Our Adventures

We've been busy out and about having fun and learning about nature and animals.
We went to the "U Pick" farm to get strawberries to make strawberry freezer jam. We met with three other families, so there were 14 children total. The kids had a fun time gathering strawberries. Lydia was the cutest to watch. She had a little green basket and gathered her own strawberries. She was insistent to carry it herself and every time I tried to carry it for her she protested, holding it tighter to herself. She dropped the basket many times and re-gathered her berries into the basket, covered in dirt. Even when I put her in her car seat she insisted to hold them on the ride home.

The picture of Tom in an apron fast asleep in his bed was from last week when Tom had been playing "kitchen" in the girls room at bed time. He was sad when I said it was time to put it away and go to sleep. Always one who wants to be prepared, he went to bed in his chef uniform, ready to play when he woke in the morning.

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These last pictures are from the "Imaginarium" - a wonderfully fun, hands on learning place. The kids got to pet a baby alligator, a tarantula, a snake, and stingrays. Even little Lydia petted each of them - she was particularly taken with the tarantula. Charlie got to feed the stingrays, the other kids were a little too nervous to feed them.

I don't have any pictures, but my sister Susan came to visit for the weekend. It went all too quickly. We picked her up Thursday night at the Ft. Lauderdale airport and had dinner at the IHop before coming home. Friday we went to the beach for a few hours. Saturday we spent many hours at the pool with other friends and later Sue and I went to the California Pizza Kitchen - so I could share my favorite dinner of "Pear and Gorgonzalla Pizza" with her. Sunday it was rainy all day, but we were able to take her to the beach one last time at sunset, so she could enjoy it one last time before she had to leave early this morning.
Thanks Sue for coming to visit - it was short, but worth it, we enjoyed having you.

Inspiring Story

Here is a eye opening story of what it means to be "rich" verses "poor".

The Rich Family In Church
By Eddie Ogan

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. When we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1.

We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.

We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.

But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night.

We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed—I didn't even want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way.

Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because I have Jesus!

Getting Ready for Conference

The church website now has a page dedicated to printouts and activities for general conference for kids. I think I might print out the notebook pages for myself as well. They have a picture of each person and then lines for taking notes.
It has been nice that this month's theme in Primary is Prophets and each week we have been learning verses to the song "Follow the Prophet" and have also been singing the 12 apostles to the tune of "Books of the Book of Mormon" in the Primary song book. Additionally, I have been working with my boys to memorize the poem in this month's Friend magazine "I Love to See the Prophet". Tom gave it as his talk in Primary and was so excited that he was able to do the first verse by himself.

Flying fingers

Here's a pianist with talent - boy can his fingers fly.

10 years later

Okay, so here is my dear husband 10 years later.

Not quite so baby face as he was 10 years ago, but he doesn't really have a beard, just once last year and now he's trying it again this year, but every day he threatens to shave it off. I really like his beard, oddly enough, he looks really good with a beard, however, the beard combined with the mesh-back hat screams "Redneck" and I don't claim him as mine when he is wearing that hat.

Today was such a beautiful day, but did you know that it was daylight savings time change today? I did not, luckily I wasn't the only one late to church today. Primary was fun. We had the jr Primary kids act out some of the Old Testiment prophet stories and then sing the verse from "Follow the Prophet". The senior primary kids, by class, taught the rest of us the song verse of one of the old testiment prophets. It was fun to get them involved and I'm glad that was the plan for today because my lungs are very irritated and trying to sing sent my into coughing fits.

After church I was so tired. Jeremy had stayed home with Tom, who also has a cough, and he had the kitchen all clean and food ready to make dinner - it was such a nice thing to come home to. My throat was sore from coughing, so I indulged and had a large bowl of ice cream for lunch. I don't eat ice cream very often, I prefer cookies for a treat, but that cold, creamy ice cream felt so good on my throat.

I kind of take Sunday as my day off from normal duties of food and kids and Jeremy is really good to indulge me. I dozed on the couch for awhile, it's amazing how much a lung cold takes out of me, and when I came to I saw 2 little naked bums running around the house. Lydia is into taking it all off, at least 10 times a day, so that was normal for her. Becca, however, is usually dressed, although it is in a different outfit about every 2 hours or so, so it was unusual to see her running around naked.

After curry stir fry for dinner, that Jeremy made, our friends, Fenus's and Prescott's were walking by and invited us to join them on a walk. It was such a pleasant evening, and it was so nice to get out of the house. I am so glad we have wonderful friends, and that they live near by. There are at least 6 others student/utah families that live really close by and they are all so wonderful and feel like family which is such a blessing since we live so far away from our family.

