Moo

Peter (holding a toy cow): "Moo, I'm a cow." Brita, can you make the cow talk?
Brita (taking the toy cow): Talk, cow. Can you talk, cow?

Addition

We were counting and adding apple slices this morning with Brita. She was having fun and starting to get the hang of it. She could count three apples on one side and one on the other. I'd ask "So what's three plus one?" and she'd count them all up and get four.

When there was just one slice left, she counted one slice on one side and no slices on the other. I asked her, "So what's one plus zero?"

"10!"

The Activity

Brita calls the nativity the activity. Yesterday she decided that we needed to act it out. So she was Mary and she designated Benton to be Joseph. I was supposed to be a shepherd, but we don't have any sheep at our house so I had a stuffed dog that was dubbed a sheep. Then Benton stole my sheep and so he was the shepherd and I was Joseph. then we switched back. I was pretty exciting. Mary took a couple trips to Bethlehem with baby Jesus and she even got Joseph to go once. She kept coming up to me and saying, "Little Shepherd, it's time to go to Bethlehem. Little Shepherd, it's time to go." Unfortunately during all this I was finishing a book, so I never went to Bethlehem. It's a good thing I wasn't around in the time of Christ.

Temple Square

We figured we should get around to hyping Christmas at some point this year so last night we went to Temple Square. It was pretty fun. Both kids hadn't taken naps, so they fell asleep in the car and took a while to wake up once we got there, but they did pretty well. It was mighty cold.


We had a really good time. We saw lots of lights and quite a few statues. We spent some time in both visitor centers looking at pictures and displays. I love the pictures depicting the life of Christ in the north visitor center. Peter liked the big nativity display with the wisemen..and Jesus. Benton loved the Christus. Brita was really into all the statues, too. It was jolly good.

Messes

Sometimes Benton makes messes.
He usually tries to help clean them up, though.
This is from today's pudding adventure. Who knew a little boy could open a box of pudding that fast?

Sunday

Here is what my kids look like on an average Sunday. Or Monday, really, because I seldom get around to changing them from their church clothes. Brita is kind of obsessed by umbrellas ever since a lady shared one with Benton and me on the way to stake conference. I was excited when we finally found her parasol again. Benton's pretty funny about the butterfly wings--anytime you put them on him he starts spinning and dancing. You'd get a video, but Blogger is stupid. I like my kids.

Sometimes I'm productive

So I've always wanted to make clothes for my kids. Unfortunately I'm quite lazy so if there is no need, I don't do things. This summer Brita needed a short sleeved nightgown so I started making her one. Then she got one, so the project was put off. But I finally finished it! (Unlike all the others I've started.) So anyways, here it is. It's definitely not perfect, but I like it and she loves it. So happy day.

It's a bad picture, but my camera batteries were giving out again, so I only got one shot.

This is the pattern I started from. It was too small for her and way too short and I'm just generally bad at following directions, so it got some major changes made to it. I should have paid a wee bit more attention in my pattern drafting class fifteen years ago. And my stitch in the ditch skills are sadly lacking. And hopefully it doesn't just fall apart because my sewing machine definitely won the you-can't-make-my-tension-right battle.

Anyways, there you go. Yeah for me. Yeah for time with no kids in which you can get things done. Yeah for Brita liking it.


This just in: Pictures of a real live girl in the nightgown. Isn't she cute?


The back.

Benton and Brita.

At the pet store

To give Andrea a break from the kids, which I don't do nearly as often as I should, I took them to the pet store to look at fish, birds, cats and rats. Brita thought the guinea pig was a mouse until I told her what it was. As we continued browsing, an employee approached and politely asked if there was anything we needed help with.

Brita: We're just looking at the animals.
Employee: We like having people come and look at the animals.
Brita: We looked at the pig.
Employee: Oh, the guinea pig?
Brita: Yeah, I don't know why you guys have a guinea pig.

-peter

Playing outside...

... isn't as fun as it used to be. The kids were excited to go out, but after a few minutes in the cold they were ready to go back inside.

A couple weeks after this, a huge winter storm was forecast for the valley. As everyone around here already knows, it got plenty of hype but didn't amount to much. The weatherpeople weren't completely wrong though, just about when. We got well over a foot not too long after that.

