Beyond flattered.............

My friend brought over her darling, new six week old baby girl so that I could take some pictures of her in her blessing gown. We took a bunch then sent them over to Walmart.com photo center to have them printed. When my friend went to pick them up, the lady at the counter told her she couldn't give them to her because they were done by a "professional". Some copyright blah blah blah. (It's called a Canon Rebel XT, Photoshop and a white sheet. ) My friend, I think, thought she was kidding and even joked saying, "My friend will be so flattered!". The sales lady apparently wasn't joking and wasn't convinced that they were taken in my living room the day before. The sales lady called for her manager. The manager looked them over and finally concluded that they probably weren't "professional" because they didn't have a studio name on any of the bottom corners. The sales lady finally handed over the prints.

Yes, I AM flattered......... But a cute subject to photograph makes it really easy.

Go out and Vote!

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves."

Abraham Lincoln

"I am confident that it was out of what he saw of the bitter fruit of dictatorship that he developed his strong feelings, almost hatred, for communism and socialism. That distaste grew through the years as he witnessed the heavy-handed oppression and suffering of the peoples of eastern Europe under what he repeatedly described as godless communism.
These experiences further strengthened his love for the land of his birth. He had grown up in big sky country, where there was a spirit of freedom and independence. He had grown up in the tradition of his forebears, who spoke reverently of those who were raised up by the Almighty to establish this nation and who had pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to the cause of liberty. He never got over his boyhood love for freedom. Rather it grew within him, nurtured by what he saw of oppression in other lands and by what he observed firsthand of a growing dominance of government in this land over the lives of the people."

Gordon B. Hinckley speaking of the former President Benson

“You and I have heard all our lives that the time may come when the Constitution may hang by a thread. I do not know whether it is a thread or a small rope by which it now hangs, but I do know that whether it shall live or die is now in the balance.
“I have said to you before, brethren, that to me the Constitution is a part of my religion. In its place it is just as much a part of my religion as any other part. It is a part of my religion because it is one of those institutions which God has set up for His own purposes, and, as one of the brethren said today, set up so that this Church might be established, because under no other government in the world could the Church have been established as it has been established under this government.
“I think I would be safe in saying that my fellowship with you in the Church depends upon whether or not I accept the revelations and the principles which God has revealed. If I am not willing to do that, then I am not entitled to fellowship. Anyone else who fails to accept the revelations and the principles which God has revealed stands in precisely the same situation.”
J Reuben Clark Oct. 1942

Success!

I know many of you are sitting there wondering why it is that I've had a bunch of posts this last week after having not posted anything for the whole month. Let me fill you in...........

Our program is DONE! For those who have ever been in charge of one, you know the time and effort that goes in to preparing a primary program. While I enjoy doing it and find it actually kind of fun, it does take a lot of time putting it all together. There's the flow, the programs, the parts, the practice, the seating charts, the kids who don't show for practice which aren't necessarily the same kids who don't show for the program, the musical numbers, the lack of teachers, the making all of the parents happy, the last minute glitches not planned on.............

But ours turned out great. Almost all of the kids had their parts memorized and they sang their songs so well! For our closing song, I created an arrangement using I am a Child of God and If the Savior Stood Beside Me for a few of our teachers to sing. I played the piano and Kirk was part of the ensemble. I received a lot of compliments from it! My mom came to support my efforts and to see Lauren and Jack recite their lines. They did a great job!

For sharing time, my great leaders in our presidency ( sneakily ) put together a sharing time to thank our pianist, music director and myself for our work on the program. It was so cute and so unexpected! Our Primary is truly awesome!

Halloween hangover

I had a good idea. I just didn't execute it well. I thought of doing a Wizard of Oz theme this year with Lauren as Dorothy and the boys as the scarecrow, tinman and lion. Cute, eh?

Yeah. When Wednesday came and all I had put together was a pair of red shoes, I knew my plan wasn't going to come together as well as I thought in my mind.