Young

Thank you for your input on my shoe dilemma. Unfortunately our van unexpectedly needed new tires, so my car gets the new treads instead of me. Oh well.
So today I am rearranging the home office so that my computer is in there, next to the printer, because even though the printer is "wireless" I don't seem to be able to set it up right, so I need to attach it via the cord. Now that it is all set up I wanted to try out the scanner so I can scan in some of our pre-digital photos.

This picture was taken about a month after Jeremy and I met. Next month we celebrate our 10 year anniversary. If I can get myself to be ambitious enough I would like to put together a nice book of our photos and memories from the past 10 years.
I'll kick it off with sharing the details behind the photo above.
That photo was taken Dec 4, 1999. My parents who lived in Sugar City, Idaho decided to come to Provo to celebrate their anniversary (which was a little out of character for my parents). I thought nothing of it at the time, I was just excited for them to meet Jeremy, who I had met the month before on an online singles website. We met my parents at the Hires restaurant in Provo and had a nice lunch and a nice conversation. The photo was taken after lunch out in the parking lot. I don't remember if it was my camera, Jeremy's camera, or my parents camera that took this photo. Meeting Jeremy in person put my parents at ease at the guy I had met online (the real reason they came to Provo) and I was happy my parents got to meet the man I was falling in love with (and am still in love with and will always be in love with).

New Shoes?

I've been wanting a new pair of shoes for a long time, but it is so hard to find shoes that I like. Most of the shoe places just don't seem to have any shoes that I like. So today I searched the internet and I was able to find a selection of shoes that I like. I just need to narrow it down and choose one pair.


I need help deciding, which one would you choose?

I need more imagination

When you see one of these beauties what do you think?
Old, out of date, don't want it.

 

But what if you had a little imagination, like these people did, and turn it into this.

I have my own real kitchen, but I want one of these for myself, but really, I think my kids would like it too. Here's the link for more pictures and info.

God's Love For Us

"Think of the purest, most all-consuming love you can imagine. Now multiply that love by an infinite amount--that is the measure of God's love for you." -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Intertube fun

Kids always find an alternate use for items. Becca brought the intertubes in the house and the girls found them to be great "movie watching" chairs.

 

However, it wasn't long before Lydia was sound asleep on the floor and Becca opted for a more comfortable chair to watch "snow white". 

  

I am so in love with these pictures. I'm excited at how well they turned out. I read an article about light source for taking photos and it an A+ tip, look at the light in those photos - completely unedited. Here is a link to that article if anyone is interested.

Tom

Tom is a cute kid who doesn't want to hold still long for the camera. I want a nice photo of each of my kids to hang on the wall (I didn't buy school photos, I figured I could do my own, but here it is the end of February and I still haven't done it, until today). He asked if we could just take two pictures and then he could be done. I told him it would be a few more than two, but it wouldn't take too long. After I had taken 10 shots, he asked if we were done yet. I said, "not yet, I need to get a good photo" and cute little Tom said, "they are all good pictures". Right you are Tom, all of your pictures are great because you are such a cute boy and that came out in each of the photos.

becca

 Becca is such a beautiful little girl. She is fun to photograph and it is so easy to get fabulous smiles out of her. Becca is three years old and full of life and fun. She laughs easily and loves to get others to laugh too. Becca is my story girl. She always is wanting stories read to her or told to her. At bedtime she likes me to make up stories and have everyone she loves be in the story. Becca also loves to dress up. This pink dress, in the photos, is in her dress up box and she has changed into it about three different times today, with other outfits in between each time.

Lydia

It's been a long time since I have done any digital scrapbooking. Ever since we moved (last August) my photoshop elements has not been working. Last week I took my computer to the Mac store and the wonderful people there got it working (for free) and now my kids and husband wonder if they will ever be able to separate me from my computer again. I just have so many months of catch up to do, and some relearning since I am rusty. I was brushing up my skills doing some tutorials on one of my favorite digiscrapbook sites (Jessica Sprague) and it inspired me to make this layout of my sweet Lydia.
Lydia is turning 18 months old this week, which means she goes into nursery at church next week. Jeremy will be glad for that, since he is the one that has her for the last two hours of church, while I am in Primary doing music time. I think she is excited. She has gone in there a few times when Jeremy or I have gone in to help and today when I told her about nursery she smiled and said "yea".  Lydia really is pure sweetness. Her sweet smile says it all - she really is as cute and sweet as she looks in those photos. I hope she always keeps her sweetness and her even temper, I need at least one child who is calm and sweet, I get too much drama from the others.