Brita and I made a snowman with the dry, powdery snow. I didn't take a picture at the time, and now it's just a small lump of snow. I'd go take a picture now, but it's dark outside. Sorry.

-peter

Perspective from Brita

Brita: Today is a special day.
Me: Why is today a special day?
Brita: Life is special, so today is a special day.

I bought the coolest thing

I had the car two days ago because I needed to help take Monica's car into the shop, so of course I spent the day shopping. And driving around. It's amazing how much fun it is to drive around when you don't usually have a car. Anyways, Brita requested going to DI, which we did. And I found the coolest thing. Granted I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I bought it anyway and if I had a non-stick frying pan I think I'd live on hash browns for the rest of my life.

Yep. I bought the coolest grater in the world.

So easy we can rely on child labor.

I should get some cucumbers and have cucumber salad. Yeah..that's what I should do. I'd be done grating in less than a minute. Now I just need the car so I can get cucumbers.
So maybe it won't be a money saving device, but it's fun. That's what's important, right? And it was only $1.50.

My little girl is AMAZING

Brita just pooped in the toilet. By herself.

TRIUMPH!

Know what this is?

It's the computer room carpet. You probably don't recognize it since it's been so long since you've been able to see it, but that's it. Friday Brita told us to clean the computer room, so we did. It's the first time it's been all clean in a long, long time.

It was beautiful for a day and then we started sorting toys in here. Oh well, at least we got a picture, right? We may never see carpet again.

Sadness

You know it's a rough morning when your two-year-old says, "I'm just a little girl, Mom. That's why I cry."

Applesauce

This last weekend I went up to Idaho to make applesauce. And get canned apples because I hear you can make apple crisp with them and I love apple crisp. I headed up to Pamela's house on Thursday night. I didn't leave until about six because I wanted to get the house all clean before I left. I failed miserably, but at least I tried, right? The only thing keeping me awake while I was driving was sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. I hung out with Pamela all day Friday. Apparently we were pretty boring because the girl who Pamela was watching said she was really, really bored. I had fun though. We put Cordelia's car seat between Benton and Brita's and painted the town. Or at least went to the bread store. And Zamzo's to look at the animals.All three kids.
Brita with her free animal crackers.

Saturday we got an early start and got to Greg and Kelly's about 11:00. Okay, we meant to get an early start and failed miserably, but at least the intent was there. And we beat Mom and Katrina. That has to be worth something. I burned some jam for them. And then burned some apples. That was pretty much my contribution. Especially since I didn't even remember to bring bottles. Who forgets bottles when going to a canning party? I did remember to take pictures though. Granted it was about three minutes before I left so the house was totally empty (not something that happens all that often during a gathering of 24 people). I was fun getting to see everyone though. I haven't braved the drive to Caldwell for about two years I think. It was worth it. Fun times.Bottled applesauce. And where I burned everything.
Some of the extra applesauce we made.
Look--there really are people around!

I dropped Pamela and Cordelia off at their house and got to Mom and Dad's about 10:00. I left there about eight. Thank goodness for daylight savings or I never would have made my lesson.

And thank goodness for food and cruise control or I never would have stayed awake while driving and made it anywhere. So tired.

Substituting

Substituting is the best. A couple weeks ago I substituted for Relief Society at the last minute and yesterday I got rewarded with a whole pile of chocolate. Oh the benefits of having a first counselor who is afraid of last minute teaching.

It was kind of funny because the next time we all met together it was a combined fifth Sunday lesson and it was on teaching by the Spirit. I kind of wondered if I failed.

Then I taught my regularly scheduled lesson and I hear rumors of people being offended. We have no idea if those rumors are substantiated, though.

I think I'll stop teaching. Or maybe I'll just wait four months and teach again. That'd be fun.

Lesson

I have a lesson to teach this Sunday. I don't know how that's going to work out because I haven't looked into anything at all and don't even really know what I'm going to teach about. I kind of have some broad idea of a topic, but nothing concrete. I should be preparing for it now, but I don't want to. I have visits tonight, probably something tomorrow night, a training meeting on Thursday, and hopefully I'm off to Idaho on Friday, assuming Peter doesn't need the car while he works all weekend. I should get back in time for church on Sunday.

