Signs of Spring!

I have been so excited to see little green surprises popping up out of the dirt all over the yard. Since this is our first year in the house, and we've really only lived here during the winter months, I don't know what kind of plants we have in the yard. I am feeling very grateful to the previous owners for all their hard work planting the bulbs that make me so happy to see. Every time spring comes and the little green sprouts pop up out of the dirt I can't help but think of "The Secret Garden". I love the way Burnett describes the world coming to life again after a long, cold winter. I love spring!

Ahhh, another not-so-lovely sign of spring. Yellow jackets. Bart's* arch enemy. Our lovely wood beams in the entry of our house that I love so much are also loved by yellow jackets. I believe Bart* killed about 100 of these babies after he discovered a huge nest above one of the beams.

And, of course, playing outside again without coats, gloves, boots, etc. The girls found another use for the sleds we used in the winter. They made perfect boats for their imaginative play.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

I love Dr. Seuss and celebrating his birthday every March 2nd has become a tradition for us.

We listened to a CD with Jason Alexander reading Green Eggs and Ham, it's quite funny - he does a great job!

And of course, what else would we have for our snack that day?

A Seussical Birthday

March 2nd is Dr. Seuss' birthday! We LOVE Dr. Seuss!
We LOVE (well some of us) to eat green eggs and ham on Dr. Seuss' birthday to celebrate.

This is also a special day because it is grandma's birthday too!
As you can see by Natalie's expression - this was no ordinary rendition of the Happy Birthday Song. I don't think grandma's sides have stopped hurting from the performance. It was opera, punk rock and heavy metal all at the same time.

I helped at the school that day and loved seeing the Kindergarten and first grade teachers celebrating as well! I had on my Dr. Seuss shirt too.

Natalie was feeling very creative - perhaps inspired by the Dr. Seuss tales she'd been reading all day. She made me this crown to wear while I fried our green eggs.

And I LOVE this creation! I hung it on our door. It's a cross between Dr. Seuss and Tim Burton. She presented this to me while I was cooking as well. I love her imagination! This cute piece of art is about 2-3 feet tall.

The girls wearing Horton ears, a "Who" headband and a Cat in the Hat hat.

I suspect perhaps these . . .

made this little girl sick the next morning?

Getting Kicked Out of the Library . . .

Well, it has been insane around here for the last month. So fun hobbies like blogging have taken a back seat. I hope to get caught up soon. In the mean time, I thought I'd share a lovely outing to the library with the girls last week.

I "heart" the library.

I really do - maybe a little too much.

I am addicted to books. Seriously. One of my guilty pleasures in life is buying books. I love having books, reading books, looking at books. I LOVE looking at shelves and shelves of books. My favorite part of our house is our big living room bookshelf filled with books.

To control this book buying frenzy, I use the most wonderful place ever invented - the library. Oh how I love the library.

I especially love that you can put books on hold online and if our library doesn't have the book, they ship it from one of the other nearby libraries. When I have a subject that I want to learn about or a preschool lesson to teach, I do a search. All these wonderful books come up and I just can't decide, so I get at least 10. Really.

In one night I did a search for "running", "starting a business" and "healthy eating". I think I put about 20-30 books on hold that night. Then when I go in to pick up the books with the girls, I let them look around and we always get books for them. We check the audio books, DVDs, the magazines, the chapter books. Then we leave with arms full - all four of us.

We love it.

The only problem lately is that we go so much that I can't keep straight which books are due when. And when this last month hit and I didn't check e-mail regularly (they send friendly reminders when due dates are coming) - I got really messed up.

So I avoided the library for a few days because I was embarrassed about my huge fine - it was over $15! I didn't have cash, but really wanted to pick up a movie waiting in the hold section. Then the girls found a few things and when we went to the self check-out. (because I didn't want to face a human person who might see my embarrassing fines) I learned that you can't check out more books if you have a fine of over $10. I had to come clean.

On this particular library trip, I had more than my big fine to be embarrassed about. I was trying to lay low - I felt like I had a huge scarlet "F" for 'fines' on my shirt. I couldn't make eye contact with the librarians.

Just about the time I found my movie that was on hold, Natalie got scolded by a librarian for climbing in the window nearby. Whoops. So much for laying low.

Then, while attempting the self-checkout - Angela announced she had to go potty. I sent Sarah to the nearby kid's bathroom with Angela. A few second later she emerged saying Angela refused to go. I forgot. The library has self-flushing toilets. Angela hates self-flushing toilets. But her little dance told me that we didn't have much time for irrational fears. I took her in the bathroom and we had a little fight about whether or not she was going to get on. She was in pain. So I "helped" (forced) her on the potty and reassured her that it would not flush while she was on it. But I might as well have been saying absolutely nothing because she was screaming bloody murder. This bathroom is right next to the children's librarian's desk. She screamed for so long and so loud I was so afraid someone would come knock on the door to make sure there wasn't some kind of child abuse going on in there. Then finally Angela gave in and we walked out of the bathroom trying to 'act natural'. The librarian gave me a look. I looked apologetic at her and she either looked at me like, "I understand" or "holy cow, what the crap just happened in there". I couldn't quite tell which.

