Pete & Re-Pete

Who Looks Like Whom?

2012-01-22T20:34:00.001-08:00

So, I keep hearing how much my boys all look the same. I have a random assortment below of all of my kids, can you tell who is who? One of them is in there twice just to throw you off. Let's see who can figure it out!

Christmas Who-ville Village

2011-12-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

Stats:

Pounds of gingerbread--1,500+

Pounds of chocolate--250+

Pounds of nuts and dried fruit--250+

Pounds of candies and gumdrops--250+

Number of hours to create--800+

Dimensions 40 feet x 25 feet

Hot Air Who Balloon

This carousel was turning around and around

A delicious chocolate car? Who care about the gas mileage riding in this thing?

We're into fighting poses in our house.

This is not supposed to be possible right?

We just went and visited a really cool site here in Phoenix. There is a replica of the Dr. Seuss Who-ville Village at the JW Marriott Resort. The kids and I couldn't believe the colors, creativity and enormity of the whole thing. We all agreed it was worth the drive.

Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch

2011-12-15T13:27:00.000-08:00

I got a phone call today from a complete stranger. Well, not completely a stranger--I've mailed him Christmas cards two years in a row now. You see, he lives in a small town near Tremonton, Utah, which is where some of my husband's family lives. I address our Christmas cards to entire families, so the card said, "The Petersen Family" and since that is indeed this guy's name, he opened it up. He told me that I have a really nice looking family. He said he enjoyed last year's card too, but that he assumed that the card was probably not intended for him. We laughed and I told him that it sounded like we should be good friends by this time--two years of Christmas cards after all. He said he figured he should probably be sending me a card this year too.

The whole incident reminded me of my husband's favorite children's book, "Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch" by Eileen Spinelli. It's a really sad story of a man who lives his life doing the same things every day--gets up at the same time, eats the same food every day for lunch and though he sees the same people each day, he never takes the time to smile or inquire after their lives. His world is so small and so depressing.

Then, one day he gets a huge--imagine using both arms--box in the mail. Their is no return address nor is their a sender provided. The card attached simply says, "Someone loves you." This anonymous gift changes Mr. Hatch's life. He suddenly starts looking at the people around him and trying to get to know them and serve them and he finds out that there is happiness all around him if he will just open himself up to it. This is not the end of the book--there's a twist ending--but you really should get the book, a box of tissues and sit down for a read.

It made me think about how this holiday season I have been running around planning huge dinners for the women at church, printing and mailing Christmas cards, cleaning the house to host the huge dinner, shopping for all the people in my life and feeling mostly totally overwhelmed and stressed out. Of course my children bear the brunt of this. Why is it that this happens? Why do we let the stress in our lives manifest itself in negative ways to those closest to us? How do we get so busy doing good things that those good things start to lose their true meaning with what we have to give up to accomplish them?

It's not a total loss though. I did get that dinner all done and yesterday I enjoyed these beautiful children God gave me. We read stories again, we did violin lessons, we talked, we joked. We were the type of family I want us to be every day. I love this holiday season. I hope that I can keep it a time of year where the Spirit of Christ can speak to me because I'm listening.

Crafty Like a Mormon--Not Like Satan

2011-11-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

This was the week to be crafty!!! I made five different crafts--I didn't take a picture of the Give Thanks banner, but it too is just perfect. Thanks so much to my friend Jen for making this all happen. You are so crafty--in a good way!

Nativity Blocks that the kids can play with.

Subway Art

Christmas tree

Gobble, Gobble

Batman and Superman are Best Friends!

2011-10-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

When they aren't fighting crime, Batman and Superman hang out together at my house. Betcha didn't know that Batman was so much taller than Superman huh? It's a big surprise to most people.

You poor, little blog

2011-10-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

Having another child added to our family has thrown me a bit off my A game you might say. I constantly find myself realizing that it's five o'clock and I am not quite sure how time got away from me. There are lots of lessons (soccer twice a week), violin (once a week with the "real" teacher and every other day with the mean, mom teacher), reading lessons for Owen (he's almost done with the book and then we get to Par-tay!) and food to prepare and nursing and lots of laundry and occasional cleaning.We are still alive and kicking and trying to make this new four children thing work and I can't really be very creative, so I'm going to share some highlights of our last...month?...yes, I have neglected my little blog friend for more than a month. Ugh! Here goes:

Thanks to Michael's dollar bins and my mom--the kids had a night of fun with glow sticks. I wish that I had some really awesome pics to show you, but I don't have the camera or the know how to do it. Let me tell you though--usually I'm one to "save" things for some special, non-existent upcoming event. Not anymore (okay, so maybe still, but not always I'm vowing!). I gave each child his own can and let them go crazy and they did and they loved every second.

This is my latest obsession--trying to get this handsome man to smile at me. He's up to 12 pounds--two months and five pounds of weight gain almost--not bad, not bad.

This is super-duper yummy and fills everyone's hearts with happiness. It's known as "I don't care if I lose the baby weight if I can have as many of these as I want." Really though, the recipe is from The Picky Palate Website. It's really called Double White Chocolate

and Pretzel Peanut Butter Cookies with Sea Salt. This woman knows how to

make a delicious treat. Her latest one for the day looks AMAZING.

While the cookies bake, you fight with swords. Or you just fight with swords all the time at our house. It's what we do (when we're not eating cookies).

Finished product. Mmm-mmm!

Whenever Eli holds Caleb, he wants me to take their picture. However, I can never run to get my camera quick enough that Caleb isn't screaming about the situation. This is a rare moment of calm before the storm. Not a great shot, but it's what we've got. Look at that double chin--I told you almost 12 pounds.

My favorite holiday to do projects for. Christmas is so stressful for me, but Halloween, I just adore. I love the meaning behind Christmas and the feelings, but Halloween is just pure fun. Maybe it's the candy association? I think it's the cooler temperatures. I let each kid pick their own toppings for a gourmet caramel apple. You have M&Ms, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Reese's Pieces. Mine was Heath bar in case you were interested.

This is my daughter, my friend Koby and my kitchen looking like a wreck. There is a good reason. We got together on Wednesday and did freezer meals! Yay for us. Koby did these gourmet recipes (Our Best Bites Taquitos and some Macaroni Grill copy) and I did a simple Cheddar and Cracker Chicken and some breakfast burritos. I was proud of us though because we whipped out 65 burritos, 3 lasagnas, 3 full chicken dinners and I don't know how many taquitos--lots!!

This is my beautiful new apron per my Aunt. I don't have the link for you to go perusing, but isn't it adorable? I look really weird in this shot, but the apron is super cute. It's ice cream cones all over it. See all those lasagna noodles?

Last night I took Ryanna and Owen on a date night with me. We went and saw these phenomenal acrobats from the People's Republic of China. I mean--really, I was completely blown away by what they were doing. Let's just say that I saw 13 people on one bike at a time--riding in circles on a stage, I saw two women balancing head on head--ouch!, I can't tell you how many contortions of bodies I saw. Juggling that was so fast that the balls were just blurs. Four people standing on top of each other's shoulders. A guy flipping from the floor through a hoop that was 10 feet 6 inches off the ground--the height of an NBA hoop! And more and more and more. Owen's face describes how I felt for the whole show.

What? Don't you fill your bath with every shoe in your closet from time to time? No really, there's a good reason. See this?

Now it looks like this! Yay for new carpet!!!! The kids and I are in heaven. It's so thick and nice the kids were doing carpet angels. Now, for the blinds and the lights and the blah, blah, blah! For a better view of it, we the picture at the top.

He's So Darn Adorable!

2011-08-29T17:09:00.000-07:00

Lots and lots and LOTS of beautiful photos that were taken by our friend Kim Skinner. Get ready to say, "ooooh," and "aaaaah" over and over again. (If you click on her name, it will take you to some of these same photos posted on her site, but LARGE enough to see better.)

He Has Arrived!!!

2011-08-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

Caleb Derek was born July 30 at 8:56 pm weighing 7lbs 5oz and 20.5 inches long. We fell in love instantly--every single one of us.

The Problem With Being a Doer

2011-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

I am extremely task oriented. I love lists. I get a little bit giddy at the idea of crossing stuff off. Not that I'm to the point where I write something down just so I can cross it off, but pretty close to that point. I love to constantly evaluate what I've accomplished in my life each morning. Today, by 10 I had watered all the backyard plants and front yard plants, done a load of laundry--which involved stripping two beds, made our own bed, made and cleaned up breakfast for four, vacuumed the entire downstairs, cleaned up all the dirty dishes from last night and wiped all the counters, helped Owen read an entire book, prepared a dessert to bring to a surprise party and bought some needed hair products from the store across the street (not to mention showering myself and doing my hair and make-up as well as getting Eli dressed and doing the boy's hair).

All of this can be very rewarding, but it can also be very hard to stop. I can explain better by saying that sometimes when Derek comes home he wants to hug or hold me. Sometimes it is really hard for me to stop long enough to just be with him for the short time he wants. Isn't that sad? What a poor reflection on who I am. I am not trying to be insensitive, I just get these thoughts going and it's hard for me to stop doing.

Sometimes I lie in bed for hours at night creating to do lists in my mind. I don't want to do this and it does help me to write them down sometimes, but my mind just goes and I can't seem to stop it from telling me to do more tasks.

I think having a baby is such a great opportunity for me to be reminded to slow down and enjoy my life. I look at my kids and I think they are so wonderful. Each of them with a unique personality and talents. I love them so much and I want so much for each of them to reach their potential and I feel a lot of guilt that I'm not a better mom. Better at being patient, better at being creative, better at listening, bette at teaching, better at loving them in the ways they need to be loved.

One of the strongest feelings I have felt lately is that I need to stop being so concerned with the to dos and start being more concerned with loving and taking time. These kids are a greater blessing than I ever imagined possible and I don't want to get to a point where I feel like I really didn't get it--they are grown and I missed out on truly enjoying them.

I think this is a challenge for me to figure out, but with all the nursing I'll be doing, I'll have plenty of time to talk and just be. I hope I can make the most of it.

Spiritual & Famous

2011-07-24T20:12:00.001-07:00

I can't believe we finally earned a spot in a church video! To see the cutest family ever, click here and watch for about 1 minute and 15 seconds.

Violin Medley

2011-07-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

Ryanna played this hymn medley in church today. It sounded even prettier than it does here. She did such a beautiful job and we had so many people tell her how it touched them and how impressed they were with her memorization. We love to hear her play her violin. To see, click here.

Rawhide

2011-06-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

I bought a Groupon to this Western theme park several months ago thinking we could take the kids and have a good time. We had enjoyed visiting Goldfield, Arizona, so much and this seemed a lot like that, so I figured we couldn't go wrong. Luckily, even though we started our evening at 103 degrees, I was right!

We saw two different shows by the same group of guys--I think they call themselves the Arizona Rough Riders. We saw a separate show by a Miss Kate and her rescue animals. Her horses could do amazing tricks and she could use a whip like a pro (she won some national title associated with the horse tricks she does years ago). We also ate steaks, panned for gold--they make sure each child gets a little bag full, rode burros, petted llamas, baby goats (3 weeks old), a miniature horse, sheep and pigs and had a band play us "Long, Tall Texan" and we didn't even do it all! We left after 9 pm and we got there when it opened. It was so much fun and I'm hoping to do it again when it starts to cool back down.

Acting scared of the stuffed Rattlesnake

Sad to be captured

At first those baby goats were friendly...

Then they started jumping on us... (Owen thinks this is pretty funny since he's not the victim!)

Then they were eating pieces of our hats!!!!

See how tiny that horse is?

This shot (ha, ha) is from the Billy the Kid show (see the guy falling?), we also saw one about Wild Bill Hickok

A picture with the whole cast. The bad guy tried to get Owen to shake his hand, but Owen was having none of it telling him, "You're a bad guy! You killed that guy who cheated at cards."

Strike it rich!

Riding off into the sunset...

This Means WAR!!!!

2011-05-20T20:09:00.000-07:00

I slept well last night. I think God knew I needed the rest to go out and be angry today.

Remember that beautiful garden that I posted about a couple posts ago?

Well, it's not a secret anymore. The birds discovered that I have a green thumb too.

They ate my first--first--first people!!! HUGE (it seriously weighed about a pound it was so juicy) beefsteak tomato. That made me mad. In fact I almost titled this post "Mad as Hell" but my in-laws are such gentle folks, so I'm hiding the title in here where those who only look at pictures will have no idea that that thought even went through my mind.

Let's just say that damage to crops does not get looked at lightly by anyone in my family. My grandma had someone come onto her fenced property and cut down one of her beautiful trees for their Christmas tree. Unfortunately for them it fell as all good trees do into the fence which was electric. My grandparents sat in their Suburban all night with shot guns.

Given that I don't own a shot gun and I live in city limits, I was MAD!!!

It made me start thinking about Noah and how he sent a dove to see if there was dry land. I bet after the dove brought back that twig he shot it. That twig probably had the only ripe berries around and that bird had eaten them for himself.

I know you think I'm blowing this situation out of control a tiny bit, but you'd be mistaken because you see, this morning when I went out to care for my little garden I encountered THIS:

My sons heard me yelling and ranting like a lunatic (I didn't swear--out loud that is) and they came running to my rescue. Sweet boys. I guess they get their sense of honor from their grandparents.

(not related, but super cute)

And because you are all obsessed with my garden I wanted to show you a Ghost Aloe. Don't try and grow one of these at your house. Come visit me and bring poison--bird poison that is.

Not My Sciatic!!!

2011-05-09T20:57:00.001-07:00

When I was pregnant for the first time, I would get this terrible shooting pain down my leg. I asked my ob at the time what could possibly be causing me such grief and he said it was probably my sciatic nerve. Just typical for pregnancy he told me. And whether it was or not, after I had my beautiful daughter, the pain went away and I forgot about it.
Here we are eight (8!?!?) years later and pregnant again. Only with this pregnancy I decided that I was going to do it a little differently. You see, when I am not pregnant, I exercise Monday through Friday mornings for about 50 minutes to an hour every day. However, when I've been pregnant in the past, I have found it impossible to breathe past about the second month of every pregnancy. Well, not this time I told myself. You are going to push and push and push yourself past that. Your body is older and your recovery will be worse and you need to endure. So, I have been. At about two months it got really hard again, but I just cut back to four days a week until I got past that little breathing issue. And, I have toned down my exercising to about 35-40 minutes. I was on the right track and I was going to keep my muscle while gaining a HUGE belly. Only my right leg never got the memo.
About two months ago I started getting this terrible shooting pain in my right leg when I would lunge. Then it became painful just to lift that leg the tiniest bit when I was showering--you know to wash my ankle or foot. Putting on my capris became a painful experience and sleeping was a nightmare too as I didn't realize how much I turn my body with my legs. And, then I started having my leg be unreliable. I would walk a couple of steps and the pain would be so intense I would almost fall over. What the heck was happening? My body was NOT supposed to work like this. I am not new to exercise, so why was my body not cooperating?
I talked to my current ob and he said, "It's probably your sciatic nerve" (I think they have a book titled that in med school) and he sent me to a chiropractor. Well, apparently it's easiest for chiropractors to figure out what's wrong with you if you lie on your stomach. That wasn't going to happen, so it has taken a little bit of trial and error, but what is the diagnosis to this long, dull story?
My pain has NOTHING to do with my sciatic nerve (by the way your sciatic nerve is actually three different nerves that come together in your lower back and wrap down around your leg which is why it could possibly be hurting during pregnancy). No, my pain was from two different sets of muscles--the adductor and hamstring muscles. The adductor muscles run alongside the interior of your knee and keep your knee from flopping over when you... say LUNGE forward. Your hamstring muscles I'm sure all of you know about if you've done any stretching at all. The story is that those muscles are always tight and being pregnant and attempting to lunge forward exacerbates that condition to unbearable proportions.
The only solution is to drink lots of Sonic limeades and eat chocolate as soon as the kids go to bed. Not so much, but it may work if I gave it a chance. Really though, now when I am supposed to be lunging in my workouts, I do squats. I do LOTS and LOTS and LOTs of squats now. And, of course, like any problem, my movement issues are not completely typical--meaning, I can do side lunges without any problem and that really shouldn't work out, but it does.
So, next time you find yourself pregnant and your leg hurting, don't start pointing the finger at your sciatic--it could be your adductor or maybe your hamstring or perhaps a completely different muscle that you have never heard of before.
It has been really humbling to have to "take it easy" when I really want to push hard and keep this goal to do what I've always done. I feel like I fail in so many other goals and resolutions and this was one that actually seemed doable. I am grateful for my healthy body though. I'm grateful that I am able to still do almost everything I want to do anyway. Life really is about adaptation whether I want to admit to it or not.

This Desert Life

2011-05-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

This is our neighbor's Jacaranda Tree. They only bloom this time of year and are so beautiful.

My grandparents came to visit Easter weekend and my grandma just couldn't believe how everything here is in bloom or so far along in its growth. Our growing season is completely off from most of the US and I guess I've just gotten a bit used to it. We planted our garden in February and now we have HUGE zucchinis and bell peppers and Owen's bean plant (from pre-school) is about to give us some beans. I also thought I had better show a picture of our ONE massive grapefruit that our tree gave us this last year. Anyway, we've loved our little above ground garden and I wish I would've taken photos of all my millions of snapdragons that were blooming the first three weeks of April, but I forgot.

It's hard to tell the length and width of these zucchini from the photo, but they are about as big around as my upper arm and as long as that too! The proud bean grower and his brother! (The kids love the onion blossoms.)

These bells are bigger than my fist by quite a bit.

Everyone who enjoys the garden that I grow.

You have no idea how hard it was for me to wrench this grapefruit from its mother. I didn't want to take away all of her hard work!

To give you an idea of the size of this grapefruit--compare it to Eli's head. You can see how much love (and water) was involved.

There were beautiful deep red snapdragons everywhere! The bush in the back is my new Privet. I'm hoping this corner will finally become something beautiful.

It's Not Always Clear...

2011-04-18T16:38:00.000-07:00

When your vocabulary and the picture don't always fit...

Owen was looking through our reverence book at church and came to this picture by Carl Bloch. He leaned over to me and whispered, "Mom, isn't this the picture of Jesus healing the leprechauns?"

