan on remodeling it during Christmas break. We will be building a den/office and a storage room. We also want to extend the current bathroom a bit too and make it larger. It would be nice if we can get it mostly done in the two weeks that we will have to work on it. We are also going to bake pies today as well.

Well, Rachel is quite the girl! She always keeps us thinking and laughing. On Monday, Rachel was helping Dave get the FHE lesson ready. Dave mentioned to Rachel that kids that are not good do not get presents for Christmas. Rachel thought for a minute then replied, "That's okay Daddy, I will share my toys with Hannah."

I hope you all have a great laugh sometime today, and perhaps I helped!

New Callings

Well, Dave and I have new callings now. I will be leaving the primary as chorister (though I will probably stay and help out until after the program is over in a couple of weeks) and Dave will be leaving the young men. We have both been called as cub scout leaders. So, we will be working together a lot now on this. There are a total of 8 cub scouts. There are 3 Wolfs, 4 Bears and 1 Weblos. So, we will have to see how we are going to separate them and who will be doing what. Jonathan is very excited for this. He is a little bummed that we are not having scouts this evening.

Life has been so busy lately. We went on a trip to CO, UT and ID a bit ago for my grandpa's funeral services. It was a long trip and we figured that we drove equivalent of 7-8 hours a day during the 7 days that we drove. It was a trip full of business, but we were glad to have the chance to see everyone. I met some of my cousins for the first or second time. I saw family that I haven't seen in years. We saw my sister's grave that I haven't seen in years. We also were able to spend a day with Dave's Mom for her birthday, and visit his Grandpa's grave. We went to visit BYU and bought some lovely shirts from the bookstore. We spent time with Curtis (my brother) as he showed us around his work (he does some pretty cool stuff), and my little sister, Brittany. We also spent time with Dave's brother, Daniel.

It was a nice trip, but I'm glad to be home. We did too much stuff in too short a time! Now I am still trying to get back into the swing of things at home. It seems like it's harder to catch up after a trip like that. I had to do a bunch of canning when we got home and I still have more of it to do. I have a bunch of pears in the fridge that I need to take care of. I will probably can some and make jam out of the rest.

I feel that I am now coming down with a cold. Probably because of all this running around and stuff. A couple of the girls have a cold now too. I think Dave might also be getting a bit sick. But, a runny/stuffy nose is better than other things, so we are still doing really well.

Buggy bug

We've been doing a lot of work out in the yard for the past several weeks. We have chopped down about 8 or so dead trees and still have 3-4 left to do. We have also been weeding our flower beds and planting some flowers. Not to mention planting some grass seeds and keeping up with the mowing. There's also picking tomatoes and peppers too.

Well, when we were out weeding and planting on Thursday evening, little Lizzie got really excited and started saying "buggy bug! buggy bug!" Then she brought it over to me. She had captured the cute little lady bug and was so proud of it. She took it around to all of us and showed it to us. She has been picking up on words so fast. I didn't even know that she knew what a lady bug was. My kids never cease to amaze me.

Rachel is doing really well with homeschool. She knows how to read, write and spell most of the three letter words with an a in them (bat, hat, map, pan, man, lap, and even mass and pass). She is very proud of herself. She also knows all of the +1 math facts and many of the +2s as well.

Hannah is getting to be really good at coloring (since that is what she does for school mostly). She is not quite ready for writing the letters yet since she's only 3, but she can write a nice capital H and tries really hard on the A and N so that she can write her name.

Matthew and Jonathan are doing well at school. Matthew has a great memory for vocabulary words and things like that (and he doesn't forget them after the test like I would). Jonathan is a reader and has read a lot this year. They are both doing well in math and spelling too.

We are all doing quite well and I find that I don't have much time to use the computer any more, so the posts are a little less frequent. Some of that is due to not having a television.... I will let the kids watch a movie on the computer (we only have one that works right now) and find that it would be the perfect time to be on the computer, so I end up not getting on it. When I am on it and they are "playing," I usually get interrupted and have to quit before I get done with things. Even now I can hear all the kids making a mess in the other room. I guess it is time to go read to them and put them to bed.

