Sophie is 12!

I didn't update her 8 YO movie yet but we watched it this morning with tears and smiles.  I looked for it on the blog but the video was no longer in the post!  I put it below.

Happy birthday, my newly minted young woman!

Cleaning: My Quotidian Liturgy

Don't get me wrong, I don't clean very much and would love to build a habit of liturgy--daily worship--through my cleaning, but this blog post is a comfort to anyone feeling ground down by the daily grind and repetition of caring for a home and family. I am reading the author's book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. It was recommended to me by my visiting teacher when I explained that Heavenly Father had started to gently show me that ingratitude was my greatest sin, the root of all my unhappiness, and conscious, deliberate and specific thankfulness was bringing my greatest healing. This book truly has taught me new ways to see that recent revelation. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Noah won his first soccer game!

Super rainy, so they only played 5 minutes, but they scored a point an his first soccer game was deemed a fun success.

Back to School 2013-14

Noah's in 3rd and Lucy is in 2nd. Ben (9th) and Sophie (7th) started earlier so I will need to get pictures after school. Everyone is very close to home this time so I'm hopeful for a more peaceful, simple way of life this school year with very little driving, yay!

Lucy's Ears

Lucy's ear surgery this morning went just fine, Her third set of tubes, thankfully the only preemie problem we have. She is barfing and groggy but will rest today and be back to ballet tomorrow. Her hearing loss should be corrected hopefully, just in time for school Monday.

Ben turns 14

Wow, my firstborn was ordained a Teacher on Sunday. Although he is getting a little bit too cool for everything, he actually is pretty cool. He is just about taller than his dad, give him a couple more months. He found a few of his dad's old suits in the closet and they fit! I'll add a picture of that.

Ben gets good grades and loves playing trumpet in the jazz band--he also got into the main symphonic band, the best one in the state! In his spare time you will often find him longboarding around town and he is starting to get into cycling, he got a jersey and some shorts and a helmet for his birthday, plus a bike tuneup from mommy's mom. Every winter he participates in the snowboarding club at school also. He also loves going up on the slopes with his dad a couple of times a year.

He got to move to the upstairs bedroom after hitting his head on the ceiling going downstairs, so he is now in the adult section of the house and happy to have a nice new bedroom. This year he has been getting into action movies, Ironman and Superman, the robots versus dinosaur movies, etc. and go ahead and judge us, we are letting him watch LOST. Most of all, Ben is an outdoors type of guy. He loves camping and fishing and hiking. Right now he wants to go into environmental sciences, and is taking his first AP class in this area this year as he goes into ninth grade. He's most interested in forestry but also considering geology. I'm looking for some kind of outdoor summer job for him next year that will allow him to be outside working in nature, possibly a boys camp or something like that, let me know if you have ideas.

Things I love about Ben: he is willing to work hard physically, he is very independent and generally stays on top of what needs to happen, which is a huge help to me. He is very intelligent and if you can get him to do it, gives a very nice hug.

He seems very low-key and unlike his early years, is not excitable at all, but can pop off with some pretty funny things sometimes, like his recurring joke that anytime you prefer a color of anything, even a snow cone, he will call you a racist.

He's trying to figure out the world and what is important and seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. He seems to innately understand that, and temptations for boys his age represents the restriction of freedom and the kind of shackles, and he seems to have an internal desire to avoid losing his independence in that way.

Socially he sticks to one on one situations generally and seems comfortable being on his own, like his dad--he likes peace and quiet. This is probably why he likes to go to grandma and grandpas as much as possible where there are fewer small and yelling children (and fewer larger, but sometimes also yelling, adults).

I love him, I'm excited for his future. We've been trying to make it to the temple together weekly, it's something I felt I need to do with him, and it has helped me have a sense of who he is. Teenagers are definitely a whole different world for me. Seminary is starting this year too, he's not super enthusiastic but I'm hoping it will be a place he can answer his questions and feel the Spirit. I don't know what the Lord has planned for him, but I know that Ben can do great things. I am very lucky to be his mom.

Davis County Fair 2

Lucy did a great job for her first time in showmanship.

Davis County Fair

Although we live just one minute away, we have not come for the last two years. And although I was raised in Davis county, I don't remember ever being here. Our neighbor is heavily involved in 4H and the fair and encouraged us to enter our chickens. Lucy even participated in the showing competition where you hold and present your chicken. She got a blue ribbon. Sophie's hen won first place and got a champion hen trophy! Noah got first place for a warty Pat-A-Pan summer squash he entered in the living arts. Sophie also had some sewing projects in that I have not seen results for yet. This has been so much fun for so little effort. I'm so glad we did it.

Backyard in (Almost) August II

Backyard in August I

Bad Farmington water . . .

Hi friends--I didn't want to be "that" person, the protester, and have been debating whether I should make a stink about this for over a year, but now my water stinks, so I guess it's time.  If you do Facebook, please like this page and forward to anyone you know in Farmington--http://www.facebook.com/FarmingtonDeservesPureWater

The city was told the well they dug by the park would be bad, then it was bad, so they just added more chemicals, built a nice well house and just started adding it to the supply in the last few weeks, and now our water is smelly, discolored and tastes awful.  They say, "Don't worry, we'll just increase the chemicals to mask the color and smell, but hey, it's safe."  Yum.

Here's a write up in the Deseret News about it: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865582995/Smelly-yellow-water-disturbs-some-Farmington-residents.html

There's clean water on the other side of town and I even heard there was an offer to trade it for irrigation water so we could have another clean well--let me know if you have any details on that.  Not sure why they kept moving forward when all signs pointed to bad news, maybe just stubbornness and unwillingness to recognize it was a bad investment.  Still, the city seems to have ignored all the warning signs and simply wouldn't admit they made an expensive mistake.  Now we all have to pay the price.  

Now I see I should have been more involved 18 months ago.  Please forward along to other Farmingtonians, and let your City know you expect pure, not just chemically-made "safe" water, since it is ready available just a few miles away.   

VC

Do You Think You've Been Robbed?

I got my annual chance yesterday to see my dear friend Lori. We talked much about how the Savior promised that in the world we would have tribulation. Yet all of us continually act shocked and wronged when things are hard or people let us down, despite thousands of years evidence that being human on earth will entail far more troubled than calm waters. 

She asked me to look up this quote and send it to her, and when I found it I realized I probably should read it every morning myself. 

President Gordon B. Hinckley:

Life is like that—ups and downs, a bump on the head, and a crack on the shins. It was ever thus. Hamlet went about crying, "To be or not to be," but that didn't solve any of his problems. There is something of a tendency among us to think that everything must be lovely and rosy and beautiful without realizing that even adversity has some sweet uses. One of my favorite newspaper columnists is Jenkin Lloyd Jones. In a recent article published in the News, he commented:

There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young who hold hands and smooch in the drive-ins that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks, to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and ravishing wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear, the divorce courts are jammed.

Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just ordinary people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. . . .

Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride.

family pics