Florida Field Trip

I took the kids to an orange farm where we could pick our own oranges.

whole wheat bread

I had a fun time today making bread with friends. Some of my friends have expressed interest in learning to make bread and this week I finally did something about it. We got together this morning at my house and we started with grinding the wheat and then experienced the process of making bread - which after it was over they realized it's really quite easy and not time consuming to make bread. I can go from start to finish (bread out of the oven) in 1 1/2 hours, with only about 15-20 minutes of my time involved, the rest is rising time and cooking time. Of course our favorite part was eating the bread when it came fresh out of the oven.
Sharing this experience with my friends reinforced how much I love homemade bread and how much I love making it. Later I went over to help Kandis make bread at her house and Kara came too, and despite having spent the morning making bread there wasn't anything I would rather be doing. It felt so great to have a skill that I can share with others. Bread is such a yummy skill to have. Here's my recipe.

Perfect 100% Whole Wheat Bread
4 Cups WW flour
1 Tbls dough enhancer
1 Tbls high gluten flour
2 Tbls instant yeast (SAF brand is best)

    Mix the dry ingredients well and then add:
4 Cups water - hot, but not too hot

   Mix all together well and then let "sponge" for 15- 20 minutes (sponge= let sit without disturbing)
   Add in
 1 Tbls salt
1/3 Cup honey ( or sugar)
1/3 Cup oil
6-8 Cups WW flour

Add the additional flour one cup at a time until the sides of the bowl are clean and no dough is sticking to the sides. Be careful not to add too much flour - you don't want tough dough.
Knead bread in mixer for 7 minutes.
Make into 4 bread loaves. Let raise for 30 minutes (or until double in size, don't let it rise higher than the sides of the pan, it will rise a bit more while cooking).
Cook at 350 F for 30 minutes.

If you don't want to cook all four loaves at the same time, freeze some of them. After shaping, put in loaf pans and put in the freezer. After they have frozen wrap in plastic wrap. To use, let them thaw and raise and then cook them. I prefer to cook all the bread and after it cools, wrap and freeze some of the loaves and then pull them out an hour or so before needed, or can quite defrost in the microwave.

This dough also makes excellent rolls. I shape the rolls at the same time that I shape the loaves, but I let them rise until the bread is done baking (1 hour total) and then I bake them 15-20 minutes - I put them in as soon as the bread comes out.

Take time to laugh

Have you ever watched Brian Regan - he is the funniest comedian- my sides hurt from laughing. The video labeled "walkie talkie" is short and sooo funny.
Enjoy!

Cookies and mustaches

Charlie made mustaches for Tom and himself, I thought it was pretty clever. Tom wanted to make cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip is our favorite, and of course the dough is our favorite, the cooked ones are okay too, but really, it's all about the dough.

Fingerpainting

 

We did fingerpainting with Becca and Lydia today, we took off shirts so they didn't get dirty, but maybe I should make them some smocks to wear. The finger paint is homemade, I found an easy recipe. The girls enjoyed mixing the colors - Becca was all about making purple, and they loved how the  paint felt to smear around. I'm usually against messy projects, but I think I would do this one again with them.

Precious

How is it that the littlest, messiest, noisiest people are so precious? Lydia is such a stinker. For instance, right now while I am trying to type she is screaming, climbing all over me and trying to help me type, and mad that I won't let her.  But she is also so sweet. Just a moment before all the trauma she was giving me smiles and kisses. And now she is back to laughing and giggling and snuggling with me. 

I love her little feet - so little, so chubby, and the cute little toes.

I love to make her laugh - she has the cutest laugh.

She has crazy hair, not as crazy as Becca's, but still, it's crazy, although, it has a slight curliness  to it, I don't know where she gets that from. 

Lydia is my constant companion, she doesn't like to be out of my sight. Sometimes that is obnoxious, but I remind myself to enjoy it, although my little shadow is less than helpful sometimes (hands in everything while I'm trying to cook, pulling folded clothes on the floor, pulling things on the floor that I just put away) she won't stay little for much longer and soon I won't have a baby anymore

It's real

Yesterday was Jeremy's first day in his master's program. He went to orientation all day and then we went to an evening orientation for the students and their spouse. We met a few other students that are from Utah (I guess there are 8 students from Utah in Jeremy's class, this is becoming a popular school for Utah people, it's nice to have others from "home", it makes home feel a little less far away).
Today is Jeremy's first day of class. He has class all day Tuesday (three classes) and part day Thursday (one class). The rest of the time is study time.
Although we moved to Flordia 4 months ago, it finally feels like we are here for what we came for. It was nice to come early and get settled before school started, but it never felt real until now.

