Slice of LIfe # 22 ~ Treats

I am behind on my Slice of Life entries as I have gone more then a week without access to the internet.  But we finally got it hooked up last night.

This weeks Slice of life is Treats.  There are a lot of times in my life were I got special treats.  In 9th grade for my birthday, my group of friends had a surprise for me in each of my 7 classes.  It was so neat that they remembered me like that.  Finding treats from my Mom and Dad on Valentines Day.  Walking out on Valentin's Day when I lived in Arizona, just before I moved home to go on my mission and having my front door and sidewalk heart-attacked by our hometeachers.  Having my room decorated with cards in the picture by the other sister's that we shared our apartment with on my mission, or not telling anyone in my mission it was my birthday and being surprised with a birthday cake also in the picture.

Everyday seems like a treat with my wonderful husband and kids!

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Thanksgiving Point ~ Farm Country

Today, the kids and I went to Thanksgiving Point again and this time we went to the Farm Country.  The kids enjoyed seeing the animals and riding a pony/horse.  They all rode without any help!  We had a lot of fun, and the kids did great!  I am glad it is getting easier to go out on adventures with them by myself!

Thanksgiving Point ~ Dinosaur Museum

We recently acquired a Annul membership to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, UT.  They have a movie theater, dinosaur museum, farm country, gardens and soon a science exhibit.  When we take family and friends with us they can get in for 50% off.  Dan's sister Marsha came to town with her kids this last weekend and we took her and her kids with us to visit the Dinosaur museum.  These are some of the pictures.  We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to going back again for the Halloween party as even the dinosaurs will be dressed up in costumes!  We are also looking forward to exploring some of the other areas each time we go!  It was fun to get out of the house for a while with the kids.  I am excited to take the kids and do some of these things while Dan is at work.

Until next time!

Slice of Life # 21~ Trick

This weeks Slice of Life entry is on Tricks.

Of course I do have some pictures  but they are on the other computer that I  don't have access to this week.

I think the funnest trick I have ever helped with would be on Sept 14, 2002.  My sister Emily was married on the 13th in Logan and did her reception on the 14th in Pleasant Grove.  Our good family friend Trevor and I  went to the hotel that my sister and her new husband was staying at, we had gone to the store and bought banana's, root beer, and Oreo cookies. We then went to Midvale to their hotel and we had brought with us professional Saran wrap like what you buy at the moving stores to wrap your big items up with.  We wrote just married on the windows and started to wrap the car, then we put in the package of cookies and two cans of root beer.  Then every so often we put in a banana and a can of root beer and then at the end finished off with more root beer and banana's.  We put the bananas and root beer so they could enjoy eating and drinking something while they undid the car and the cookies at the end to eat as a treat.

The next morning they came out and had to unwrap their car.  My brother in law wasn't very happy with us!  And then to find out he doesn't like root beer, we should have gotten sprite or coke!

But that was so fun!  Of course I didn't think to take a camera with me, it was the first time I had ever done anything like that!  And I haven't done anything quite like that since.  Thanks Trevor for taking me!

Slice of Life # 20~ The Harvest

The Harvest time always seems to be a bitter sweet time for me.  I grew up watching my parents and grandparents doing it, and have canned and made fruit leather myself before I was married. I even made some Jam a few years ago, and more recently when I went to visit my grandmother last year she helped me use all my dry beans and can them so that they were ready to use. And I am proud to say that I have used  all the bottles of beans that we canned last year.  I have found that I like to have the beans canned as it saves a step later when I want to use them.  I love getting fresh fruits and vegetables.

One of the reasons I don't can much right now is I live in a small apartment with 4 little kids ranging from almost age 5 down to twins that are 20 months old.  And I don't own my own equipment to do it.  Last year when I did some with grandma, she had all the stuff and there was plenty of people around to watch my kids while I was working on it ( a year ago the twins were only 9 months old).

The other reason that I don't do it right now with the ages of my kids and small space is because of a fear that happened with a canning accident when I was in the 3rd grade, now this is from my memory, and even though I was at school when it happened, it did effect me and my family.  I guess right now I just want to record this so that I don't ever forget it.

