Blessed

Every once in a while, someone comes along who has such an inspired, righteous, warm presence that I think that, even if I didn't have a solid testimony of the gospel, I would know it was true, simply based upon knowing this person. President Hinckley was one of these people. Another one is President Dalton, our stake president. Every month, the members of our stake are able to listen to him speak, at monthly firesides based upon different topics pertaining to the family. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to play the organ for the opening and closing hymns at this fireside. This was the first one I was able to attend, due to a nursing baby and general laziness on my part. The topic was Teaching Your Children. It was exactly what I needed to hear.

It would be difficult to list the many things that I learned during this hour. One of the biggest points I took away was this: Are we living and modeling for our children the way we want them to live? This means being a good example, modeling integrity, work, honesty, service, respect for others and accountability. Sure, we go to church. We say our prayers at mealtime, and we probably try to do our weekly FHE even when, if you're like our family, it often ends in utter failure. But do we really model the behavior that we expect from them? As Pres. Dalton pointed out, how often do we say, "Listen to me!" when we never stop to listen to them. How often do we speak out in anger when we're trying to get them to calm down? How often do we demand their love and respect, when our actions are not demonstrating our love and respect for them?

To say I struggle with these things is a gross understatement. How to raise my children in righteousness and teach them to love and respect others consumes most of my waking thoughts. There's so much to do, and so much that I do poorly, or don't do at all. So this week I decided I'd focus on three of Pres. Dalton's bullet-points: 1) Teach them the gospel. 2) Teach your children to love and serve one another. and 3) Teach children obedience. Seriously. If I could successfully do this, I can't even tell you what a difference this would make. But I think I'm realistic enough to know this will be a life-long challenge. And you just have to have a go at it and hope for the best.

Serving and loving one another. This has to be the key, right? So every day this week, we chose a popsicle stick out of a cup with another family member's name. And that is the person they would serve that day. They would need to think of kind things to say or do for that person the entire day.

Here were some first week hiccups:

1) They don't get it. Kind of a big hiccup, right? But I have to tell myself that even if 1% seeps in, slowly they'll understand. For instance, the first day Jonah had Josh's name. So he decided he'd play some board games with Josh. Cause Josh LOVES board games! We had a discussion about how, the next day, he should try to think of something the other person would enjoy, not something that HE would enjoy. The next day, he had my name. He thought maybe we could play some board games together. Doesn't. get. it.

2) It's hard to serve your kids when you're the mom. You're serving them all day long. I'm deciding the key must be to point it out more often. "Noel. I have your name today. So I'm helping you pick up your toys!" (even though I do it every single day).

3) When Lila gets your name, too bad for you.

4) Consistency is key. I'm the worst at this. Some days it just feels like we draw out the popsicle stick and go about our regular day. I'm not sure I have the pep in me to keep it going. Suggestions?

Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a sermon. It's just a reminder to me that I need to work on this all of the time. And I'll let you know how the popsicle sticks go. Today I have Lila and she has me. I'll just point out to her that I'm doing her a service when I change her poopy pants.

In the meantime, here are some photos from a family photo shoot at the Wahkeena Falls. Here are some details from the shoot: 1) Lila, the smiliest baby in America, would not smile. 2) Noel lasted for about 2 photos, and then complained the rest of the time. And also ran around the falls not paying attention and giving me a heart attack every time he appeared to be falling off of the rocky terrain. 3) Wendy from Blue Lily Photography is a miracle worker. The fact that we had any salvageable photos, let alone several truly beautiful ones, means maybe we need to stop going to that crappy Portrait Innovations and fork out the bucks for a pro.

The Week

A Good Week For. . .
An Obssessive-Compulsive Mother's Heart. When it was discovered that her six year old son could make this:

look like this. . .

. . .within 15 minutes, without supervision. Not 'cause he wanted to (he was being punished), but it's nice to know that he's been trained well. Here's hoping he'll make a career as one of those professional organizers on Hoarders. Blech!!

Self-Esteem. To think that this:

came from Josh and I, you figure you must be a little cuter than you thought you were.