Now I had the matter of my fine to take care of.

I walked up to a very nice librarian and came clean. I confessed my sins of overdue-ness and got the amount of cash needed from their ATM. I didn't care there was an extra $1 fee (usually I do) it was worth the cost for a clean conscience. Ahhhh. I was so happy to get that taken care of, but ironically, as I paid off this huge fine, the librarian noticed I had two books still overdue. They were two other books that I thought were due the next week. I'm telling you, I have problems. Hopefully, I can eventually become completely clean from my embarrassing addiction and disorganization with books.

But our adventure wasn't quite over.

I felt a little spring in my step as we walked out with our books. On the way to the exit, Natalie asked to have a drink of water. "Sure! Anything you want." I was happy to have the scarlet "F" off my back. We walked back to the fountains. I waited nearby and suddenly heard Natalie screaming like a body part had been ripped off. It was one of those screams that gets a mom's adrenaline pumping. I was ready to put pressure on a bleeding wound or do CPR or something.

I found Natalie stuck to the drinking fountain. Stuck!

Her finger got caught somewhere under the fountain in the most random way. She continued screaming even when I freed her finger. It gave her a pretty good scare - along with those of us around her. There were no injuries - I think she just panicked that she was stuck.

After that, we beelined outside to the car.

You know on movies where there's a security room with lots of TVs showing all the surveillance video in a building? I pictured, if the library had such a thing (which I doubt with all the budget cuts these days (o: ) - the old guy watching the videos with his coffee to keep him awake at his boring job would have come running out right about 5 seconds after Natalie started screaming and escort us out of there. There's only so many offenses a family can make in one visit.

Lucky for us, the library can't afford to have surveillance and pay an old guy to watch out for people like us. Anyway, I hope they will forgive us or forget us. I'm headed back on Tuesday.

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.

One Fish, Two Fish . . .

Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday and my wonderful mother-in-law's birthday too. Two of my favorite people! To celebrate we did some fun Seussy sort of activities for dinner and FHE. Green eggs and ham was the menu for dinner. (Sarah was disappointed I didn't figure out how to color the ham green.) We also had a "One Fish Two Fish" guessing game (estimating how many fish were in the bowls), we played Fox in Socks - a relay game wearing socks on our hands. We did some Dr. Seuss activity pages, played Put the Hat on the Cat with Twilight (which she didn't really think was fun (o: ) and we made some fun Cat in the Hat treats. And we couldn't let Dr. Seuss have all the fun, we also called to sing to grandma. (o:

Darn - the green eggs covered my cool Dr. Seuss T-shirt. I'm a bit of a fanatic. (o:

We thought this funny egg was very appropriate for our Dr. Seuss dinner. It is the roundest egg I've ever seen. Just in case you were interested. Kind of quirky.

One more...

I forgot to mention one of the books Angela and I picked and brought home from the Art Museum bookstore. We got the hardback version of this book. It is filled with tons of pages of pictures, like the one on the cover - of fruit and vegetables with a lot of personality. We loved the book so much we both sat on the floor of the store laughing for about 20 minutes enjoying each page. There are no words, just LOTS of fun-filled pages with some very imaginative food! I've seen other shorter versions of this book - board books, etc., but this one has tons more. Very imaginative and fun to look at with little ones! Heck, even for adults, this is a very cool coffee table book. I have this one up on our book display in the living room. It just makes me happy. (o:

More Great Books - Kid Friendly

After writing the previous post, I had to include a little section with pictures of the awesome books I found at the art museum. I also wanted to include the book that prompted the title for the "Seen Art?" post. We found this fun book at the library a while ago. It's about a guy looking for his friend named Art in downtown NY. The people all point him to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). While there, he keeps asking "Where's Art?" and the people think he is stating that he isn't a fan of the art in that gallery, so someone comes over and says, "Exactly" and they take him to where they think the "real" art is in the museum. And it continues through several galleries/pieces in the Museum of Modern Art. My kids love this book and so do I. If we ever get to go to MOMA, I think it would be fun to get this book. Oh, and I think he does eventually find his friend, Art. (o:

I am a big fan of David Carter's pop up books. My kids love the "Bug" books. We have the Christmas Bug and Halloween Bug pop up books. They are so fun. I didn't even know about these awesome books until I saw them at the gift shop at the art museum. While looking for pictures on Amazon.com, I discovered two others "Blue 2" and "Yellow Square" that look just as awesome. I really love these books. I think I want to start collecting pop-up books - they have always fascinated me and my kids are now old enough to not rip them apart. These will be the first ones I will add to my "collection". (Hint: great B-day/Christmas gift to whom it may concern!)

The above page is really cool because the pointy parts make clicking sounds as you open the page up. That's one thing I especially love about these books - so creative - who would have thought to have the pages make sounds too?!

