Meme

Day or Night- well, it is a little after 7:00 a.m. at the moment. I’m not sure what this means. Do I like the day ? (absolutely!) or prefer the night? (sleep is heaven.)




Relationship? Pretty committed to my lawyer/cowboy husband. He's awesome. He's also at Scout camp this week (Aspen Ridge in Idaho.) He had such a hard weekend trying to get ready to go. Unloaded a huge load of hay. Spent hours fixing ongoing sprinkler problems. Then he got a spider bite (I think brown recluse) and he was sick for about 3 days (but continued to work.) Of course he wouldn't go to the Dr. (men!) so if his flesh starts sluffing off, I will say "I told you so" (but there is no satisfaction in that!)




Date? My niece Mallorie is living with us for the summer before she goes to Utah State. Although she is pretty entertaining and is my regular "date" , her constant "texting" drives me bonkers. But we really do have fun together. Playing hand and foot, watching movies. Last night we went to "Inception." How in the heck does someone even WRITE a film like that? Crazy. Crazy!


But for a real date, I would definitely say the Carole King/James Taylor concert that David and I went to last week.




Yesterday? Cleaned and cleaned. Didn’t even make a dent. Started the (drum roll) master closet! It is a huge work in progress. Not even close to being done.




Cook? Yesterday I made pasta with lemon juice, butter and Parmesan cheese with chopped fresh tomatoes on top. Also, no-bake cookies.



Exercise? Brendalyn and I have waned on our water aerobics. What can I say..... life gets in the way.




Happy? Hmmm. I’m happy that BFF Cathy’s son Kevin (my son Tanner’s BFF) and his wife, Lori, had their baby a month early and everything is great!




Sad? A couple of nights ago, baby Sadi fell over with a kitchen chair onto the wooden floor and pinched the end of her finger off! They spent the night up at Primary Children's hospital getting it reattached. I can't even imagine how painful!




Excited? In a few weeks is our anniversary and David and I are flying to California for a few days with our friends. Can’t wait!




Today? Maybe go to the temple with my daughter. Do something with Mallorie on our bucket list (things we need to/want to do before she leaves for college.) Work on my Sunday School lesson for this week (one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament- the story of Elijah and his duel with the priests of Baal.) Four year old Addi might come for a sleep-over tonight.




Music? I recently made a cd for my girl kiddos since we were spending so much time in the car. It has some oldies like Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (which we sing at the top of our lungs) and also lots of Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber. ("And I was like Baby, baby, baby ohhhh. Like baby, baby, baby, no...... (That’s my Justin impersonation.....) (I’m swinging my hair across my eyes while I’m strutting.)




Quote: "People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world your best and it may not be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."
-- Mother Teresa

Childhood Memories

Today some of the kiddos have their first day of school (year round.) We've tried to cram a lot of fun in the past week. I'm recovering today! I let the kids pick out more books (Parker and Gracie are running through the Wimpy Kids books faster than I can buy them, and Parker is also reading the Pendragon series.) We've bought some new little readers for Addison and Hallee Babe and this week they also picked out paper dolls and all the girls played and colored dresses for two days. We have swam a ton and watched movies (Old Dogs and also Free Willy) A couple of years ago I posted some favorite childhood memories but here is my expanded list.


