We're All Alright

I bit off a little more than I could chew this past weekend.  I had a hat to finish for one of my Activity Day girls, bread to bake for Sunday dinner at the in-laws', cupcakes to make and decorate for my primary kiddos, and two pies to deliver to families in our ward.  The timer for my pies went off 5 minutes before church started when we should have been leaving the house at quarter to 10:00.  Consequently, we were late.  Consequently, we sat in the foyer for the sacrament.  The pies had seemed under-baked, so I left them at home in the oven.  Consequently, I had to send Hiram back to retrieve them.  Consequently, our car was not in the parking lot.  When my in-laws didn't see us in sacrament meeting (we always sit next to them) and on such a special Sunday (it was our primary presentation), my mother-in-law panicked.  She was sure that our whole family had died in our sleep due to carbon monoxide poisoning.  Ellen (my mother-in-law), who was sitting on the stand, sent one of the primary kids down to David (my father-in-law) with a note telling him he better check on us.  This freaked him out.  He had helped us put our wood stove in the previous day and had been worrying the whole time that Hiram would mess something up and kill us all and/or burn the house down when he actually started a fire in it.  In fact, at 10:30 the previous evening, he had felt like he should call us and check on us, but he figured it was too late and didn't.  Since he had not followed this possible prompting, he had an extra dose of anxiety as he drove to our house, wondering the whole time how he'd be able to dial 911 since he didn't have his cell phone on him.  He drove to our house, nearly frightened to death and began looking in our windows dreading what he might see.  The sight of my made bed, relieved his mind somewhat.  The lack of dead bodies helped too.  He then drove by the hospital before running into Hiram on his way back to get the pies.  Boy was he ever relieved.  And Ellen was sure happy to see me walk in right after the sacrament and make my way up onto the stand.  I was sorry to have given them such a scare, but it was nice to know how much they care.  David said it would have ruined his day.=)

Thinking about it, I'm not sure how bad a thing it would be to go peacefully in your sleep with your whole family, but I am very glad to report that we're all alright, and our house, which was recently frigid, is now often a little overly warm.  I do like having heat in my home! And my wood stove is beautiful.

Here are pictures of my projects. 

And one of Israel enjoying our first fire.

I have never in my life been as happy as I am.  My life seems pretty darn near perfect to me.  I can't tell you how much I love this simple, desert life.  I am active and productive but not too busy.  I am more aware of my blessings and more grateful than I've ever been.  I treasure my children and every beautiful thing about them-- their faces and hands and voices and hugs.  I care about all the things that really matter and none of the things that don't.  I'm kind to my husband and more patient than I once was.  I have everything I want (except a large family, but I'm happy to take that slowly).  I hope everyone that I love is just as happy as I am. 

In the Heat of the Night

I'd like to know how normal this is.  Does anyone else have a husband who comes on to them in the middle of the night and basically has no recollection of doing so in the morning?  This happens quite frequently to me.  Last night was especially crazy.  At one point I woke to Hiram passionately kissing my face.  Before thinking, I started kissing him back, then realized I was supposed to be sleeping--that I had in fact been sleeping--and disengaged.  I had to push Hiram's head down on his pillow a couple times telling him, "Go to bed," and had to ward off several more advances before he finally left me alone. At one point I even considered moving to the couch.  =)  He asked me this morning if we had had a fight in the middle of the night.  I had to fill him in on his frisky behavior and my rejections.  It turns out he had had a dream in which he rescued me from a fire.  I guess the danger plus the damsel in distress got him all hot and bothered.  So, is it just my spouse?

Israel's First Day of Preschool and Some Sweet Pics

I don't have it in me to write much tonight.  I was going to be in bed by nine...but alas.  Anyway, today was Israel's first day of preschool.  I wasn't emotional about it.  And Israel ran right outside to play with the other kids (or more likely to play with the playground equipment...he usually couldn't care less about other kids) without bothering even to take a glance back at me.  I asked how he did when I came to pick him up and was told he was a "real fire ball."  Not sure what that means.  I'm so excited for him to be in the preschool.  I've subbed quite a few times there, and they do so many fun things.  He's going to have a blast this year, and I may be able to get the occasional nap again.

