Last Sunday

The last Sunday in May, that is.

Christopher, tired at bedtime.. This will be a great blackmail picture.

Ruth was released from the Primary Presidency today after 2.5 years. She has done a great job and always tried to do her best. She has been called to serve as a primary worker in the nursery. When Sarah and Joe move away our Aaron and one other little boy will be the only children attending nursery.

When we got home we had a snack of popcorn, kettle corn, apples, crackers, cheese and summer sausage. I asked Christopher and Kaitlin what they learned about in their class (they are in the same class). Of course they couldn't remember. I asked if their teacher told them any stories and Kaitlin said "Yes". She couldn't remember what they were about except choosing the right. For some reason I admitted that even I choose the wrong sometimes. Kaitlin jumped on this and said with a chastising tone "like when you yell at your kids?!"

I was going to respond but let it go and just thought about that for awhile. Sometimes our children don't listen to us and we feel we have to raise our voices. This is definitely not the most effective method of teaching good behavior, in fact its the opposite. We may feel that we don't have time to isolate a disobedient child to have a quiet teaching moment. But the time we have isn't really for anything else but to teach with love. If I feel I have to yell, for something that isn't dangerous, then I am probably being lazy and selfish myself, which is the behavior I'm trying to correct.

I got to play the piano in Primary today. It is one of my favorite things to do in church. It's not my calling but I fill in at least once a month. Now that Ruth is going to be in the nursery I will be back in Priesthood and playing there.

I love music, in case you didn't know. It has a power that speaks to our spirits that I can't explain. But it has had a profound effect on my life. I love being able to be part of that influence for other people.

Stiches and Rattles

Ruth: I hardly ever mop.

On Wednesday the nesting instinct took over and I mopped all the floors when the kids were at the computer. As I was rinsing the mop Kaitlin and Christopher came out of the bedroom, Kaitlin dressed up in her pretty pink-and-purple princess shoes and white gloves. The girls have some plastic shoes that they like to wear for dress-up. They are too small for Rachel and Emily. But Kaitlin still wears them sometimes as well as the boys. Before I had a chance to warn them about the wet wood floor, Kaitlin lost it and fell on her chin, splitting it open. Emily was freaking out, took one look and said "She needs stitches!" I didn't want to scare Kaitlin, so I told her she may not have to get stitches, but we should get it cleaned up first.

Kaitlin was much braver than I was, but the fat showing through her open wound was making me faint. I called Jason asking him to come home as soon as possible, but I knew she needed to be taken care of right then. Luckily, Sarah and Joe still live right down the road. Sarah came over to find me crawling around the house avoiding potential fainting injuries and Kaitlin holding cotton balls to her chin.

Sarah drove me and the kids to her house where we left the uninjured children with Joe and she took Kaitlin and I to the emergency room because I did not yet have the stomach for driving. We waited for 2.5 hours before being seen by the nurse. They numbed her chin with Lidocaine(sp?) and Kaitlin was back to her goofy self for an hour until they came to stitch her up. I couldn't watch but I held her hand with my head between my knees.

Jason visited twice, both times to take my place, but Kaitlin wanted me to stay with her instead of her dad. Jason brought us some roast beef sandwiches while we waited because we were missing dinner at Sarah and Joe's.

Kaitlin was very brave. She said that the only part that hurt was the shots (anesthestic). After they were done they gave us both juice boxes and let us lay there for a little bit. The apple juice was good. On the way home I bought her an ice-cream cone and let her choose some popsicles from the supermarket.-RuthJason: Saturday we spent most of the day at home. I worked outside digging holes for a fence around our garden. But we did something fun this evening because we aren't going camping.

The Cache Creek Wilderness lies in the mountains between Clearlake and Woodland. There are some trails that are accessible from highways 20 and 16 that border the wilderness area. I wanted to go out there for a evening hike since we weren't going to do anything else for the weekend. I have been studying the area on Google Earth as a possible deer hunting area.