1. playing jacks with my mom
2. hearing her fingernails click on the piano keys when she played
3. pulling pranks on my mom with my dad. We were ruthless.
4. anticipating going to Idaho to see my grandparents and cousins
5. picking asparagus along the canal banks with Deanna and cousins
6. beating boys in marbles (we played a lot of marbles)
7. kids t.v. shows (Mickey Mouse Club)
8. the mornings we had bread and gravy for breakfast instead of cereal (our cereal choices were shredded wheat, rice krispies, wheaties and cheerios.)
9. walking to Primary with friends after school and naming the houses
10. Primary and singing time...putting pennies in the box for Primary Children’s Hospital
11. playing baseball in the cow pasture (not our pasture)
12. having dad tie a sled by rope to the car and him giving us wild sled rides
13. ice skating on the pond during the winter
14. sleeping out in the backyard and making tents over the clothesline with blankets
15. pixie sticks and candy necklaces
16. when the Spudnut boy came around
17. racing out to the tether ball poles at recess
18. shopping with my mom on Saturdays and always going to the same coffee shop for BBQ sandwiches
19. going to the canal to swim....Dad tossed my brother and I off in order to learn to swim (my brother commented that it wasn’t so bad after we got the gunny sack untied!)
20. iris and pansies
21. our willow tree
22. the song of a killdeer
23. making popsicles with Kool-Aid in the ice cube trays
24. elementary school and how fun everything was
25. being a Brownie (girl scouts)
26. playing with paper dolls (I spent hours drawing new outfits.)
27. playing "Annie-Annie-Over" and "Statue" and other childhood games
28. Christmas stockings
29. poofy slips ( had one with an inner tube in it that you blew up. Be careful when you sit down!)
30. black patent leather shoes we cleaned with Vaseline
31. arranging all my stuffed animals and dolls on my bed at bedtime because I didn't want anyone to feel left out
32. reading everything ("The Borrowers" was my favorite series)
33. laughing with my brother over the stupidest things (I could beat him in a running race so he would resort to making me laugh saying ridiculous things in a funny voice- like "Grandma's spppeeeedy pajamas" or "Grandpa's big red toe." I know, they sound lame now but he said them in a very silly voice!)
34. watching soap operas with my Grandma James when she would visit/tend during the summer since my mother worked
35. all my darling childhood friends
36. going to dad's work and smelling the car grease (he worked in an auto parts store) and him getting me a cold bottled coke from the pop machine.
37. going on pop bottle drives to earn money for young women's. We also did bake sales and car washes.
38. Sunday drives
39. my mom french braiding my hair
40. "If it's meatloaf, it must be Tuesday!" My mom bowled on Tuesday nights and meatloaf was the first meal I learned to prepare.


Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic: it is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing. Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing. EUGENE IONESCO


If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older. ABRAHAM SUTZKEVER

In the Summertime

~in the past few weeks, we have had a million sleep overs with many of the grandkids. School starts for half next week (many of the schools here are on year-round) so we're making up for "short" time.




~I drove across the valley most mornings for the past two weeks to pick up my daughter's kids and brought them back to our side of the valley for swim lessons at our Life Centre. Tenille's kids were taking there as well so we sat out and cooked together. The kids made amazing progress and I'm brown as a bear.



Baby Sadie in the baby pool....


~celebrated tons of birthdays. May is our biggest birthday month but the past few weeks is the second. Ryan W.'s birthday is June 30, Ben's July 2, Heidi's the 4th of July, Elijah's the 5th of July, Marci's was last Sunday and Annee's is tomorrow. Whew!




~David and I had a much needed date night. We had suite tickets for the Carole King/James Taylor concert. Honestly, I don't think we've ever been to a concert that we have enjoyed more. Song after song after song of hits and memories. They are even closer to 100 than us but Carole was in spikie heels and dancing all over the stage like a sprite. I love each of these singers. And I love, love, love my husband.





~went to Gail Miller's for Bucket last week. I haven't been quite in the mood for the normal world yet but it was refreshing to be with these friends I love. It has been 1 1/2 years since Larry has died (he was/is an icon in our State) and Gail is a wonderful example of when life hands you something different than you expect, you still breathe in and out. Life goes on and there can be joy. The Millers raised their grandson, Zane, since he was born (and Gail homeschooled him.) He is getting married in a few weeks. One of the best parts of the home tour (Gail has been remodeling) was Zane's room. He had shelves that must have held a hundred pair of athletic shoes! All in boxes, neatly organized. Hysterical! (although he obviously loves them, since they own the professional Jazz NBA team, I'm sure many were given to him.) My favorite room is one of her laundry/craft rooms with giant windows that look out on amazing gardens. I told her I was sure that if I could just live there, I would be inspired to write the great American novel or paint a classic. She's so nice I'm pretty sure she would let me move in.....

~Mondays I have Annee during the summer and we picked up Rylee and met Brandi and the kids at the mall for back to school/birthday shopping. We had a wonderful time (5 little girls) trying on everything. My new favorite kid's store is Crazy Eights. I hadn't been there before- it is a new branch of the Gymboree line....same good quality but less expensive. Great place for school shopping.

~then yesterday we did Cowabunga- which is a new water park near us. It is like a plumber's dream. Water shooting out everywhere. We had a ball.

~so, you have to have a healthy self-esteem to be a grammie. My girls are growing up (4-10 going on 18) and this is what I was subjected to in just minutes:

"Grandma, you wore that shirt yesterday!" (really? there's a rule book about that?") (Hallee, 6)

and

"Grandma, you are wearing black and it's a hundred degrees outside! What are you thinking?" (Rylee, almost 8)

The Cooking School

Our sweet little Heidi turned 7 on the 4th of July. Since this year she was getting an Easy Bake Oven (my favorite childhood toy)- I told her I would love to do a cooking party for her birthday. Because of various things going on, it was postponed until this past week. All the girl cousins (except for baby Sadie) came.