Scenario #2

After looking at my blog post pictures of our trip to Las Vegas to see BYU play, Owen said, "Mom, I love that picture of you and dad! Isn't that where you saw everyone wearing Jiminy Cricket T-shirts?"

And who says our kids aren't listening?

My Favorite NEW Cookbook

2011-04-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

I'm sure a lot of you visit the blog Our Best Bites. I have visited the site several times and drooled over the delcious looking food. I was even going to make one of their recipes when I discovered they were going to publish a cookbook. Now I realize that MOST of the recipes in the cookbook are also on the blog, but I am really a fan of a good cookbook--just ask my husband, he thinks I have some cookbook hoarding disease. So, I bought the cookbook three weeks ago.

Since then, I have made The World's Best Dinner Rolls (I'm not bragging--that's what they are called):

I then prepared their Cheesesteake Sandwiches. I am going to confess here that I thought that the flavor was going to fall short, so I generously added Montreal Steak Seasoning. A seasoning that can do no wrong on any meat as far as I'm concerned.

I then made their super delicious Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos. No picture, but they were soooo good that Ryanna--the resident cheese hater--LOVED them. I just dipped them in sour cream and salsa, but I hear they are good with the lime cilantro dip that is also found on their website.

I then had to try their Brazilian Lemonade--ever since my friend Koby made it and brought me enough to leave me in deep desire for a month or more. What better to wash down those taquitos with?

Sunday I pulled out all the stops and made their Pineapple and Ginger Flank Steak--which is not to be found on their blog--only in their cookbook apparently. We put the steak on top of their Coconut Rice (once again not found on the site, but in the cookbook) and for a side dish we did super yummy Carmelized Green Beans. Fresh green beans with red onion and bacon--can you ever go wrong with BACON?!?!?

And then Ryanna's birthday. What to do for her cake? I don't do cutely decorated cakes. It should probably be in my genes, but I don't go there. I happened to be flipping through this cookbook and saw a picture of their Chocolate Mousse Crunch Cake and Ryanna's eyes got really big and she said, "I want that for my birthday cake." (along with some chocolate ice cream with brownie bits because she is MY daughter)

Doesn't that cake look fancy and it's sooo easy--even making your own mousse is really not a big deal.

This week I took it a bit slower and only made a Pesto Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes recipe (yes, I made the pesto from scratch and it turned out delightful), but I can't find this recipe on their blog either. Although it is similar to their Creamy Pesto Pasta--it's not exactly that recipe. Apparently, you really do need to buy the book.

You think I'm done? I'm not even started. However, last night I did make their Orange Kissed Cookies and called it good. I'm making myself type this right now, so that I don't eat every single cookie that is left.

And you, what is your favorite recipe you've discovered from their blog?

Last weekend

2011-03-20T20:48:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I was in Las Vegas--watching Jimmer Fredette and the rest of the Cougars play in person. This weekend I watched from home while trying to gently, and at other times not so gently, maneuver children out of my view of the TV. Who didn't cheer when they beat Wofford--but that was expected right? Then, I watched Gonzaga play their first round team--Gonzaga who has TWO men who are seven feet tall--and I worried about the Cougars' chances. Saturday night there was a lot of screaming and clapping and overall excitement as the Cougars won against this freakishly tall Gonzaga team. I loved it (but I did miss singing the school song and pumping my fist while yelling "Rah, Rah, Rah, Rah, Rah..."). Some feelings and experiences can't be replicated outside of a stadium.

And, so you don't feel lonely about not going to Las Vegas with us, I'll entertain you with photos from the occasion.

I love this picture because you can see that we were some of the first people in the stadium and I can just see Derek's face all lit up in anticipation of great things to come. This trip was my gift to him--I planned it and executed it, but I couldn't surprise him because I think that would've pushed him over the edge--he's a little bit responsible about his job.

Jimmer's so good he warms up by shooting two balls at a time--ha, ha!

I realize that these photos of the players are a bit grainy, but my camera was maxing out on zoom to try and get these, so you'll have to forgive me.

If you don't know who this is--you don't follow BYU sports.

We were LOVING this game!!!

He had just scored 52 points--a record that will probably never be broken. I guess it took his breath away too!

After reading some reviews and talking with some friends, we decided to go to the buffet at the Bellagio. It was delicious (for example--custom made omelets, seveal types of fish, sushi, prime rib, fresh fruit, several types of oven roasted pizzas, Indian dishes and desserts!!!!). Derek thought it was funny that I happened to grab several desserts my first time through. I consider that strategic planning. Why fill up on junk like salad and bread sticks when I can have a key lime tart or chocolate goodness?

This was the garden court area of the Bellagio. It was really cool. There are so many flowers and the little shed you're seeing the top of houses lots of different types of butterflies. If we were any good at photography, we could've spent some serious time here.

I thought this tree was so fun to look at and so artistic.

This was a living piece of art. As the flowers dry out, they are replaced, so there are always fresh flowers being displayed. If you look closely, you'll see a hose hooked up to the back to keep the flowers fresh.

This also was in the Bellagio--can you tell where I'd stay if I had the choice? It's the world's largest chocolate fountain. No really--I'll show you the certificate even.

Doesn't convince you still? Here's a better picture.

While we were there we also went and saw Cirque du Soleil's KA. We thought it was awesome--the stage moves--not just up and down, but completely vertically. They had some amazing stunts and the costumes were awesome. No pictures allowed though.

We also lost our car. Yes, probably the only two sober people in the entire casino and we forgot the level we parked our rental car on. I remembered the letter is the most frustrating thing. We looked for about 40 minutes before seeking help from the valet station where they put their people on it. They found it in about 10 minutes.

It also has to be mentioned that we began the trip by eating lunch with our cousin Jarom who recommended that we eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill. I am now extending the same invitation to you. I loved my food and we all agreed that the Queso Fundido appetizer was to die for.

Now I'm home where women cover themselves up at least a little more, people don't wear their alcoholic beverage around their necks, you don't see "dancers" performing inside buses while you're driving down the road and I can breath the air without fear of emphysema. It was fun while it lasted, but it's good to be home too.

William Tyndale--Father of the English Bible

2011-03-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

Usually I consume a pretty steady diet of novels--about two a month. However, given that last month both of the book clubs that I belong to were reading books I had already read last year, I decided to pursue a more academic novel. I just finished reading Fire in the Bones William Tyndale -- Martyr, Father of the English Bible. This book was not masterfully crafted with language that takes you away. It was not a historical fiction novel that creates characters and embellishes stories, it simply was the life of William Tyndale according to the author's research of his life. I had been interested in reading the book since I gave a talk earlier in the year and began my talk with a brief biographical sketch about Tyndale's life which story I merely repeated from a talk given by D. Todd Christofferson at the April 2010 General Conference (here). I would encourage you to read it because it will make you curious about the life of such an extraordinary man. I wanted to share a few of the fascinating tidbits that I learned from the book.

William Tyndale was fluent in SEVEN languages. When I say fluent I mean that there is a historical account of a person who said that his fluency in reading and writing these languages was so complete that whatever tongue he was speaking in you would think was his native tongue. These languages were: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, French and German. He taught himself Hebrew because he wanted to translate the Bible from it's text in Hebrew as well as the Greek.

He was educated at Oxford and Cambridge. His education at Oxford began at age 12 because of his bright and able mind. While there, he studied rhetoric (the study or effective use of language--not the negative definitions that this word incites today). This class on rhetoric included reading Erasmus' novel De Copia, which studies how you could write the phrase, "Your letter has delighted me very much" in 150 different ways.

While it may seem ridiculous that the study of language and which words to place together would be very important in translation, there was an example provided by the author that shows the beauty of Tyndale's use of word to bring the Spirit into his work versus the text of the Phillips Modern English version of the Bible.

Consider this account, "Lord, if it is really you,' said Peter, 'tell me to come to you on the water.' 'Come on, then' replied Jesus. Peter stepped down from the boat and began to walk on the water, making for Jesus. But when he saw the fury of the wind he panicked and began to sink, calling out, 'Lord save me!' At once Jesus reached out his hand and caught him, saying, 'You little-faith! What made you love your nerve like that?' Then, when they were both aboard the boat, the wind dropped. The whole crew came and knelt down before Jesus, crying 'You are indeed the Son of God!'"

Now compare that to the King James version of the Bible of which Tyndale is responsible for about 90% of the translated copy that we use today, "Peter answered and said: If thou be he, bid me come unto thee on the water. and he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw a mighty wind, he was afraid. And as he began to sink, he cried saying: Master save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said to him: O thou of little faith: wherefore didst thou doubt? And as soon as they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshiped him, saying: Of a truth thou art the Son of God."

It's easy to hear the difference and not just hear the beauty of the language when the same words are translated differently, but to FEEL the difference. One translation brings beauty and calm and the other reads like any common account you'd hear from a person relating the experience to a friend. Listen to the sound of, "If thou be he, bid me come unto thee on the water." Tyndale believed in using simple English to bring out the beauty of the words.

The word Atonement with its religious meaning is Tyndale's creation. It only appears one time in the New Testament (Romans 5:11), but within my own faith it is a word commonly and frequently used. Sir Thomas More used it in a secular sense, but as applying to Jesus' act in our behalf it is Tyndale's creation.

Tyndale lived in hiding almost his entire adult life. He fled England because he desired to translate the scriptures into English for the common man to read, but it was forbidden by the Catholic church. English was considered a vulgar language and the priests held all of the power in their day since any repentance for sins committed was tied into penance that was determined by the priests (among other reasons). The church had a lot to lose monetarily if the Bible was in the hands of the common man. However, Tyndale felt so compelled to allow every man in England to read the scriptures for himself, that he fled his own country and lived in hiding in order to work on his translations.

His translations of the New Testament--though illegal to possess--were so popular and prized by the people, that the printers could hardly keep up with the demand. Initially people found with these books were punished publicly and forced to state their guilt, but after the church saw that it could no longer control the reading of these texts with public shaming, they began to burn people found with these texts at the stake. One of the leading opponents of the day was Sir Thomas More.

Tyndale's revised New Testament contained about 5,000 changes. Many of the changes make the text more like the original Greek. The word, "Senior" was changed to "elder." The phrase, "Blessed are the maintainers of peace" is changed to "Blessed are the peacemakers."

Unfortunately, at the time of his capture, Tyndale was working on translating the Old Testament, so we don't get to experience the beauty and influence that the Spirit brought to him. However, there are some examples that were included in the book which I really enjoyed:

Isaiah 53:8

KJV (King James Version): Who shall declare his generation?

Tyndale: His generation who can number [them]?

Isaiah 53:10

KJV: Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Tyndale: And yet the Lord determined to bruise him with infirmities. His soul giving herself for transgression, he shall see seed of long continuance, and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Ultimately, Tyndale gave his life for this work which meant everything to him. Over and over again the book mentions that there was not a single record of anyone who came into contact with him that was not won over by his gentle nature and unassuming honesty. He was a man who desired only to provide Christ's words to every man to read for himself. To feel the power of the scriptures--to be touched by God's words. Even his jailers were won over by their prisoner. A mind so brilliant and dedicated so singularly to helping his fellow man with his talents. What an impressive individual. How lucky I am for his sacrifices and those of men like him.

Two Violin Concerts

2011-02-27T07:34:00.000-08:00

Ryanna had two violin concerts this month. She did excellent in both and I thought I'd share her songs. This first video is Gavotte from Mignon. Unfortunately we only were able to practice with this piano player one time and as you can see from the performance, she wasn't able to quite keep up with the violin. This performance was the first time Ryanna has started the song instead of having an introduction by the piano. She did awesome!!!!

The second video is Ryanna playing Minuet in G by Beethoven. I think the trickiest thing about this song is the bowing. Remembering whether you're supposed to be going up a second time or down. I thought she did really well in this performance too. She really rises to the occasion--so different than I am in front of a crowd. I get soooo nervous for her, but she's always ready. I'm so proud of all of her hard work. We only have to put together this last couple measures of Minuet by Boccherini and we're on to book three!

Unfortunately, Blogger is being ridiculous and after an entire day of trying to load the second video, I have given up and posted it on youtube instead. The link is here.

Jury Duty

2011-02-24T20:42:00.000-08:00

So, I got the jury summons in the mail over a month ago and instead of trying to get out of it like I have before (nursing, stay at home mom, etc, etc) I decided to go ahead and play the odds. I thought to myself, "A lot of these juries never even get called in. The odds that I'll have to go in are slim." Well, apprarently I should never go to Vegas.
I called yesterday after 4:30 as per the instructions, to find out that I would have to call in again today at 11:00. This seemed a bit crazy to me. I couldn't really plan anything for the day given that I didn't know if I'd have to be in downtown Phoenix for half the day. Well, when I called in, I found out I would have to report to the court at 1:00!!! I frantically called Derek and he had to rush home, so that I, in turn, could rush out to the court.
I do have to say that I would describe the screening process as part speed dating and part Alcoholics Anonymous meeting--at least that's my imagined take given I've never participated in either activity. The judge summoned all 45 of us to his court and he asked several broad questions to us and if the question was true for us, we had to raise our juror number. I was lucky #37 by the way--way back in the pack.
Questions like:
Have you ever been convicted of a felony or criminal offense or are you closely related to someone who has been?
My first thought was no and then I immediately remembered that someone I'm very closely related to has spent time in jail. I'll leave you all in suspense wondering who and what they did. Although we weren't allowed to leave the judge in suspense because we had to confess the person's relationship to us as well as their convicted crime. Out of our group of 45 I would say 15 people had either been convicted themselves or were closely related to someone who had a DUI. YIKES!!! That was shocking to me.
He also asked us if any of us had ever done meth or knew someone who had. About a third of our group said they knew someone who had.
He followed that up by asking if we knew someone who was addicted to meth--about the same number replied in the affirmative again!
After asking the entire group the random questions, we then had to go through and stand up and state our juror number and what we did for a living and how long we had been doing that job and what our spouse did and the name of their company and how long they had worked there and the ages of our kids that were under 18 years of age.
This was my favorite part because I love to learn about people and I found myself being able to actually remember a lot of the juror numbers and associate professions or stories with their numbers.
For example--juror number 9 had a son who had been in drug rehab last year from April thru October. I also remember his occupation and that he is single with only one child.
Juror number two and I spoke before going in and she had been selected for jury duty previously and was not picked and was a little disappointed that she hadn't made the cut. (The judge told us not to take it personally).
Juror 44 had worked for the postal service for 25 years and had been the president of one of its union organizations.
Juror 45 worked for Lockheed Martin (sp?) and had sat as a juror for two previous juries which were both criminal trials.
Juror 36 had four teenagers ages 16, 15, 15 and 15. Not triplets, but twins and a child from her husband's previous marriage.
I actually knew juror number 28 from meeting her at a party at Christmas. We were the only two jurists who knew each other.
Juror 38 worked for Schwann's and had a friend who was a cop who lied in his grand jury testimony.
Juror 25 had a conviction for drug possession from 20 years ago. She also was a single mother with two children.
Juror 40 was a forensic architect which I thought sounded like the coolest profession of any of us in the room.
Juror 4 had sat on a jury 20 years ago where he was certain that a guilty guy went unpunished and he said he was not certain he could be impartial.
Juror 5 had dated a cop and a guy who claimed he was a secret agent--we all laughed at that. Even the judge jokingly asked her, "And I suppose he worked for the CIA?"
Juror 11 had had to testify in a trial against her own son.
There are other details I remember about the other jurists, but I don't remember their numbers.
So, I ended up not being summoned for duty, but I did think the whole process was fascinating. Long, and very uncomfortable given that I saw sitting on a hard, wooden pew almost the whole time, but still fascinating.

Valentine Wreath

2011-02-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

Psst! Come here...

A little closer...

Whoa!!! Too close!

There, that's about right.

So, my cousin made a wreath like this and I just loved it, so I tried one myself. I think hers turned out cuter, but it was still neat to try something new. Want to make one too? Click here.

The BIG Reveal

2011-01-25T18:50:00.000-08:00

So...this is what we've been up to the last 12 weeks:

Look at those great legs!

I like this shot because you can see the umbilical cord wrapped around the leg.

Getting ready to suck his thumb?

No more photos please!

And, even though we are only twelve weeks--the ultra sound tech said that with 95% certainty that it's a BOY! Can you believe they can tell so early? Other interesting tidbits--baby's heart rate was 162 beats a minute. They could even tell that the egg came from my right ovary. We also listened to the blood flow from my ovaries to make sure that everything was okay. So, our official due date is August 4--only three days away from my own birthday. What a great present!

LOST

2011-01-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

When Derek and I ventured down to Cancun in August, I brought along the first season of LOST. Neither of us had watched it while it was on TV, but a lot of our friends had enjoyed it, so I thought that while we were resting in the evenings (it's a lot of work drinking daiquiris and lounging by the pool) we could watch it.
Needless to say that we became addicted. I mean to say that we just finished all six years of this series last night. Though it seems like a lot of TV to watch, we actually watched quite a few episodes on our computer, so that doesn't count. Plus, without commercials, a LOST episode is only just over 42 minutes.
Now, as we were watching the very last episode last night, I couldn't help but thinking, "What?" as the last scene ended. That Jack was dead I got. That everyone with him in the church was dead also made sense. However, what confused me was the individual deaths of each person that met on the island. Did they all just die when the plane first crashed? That seems pretty lame. Did they all die when Juliette exploded the bomb? Maybe... Luckily for me, there are several sites out there that offer up explanations for all of this and after reading them, I feel much more enlightened.
I do have to wonder, since a show's producers can never know how long a show will last, if the intended purpose of the show was how it turned out. I loved all of the character flashbacks from their lives--whether their lives before the plane crash or their "lives" after death before they reunited. I just think that originally, the show was probably going to just feature the Others and go from there. I definitely give props to the producers who were brilliant enough to tie so many different things together. I wish all shows made me think like this.

Dapper

2010-12-20T18:35:00.000-08:00

[da-per]: neat; trim; smart

Those Petersen kids looked dapper in their Sunday clothes!

I had to laugh because the third definition said: "small and active" and if that doesn't describe my children I don't know what does!