Reading and Canning

Jonathan has been reading like crazy these past few weeks. He picked up the Harry Potter books and has started reading those. He read the first one in 6 days. He read the second one in 4 days. Now, after having it for the weekend, he is half way done with the third book. He is totally loving them. He has wanted to read them for a long time now, but I wouldn't let him. I still think he should wait longer, but he is very excited about reading them and checks them out from the school library. I am suprised that he has so much time at school to read. From the time he leaves in the morning until he gets home in the afternoon, he has read 50 or more pages in the book. That's a lot of time for reading, especially those books. But, according to the "Teacher's Creed" at the school, "We will use each day to the fullest, finding minutes lost would be tough." So, they are not wasting time in the class room, but somehow he still manages to read 50+ pages of the Harry Potter books each day there. Hmmmm.

This last weekend I did a lot of canning. Saturday, we went with some good friends to pick apples from another friend's house. After we picked the apples, we went and made applesauce and canned it. We got 16 quarts a piece. Then, Sunday I got a bunch of pears from the same friend that let us pick her apples. So, Monday I invited Cheryl over to can pears. We got 9 quarts a piece of those. Also, yesterday I canned a bunch of peppers (so we can enjoy them on sandwiches and salads) and made pickles too. Our tomatoes are starting to ripen, so I will be starting to can tomatoes soon too. I was really bummed that I didn't get any beans this year. I had planted a lot, but then the weeds wouldn't give me a break and they choked out a lot of the beans and then the water wasn't getting to them, and the critters were probably getting at them too. But, I am now hoping the tomatoes continue to look as good as they do now.

Tomato Vines

I was out pruning my tomato plants yesterday in hopes that what I have read and heard about pruning them will really help produce a larger crop of bigger tomatoes. Tomato plants are a vine, of course, and can get very large and cumbersome. They can get so large that it almost feels like going through a jungle to try and find the ripe tomatoes. Most of what is on a tomato plant doesn’t even grow tomatoes. There are “branches” off of the main vine that grow nothing but leaves. These are the parts of the plant that I prune off.

As I was looking at the tomato plants and what I was cutting off, I thought about how similar these tomato plants are to our own lives. There are so many things happening in all of our lives. These can be things like, church callings, taking care of our children, hanging out with friends, making dinner, going out to the movies, soccer practices, reading the scriptures, watching TV, working on a talent, reading books, exercising, using the computer, shopping, taking a nap, playing games, and the list goes on and on. With everything that we do and feel we need to do, our lives can easily feel like that jungle of tomato vines that is hard to get though to find the fruits.

On the tomato vines, I was taking off many of the unneeded parts of the plant. The parts that perhaps take the nutrients from the tomatoes. I realized that I could try to take the unneeded things out of my own life to make it easier for me to see what I need to be doing and to see where I am going. There are many things we all do in any given day that we probably don’t need to do or could have done differently. Maybe I would decide that watching TV needs to be pruned so that I have more time/nutrients for reading the scriptures or something. Maybe I am just feeling overwhelmed and decide that it would be best to prune out the soccer practices, so I am not running all over the place all the time. Pruning out the things that make our lives more complicated than they might need to be can do a lot to help us feel better about ourselves. And, maybe it will be easier for us to notice what kinds of fruits we are producing. Sometimes it is hard to know what part we are supposed to prune. Reading books usually isn’t bad to do, but if it takes the place of reading Scriptures or taking care of our families and responsibilities, then it is. In a case like this, we might not want to take it completely out of our lives. It is a good thing to do, but maybe moderating it is a better solution than taking it out completely.