It was the day after labor day and I had gone to school like any other day.  My lunch recess usually allowed me to see my little sister Emily as she came for afternoon kindergarten.   This day I had saved my cucumbers from my school lunch to give to her since she loved cucumbers, but she didn't show up.  When I got home from school, Sister Dunn (a neighbor) was there doing laundry and told me that my sister had an accident and was at the hospital.  I was to later learn, that she had gotten up on to the table and asked to help my mom with canning.  Mom told her no and to go back outside and play in the back yard with the other kids.  She had gotten up to the table right by were my Mom had a electric crock pot keeping her lids hot for canning.  So Emily got down but got down on the other side of the chair then where she had gotten up.  She tripped over the cord and it brought the crock pot down on top of her.  The scolding hot water missed her head and her hands.  She had 2nd to 3rd degree burns all over her body.  She spent 3 weeks in the burn unit at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.  They shaved off her hair to take skin from her scalp for skin graft.  I seem to remember her hair grew back a lot prettier then it was before.  She had a lot of treatments for a couple of years, but has grown up and has a family of her own now.  I am grateful for the quick thinking of my mother and her friend who was their helping her that day.  Mom hasn't let this stop her from canning and teaching us to can.

So as you can see from that story, I have a fear of canning with little kids around.  But I am sure as I move into a home and can plant a garden of my own, that I will over come that fear.

Until next week.

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Slice of Life #19 - "Get Into My Car"

The year is 1993 and I was 15 when I started to learn to drive my dad would take me to large empty parking lots and have me practice on a Sunday afternoons.  We would use his car which was a Pontiac but I don't remember what model.  And then as it got closer to getting my license we used the Nissan mini-van that we owned.  Of course a month before I got my licences they sold the mini-van and got a large blue suburban.  Which I drove a lot.

But the month before I was to turn 16 in 1994, My grandfather had some health issues and gave up his drivers license.  That summer, my sister and I moved in my my grandparents, since my parents were moving into a small 3 bedroom apartment and with 6 girls it just wasn't going to work.  So I got to drive grandpa's car.  He had  a 1984 Century.

In Oct 1994 I was in a car accident that wasn't my fault and totalled the car.  He then bought this 1986 Ford Taurse with all the bells and wistels.  I drove that until I left on my mission and while I was gone it died.

When I got home from my mission I bought my first car.  A 1999 Toyota Corolla.  I loved that car!  Of course I had driven Corollas on my mission.  We sold this car in Jan 2009, just before the twins were born because we couldn't fit 4 kids in it.  We bought a 1998 Dodge Caravan.  And it is alright to drive, not my favorite.

 What  I would really like to drive is a 8 passenger Toyota Sienna.  I love the space in that thing.  One day  That is my dream car right now. And someday that may change.

We own a 1994 Honda Civic and I have never driven it.  Dan got it when he got home from his mission in 1994.  It is still running good and he plans to drive  it until it dies.  The reason I have never driven it, is I have never learned to drive a stick.  My dad bought his first stick in about 15 years when I bought my Corolla.  So I never learned, as I had my car and never needed to borrow Dad's car.  And with 4 kids under the age of 5 it is hard to get out and have Dan teach me.  Maybe someday we can still do it.

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Slice of life #18 ~ Random Picture day

This weeks Slice of Life is Random Picture day.  Because I seem to have lost a scrapbook with a lot of my old pictures from me as a child (think it is in one of the boxes that I haven't ever unpacked).  I chose a picture that I had scanned into my computer.  This is when I was about 10 day old.   I was born at 28 weeks and my twin sister Lynnette didn't make it.  I weighted in at 1 lbs 14 ozs and 12 inches long.  I was in the hospital for 12 weeks after I was born before my parents could take me home.  This is how my Mom and Dad got to hold me  at first.

There is a story about my birth.  My parents were living in Rexburg, ID when they found out they were having twins.  They found out about 2 weeks before we were born.  My Mom was going into labor just after Mother's Day and the Dr's knew they didn't have the set up to handle preemie babies(remember this was 1978) so they sent her by ambulance to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City.    The only ambulance that was available was a brand new one that had no radio.  The ambulance goes speeding down I-15 to Salt Lake City, and the Highway Patrol is trying to get a hold of them to find out what the emergency was,  and can't because there was no radio.  So the Highway Patrol thought it was a stolen ambulance.  And they then got enough cops there to surround the ambulance south of Pocatello or so.  When they found out what was going on, they called a helicopter from Salt Lake City to come and get my parents.  They got my parents to the hospital and I was born at 10:10am.  My parents had lost a baby just nine months before I was born, so when they told my mom that there was a good chance I wasn't going to survive, she just knew that I was going to.  I have 4 younger sister that were born in the 7 years after I was born, and my mother was on bed rest for most of her pregnancies to help them from coming early.  When I was born my lungs were not fully developed, and I have a hearing loss and wear hearing aids in both ears that is said to be a side effect of being born so early.

It has been 32 years since this day, and I am grateful, that the medicine and technology was around to help keep me here on this earth, even though it has come a long ways in the last 32 years as well.