Family Photos

2010-12-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

You know how these sessions go--you're telling your screaming, frowning, pouting child how much you love their sweet, little smile and how you will buy them a pony and put a swimming pool in the backyard if they will just smile. You're even resorting to saying the most ridiculous phrases ("pickles in pantyhose!"). You're even wondering if those potty words your child always giggles about would make them laugh right now. There is nothing you won't promise, won't say. Really what you want to be saying is, "I will spank you and put you in a time out and feed you liver and lima beans for the next week if you ruin this classy ensemble that I spent hours putting together." But you can't say those things even though you feel them to your very depths because once a child cries, you get that ugly, red, blotchy face that photoshop can't work out. I think these photograhy sessions are such an exercise in restraint and bad parenting.

Despite all this, I get so excited when I see that a fellow blogger has posted their family photos. I don't know, it's so magical to see everyone dressed up all matchy (not too matchy--that's lame) and looking so sweet. I don't know how everyone else's experience is, but I only got about 30 seconds of smiling from Owen. I was all out of bribes and Derek was all out of kindness, so this is what we got. I do love them and I do love my friend for taking them. So, if you're looking for a talented photographer, just let me know!

Turkey Trot

2010-12-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

You may remember a couple of months ago when I posted about how Derek and I had started running together in the evenings. Well, like the Petersen that he is, he was certain that our running would be more meaningful if we were working toward a goal. A goal other than breathing and making it home to an EXTRA large bowl of ice cream. I mean really, is there more?

He decided that we should run a race. I promised him that I would only run if he ran with me the whole time. He assured me he would, so I decided I would do it with him. A "friend" (Do you call people friends who ask you to join in races?) we'll call "Debbie" to protect her identity said we should run the Mesa Turkey Trot with her and her husband. So, we signed up.

Derek decided we should follow a training regime for this "race" and proceeded to find about three different ones online. Of course all of these schedules assume you'll start prepping in all seriousness about eight weeks before the race--we only had four.

Of course we committed ourselves to running every single night once we found the schedule, but five minutes later we realized that we have lives and couldn't do that, so we did the best we could. We ran three and a half miles once, 4 miles once and 5 miles once even. Mostly though we ran our two or three miles.

Since we were going to be suffering through this race, it was only fair that when Derek's brother Devin showed up, that we "invited" him to run with us. We only taunted him about not running maybe a couple of times. We were merely building his character. Never mind that he hadn't been training at all. The kid is nineteen and plays soccer every chance he gets--I was much more worried about me being carried away on a stretcher than I was about him.

Needless to say, "Debbie" almost backed out of the race the day before. However, her husband must've been building her character at their home, because she changed her mind. Other friends ran too. There was great fun had by thousands of us on Thanksgiving morning in the chilly Arizona weather.

AND??? I know you're dying to know if I completed the race. Well, I did. I ran every single step of the way--all 6.2 miles and I finished in 57 minutes and I don't know how many seconds exactly. Our mile time averaged 9:28. Not impressive if you actually do this sort of thing in all seriousness, but I was happy to be alive.

We only got one photo when we got home. And, Picasa is being annoying and saved it in some unknown place and I don't have patience to find it now. Grrr!

Even When We Don't Know the Words--

2010-11-14T14:58:00.000-08:00

We sing!

Even when we are changing lyrics to secret places like "Edom" and creating situations that didn't exactly play out "Adam following our ways?" We sing!

Even when our Mom plays the wrong notes. We sing!

The Costumes

2010-11-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

I had to laugh when I finally uploaded these photos of the Halloween experience. Ryanna was Rapunzel, but looking at her in that wig I think she actually looks more like one of those ladies you see in the mall where you want to say, "Sister, you are 65, cut your hair and dress your age!" It's even funnier when I think about how her wig fell off during the Halloween carnival and I tried to put it back on, but it was such a gob of hair that I did it backwards and so Rapunzel had all these bald spots and really needed some Rogaine.

Owen was a ninja and I'm honestly glad that costume is done. This child is a bit obsessive and that does not exclude research about Halloween costumes. Every day we had to talk about ninjas and I discovered I don't really know that much. How do Ninja's drive with those swords on their backs? I assume they didn't have cars then? What about those dagger thingies? Can't really walk with those tucked into your belt. And shoes--I think they wore slippers, but I'm not quite certain. I'm fairly certain they ate rice or am I just being stereotypical? I just don't know much about a ninja lifestyle.

I know this is blurry, but he's doing a ninja kick and I love it.

Eli was the ever popular hand-me-down-we-are-not-buying-you-a-new-costume-because-you're-too-young-to-care Dragon! I love this costume. He looked adorable in it just like Owen did when he wore it. We had a hot Halloween this year though, so he didn't wear the head part much. That and the fact that his head is not huge like Owen's, so it kept falling down on him.

Since we didn't trick or treat on Sunday, I let the kids hand out the candy and I think they may have enjoyed that better than actual trick or treating. They sat there all night and didn't even let the trick or treaters get to the door before they threw it open with excitement.

And the cupcake picture. It's just adorable. I make cute kids--correction--WE make cute kids. On to Owen's birthday and then Thanksgiving!

And, I had to throw this picture in here to show you the hail damage from that storm a few weeks ago. Check out the metal coils on our AC unit!!! I also included the brief video of the storm from that day. It was CRAZY!!!!

Halloween Traditions

2010-10-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

So, even though Christmas is my most favorite holiday because of the religious meanings and the warm feelings, Halloween is easily my second favorite holiday. How can you not enjoy a holiday that is based around getting candy? Seriously, I must've invented this holiday in another life.

So, we hit the Pumpkin Patch as is our tradition. It was fun, but I was shocked at how few pumpkins they had as compared to years past. I had heard that there would be a pumpkin shortage this year due to bad pumpkin weather and they weren't joking. I've already bought all the pumpkin filling I think I'll need for the whole year--if you like it--you should do the same.

Ryanna 2010

Ryanna 2007

The crazy face picture was actually the best of the bunch.

My kids loved the farm animals. Eli was actually the most excited--so excited in fact that I couldn't get a good photo because he was running and jumping with such happiness.

Eli used this as a substitute ball and it cracked after one day.

We also decorated the house on the first of October and I added these Halloween blocks as a new decoration to my collection. Thanks to my girlfriends for their great ideas and know-how and willingness to include me all things crafty. My kids have loved switching the blocks to count down the days.

Mine is the one on the left.

We also Boo'd a couple of houses. It's the tradition where you take treats to some friends and leave a cute, little poem with instructions for how they continue the Boo onto some other friends. My kids love to do that too and they are getting pretty good at hiding.

And, last night I pulled out all the stops and we made caramel apples--next year I want to get fancy and do some gourmet style--heath bar or rocky road, we made Halloween T-shirts with these iron-on decals that I bought last year after Halloween was over and we decorated our fake pumpkins with our little push-in decorations.

The lazy parent's way to do pumpkins.

I love how the shirts turned out. To be honest, we were lucky and found Owen's shirt with that spider web already on it. Eli's shirt had all of his stuff on the front and we ironed stuff onto the back. Ryanna's was completely blank though and I love how it turned out.

What can I say, I love this holiday.

Disneyland!

2010-10-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

We finally exchanged our good deeds for real Disneyland passes last week. And, since Ryanna has the world's longest Fall Break, it was the perfect time to go. Apparently quite a few other people had the same idea, but it was still fun!

I think that the kids would say that their very favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride. They would've gone back again had we had the time. Second to that for Owen would've been Autotopia--driving his mom around in style. He didn't do too badly either. Though I hear Ryanna's a crazy driver. Ryanna went on Space Mountain with me. It was actually called Ghost Galaxy Space Mountain since they had it all scary for Halloween. Owen was just tall enough to ride it too, but Ryanna and I went first to make sure it wasn't too scary for Owen. When the ride stopped, the first thing Ryanna said when she pulled her hands off her ears and pulled her head out from between her knees was, "Owen is NOT going on that ride." Yeah, a bit too scary for him. We did do the Haunted Mansion though--it was a combo of Halloween and Christmas.

I wanted to do It's a Small World--childhood memories you know?--but one of the boats had bottomed out, so the line was frozen and they didn't know how long it would be and then we never got back over there.

So, things I learned:

1. There is NO POSSIBLE WAY to do Disneyland in one day. No possible way. I think we did 12-13 rides and we were there from open to close.

2. The food is super expensive (not a surprise) and pretty much tasteless. I've never had cheese without taste before this. You can bring your own food if you want, but who wants one more thing to lug around? I did hear that the hand-dipped corn dogs are delicious, but I didn't know this prior to my visit.

3. Buying the program RideMax for your Iphone would've been worth the $15. It's an application that allows you to enter in every ride you want to go on and it takes all of the park data and tells you exactly which ride you should go on and which ones to do fast passes on and how to make your time at the park work for you. Since we had never gone before, all of the rides seemed great to us, but now that we've been we'd probably be able to pick out some favorites and use the program to our advantage.

4. There are not characters wandering the park waiting to take pictures with you like when I was little. I don't know if a Cinderella got trampled once or what, but when we did see two princesses walking through the park, they made it very clear that they would not stop for a photo, so I had to snap as fast as I could. Given that we had only one day, I wasn't going to spend it waiting in line for picture opps. However, we did get some villain shots while we were waiting for the parade to start.

5. A bubble gun may be worth every single expensive penny you pay for it. The guy in front of us in the Haunted Mansion line had one and he shot bubbles for his and our kids and it made the time go by so much quicker. Thank you bubble man.

6. Always bring a change of underwear and shorts for your potty trained child. You never know when you'll have ventured to a new part of the park and he'll wait till the last minute to inform you that he has to go NOW! Of course you'll have no idea where the bathroom is for that section of the park.

7. It may just be the Happiest Place on Earth.

We also went to Newport Beach the next day and there were dolphins swimming right by the shore!!! Seriously close enough that a guy who was snorkeling went out and swam with them. We sat and watched in awe. It has been the coldest summer on record for Newport and given that it's October now, you can imagine how that water temperature felt. The kids loved the beach and found tons of seashells to take home.

I also got to meet another biological cousin of mine for the first time! We had a great visit and she took us to an amazing Italian Restaurant.

Lastly, we stayed with our friends, the Bradshaws, in Lake Elsinore. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of that, but it was fun. We had a fun, exhausting, wonderful trip.

And, for a close-up of that big, pouty lip:There were seriously dolphins everywhere!!! See the guy in the water with them?

Fit to be Dyed!

2010-09-13T16:44:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we decided it would be fun to try our hands at tie dyeing again. The kids and I ventured to Deseret Industries to get some white shirts for a dollar a piece and on Saturday we enlisted Derek's help. You'll notice we used the same technique for Ryanna and Owen's shirts and a different technique for Eli's. The results were as follows:

The Rest of It All

2010-09-07T20:40:00.000-07:00

So, I know you've all been checking my blog every day saying, "When is she going to post about the rest of her vacation!?!?" Sighing and eating lots of junk food at your frustration with my lack of consistent posting. There's a very good reason I haven't finished. The pictures are trapped.

Do you remember the dark ages when cameras actually used film? My kids certainly don't understand it. I took a waterproof camera on our trip to Cancun to use on our trip out to snorkel with the whale sharks. Yes, SHARKS!!! That's the kind of woman I am--I drive five miles over the speed limit, I always save room for dessert and I swim with sharks. A lesser person would've just viewed those namby-pamby tropical fish, but not me--I say give me sharks or give me nothing!

So, they are super huge and their mouths are about 3-4 feet wide with about 5.2 billion teeth (would I exaggerate?) that look like they could eat you in one gulp, but they don't because they are almost vegetarian choosing to slurp on plankton instead.

(See the size of the guy next to this thing? I told you they were HUGE!)

So, those pictures of that whale shark that I swam beside--I say it in singular sense because I was only able to stop myself from vomiting long enough to see one (maybe two?) whale shark(s) before I had to get back into that rocking, rocking boat of misery--are trapped on that water proof camera and I haven't finished taking the rest of the pictures yet, so I'll have to find some on the internet and post them for you and you can pretend like I took them. (See all photos in this post.)

Let me give you some advice though--Dramaine doesn't work for serious sea sickness. I had eleven "incidents" to tell you that it doesn't work. Each incident involved about 5 up and outs and that my friends is the best ab workout on the planet. You may think you can crunch your way to perfect abs, but really, just get yourself about four miles out to sea and you will soon see your abs look rock hard--except you'll be way too sick to appreciate any of it.

I do have to say that the whale sharks were amazing!!! I wish that I could've appreciated them more, but I was a bit under the weather. However, there were about 50 of them where we were and they are huge, gentle giants that everyone should appreciate--from the shore, where things stay still just like they are supposed to.

Chichen Itza, Ek Balam and a Cenote

2010-09-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

If the title sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, don't worry--none of it's English.

So, once again, this is going to be a lot of pictures with some commentary listed underneath.

And, I wanted to answer a few questions about our resort:

1. It's all inclusive--that's the only way you can stay--you get it all. And, we just booked it through the resort's own site as it was cheaper than any of the other various sites out there and I looked at A LOT.

2. It's also an adult's only resort, so there were no children around.

Okay, now back to the fun!

Of course this trip wouldn't be the same if our guide hadn't been pulled over by the police. We thought he was going to have to pay some money for a "fine" but they let us go--perhaps because they saw us taking pictures?

This is the ball court at Chichen Itza. It was considered the ultimate field to play on--think of the pros vs. college fields that you would find at other ruins. The players had to score a goal by using their hips to knock a ball through a hoop mounted on the side of a wall. The lucky winners were then sacrificed to the gods.

I tinted this picture, so you could see some of the detail. They have so many ruins in Mexico that they don't have the money or time to restore all of them, so it's hard to do justice to everything you see in these photos, but just imagine only having a chisel to do this kind of work on rocks.

This was at one end of the ball court and it was reserved for the high priests and nobles. The sound in the stadium was amazing. Our guide stood at one side and clapped three times and it echoed loud and clear at the other side. Imagine how intense it must've been during a game.

This was a wall on the grounds that had skulls carved all over it. I don't personally go for decorating with skulls, but there were lots of vendors selling skulls painted in various rainbow colors.

A skull close up.

You can see in this photo a warrior carrying the head of another warrior. You'll also notice while you're there that there are several snakes carved onto their structures. Some of the snakes also have feathers. The symbolism is really cool to learn about, but I won't ruin all of the surprises for those of you who want to go. But, I will say that if you go, you need to go with...

This guy, his name is Nephi. Really. That's his name. His dad's name is Helaman. They run an LDS tour of the various ruins called Helaman Tours. They teach you all of the symbolism of the various carvings and what each building was used for. It was an incredible experience and well worth the money. There are no placards to explain anything while you're there, so you want a guide.

This is it--the temple that is one of the seven wonders of the world. You're not allowed to walk up it anymore because back in 2005 a woman fell down--there's 91 steps on each side all carved in stone, so you can imagine how that felt. For those of you who aren't mathematicians, 91 steps x four sides = 364 + the platform on top = 365. And, that craziness you hear about how the Mayan calendar stops in 2012--not true. The Mayan calendar cycles through every 52 years. 2012 is when it ends this current cycle.

These big guys are crawling all over Mexico. Not only did we see them at every site, but our hotel had them too. They don't let you get very close, but they sure aren't worried about being around all the tourists.

So, after lunch, Nephi took us to the cenote called Ik Kil. It was absolutely beautiful!!! That is the natural color of the water and you can't see them, but there are little black fish swimming all around down there too. These cenotes are constantly getting fresh water circulating through some underwater system. The Mayans used these underground lakes to sacrifice people and bathe for rituals. But, we use them for...

JUMPING!!! It's a 20 foot drop which doesn't seem like much until you're up there. It's a rush. In fact, here's a video of Derek and McKay.

It's only about 30 seconds long. (If it will work.)

We are so in love.

The couple that did the tour with us were named McKay and Rachel Barlow. We had never met them before, but now they are our best friends. Seriously though, we had such a great time with them and wished that we'd all been staying at a resort together, so we could've done more activities with them. It's such a small world, but McKay's roommate in college married my roommate from Spain. Plus, the blog that I looked on to learn about the tour we took ended up being McKay's brother's blog. Small, small world!

Lastly, we visited the ruins of Ek Balam which were smaller than Chichen Itza in total area excavated (for now), but completely worth the time because you can still climb and explore on these ruins. We climbed to the top of the temple which is where I took this picture of some of the other ruins. The temple at Ek Balam is the third tallest ruin in Mexico, behind a building at Tulum and Coba, but taller than the temple you saw at Chichen Itza. I can't remember how many steps it was, but they were steep and there were no handrails.

You can see how narrow the passage way between the buildings is.

We were able to be right next to these ruins which were discovered only a couple of years ago after the wall which was hiding them accidentally fell down. Pay special attention to the hands on the statues.

This tour was one of the greatest things we did while we were there. If you ever have the chance--GO!!!

Cancun--The Hotel

2010-09-01T12:36:00.000-07:00

SOOO...We're Back from Paradise! Just in time to be interviewed by the news upon our arrival in the Phoenix Airport. I've included a link to that right here. Seriously, funny to be interviewed looking so completely fabulous, but I had a lady stop me in the library today and tell me she recognized me from last night's news, so I guess I better get some glamour shots made up with my signature at the bottom. Got to keep the masses happy right?

We stayed at Excellence Playa Mujeres. It was separated from the Hotel Zone and in a different part of Cancun which we really enjoyed. The only trick being that if you wanted to venture out, you had to get a taxi. The hotel was seriously fancy though.

So, this was the first thing we saw when the bell boy took us into our room. Yes, a bottle of champagne which we never drank and a leather couch to relax on while we watch our flat screen TV and enjoy the fresh tropical flower bouquet that's in our room. BUT wait! Before we could even sit down, a second guy knocks on our door with these:

Fresh made pastries for us to eat after having traveled so far! Did I mention that when we first walked in the lobby they greeted us with a fresh, wet towel for our faces and glasses of champagne? We had to decline the champagne of course, but it was a nice thought.

In addition to the bouquet of flowers, there was a rose for us on our bed. Speaking of the bed--they made it for us every morning as would be expected, but every evening they also came by and turned down the covers and put mints on our pillows along with a report of the current temperature and weather conditions as well as all of the activities the hotel was going to offer the next day and any other special info we may want to know.

I loved our double sinks and the shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and lotion they give you are the largest bottles I've ever seen! They also gave us a toothbrush and comb and a shoe brush...