There are times when I prune the tomato vines, that I accidentally prune the wrong part. I cut off a part of the plant that could have grown and produced wonderful tomatoes for me. There’s no replacing it and it is gone. In this, we do differ from a tomato plant. In our lives, if we accidentally prune out something that is important to our development, we can grow it back. We have been given the wonderful gifts of repentance and forgiveness. Say we unknowingly prune out Scripture study from our lives. It is not gone forever. We can repent and try to make it right again by studying our Scriptures again. Some of these wrong prunings might be a lot harder to repair than others, but they can be done. People generally have a hard time coming back to church if they have pruned it out of their lives. It takes a lot of work, repentance, and humility to come back. It would be a lot easier to not prune the important things out.

Well, these were my ponderings of the day. I can now start to work on pruning my life a little bit better to make sure the important things get the attention they need.

School has started

Well, school started last week. I do miss my boys. It is nice that they are away, but I'm not sure I like the cost of them being away. The schools here are not good at all and it makes me really sad that I have to send my kids there. I am keeping Rachel home this year. She is Kindergarten age, so we are doing Kindergarten at home. I bought a curriculum for her and she is doing great. She can read most 3 letter words. She has been able to do this for a while now, so we will be expanding to larger words soon. I love hearing her sound out the words. It is really cute. Hannah has joined in the fun and wants to do school every day. Lizzie even needs to have a book to color in or write in with us. It's really cute.

It only takes about an hour to do school, so I am finding that I need to find more things to do with my time. I am having a lot of fun doing fun things with the girls. We are planning on doing a fun field trip type thing a few times a month with some friends who homeschool their kids. So far it is going really well.

I have started giving piano lessons to a girl in the ward. I am starting off with a "trial period" to see if we all like it since I don't really know what I am doing (since I didn't take many lessons myself.) So far they are going well and it is fun to do. The student and her mom seem to be happy with it too. I probably should learn a bit more myself too. I don't know the scales and things like that. I can look at a note and play it, that's about it. So, I could do with learning a lot myself. I have become a lot better of a player since I have been called as the ward organist and have to practice a lot. It has been a really big growing experience for me. The Lord really does bless those who are willing to serve. I am a strong believer in the scripture, Philipians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." This hapened to be the theme of our Stake last year, and I learned to personalize it. I have noticed this strength coming to all sorts of places and not only to my piano playing abilities. If we have faith anything is possible!!!

Food Storage

I am happy to announce that we finally have a year's supply of food! We do not have all the grains (since they didn't have them at the cannery when we were there the other day), but that's calculated for 7 adults, and we are not that yet. So, I think we have made it. I still plan on getting the other 250 pounds of wheat at the next opportunity. We now can start adding more of the other things, like carrots and apples and such.

I heard on Sunday that if we want to get to the cannery in the next 4-6 months, we need to schedule a time now since they are full for the next few months. Something must be going on!!! A couple of Sundays ago, there was a man giving a talk and he mentioned how he is a Home Teacher to someone who works in the cannery. The brother that works in the cannery had told him that if he doesn't have his year's supply now, he probably will not be able to get it. I don't think it will be because they will run out of food, but because it will be too hard to get in enough to get what you need. It took us at least 4 trips to get all that we have, and we spent a lot of money each time. This last time, they did not have all that we ordered there at the time. They have plenty of wheat (so there's not too much need for panic) but it is being stored in the silos. It needs to be put into bags and shipped to the canneries, and that takes time.

If you don't have much by way of grains and beans, I suggest looking into local farmers. I heard that a group of women here got into contact with a local farmer and are buying a few bushels of wheat from him. You can store this in the 5 gallon buckets, and if you use dry ice (and do it the right way with the super sealer lid) it will store like that for a long time. I am thinking that I might need to do that to get my last 250 pounds of grains. I might even try to find some corn tat I can turn into corn meal when I want to use it.

I urge all of you who do not have it, to try to get your food storage in order. If you can not make it to the cannery, then at least buy a few extra cans of goods at the grocery store and start storing that stuff. You should probably have about a 3 months supply of those kinds of foods if you can. I don't know if we do or not, but we have a lot. I have also been stocking up on the shortening and oils, since those are important. I also have a good supply of things like baking powder, salt, baking soda, yeast, etc. that are important for cooking/baking. These are things that aren't too hard to stock up on if you buy three after you use one. The checkers look at me funny when buy 6 cans of baking powder, 5 cans of salt and 4 boxes of baking soda. I even get comments like, "You doing a lot of baking?" I just say, "Yeah," and smile. That is what I plan on doing with it, though not all today! hehehe.