Off to plan B.

Isn't there some story somewhere about a tiger, doggy, bat and a princess? With the exception of the bat costume, everything else was either recycled costumes or came from the dress up box. I'm cool with that. I'm telling you, a stress-free halloween is TOTALLY worth it!

Princess Lauren

Jack Bat ( made his wings from an umbrella! )

Erik the puppy (too bad it was 90 degrees outside! He was naked as a jailbird under his costume.)

Ian the tiger ( and already sticky from the candy before even leaving to go trick-or-treating. A couple of times, I put my hand in the candy bowl to pass some out and pulled out a half eaten sucker. )

I must confess: I overheard some Jr. High kids walking up our driveway and commenting on my "Yes for 102" sign saying how they thought gay marriage was cool. They got the icky peanut butter taffy and melted chocolate bars from the 90 degree heat from my bowl. That will teach them...............

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Lauren lost another bottom tooth this week and now looks like a Jack-o-lantern.

HaPpY HaLLoWeeN!

Psycho

Or otherwise known as Fall Break at Disneyland with little kids.

And we didn't even take the three year old. It should have been a breeze with only three kids, right? Disneyland was festively decorated. From the giant candy corns, to the fall colors lining Main Street.

Even the big letters that spell California outside of California Adventure were the colors of candy corn. Which reminds me of the quirky catch phrase Kirk conjured up:

"The Candy Corn Colored California is Kinda Cool!"

Clever.

The second day, we had VIP seats courtesy of one of his MBA classmates for the parade. We had big bench seats right in front of the Railroad Train ride and had a great view!

These were our seats:

And this was our view!Heck, even our hotel went all out for Halloween! Not really, but they were painting the hotel these candy corn colors while we were there and will probably feel pretty cool every October!

The Haunted Mansion was completely redone to the theme of A Nightmare Before Christmas. While it wasn't worth the 1 hour waits, we did get some fast passes and did it a few times. It was pretty cool..............

I have to confess that of all the times I've gone to Disneyland over the years, I have never once stepped foot into the Innoventions Building. It turned out to be one of the kids ( adults included ) funnest places to go. Lauren loved the karaoke stage and rocked out to High School Musical and Lion King songs. Jack loved putting together a virtual skeleton.

Aside from not sleeping in his stroller or napping for a whole week, Ian's favorite rides were the Toy Story Mania and Buzz Lightyear.

Guess what else we saw? All over Disneyland? The whole week?That's right! Arizonans, Mormons and sometimes both Arizona Mormons. E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.! The pictures I took were just the ones I spotted as we were leaving the park. Pretty much every one in line we talked to was from Gilbert or Utah. Even Jessie from Toy Story was LDS. Seriously. We were at the Toy Story Halloween show and afterwards, Jessie gestured to a family next to us asking where they were from. They said, "Utah". ( shocker! ) She then started clapping the rhythm to the BYU fight song. They of course didn't get it until she started using her fingers and writing the letters CTR on her hand. You know, the secret code word for "I'm a Mormon too!" The even funnier thing is the day school started after fall break, Lauren told a friend of hers that Jessie from Toy Story was a Mormon. BWAhahahaha!

And in keeping with our Disneyland tradition, we always run in to a person we knew from our past. This time was no exception. Kirk went on the Rapids ride and ended up sitting in the same raft as an old friend, Ron. What are the odds? Even funnier odds? He's from Arizona ( notice the Arizona shirt ) but he lives in Utah. I know.......shocker again! He fell into a separate category from the Arizona/BYU/Utah/Mormon groups walking around Disneyland to a new subgroup called the former Arizona but now Utah/Mormon.
After five gloriously long days at Disneyland, we headed down to Escondido to meet up with my parents and Erik who they so graciously offered to watch for us. We spent a few hours at the beach in Carlsbad. Just long enough for me to realize a beach and an 18 month old isn't a super fun combination. Unless, you like sand in your sodas and food.....which I don't.