I am just sorry to say that this picture doesn't do the shower justice and I couldn't get the right angle to take a picture. Let's just say the shower was about seven feet long and had two shower heads--one that you can see and another from the ceiling as well as a bench to sit on. I loved that huge shower as much as I loved....

Our gargantuan tub with jets! It also looked out onto the balcony. I was in heaven. And, you could see the TV from the tub as well. In fact, there was not a single place in the entire room where you couldn't view the TV--even the shower!

Another perk I loved was the slippers.

This was the bed on our balcony where you could lie down and read or enjoy a view of this:

Our view of the lazy river. There are seven pools at the hotel and this lazy river.

Relaxing in one of the hammocks at the pool.

The stairs to the lobby of our hotel--I love the stained glass.

And, the restaurants. Did I mention that it was all inclusive--so all of our food was included, so we did what any good couple would do and completely gorged ourselves--multiple times! This was our first dinner at the French restaurant in the hotel and it was delicious. We had four desserts that night.

Yummy!! Love those virgin strawberry daquaris!! In fact, I had Derek sample one of mine and he ordered those almost exclusively from that point on. The only other drink as good as that was the hot chocolate at breakfast. That was amazing!!!

This was the tapas restaurant--all appetizers. I loved it.

The view from the Lobster House. You can see how close we are to the beach which was gorgeous.

The last dessert we ate during our stay. I can't remember the name, but it was ice cream with some sort of yummy sauce and fresh berries all in a crust of some sort. I was in dessert heaven!

Not only was the hotel beautiful, but the service was amazing. Almost anytime you asked for anything, you were told, "It is my pleasure." Boy, I could get used to this!

Jumping in the Rain

2010-08-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

It may be raining, but it's still about 107 degrees outside. You have to take your fun where you can get it.

I Should Be Grateful, But...

2010-08-06T13:52:00.001-07:00

1. I should be grateful that my boys let me do my hour of exercise, BUT it's still irritating to find green crayon scribbled on two different couches.
2. I should be grateful that Eli stopped coloring when I noticed he had a crayon, BUT did he have to be coloring in a library book?
3. I should be grateful that De-Solv-It takes crayon and pencil off of walls, BUT why do I have pencil marks taller than my 1 year old can reach?
4. I should be grateful that the crayon marks washed right off of my couch pillows, BUT did the pillow covering have to rip and leave filling throughout my entire load of laundry?
5. I should be grateful that my washing machine didn't flood my laundry room, BUT where did that water on the floor come from anyway?
6. I should be grateful that all of this happened within two hours this morning, BUT did it have to happen at all?
However, my day is not a complete loss--thank you Children's Place $2.99 sale. And, to keep it all in perspective, I was watching this video yesterday and it got me all teary. Sure, I had a rough morning, but my life is soooo easy in comparison to hers.
I've been thinking about where I am in my life right now--a lot lately. Am I being the kind of mother, daughter, wife and friend I want to be? Am I appreciating all of the sweet moments that being a young parent brings or merely dwelling on the challenges (like my 1-6 above)?
I look at my daughter who started 2nd grade a few weeks ago and think that in only a matter of months from now, she'll be old enough to decide if she wants to make a life long commitment to join the church. How quickly that time has gone.

I look at my baby who is nearing is second birthday and realize that Owen was almost the same age that Eli is now, when Eli was born--yet, I feel like Eli is still my baby.

Life is flying by and am I really appreciating it for all it's worth? Some days yes, some days not as much as I should.
However, I am grateful for all that God has blessed me with. So, the rough mornings will come, but really, I live a pretty charmed life.

It's My Day!

2010-08-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

I have decided to celebrate by sharing 32 tidbits about myself:
1. I love to read!!!! I am a member of two book clubs.
2. I love breakfast foods--pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage & biscuits.
3. I was raised as an only child.
4. I have seven siblings.
5. I am learning how to play the violin--I started about 4 years ago with my daughter.
6. I lived in Spain for a month and a half.
7. I earned a minor in Spanish from BYU.
8. The farthest I've ever run is a 10K--but I didn't take any breaks!
9. I have made my husband promise never to bury me at sea (even if we die on a ship).
10. I love lots of different music--80s, country, etc.
11. My husband proposed to me right next to a cemetery.
12. I was accepted and going to attend University of Kansas Law School when I met Derek. (One lawyer in our family is plenty!)
13. I don't wear glasses or contacts. 20/20 vision!
14. I chose to be Dopey, one of the seven dwarfs, for Halloween, when I was a little girl.
15. I love to eat out!!!!
16. I was born on my due date.
17. I have swum with dolphins.
18. Derek and I lived in a different city every summer during his undergraduate degree--Euless, Texas; Vienna, Virginia; Lewisville, Texas and Duluth, Georgia.
19. I do NOT eat watermelon or honeydew.
20. I am taller than my husband.
21. I am named after my dad's adopted mother.
22. I have the same middle name as my dad's biological mother--we discovered this when we found her family this last year.
23. I am addicted to family history work.
24. I was on the diving team in high school.
25. I have big lips--but my mom's are bigger!
26. I love to have my back rubbed--softly.
27. I never go grocery shopping without a list.
28. I hate Viva milk--any other brand is okay.
29. There is a 20 year gap between my age and my mom's and a forty year gap between my grandma and me. (I ruined the pattern!)
30. I like to play the piano, but I have no idea what I'm doing.
31. When I was a little girl, I never wore a seatbelt. I stood pressed behind my grandpa's shoulder and the seat while he drove.
32. I love to play racquetball.
There you go. Some random and useless information about me. 32 years young.

What's Good For Me?

2010-07-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

Because my husband spent a lot of money on these:

I now spend my nights doing this:

(I'm the one in the front of course!)

Which helps me to avoid doing this:

Except when I go to Costco and they are selling these:

Oh Costco! What a love/hate relationship we have with each other. How is it that I usually have a list of about four items and I never seem to leave without spending at least $80?

What I should do is buy Costco stock. Why didn't I think of that about a million years ago?

Vacation Decisions

2010-07-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Next month marks nine years of wedded bliss for the hubby and me. Amazing to think that after only knowing each other less than six months we decided that we wanted to spend all of eternity together. However, that's the BYU way isn't it?
Things surfaced about our differing personalities right away. One of those differences is in how we make decisions. I come from a family whom are very quick decision makers.
Where do you want to eat? (No more than a five minute decision--I prefer to think that we are decisive and not merely just hungry.)
What should I wear today? (Take something out of your closet and put it on.)
We make decisions quickly. We don't like to waste time and I guess we all feel pretty well informed on our options. I'm sure it isn't because we're impatient by nature. (read sarcasm here)
My husband's family are more deliberate in their approach.
Where do you want to eat?
This would be followed by a discussion about which ethnicity of food we were in the mood for. Then, after that was determined, we would discuss every restaurant we had ever known that served that type of food. We would then further break down our options by price, customer service, drive time to desired locations, etc.
Not that I think my family's way of doing things is superior, it's just been quite interesting to note how we seem to approach questions or situations with different methods.
Going back to our upcoming anniversary. I want to do something big. And by big I mean without our kids and for more than one day. The two of us haven't gotten away for a vacation other than single nights out for two prior anniversaries, so I thought now would be a great time. My mom volunteered to come and stay with the kids and that left it wide open for us to plan something wonderful.
Once again, our differences are highlighted:
I had a friend refer me to the most luxurious resort I've ever seen. It looks absolutely amazing. I took one look and was ready to book the trip.
My husband talked to many, many different people and then narrowed his options down to four completely different locations. He continues to update me on what is available to do in these various locations and the different hotel options.
I'm beginning to think that perhaps my decisive approach has given me comfort because I never had to worry that I would be missing out on anything because I never bothered to consider what I could be missing.
My husband likes to consider all the options--good and bad. In the end, I can't deny that the decision is well-founded, but I also can't help but feeling remorse about all the options I have to forego.
SO....
Where will we go?
Where will we stay when we get there?
What will we eat?
What will we wear?
We think we have it figured out--almost.

Because I'm a Queen...

2010-06-17T14:27:00.001-07:00

I get to wear a crown.

It's gold even!

Unfortunately, you, or me for that matter, won't be able to see it because it's going to reside over one of my six year molars.

Sigh.

I honestly felt a little embarassed by my failure with my molar.

Sure, I've had some cavities, but not in several years and never had a crown before.

Now, in less than six months, this one tooth cracked in three places and a piece of it is missing! (That missing portion is its own disturbing problem that my digestive system doesn't want to think about.)

When my dentist was looking in my tooth everything seemed good until I heard him say the words crack and molar.

Then, they have such incredible, (disgusting, but incredible) technology that allowed me to see my tooth blown up to about 40 times its normal size in all its broken down glory. I almost threw up in my mouth when I looked at the picture, but as you know, all that acid from throw up is not so good for your teeth either, so I kept it down.

Oh well, I guess a little mouth bling will make me oh so fashionable.

If Everyone Else Jumped Off a Bridge, Would You do it Too?

2010-06-13T20:10:00.001-07:00

Two weekends ago we were watching 20/20. It was discussing the idea that there are several parents out there who are pushing their children to do more than the average child. To set a huge goal and go after it. Sounds really admirable right? Till you realize that the goals these particular sets of parents are encouraging these kids to accomplish are all goals that will put them in the record books. We're not asking a child to read 40 books over summer break or run a marathon. These parents had a 13 year old child climb Mt. Everest and a 16 year old girl sail solo around the globe. I definitely believe in pushing your child to do more, to be more, but not at the risk of your own life.

When questioned about the safety of encouraging and allowing their children to engage in this behavior, both sets of parents cited to the parenting of others saying things such as, "Other parents are waiting in line to 'supersize' their childrens' meals at McDonalds. What I'm doing is safer for his health than that." Or, "How could I stop her when she's so capable and determined?"

Great reasoning right? So, your next door neighbors might be teaching their children to play with handguns and smoke pot, so that definitely justifies another parent to use poor judgment in their own parenting techniques. In other words, if I parent just as poorly as they do, no harm done.

I'm certainly no ideal parent, but where do you draw the line? The 16 year old, Abby Sunderland, was lost in the middle of the Indian Ocean earlier this week. Do you think her parents flew out to find her? Do you think they spent one dime to help in the situation? No, other countries had to dispatch three different ships and an aircraft to locate this missing girl who was 2,000 miles away from either Africa or Australia. That irks me.

Why are we invested in trying to save this showboat (no pun intended) and her parents? They said they recognized the risks and were willing to accept them, but when it came down to it, they weren't. They were begging for help from any agency that would offer it.

It seems to be a common theme that you hear in parenting anymore. "Well, kids are going to be kids, so I just want to be aware of what they are doing." I've heard of parents encouraging their teenage children and their friends to drink in their homes, so at least, the parents know the children are safe. Seriously? When did we decide to just accept poor behavior and cater to it instead of setting up a standard and trying to achieve it. Isn't this the whole teaching abstinence in school debate all over again?

Do I think we should save every human life that we can? Certainly. But, I do believe that if you engage in purposefully dangerous behavior there should be repercussions. If I choose to speed and I'm caught I have to pay the fine. If I choose to send my 16 year old daughter into the middle of the ocean and she gets stuck--well, she's a minor and I should pay for it. I would just like to see some accountability here.

Do I blame the 16 year old? To some degree. I mean, she and her parents both kept citing back to her incredible skills--which skills they apparently didn't trust enough to leave her to her own devices for even a couple hours of losing her signal. Mostly though, her parents are to blame for this whole thing. I guess the take away message they want to send to her is--accomplish your goals, no matter what the cost to you or anyone else around you.

Isn't It Grand?

2010-06-01T17:12:00.001-07:00

We are one of those ridiculous families that have lived in Arizona for over six years and never made the trip to see our closest national treasure--the Grand Canyon. So, this Memorial weekend, we remedied that by visiting with our family, Derek's two brothers and his uncle Ron and cousin Cody.

One of the placards stated that the most you can see of the canyon at any time is only 20%. Wow! I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but I must say that even photos don't do it justice. You really have to see it for yourself.

What He Wants Us To Be

2010-05-18T16:10:00.000-07:00

Last week was hard.

REALLY hard.

I don't know what happened to my sweet, little three year old, but he morphed into a monster last week.

He tromped around the house as loudly as he could with his arms set in 90 degree angles and his face smooshed up into a grimace. He was angry about EVERYTHING.

No! He did not want to go to the toilet!

No! He did not want to wash his hands after he used the toilet and how dare I ask him!

No! He did not want to eat those grapes that he'd asked for!

No! He did not want to say the prayer!

All of this and it was only 7:00 am...

And on and on and on.

On Wednesday I remembered that I could drop any child under the age of 18 off at any police department or fire station and they wouldn't ask any questions.

I wondered if they would just keep him for a few hours.

The tantrums, the hands firmly pressed over each ear to block out my instructions and reprimands, the hateful yelling, it all seemed to be too much.

I had tried all of my tricks--diversion, positive feedback for good actions, calm responses to meltdowns, more one on one attention, but none of it seemed to change him or me. Did I also mention Eli was throwing up multiple times a day from Wednesday through Saturday and yuckiness wasn't just coming out of his mouth. It all felt to be too much.

I don't know what changed, but yesterday he was back to himself.

By that I mean my little boy who loves to impress me.

My little man who is sensitive to everyone in our family and reminds me that he is not just mine, but also daddy's and Ryanna's and Eli's.

My friend who tells me that he loves me when he gives me kisses and tight hugs.

My little boy who is so passionate and trying to learn who he is while dealing with the frustration of not being able to communicate what he wants in all situations.

My three year old who sees his limitless potential at being a "rock star and a dancing rock star who plays the guitar" (his words this morning about his future career) but still has to deal with living under the house rules.

I'm thrilled that he's back to being sweet. He still has meltdowns, but it's under control. The whole situation helped me to remember that I too am still a work in progress. I still throw fits when Owen gets out of control. Granted, I don't throw my fits in a physical way, but I do express my frustration at night to my husband. I bemoan my terrible day and how grating it was. But, I all the while, am being taught and instructed on patience. While I may not like it, I need it. I need to take more time to stop and enjoy what's going on around me and less time worrying about the to dos. I need to spend more time in awe of children's stories and less time checking my email. While Owen is learning exactly who he is and what he needs to do to improve, I too am going through the same process. I hope that I can be as patient with Owen as I want God and my friends and family to be with me.

The words of this song touch me and fit the situation so perfectly:

God gave us families to help us become what he wants us to be.

This is how He shares His love. For the family is of God.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

O-hio

2010-05-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

Lest you think I actually take the time to mother my children, I must document my jet setting ways once again.
I left early Thursday morning to fly to Ohio to hear my sister in law Kjirsti sing for her final performance in her Master's Degree program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. She has an amazing voice. An opera voice. She performed some beautiful music in mostly foreign tongues, and her voice was impressive. She looked beautiful and I felt incredibly humbled to be related to her once again.

This weekend was actually a sister's weekend, with Derek's other sisters Sabina and Brigette flying out as well as Lauren who brought her family with her. Okay, so it was a sister's weekend kind of. We take what we can get when we have small children and limited budgets. I actually wished that my whole family could've come because we had so much fun together.

It was awesome to see Kjirsti and Tom's house. I don't know what year it was built, but the entire neighborhood where they live has unique architecture for every home. It's great to visit a city and see homes designed with brick and rock and plants blooming that can't begin to grow here. This is where I would post a picture of a beautiful blooming azalea if I'd thought to get one. Or a picture of stunning architecture if I'd remembered that either.
We also went to the Cleveland Art Museum which was had a great collection and reminded me of my time in Spain. I love studying art work. I really should do it again. Add it to the ever growing list...

We also went to the West Side Market which reminded me of Spain too. Vendors were hawking their produce and meats and all kinds of delicious and tempting sweets (some items not so tempting also).
We finished off the night with an authentic Puerto Rican meal by Trevor: beans and rice (amazing flavor!), fried plantains, mangoes and papaya milkshakes. It was all so yummy I had to eat more than I should to be polite.
It's opportunities to be around family that remind me how important extended family is. I love my little family that I have with my husband, but there is something so special about extended family. I wish they were closer. I wish we could see each other more often. Thanks for the memories!

Intensity

2010-04-18T20:33:00.000-07:00

I can't take credit for these photos. They are the product of another great mom from Owen's soccer team. She emailed them to me and I was thrilled. Not only were the colors intense, but so was the subject:
my child--Owen--
the soccer beast.
I loved seeing his focus and drive out on the field. If this is age 3, what's age 4, 7, 12, 17?

Lee Lee's

2010-04-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

You never know when you're gonna need a fresh packet of Telephone Brand Agar-Agar Powder.

There's an Asian market in the Phoenix area that I have wanted to visit for a long time, but have never made the trip. Today I decided to remedy that. The boys and I loaded up and visited Lee Lee's.

I had been warned that the smell of raw fish would assault me upon entering the store, so I wasn't surprised by that.

What I was surprised by were all of the different foods from countries other than say Korea or China.

I was definitely out of my element as I entered the first row. I congratulated myself on finding the rice noodles until I looked down the row and realized it was an entire aisle of rice noodles. Yikes! I asked a fellow shopper for help, but she didn't speak English all that well. The front of the store is different varities of rice in 20+ pound bags. (Jess, you would've LOVED this place!)

The produce was interesting too. Here you see Daikon and next to it is Korean Daikon. Let's be honest, I hate it when my recipe calls specifically for Korean Daikon and the market only has regular Daikon. The last item pictured (resembling cucumbers) is called Bitter Melon. Yum! Sometimes you get a good cantaloupe and you think, "Man, this is okay, but if it were bitter--that would rock!"

I didn't recognize most of the produce except for stuff I have actually cooked with. It's funny--these are Lychee. I would think finding canned lychee at all would be a big deal let alone having three different brands of Lychee to choose from.

The whole store was like this. I would find an item that I'd never heard of and there would be several different brands of that item. Who knew?

I walked away with some dark soy sauce--yes, there's a difference, yellow curry, coconut milk, rice noodles, and some frozen mango concentrate. I almost bought a bag of Jasmine rice, but it had no instructions anywhere on it. I assume it cooks the same, but you never know. Had the boys not been with me, I could've really explored, but a stay at home mom takes what she can get.

I drove a couple of miles away and walked into a different world.

Formica be Gone!