Summer's Ending and Service

Well, swimming lessons are over for the summer. Jonathan and Matthew learned a lot. Hannah will now put her whole body under the water and likes doing it too. Rachel seemed to have regressed during the last session. I think she needs a little more one on one time with this stuff. I think I could have taught Hannah, Rachel ad Matthew what they learned if we had a pool. It would have cost as much or even less to buy one of those "cheap" above ground pools and swim every day this summer in our own back yard. Something to think about for the future I guess.

The summer is almost over, but the heat isn't. The past two weeks have been in the high 90s to 100s, plus humidity. It sure is a nice thing that we have air conditioning, though we still keep it a bit warm in the house, but it feels a lot better than outside. Plus, the humidity is lessened greatly because of the A/C. So that helps a lot.

The garden is doing great! I was out there earlier today and I saw flowers on my bean plants, green tomatoes, little tiny peppers, a baby yellow squash and a couple of baby zucchinis. I am really excited about it. I now need to try and get a hold of some canning jars so I will be ready to can when I need to. Our winter squash plants are thriving as well. And, we have onions and carrots too. I hope to have enough carrots to can a few this year. My kids love cooked carrots, so do I.

Last week I took the kids to meet Dave at the house of a couple in our ward. They have this really big garden and were not able to do all of the harvesting, so we helped with some other members of the ward. We picked okra, black eyed peas, green beans and tomatoes. There may have been more, but I can't think of them right now. Matthew and Jonathan loved picking the okra. Dave was up to his neck in the tomato plants (he loves the smell of them) and I was being reminded of growing up and picking beans. I picked black eyed peas for a long time, then got to the green beans when most of the people thought the gardening was done. I spotted them and decided that they should be picked as well. This lovely sister was telling me that she was so happy to have the help because that is what they live off of all year. If everyone who was there hadn't helped, it would have gone to waste. I was so glad that I was able to help and let my kids have the experience of serving others. I think it is an important thing for my kids to learn, so when I see an oportunity like that, I try to take advantage of it.

The Savior's live was all service. If we are to try and be like Him, we should try to serve each other as often as we possibly can, if not always. I think it is easy to get into the mode of self-service, or making sure we are happy or satisfied, that we often forget to think about others. When this happens, we tend to be unhappy or unsatisfied. It is easy to feel alone, unloved and unwanted. When we change our priorities and put service to others a bit higher on the list of things to do, we will be happier and those sad feelings will go away. Doing service for others, whether it is a family member, a member of the ward, a friend, or a stranger, will only bring you happiness and joy.

Weekend activities

Dave and I had the opportunity to have a date this weekend. We took our kids to a friend's house and then went out to dinner. After dinner we went to the OKC North's Stake Center and were chaperones for a tri-stake dance. I'll tell you that the music was much different than when I went to stake dances and even dances at BYU. The DJs played slow songs about every 3rd or 4th song, but even some of those are the songs that were almost too fast to be slow. And there was one that only a few couples danced to, and half of them were doing crazy dances because that's what the music wanted. It was more of a rap type slow song. There were several re-makes of songs that I knew growing up. Wierd!!! After that we ended up taking a few kids home. We finally picked up our sleeping kids and got home around midnight. Church was tough the next day!

I moved the computer and desk into the family room the other day. That was a chore, but the kids were big helpers. They cleaned things out of my way and Jonathan even helped me move the desk a bit. I was getting tired of the kids sneaking into the den/spare bedroom to play on the computer when I didn't give them permission, and when I had given them permission, they would always close the door, and I didn't like that either. So, now the computer is in the open and nobody can close themselves in. It also works better this way since we also use the computer for our movie screen as well. Now they can sit on the couches instead of on the bed.