One quick funny thing.  Tonight, we needed to leave my in-laws house, where we had been enjoying dinner after a swim in the frog pond, because Brig was falling apart.  Hiram told me that he was having trouble getting Israel in the car, so he started the threatening count to three.  1....2.....thr....at this point Israel hit him.  Immediately realizing the blunder, he said quickly, "Oh no...." and took off running.  Ah, that story made me laugh.  I love this crazy little kid.  MAN, I love him.  Oh, he's just the coolest, cutest, smartest, sweetest.  What would I ever do without him?

Israel loves to help with the watering.

Brigham loves anything edible.  And he LOVES his blanket almost more than me.

Maybe someday he'll make big bucks when he makes it into a firefighter calendar?

Most beautiful eyes.  And most smoochable lips and cheeks and ears and neck.

Yeah, we have 23 chickens that will someday lay us some eggs.

Israel's most recent pet.  Bet you can't guess what he named him.

We've been busy. 

Mindy Gledhill

I went to a friend's blog recently and heard Mindy Gledhill for the first time...or at least this music of her's for the first time.  I just want so much to share it with everyone I know because I LOVE it and its sweet and happy and fun.  So try it!  Its on my playlist.  I don't know how to make it start automatically like my last one...whatever.  Hit play.  Do it.

Oh, how I love this boy...

A cute little girl at the park the other day, allowed Israel to borrow her bike (she couldn't ride it as one of the tires was flat) to give his pet ladybug a ride.  He put his unfortunate friend in the pocket there and pushed him around a good while.  Israel is extremely fond of catching (or rather having us catch) small animals and making them his pets.  He's had lizards, fish, a pack rat, a frog, ants, ladybugs, etc.  He names every one Israel.  So cute.  The other day our car happened to catch a dragonfly.  We put it in a glass vase for a while and looked at it, and then as we usually do, we encouraged him to let us let it go.  As it was flying off into the sunset (actually it was flying in the opposite direction of the sunset), Israel told me, "He's going back to his mama."  That little statement just melted my heart.  What a sweet, smart little boy.  I just love him.

A couple other cute things I want to be sure to remember-- often at night now when I give him a kiss, he'll say, "Let's try that again!"  And he'll continue to say that and play his little game til I don't find it amusing enough to keep playing it.  It does get old, but I sure love it.  Also, if he ever discovers a small space-- a pocket for instance, or a hole in a toy-- he comes to me and asks hopefully, "Chocolate chips in it?" and I've never been able to deny him his request.  He is just too adorable with his big, bright blue eyes, pink cheeks with new little freckles, and messy blonde hair.

He's finally officially completely potty trained.  It is so nice to only have one child in diapers.  He got into the preschool, so I had to force him.  I knew he knew better, so when he'd poop in his underwear, I got pretty angry.  Now, every time he does his business in the toilet he tells me, "You be happy now...," and looks all hopeful like, "Right?" Its cute, but it kinda makes me sad.  Poor kid got quite a few spankings and time-outs in addition to being yelled at by me. 

He likes to get up pretty early.  When we discourage him from bothering us, he tells us, "The sun is up.  It's awake time." When we want him to go to bed at night, though, he doesn't want to listen to our argument that the sun is down so its sleep time.

In the car he likes to go "super fast."  Sometimes, obviously, we can't go as fast as he'd like us to.  I tried to explain it to him, and then the other day he wowed me when we pulled onto the street that takes us into town and he told his dad, "This is a slow place."  So he gets it, and he knows on the way home just where we can go fast again.  I just think he's so clever and smart. 

A Letter I'll Never Send

I have been irked.  I am very irked.  There is....someone....a nameless someone....who is quickly becoming the bane of my existence.  He is aggravating in the extreme and causing me all kinds of grief.  I could hardly fall asleep last night for thinking about him and how annoying he is, then I woke up at 4:00 this morning unable to sleep anymore, so I did what I do when I'm spitting mad.  I wrote a condescending letter....that I will never send:

You are not a perfect parent.  Far from it, actually.  Your own discipline style is very  flawed.  Why do you make judgements then about us and criticize us?  President Hinkley said, ““You will be far more successful with love as your watchword than you will be with a whip or lash or anything of the kind.”  Sometimes, it is necessary…and helpful , I think, to physically punish a child.  And I do spank Israel quite a bit despite what you think and despite the critical thing you said about my not having a discipline style…that it was discipline by distraction.  (I’m not saying that instance that you spoke of didn’t happen, rather I’m saying it was taking a very narrow view.)  Most of the time, though, I regret spanking.  I don’t believe that anger and punishment are the best way, and I don’t think they are required for every little thing.  Mostly, I believe our children should be taught with gentle, loving guidance.  We should be kind when we reprove.  Israel is a wonderful little boy.  He is a child and behaves like one, but he is also learning.  We are not sitting back and doing nothing, but we are doing things in the best way we know how.  We are happy.  You choose your way, but please allow us to do the same.