2010-04-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

When we bought our house we were in love. It was perfect and we would rather live here than anywhere else.

Then we lived here for one day and realized there were changes we would make--someday.

Someday arrived on Friday.

Someday arrived in the name of Giallo Portofino.

It arrived and I am in heaven.

I am still walking into my kitchen and feeling like I'm not in my own house.

(Except no one seems to want to clean it but me!)

As we all know nothing makes you appreciate a change as much as seeing what you once had. So, here's the beginning--

The strong worker types taking away my old stainless steel sink and replacing it with a granite composite sink.

These two guys transformed my kitchen in about 7 and a half hours from what you see above to total magnificence.

WARNING: These pictures may make you drool with delight and anticipation of doing the same thing!

And, because it's my blog and my sweet grandparents came for a visit, I have to post some cute shots of them. There are several good ones I got of my grandma and the picture of my Papa was very telling of how he spent his time--serving others. He repaired all of our honey-dos. So, consequently, there are not a lot of shots of him.

My New Favorite Thing

2010-03-29T20:05:00.000-07:00

Lately it seems like I've been struggling to get dinner on the table. The other meals are nothing fancy, but I like dinner to be something homemade if I can pull it together. So, I put some serious thought into this problem and there was only one obvious solution:

Really, think about most crock pot (slow cooker) recipes you know. Dump some items in for anywhere from 3-8 hours and then when your family is starving, it's all ready to scoop out and feed them!

I already had some recipes that I liked from previous years, but I found another website from a friend's blog that was called A Year of Slow Cooking. Apparently this woman used her crock pot for a year straight to provide dinners for her family. I think she might be my new hero.

So far I've tried her carnitas recipe and tonight we did her Slow Cooker Meatballs in Peanut Chile Sauce. Both were a hit. Both were easy.

The trick with the crock pot is to remember to do it early enough in the day. There have been plenty of times that 4 o'clock rolls around and I'm wondering what to do for dinner and think I should've used the crock pot. 4 o'clock with no dinner plans usually equals In'N'Out for us. (It's really naughty that we live so close to one and that it's so darn cheap to feed the whole family.)

My old crock pot has become my new answer to dinner. The two biggest problems:

1. Cleaning the crock pot after we finish up, so that it's ready to go the next day.

2. In most recipes there's only a main dish. Who needs sides anyway?

So, if you've got a great recipe to share--leave me a link or email it to me! I'm on a mission here.

I Have a Squeaky Bra

2010-03-25T15:27:00.001-07:00

Seriously. I do.
I'm not really going to post a photo with this one because I don't think it's appropriate.
I realized that my bra squeaks two nights ago when I was getting changed into my pjs for a relaxing night of doing whatever I wanted to that wasn't caring for my kids and then eating some pazookie--chocolate-chocolate chip cookie dough with chocolate ice cream on top. Yes, you read that right--chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
Not that the treat of choice has anything to do with the squeaking bra because really it doesn't. I mean, it's not as though the bra was squeaking because it has a heavy burden to bear--not in my case anyway. I guess that bra was just voicing its complaint about how hard a bra works with no real appreciation. Really, 'cause it lifts me up when I'm feeling down doesn't it?
However, I don't think I can continue to live with a squeaky bra because I don't know what other people will think when they hear that squeaky noise coming from my general chest area. Some problems you don't just live with.
Good-bye squeaky bra.

Finding My Roots Part IV

2010-03-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have been following my journey to locate my dad's biological family, I figured you may be interested in the latest chapter. For those of you who haven't read the whole story, it's here and here and here). I hesitate to really call it a finale because I do believe that now that I have found them and met them, they will be a part of my life forever. So, I believe it's actually a bit of a beginning really.

Sara, Maegan, my dad, me and Debbie

Sara & Maegan are twins!

This last Thursday I flew out to Arkansas. My dad flew from Colorado and met me at the airport. We were picked up by my dad's uncle--whom neither of us have ever met before. It felt a bit like those blind date set ups you hear about where the woman wears a red carnation or something else as an identifier. Anyway, I did actually think about not being able to recognize him because I've never met him before and all the photos I have of him are about 40 years old. So, we exchanged cell phone numbers. Would've been more romantic had I worn a flower, but a cell phone will do.

I have to have a side note in this story to say that a mom, such as myself, traveling without her kids is a mom who feels a bit lost. I can't remember the last time I traveled without a child and I really did feel weird and incomplete. I mean I could actually read a book! I didn't have to say, "Stop touching that," or "Here, have gummy bears for lunch," in order to control the masses. I missed my kids terribly. I felt weird without them with me. I can officially say I am a stay at home mom. Now, back to the story.

I called Darrel (my great uncle/my dad's uncle) and we met right at the escalator. He gave me the biggest, tightest bear hug and right away, I knew the trip would be good. He is a very handsome guy--he looks a lot like Colonel Sanders of KFC fame. His hair is the most gorgeous, white hair I think I've ever seen. I was telling his daughter, Debbie, how much I liked his hair and she said, "Oh yes. Dad is a dandy." In other words, he takes great pride in looking well coiffed and handsome. Sorry I am finding myself providing a lot of details here. You've probably all stopped reading by now. Darrel is actually in his pjs here. He didn't know I'd want to take a photo or he'd be looking even better!

Sara, Maegan, my dad, Darrel and Debbie

(Bethany was sadly gone that night.)

We chatted the drive back to Searcy and ate dinner together along with his daughter Debbie and Debbie's daughters Sara and Maegan (twins) and her other daughter Bethany. The conversation was nice and introductory. I was surprised to discover that they didn't know any of the story of my dad's birth. My dad's mom, Doris, had never spoken about it at all. Not to her siblings, not to her own mother even. I can't imagine how that affected her for the rest of her life.

I have to also say that when Darrel heard we were coming out he offered to have us stay in his house and drive his car, so that the trip would not be expensive. That is true charity. He didn't know anything about us other than my phone calls and emails and he completely opened up his home to us. He is an amazing man.

The next day my dad and I drove down to Little Rock, so that I could do some family history work on my grandma's lines (this is my mom's mom--I'm not trying to make this confusing I promise). Strangely enough she has several family lines that go back to Arkansas and now my dad's biological lines go back to Arkansas too! I was able to get some information, but unfortunately, the state of Arkansas has lost a lot of records to fires and probably some to tornadoes as well I'd guess.

Another side note--tornadoes touched down five miles away from where I stayed. FIVE MILES! We actually drove through where it landed and I can't put into words how seeing devastation like that in person will shock you. I've seen plenty of post tornado photos on TV and the Internet, but never in person. It's crazy. There will be one house razed to the ground and 10 feet away another house won't have a scratch. Whole trees pulled up by the roots, walls and boards thrown all over and just mass devastation.

The last day we were there I was able to finally meet my great-grandma. Do you realize that if my dad's mom were still living, there would be FIVE generations alive on the earth right now. (Five is apparently a theme here.) Since her son Darrel (my great uncle) is still alive, there really are five generations alive. That never happens anymore.

See how she's holding his hand. She didn't want to let go. It was so touching.

When we walked in to meet her she was so sweet and had us come right over to her and she kissed our cheeks and said how happy she was to finally see us. After I showed her some pictures and video of my kids, I had my dad go sit close to her, so I could get their photo together. She grabbed my dad's hand and didn't want to let go. She said, "I've missed you. I've thought about you again and again through the years."

It's how I imagine it'll be when we arrive in heaven. Our family will be waiting and they will hold us close and say, "I've missed you." I just can't tell you how much that meant to my dad to know that this woman has thought of him and worried for him. His biological mother died just three years shy of us getting to meet her and the woman who adopted him died when he was nine and the next woman that raised him died just a few years ago of Alzheimer's; not even recognizing him the last several years of her life. Then, here is this woman who has held his memory in her heart for 52 years and loves him immediately upon meeting him.

After we left visiting with grandma (or Me-maw as they say in the South), we went to the cemetery where my grandma, my dad's mom, is buried.

We ate BBQ that night and I ate a hush puppie (I liked it) and fried pie (I LOVED THAT!). I could definitely adjust my diet to southern cooking. Of course, Darrel cooked every meal for us and he's quite the host when it comes to whipping up a meal (sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy along with homemade jam--and that was just for one breakfast!)

Debbie, Maegan, Bethany, Darrel, Sara, me and my dad

It was a very wonderful trip. I felt at home with these people. They are wonderful and accepting and so much fun. I want to visit again and continue to nurture this wonderful new family that I have been blessed to find.

Who Do You Look Like?

2010-03-09T09:28:00.000-08:00

It's interesting how each person seems to see your children differently. I, personally, don't see myself in Ryanna at all. I think she looks completely like Derek's side of the family: brown eyes (Derek's mom is the only grandparent with brown eyes), darker toned skin, skinny, skinny body. All of those things make me think Derek's family.

Ryanna

Derek and His older sister

Now Owen, with his bigger frame and blonde hair and hazel/greenish eyes, I can see my family more clearly there.

Owen--that smile!

Me and Owen with our blonde hair--at least he doesn't have a sunburn!

Though I definitely see a part of Derek's face shape in Owen.

Eli, I still don't know which family members I see there. He does get really tiny eyes when he smiles like I do. Funny, I think it's so cute on him, but I hate it for myself. Aren't we always our own worst critics?

Eli

Me--maybe I look like Eli?

His smile gets me too!

Any Eli in little Derek?

So, last week we were at Owen's soccer practice and the coach comes up to talk to us and notices Ryanna and Eli. "Are these all yours?" he asked Derek. Derek responded affirmatively that we were indeed the parents. To which the coach responded, "They all look like your wife."

The next day at the soccer game, which I was unable to attend, another parent made the same comment to Derek.

Now, I tend to take strangers views on which of the children look like which parent with a little more validity given that these strangers didn't grow up with me or Derek, so they don't have the bias which people who have known you for a long time may have.

However, this idea, I just can't buy. All of my kids look just like me? How can that be when they all look different from each other? I thought I'd post some of Derek's baby pics and some of mine and some of our kids and then you can tell me who you see...

Maybe I'm just wondering about all of this because I'm finally making the trip to meet my dad's biological family. Yes, on Thursday I leave for Arkansas to meet my own great grandma for the FIRST time. Pretty amazing. I'm so excited. I guess I'm wondering too...do I look anything like that side of the family? Any habits that were genetic? Is that even possible? Guess I'll find out in a few days!

Bargain Madness

2010-02-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

On Monday I had to run some errands with the boys which took me to a part of town I don't usually go. After we finished up the errands, I asked Owen if he wanted to go to Saver's to see what they had. Eli had been feeling sickly and we all really needed to get out of the house.
We pulled into the parking lot and I noticed there were quite a few cars, but didn't think anything of it until we walked into the store which was pure pandemonium. I looked around and saw women with shopping carts heaped with clothing--seriously about 60+ items in each cart. I still couldn't figure out what was going on until I heard someone say, "Yeah, everything in the store is 99 cents." What? Seriously? EVERYTHING?!?!?
Then, I became a bit anxious. I don't know what it is, but when I have the kids with me, I can't really take my time to look at anything, it's more of a quick browse and rush on, so that I can keep them entertained enough for me to get errands done. This was madness though. It reminded me of an event that BYU holds annually (at least they used to anyways) called something like The Rummage Sale. What it amounts to is that anything that has been turned in to the Lost and Found during the course of the school year and not claimed gets piled on tables to be sold. The one time I went we stood in line for two hours to get into the sale. Once they open the sale you have to calmly enter the ballroom (that's where they hold it, so you can imagine how much stuff is there), but then it's every woman for herself.
Because I didn't know about the sale and didn't arrive at the crack of dawn, a lot of stuff was gone, but I did manage to get two sweaters and a little jacket for myself--none of which I tried on with the mentality, "So what if it doesn't fit. It was only a dollar!" The best find were the two pairs of Banana Republic slacks in perfect condition for my husband--for the grand price of $2!
I kept thinking to myself, "Boy, my mother in law should be here. She'd come home with a complete set of china or some painting that would end up being a front for a Picasso."
You have to know my mother in law to appreciate her bargain savvyness. I usually go into Goodwill or Savers or such stores to get used books, but she goes in to find anything and everything. I like to go with her because, though I'm not a superstitious person, I think she's good luck. Really. You know how we all have different gifts? You know, some people have faith and other people have a good voice? Well, among the talents that lie within my mother in law is thrift store shopping.
I guess because I was still feeling pretty high on my Saver's find, I went to Goodwill to get some glass for a frame that had broken. We walked in and there were oodles of people. I almost started to get nervous again wondering what was going on, but it turns out it was nothing. However, I did manage to snag the complete hard back boxed set of the Eragon book series in perfect condition. I've never read them, but I've heard they are great. Besides the box sells for $67 and I paid $19.99. Maybe if I keep working, I can develop my thrift store gift too!

Valentine Traditions

2010-02-14T05:50:00.000-08:00

Before I was ever married I remember hearing several stories about how Valentine's Day was a miserable holiday. In particular what caught my attention was how married women felt abused because their husbands didn't remember to get them anything or because the wife had given her husband a wonderful Valentine's Day the year before only to feel completely ignored the next year. I didn't want any of this to describe my Valentine experience.

So, the first year Derek and I were married I took care of Valentine's. Derek bought me some cinnamon lip candies (which I have discovered since we moved from Utah are not easy to find and yes, there is something different about them vs. the cinnamon bear candy) and I made him a yummy homemade dinner and bought him a favorite CD and we celebrated in our little, basement apartment--just the two of us. I still remember that Valentine's Day because it set the tone for the rest of them. They didn't have to be grandiose to be special. Just remembering each other was what mattered.

We decided that year that I would be in charge of Valentine's Day celebrations every year while Derek would be in charge of anniversary celebrations every year. That way each of us had an entire year to plan for the other person and there would never be any hurt feelings. It has worked beautifully. I look forward with great anticipation each year to planning a fun date for my Valentine.

This year I was able to surprise Derek. Last year, for one reason or another, he discovered every single thing I had planned as a surprise. But not this year! I reserved a racquetball court for us to play for an hour before we headed to dinner at Trader Vic's in Scottsdale. The food was super yummy and I had a sweet coupon through one of my new favorite discoveries: Groupon! If you don't know about it--you should. It's wonderful. Though, I do think you need to live in a large city to access the benefits.We finished off the night by watching the Olympics--my FAVORITE thing to watch every two years.

I love you Derek!!! Thanks for being a wonderful Valentine.

Oh, and earlier that day we took the kids to Goldfield, AZ, for a fun family outing (Thanks for the idea Alacey & Melissa). It's an old mining town that you can go and tour. Here are some recent photos.

We made shish kabobs at home (Owen was getting oil all over his clothes hence the lack of a shirt). These turned out super yummy--you should get the marinade recipe from me.

Since we had the coals all ready we toasted marshmallows for our Family Home Evening Treat.

Squeezing our HOME GROWN lemons for lemonade.

Goldfield, Arizona

The Superstition Mountains

Do the deed--do the time.

Owen the Soccer Mobster

2010-01-17T19:31:00.000-08:00

In a rare and never before published interview, this reporter gets inside the head of the star player for the Gilbert Thunder Soccer Team.

Reporter: Owen how has being on this team changed your perception of the game of soccer?

Owen: You know, it used to be so innocent. Me and my dad would kick the ball around in our backyard. It was good times. Life was so uncomplicated, but the field, that's different. Those kids are trying to take the ball away from me!

Reporter: So, when everyone comes to the center of the field to kick the ball, how do you get in the zone?

Owen: Well, I enjoy kicking the ball and then standing there frozen in my kicking stance. Why would I chase after the ball? I'm a star not a rookie. I've proven myself at my "home" field.

Reporter: And what about your critics who say you play a dirty game finding kids who are shorter than you (there are actually kids shorter than him), and pushing them or shaking your fist in their faces? (All of this did occur.)

Owen: I guess those kids should know that I came to kick the ball and if they are going to attempt to kick the ball too, they are going to have to pay.

So, the verdict is left to the people. Is Owen merely the shortest bully you've ever seen on a soccer field or is he pure, uncontrolled talent? His shorts may touch his ankles and his x-small shirt may be large enough to fit his older sister, but he is a threat nonetheless. With no yellow or red cards to be handed out, will this star continue his reign of terror or will his coach finally have to bench his ego for the sake of the whole team?

Owen conferencing with his coach about their strategy.

***This interviewer reserves the right to interpret all actions on the field as actual dialogue.

Friday's Lessons

2010-01-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

I learned the following things this Friday. None of which I wanted to learn.

1. Our house is apparently built on a bit of a slope. At least I gathered that from the water running out from under the bathroom door, into the hallway and on its way to the laundry room. But, wait, I forgot my first lesson.

.5 A scream coming from a three year old located in your bathroom is probably not going to end well. Now we're back on track.

2. Though I thought that my three year old would know not to use half a roll of toilet paper in one bathroom session, this information is not intuitive as I supposed.

3. There is a valve located to the left of your toilet that you should immediately turn off when you see water spilling out of the toilet bowl.

4. You may be grateful for several things in your life and these items may change hourly. But, at least once in your life, you're going to be grateful for a plunger.

5. You may also be grateful to own a Hoover WetVac mop.

6. It's not easy to move your washing machine all by yourself (even if it is empty).

7. In your attempt to not immediately harm your child, should you send him upstairs, you will probably learn that the child was traumatized enough to not do as instructed which is to say put on underwear and pants.

8. This naked child will crawl on his bed for comfort.

9. That naked bum will probably not be clean even though half a roll was used in that very cleaning procedure.

10. You will now be washing a comforter from your child's bed.

Lessons learned. Really. All learned. Glad my New Year's resolution wasn't patience!

My Least Favorite Holiday

2009-12-31T15:47:00.000-08:00

I've never looked forward to the actual New Year's Holiday. I think it's because of the let down I've always felt. A little bit like a graduation experience. Somehow, by dressing up in a goofy robe, walking across a stage and being handed a diploma, I should feel different.

It may also have something to do with the idea that I'm staying up really late in anticipation of some change happening. The only thing that seems to happen is with less sleep, I'm a bit grouchier the next day.

Well, hopefully, this year will be a bit different in my recognition of my anticipation issues. I've scaled down my expectations in a big way--nothing is going to be changing with the year advancing. At least nothing is going to change with the striking of the clock. I've also added one resolution to my list this year.