...

So I got back an hour and a half before church--just enough time to find some quotes I was thinking about, shower, and get the kids ready. But the internet was down so I couldn't find the quotes. And the kids just kept sleeping until we were late for church. And I ended up planning my lesson during Sunday school.

I'm happy with how my lesson went though. I learned a lot while I was teaching it. I usually just block out what I teach, but yesterday I spent all night going over it (you know, instead of sleeping). Hopefully I gave everyone's comments due respect. They were good.

I'm kind of glad it's over. Kind of sad I don't get to teach again for a while.

Aww So Cute...

Check out how cute this little watermelon is that we grew in our garden. A while ago a little watermelon got broken off the vine and we figured it wasn't ripe yet. We thought we'd cut it open anyway, but we never got around to it. I finally did when we were all sick and it was ripe! So we ate it, but no one could really taste it so I don't know if it was good or not. But it's so cute. It was about the size of a grapefruit. Yeah garden!

Snow

A while ago it snowed. We woke up in the morning and it was white outside. I was a little shocked because it wasn't supposed to have frozen until that Tuesday and the day that it snowed as we all know was not Tuesday (but I can't remember what day it was--Monday, maybe?). Brita, and therefore of course Benton, wanted to play in the snow so they got dressed and went out. They really were thrilled to be outside for a bit, you just can't tell it from the pictures. You can kind of see the snow on the grass in the background. Benton didn't last very long outside because he was cold and so every time he would come in I would give his warm stuff to Brita. Then he would decide he had to be outside again so I hunt up some more things for him to wear and the cycle would repeat again.

Brita actually got dressed up all by herself the first time. I was impressed. And she found the rabbit she had been looking for for a while right as I took this picture.

A couple days later it snowed for real. Crazy.

I just kind of wish it had held off until I picked all my tomatoes and blew out the sprinklers (which I have no idea how to go about doing).

Halloween

So Halloween was pretty fun. We went down to Provo to drop off a couple things for a friend's costume and so that Brita could play with her friend Nicholette. Brita was rather insistent that we go down to play with Nicholette after she heard it mentioned that it was a possibility, actually. They had fun playing together--if you ignore the every-two-minute screams of "That's mine! I was playing with it!" We did ignore it and we had a great time with Todd and Dani. And Vivian. And Todd's gaming friends. Yeah for people who let us randomly show up at their house and play with us.

When we got back to our house we had dinner and then we colored our pumpkins (not to be confused with coloring eggs, that would just be weird.) Brita did an awesome job on her face, but then she got bored and drew lots more. Benton didn't quite get the face concept down. I did two faces and of course Peter's pumpkin actually looked good. There's got to be one in every family, right?



Brita was a giraffe and Benton was a duck. Benton probably should have been a penguin, but he was just a very stuffed duck instead. I wasn't too worried about it because I didn't think he was going to be going anywhere, but as Brita and Benton were watching the trick-or-treaters it was decided that he should go.



We all went trick-or-treating for a while. Benton went to two houses and then he was done. Brita and I went all over the neighborhood. She's still working on her candy. At the rate she's going she'll still be working on it next spring. Unless I start looking in her bag again--last time I did that I saw some Twix that needed eaten.

Benton and Peter and Monica passed out candy. Monica even passed out candy by herself for a while even though it's against her principles. I'm pretty sure they had fun, even though there's not photographic proof.

So, um, Happy Halloween.

I like her.

I may be biased, but I have about the cutest little girl in the world. I took Brita trick-or-treating tonight and she was so stinking cute. She would ask people what their names were and introduce herself. Some of the conversations with people were quite involved. It was nice to get to know some of the neighbors through my two-year-old.

We went to one house where a boy answered and said they didn't have any candy. He was so nice and polite. He was really concerned that it would make Brita feel bad. I almost want to make him cookies for being so courteous.

When we got back to the house she showed Peter and Monica her candy--one piece at a time. It took a while. Duplicates she said she'd share with Dad. Triplicates she said she'd share with me. Every once in a while she pulled out a piece to share with Benton. Monica pretty much just got gypped.