When you are over at the house, it is your responsibility to watch your child just as much as it is ours to watch Israel.  We don’t want to be always following Israel when you are around, watching him like a hawk and hitting him to satisfy you whenever he does anything childlike.  We like to be able to relax and enjoy Sunday dinner without worrying how you will be offended.  We have on many occasions tried to respect your wish to keep our kids apart and set up gates or put Israel in front of a show, but inevitably, they find each other.  They love each other and to play together.  Your defense in all of this is that you are trying to protect your daughter, but she doesn’t need it to this extent.  She enjoys being with our son, and no great harm has ever been done to her.  She is not afraid or nervous.  She is not scarred or maimed (emotionally or otherwise).  She’s not even going to remember any of this.  Sometimes a toy is snatched out of her hands or she is slightly hurt, but it is usually by accident.  Israel’s intent is rarely, rarely to hurt or be mean, and we DO check him when we see that.  You are doing what you are doing because of your own pride.

You asked in our phone call when you had ever gotten mad and up in my face.  Perhaps you’ve never done that, but the surest way to offend any mother is to be mean to or rude about her child, and you have done that repeatedly in my presence.  Just yesterday, you called Israel a “little shit” to me.  How would you feel if I ever said anything like that to you about your child?  It was extremely rude and offensive.  Can you possible disagree?   Also, you are constantly making remarks about his size as if that is some failing or shortcoming.  Israel, you should know, is perfectly in the average range for height for his age, but I wouldn’t care if he were a midget.  What I care about is that his uncle who should love him and be kind to him and about him is mostly just demeaning towards him.  I can’t find in you any charity.

What I do find in you is a great deal of selfish pride and arrogance.   You are self-righteous and judgmental and like to find fault in others.  You are a small, mean kind of person, very negative, with little patience or tolerance, love or affection.  And unlike one’s height, those are things that you can control.  They are flaws in your character.

Best Trip EVER

Last week, we went on a family road trip.  It was so awesome.  Pretty much everything about the trip I loved.  I did experience a minor emotional setback early in the trip when we had driven an hour and stopped at a Walmart where I bought ice for our cooler that I then realized we had left at home...in our kitchen...packed with good food that was all going to go bad...but overall, our adventure was absolutely wonderful.  Here's just a strange, cool sight we passed.

The boys were pretty phenomenal in the car.  Sometimes when Brig was on the verge of  having a breakdown, though, I pulled out the bubbles, and that seemed to calm him pretty well.

Our first stop was Lava Beds National Monument in California.  For a park fee of $10, you could explore to your hearts content about 30 caves that are the result of volcanic activity.  We only got to seven of them, but it was well worth the money.  Israel loved them and loved having his very own flashlight.  We got to enjoy most of the caves completely alone.  We really liked that.

But running into people has its perks.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do my self-timer feature, so we got a kind woman in one of the caves to take this picture for us.

Brigham walking with his Dad...with only a little bit of help.

We camped at the lava beds our first night.  Look how well Brigham is standing on his own.  Here he is having himself a can of pork and beans.

Our first night was definitely our coldest.  Israel and Brigham and I were all wearing two shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, and jackets.  Hiram, who packed himself, did not come so prepared.  Here he is wearing my pink jacket (which will never be quite the same, I'm afraid) and looking very pretty.=)  The funny/sad thing was that in the night, we had an RV park right next to our tent and intermittently we could hear their space heater blaze on while we lay freezing in our bags. 

It rained much of our first night (fortunately we stayed pretty dry).  In the morning the air was so crisp and clean and smelled wonderfully of Sage.

Lava Beds

On our way to destination #2:  Crater Lake in Oregon.

SO beautiful.

We almost didn't get into the park.  It had snowed the previous night and some cars had already slid off the road, but after an hour maybe, they ended up letting us in.  Much of the road around the lake was closed, and visibility of the lake was pretty dang poor, but we weren't really disappointed.  We think snow-covered trees are gorgeous, and it was fun to play in the snow in June.  Israel sure had a good time.

Just a cute sleeping shot of Brigham.  He is the sweetest.