That's right just one.

Perhaps it sounds weak--only one resolution?

Of course I have many more qualities and issues I need to change, but with years past I've found the more changes I attempted to make at one time, the less I actually accomplished. So, just one goal this year and I'm going to try my hardest to make it happen.

This New Year I'm realistic and I'm happy.

Little Sayings to Record

2009-12-14T13:15:00.000-08:00

These are all courtesy of Owen--the resident 3 year old.

Two weeks ago driving in the car, from the back seat I hear:

Owen: "That makes Jesus really mad."

Me: "What makes Jesus mad?"

Owen: "When you cut down his plants it makes him really mad."

A little too much exposure to Al Gore or too many "green" commericals on Disney? Who's to know?

Last week while he and Eli are bathing in the tub, Eli starts crying:

Me: Why is Eli crying? (I can tell you that it's because Owen dumped a bucket of water on his head, but it's good to allow a child to confess right?)

Owen: I don't know. I think it's because he wants those things.

Me: What things?

Owen: Your things mom. Pointing to his chest, "Those big things you have here."

Me: Why do you think he wants those?

Owen: Because that's what you do, you give him those and he's happy.

Me: Well, Eli's too old to do that now. He just gets food now.

I could sense Owen's disappointment for Eli's loss. What a caring brother.

I Used to Be...

2009-12-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

Fun.
I think I was anyway.
I sure hope I was.
I like to envision myself as fun, but now I am boring.
I must be because I can't think of anything to blog about.
Well, actually, I've thought of a few things to blog about, but before my fingers could hit the keyboard, I lost steam. Yeah, not even partial drafts of blog posts, but absolutely no blog posts.
Maybe that means I'm still fun, but lazy. Yeah, maybe I'm lazy, but I don't feel lazy. I mean sometimes I feel lazy when I find myself getting excited about putting the kids to bed, so that I can break out the foods I hide from them, so I don't have to share. (lazy and selfish a bit too)
I feel stressed sometimes during the holidays. I've been debating back and forth, back and forth. Do I do treats for friends? I've done them every single year since I started the tradition. Even when Owen was only three weeks old. Even when Eli was only a month and a half old. I did those treat plates and I really like taking a little bit of love to my friends, but I'm debating doing it at all this year.
I've been cold. Yeah, it's been cold for us. Down in the 50s or some other frigid temperature I don't want to feel. I want to have temperate weather. I endure those 100+ degree days to have winters where I wear my sandals everywhere. I've had to wear socks all week! Socks.
Phew, I sound really whiney. I'm not meaning to. The cold does this to me. Well, I'm also a bit hungry too. It's my first time fasting in about two years. Not that anyone is counting, but I've only got 53 minutes left to go.
I shouldn't even post this because it's really lame, but my mom requested I update my blog. Boy, she's going to be impressed huh? 52 minutes and counting...

Family Pictures!

2009-11-21T12:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's time to vote again. Of course Derek and I don't agree, so which one is your favorite? I'm talking a picture of the whole family. The others are just for your enjoyment.

#1 (above)

#2 (above)

#3 (above)

#4 (above)

#5 (above)

72 Hour Survival

2009-11-01T20:09:00.001-08:00

This last month our Bishop challenged us twice to live in various states of emergency. The first challenge involved having no water for several days--except the water we had on hand (although he didn't prevent us from going to the store to buy more). The second challenge was to live without power for several days.

Knowing that these challenges were going to be thrust upon me really got me motivated to get our 72 hour kits in order. I have never bought a single item towards this. I have worked on my general food storage, but never my GET OUT OF YOUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW kit. Don't you think that's a more appropriate name? Anyway, I got the most fabulous book from my husband last Christmas called It Wasn't Raining When Noah Built the Ark. It's written, coincidentally by my Bishop's Wife's sister Tami Girsberger.

I have to say that the whole food storage, 72 hour kit, general disaster preparedness had always completely overwhelmed me, so I did what I do when coping with situations like that--try to forget it and then get really stressed out when the topic was brought up because I hadn't done anything. Well, when the book was published last year, the Bishop's wife brought it to book club to show us. I flipped through it and was drawn to it immediately because of the simple way it was broken down. I thought that doing the preparedness thing for my family may seem do-able after all.

So, I don't want to type out a huge list of items to tell you what I put in my bags, but I do want to say some of the general things I didn't necessarily think of that she tells you to put in.

1. N95 dust mask. This makes a lot of sense--what if there's something in the air that you're not supposed to be breathing? Especially in Arizona, there's a ton of dirt and if there were a windstorm and we had to leave you might need to have one of these handy. You can get them at Wal-mart in the painting aisle.

2. Road Map. I got a map of our local area and better yet I bought it already laminated. If it were raining or we threw the backpack down in a puddle of water, I'd be fine. If I have to leave on foot or in a car, then I can tell where I'm going.

3. Emergency Phone Numbers. Before the day of cell phones, I used to memorize phone numbers. Now I know about five phone numbers it seems. And, if I'm panicked? I know I wouldn't remember anything. I'm thinking poison control, police department, neighbors, long distance relatives...

4. Suitcase Tags. You know how hard it is to determine which of those black suitcases belongs to which person when you're at the airport? Well, I bought five backpacks (red for the men and purpley flowers for the girls). I'm thinking of a situation in New Orleans where everyone was thrown into the football stadium with what they had brought. With a tag on the bag, I can easily know whose bag it is and if it's lost, they can find me.

5. Cards. Playing cards. Who knows where we'll be and for how long? Better to have something to entertain the kids and it hardly takes any room.

Anyway, if you're interested in this--a great book for Christmas--you can get it from Deseret Book or on amazon.

What about your 72 hour kits--what did you put in that you thought was super smart, but not everyone may consider?

Hall-o-weenie

2009-10-29T14:11:00.001-07:00

Ryanna was supposed to be this for Halloween:

However, before OCTOBER even arrived, some smart mom in New Jersey snatched up every last costume from Pottery Barn and has been selling them on ebay for over $300 a pop! However, I did find a great replica on etsy!

And, since she wanted to be a cupcake, I was going to have Owen be his speciality--a hamburger--again. However, my mom, Queen of Halloween Costumes, thought Owen should have a new food costume, so he became:

And Eli, he did get to use an old costume--Ryanna's first ever Halloween costume:

What a scrumptious buffet! (It was COLD last night, so Ryanna had to wear pants instead of just cute tights or leggings.)

And these are some random Halloween ghosts I made for a little treat!

Tina + Me = A Winning Combination

2009-10-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

My friend Tina posted a picture of a skirt she had made for her daughter Maryn a little while ago. Of course, I don't know how to sew (I've sewn a few things, but not in many years and I've never sewn anything you can wear--successfully sewn anything you can wear that is.). So, I had to tell Tina that I was in love with the skirt she had made and told her I wish she lived closer, so she could help me to sew such a cute skirt for my own daughter.

Tina, being the amazing friend that she is, emailed me and told me if I'd pick out some fabric and mail it to her, she'd send me back a completed skirt.

How could I pass up such an offer?

The hardest part for me was picking out the material. The first fabric that caught my eye was red and it was so cute. I tried and tried to get a winning combination going on, but it was not happening. Once I switched to blue combos it all came together. Then, I was really on a roll, so I picked out enough fabric for another skirt as well. Doesn't that show you what a good friend Tina is?

Anyway, here they are! SOOOO CUTE!

Stop Making Me Fat!

2009-10-12T22:15:00.000-07:00

(This is my favorite photo of me and some of my closest friends.)

(I'm pregnant in both of these photos, but they show a lot of happiness!)

The other day I was feeling a bit glum because I had been trying to reach a good friend and she hadn't returned any of my calls or emails. Sometimes stuff like that bothers me, but other times it's no big deal. I stewed on it a couple of days and kind of let it get to me. Then, I decided it was silly to let some unknown explanation cause me to be down. I don't know what it was exactly that helped me to feel better or to just "let it go," as the saying goes. However, I haven't felt down since.

Now, I may have the answer. It's here. To sum it up, ('cause it's a rather long, but well worth the read 'cause it's a fascinating article) it may not have been my fault that I was glum. Perhaps it was because my neighbor's daughter had a bad day that I was feeling a bit blue. No, I'm not joking. There's a theory called the "'three degrees of influence' rule about human behavior: We are tied not just to those around us, but to others in a web that stretches farther than we know." In other words, the effect we have on other people doesn't disappear until three people later. Kind of hard to understand in the abstract, but here's a good example:

"Smoking, they discovered, also appeared to spread socially — in fact, a friend taking up smoking increased your chance of lighting up by 36 percent, and if you had a three-degrees-removed friend who started smoking, you were 11 percent more likely to do the same. Drinking spread socially, as did happiness and even loneliness. And in each case one’s individual influence stretched out three degrees before it faded out. "

AND

"But how, exactly, could obesity or happiness spread through so many links? Between one immediate peer and another, some contagious behaviors — like smoking — seem pretty commonsensical. If lots of people around you are smoking, there’s going to be peer pressure for you to start, whereas if nobody’s smoking, you’ll be more likely to stop. But the simple peer-pressure explanation doesn’t work as well with happiness or obesity: we don’t often urge people around us to eat more or implore them to be happier. (In any case, simply telling someone to be happier or unhappier isn’t likely to work.) Instead, Christakis and Fowler hypothesize that these behaviors spread partly through the subconscious social signals that we pick up from those around us, which serve as cues to what is considered normal behavior. Scientists have been documenting this phenomenon; for example, experiments have shown that if a person is seated next to someone who’s eating more, he will eat more, too, unwittingly calibrating his sense of what constitutes a normal meal. Christakis and Fowler suspect that as friends around us become heavier, we gradually change our mental picture of what “obese” looks like and give ourselves tacit permission to add pounds. With happiness, the two argue that the contagion may be even more deeply subconscious: the spread of good or bad feelings, they say, might be driven partly by “mirror neurons” in the brain that automatically mimic what we see in the faces of those around us — which is why looking at photographs of smiling people can itself often lift your mood. "

Sure, you could say, oh just a coincidence. Or you could go a bit further and say what's the causation/correlation there? Do we gravitate toward people who share similar interests and that explains why we tend to spend time with people who share our views, our builds, our beliefs? I'm not quite sure myself that I'm sold on the whole idea, but it is fascinating to think about.

You might then say, "Well, I want to be thin, so I'll only hang out with skinny people," but according to the theory that may not be enough right? After all the people you're hanging out with are being influenced by their own three degrees of influence which may be putting pressure on them to eat more.

Another idea that was presented in the article that fascinated me dealt with friendship. I've always treasured friends because none of my siblings are close to my age, so I was raised as an only child. I would say I have a large group of friends that are important to me. I'm very intrigued by people and their decisions. I like to know everyone's story. So, what else did the study find?

"The subconscious nature of emotional mirroring might explain one of the more curious findings in their research: If you want to be happy, what’s most important is to have lots of friends. Historically, we have often thought that having a small cluster of tight, long-term friends is crucial to being happy. But Christakis and Fowler found that the happiest people in Framingham were those who had the most connections, even if the relationships weren’t necessarily deep ones.
The reason these people were the happiest, the duo theorize, is that happiness doesn’t come only from having deep, heart-to-heart talks. It also comes from having daily exposure to many small moments of contagious happiness. When you frequently see other people smile — at home, in the street, at your local bar — your spirits are repeatedly affected by your mirroring of their emotional state."

So, what I'm saying is, let's be friends. But please, watch what you eat, I'm trying to get thin!

What Happened?

2009-10-07T17:27:00.000-07:00

Remember this?

Yes, just one year ago I had my third child. He was so cute and tiny! Now, he's grown and grown and grown some more (though he's still quite tiny for his age). I really can't believe he's a year old today. Yesterday I mourned the loss of my baby. Not that he's that different from yesterday to today, but reaching that year mark signifies a lot of changes that have occurred and will yet occur.

It's amazing how a person can grow and develop so much in only one year. We love you Eli.

Finding My Roots (the Finale!)

2009-10-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

So, I don't know if you are all bored to tears about hearing about this story, but I really need to get some of these details down while I can.
So, you may remember in the story of my dad's adoption that his birth mom was married at the time she gave birth, but she wasn't married to my dad's biological father. Does that all make sense? This story is so clear in my mind and these people are so real to me now that I find myself feeling them and telling their story so easily that I forget not everyone is following as closely as I am. So, for convenience sake, I'm going to provide some code names to make the story more easy to follow.

Biological Mom: Marie
Biological Dad: Alex
Man Married to Biological Mom: Lyle

There, clear as mud? Okay, so on with the story...
Lyle is a 20 something year old truck driver living in Colorado. His route takes him to destinations in Memphis, Tennessee, and Dallas, Texas. However, his loading port is in Arkansas.
One day while Lyle is waiting to get his truck filled in Arkansas, he decides to get a limemade. He ventures over to the local pharmacy which has a soda fountain in the back. Working at the soda fountain is the most beautiful blonde he's ever seen (No, it's not me, I'm not even born yet! It's Marie). He buys his limemade and chats with the woman for a while.
From that point on, every time he's in town, he stops in and chats and pretty soon he begins to date Marie. At some point in their dating, Lyle encounters Alex who makes it quite clear to Lyle that he is infringing on his territory by dating Marie. Lyle is not deterred by this and continues to date Marie anyway.
After they date seriously for quite some time, Lyle decides to ask Marie to marry him. She agrees. He drives back to Colorado to get the ring and places it on her finger making the engagement official. They never get around to setting a date, but after dating for several months, something changes. On one trip to down to Arkansas, Marie gives Lyle back his ring and says she can't marry him. She offers no other explanation. Lyle is heartbroken. He is in love, he wants to be with Marie forever.
Luckily for Lyle, his route is changed right after this happens and he doesn't have to go to Arkansas anymore. He still thinks of Marie and what could have been, but he hears nothing more until about a year later when he gets a letter in the mail.
Marie writes that she's made a mistake. She loves Lyle. She still wants to marry him. Would it be possible? Lyle is thrilled! Of course he wants to be with Marie. His only condition is that they get married right away. Marie agrees. He drives his truck down, picks her up and brings her back to Colorado and within a short time (a couple of weeks?) they are married.
Married life is great for the young, happy couple. Lyle is still gone often because that's what truckers do, but he knows he gets to come home to his gorgeous wife. Then, only two months after they tie the knot Lyle gets the strangest impression that Marie is pregnant. Hmmmm... He knows that's not a nice thing to accuse a woman of. Besides, he's probably wrong. Maries eats hardly anything at all and since they've been married she's only had the very slightest of a bump show. Perhaps if there's something amiss he should give her the opportunity to talk to him when she's ready. So, Lyle says nothing.
Flash forward to a month later. The newlyweds have just enjoyed a great dinner and Marie heads to the bedroom to change for bed. All of a sudden she's back out in the kitchen, crying.

"What's wrong?" asks Lyle.

"My water has broke. We have to go to the hospital. I'm in labor." states Marie.

Without throwing a fit or passing out from shock, Lyle helps his new wife to the hosptial. As soon as they arrive she tells the staff that she is not keeping the baby. The staff ask if she wants to see or hold the baby.

"I don't want to see it. I don't want to even look at it," she says.

By the next morning, my dad makes his entrance into the world. Small, but completely healthy. He is whisked away never to be seen or touched by the woman who carried her secret for so many torturous months, never revealing to the father, to her parents, to even her own husband what she probably couldn't face herself.
As for the rest of the story. That's for me and my family to know. Who is this man Lyle? This man who had this wild and difficult situation thrust upon him as a new husband. This man who stayed with his wife for a week after the baby's birth to care for her. This man who forgave her and never brought it up again. This man who readily spoke with me about intimate details that mean more to me than he'll ever know. It has been life altering. I can't imagine someone who could be as quick to forgive as he was. Someone who is so sweet and kind.
Here he is, nearing 80 years of life and I walk into the picture and he not only provides a story, he provides friendship. Yes, he too wants to meet me and my dad. I can hardly wait to meet this man and give him a huge hug. He's a sweetheart.
This whole experience....It's been hard for me to put into words. Sure, I can tell the story without any problem, but the emotions that come with it are so deep. I don't know if I've ever had feelings like this before. I feel so blessed. I feel so loved. I feel so peaceful.
Oh and one last, tiny detail. Lyle said that I solved a huge problem for him. You see, he has these wedding photos of him and Marie and he didn't know what would become of them when he died. There are no children that would need them, so he figured they'd probably just be thrown away. Instead, he's sending them to me. Yes, I will have a wedding photo of my very own grandma. Amazing. Simply amazing. Call it a coincidence if you like that he's held onto that picture for 50 years and through two other marriages. I call it divine intervention. I can hardly wait. So peaceful? Yes, but still so excited!!!

Ready to Fall In Love

2009-09-24T17:47:00.000-07:00

Fall is about so many things that Arizona isn't. Fall is about beautiful leaf changes. Fall is about soup. Mmmm-mmmm. (I made a batch of homemade potato soup on Monday. I had forgotten just how much this made and we've been eating it all week.) Fall is about long sleeves. It's about darker colors on your clothing. It's about chilly nights where you eat your yummy soup. (Yes, most everything in life revolves around food for me.) It's about those beautiful leaves crunching under your shoes as you walk. It's about jackets. It's about homemade chocolate chip cookies and milk (although for me this this last theme pretty much runs year round.)

To contrast this, fall in Arizona is about so many different things. While most of the people I know are starting to venture inside from their beautiful summer weather, we Arizonans are finally emerging from our air conditioned homes. My Grandma was telling me that her garden froze this week. In return, I told her how it had finally cooled down to the 90s so that we could play in the park without my kids getting third degree burns. The plants, instead of dropping their leaves, can finally bloom. I wear the same clothes I did all summer only I don't sweat quite so badly while wearing them.

So, what's the difference? The only difference really lies with my choices. I can cook soups and bake foods that will fill the house with heat without needing to turn on every available fan. And let's not forget about decorating the house. I think I finally get why my college roommates from Arizona would be giddy over decorating our apartment with pumpkins and gold and red items. It's a fake it till you make it attitude down here in the desert.

So much of how we perceive the holidays really does come from our memories of those seasons from our youth. Growing up in Colorado there was such a contrast between summer and fall, winter and spring.

