Book reviews

I am starting to put book reviews as I read new books. So check it out every so often I'll be putting new book reviews up and you can decide if you might like to read them. Here is my blog:

http://astromom-theamazingadventuresof.blogspot.com/

Parenting

I don't mean to discourage Rachel and Stephen, but parenting is going to be one of the hardest things you will do. We're going crazy and want to put all of our kids in the loony bin as well as ourselves. How do we keep them from teasing and hurting each other, how do we teach them responsibility, to control their emotions, to tell the truth not only to others but to themselves. How do we teach them to be happy, responsible, thoughtful, kind adults that make good mature choices, keep friendships, and contribute to their world? I don't know. I think it would help if Gordon and I were perfect examples, but we aren't but we still have the responsibility to teach our children all the things they should do. Right now I feel discouraged and depressed about it all, just you all just wait, just wait. You'll know exactly what I mean.

Garden and Gun

Well, I never thought the two could be combined until I was waiting at my dental appointment on Monday and saw a magazine with just that name! Only in the South! I guess Joseph and I could work together after all:). And here is a great garden idea for down south...perhaps next year we'll try something a little more similar...and not leave for a month in between the hot, dry spells:). And here is one in California, former mission couple. Oh, the humid, temperate weather for plants!

Create...

In case you missed this one like I did:). Also, thanks for all the blog updates! We may have some eventually...

Create - Elder Uchdorf

Family Memories

Rubbing backs, telling stories, talking about boys, life, school together
Andrew taking apart the vacuum, baffling me with ninento
Joseph looking in the mirror and wandering the house

Watching Anne of Green Gables tying quilts
Boys making fun of the movie but still watching the whole thing
Rachel falling from the stairs stopping my heart

Dad laying on his back playing monster while we run past
Mom reading Cheaper by the Dozen, matching socks during movies
Mom always there in the morning, early making breakfast seeing us off

After school snacks, carrots in our lunches, apples in our lockers
Dad in the yard, the garden, the orchard, reading Narnia to us
Scripture study, sitting on the vents tenting the blanket over to keep warm

Ruth and Mary often sharing a room, bunk bed falling, conspiring together
Yelling for Joseph when I was scared, wrestling, play-fighting a lot
Mary doing her art, flashcards, sewing, playing with dolls

Rachel in her hippo bathing suit, running the home seeing right and wrong
Ruth serving, cleaning, making up songs, drawing pictures, cooking
Andrew studying my science with me, taking our family to the Bean museum

Mom peeling oranges, books read to us, everyone singing a different tune on trips
Yellowstone, Canada, Washington D.C., California, back East
Setting up the tent trailer, Dad pointing out plants, hiking, seeing history

Family home evenings laying under the piano, behind the couch cushions
Gun shooting, exotic food, Bean museum, picnics up the canyon
Words of wisdom, prayers, musical performances, poems and lessons

Visiting grandparents every week, serving in the yard, washing windows
Writing, poetry, hair brushing, waterbed, view of the temple at Grandma V’s
Cousins, Little Bunny Foo Foo, stories and laughs at Grandma and Grandpa D’s

Dinner and lounging on the deck, telescoping the stars, working in the yard
Irrigation turn, waking up early helping the water flow to the plants, picking apples
Stirring, setting the table, vacuuming making things look nice, sharing with others

Christmas time looking forward to our Palestinian dinner, lights at Temple square
Singing German at the tabernacle, gathering and sharing with family and friends
Piles set out for us in the living room, Tree lights and ornaments and grandparents

Memories of happiness, safety, warning, gospel lived and taught
Importance of family togetherness, marriage, children, work and education
Gratitude for siblings, parents, family

Written May 26, 2009 SBDB

This looked like such a cute idea, I'm super excited to make one. I thought it would also be really fun to do with pictures of ancestors.

Two children's sites

Another two sites I've run across for Kid's crafts and a good search tool for projects and themes:). Hope you are well!

Fact Hound
Enchanted Learning and Memorial Day

A few random sites...

Yes, yes! I need to take the plunge, but until then, here are a couple of sites I found interesting and rather than emailing them out I thought I might post them here for any interested...Not intended to stimulate heated debates:)

CPR
Hawk in Hoc
Hillsdale Imprimis - March and April

Garden Edition...

Longue Vue Garden, New Orleans


Many of you may be in the same position...Grandpa/Dadio helped us get some great gardens started and would like us to share the latest news and updates. I would say we could start another Garden Edition blog but perhaps it would be fun to share on the family blog if we dare...the latest pictures and info...or tips would be great, too, since I am an amateur gardener and this is really our first year trying it out on our own since we now have a yard. Anything you've learned about growing a good garden or fun ideas?
Also, our yard has proven to be almost a bigger task to tackle as things down south tend to grow faster than you can keep up with, weeds and bugs in particular, and my husband has little interest or time to help out on such menial tasks:). Not to mention the leaves drop year round and if you cut anything that grows naturally, five sprouts grow back in its place! So, any tips on trees and lawns and weeds, pest control, etc... would be wonderful!