Everywhere we drove was so picturesque and lovely.  I had to steal a few cat naps, but mostly I tried to stay awake during our travels.  I didn't want to miss a thing.

I love trains and railroad tracks, and I love barns.  What I'd really like is a beautiful coffee table book just full of cool barns, and one filled with trains--they've got to exist right?  Anyway, we passed a LOT of way neat barns in all sizes and colors and stages of decay.  This isn't even one of the better ones, but it was hard to get pictures of a lot of them as we were on winding, two-lane highways without places to pull off.

We had all decided that we wanted pizza.  We hadn't eaten out at all the previous day, so we were craving some grease. After forever of driving and not seeing any place at all to eat, we spotted a play place attached to a pizza place (not often you see that!), so we got off.  The boys had a wonderful time out of the car, getting to climb around.  The temperature down off the mountain was divine.  And, oh, our food was delicious.

Hiram and I splurged a little.  We started with 10 wings a piece (his were hot, mine were barbeque) before starting on an amazing super pepperoni pizza.  Sometimes you have just the perfect eating out experience, where everything tastes wonderful and hits the spot and you don't have to wait too long and you really feel the money was well spent.  This was one of those times.

From Crater Lake, we made our way to the coast.  We wanted to see the California Red Woods.

Yes, we drove our car through a tree, a still-living tree.  Pretty incredible when you think about it.

We had spotted a nice, emptyish beach, and Israel was begging for water, so we stopped here before setting up camp.

This is where we spent our second night.  Beautiful, right?  We liked being the only campers, and we liked the warm showers. 

Here's Israel sitting on Paul Bunyan's foot.  We went to the Trees of Mystery and Sky Ride.  WELL worth the price.  For $30, we got to see some pretty incredible redwoods and then take a gondola ride up through the trees to a beautiful ridge, and we could ride as many times as we wanted.  Brigham seemed bored, but Israel was impressed.

On our third day, we just drove up the 101, stopping at beaches whenever we felt like it.  I really loved the varied weather we had.  We got rain, snow, mist, and bright clear sunshine all in just a few days.

There were so many beautiful wild flowers along the road as we drove.  I wish I could have gotten pictures of all of them.

Israel and Brigham entertained themselves and us by having a yelling match in the back.  Brigham's faces were priceless. 

We took an elevator ride 120 feet down to this sea cave (they claim its the biggest in the world) and got to see these sea lions.  Boy do they stink!

Can you see the snake?  Israel did, and it was a lot cooler to him than a bunch of stinking sea lions.

We were 120 feet above them, and still the smell!

I love this.=)

Some of the Oregon dunes near where we spent our third night.

We enjoyed our first visit to Crater Lake, but we found that we both really wanted to go back and get a better look, so we did.  Why not?

Yes, much better view.  Crater Lake, we learned, is the deepest lake in North America at 1900 feet.  It is considered the cleanest lake in the world, and it gets on average 44 feet of snow every year.  Just some fun facts.  We were impressed.

There's one place that you can walk down to the water.  We promised Israel a ride on the boat, but sadly they weren't running that day.  At least this kind guy let Israel board the boat and play captain for a minute.

This is the jumping rock.

And this is me jumping...into the water. Mind, it had snowed only a couple of days before.  The water was freezing and totally shocking.  I had to remind myself to swim.  But how many opportunities am I going to have to swim in Crater Lake?  It was worth it, and the water was SO cold that hiking back to the car soaking wet in the cold and the wind felt warm.

Look at the color of that water.

Next stop was Idaho.  We stayed the night and Hiram's Aunt's house and then visited with his grandmother the next day before going to Boise to visit Roaring Springs Water Park.  I didn't want to take my camera in, but I got this lovely picture off the web for a visual representation of the fun we had.  There were actually several big slides that Israel was able to go on (this one pictured) as well as a couple big tube slides.  I thought he was pretty darn brave.  The slides, he thought, were alright, but what he really loved was the wave pool, and he thought the lazy river was fun too.

Withing five minutes of leaving the park, both boys were zonked.  Then I zonked, and Hiram took a picture of me, but it is not flattering.  Anyway, the next day was Hiram's family reunion, which we attended, and then we came home.  I tell you, it was nice to sleep in my own bed...and to have Brigham in his.  Camping was fun, though, and I'm really glad we did it.  I loved this trip, being with my family and enjoying the great beauty of our country.  I will remember it forever as one of the best of my life, I am sure.