Staheli Farm

My friend, Mari Purdy, invited us to go to Staheli Farm today with their home-school group. Since our kids were out of school for UEA I thought it sounded like a great idea. I hadn't been there in years and it has changed a lot. All of our kids came (except for Janika who was doing baptisms for the dead with the Young Women). We went on the corn maze (which is difficult for direction-impaired people like me, especially since I had to carry Jenna along) but eventually my boys got me out.

Then the kids played at all of the activity stations. They went down the corn slide and played in the corn (like a big sand box except with corn kernels instead of sand). They tried the cannon shooter and the swings (they loved the rope swing). Josh's favorite was the rubber ducky races. Jenna is our animal lover and so she enjoyed petting all of the animals. We brought a picnic lunch along and probably would have stayed longer except we had to get Jared back for a birthday party.

Speaking of birthday parties. I brought all of the kids to go see "Toy Story 3" this afternoon to celebrate Janelle's birthday. She also invited two of her friends -- Genevieve and Layla Purdy. They three of them looked so cute together, I wish I had remembered to take a picture. Janika and I were the only ones who actually cried at the end of the movie when Andy reminisced about all of his toys as he lovingly gave them away to the little neighbor girl so that they would continue to be loved and played with. Man we are babies!

After cake and ice-cream the kids all played night games next door with the other neighborhood kids. What a fun day!! Now tomorrow I guess we need to catch up on all of the house work!!

Happy Birthday Janelle!

Janelle opened her presents this morning. She got markers, crayons, paints, a sketch pad, a book, lots of googly bandz (modeled by Jared below -- I guess these are the newest rage), a gum-ball machine, two teddy bears, and two packages of socks. She was very excited and appreciative of all of her gifts. She kept saying, "Thank you Mommy for buying me these presents!"

Janelle brought cookies to her class and came home from school with a big packet filled with birthday cards from all of the students. She had fun reading them all to us. Tonight we had cake and ice-cream (notice Jenna with puffed cheeks trying to blow out the candles too!) and then had a movie party in the basement, watching the new "Karate Kid." It was good (but a little painful to watch with all of that violent fighting -- OUCH!!)

Tomorrow the celebrations continue. We are going to the Staheli Farm and then Janelle is inviting two of her friends to join us at the Theatre to go see "Toy Story 3."

Here is a little bit about Janelle. Janelle is energetic and fun. She has always been very curious and asks the most random questions. She is so bright. She is an excellent reader and I have to sometimes tell her to put her book away so that she can get her jobs done. She does well in all of her school subjects and is also good at art. She loves to make creative art projects. She has a beautiful singing voice and has just started piano lessons and dance lessons. Janelle has a very sensitive heart. She will come up and give me or Dad a hug for no reason and say, "I love you!" She is very gracious and always remembers to say "thank you." Janelle is so funny when she watches movies because she will get so involved with the characters that she will shout out things like, "Oh no!" or she will ask a lot of questions, "Why is she doing that?" "Where are they going?" We always have to tell her to just be quiet and watch the movie.

Janelle is such a sweetheart. She is SO excited to be baptized in three weeks! We are so grateful that Janelle is part of our family -- We love you, Janelle!

The Birds and the Bees

Many years ago Rick and I were listening to one of Richard and Linda Eyre's parenting tapes while we were traveling in the car. One of the ideas they gave in this particular book was to talk to your child about the facts of life when he or she is 8 years old. They talked about having mini-discussions with your child from age three on which lead up to "the big talk" at age 8. They said that with each of their children they would have a special dinner with mom and dad and explain to their child how they were going to talk to them about something wonderful and incredibly important. We really liked the idea and have implemented it with all of our children. Apparently the Eyres even have a script you can follow but it has been years since we have read/listened to their book and so we haven't followed that but have just explained things in simple terms using a spiritual perspective.

I know I have had people say, "I can't imagine teaching my 8 year old about the facts of life -- he or she seems so young still." But we agree with the Eyres that it is better for them to learn true facts from parents in a loving environment with a spiritual perspective than to learn from the world's perspective on television or other ways.

