Rachel, Lizzie and Gardening

Wow, what a time we have had. We all got ill during Christmas, but had fun with Dave's brother who came to visit us and had a brief visit with my brother when he stopped by. The boys are back at school and Rachel is continuing with her education now too. Things are going pretty well.

Rachel lost her first tooth the other day. It was really cute. She came in and was talking with Dave and I one evening as we were getting every one in bed. We were looking at her loose tooth and I commented that it looked like all she had to do was pull it and it would come out. I got a tissue for her to use to hold on to her tooth easier. I wrapped the tissue around her tooth and it almost fell off into my hands as I did it. I helped her grab the tooth that way and it fell out. She started going into hysterics. At first I couldn't tell if she was hurt or if she was just happy (because it was more like a scream than a laugh). I asked her if it hurt and she shook her head "No" and kept laughing. After she calmed down a bit she said that she thought it was going to hurt and was really surprised that it didn't. It was really cute.

Lizzie loves her brothers and sisters. One day as I was getting her ready for a nap she didn't want me. This is very odd because she is a HUGE "Mamma's Girl." She was in position for a diaper change and was telling me that she wanted Hannah. Not that Hannah can change her diaper, but she wanted her still. So, Hannah came in and played with her a bit while I changed her diaper and got her ready for her nap. When some of the kids are away, Lizzie often runs around the house calling for them and looking for them. I love it when my kids show love for each other. They all do it, and I think Lizzie is the one who feels the most love from them because she is still a "baby" and doesn't make them as mad as easily as they do to each other.

Gardening season is coming upon us here. We planted our tomato, pepper, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, egg plant and okra seeds for FHE on Monday. We will be trying egg plant and okra for the first time this year. Hopefully I will be able to figure out a good way to prepare them since I have never done that before. We are going to be trying some new techniques for gardening this year. We will be making a raised bed garden. I will construct 4 or so "boxes" that are 4 feet wide by 16 feet long and 8 or so inches tall. We will make some good soil (hopefully) with the compost that we have been making over these last few years of living here and a few other additives. We are very excited to try this new method and hope it works out well. We can start planting some things out doors in another month or so for some of the cool weather veggies. So, I guess I better get going on those boxes. I love the spring!!

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!!!