Bedtime

This is how it all went down tonight. After family prayer, husband was off to church meetings. Then, while one child brushed his teeth...

The other children hid a crayon somewhere in the family room.

(I know, I know, Parker did not hide his own crayon. These are just the only pictures I took.)

Then we played a rousing game we like to call "Boola Boola".

(And I am not the only one singing, I am just the loudest one singing and its embarrassing, ok!?!)

This way, everyone had a turn to brush teeth and find the crayon.

Unfortunately, this fun little game did not eliminate the following comments by me after the game:

"Who needs a drink?" (4 times)

"GO GET A DRINK!"

"Three times going potty is enough. I'm sure you got it all out this time!"

"Please go to bed." (5 times)

"GO BACK TO BED!....PLEASE!"

"STAY IN BED!!!"

"Please grant me patience....if I hear one more...."

Cute little girl: "Mom, I just wanted to give you a hug and say I love you."

"I love you too."

(Now go to bed.)

Please sit down!!!

Look and See!

LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENING TO OUR BASEMENT THIS WEEK!!!

Valentines Dinner

The obligatory valentine's dinner post. Again, it was red, red, red for dinner. Spagetti, garlic cheese biscuits, mixed veggies, red jello, and strawberry milk in special glasses (thank you Dollar Tree). The kids have been looking forward to that strawberry milk ALL WEEK LONG!

Rachel loved it so much, we could barely get her face out of her glass long enough to eat. When she finally came up for breath after her second glass, she didn't want dinner anymore. So we excused her to go play.

So this year for Valentines, Sterling sent me a bouquet of flowers. And his timing was just perfect. I was out in the cul-de-sac with 4 other neighbor ladies when the flower truck pulled up. Talk about scoring points. All the ladies whistled and commended Sterling on his thoughtfulness. And I couldn't have been more proud to be his wife. (To clarify, lots of things make me proud to be his wife. This is one of them.)

Then I found out he asked Bro. Finken to ask me to speak in Sacrament meeting. Bah. Actually, I was happy to do it. I was asked on Friday afternoon to speak that Sunday (the 14th) and so I didn't have too long to fret over it. Except all Sunday morning until 1:00 and then I was the closing speaker. And the other speakers left me 25 minutes of the meeting. My topic was the second great commandment, to love thy neighbor as thyself (Luke 10:25-37). So I told the story of the Good Samaritan and tried to dramatize it a little to make it stretch. It worked. I spoke for 20 minutes. Not bad.

Then it was the special valentine's dinner. Then off to stake choir practice for stake conference. One of the songs we are siging is "Behold the Wounds in Jesus' Hands." Have you heard of it? Its beautiful.

First nephew wed

Congratulations Mitch and Nikki, on your temple wedding!

And welcome to the family, Nikki!

My girls think you are a princess. I think they are right.

P.S. the cupcakes at your reception were really yummy.

Another Milestone

Camille learned to ride a 2-Wheeler!!! She's been ready for a while but just not interested. Well, today was the day. Her friend was outside riding and invited her to come out and play. Before I knew it, the garage was open, her bike was out and she was pushing herself along with her feet. So I went out and helped her get started and on the first try she was riding on her own. She just had to make the decision in her own time, on her own terms.

I still help her get started and sometimes she tips over, but she's doing great and I am sooo proud of her!

And I was so happy to see this today.

Its been a long time since the kids have been outside playing. If it weren't for the snow, you'd think it might be spring. The warm spell we've been having has been nice. I know its going to dump snow again, several times, before spring. But I'll take the warm up while its here.

Valentine playgroup craft

Today was another playgroup, and as usual, we did a small craft activity.
Heart and straw necklaces.

Supplies:
Yarn
toothpics
tape
straws
colored paper cut into heart shapes
hole punch for hearts.

First off, I cut lengths of string that would fit over the kids' heads. Then I taped one end of the yarn to a toothpick (for the needle part). Then I tied the other end to a small piece of straw so nothing would fall off the end of the yarn.

Here are the hearts and straws, ready to be strung.

It was a little difficult at first for the 2 year olds to figure out how to string the toothpick through the straw or heart and then pull them down the length of the string.

"Help me, Mommy."

But after a few tries, they were able to do it on their own. I think they all enjoyed learning a new skill.

And the finished product was adorable!

Prepared!

Last night I went to check on Parker before going to bed myself.

This is what I found.

Sweet Tomatoes!!! He is so cute.

I love this boy.

Love Him!

(And the night flash on my camera is awesome. It was completely dark in the room when I took this picture.)

Life of a lobbyist - week 2

180 emails every day. Every Day! That Lobbyist's best-pal phone of his is buzzing all day long and some of the night. His mind is jumping from property rights, to animal rights, to water rights, to tax and revenue, to animal treatment, to environmental issues. At a moment's notice, he may be called to answer questions on any number of different topics.