Entertaining and Eye Opening Reads

I have to thank my friend Emily, for mentioning this book in her Christmas letter. I have always been intrigued with North Korea and was curious when I heard about this book. The title especially pulled me in, knowing the things I have learned from documentaries about this country. I have to say that this book has changed me in more ways than I expected. It is not a happy story and many, many parts make your stomach turn, but it's one of those books that really changes your whole perspective on life when you read it. This book is a fascinating, personal history of the author's childhood in North Korea. Obviously, he is no longer living there or this book would not exist.

This book made me more grateful, more thoughtful of "everyday" things we take for granted. But it also was a intriguing look at human nature - what people turn into when they have no agency, yet have to survive; what incredible effect/damage one evil person in power can do; how even in horrible conditions and hopeless circumstances a few break through, a few families stay in tact. (On the flip side, these same circumstances bring out the absolute worst in people and turn them even on their own family.) I was blown away by the absolute and blatant lies and brainwashing that takes place in order to maintain control of the North Korean people.
This book was a jaw dropper. Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Song (who died several years ago, but continues to be worshipped by his unknowing and naive countrymen) are probably two of the most evil men in contemporary times. Even Hitler didn't have his countrymen worship him like he was God. The only difference is that there is no way to get exact numbers of how many North Koreans they have killed, directly or indirectly, because the country is so closed off from the world. And despite all the evil Kim Jong Il does, he twists and lies on such a great scale that, to the North Korean people, he can do no wrong - he is divine, he is beloved, their "great leader". It is terrifying.

This quote refers to some of the ghastly things (including cannibalism) Hyok saw and heard of people doing to survive during the years of famine (which started in the 90's and continue today)
"The misfortune of others, even your own family, leaves you completely indifferent when you have nothing in your belly. Your stomach becomes a thousand more times important than your conscience."
This was later in the book, when Hyok had escaped to China.
"I began to realize that what I had learned in North Korea wouldn't be of much use to me on this other, weird planet. I felt like a frog that had just come out of its pit, from which it had contemplated the circle of sky outlined by the rim, and taken it for the whole of the world. I had passed through the other side of the mirror."

The final thing I came away from this book with was something that completely surprised me. As I read of Hyok's experience of being a North Korean immigrant to South Korea, I was surprised to learn how much prejudice and hate is directed from South Koreans toward North Koreans. I thought that they would be happy for them escaping such a horrible country and surviving to make it into their country of freedom. It made me so sad to read about the kids at school poking fun at the North Koreans because they are so short. (Due to their extreme malnutrition.) There is so much hate that Hyok describes many North Koreans and filled with optimism for their new life only to get shoved back down with all the negative and hateful feelings from South Koreans. I wondered how people could be so cruel, when the North Koreans had survived and been through hell. Many North Koreans lose hope, turn to drinking and crime (thus fulfilling the expectations of the South Koreans) and some commit suicide.
As I contemplated all this, I thought of the Mexican immigrants to this country. There is so much negative propaganda and statistics about illegal Mexican immigrants not paying taxes, yet using up so much of our country's money for food stamps, health insurance, crime, school programs, etc. This creates a lot of suspicion and mistrust of Hispanics. While it's true that there are many people taking advantage of our country and those issues need to be dealt with, it is better to withhold judgement of groups and individuals without knowing their personal circumstances. Hyok spoke of the North Koreans being looked at as second class citizens and not being allowed to go to school, eventually, with South Koreans. I thought this was so sad and worry if the negative feelings in our country continue we could head down that path also.
Enough said, this is an amazing book - a real eye opener.

Yes, this is the same author that wrote the Twilight series. This book is more complex than the Twilight books. I found it fascinating - although the main character, Melanie Stryder, sometimes reminded me of Bella in one annoying way (a little too self-sacrificing, in my opinion). Anyway, this is an interesting and entertaining read. Those who don't want anything to do with the "teeny bop" sensation that Twilight became or who think themselves too sophisticated to read those novels should give "The Host" a try. And if you liked the Twilight books, don't expect this to be anything like those, but I don't think you will be disappointed either. I thought the concept of the book was fascinating - especially the group of people that find creative ways to survive in secret among parasitic aliens. Very cool.

Sorry for the teeny tiny picture. I am currently reading this book, "Isaiah for Airheads" by John Bytheway as I study 2 Nephi and the chapters that cover Isaiah from the Old Testament. I am about half way through and have learned a lot. A great resource to understand Isaiah better. Warning: John Bytheway can be entertaining and funny, but watch out for cheesy puns. (o:

I love this book - a story about what Mary and Joseph's lives may have been like. I read this over Christmas and into January. It is a very sweet portrayal of these two key people in the bible and history. The years that the author must have taken to study the customs, politics and culture at that time, make this a very worthwhile read. It gave me so many new insights as to what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph to bring the Savior into the world. For some reason, this time reading it, I was especially touched by Mary's relationship with her much older cousin Elisabeth and how their close bond must have been such a comfort to her.