I loved this book!

My Tuesday lunch buddy, Missy, accidentally left this book on my counter this week. She said I could just give it to her Friday at our YW "late over". I thought it would be nice to flip through it a little, but I am reading about 3-4 other books at the moment. I am a bit ADD when it comes to reading.

Just for fun, I'm going to think through the books I am reading - Eldest by Christopher Paolini, A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants book 1, the Doctrine and Covenants (a book of scripture in our church), the Joseph Smith R.S. lessons, Keeping a Nature Journal by Clair Walker Leslie, Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock, and The Nature Handbook by Ernest Herbert Williams. (see pics below) Oh yeah, and I've been trying to read Stephanie Meyers "Midnight Sun" online - it is hard to read a book online, but I have really enjoyed this book too.

So my point is, I wasn't looking for anything else to read at the moment! But then I started flipping through the pages. I started flipping yesterday and finished this afternoon. It's a pretty fast read. I loved it and wrote down notes so I can remember all the good ideas when I give Missy back her book! This guy is a no nonsense financial expert. His advice is sound, conservative (no weird, scary investing, borrowing, etc.) and makes a lot of sense to me.

While Kip* and I are in much better shape than many people's stories told in the book, there are some tidbits of wisdom and ideas for saving and avoiding debt that really inspired me to do better and to be excited about saving like crazy. I love that he says that every one's best ticket to wealth is their income, plain and simple. No crazy real estate buying/selling, not winning the lottery, not doing risky investments, etc. And you don't have to make a ton of money to do well on his plan. Most of the scenarios he talks about are very middle of the road incomes. It takes a long time, discipline and sticking to it, but it will be worth it.

I especially love how his advice really aligns with all the things that I have learned from our church leaders my whole life. Avoid debt, save for a rainy day, do good and serve with your money when you start doing well, etc. He offers sound advice on how to help others so you don't get burned, how much you should save, what college funds to put money towards, whether to refinance, why you should pay off your house ASAP, etc. I definitely recommend this book, even if you aren't in debt, it is a valuable tool.

Here are some pics of the other books I am reading from the library ... I am on a nature kick right now - so excited for spring and summer!! I want to be out in nature more this summer and have the girls keep a nature journal with me. The Nature Handbook is cool because it covers patterns and more broad knowledge of nature. The Handbook of Nature Study is more like an old school (the book was first published in the early 1900's) "bible" of plants, animals, etc. It is fun to look up different bugs, animals or plants and read her specific findings after the author's own lengthy observations of these living things. It also has fun, probing questions to ask children to get them wondering and looking for answers themselves while observing nature.

100 Days

On the 100th day of school, Natalie said her teacher told her class they could bring 100 things. She came down with 3-4 bags/purses full of lots of random things. I did not want her taking so much stuff to school and told her we could think of something easier. I first had to show her that even though she brought down bunches of things - they were too big. She only had 30 something and would need 70 more. Ahhhh! Luckily I discovered inside her tiny lunch pail looking purse, there were dozens and dozens of tiny papers from a tiny notepad. She had drawn a scribble or actual picture on every single square of that little paper. We counted out the papers and "Hallelujah!" there were almost exactly 100. Natalie was excited to share her 100 tiny pictures with her class. I was grateful she wouldn't be toting such a huge mess of stuff that would have gotten lost for sure!

I love this silly hat Natalie came home from school wearing on the 100th day of school. It was hilarious.

Not even close to 100 random things, yet still so messy.

Nat's 100 tiny art papers.

Playing Catch Up

These are some pictures in my Blog Picture File I've been meaning to write a post about. So to catch up, I'll glob them all together with a quick review. (o:

The above/below pics are from the primary activity the girls went to last weekend. They had a great time making rainbow toast - (Use different colored milks - just use food coloring- and paint it on bread with a paintbrush. After it is toasted and buttered, sprinkle with colored sugar. Very cute.) Below, playing a plan of salvation game - using the stepping stones to make it back to Heavenly Father.