Well, since Janelle is turning 8 years old, Rick and I planned for her special dinner. She is one of our most curious and inquisitive children and whenever she has brought up certain questions at home one of the older kids have said something to the effect, "don't worry, you will find out when you are eight!" Janelle is a little chatter box. In fact, she talked so much on the way to the restaurant that I wondered if we would even be able to get a word in. All the way to the restaurant we learned all of the details of her "Heads Up, Seven Up" game in school that day and how she got to be "leader of the day" and show her class five of her favorite items that she brought in a special bag.

We waited for a booth that offered privacy and told her all about the wonderful bodies that Heavenly Father has blessed us with. To find out what she already knew, we asked her about how a mommy and daddy get a baby. She launched right in with a matter-of-fact explanation about how there are cells from a mommy and cells from a daddy and those cells come together to make a baby. Then the baby grows and grows inside the mommy's tummy until it is time to be born. Then the mommy receives certain signals from the baby and knows that it is the right time for the baby to be born. We asked her how she knew all that and she said, "from a book!" Janelle is an avid reader and we do have a few childrens' books on the subject around the house and so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Of course we had to fill in the missing details but surprisingly enough she was as calm as could be. When we asked her if she had heard of the word "sex" she said, "No, but I have heard of the word "Saxaphone!"

We are pretty open about various topics in our household and so the kids already know a lot about puberty and the changes boys and girls go through well before the official school talk in the fifth grade. Janelle had lots of questions on the way home -- all spiritually related. "How were we born in heaven? Why did Satan want to force us to be good? Why did some people follow Satan instead of Heavenly Father?" So we had a nice, interesting talk all the way home.

Now that Janelle is 8 she thinks she gets to stay up late every night with the big kids. We did tell her that she gets to stay up and read scriptures with the three oldest now. Unfortunately we have to split up family reading time with the older kids and younger kids because the younger kids have no attention span and are loud and make reading pretty much impossible. So they get their separate reading time which usually includes the "Friend" magazine or a scripture story while the older kids get more grown up discussions. Well, Janelle is officially a "big kid" now -- in some ways at least. She will be baptized, she gets her own brand new BIG set of scriptures from her Grandma, she gets to stay up a little later, and she gets to fast on Fast Sundays (I don't know how excited she will be about fasting...) So many exciting things for our little girl to look forward to! We love you Janelle!

Attitude of Gratitude

Last night I attended a very nice fireside with my husband. I don't get to do that very often but he directs the Institute Choir and they were performing at the Young Adult Fireside at the Institute. Elder Wheeler from the Seventy gave a touching message of the Atonement of the Savior. His talk was also sprinkled with personality and humor. The choir sounded very nice singing one of my favorite songs, "Fount of Every Blessing." We came home but I wasn't feeling too well and opted to go to bed a little early. I woke up this morning feeling a little grumpy, brought on by a killer sore throat and chest congestion. After finally having a reprieve from weeks of allergy symptoms, now I was sick? Grumble, grumble. Then I stumbled to the scale to find I had gained a pound since yesterday. How can that be? How hard can it be to lose a measly ten pounds? I did a quick mental review of yesterday's meals -- Protein, fruit shake for breakfast, bowl of home-made chicken soup after church....we splurged with steak for dinner but I only had a small 4 oz piece and some green beans. Okay, I had some of my favorite Breyers peanut butter cup ice cream for dessert but only a little bit in a bowl hardly bigger than a medicine cup -- certainly not enough to warrant a pound of weight gain. Grumble, grumble. I walked into the kitchen to find a sink filled with dirty dishes left over from yesterday (more grumbles) and several bowls with a thin layer of dried up chocolate ice-cream still left out on the counters. Sigh. Feeling sorry for myself I decided that I definitely needed to listen to President Monson's General Conference talk on Gratitude while I did my kick-boxing workout. Thankfully, it did the trick -- just like going back to oil lamps did for the family in his story. I am so abundantly blessed! That little bit of extra fat that I whine about exemplifies the fact that we have plenty to eat. Besides the necessities, we also have yummy treats -- like peanut butter cup ice-cream! We are blessed with a big, beautiful, warm (or in this season, cool) home and even though it often easily slips into disarray, it is because of the wonderful blessing of seven healthy rambunctious running about. We live in a beautiful area -- in a free country. We have the knowledge of the gospel and loads of friends and wonderful extended family support. We have electricity (and Internet connection)! We can see, hear, run, laugh, play, and pray. Sometimes I guess I just need to turn the lights out, and the oil lamp on, to remember just how bright my life really is. It is not always as easy as it should be, which is why I am also eternally grateful for repentance. I am grateful for the chance to be able to drop into a soft warm bed at night and equally grateful for a brand new day each morning. With each day comes another chance to spend time with the ones I love -- a new chance to smile and laugh. A new chance to have an "Attitude of Gratitude!"