We have lots of plans for this week and hope to be able to accomplish them all. I will keep you posted on our doings as I can.

Busy Summer

So, we've had swim lessons almost every day for the past 3 weeks. It is great for the kids and they are feeling much more comfortable in the water and a couple of them are learning how to swim well. Hannah still isn't really comfortable with the water. Rachel is a bit more comfortable than Hannah is and Matthew is all over the place and can sort of swim under the water now. Jonathan is learning different strokes and learning how to swim for real.

This week has been just crazy for me. Monday I spent the day at swim lessons, the grocery store and at home getting things ready for Tuesday's fun activity of "30 meals in a day" that I did with a friend. Then we went to FHE at a friend's house and didn't get home until after 10:30 that night. Tuesday we did swim lessons and then straight to the Howell's house for cooking all day. We got home at 9:00 Tues. night and went straight to bed. Wednesday was swim lessons then off to my visiting teacher's house for a pool party and lunch. We were all so tired Wed. afternoon that everyone took a nap. When Matthew woke up he had a bowl of cereal and when it was time for dinner he said, "I alreay had breakfast." hehe. It was cute. I mowed the front lawn and Dave went to scouts.

Today is the first day this week that we have only had to go to swim lessons and nothing else. Well, we might have company this evening, but that won't be too bad, and hopefully it can be a missionary experience as well.

We have been picking loads of blackberries and I already have a bunch in the freezer. We got our garden in later than I would have liked, but things are looking good. The tomatoes and peppers are geting bigger. Most of our bean seeds sprouted and we have 5 double rows of beans, each about 15 feet long. The yellow summer squash didn't germinate as well as I had hoped, but the zucchini did well. We also have some cucumber plants, carrots, onions and a bunch of winter squash plants too. I still hope and pray that it will do well. I would love to be able to can a lot this year. I'll worry about where to put it all later.

Gardening, Swim Lessons and Summer Reading

Well, I have finally gotten around to starting to fix up the garden. I like to go out there in the mornings around 6:30 or 7:00 and work before it gets too hot. The other day the kids and I were out there picking weeds that had taken over while we were not taking good care of it. I found some turnips that Dave had planted. Most of the other stuff died or never grew large since the weeds choked them out. This morning I went out there again and planted some tomatoes and peppers. It is late, but the tomatoes and peppers are barely ready.

We had such a time with out tomatoes and peppers this year. We started them a little later this year since we started them too early last year and they froze and we had to restart them. Well, for some reason, our seedlings didn't ever get more than the two starter leaves and the next set. They just stopped growing and started dying. So, we had to start another tray of tomatoes and peppers. So, they are still a bit smaller than we would like, but they are planted out in the garden and should flourish soon. We like to mulch the ground around them by laying newspaper around the plants and piling the grass clipings on top of that. It really helps keep the weeds down (and there's a big problem with that here) and at the end of the year, we can just till it all into the ground. It's great! So, we will probably do that for FHE tonight as well as plant beans and squash and stuff.

Today was the first day of swimming lessons for the kids. We signed up Jonathan, Matthew, Rachel and Hannah to all have swim lessons. Jonathan and Matthew are in the same class and Rachel and Hannah are in different classes. There was lightning just 15 minutes before lessons, so they didn't go into the pool until 30 mnutes after the lightning stopped. So, the kids all went down the water slide, all but Matthew. Rachel went down without any hesitation, and was caught by one of the instructors. Hannah rode down on the lap of one of the instructors and Jonathan did it by himself (he has managed to teach himself how to dog paddle). Matthew was told he could go down, but started negotiating with his instructor instead. Saying things like, "I will go down after we go over there and. . . . " So, he didn't want to go down, and they didn't force him. Instead, the instructor took him to the more shallow part of the pool and worked with him on floating, finally ending up in the part of the pool that he could lay down on the bottom with his head still above the water saying, "I'm doing it!" They are all excited and I hope they all learn a lot since thy don't know how to swim yet.