I told him, "You must know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff!"
He answered, "I'm like the Mississippi. Wide and shallow."
He was joking though. He really does know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. He's not an expert on all of it but he can definitely speak intelligently about the important issues facing farmers and ranchers today.

One such issue is "streambed access." Have you heard of it? The following newsclip tells a little of the story and also includes Sterling around 1 minute 30 seconds.

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

My meager understanding:
There are 3 bills on the hill regarding this issue. One strongly favors outdoorsmen, particularly fishermen. One strongly favors private property owners (ranchers/farmers) and one falls somewhere in the middle.

This is the story as I understand it, but I'm only a 3rd person hear-sayer. But it is an interesting look into how things work, from a waaaaay outsider. (Please keep in mind this is coming from an inexperienced, housewife, who likes a good story)

The bill favoring "fishers" has been public and ready to go for a while now. It was set to run in the House in an appropriate committee (natural resource something-or-other). But it kept getting pushed back because another Rep. had a bill (favoring private property) that hadn't been made public yet because he was putting the final touches on the wording and he is friends with the rules committee leader, who determines which bills are heard and when. So anyway, when Rep. "fishers" found out about this other bill and the purpose of the delays, she found a Sen. to run it in the Senate, most likely in a different committee (tax and revenue something-or-other) in order to push it through. Splitting the bills would make it hard to compare them and make it easier to push one over the other. So Ster had to help find a Sen. to run the pro-private rights bill in the Senate and try to get it in the appropriate committe. Anyway, its a sticky situation and all sorts of people are feeling railroaded and underhanded and if you asked the other side, I'm sure we could be perceived as the bad guys. From what I understand, this is the 3rd year this issue has been battled on and who knows if its over yet.

But isn't it interesting? How things work on the Hill. Week 2 is over and the battles still rage. Yes, that was plural. Battles. Lots of them.

Slow and Easy

Have you ever wondered what a "man-style" shopping list looks like?

That shopping list was compiled to help install this...

...our new FIREPLACE. I'm very excited about this one. Rachel calls the little white stones in front of the logs "icecubes." Too cute. Now we are getting ready for our insulation inspection before we can sheetrock. We have literally loads of insulation in the basement right now. It makes me cough.

The girls have enjoyed perching on top of it. They are eating sheets of ice they found outside. I don't know where exactly they found it. I hope its...ahem...clean. And they took about 5 kitchen washclothes outside to help with the ice harvest. I'm pretty positive that most of those washclothes did not make it back inside the house.

Rachel has really enjoyed riding the wiggle car downstairs. She's pretty fast, thus the blurry pictures. She just doesn't stop.

And FYI, for my own sweet memory sake,

... if I never see another ounce of this fire-wall-proof-foam- JUNK, I will die happy. Ster had to insert it everywhere, it seemed like. I'm glad we're finished with that. Yuck.

So the basement is coming along. Slow and easy, especially since Ster is so busy with the legislative session right now. But that's alright. At least its coming along.

Great passage

I've been reading "A Long Fatal Love Chase" for bookclub this month. What kind of trashy romance-addicted, froo-froo, shallow bookclub do I attend, you ask? Its actually a great bookclub and this novel is not trashy. In fact, it is written by Louisa May Alcott. She wrote it a couple of years before "Little Women." It was actually deemed "too sensational" to publish when she originally wrote it and was later discovered by this current publishers in 1993.

Anyway, it was a fun romantic thriller to read well written. I feel compelled to record one of my favorite passages. It is set after the hero and villain fight and the hero wins. The following is a description of the hero.

"Few men had ever conquered Tempest in anything and he felt
superior to most; but this man surpassed him in strength, skill,
courage and magnanimity, for, hard as he was, Tempest still felt the beauty
of a generous act, a noble word.

"Ignatius had conquered in love and war;
had borne insult meekly for himself,
had avenged it manfully for another,
had given compassion for contempt,
and having won the victory generously spared his enemy."

But the story is far from over at that point and Tempest is not so changed as he may seem at that moment of defeat. So if you want a good romance thriller to read during the Valentine season, this is a good pick.

School Project

What was I up to last week? Well, I'll give you some hints...

* it involved a book
* we used paper, glue, the color printer and spellcheck
* it involved Sydney
* we used my sewing machine

Sydney's book report this month was in the form of a "Wax Museum." She had to read a biography and research a historical person, then put together a poster of that person and dress up for a presentation. She chose Sacajawea. We had a lot of fun together, creating her poster.

The crowning event was a museum the 3rd grade set up in the cafeteria. The whole school and parents were invited to walk through and look at all the posters and 'wax' replicas of the historical figures. Sydney and I took an old maternity shirt of mine and transformed it into her indian costume. It turned out nicely.

The little girls and I had a lot of fun going to the school and walking through the museum. Sydney looked adorable. And now she's an expert on Sacajawea. Ask her anything. She's got the answer. 100 % Way to go Syd.