Elle helped Grandpa water a few tomatoes on the trellis, then we planted the rest after he left. Our front yard tomato has done the best and is now 2 feet above the cage shown below.



Joseph and the kids looking for a "palm leaf" from the weeds behind the garden. A small portion of the vines and branches we started cutting back and Joseph hauled away in 5 loads yesterday (pictures to follow). Our three trees sprouting.




Our garden a month ago in April. The squash type and cabbage are doing ok despite a few nibblings. The fruit kept disappearing but after a few re plantings are starting to survive. We also find two inch holes often in the grass around and sometimes in the wells with the plants every week or so and think it might be squirrels or rats.



Some of our garden pests...Elle wanted to keep the caterpillars as pets but around here they are called stinging caterpillars and burn like poison ivy if you touch them.

If nothing else, it was fun to post about our daily garden adventures. We have already had a dozen tomatoes along with the twenty or so green ones Hyrum likes to pick, some may never ripen:). Now the weather is very hot and everything seems to be drying up. We'll post those pictures in the next Garden Edition and could use any suggestions:). Thanks!

It’s been a while

Perhaps because I hate it when people don't update their blog or because I'm bitter that it was mentioned in the Priesthood session that we shouldn't waste our time doing blogs when we have more important things to do, but I have decided to write another blog post.

So can I tell you my new idea for my thesis? My past idea hasn't been working out so well with logistics. The problem is that I was planning on studying the meaning individuals hold with the home, how they dealt with modernity in how they constructed home. I was planning on spending hour after hour this summer interviewing, transcribing, and analyzing the rich data I would gain from bugging dear kind people. Problems?

• I have become a hermit since my mission and find interviewing people terrifying, especially perfect strangers.
  
• People would probably feel pressured to clean their houses when I was coming, and I would hate to encourage any of that.
  
• IT would take FOREVER in sandlot sort of forever way.
  
• Mormon living rooms all look the same.
  

Solution?

Do a content analysis of blogs, the new virtual living rooms, which may give me more information than a grand tour of an entire house. Also, I could gage my analysis and findings with a my blogging friends (you guys) and get your reaction to any findings.

• I can do it without talking to anyone, and if I do decide to, it can be through e-mail.
  
• I am not limited to gathering data from Mormons only because internet allows me to reach all sorts of kinds of blogs.
  
• An excuse to read people's blogs.
  

I haven't yet passed the idea by my thesis committee, and quite frankly I'm worried if it will fly. I don't' know if I should continue to look for effects of modernity such as multiple identities, individualization, or habits of consumption. I could also take a completely different method of analyzing the blogs for hyper-domesticity as a reaction against feminism, or expressions of emerging adulthood.

It's hard to say, and I'm still not sure if this idea would bore me to death in the end or if I would like it.

I thought I'd throw the idea out there.

The end.

me

This morning I woke up to James crying in his crib. Now that boys are sharing a room, I often Jonathan on top of him in the morning. Sometimes as I walk in, he will give him a kiss on the head to show he was being nice. Anyway, this morning, Jonathan was in the front room as I walked by and picked James up out of bed. I took James back to our bed and nursed him while Mike was sleeping. We hear from the front room:

Jonathan: “Mommy, Daddy, come in here guys.”
Me: “Come in here Jonathan.”
Jonathan: “I can’t move guys. I’m stuck.”

Jonathan has literally gotten himself stuck between the wall and the fridge before, so Mike got out of bed to help. It ends up he was just sitting on a chair- funny boy.

Cute kids

I need to be better about remembering all the cute things my kids say. One of the cute things Emmy has been saying lately is "Me no Baby, me Emmy" Because Gordon and I still call her baby all the time and are trying to cut that habit since she wants to only be called Emmy now. She also says it if we call her little girl "Me no girl, me Emmy." So we've been talking about who in our family is a girl and who are boys. Also I can't read a page on a book without her interupting and showing me all the words she knows by pointing and naming everything she recognizes on the picture. Also every larger creature or person in the picture is mommy or daddy and every little person or creature is Emmy.

Jacob is so inventive just give him anything you can connect and he'll make something. So our family room is often full of amazing hot wheel tracks, lego spaceships, wacky-wiggler creatures, plastic transparent connectors. He says so many cute things. It has been nice lately he is the one set on the routine. "one book, one song, one prayer, one drink" at night. Even if I want to read more books he says he is tired and repeats the routine for me. How nice.

Mary is learning responcibility and helping me with her siblings, cleaning her own room (though I still often will do clean up while she is at school so I can throw stuff away and simplify). She is fighting me less about doing piano and homework, starting to realize it is an everyday thing. She is in drama and enjoys reading Mouse and the Motorcycle with me lately at night. I still sing to her as well as the young ones at night. I might keep it up their whole childhood, it is a memory I hope they will remember.