All of the girlies got new aprons and the cutest rolling pins ever (Spoons and Spice!)

Aren't I lucky these kiddos belong to me? I love each of them!

First we made individual pizzas- biscuits rolled out with pizza sauce and whatever toppings they wanted. While they were baking, we made Rollo cookies. (picture above.) I had only made them with peanut butter cookies before, and thinking Heidi couldn't eat peanut butter (wrong child...it is hard to keep my herd straight!) I found a chocolate rollo cookie that we all thought (David and Mallory especially) was a winner. It definately will be added to my cookie catalog.

We also made creamsicle ice cream and I had made sweet roll dough for the girls to play in with their rolling pins and fingers (I had them make different animals out of the dough for us to guess what they were) and then sent a plate of sweet rolls (not made with the played in dough) home with each family. After cooking and eating and presents, we ended the party with pool play. (I'll post the Rollo recipe on the cooking blog.) Fun time had by all!

Good Things to Come

Tenille sent me the link to this marvelous talk by Jeffrey Holland called "An High Priest of Good Things to Come." When things are difficult, it isn't easy to look forward with faith to when things will calm down, when you can once again breathe. It takes hard work and determination. I loved this talk (below is a portion) and realize it is a message for everyone.....



On those days when we have special need of heaven’s help, we would do well to remember one of the titles given to the Savior in the epistle to the Hebrews. Speaking of Jesus’ ”more excellent ministry” and why He is “the mediator of a better covenant” filled with “better promises,” this author—presumably the Apostle Paul—tells us that through His mediation and Atonement, Christ became “an high priest of good things to come.” Every one of us has times when we need to know things will get better. Moroni spoke of it in the Book of Mormon as “hope for a better world.” For emotional health and spiritual stamina, everyone needs to be able to look forward to some respite, to something pleasant and renewing and hopeful, whether that blessing be near at hand or still some distance ahead. It is enough just to know we can get there, that however measured or far away, there is the promise of “good things to come.”My declaration is that this is precisely what the gospel of Jesus Christ offers us, especially in times of need. There is help. There is happiness. There really is light at the end of the tunnel. It is the Light of the World, the Bright and Morning Star, the “light that is endless, that can never be darkened.” It is the very Son of God Himself. In loving praise far beyond Romeo’s reach, we say, “What light through yonder window breaks?” It is the return of hope, and Jesus is the Sun. To any who may be struggling to see that light and find that hope, I say: Hold on. Keep trying. God loves you. Things will improve. Christ comes to you in His “more excellent ministry” with a future of “better promises.” He is your “high priest of good things to come.” I think of newly called missionaries leaving family and friends to face, on occasion, some rejection and some discouragement and, at least in the beginning, a moment or two of homesickness and perhaps a little fear.I think of young mothers and fathers who are faithfully having their families while still in school—or just newly out—trying to make ends meet even as they hope for a brighter financial future someday. At the same time, I think of other parents who would give any earthly possession they own to have a wayward child return.I think of single parents who face all of this but face it alone, having confronted death or divorce, alienation or abandonment, or some other misfortune they had not foreseen in happier days and certainly had not wanted.I think of those who want to be married and aren’t, those who desire to have children and cannot, those who have acquaintances but very few friends, those who are grieving over the death of a loved one or are themselves ill with disease. I think of those who suffer from sin—their own or someone else’s—who need to know there is a way back and that happiness can be restored. I think of the disconsolate and downtrodden who feel life has passed them by, or now wish that it would pass them by. To all of these and so many more, I say: Cling to your faith. Hold on to your hope. “Pray always, and be believing.” Indeed, as Paul wrote of Abraham, he “against [all] hope believed in hope” and “staggered not … through unbelief.” He was “strong in faith” and was “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, he was able … to perform.” Even if you cannot always see that silver lining on your clouds, God can, for He is the very source of the light you seek. He does love you, and He knows your fears. He hears your prayers. He is your Heavenly Father, and surely He matches with His own the tears His children shed.In spite of this counsel, I know some of you do truly feel at sea, in the most frightening sense of that term. Out in troubled waters, you may even now be crying with the poet:
It darkens. I have lost the ford. There is a change on all things made. The rocks have evil faces, Lord, And I am [sore] afraid. No, it is not without a recognition of life’s tempests but fully and directly because of them that I testify of God’s love and the Savior’s power to calm the storm. Always remember in that biblical story that He was out there on the water also, that He faced the worst of it right along with the newest and youngest and most fearful. Only one who has fought against those ominous waves is justified in telling us—as well as the sea—to “be still.” Only one who has taken the full brunt of such adversity could ever be justified in telling us in such times to “be of good cheer.” Such counsel is not a jaunty pep talk about the power of positive thinking, though positive thinking is much needed in the world. No, Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be very deep and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them. But even as the Lord avoids sugary rhetoric, He rebukes faithlessness and He deplores pessimism. He expects us to believe!No one’s eyes were more penetrating than His, and much of what He saw pierced His heart. Surely His ears heard every cry of distress, every sound of want and despair. To a degree far more than we will ever understand, He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Indeed, to the layman in the streets of Judea, Christ’s career must have seemed a failure, a tragedy, a good man totally overwhelmed by the evils surrounding Him and the misdeeds of others. He was misunderstood or misrepresented, even hated from the beginning. No matter what He said or did, His statements were twisted, His actions suspected, His motives impugned. In the entire history of the world no one has ever loved so purely or served so selflessly—and been treated so diabolically for His effort. Yet nothing could break His faith in His Father’s plan or His Father’s promises. Even in those darkest hours at Gethsemane and Calvary, He pressed on, continuing to trust in the very God whom He momentarily feared had forsaken Him.Because Christ’s eyes were unfailingly fixed on the future, He could endure all that was required of Him, suffer as no man can suffer except it be “unto death,” as King Benjamin said, look upon the wreckage of individual lives and the promises of ancient Israel lying in ruins around Him and still say then and now, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” How could He do this? How could He believe it? Because He knows that for the faithful, things will be made right soon enough. He is a King; He speaks for the crown; He knows what can be promised. He knows that “the Lord … will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. … For the needy shall not alway[s] be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.” He knows that “the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” He knows that “the Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”