Growing up here, my kids will really only know the difference between hot and wonderful. All those in between times of year are a bit lost on them. My kids will not have the images and memories that I have of fall. It'll be different for them. Makes me want to move them further north, so they can gain an appreciation of this wonderful time of year. But then I see black ice and people stranded by blizzards when winter comes and then I shake my head, put on my flip flops and walk outside to water my flowers.

The Prize Winner From Defiance, Ohio

2009-09-13T20:29:00.001-07:00

Last night we watched The Prize Winner From Defiance, Ohio. A random selection from the library. It ended up reminding me of how many qualities or lack thereof that I would love to improve or change in myself.

The mother, Evelyn Ryan, raised 10 kids by winning competitions during the 1950s for writing lyrics or jingles for different brands. She was married and a lot of the movie focused on the relationship between her and her husband. He was an alcoholic who really loved his family, but couldn't get over his addiction enough to ever help his family to have what they needed. His heart was mostly in the right spot, but his flesh was weak as the saying goes.

What stood out to me was Evelyn's attitude. Here she is married to an alcoholic who spends money on his liquor before thinking of his own children or wife, yet she continually tries to show him love. In one contest she wins a timed trip through the supermarket which allows her to fill up one cart full of items. She asks each child what they want and even when her husband feels silly about the whole thing, she finally gets out of him what his request would be. Given that she's got a family of 12 to consider, this trip would be a great opportunity to fill her cart with necessities--hamburger, beans, etc. But, she uses the experience for more than that and fills the cart with items that they've never tried because they've never been able to afford them. Even though the kids don't necessarily even like the items she brings home, she still provides them with an opportunity to experience something new.

At home, as they are all trying out the various new foods, her husband is angry--who knows why, it appears that he's jealous of her success--and throws out a bunch of the expensive food she wins while everyone is celebrating with her. It is a perfect opportunity for her to be angry and feel slighted. A great chance to yell at him and justify how at least she provides something for her kids to eat while he only thinks of himself. But what does she do? She ignores his outburst and instead goes and gets him the item he requested as a special treat and graciously and lovingly hands it to him telling him to enjoy his dinner.

How often am I turning the other cheek when I feel slighted? How often am I looking at mistakes my children or others make that interfere with my schedule and shrugging them off because we all make mistakes after all.

I find it amusing and frustrating all at the same time when Owen throws a fit about a situation not working out how he's pictured it in his mind, yet don't I show a little bit of the same emotions when I get impatient with someone else? Aren't I just as much a child in my progression when I envy someone else's talents, but not take into account the discipline and dedication involved in the pursuit of that accomplishment? How often, in an argument, do I try to justify my own actions and point out faults on someone else's part, instead of turning the other cheek? How wonderful is my ability to notice detail if I only use it to criticize negatively?

I love these movies and I hate them all at the same time. I really want to have this woman's can do, patient attitude, but yet I find myself being frustrated and upset over inconsequential things. I tried really hard to be sweet and slow to anger for at least the first half of the day and then I got tired and my kids were being really loud and I yelled. Would Evelyn have done that? Probably not, but I did. Here I am raising three kids and I can't make it a single day while she happily raised ten kids with an alcoholic husband.

I'm not naive enough to believe she was infallible, but it does cause me to sit back and question my own person and how much I need to work on. It also causes me to feel extremely grateful. I have a husband who is reliable and cares for my needs. I have friends that I get to visit because I have time. I have a wonderful life that is much easier than Evelyn's, so I need to step it up and appreciate what I have.

Labor Day Activities

2009-09-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

Labor Day dawns and of course everyone feels slightly sick and mostly sick and I don't want to do my exercises. So I cheat and we go on a "family walk" which means we walk a little and talk a lot to neighbors. Oh I'm definitely sweating by the end of the walk, but not because of exertion.
Why is it that my plans to rock as a parent and plan the most fun Labor Day in history--based around entertaining my kids and not entertaining me (I would be entertained by napping and venturing to Sonic)--never go as planned?
Within the first ten minutes of Labor Day dawning, my two year old has thrown three fits. I'm not exaggerating either. He has some serious bi-polar issues going on in his life right now. Plus, he has these HUGE lips he inherited from me and they are really extra good for pouting, so should I really stop that talent in action? When he isn't pouting about me asking him to do something really hard like not cough in my face, he's throwing a tantrum about how he can't perfectly kick a ball or his legs don't run fast enough. Seriously. He throws fits about how his legs don't run fast enough. What kind of a wacky perfectionist am I raising here?
We do manage the walk I mentioned, so part one of my plan is accomplished. Then, we hurriedly eat lunch to go to the dollar theatre to see Up. Only, we get there in time to be persons #1,467, 1,468, 1,469 and 1,470 in line with only one poor soul working the ticket booth. I quickly reassess and determine that we can get a Red Box movie and eat snacks at home.
The kids each pick their favorite snack--Ryanna picks popcorn and Owen picks dried fruit. Yes, dried fruit. Apparently there's some good parenting going on sometime at our home. I watch about 20 minutes of the movie and fall asleep.
Finally, we end the day by visiting Organ Stop Pizza. The kids love, love, love this place. The pizza's not Papa John's, but it's fine and the organ is really cool for the kids.
Whew, I'm ready for those kids to go to sleep! What a day.

Oh BROTHER!!! (Sequel to Finding My Roots)

2009-08-31T16:08:00.000-07:00

Imagine coming home from your job. You're tired, you want to just relax. Your mom comes over for a visit and tells you that she has a letter for you to read. She hands you the letter and you wonder what in the world this could be. After reading the letter your mom tells you that she's checked with other family members to make sure that this information is accurate and then you realize that today you gained a relative--a half brother to be exact.
Last Friday I received a call from my dad's BROTHER!!! You'll remember from my first posting that his biological mom had no other children. However, his biological father married and had one son. They were unable to ever have any other children, so their son was raised as an only child. Now, 49 years later he discovers he has a brother.
I can't tell you how completely overwhelmed and shocked both my dad's brother and his mom were (still are!). He said to me, "I never had a brother before." They both told me numeous times that their dad/husband never knew that my dad ever existed. They said he's not the type of man to abandon a child. He and his wife were married for 50 years and she said they didn't keep anything from each other.
Now, do they have any information to help me fill in the gaps? A little, just a few scant details told from his sisters who are still living. These sisters remember my dad's mom and their brother dated for a while. One sister said she even remembers that after the relationship ended, she overheard a conversation where someone has said that there was a rumor that my dad's biological mom was pregnant. The sister forgot about it and never did follow up on it. Turns out, as we all know, it was no rumor. No one was ever able to verify the information anyway, because my dad's mom married a different man and moved across the country.
As I said, I feel like with the little bits of information that are coming in, I just keep having more and more questions. Obviously she never told the biological father that she was pregnant, but why? I'm not upset because without everything happening the way it did, I wouldn't be here writing this. It's just all such a mystery and the people with the answers have all passed away. There's very little information left.
When I called my dad and told him I had just talked with his brother, he was excited. How could he not be? He's never had a brother before either.

He said, "Well, I guess you're done now."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you've found everyone. There's no one left," he said.

Hmmmm...I guess I'm done. But they are family, I don't feel like I'm really DONE per se. Just a little bit further in the journey. Now we get to schedule a trip to meet everyone. I'm excited. What a crazy trip--meeting my uncle for the first time. Meeting a great uncle for the first time. Cousins and cousins and cousins too. Will they look anything like me? Will my dad's brother have similar characteristics to him? I'm extremely curious to meet everyone and just get filled up with information.
With such a find I have to say how grateful I am to God. Seriously, the last couple of weeks I've felt so overwhelmingly blessed by the Spirit. It's amazing to have this opportunity.
Pictures will be coming...we're still planning the trip!

The Reluctant Hero

2009-08-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

Apparently even if your blood pressure is really low normally, you are still able to give blood. Even if that means that your blood pressure is say 91/58 like mine was this morning. Is it really trying to do a good deed when you go into it hoping that they will send you home? You know, like the kid who lost his right eye in 6th grade wood shop, but still tries to enlist as a sniper for the marines. Well, that was me about 6 hours ago.
I don't like needles, I can't watch them draw blood or give me shots or I pass out. My blood pressure is never high. Doesn't that disqualify me? Dang it, sorry, but I tried. I'll be going now, but where's that treat table that you have for everyone who comes?
WHAT? I can still donate with blood pressure like that? Okay then, ask me those questions again, maybe I forgot that I recently visited Europe and stayed there for over 5 years. I'm already feeling a little nauseated over the whole thing and perhaps it slipped my mind...
All right I'll follow you but, I go, like a lamb to the slaughter, to lie on one of those glorified lawn chairs while the girl tries to get one of my veins to pop out. No luck on the right arm. No duh, my veins are hiding, they know better. Stupid left arm veins. Can't you stay down there where you belong?
Why do you need to scrub my arm for 30 seconds? Isn't that the kind of torture I endure on my exercise videos? Hold that push up for 30 seconds, come on...you can do it. No I can't and I don't want to and please don't put that thing in my arm.
Too late, okay then, where can I look to not think about this situation? Let's see that guy straight across from me...Ugh, no I don't want to watch the blood flowing out of him. Why is he smiling? Show off. What is the deal with the blood see saw thingy? Is that supposed to help me throw up? What are we making cocktails for vampires later?
Why is it that blood can look so pretty, bright and red when it's only a drop or two, but when you see it flowing through a tube it looks like you've consumed serious Hershey's and your blood is mixed with equal parts chocolate? Ugh, why am I here again? Oh yeah, help the community, do a good deed, don't faint, don't look anywhere but to the people who are helping to check us in. Why did they dim the lights in here anyway? What are they trying to hide?
How much of my blood are they going to take by the way? My hand can barely squeeze that little contraption they've given me and I'm not feeling so hot. I'm sure they've taken every last ounce out of my left arm...can my arm work with no blood in it?
I'm done? YAY, let me the heck out of here. NO, I don't feel well. Was the first clue the fact that my arm shriveled up and looks like a six year old's? My face is white because you took all the blood out of every part of me? All right, I'll lie here for a minute, but only because you're making me.
Okay, I feel all better. Why can't I go? Baby steps? What? I have some grocery shopping to do, a cake to make at home, lots of things to do. All right, all right, I'll hold off for a while and try to relax while you drain the life out of everyone else. Maybe I should yell out a warning to those innocent victims waiting to be put through this same torture.
Phew, I made it out of there. This was a lot worse than I thought it would be. I hope whoever gets that blood really needs it because I don't think my body is keen on giving up what it worked so hard to make.

Finding My Roots

2009-08-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

February 6, 1958, a woman delivers a beautiful little boy. He's perfect as most babies are with 10 fingers and 10 toes. He weighs 6 pounds 12 ounces and is 21 inches long. Perhaps his mom holds him gently before signing the paperwork to relinquish her parental rights. Perhaps the pain associated with knowing he's not hers to keep prevents her from daring to even look at his face. And what about the father? Where is he? Does he want to keep this little bundle? Does he wonder if this baby has his talents and vices? These facts I may never know, but I do know that this baby grows up to be my father.

Yes, my father was adopted when he was six months old. Raised in a home with another adopted child. His adoptive mother died from cancer when he was only nine years old. I have the privilege of being honored with her name.

My dad provided me with all of his adoption paperwork about five years ago. I played around on the internet trying to see if I could locate his birth parents, but nothing could be found. I helped my dad to register for every free database that exists for adoptees, but I never felt we'd find anything there and my intutition proved true.

Flash forward to 2008. It was one of those nights where I couldn't sleep. I felt prompted to look through that adoption paperwork one more time. I always tried to read it and let my mind do some thinking to see if I could feel any questions spring to mind. I felt prompted to see if there is anyone out there who would be willing to help me with this quest for free. I know that locating this information can cost thousands of dollars and that's money I don't have. I locate a woman in Denver who emails me back at 5 am--apparently she's an early riser herself--and instructs me on all of the paperwork I need to fill out to make sure that I've done everything I can.

All of this paperwork doesn't bring me any closer to finding either of my biological grandparents. Then, she tells me that I can actually get what's called non-identifying information about my dad's adoption. We send away for the information in April of this year and six weeks later a few more puzzle pieces are revealed.

The key piece for me was the clue that my dad's birth mom was already married to another man when she gave birth to my dad. When I read that, I got another feeling that perhaps the last name that we'd had for her wasn't really her maiden name at all. However, having this clue still doesn't help me to know her name.

Then, in June another adoptee from Colorado wins his court battle against the state for the right to have access to his adoption file. This case changes the law in Colorado allowing all adopted children whose adoptions were finalized between 1950 and June of 1966 to get their original birth certificates. I am ecstatic. We're going to find her.

That birth certificate arrived at my dad's house on Monday and revealed that my intuition about her name was correct. I now have her maiden name in front of me and my dad is on the phone with me. I'm shaking so hard, I can hardly type; hardly think. I type in her name and the very first hit that google gives me is her obituary.

I have to pay to view her obituary and the next day, after much struggle with learning the hard way that gmail hides your spam folder, I gain password access to the obituary. I can hardly read. My eyes are jumping all over the page: Where are the names of all of her kids? What did she do for a living? Who else is alive that I can talk to about this?

I locate a current phone number for her brother. I dial and I am having heart tremors. What kind of a reception am I going to get from this man? Will he tell me he's not interested in digging up the past? Will he just hang up on me? I don't know if I can let it go with just that.

He doesn't answer his phone.

I call the nursing home where my great grandma is living (Yes she's living! Can you believe that? 92 years old and still very with it) and ask to talk to her. A male voice gets on the phone.

Him: "Hello?"

Me: "Hi. My name is Audrey."

Him: "Who?"

Me: "My name is Audrey. I don't really know how to explain this, but let me try. You had a sister named ______ (I'm choosing to not reveal this information on my blog for privacy reasons)."

Him: "Yes."

Me: "Do you remember that in 1958 she had a baby that she gave up for adoption?"

Him: "Yes."

Me: "That baby is my father."

Him: (excited voice) "Is that right?!"

I breath a huge sigh of relief and my heart rate goes down slightly.

Me: "Yes! I can't tell you how excited I am to meet you. To talk to you! I'm dying to find out some information if you're willing."

Him: "Well, yes, but this is the nursing home phone. Let me call you back in a few hours. When is a good time to call you?"

Me: "ANYtime you want to call is a good time for me."

Perhaps none of the rest of you noticed, but the next couple of hours crawled by. Did anyone feel the earth turn a bit more slowly on Tuesday?

My uncle has a southern drawl that I find adorable and is willing to share all of the information that he has available--which is hardly anything unfortunately.

I find out that my grandma was an extremely private woman who never told a sole she was pregnant until she went into labor--not even the man she was married to knew she was pregnant. She never spoke of the adoption or pregnancy again--at least to her brother or her own mother. She never revealed who the father was either though her own mother deduced the name from remembering back to the man she was dating. She never had any other kids for reasons that no one who is living seems to know. In other words, I know so much and I know so little all at the same time.

Within a few hours after locating her, I was able to locate my dad's biological father as well. He too is deceased. He died less than a year ago. I can't believe he only passed away less than a year ago! The question in this situation is whether or not he even knew that my dad existed. I have no idea if he did. His wife, whom he married the same year my dad was born, is still living, but her phone number is unlisted. I have written a letter and now all I can do is wait. Boy, I hope she knew about this because I can't imagine the shock it would be to find out about a child your husband fathered 51 years ago.

I hope she's kind. I hope she understands I just would like to see a picture...find out about his personality...see if I recognize my own features in him. I certainly am not interested in butting in where I'm not wanted, but my curiosity is insatiable about this situation.

So, even though I'll never be able to meet either one of my biological paternal grandparents, I have gained a sweet uncle and a great grandma. Not to mention all of the family that comes from them. Perhaps I'll get to meet them? I certainly hope so.

My dad with Ryanna.

8 Great Years!

2009-08-16T20:08:00.001-07:00

Happy Anniversary to you Derek--you lucky man you!

And, now for the top eight reasons you're the perfect man for me:

1. Just my height! I never have to stand on my tippy toes to kiss you and I never have a sore neck from giving you a kiss.

2. You make me laugh.

3. Your deep thoughts--I wish that we could share these before 11 pm at night, but there's something about going to bed that makes us philosophical.

4. Your kindness toward me. You've never yelled at me and you always say sorry first.

5. You balance me out even when I don't like it. I want dessert and you want more of the main course, I want chocolate and you want water, I want to be mad and you make me see the other side, you're the big picture thinker and I'm all about the details, etc.

6. You are such an incredible dad and huge supporter for me as a mom.

7. You're always trying to improve yourself. You never make me "just deal" with how you are. You always try to be a better person.

8. You love BYU football and really, the rest is just details.

Love you!

Dying for More?

2009-08-14T14:03:00.001-07:00

My friend Lara is moving across the country right now. I'm talking packed up her entire house, husband and three kids and moved from Utah to Michigan. Anyway, she asked me and a couple other friends to be guest bloggers on her blog while she couldn't be there. She has some sort of fancy contract because she's such a fabulous blogger that requires her to blog every so often. I was, of course, completely honored and intimidated, but I eeked out a piece about suitcases. You'll notice, if you read the woman who posted below mine, that hers is very deep and heartfelt, while mine is my typical whimsical nonsense. If you want to see it for yourself, go here:

http://lalakme.blogspot.com

It All Started With One Phone Call

2009-08-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

Me: "Hello?"

My Mom: "Hey. What're you doing?"

Me: "I'm getting my new dishwasher installed. What are you doing?"

My Mom: "I'm on my way to your house."

Me: "Wait, what?"

And that my friends is how our fun, quick weekend started. My mom and dad showed up in this:

For those of you who don't speak car this is a very, very fast Corvette. I'm talk 60 miles an hour in about 1/2 second. Almost faster than my Toyota minivan.

Then we did a little eating namely at such places as TC Eggington's, Jamba Juice and Chino Bandido (all in the same day).

We also did a little of this and I conquered with a very pitiful score which was barely over 100.

Then, just like Cinderella's gown turned into rags and her coach into a pumpkin, they disappeared on Sunday morning. They even took their race car with them. We were left with our minivan and clothes that barely fit due to the excess in consumption. It sure was fun though.