When Natalie had a play date with a friend, I decided to do something extra fun for snack time, though not healthy at all. We made these "melted snowmen" from the Family Fun magazine. Angela was cute and made hers with a huge frown 'because he sad he melting'

In case you were interested. This is a picture of the Book of Mormon bracelets my friend designed and we made for the young women who finish reading the Book of Mormon. Each bead has significance. The big silver one at the bottom is the Liahona, the clear one to the right represents the stones the Brother of Jared used in the boat, the heart says "Made With Love" meaning both the scriptures and the bracelet, the straight rod represents the Iron Rod. The ones hard to see include: a boat representing the boat Nephi built, a bee representing the Zion and hard work, a dark bead representing the mists of darkness, and a heart representing charity. Then there's the square, sparkly orangish bead which represents the building blocks civilizations used to build great cities in ancient America, the next one is a seed representing planting a seed of faith. Next is an Indian looking wooden bead representing the Lamanites or ancient ancestors of the Native Americans, and the last white pearl-looking bead represents the story of Abinadi when his countenance shone brightly as he spoke to King Noah.

I think they turned out really cute and love the significance of each bead.

For Christmas grandma gave each of the girls a special box filled with post its, glue, tape, scissors, stickers, markers, colored pencils, etc. They LOVE to take them out and create all the time. I love that they have their own tape and aren't using mine all the time now.

Sarah, Taylor and Akiva. I have a picture in Sarah's scrapbook of these three all dressed up at Sarah's first birthday party! They have been friends since they were babies. Taylor was baptized recently. It was nice to be there for his special day. I was sooo sooo sad that we barely missed Taylor's actual baptism since I totally underestimated how long it would take to get to the church. Sarah and Akiva and I had fun talking together on the way, however, and we got to see his confirmation and some of the program too. What cute friends of almost 7 years!

Sarah is a Hoot

I found these two papers on Sarah's desk and had to document them. Sarah is such a list person, just like me. It is so funny. She makes lists constantly. She doesn't necessarily use them (like me too!) but she likes to write them down. I had to do some funky editing to make the words more readable on these pictures. In case it is too small here is what the above paper says...

Mon, Tues, Wed., Thurs., Fri. morning ruteen

By Sarah Elizabeth

1. Wake up

2. Turn light on

3. Make bed

4. Wake up mom (ha! this is the other way around!)

5. Brush teeth

6. do hair

7. get backpack and jacket out

8. eat breakfast

9. get jacket and backpack on

10. go to bus stop

11. get on bus

12. go to school

13. homework done

14. play in room

I love how specific Sarah gets on this list as if she needs to remember on her list to go to school after she gets on the bus. I just thought this was cute. It reminds me of the Frog and Toad story "The List" Which is one of my most favorite kid's books. Good old Frog and Toad.

Here's what is written above, in case it is hard to read...

"When bleding get water on a towle and put it on the owy. Get a bandaid and put it on the owy and then they should be fine.

headachc - take medasin

scinned knee - hold wet towl up to skin

throwup - call janitor to clean up mess. send child to the office.

blackeye - send child to office

pink eye - send child to office

I love my Sarah. She has such a great imagination and is turning out to be such a funny kid. I love laughing with her and she gets the biggest grin when she says something that really gets me going. She is also quite a good joke maker-upper these days too. I'll have to ask her to remind me of some of them so I can post them. She's pretty funny.

Here's something that made me laugh until I almost cried. While the girls watched Anastasia during my paint-a-thon in the upstairs hallway, there was a part where Anastasia yells, "Men are such babies!" Sarah gave a hearty belly laugh at this and immediately turned to Natalie, as if she had experience in this area, and said as she laughed, "She's right! It's true!" I cracked up. How does my 8 year old already find this so funny?

I actually think that Ned* - the man in our household - is NOT much of a baby at all. Although I can appreciate the humor because I have seen some men that are babies. Perhaps Sarah has seen some 2nd grade boys not being very "manly" or something? Who knows, but her reaction was hilarious to me!

Other Sarah news as of late - her science project will be going to district she found out officially today and she is thrilled. You would have thought she won the lottery when she found out.