Ruth & Irene 7 days old

In Jan 2009 when I gave birth to my twins, my husband didn't want to be in the room with me.  He didn't like the thought of them cutting me open for a c-section, I was privileged to have my Mom in the operating room with me, and I think she enjoyed getting to see the birth of the next generation of twins, born from one of her twin daughters.  I love you Mom and Dad, Thanks for being there for me!

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Slice of Life # 17~ Chores

This weeks Slice of Life prompt is chores.

When I was about 14 my Dad decided that all of us were old enough to start cooking some of the meals and doing our own laundry.  My Mom had gone back to school, and to help ease the burden he wanted us all to do two things besides our normal chores.  We were to each have a night to cook dinner and we each had a day that we did our laundry.  My Dad told us that he wanted us to learn to cook things other then Mac and Cheese, Hot Dogs and Raman!  Since there was 6 girls we each had a night and Mom and Dad cooked on Sunday.  If we couldn't do our assigned day then we had to get one of the other girls to trade with us.  Our laundry day was on a different day from our dinner cooking night, so that we could get homework done and stuff.  If we didn't do our laundry on our day then we had to ask the person who's day it was if we could do a load with their stuff.  I think it worked out pretty well.  I am glad my dad came up with this plan so that we could all learn.  My youngest sister was 8 at the time and I am the oldest of my sisters and I was 14, and my foster sister was 15.  Sweet times.  Now I wish my kids were old enough to do this with, but I know in time they will be and I am going to do this with them.

P.S. The pictures were taken off line!  My dishes never looked that good!

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How old are you?

This is Irene, she is 20 months old.  Saturday night was a rough night for sick kids in our house.  First Irene came and climbed in bed with me at 1:30am and then her big brother Dillon joined us shortly after.  Then my 3 year old daughter came in at 2am crying because she had wet her bed.  I get up and help her and try to get Dillon and Jennilyn back in bed with a lot of fighting and when I got up I though Irene had gone back to sleep on my bed.  While I was trying to get Jennilyn and Dillon back to bed and going to sleep, I notice the TV coming on in my room.  Irene had gotten a hold of the remote and turned on the TV and Blue Ray player and was watching the credits of Star Trek (the newest one) and she was just laying on my pillows watching with the remote in hand.  I took her to her bed and she went right back to sleep.

I just had to laugh that a 20 month old little girl could figure out the remote and just lay down and watch the movie that was in.  Funny little girl!

Slice of life # 16~ Jobs

This weeks Slice of Life is Jobs.

I started working when I was 14.  Cleaning house for a neighbor.  And I have had many jobs sense then.

But I think the crazies time is when I worked 3 part time jobs the Summer of 1996.   The day after graduation I had to be to my first day on the job at 12 noon after being up all night with the High school graduation party.  I worked as a bagger at Smith's food and drug store.  Then I was hired at Madsen dry cleaner in Provo across the street from BYU, I was a shirt presser.  Then I worked doing secretarial work and house cleaning for my neighbor that I had started working for when I was 14.  I did this from May 30~ Oct 15 when I left for college in Phoenix, AZ.  That was one busy summer.  It seems like I was never home, because I was always at work.  But as a bagger, I got to help Marie Osmond out to the car with her groceries, and then in 1999 when I worked at Harmon's grocery story I got to check out Steve Young the football player.  I am grateful for the opportunity that I have had to work and help pay my way through school and my mission.  Now that I am a stay at home mom, I miss the friendship and change of pace that work gave me.  Now it seems all I do is take care of the house and kids and I never get to go out and meet new people.  But maybe in the future that will be an option again.

Until next time.
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Look A Like meters

My cousins wife did this, so I decided to see what it said about our kids!
I thought it was interesting that Dillon was 17% more like me.  Jennilyn 3% more like Dan, and the twins wow, Ruth was 6% more like Dan and Irene was 6% more like me!  Crazy!

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Geneology

Slice of Life # 15~ School Daze

This weeks Slice of Life prompt is about school.  My oldest starts his 2nd year of Preschool tomorrow.  And the School District still hasn't called to tell me what time they are picking him up.  But that is not my story.  I have a memory that I am pretty proud of in high school.

I was a sophomore in high school and I was in a world history class.  I don't remember who my teacher was, but it was a male teacher.  We had a history torment for a mid-term review in prep for the mid term.  The class was divided into two groups and then we each took turns answering the questions.  I had studied hard, but I tend to forget things when I am under pressure and being put on the spot.  I made it to the 2nd round and then for the final round I was the last one left in my group.  I ended up beating the other team with the winning question being answered. For my prize I got an A on the mid term and I got to play hooky during class the next day while the class was taking the mid term.  I have always been pretty proud of the Title of History Queen that my teacher gave me.  And you held the title until the end of the school year.   Until next week!

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I love to see the Temple!