10-10-10 and Tenlee Jo

I borrowed these pictures from our niece's blog. Our nephew, Jake, and his wife Mikalyn, just had a baby girl today. Today's date is 10-10-10 and she was born in the 10th hour. So her name "Tenlee" definitely fits! We probably won't get to meet Tenlee Jo until Christmas. We still haven't seen my little brother and his wife's baby, Aniston! So we are doubly excited for Christmas to see all of these sweet new babies!

Deaf Branch Fall Lunch

I went shopping at Garage Sales this morning and got a lot of great finds -- some of which I am going to save for Christmas. We just re-financed to a 15 year loan on our house, which I am thrilled about! But it will make things a little tight financially. We figure it will be worth it though. So if that means filling in part of our Christmas with garage sale items (in great condition of course) then I am all for it!

So today was our Deaf Branch Fall Potluck. We had an enjoyable lunch with lots of good food.

Today was a busy day. Rick bought this HUGE box of chicken which then had to be cut and portioned to put in the freezer. So today was spent cutting up raw chicken while listening to Karen Kingbury's book on CD, "Shades of Blue," which left me crying the whole time. Her books will do that to you. Other books I have enjoyed from her (and of course bawled through) were "Even Now," "Oceans Apart," and "Ever After."

The missionaries came over for another sign language lesson. Janika was filling the air with the aroma of homemade chicken soup and so we also fed them before they left. Rick attended the temple and Janika and I cut up more chicken, bathed children, and put them to bed -- early!!

Weekly Events

This is just some day to day tidbits -- nothing really important but just little things I like to refer back to. Now that I am blogging, I don't really do my day to day journal entries like I used to. For about a year I did both the blog and the daily journal but it just got to be too hard to keep up with both and so I dropped the "everyday" journal but still try to include some of those simple everyday events in my blog so that I can have it for future reference. Plus if I bury this with last week's entries then hopefully no one will read it anyway.

Anyway, I was glad that our kids were able to walk with a neighbor mom for "Walk to School Day" today since I had an appointment this morning. I didn't know if the weather would clear up long enough but it did. Tonight for Scouts, Jase got to go to the Spectrum where they make our local newspaper. He said it was really neat and told me all about it when he got home. His school did cancel (or postpone) his fieldtrip to Zion's National Park Thursday though because of the weather so that was a little disappointing.

Friday afternoon I went and got my hair done. I had been procrastinating it for a long time. The gal who did my hair said that it would be better to come in at just one inch re-growth, two inches max because it would be cheaper and not take so long. So maybe I am not saving any money by waiting extra time in between appointments. Anyway, it took 3 1/2 hours! And after all that time I was disappointed with the results. I have gone to this place for years and usually like it but not today. I guess they were out of the hair color and so she used bleach instead (I didn't learn this until it was all done). So the bleach looked sort of white instead of blonde and that mixed with my brown (since I usually have two colors done put in -- one of my natural hair color and one blonde) gave my hair sort of a grayish tint. This has happened a couple of times before but not for many years. I wondered if I should go back in the next day to see if they could do anything about it but decided to wait a few days and then decided that it didn't look too bad. I will probably just wait until next month and then get some more blonde highlights put in.