This summer we are reading the Chronicles of Narnia books together. So far we have finished the first one and are almost done with the second one. The kids are loving it and keep begging me to keep reading or to "please just finish the book tonight." It makes me happy to see my kids love books. Matthew and Jonathan have taken off with reading this summer. They have both read 16 hours (includin the time I have read to them) in the past two weeks. There is a fun program at the libraries in the area that they have joined. It has been great for them. I let each of the boys get their own library cards as well, so now they feel even more important. They get to check out their own books and be responsible for them. It's been great. They also like checking out the educational videos they have too. Last week they got one about planets, one about rain forest animals and a magic school bus video. It's much better than TV! Which if you didn't know, we don't actually have right now. I love it! I only wish we had a working one for when there are bad storms and it would be nice to watch the news to see if we are in danger or not. But, the radio stations do a pretty good job of it too (though you can't see the graphics since they just air what is being said on the TV channels).

Family Pictures

So, last night we all went and got family pictures taken. We also got some individual shots of the girls. We have some of the boys from school, so we just had those taken of the girls. We also had a picture of just Dave and I and one of just the kids. Then, one of me and the girls and one of Dave and the boys. They turned out really nice. We should be getting them in a week or so. A young woman in the ward was taking the pictures for her first time at JCPenny. So, we got some special discounts... we got a free 8x10 and a free "enhancement" (10x13 size) and no sitting fee. I think we also got another free 8x10. So, it was actually cheaper for us this time that it was last time we got family pictures taken. Last time we ended up paying about $100 (only $65 this time), and that was before Hannah was born (4-5 years ago). So, it's been a while since we have had family pictures taken. It was way over due and we finally got it done. When we get them, I will be posting one here if I can get it to work.

FHE Last Night

Jonathan spent a lot of time on Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon making a FHE lesson for the family. It was a "Scripture Person Match-Up Game." It had a list of people from the scriptures with a scripture next to them. We had to look up the scripture and see what the thing was that thy did. He had Joseph Smith, Nephi, Daniel, Korihor, Moroni, Pilate, Mormon, Noah, Jonah, Laban, Samuel, Cain and Moses. It was really cute. We did have to change a couple of the verses, but over all he did a wonderful job. I helped him type it up and get it printed and I also helped to show him how to look up scriptures about people (using the Topical Guide and Bible Dictionary). If I can ever figure out how to do it, I might even get a copy of it up here... but with dial up still, hmmm. That will probably change soon though.

We are doing a summer reading program through the OKC library system. If the child reads 8 books, 8 hours, or 800 pages they get a prize an get entered into a drawing. Well, both Jonathan and Matthew have read, or been read to, for 8 hours in only one week. Rachel will have read 8 books in one week too. Matthew was going for the 8 book thing and was over half done on the first day. I told him that he needed to do 8 hours instead. I have told them that if they read that much every week this summer I would buy each of them a new book. They are excited. And, they don't know what the prizes are or what the drawings are for either. It will be fun. I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia with them (that was about 3 hours of their 8 hours of reading). We finished "The Magician's Nephew" yesterday and they loved it. We will be getting the next one from the library to start reading. We have all of the books but the 2nd and the 7th ones. I am hoping to get my children to be much better readers during the summer this year. I think this is a great program they have set up and I hope the kids stay excited about it.

Jumping in!

Well, here I am joining the millions of others as a blogger. There's no gurantee that I will be posting daily or even weely, but I will post as often as I can or remember to. Eventually I will even post pictures and things as well. I hope to keep friends and family up to date with our goings on and such.

I will start by sharing a really sweet thing that my darling Matthew did the other day. He really wanted to say the prayer for dinner, so I let him. Our friends were getting ready to leave on a vacation and he prayed that they would "be safe, not run out of food or gas and make it to their friends house, or wherever they are going safely." That was the whole content of his prayer, I even think he forgot to bless the food. It was so sweet. I am glad that he likes to pray for people and has the faith that his prayers will be answered. I think we can all learn a bit from this, I know I did.