Yesterday, Dan and I were getting ready to leave for the temple when, Jennilyn told us that she wanted to go to the temple too.  Dan told her she had to wait 9 more years until she was 12.  She then climbed in my lap and said "I want to go to the temple to, Mommy" I told her she couldn't go.  She then told us again she wanted to go to the temple, so I told her we would go tomorrow to the temple and she said ok.

This morning we got up and we got everyone ready.  We rode Trax to Temple Square, as two kids under the age of 6 can ride free with a paid adult.  so we figured it would cost us about the same to drive and park as it would to take Trax.  The kids loved riding Trax.  We got to Temple Square and we met up with Marj Condor, a sister in my ward and a bunch of others.  We were early, so we had to wait for the Church History Museum opened.  We then went in and saw the "I am a Child of God" exhibit, that is getting ready to close down this next week.  Marj and helped to design the exhibit, so it was fun to listen to some of her facts about it.  The kids had fun playing in there.

We then walked over to Temple Square and took some pictures with the temple.  Then we got on Trax and rode it home.  Irene feel asleep on the way, but she was up really early.

We had fun.  Thanks Marj for inviting us to join you there to see the exhibit.  I think we will have to do this more often with the kids.

Enjoy the Slide show of some of our pictures!

It was Hot!

I saw this baby bird fall in to the bike tires on Saturday.  It was so hot that Dan could see it panting.  The bird and lost energy.  We left it alone and when we came back from the park it was gone.

Slice of Life # 14 ~ Snakes

I don't like snakes!  


But I do  have a story for snakes.  Two years ago we had been unemployed for 6 months and had to make the decision to move from Hudson, WI to Spokane, WA and move in with my in-laws as this was just months before the government extended the unemployment benefits and ours was running out.  We rented a big U-Hall for the move.  We made the trip with no incidents, but when we went to unload things out of the truck.  I noticed that there was a hole in our box spring that hadn't been there when we loaded it up.  But we didn't think anything about it until later that day when my sister-in-law Shawnda found a snake in the family room.  They grabbed a large garbage can and put over it.  It was just a garden snake.  They took it out to the garden and let it go.  That night my sister-in-law Stephanie was sleeping on the family room floor and she was attacked by a mouse that jumped every were.  This mouse was not a native to Spokane.  All we can figure is that some how the snake and the mouse got into our stuff and got moved into the house.  Since Stephanie wouldn't let her mom kill the thing it escaped and was never found again, but was heard in the walls from time to time.

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Meet Brian & Sarah

I want you to meet Brian & Sarah.

Sarah and I meet her first Sunday at church when she had just moved to Phoenix, AZ in Oct 1997.  I was asked to give her a ride home from church by the Bishop, and was glad to do so.  She lived in an apartment complex across the street from mine.  She had non-LDS roommates and had trouble with some of them so she would come hang out at my place.  In Feb 1999 Brian moved into the ward.  Sarah and I become roommates in 1998.  Brian and Sarah started dating in 1999 while I was on my mission and got married in Feb 2000.  They were blessed to be able to have their son Nathan who is now 9.  But, they have been unable to have more children.  They would like to have more kids, and their son Nathan keeps asking when he is going to get a sibling.  


If you know someone who is considering adoption, could you please, as delicately as possible lead them to these wonderful people.


To learn more about them please go to ItsAboutLove.org.  And look for Brian and Sarah.


Or you can go to Here to read their Facebook Group page.


We love you guys and our prayers are with you!

Sacrament Meeting

A co-worker of my husbands sent this onto him and I loved it.  I am going to try and find this picture of our home.  I hope you enjoy! 

Sacrament Meeting


 I just kept getting goosebumps looking at this!!! It is beautiful!


"This painting was unique from its very beginning. It would be great if I could take credit for the composition and message it conveys but in my mind, that would be like Moses taking credit for bringing water from the stone in the desert.


"Usually when I have an idea for a painting it starts as a simple seed and it grows as I play with the image in my mind, moving the characters around, imagining the lights and shadows, the values and the colors, eventually deciding on its composition after what might be weeks or even months of pondering and sketches, but this painting was different. There was no seed, no moving of characters, it was totally different.


"I was sitting in church on a Sunday afternoon as the Sacrament was being passed and bang, there it was, the image was instantaneously placed before my mind's eye just as you see it here. This experience has happened to me only three times and it has been very special each time." 
-Doc Christensen

       

-- 
 "He lives, my one sure rock of faith, 
The one bright hope of men on earth" from the hymn "My Redeemer Lives" lyrics by President Gordon B. Hinkley 

"If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today, I still have a dream."
--Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Once you choose hope, anything's possible." --Christopher Reeve