Nose bleed

I blew my nose this morning and it started to bleed. That happens to people so I wasn't all that worried. Until I saw that it was bleeding from a small hole on the end of my nose. That's just weird. And it'd be kind of embarrassing to die from bleeding to death out of a small hole on the end of your nose.

A house full of sick people

When I went up to visit my parents last weekend and Benton was being a total pill the whole time. Turns out that he was sick. The day after we left my mom and nephew had a sore throat and cough. You're welcome. I got sick the day we got home. Peter was out of town working too much and not sleeping nearly enough so a couple days after he got home he came down with the flu. Brita's just kind of marginally sick and Monica came down with a sore throat last night. Yeah for us. So in case you wanted to know that we are sick, there you go. Don't worry--I'll post pictures soon. Not of us being sick. Although the picture I just took of Benton looks like he was just sick, but really he just dumped a bowl of the best salsa in the world on the floor, which is sad.See?

Blogability

Life is just so much less blogable when you don't have a working camera. Just so you know.

Sleeping in Brita's bed

Tonight Brita wanted me to sleep in her bed with her. It was kind of like a sleepover. She kept telling me stuff--about all kinds of things. She kept pulling my head down to give me hugs and she told me she loved me. Loves our whole family. My goodness I like that girl.

10-12-10 She still likes to have me sleep with her. I have to say I'd rather sleep all night long, but she's so sweet about wanting to sleep with me. She has me put my head on her shoulder and gives me hugs around the neck. This morning she was telling Peter: "I wanted Mom to sleep with me last night but she just wanted to go away, go away."

Whining

Peter was out of town all last week. He's out of town this week, too. I'm not the biggest fan of that.

Benton is sick. I'm pretty sure he has Roseola. Possibly an ear infection, too.

I sleeped a little bit

Brita just came down from her nap.

Brita: I sleeped a little bit.
Me: Yep, you slept.
Brita: Yeah, and I laid on my sheets.
Me: You laid on your sheets?
Brita: Yep, and I put my feet on my pillow!

What a funny girl.


We went for a walk around the block tonight. We usually go one direction, but tonight Brita wanted to go the other. When we were mostly done with our walk Brita said, "That was fun to go backwards, wasn't it?" Tons of fun indeed.

Blog-worthy

Peter's been saying that it's been a long time since I've blogged. Today he decided to take matters into his own hands and make it a blog-worthy day.

Peter came home early. He came home early so that I could have the car to pick up my visiting teachee's kids from elementary school. Holy cow there are a lot of kids at schools. And lots of cars picking kids up from schools. It's crazy there.

After I got back from there and Peter worked on our condemned yard for a while we went to Jamba Juice and got smoothies. I love smoothies. Brita got a kids one and she was the last one done by a long ways. Benton kept puckering every time I gave him some pomegranate, but kept wanting more. He was a big fan of the straws. Brita kept biting her straw to the point where nothing could come up it. Probably why she finished last.

Since we were down at Jordan's Landing and we'd been wanting to see Toy Story 3 we decided to go to a movie. We questioned whether or not it would be wise to take both kids to a movie and ended up convincing ourselves that it'd be fine. We were wrong. Brita kind of made it to the monkey and then she was definitely done. Benton made it until he biffed it on the floor. So we left. We'll never know if Mr. Potato Head made it back together again or if he's still a tortilla.

On the way home there was a rainbow that had all the colors and was totally full. And then there were two. The colors were mirror images of each other. Are all double rainbows like that? I don't know.

Then we went to Smith's to get something for dinner. We ended up having fish. Not the meat kind--the cracker kind.

Yeah for us, we did something blog-worthy. And yes, I consider all this blog-worthy, so you can thank me for sparing you from all the other way boring stuff between now and my last post. And you didn't really expect me to blog about the important stuff that happened between now and my last post so now we're good. Yep.

La la la

Holy cow I'm a slacker blogger. And I still don't have anything to say.

Benton started talking last night. No words, but a nice conversational tone that he kept up for a couple of hours. You know, instead of going to sleep. It was really cute though. He started up talking again this morning as soon as he woke up. He's walking a lot more these days, too--not all the time, but quite often. And he's adorable. Very, very cute kid.