While on the beach, we saw a bunch of dolphins swimming around. See the black speck on the right side of the picture? That's a tail. Fascinating picture, eh?

We spent another day at the Wild Animal Park. Lauren liked to pet the dear.

And Ian tested my nerves.

I honestly don't know how we managed flying cross country with 4 kids one being 7 months old to DisneyWorld last fall break. We made it home safely. Kirk and I realized that it has been almost 5 years since we've taken a trip together............alone............sans kids. I'm looking forward to celebrating our 10th anniversary in a few months........going, you guessed it............back to Disneyland!

Lassie's Great Mystery

Ian has suddenly started to speak in "sentences". At least as far as inflection goes. It sounds like he his saying complete sentences, but I have no clue other than an occassional, "bup" or "ack" as to what it is he is trying to say.

One such conversation which lasted several minutes with him speaking and gesturing towards the kitchen had me thinking what it must have been like for Lassie when he was trying to talk to Timmy.

Ian: "Gah. Blah blah blah Gah." ( randomly gesturing )

Me: "You want something to drink? Something in the kitchen? Something on the counter?"

Ian: ( shaking head and now wildly pointing ) "Blah blah babble babble boo boo boo gah!"

Me: "Someone fell into the pond? There's a fire on the mountain and a boy is stuck in a pool of quicksand? A cougar is about to attack Mr. Johnson's sheep? Obama might be our next President?"

Ian: unphased by my attempted at humor.......

Me: "You want a toy? Some milk?"

Ian: Nodding and smiling with excitment.


Luckily no one was REALLY stuck in a pond or quicksand or on a fire-ravaged mountain. Maybe Lassie could leave Obama a fragrant gift on his lawn though.............

I don't mean LITERALLY.....

We're still potty training Erik. He is specifically the reason I refused to adopt one of my parent's new kittens. I wasn't about to potty train a cat at the same time. Although, the cat would probably have been easier. Thank goodness I only have to do this one more time. In the whole process, I've gotten lazy as evidenced by the fact that one day while we were working outside and he needed to go, I took his pants off and told him to pee on the rocks. That cool new idea set us back a few days trying to "undo".

A few weeks ago as we were getting the kids to bed, I called Erik over to put his "britches" ( pull ups ) on. He threw a huge fit saying, "NO! I don't WANT to wear britches to bed! I want to wear BIG BOY PANTS!"


Wow. Ok. I wasn't quite prepared for that kind of response. I was still struggling with the foul rituals of the day time accidents. I wasn't quite prepared for the night time noxious sheet changing. Not without a little more warning. I needed time to stock up on some more Resolve and Febreeze.

But we went for it. I tried to explain to him that if he's going to wear his big boy pants to bed, then he'll need to make sure he goes "pee pees" in the potty. I then put a towel on top of his sheets ( again, not prepared and didn't want to make the effort to make his bed with a mattress pad ). I told him that the towel is there just in case he has an accident in the middle of the night and pees and that the pee will go on the towel and not his sheets.

See where this is going yet?

It was evident that I used too many literal words in my explanation because when Kirk went to check on him the next morning, he was standing next to his bed............

peeing on the towel.

Kirk asked him what ( on earth! ) he was doing. He exclaimed that he was peeing on the towel so it wouldn't get on the sheets.

Boys.

Hawanna Hava Hula Party

I promised Lauren I'd let her have a birthday party after last year's fiasco!

We squeezed in the date between Kirk's weekends at school and her baptism day. We put together some invitations.

We ordered a plethora of party favors and decorations.

We booted the boys from the house.

Then we partied Hawaiian style!

We decorated flip flops............

I thought it would be fun to give the girls "hawaiian" names to wear on name tags but realized half of the girls already had hawaiian sounding names. Eh......oh well. So much for creativity.

And opened presents.............

Made an attempt at a ukelele cake with a lei draped on it.

Then we ate it.............

It was a whole lot of fun!

Hau`oli la Hanau Lauren!