The Charm Girls

This week I was suppose to fly to California to meet up with my high school girlie friends. I had to write them this week and bow out. We're having a heartache at home and I just couldn't go flying off in the middle of the storm.



I took Debbie (my high school BFF) to the airport on Wed. and tearfully bid her adieu. Dawn was flying in from South Carolina, Pam from Oregon and Debbie and I from Utah to meet up with Fay, our California girl.



The Charm Girls (our moniker) have had a ball this week. And being the true friendies they are, they didn't leave me out of ANY of the fun. In fact, I think I had more fun than if I had been there. These are the pictures they have included me in: (and who in the heck ARE these people?)

Thanks, dear friends. You made me laugh my guts out! xoxoxo

Scripture

While we were at Powell, one day we had horrific wind storms. It was the day David was ferrying people in and out from the dock in the ski boat to the houseboat (an hour trip in good weather.) We've been there many a time- or other places - when lightening flashes, thunder booms, winds threaten destruction and you think you won't live through it.

Monday when we were coming home from Bear Lake (my parents and I.) We were being followed by Marci and the kiddos and were between Evanston, Wyoming and Park City, Utah when I saw Marci's van, about a mile back pull over on the side of the freeway. She had a blow out.

I don't know about you but I have this terrible fear about blow outs. This one was huge. It could have really done horrid damage. I always panic when I don't have a cell phone only because "what if I have a blow out?" Which is ridiculous, I know, but I have only changed maybe one flat tire in my whole 100 year life. And it isn't so much the change but what could happen in the explosion. And every car is different. And in Marci's case, she didn't have a manual. I kept hoping that someone would stop and relieve us from our pain but giant trucks and tourists kept zooming by, oblivious to our circumstance.

So, we went to work unloading baggage and kiddos. Between my dad (who is on oxygen and closer to 100 than me) and sweet Marci and I, we went to work. It was almost comical but dad was a good instructor. We got the job done. It was a great learning experience.

I've been thinking all week about storms and blowouts. You are riding along life minding your own business when out of nowhere, your world is turned upside down. Storms and blowouts cause instant reflection and squaring with God. I lean on the scriptures- the perfect instruction manual. "Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thy own understanding. In all ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." I'm so thankful that when the trail gets rough, we aren't left directionless. My dad is a great coach but I am thankful for a Heavenly Father that has promised us divine instruction and direction for when we are floundering. He is my anchor in the middle of the storm.

The Lord will either calm your storm . . . or allow it to rage while He calms you.