I use GNU/Linux now. I only call it GNU slash Linux because Peter made us watch some awful documentary about the evolution of Linux. The only really annoying thing about it is that the fonts are so stinking ugly. And my scanner doesn't work any more. That's sad too. Peter's spent a lot of time getting it pretty for me which is nice. But my new computer is much quieter than my last one. That's nice.

Brita has a friend that is six years older than her. She came over yesterday and played with Brita for a couple of hours. It was really nice. Especially since I spent seven hours yesterday reading a book. Opal gives me hope that I was useful when I started out doing Cinderella Class. It's so nice to have someone come over and play with Brita and Benton.

For FHE on Monday we had a couple from our ward come over and teach us about new.familysearch.org. It was fun. We'd both been on the site before so it was nice to have some of our questions answered.

Notes from today

My day started out with me falling down an entire flight of stairs. Luckily I just slid down on my bum and didn't hurt anything. Unluckily Brita was leaning up the stairs at the bottom of the stairs so I bowled her over and scared her.

Brita was eating breakfast at the table and I went into the computer room to do something. Brita said, "Mom, wait! Come back. You are my friend." Who can resist that? So I went back and hung out with her for a while.

While I was there she told me that I was a great friend. And Benton was her friend, too. And Monica was my great, great grandma. Hehe.

Backwards

In case you were wondering why Benton's shirt was on backwards in the last post and were just too shy to ask, I'll tell you. We needed a brown shirt for a family picture and they're surprisingly hard to come by in baby sized.

This is our individual family shot from the whole family photoshoot. You know, from the Collett reunion that I didn't mention on my blog? Well a few weeks ago was my parents' family reunion. And my grandparents' family reunion. And this week we head off for Peter's [insert some ridiculous number of greats] grandparents' reunion.
And now you know.

Mr. Handsome

Tonight Benton was crawling into the kitchen to visit Peter who was doing the dishes. Monica was trying to distract Benton and called, "Where you going, Mr. Handsome?" Peter said, "I'm in the kitchen."
Maybe you had to be there.
But here are some pictures.

Granola

Brita's been snitching granola all morning. I told her to stop touching it. She asked why. I told her that we shouldn't touch other people's food and that it is for the cousins when they come. Brita said, "It's for the cousins?!? Can they share with me? Is it for a party?!?"
Who knew granola was so exciting?

What do you want to do?

Brita just now: What do you want to do, Mom? You can go in the living room and play.. Or play a game.. Or go outside and pull bindweed. What do you want to do?

At least I know my options.

Unimpressed

Last night as we were watching fireworks:

Peter: "Wow! Look at that one!"
Brita: "Can I have some more snacks?"

It took us a while to decide where to go for fireworks. We went to a spot off the highway, hoping to see both the Magna and Salt Lake shows, but it wasn't that great a view, and the mosquitoes were pretty bad. Everyone was getting grumpy in the hot car, so we ended up driving down towards the Magna Park. There was a church parking lot many people had gathered in, so we watched on the lawn there.

It was pretty neat.

It's starting

Brita asked "why" at least six times about the same question tonight at dinner. Why? Why?

Walking and crawling

Benton is getting around like crazy these days. I left him happily pulling stickers off the wall a minute ago and Brita just informed me that he was hiding in the bathroom now. That kid is quick.

He also claps now. A couple weeks ago he wanted to learn. A few days later he finally got volume and now he's a great not-on-demand clapper. I'm so proud.

He also says "Mom". And he's working on the letter "L" today. Such a smart kid.

Musicals

Brita watches quite a few musicals. Or rather, she watches a few musicals quite a few times. Because of that she comes up with great things to say every so often.

I gave her lunch today and she said, "That smells good enough to eat."

She often says that she wants to make the most of things. Like when she's in the back of the car on the way to the library, she'll come out with, "I want to make the most of it!" Which of course she follows up with, "Will you help me, Rosemary? What makes you think I know anything about.. You're the world champion." It's so fun to get the memorized dialog from a two year old.

She says lots more, but I can't think of any right now because I have allergy brain.