The other night we were sitting down to eat dinner and Jonathan decided he wanted a peanut butter and jam sandwich instead. We told him we weren’t getting him one so he decided to make one all by himself. He moved his chair around the kitchen and made himself a tasty, messy sandwich eating directly out of the jam and peanut butter containers the entire time while making it. Yummy, yummy.

Little conversation:

Mike: I’m going to work.
Jonathan: but why Daddy?
Mike: so I can earn money to pay for things like toys and food.
Jonathan: but I already have toys.

At church yesterday he decided he wanted to go pee pee all by himself, used the toilet and flushed, and said his regular “bye, bye, pees, see you next time”. Sunday pants a more difficult for him to pull up so he yelled, “Mommy, where are you?” The next thing I knew there he was crawling underneath the stall with his pants down to find me.

Little conversation yesterday driving back from church:

Me: Jonathan was a good boy today at nursery. He was kind and shared with all the kids. I am so proud of him.
Mike: Really Jonathan?
Jonathan: Yes, I’m a big boy, a really, really big boy, not a baby. Umhuh.

Accident, Vandalism or Meteorite?

We are still trying to solve the mystery!

3

Jonathan is now three years old. Thinking back on these last three years has been great. What a blessing he is.

I took the boys in for doctor’s appointments and shots this morning. Here are the stats.

Jonathan:
40 in. and 40 lbs. 95% on both.

James:
19lbs 3oz. somewhere between 50-75% range. He’ll be seven months old on the 29th.
28 inches 90%
HC 18 and ¼ in 90-95%

The experiment...

I just realized that I already have a blog that I can practice posting on:). I apologize for sending out all the emails, I should have just posted them here! So until I get a blog up and running, I'll try to post more things here, and like Sarah, learn how to upload pictures and links and everything! Thanks for your patience and letting me experiment... We love and miss you all and hope you had a wonderful Valentine's day!!! Happy birthday to Jonathan and Amethyst! And Happy President's day!!!

a few more things I love

Michael- I love that he enjoys playing with our boys and takes an active role as Dad when he’s home. I enjoyed watching last night as he rolled around on the floor with Jonathan and letting James have a turn too. James loved it by the way.

Jonathan- I love his chubby hands, strong build, and seeing how much he loves his little brother. I enjoyed watching him over a small hill at the park this morning. He was trotting along and I could only see his upper half. Suddenly he tripped face forward and was out of sight. Next thing I knew, he was standing back up looking at his hands, rubbing off the sand and back to his little trot without a tear. He’s always been pretty good that way. I hope he takes the falls in life that same way. I love that the other day, I heard “Help! Help me, Mom” while I was in our room. I came out to find him stuck between the cupboard and the fridge. I love that the other day I picked him up from playing with a friend without James and he was distraught and worried that maybe James had gone away, “I want James to stay in our family. He is my little brother. I love him”.

James- I love the way he curls up in a little ball to sleep. I love the way he sometimes stares at me and touches my face in wonder. I love it when I change his diaper and say something like, “poopy, poopy!” and he responds with lots of smiles and giggles. I love blowing on his eye lids when he is tired but determined to stay awake and watching him drift off to sleep.

Abby's Imagination

Lately Abby has developed quite the imagination. Most of her ideas come from Cinderella. She has started calling me "Step-mother" and Maddy "Step-sister." I admit that I make her do chores and lock her in her room at times, but Maddy has definitely done nothing to deserve the step sister title. She is always talking about castles and temples--which to her are the same thing. She builds castles out of blocks, blankets, or whatever she can find. The other day she went in the pantry to play and came out and asked me if I wanted to see the Salt Lake temple. She then showed me a tower she had made of tuna fish cans and informed me that it was the temple and that she was getting married. I then saw that she was holding a "bouquet" (some fake flowers she had taken from one of my flower arrangements). In an attempt to stop her from becoming too princess crazy we've been trying to focus her attention on more productive things. I've started doing pre-school time with her every week. Her favorite part is when we have a treasure hunt in which she collect things around the house that start with the letter we are working on. She also likes the individual mommy attention. She is learning quickly and now knows most of her letters and sounds. Right now we are working on her writing and learning the lower case letters.

We have a great family

I was just thinking today of how wonderful our family is. I still need Rachel's blog, but I was reading Ruth's and Mary's blogs and looking at their cute children. I still need to figure out how to download pictures and such. If you read this I just wanted you all to know how much I love you, every one of my siblings and my wonderful parents and their spouses. I have been so blessed. I love my Nicole sisters-in-laws and we realized we've lived with all of my brothers-in-laws before they married my sisters, just confirming that my sisters had made good choices. I feel so blessed to be part of this family and even though many of you are far away know how much I think of you and love you,
Sarah