On the sad side of winning . . . Sarah had a very sad day on Monday on the bus ride home. Last Friday, she and a friend in her reading class won a Handwriting Contest. The prize was that her student teacher was going to bring them Jamba Juices on Monday. She was excited all weekend. The day came and she got to have a little of the treat during reading, but her teacher had to put it in the freezer at school after that. Sarah and Samantha went after school to get the Jambas to take home. Sarah had only eaten a little bit of her big prize when the bus driver informed her that she would have to throw the drink in the garbage because food was not allowed on the bus. She was devastated. And was so sad when she got off the bus she couldn't even talk to us. (Mind you this was the afternoon when she finally got to see daddy after his weekend trip and she had been so excited to see him.) Ned* finally got her to talk to him and she told him through many tears about the injustice. We were annoyed that the bus driver could think of no other solution, but decided that we should all go get a Jamba Juice together to make up for the lame incident.

Mr. Bus driver apologized the next day when he picked up Sarah. I was still a little miffed and explained what that prize meant to her. I asked him to kindly have Sarah call me to pick her up if that ever happened again, rather than throwing a perfectly good Jamba away. The wasteful part of the whole thing bugged me too.

Rules Shmooles. (o:

A Girls Only Weekend

This was actually at the end of our OMSI visit - can you tell?

Angela loved this "hearing" game.

There is a Da Vinci exhibit at OMSI presently. It was too busy for us to get in, but we found this funny picture place with the Mona Lisa. (o:

Last week, we got the sad news that Halbert's* grandma passed away. She has been suffering for a while now, so it was a blessing for her, but it is still sad to lose her. The same day that we got the news, I found out that my grandpa is not doing well either. (This all also happened right around the same day that Angela had her illness - it was a crazy week.) So we have had our extended family on our minds a lot this last week and a half. We struggled to decide if we should all drive, fly or just send Halbert* to Utah for the funeral. I wanted to be there so bad, but driving for just the weekend sounded insane and flying us all out there would have cost so much. Especially considering that I may need to go out again soon if my grandpa continues to decline. So last Friday, we were sad to say goodbye to Hal* while he went to represent our little family. I hope grandma will know how much we wanted to be there too. I think it worked out for the best, however. Funerals, while good learning opportunities, are not the greatest place to vacation with kids. As soon as Hal* arrived in Utah with his big sis from Washington D.C. - they went to make sure the body looked good and was ready for the next day. One of many things that would have been hard or not good to do with the kids. Halbert got to speak at the funeral and it sounded like it was a very nice reunion with family he hasn't seen in a long time. I really wish I could have seen everyone too. My family enjoyed getting a visit from Hal* on Sunday night and then we got him back home on Monday.

Despite the sad circumstances, I decided to keep busy and try to do fun things with the kids over the weekend to pass the time.

On Friday night, I attended a baby shower for my friend, Heidi! I was so excited to see her as she was visiting from Colorado for the first time since her move. We've been friends for years - since Sarah was a toddler, she was my piano teacher and she's the one who got me into doing our regular posts and now blogging. It was so fun to see her and to see so many good friends from the Quatama ward, who don't live far away, but I don't see often. Oh, by the way, I didn't leave the girls home by themselves, in case you were wondering since Hal* left that day. I called up one of my young women and the girls had a lovely time while I got some grown up girl time. After the shower, Tina and I stopped to get a Jamba Juice (I just HAD to break a $20 so I could pay the babysitter - it was necessary. (o: ) and then Tina watched the girls while I took Tana home. Hey - Tina and Tana! Anyway, that was kind of dorky - moving on... Tina and I ended up hanging out and talking until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, I can't remember. It was so much fun. It's amazing how much we can find to talk about. I remember politics, kids and infomercials for the "Snuggy" were some of the conversations we had! (o: (Has anyone seen that infomercial for the blanket with sleeves? It makes us laugh so hard - it looks like someone dressing up in a Jedi outfit. Kind of dorky - but if you own one, I'd love to try it out - I'm a dork, you know.)

The next day, I took the girls to OMSI (see photos above) and we had a lovely time. It was very busy, so it was a little stressful keeping track of everyone, but I've trained my girls not to wander, so we had a pretty good time. We discovered this whole huge room I didn't even know existed that is similar to the Children's Museum. We'll definitely go back a lot with our family pass. We also picked up a couple little gifts for daddy's birthday at the store. That night, after Sarah and Natalie helped make a lovely dinner of pigs in a blanket, I had the girls all snuggle up on my bed and watch Anastasia while I painted the hall! I wanted to surprise Hal*, so I got ambitious. Our upstairs hall has been bugging me for a long time and I have some cute frames and "Language Art" all ready to put up now that it's done! It took about 3 hours, so I finished up while the girls tried going to sleep. I really hoped to watch "Stranger Than Fiction" which I got from the library, but at midnight after such a busy day, I could not keep my eyes open. Two nights in a row I went to bed so exhausted that I had no energy to be nervous about sleeping alone. That was a good thing. (o:

Sunday was exhausting. I took all the girls to church an hour early to attend a Laurel class presidency meeting. (Hint: don't take your kids to meetings, unless you HAVE to like I did!) And with daylight savings we had even less time in the morning to get ready - especially considering how late we were all up. Sooo, Sarah didn't get her "fancy" day and was a bit sad, but I will make it up this week for her. I was smart and cancelled a previously planned presidency meeting (with my adult presidency) that night. We had a lovely dinner of crepes and talked about how good it would be to have daddy home again.

There's nothing like having your husband gone for a little bit to make you appreciate and love them even more than before. We are so happy to have daddy back and we are glad that the funeral and visit with family went well.

Springtime Chores

We have 4 fruit trees in our backyard. This year they seem to have grown a LOT! Mac* did a lot of pruning and this is the mess we ended up with. Ugh.

Meet Mr. Chipper. This is what we got to help us out, but even so, it was still a BIG job. And I swear Mac* nearly got his hand chopped off 13 times. Plus he got whipped about 37 times. I definitely had the easy end of the job, bringing sticks. Except for the times I stood up and ran into a tree branch or the time I rammed my arm into a tree branch. Yeah, this was great fun. Not to mention the noise.
Ahhh, now this is much better. This is how we spent our Friday the 13th. Fortunately, the rest of the day was just dandy.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

You'd never guess the kind of night and morning we had before this picture until you read on . . .

I haven't had to get up with babies for a while now, so I am not as good at the interrupted sleep thing. (Not that I EVER liked that part of motherhood.) I had a LOOOOOONG night last week with little Angela that has taken me a while to recover from. (o:

About an hour after I fell asleep Tuesday night, Angela woke up crying. I checked on her and found her sleeping again, so I assumed she had a bad dream. Not long after, the whole scenario repeated. The third time, about a half hour later, I noticed Angela was wiggling around a little bit. I think it was around 12:30 at this point. So I got her up and I took her to the bathroom. I felt so bad because I didn't realize that was why she was crying earlier. Unfortunately, when she started to go, she screamed in pain and refused to finish. I knew right away what this probably meant, but there was not a lot I could do until the morning. The rest of the night, or morning was a loooong one. Angela could fall asleep for short periods of time, but that "feeling" kept coming. And every time we ran to the bathroom it was agony. Poor Angela was in so much pain. A warm bath at around 2:30 a.m. helped a little. Around 5:00 a.m. we woke up for good (a very rare occurrence in our sleepy home) and waited for the doctor's office to open so we could call and get an appointment.

Unfortunately, later that morning would have been my turn to teach preschool, so I was going to have to cancel. But then Angela suddenly started doing much better. By 8:00 a.m. she seemed back to normal and went to the bathroom twice without any drama. So as tired as I was, I decided to go ahead and do the preschool so I wouldn't have to make it up another day. I had about 1 solid hour a sleep to run on, but preschool went great and Angela was so happy and just like nothing happened. We had a good time, but I was happy when everyone walked out the door so I could take a nap with Angela. It was strange how she was so much better for that short time, but very soon the same thing started all over again.

We made an appointment for that afternoon. In the meantime, Angela took a good nap and I actually felt like indulging a bit. I ate lunch and sat on the couch while I watched and episode of LOST, in the middle of the day! It was so cool. I very rarely doing something like that during the day - I can't even think of the last time I did that. After school, my sweet friend and visiting teacher, Rebecca took care of Sarah and Natalie while I took Angela to her appointment. It was so nice to focus on little Angela and help her - she was miserable when she had to do a urine sample. And surprise, surprise - her white blood count and protein count were very high. The protein count was so high that the doctor was worried about a kidney infection, but Angela showed no other signs of that extreme of a problem. She never had even a fever.

So, we got some drugs - thank goodness for antibiotics - and life was back to normal pretty quickly. Angela only got up two times that night and the next night she slept through the night. Whew!