Stupid question

Anybody know what to do when all the thread just accumulates down in the bobbin area and gets all messed up when you're trying to sew? It also does that thing where there's tons of thread on the bottom side of the fabric getting all nasty and the top thread is normal looking. It's kind of to the point where it can't even sew, though, because of the problem I mentioned first. And I know I've fixed it before, but it's frustrating and I just want someone to tell me what to do.

So tell me what to do, okay?

Laziness

It's like all the blogs I read are conspiring to get me to clean my house. Come on, people, Post something new. Or tell me about your blog so I can read it instead of mopping the kitchen.

Future spies..or just future busybodies

One of Brita and Benton's favorite things to do is sit on the couch and look out the window. It makes them happy about 98% of the time. Getting them down makes them sad about 45% of the time. They like to watch the cars and the people who walk past.
Brita also likes to wave but she prefers to do that outside where she can run the people down while waving at them.

(Brita is holding up the sides of her mouth in this picture to smile.)

Foods

Brita is eating quinoa with basalmic vinegar.

That's just one of the many foods that I think are strange for her to like to eat. Just so you know.

Basketball.

Monica got a basketball and hoop for Christmas. We finally got around to setting it up. It's a hit.

Brita is a huge fan.
We just need Peter to be around all the time to help her make baskets--after all, dribbling is only so exciting.
Monica likes it. Success.

My lesson

Today I taught the lesson in Relief Society. It was pretty fun. I kind of put off preparing it for a while. I finished my outline in the Mothers' Lounge about two minutes before Sunday School got out. Too bad Sunday school was so interesting today, or I would have been done sooner.

Lots of people made comments. Probably more people wanted to, but I had the kind of blind vision that only teaching a lesson can bring. I think it went okay. It was about scripture study. I kind of have no idea what I said. Several people told me the they appreciated it, so it sounds like the Spirit took over at some point.

I didn't get to make the final remarks that I wanted to, so I'll make them here. In a recent training meeting they were talking about organizing the things you have to do into essential, necessary, good, and on down things to do. When it comes right down to it the essential things are the things that lead us back to Heavenly Father. It doesn't really matter how much time we put into our family here if we aren't doing what we can to make sure we will be part of that eternal family. I don't know if that makes sense, but it was kind of eye opening to me. We really do need to be doing those essential things. That's why they're called essential.

So I guess now I'll only have my rolls to occupy me during Sacrament meeting and Sunday school. Or maybe some day I'll get on top of things and actually have my calling done by the time it's time for church to start.

And that's that. There you go. Now you know I taught a lesson. The end.

What some people won't do for ice cream

Benton just started crawling. Happy day.

Benton is on the move.

Benton has started cruising (you know, when they start walking around holding on to furniture; did everyone know that but me?). It's pretty cute. Everything that boy does is pretty cute--except the whole getting snot on everyone and everything he comes in contact with.

About a week ago he started wanting to stand all the time. And he wants to learn to crawl. He's making lots more noise these days, too.

All in all a cute kid. Just so you know.

Nostalgia

I'm pretty sure that April 16, 2008 was my best blog post ever. I should just stop blogging. I'm also pretty sure that won't happen. Sorry.

Brita is turning into me..this isn't good.

Brita on the play phone: Hello? Hi, Dad. Are you coming home, Dad?

Brita asking to have a book read to her: Do you want to read a book, Mom? It's a really good book. It's a really nice book, Mom. You'll like it.

Brita after she asked me to lay in her bed with her: No, Mom. You can lay on my pillow, but not on me. Pillow is okay, not Brita.

Brita: It's a bee!
Dad: It's an ant.
Brita: Yeah, you can tap it with your foot and it goes away!

Mom to Dad: We need to remember to give Brita her m-e-d-i-c-i-n-e tonight.
Brita: I'm not n-o-c: I'm B-r-i-t-a!

Brita (after Monica finished doing a pile dishes): Monica, there are more dishes right there. You have more dishes to wash.

Redneck

One day I looked at Benton and realized that he had turned into a redneck. I have no idea how it happened, but it did. Actually it was more of a pinkneck, but pretty close. It eventually faded, but it was weird.

Mary

Today Brita found her foofy skirt in the closet and decided to wear it around. She even wore it for her nap. When she had the headpiece on she kept saying that she looked like Mary. I'm not so sure that anyone had a pink and purple foofy skirt a few years BC, but you never know.