For the trip we popped some popcorn, made some kettle corn, filled our water bottles, and stashed some carrots, raisins, trail mix, granola bars, and fruit snacks into our bags. We left the house around 5:30. It had cooled off by then and was quite nice outside.

The trailhead is about a 20 minute drive from our house. When we were almost there I ran over a huge snake at the edge of the road! The road trip was enjoyable with the kids and parents singing silly songs most of the way.

There is a "bathroom" at the trailhead that amounts to a two-stall pit toilet. Some of the kids said they needed to go, but mysteriously changed their minds after sizing up the bathroom. So we locked the van and started walking.

We gave the kids rules before we began. Everybody stays together, stay on the trail, no running, etc. We hadn't gone 15 feet down the trail when i hear a loud "BZZZZ". Kaitlin and Christopher are in front of me and my heart starts racing because they are between me and the noise. Luckily the noise had stopped them in their tracks. The rattlesnake slithered away through the grass still shaking its tail. I never saw it but the grass bent out of its way as it left. It sure got my adrenaline going. I was ready to grab both kids and pull them back when the snake started moving away. But the snake never showed itself.

The rest of the trip was enjoyable and uneventful. We walked in about .8 miles (according to google earth) and stopped for dinner. We saw a gopher snake on the way and lots of blue-belly lizards. Our dinner site had a limited though pretty view of the mountains and a little valley to the south. It was breezy but very nice. No noise but the wind and nobody else on the trail.

Happy Memorial Day to all of you. Thanks to God and to those who have given their lives for ours and our freedom.

Jason

P.S. That was the first rattlesnake I've heard of the five that I've encountered.

I'm getting anxious!

Here we are with about three weeks to go before this new little person will join our family and I'm starting to get anxious! I have been telling myself this whole pregnancy that he'll probably be late. But now that we are so close I have been hoping for him to come early. There are so many things that I want to do this summer that if he came early it would make them so much easier to do! I know he'll come when he's good and ready, I just hate this last month of WAITING!

I had a doctor's appointment on Monday and she told me that the baby is probably about 5 1/2 pounds. When she said that, all I could think was, that is too small and he can't come for at least another pound. I don't get to have babies that are that tiny. Of course, they can't really tell for sure how big the baby really is until it actually comes out. She also told me that I'm dilated to a one but he's still pretty high. So really there's no telling when he's going to make his grand entrance.

While I wait, I've decided to have as much quality time with the kids as possible. I know I'm gonna be tired for about three months soon.

By the way, if anyone knows of a great deal on an eight-seater vehicle, please let us know!

Truth Commisions

Here's an excellent parody of our Congress' top National Socialist at a news conference.

Mayternitty?

I've had a bin of maternity clothes that I won't be wearing for the remainder of this pregnancy sitting in my room for quite some time. I finally got it out and asked Jason to put it under the house (Since I'm the last one left pregnant in our family,*sniff*) until I'm done with the ones that I am using. Jason enlisted the help of Rachel. She is what I think a really good reader and she loves to read. She read the label on the bin and asked Jason, "What are may-ter-nitty clothes?"

We had a good laugh and Jason explained that it's pronounced muh-ter-ni-tee, and that they are clothes for pregnant women, but he used different words of course. It was cute and I thought I'd share. Even eight-year-olds say funny things!

Enjoying spring

A couple weeks ago I noticed some potatoes with eyes and leaves on them. So, i took the out and stuck them in the dirt, six pieces of potato altogether. This was right before the rains got here. I didn't realize potatoes liked water so much. They've really taken off as you can see below. A couple of the potatoes got dug up by who-knows-what before they could start growing, But we still have four potato plants going.

We're enjoying our yard lately. We've built new boxes for gardening.

Ruth got dirt for Mother's Day. Enough to fill our new boxes and other areas where we will plant stuff. Ruth planted a bunch of seeds in cardboard egg cartons. Its so fun watching stuff sprout and grow! I hope our tomatoes produce better than last year.

Kids in a Blanket

I don't know what else to say, but that we had fun this morning!