Camping

Last Monday Jeremy took Charlie and Tom camping. They went with some friends, Aaron and his boys Luke and Jordan, and Art and his son Nathan. They left Monday afternoon and returned Tuesday afternoon. They came home smelling like campfire, so I think they got the fire going okay, I think they even did smores. The dads all came home exhausted - sleeping on the ground is rough - Jeremy said he is going to get a cot before he goes camping again. The boys had a fabulous time and it is definitely one of the funnest things they have done recently.

The Good News

The following was so heart warming and uplifting that I wanted to share it.

"The Good News is that He who commands us to love is the most loving being in the universe. He is also the pleasantest. Heber C. Kimball provided a wonderful window on the soul of God:

Often when I have been in the presence of brother Brigham, we would feel such a buoyant spirit that when we began to talk we could not express our feelings, and so, "Hallelujah," says Brigham, "Glory to God," says I.  I feel it and say it.
Some of the brethren kind of turn their noses on one side at me when I make such expressions, but they would not do it if they knew God.  Such ones do not even know brothers Brigham and Heber; if they did they would not turn a wry face at us.  I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being.  Why?  Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have His Spirit.  That is one reason why I know; and another is--the Lord said, through Joseph Smith, "I delight in a glad heart and a cheerful countenance."  That arises from the perfection of His attributes; He is a jovial, lively person, and a beautiful man. (Journal of Discourses, Vol.4, p.222, emphasis added).

Was there ever a more ennobling and encouraging doctrine than the reality and goodness of God? Regularly each Latter-day Saint sings glibly that “I am a child of God.” When the significance of that truth settles into our hearts, it changes everything. We travel life’s byways under the watchful eye of a Father who understands us, loves us, and wants us home with Him. 
Knowing the character of such a Father, helps us progress. We are never more like our Heavenly Father than when we love others as He loves us. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (I John 4:11). "

Beach

We went to the beach twice this week. The first time was on Wednesday, late afternoon. We got there in time for sunset. The ocean was calm, the water was gently lapping the shore. The colors in the sky were soft pinks and blues. The sun was a deep orange. It was so peaceful and beautiful. If Lydia wouldn't have fallen in the water and gotten soaking wet and if Becca had eaten dinner instead of falling asleep and as consequence was now so hungry she didn't want to stay at the beach, we would have stayed longer to enjoy the beautiful evening. But, it was short lived and after 15 minutes we left, I was sad to leave such a beautiful scene.
Yesterday was our second time at the beach. While the boys were at school the rest of us decided the day was warm enough ( 80 degrees) that the beach should be pleasant. It's interesting how the ocean is so different from day to day. Wednesday it was calm and serene. Today it was quite the opposite. The waves were crashing into the beach and there was a dense fog that limited how far we could see - not even a hundred yards before the fog engulfed what was beyond that short distance. Although the air was warm, the water was cold. It was shocking the first time the water lapped my feet, but as always, it doesn't take long for the once cold water to seem pleasant. Walking along the beach with children, especially toddlers, who literally toddle along. There are shells to examine, and sand to scoop (and throw, that is Lydia's favorite thing), waves of water to chase and people to wave to. As we walked down the beach, away from the groupings of people who set up near the parking lot, the fog even further separated us from other people, and except for the occasional passerby who was also walking along the beach, we felt like the beach was our own private sanctuary. The fog made it seem dreamlike and the overall effect was so soothing.

Sidewalk chalk art

How are your skills in sidewalk chalk art? Check out this youtube video of some sidewalk art from two missionaries in Moscow Russia.

New Year

Happy New Year! Is it really 9 days into the new year already? How time flies. It's been rainy and cold so we've been indoors more this week. We wanted to go for a bike ride today, but it rained all day. The kids got to play with some friends this morning and then they spent a majority of the rest of the day building with legos. This picture isn't from today, I unfortunately didn't get a photo of today's creation. Jeremy and the boys come up with some great things. Just yesterday we added to our lego collection with a bucket of legos we found at a thrift store. All of our legos are second hand. They are too expensive from the store, so we keep our eyes out for used ones and so far have four buckets of legos, which apparently is enough to build large creations.

I wanted to share a link to Book of Mormon charts to mark off as you read the Book of Mormon. One in particular caught my eye. It is in the shape of a temple and by the time you read the whole Book of Mormon the temple is colored in. I want to post it in the living room and use it for our family scripture study so we can see our progress this year.