In other news, I love holding my babies while they're sleeping. Today Brita woke up early from her nap crying so I went in and held her while she fell back to sleep. She's so big. Benton's getting big, too. He's been sleeping horribly lately, but he took a nap on me today, too. I love that my kids like me to be around. Here's hoping they still like me when they grow up.

Julie B. Beck

A good woman knows that she does not have enough time, energy, or opportunity to take care of all of the people or do all of the worthy things her heart yearns to do. Life is not calm for most women, and each day seems to require the accomplishment of a million things, most of which are important.

A good woman must constantly resist alluring and deceptive messages from many sources telling her that she is entitled to more time away from her responsibilities and that she deserves a life of greater ease and independence. But with personal revelation, she can prioritize correctly and navigate this life confidently.

Politics

My brother Greg is running for State Senate in Idaho, district 10. His website is http://www.grassrootsgreg.com.

Honestly when I first looked at his website it seemed kind of radical. I know that the constitution was inspired by God and that it would govern people well if people would let it, but the government has gotten so far away from it that it seems radical and almost impossible to try to get back to it.

But, after reading all of Greg's answers to the questionnaires on the issues on his site, I have to say it seems doable. Not only does it seem doable, but it reaffirmed to me that a constitutional republic way of government really would let our country prosper and stabilize in a way that it can't now.

I'm so impressed by Greg and his family taking a stand and educating people and raising awareness about the constitution and how it could be followed and govern our society.

Anyways, I would encourage each of you to read his website. You don't have to agree (you don't have to even read it, obviously), but I really think it's worth reading and seeing what you think about the issues that Greg talks about.

I wish I had done more to support and help him--it is definitely a just cause in my opinion.

My kids

I have pretty much the cutest kids in all the land. If I posted pictures you'd all be able to see that I speak the truth. Unfortunately I'm not posting pictures right now, so you'll just have to come visit to know for sure. It'll be worth the trip.

Four things tag

So I'm pretty sure I was tagged and so you get, a bunch of four things about me.

4 shows I like to watch:
* Chuck
* Leverage (I watched both seasons in about two and a half days--I don't really do moderation well.)
...Um, lets expand to movies.
...Um, lets give up on this one.

4 things I'm passionate about:
* Homeschooling
* Childbirth
* Analyzing data
* Solving other people's problems

4 phrases I say a lot:
* I hate poop
* I'm tired
* Just a minute
* We're not going to watch a movie today

4 things I have learned from the past:
* Things always work out
* You should learn from classes and not just get good grades
* Teach your children good manners--it may save their lives
* I prefer giving birth in a minivan to giving birth in a hospital

4 places I would like to go:
* My parents' house
* Peter's parents' house
* Molly's parents' house (once Molly gets there)
* Tara's house

4 things I did yesterday:
* Read The Book Thief (I finished it 7 1/2 hours after I started it.)
* Helped Brita fly all over the house
* Cleaned my kitchen
* Listened to Brita read The Walking Drum while Benton was standing by the couch

4 things I'm looking forward to:
* Moving to the perfect house with a beautiful staircase and a wrap-around porch with a porch swing
* Peter coming home tonight
* Getting on the ball and starting to homeschool
* My bedroom being clean

4 things on my wish list:
* An organized computer room
* More kids
* A friend who would come visit me
* The desire to finish my projects

Brita and Benton

Brita and Benton were sitting on the floor in the computer room while I was working on the computer. Then I heard Brita say, "I've got a little baby!" I looked over and, sure enough, Brita was holding Benton on her lap. "I've got a baby! I've got a cute little Benton boy!" So cute. Benton doesn't really fit on Brita's lap anymore, by the way.

She loves to hold Benton and make him happy. They'll sit and just smile and laugh at each other all the time. When they do that Brita always says, "I'm laughing to my Benton. I'm laughing to my Benton."

I never thought this day would come.

Brita fell asleep in a random place in the house. All by herself. Amazing.