So Much Older

2009-08-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I turned 31. I'm old now. No really, I am. Let me tell you how the sad truth of this was discovered:

1. I was conducting in Primary last Sunday and I was reading the names of everyone in Primary that was going to have a birthday the coming week. I read my own name and got confused. Seriously, I didn't realize my birthday was only a week away.

2. About two months ago, I played a little backyard soccer with Derek and the kids. I was trying to steal the ball from Derek and he pushed my shoulder some weird way and my arm hurt for three weeks straight.

3. For my birthday, I was super excited about getting some projects done around the house.

4. My reason for putting blonde highlights in my hair has changed from looking cute to masking gray.

5. I don't buy cute shoes unless they are comfortable.

6. I drive a minivan and feel cool.

7. While I'm driving that minivan, I find myself changing radio stations all the time saying, "What is this garbage?"

Yes my friends, I'm old. I've reached that age where the young couples at church don't even think about befriending me because they look at the three kids and assume I couldn't be friends with them because I could never text back and forth with them. And, they are right! I have found the wonderful benefit of relaxing in my pjs all day after church and mostly anytime after dinner every evening. I don't go places to "be seen" only to try and find diversions for my brood. I look at college athletes and young policemen and think, "Do you even have your driver's license?"

Could be you're old too. Maybe you relate to some of this. Or, perhaps you're thinking, "Yeah, my parents do that stuff." I'm old. Old, but happy and that's the most important thing. No wait, happy and comfortable--now I'm complete.

Nursery--It's About Time!

2009-07-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

The other day Eli said to me, "Mother, it's been more than nine months since my arrival when do you plan to create a dazzling nursery for me to rest in comfort?" To which I replied, "Wow, I thought your first words would be 'Mom' and 'Dad'!"

Anyway, I decided I'd give it a try with some paint colors (Lolly I picked them all by myself and I expect a comment from you!) and this is what happened. The first picture is the before and you'll note that the green sheet hung over window shows what classy people we are. You'll be looking for the broken down car on blocks in our driveway next right?

Look at me so hard at work!

Now it's yellow with lines taped off for the upcoming stripe...

Inspiration and just plain cute! My friend Stephanie made these. She sells other artwork too. You can see her talent here.

The cute quilt my mom bought me.

The blue stripe.

The finished room. Although Owen is sleeping there until I get him a toddler bed. You can't see the stripe because of my mad photography skills.

Not too bad for a Saturday project!

It May Be 106, But Summer's Over!

2009-07-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, today marked the first day of first grade. A very exciting day for me and Ryanna. Although as of yesterday she couldn't decide if she was excited about it or not. She'd been telling everyone all summer that first grade was serious business because, "If you don't put your name on your paper, it goes straight to the trash!" So grown up, not like kindergarten at all.

I tried to get a gorgeous shot of her out with the green beauty that is my yard (who placed that nearly dead plant in my yard?), but the sun was a bit in her eyes and so I got some shots, but nothing that's going to change the world.

You know what will change the world though? Nine months of mobility and some carpet. That's right, we left our home a week and a half ago headed for cooler temperatures and family gatherings and came home with a completely mobile child. He's climbing everywhere and onto anything he can. Luckily, my kids come assembled with short legs, so he's not going up the stairs yet. He just crawls up to the first one and stands up next to it and slaps it with his hands as if to say, "Just wait, just wait!"

It Was a Wicked Good Weekend!

2009-07-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

My husband set up a fancy-schmansy theater date for us. Perhaps you can guess from the title of my post? You definitely can't tell from the one picture I took from our fun night out. (See below) Don't we look Pop-u-lar?

For our next adventure, we headed up to Flagstaff for the 4th of July. While we were there, the kids & I enjoyed some of this yummy dessert. (See below) What I didn't realize about said dessert until too late was that it had cappuccino! So much for a great night's sleep.

Then Derek dominated in his firm's three on three tournament.

And, since we were stuck in the van for a little while while it rained I taught Eli to be a gangsta'. Peace out!

Families Are Forever

2009-07-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

This morning was rough. You know, a day when all of the kids are up before the alarm can ring at 6 am. A morning where my internet won't work--STILL!!! A morning where I discovered that the load of dishes I started last night at 9 pm were still in process of being dried at 7 am (Will that food ever come off now?). Then, the baby started to get really cranky because--guess what?--he's not supposed to be up until 8:30 or so. Just a day where I was ready to call it quits around 11 am and head back to bed.

Instead, at 12 I headed to Owen's swim lessons. There was a new child there today. His mom sat right by me. We chatted a bit and laughed about how her little boy was so big compared to my small children. Then, she asked me how many kids I had. I pointed out all three. I asked her how many she had. She told me she had five but two were dead. I was shocked. What happened I asked? She told me that her oldest son had accidentally been electrocuted last year. He was 27. Then, later that year, she had a baby girl who was born with one of her lungs underdeveloped. She was pink and healthy and beautiful. The survival rate for that type of thing these days is 98%. Unfortunately, one of her doctors was too rough with the little girl and blew a hole in her lung. Then, he had the audacity to say, "It was for the best."

I sat next to this woman and heard her story and I just couldn't imagine someone saying that to me. Someone trying to play God with someone else's life. I realize doctors often are put in that situation, but to be so cavalier about your errant actions? To take a human life is unimaginable to me, but to do it without a modicum of remorse is sickening.

My heart went out to this mom who further explained that the huge age gap between her children was due to the fact that she's had to have all of them through invitro fertilization.

Then she said, "It's okay. I've had a lot of spiritual experiences related to the loss. I know that I'll have her again. She's mine."

Yes, you will have her again because Families are Forever. Isn't that the most wonderful promise of all? The people we love here on Earth can be with us in heaven as well.

I left the swim lesson feeling a little chastised for my self pity...reminded that my problems are small and easily overcome. I can go to sleep tonight and have a fresh start on all of them tomorrow. I love the promise of a new day. I love the knowledge we have of the eternal nature of families. I feel truly blessed.

16 and Pregnant

2009-06-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

I have to state in the beginning that I only happened upon this show because I couldn't find an episode of Law & Order to watch and Derek was gone. I don't usually watch MTV. I actually was especially interested in watching this show specifically because it was an MTV production. I was curious to see what kind of a spin they'd put on a situation like this.
The episode I saw has a cheerleader from South Dakota (maybe North Dakota? Who can tell them apart anyway?) who announces to us that she's already like 16 weeks pregnant by the time she could contact MTV and they could get their cameras rolling. She's a very pretty, ditzy, size 2 teenager whose closest friend is a very homosexual male cheerleader. Her mom drives around in a Mercedes sports car and her dad apparently works out of town all the time.
What surprises did the show bring me? Well, actually the biggest surprise wasn't the girl who was pregnant, it was her mom. The girl was extremely immature about the situation and bemoans her loss of her size 2 figure. She hopes she'll quickly be able to return to her usual size after the baby makes her appearance. Her mom makes a halfhearted attempt to tell her daughter that this baby would be better cared for by adopted parents (this girl's boyfriend is no longer in the picture and he finds out from local gossip about the pregnancy). The girl, whose name is Farrah, decides she wants to keep the baby and her mom supports her decision to keep the baby; however, she doesn't exactly help out with her great mothering after that point.
When they go to the hospital for a tour and to find out about labor, her mom tells her that it's all disgusting and she doesn't want to hear it. Um great, but your daughter is the pregnant one whose trying to learn about the situation.
Farrah tries to get a car, so that she can get a job and sometime go to school. Obviously, she has no income, so she looks to get something she views as affordable like a Ford Focus. Her mom tells her that she hates Ford Focuses and that's a stupid idea and they will not be going to look for that car. Great advice coming from someone who drives around a Mercedes Benz huh? During the course of this fight, the mom even hits Farrah and tells her she's had enough of Farrah's unChristlike ways. I think there's something about a mote and a beam that goes along with this, but I can't remember right now...
After the baby comes, the mom makes sure that Farrah bears the bulk of the responsibility for this baby which I do think is a good decision on her part--perhaps one of the few good decisions I saw the mom make. Farrah finds it hard to have the energy to do much of anything after being up all night with a newborn and her friends don't really relate to her since they don't have babies. Shocking I know.
I guess I was hoping that the show would emphasize more just how hard it is to be an unwed, teenage mom. Really, in this episode this girl had to deal with her crazy mom, but her mom still allowed her to live at home & she strongly encouraged her to continue with school. It could've been a lot worse. I almost felt as though the show could have the opposite effect it maybe is shooting for. At least I hope that it's aiming to show that teenage pregnancy is a bad idea.
I think a more convincing sell for the show would be to show opposing sides of this situation. I know several people who have/are struggling to get pregnant--people who are good, solid people with careers and education and love--people who could offer great homes to children. To show these great, stable couples searching so hard to find a baby to adopt vs. this teenager who doesn't even want to be pregnant, who isn't ready to be pregnant, who isn't equipped to be a parent. Although maybe my idea is a poor one--maybe it would cause teenagers who watch MTV to want to get pregnant in order to help out these couples? I don't know.
I just think that the hardest, most demanding job that I've ever done is parenting. It can certainly be easy if you want to do a poor job. It's sad that people who don't even want babies can get pregnant while people who want children more than anything can't make it happen. I also felt sad for Farrah because it was apparent to me that she probably will never accomplish any of her educational goals and where will that leave her? What kind of a guy is she going to marry to father her children? What will she tell her daughter about her dad?
The whole situation is sad. Really sad.

Why is that?

2009-06-22T21:52:00.000-07:00

Some girlfriends and I were at the pool with our kids the other day, so of course the conversation turned to shaving and other topics. When I came home to talk to Derek and get his take on the information he just shook his head and wanted to know how in the world we were able to talk openly about all of this stuff. Why is it that women can talk about such topics more openly than men?
Driving around lately I've noticed several vehicles with memorials listed on the back windshields. Things such as: In Memory of Christina and her birth and death dates. Now, I'm not trying to be inconsiderate, but what is the memorialization of? Are you driving safely to honor this individual? Did you buy this particular vehicle in honor of the individual? I guess I just don't get it. I understand tombstones--there's a body under there. But what's the car memorial about?
I was grocery shopping at Walmart last week. I went to the bakery to get the kids some free cookies. While I was waiting, I started watching this old lady look at the cinnamon breads. She opened a package and tore off the corner of a piece of the bread and ate it. She then closed the bread back up and put it back on the shelf and turned to other items. Hello? I told the bakery worker what I'd just seen and she went over and retrieved the bread while the lady was standing right there. Then, I see the bakery manager come out and ask the woman if she'd sampled the bread. The woman just got a big smile on her face and acted pleased that the bakery manager had been so courteous to locate this loaf for her. The lady put it in her cart and continued to shop. You would think that's bad enough, but no, I happened to run into this lady when I was finishing up my shopping in another part of the store. A look into her cart revealed no bread. I hope none of you bought it. Gross and gross. Now I'm going to have something else to be worried about when I shop: Wackos who eat bread and put it back thus exposing me to their crazy genes.

All Before 6 am

2009-06-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

5:19 am: Wake-up to get the baby who is wanting to nurse.

5:21 am: Think that I hear some noise downstairs, but assume it's probably my overactive imagination.

5:23 am: Hear another noise downstairs which sounds like silverware and wonder why anyone would choose to steal our silverware over our 2002 computer or our garage sale couches...

5:25 am: Derek rolls over; I make eye contact with his alarmingly large, scared eyes and whisper loudly, "There's someone in our house downstairs." (He always wakes up like I've told him there's a killer in the house, so his expression is no change from the normal.)

5:25:35seconds am: Derek jumps out of bed and tiptoes--as quietly as a man just startled from a deep sleep would--to our door where he cranes his neck to listen for the next noise.

5:25:36seconds am: The next noise.

5:25:39seconds am: Derek walks out our bedroom door without a backward glance at his wife and baby and goes to save his family.

5:25:43seconds am: Derek finds Ryanna in the kitchen making breakfast to surprise all of us.

5:26 am: Derek tells me that Ryanna had planned to surprise us this morning. Mission accomplished.

5:26:15seconds am: I request spouse to tell me what the plan of surprise is. He answers that she's making us breakfast.

5:27 am: I hear another noise and deposit sleeping child in his room and venture downstairs with total fear--a six year old loose in a kitchen--any mom knows what I'm talking about here.

5:27:15 seconds am: Ryanna yells, "Surprise!" And I am. And what do I find? An English muffin with peanut butter and honey on it for me to eat. She's made Derek a peanut butter and honey sandwich already in its ziploc bag and sitting on the corner of the counter ready for him to go to work and she's in process of making something for Owen to eat. I tell her she's very sweet and I'm going to go back to bed for a little bit, so she can finish up.

5:30 am: Ryanna, "Mom, where are the eggs?" Which phrase causes me to get out of bed again and tell her that she absolutely is not allowed to use eggs by herself and definitely don't turn on the stove or oven. She's a smart girl, but let's not be crazy here.

5:40 am: I descend the stairs to find a present wrapped for me and one for Derek--which causes Owen to whine about his lack of a present--and the same note for each of us which reads, "Thank you for taking care of me." (No misspelled words either--a child after my own heart.) So, what were the presents? Well, Derek received the book The Ordways by William Humphrey and for me? Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter. Both books we already owned, but have not yet read.

Isn't she a sweet girl? How thoughtful of her to not just make breakfast for each of us, but to give us gifts and write us notes? What a lucky mom I am.

Interview with a two year old

2009-06-03T10:04:00.001-07:00

This is just funny. He is so clever and has such a great sense of humor. It must be genetic huh?

Texting: The New Anti-Social Problem?

2009-05-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not hip. I'm not in the loop. Therefore, I have never in my life sent a text. I know, I know, how have I survived? How do I know what's going on in the outside world? Well, I have these little devices called a computer and a telephone. Yes, my cell phone has texting capabilities--I only know because I've received some texts from one of my girlfriends.
Yes, I know about how much people want to constantly communicate, but of course, not by ever hearing or seeing each other. When my friend got divorced, she was eventually thrust into the world of dating once again. While we were visiting one day, her phone was going berserk. It wasn't phone calls though, it was the new way to stay in touch--texting. Of course I was curious..
Me: "Why is your phone vibrating all the time? You must have a million people trying to reach you."
Her: "No, it's just people texting me."
Me: "Why would they do that when it takes so much time? Isn't it a lot easier to call?"
Her: "Well, once you've done it for a while, it's actually pretty fast. This is how people communicate these days; they text. No one calls each other much."
Me: (baffled) "It seems like a lot of work to me..."
I'm still baffled by the cell phone/twitter/texting phenomenon. Since cell phones became available to the average Joe about 15 years ago, it seems that everywhere you go people are on their cell phones. Whether they are talking or texting, it seems that we Americans feel the need to be constantly in touch. What is it that is sooo important that we couldn't say it from the privacy of our homes? What is that text that we absolutely can't wait to send off that is causing us to drive extremely slow and without looking at the road/cars/pedestrians in front of us? I don't know, I guess I must be just out of it.
However, haven't you started wondering about the stats on this crazy addiction? There's a great NY Times piece here that talks all about it. Some of the interesting info I found was:

Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif., recently surveyed students at two local high schools and said he found that many were routinely sending hundreds of texts every day.
“That’s one every few minutes,” he said. “Then you hear that these kids are responding to texts late at night. That’s going to cause sleep issues in an age group that’s already plagued with sleep issues.”

AND

“Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” she said. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs.”
Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Professor Turkle went on, “but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that’s harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?’ ”

Of course the physical problems too:

Texting may also be taking a toll on teenagers’ thumbs. Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. A few months ago, she noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs. (Lately, she has been using the iPhone she got for her 15th birthday, and she says texting is slower and less painful.)
Peter W. Johnson, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, said it was too early to tell whether this kind of stress is damaging. But he added,
“Based on our experiences with computer users, we know intensive repetitive use of the upper extremities can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, so we have some reason to be concerned that too much texting could lead to temporary or permanent damage to the thumbs.”

I guess as much as I'm baffled by the whole situation, I'm also a little disturbed. What's it going to be like when my daughter enters this stage? I don't want to be texting her a million times a day to find her. I've heard other adults who interact with teenagers say that the only way they can reach them is through texting--that they don't respond to phone calls or email anymore. Wow. Isn't it sad that technology that is supposed to be bringing us closer to each other is actually causing a bit of a wedge in the way that interact? I mean, I don't feel comfortable calling you, but I will take a few seconds to send you some text?

As great as this internet/wireless situation is, there are some serious downsides to it as well. I recently read this great talk by David A. Bednar where he shared this story:

Ric Hoogestraat is “a burly [53-year-old] man with a long gray ponytail, thick sideburns and a salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache. … [Ric spends] six hours a night and often 14 hours at a stretch on weekends as Dutch Hoorenbeek, his six-foot-nine, muscular … cyber-self. The character looks like a younger, physically enhanced version of [Ric].”
“[He] sits at his computer with the blinds drawn. … While his wife, Sue, watches television in the living room, Mr. Hoogestraat chats online with what appears on the screen to be a tall, slim redhead.
“He’s never met the woman outside of the computer world of Second Life, a well-chronicled digital fantasyland. … He’s never so much as spoken to her on the telephone. But their relationship has taken on curiously real dimensions. They own two dogs, pay a mortgage together and spend hours [in their cyberspace world] shopping at the mall and taking long motorcycle rides. … Their bond is so strong that three months ago, Mr. Hoogestraat asked Janet Spielman, the 38-year-old Canadian woman who controls the redhead, to become his virtual wife.
“The woman he’s legally wed to is not amused. ‘It’s really devastating,’ says Sue Hoogestraat, … who has been married to Mr. Hoogestraat for seven months.”

Isn't it super tricky that to think that when we're texting we're really being social, but in all actuality:
"important opportunities are missed for developing and improving interpersonal skills, for laughing and crying together, and for creating a rich and enduring bond of emotional intimacy. Progressively, seemingly innocent entertainment can become a form of pernicious enslavement.
To feel the warmth of a tender hug from an eternal companion or to see the sincerity in the eyes of another person as testimony is shared—all of these things experienced as they really are through the instrument of our physical body—could be sacrificed for a high fidelity fantasy that has no lasting value." (Bednar's talk again)

I just know that for me, there's something so dangerous about anything that is so addictive that it causes us physical pain and prevents us from making decisions on our own. I know it is certainly something that has value in many instances, but I just have to wonder, where's it going to lead?