Slasher

Sunday morning I woke up, rolled over to feed Benton, and found him covered in blood. There was blood all over the bed, too. It was pretty scary. He has a birthmark type thing on his cheek which is basically capillaries growing out to the skin (or something like that, I'm not really sure) so when it burst during the night there was a lot of blood.

We cleaned him up and put a band-aid on it.

Two days later I woke up to the same thing. I wasn't quite as freaked that time, so you get pictures.

Negativity

I don't generally think of myself as a negative person. I have a feeling that people who only know me through my blog or facebook (especially facebook--can we say 'ranting zone'?) think I'm a definite whiner. It's not really that I think I have a hard life, it's just that I like to tell people about my misfortunes, usually because I think they're funny. So for all you people that think I'm down all the time, I'm sorry. My life really isn't bad at all.

I usually don't notice so much what people think, but I friend of mine, who found me again through facebook, really does have a hard life and never complains. And then you hear the stories of all the people that were so very optimistic through a whole bunch of bad stuff and it just kind of make me sad to think I'm such a whiner. So what do you do about that? I don't know. Maybe they just haven't learned the joy of a good whine. Or maybe they're just 3000 times better people than me. Probably the latter. But for what it's worth I really do admire people who are optimistic.

These ramblings brought to you by the broken camera card. Otherwise you would have gotten pictures.

Mockingjay

I usually don't read series until they're complete. I usually don't read uber popular books. But holy cow I cannot wait until Mockingjay comes out. I don't even really like The Hunger Games books. It's just that I read them and then can't help but think about them for weeks. And then I start thinking about them months later. I hope I never read them again, but I don't have to because they are still totally vivid.

So do me a favor*--read Hunger Games and Catching Fire. They're good books. And then you can be miserable waiting with me.

*Unless you're Melissa.

The End is Near

So a long, long while back I volunteered to scan all my parents pictures for them. I never got around to doing it like everything else in my life. One reason my mom wanted them scanned is because she had some on loan from my grandma, who doesn't usually let things like that out of her sight. I did some, but didn't really make even a small dent on it.

Well, today I found out that Mom is going down to visit Grandma next Monday. So I need to get the pictures done before that. But Mom isn't stopping here on her way down, so I need to have them done before Saturday when she and my dad are coming down. That's a lot of scanning to do.

Wish me luck. Or volunteer to watch my kids for me. ;) Just kidding.

Of course you want to see the pictures I'm scanning thought, right. Well here you go!

This is the picture that made me volunteer for this project. This is probably my favorite picture of all time. It's my great grandpa sticking ice down my grandpa's shirt. I have loved this picture since the first time I saw it.

Here's my grandma.

And my grandpa.

And my mom. Isn't she pretty?

Don't worry--I'll straighten out the pictures. I love old pictures.

Better late than never..maybe

Today I delivered the first of the thank you cards that I wrote a couple weeks after Benton was born. I have about ten left that I've written and not given to the people I wanted to thank. The only thing that got me to deliver this one to someone I didn't really know was the fact that I don't think I could have handled it if she had died before I thanked her for giving me the last blankets she and her sister had made before her sister died. I don't think she's close to dying, but she is old.
Let's just be honest here for a minute. Old people are terrifying to me. I'm scared of people I don't know and it's just awkward giving a thank you card to someone you don't really know the name of. But I still did it. Go me. It helped that I had all the guilt of her coming over to my house climbing my stairs and being incredibly nice. I told her I'd tell her if my baby was a boy or a girl when I had it. It's a boy, in case it's taken anyone else over six months to figure it out. Okay, that's not a valid excuse--I knew more than six months ago it was a boy. I'm just a great big chicken.

But this post isn't about that. It's about something I meant to do about two and a half years ago. See? Six months isn't bad.

I meant to post this game so that you could get as addicted as I did. I played it for days before showing it to Peter so that I would be better than him. I had my error down to about seven miles or so. Then I showed it to Peter and he got a perfect score the first time. It was awful.

So, only two and a half years later (possibly three), I present the place that state game:

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html

And no, I haven't learned how to do the fancy link things yet.

That's all.

For Melissa

Melissa, Doggies was all you ever said it would be and more. I am now officially excited for Christmas.

See what commenting regularly does for you? It gets you a blog post of your very own.

And no, Monica, you're not chopped liver.