S.O.S. Pads. (Or a bad week for them, depending on how you think S.O.S. pads garner their self-worth) Since ALL of the elements on my new stovetop are dishwasher safe. Hurrah! It almost makes up for the fact that I have a black stovetop. I said almost.


Hoarders. (In case it isn't abundantly clear, I'm obssessed with Hoarders) While at McDonald's today, I looked at Lila's Madame Alexander doll toy and thought, "Do you think there are people who actually collect these?" when, not five seconds later, a woman (who looks just as you'd imagine) shows her mother the TWO sets of dolls she'd bought to complete her collection. Of McDonald's toys. Those people are weird. And probably rich off of E-bay.

Self-Preservation. I went to a movie by myself last night and, as I sat in the dark movie theater, eating my huge box of candy, I became a little less of the giant frazzled mess that I was when I left home. And I even went home after the movie, rather than check into the motel for three days as I'd threatened. Thanks, Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman, for a kinda weird, semi-amusing movie. Let's be honest: most of the thanks goes to the candy.

A Bad Week For. . .
Clean Clothes. Lila has given up on the highchair. Since it's much easier to feed herself at the table, where her food is at nose level.

Blockbuster.

The Binghams finally joined Netflix. We've never been movie people, so we didn't really see the need. But now we get the hype. Those geniuses at Netflix and their instant streaming! All this for $9 a month? I easily pay $9 a month in overdue fees at Redbox. As much fun as it's been, waiting in line for Redbox along with the people without teeth, I'm gonna have to say Adios!

Of planes

Looking out the back door of the library

The end of August in Hillsboro brings the amazing annual Hillsboro Air Show. People come from all over the place to...well, what do you do at an air show? All we know is that it is annoying because there are people on lawn chairs everywhere staring up at the sky and about every 4 minutes our house rattles as some sort of jet buzzes overhead. If you have ever tried to put a toddler down for a nap during an air raid, then you know what I am talking about.

Since I would rather have my hair miraculously regrow only to have it fall out again than go to the actual air show, we decided to take the kids to the library where we could get some books and feed the ducks that live in the pond in the park out back. Conveniently, the library is located right next to the Hillsboro airport, which meant getting there involved going past three separate police barricades and explaining that we just wanted to go to the library. (But isn't that what we would say if we were really going to set off fire bombs on the runway?) When we made it, there was nary a soul there. Good day to choose books! And, there were also very few ducks there - they were hiding from the blitzkreig as well. So the duck feeding would go from this:

to this as jets buzzed over head:

Jonah decided that while we were there he wanted to start a nature collection. The collection was based on two key nature items. Acorns and Box Elder Beetles.

Somehow, Jonah caught about 40 box elder beetles (that might be an exaggeration) and would force a new one into his hand without letting the others go, which Amy and I thought was super gross. Here are the trapped beetles fighting for freedom:

Lila wanted to spend all day in the tunnel that goes under the road so that she could yell and listen to the echo. I even took some video, but discovered that the still picture was much more charming without the screaming (and echos) in the background.

It turned out to be a great outing - all of the fun of seeing jets fly in formation overhead, and none of the annoyance of actually attending an air show. I tried to get a picture of a plane in flight, and while I would love to write an entire blog about how the camera app on my android phone is clunky and has a poor interface and lacks the grace of the iPhone camera app, that's a whole other Oprah. I didn't get any plane action shots.

But I did get this one of Lila and a flower:

And this one of the kiddies.

And just because they are cute - Lila amongst the tomatoes:

Test Post: Lila likes spaghetti

I want to see how this whole private blog thing works, but I didn't want to just send out a test that said test...so here are some pictures of Lila liking spaghetti.

I remember once on my mission for Halloween we made a "spook alley" for the members in the basement of one of the church building. It had all the usual trappings of a spook alley - zombies, guys with chain saws, etc. As the Italians walked through they would say "Che cos'e'?" What's that? And we would explain, "Oh, well that is a guy with a chain saw - see, he is crazy and he might kill you...so..." and they would say. "Oh." and smile and move on. At the end of the spook alley, we had a guy with pounds and pounds of spaghetti pouring out of his shirt. He would lay there and moan and groan and eat the spaghetti like he was eating his own guts. We called him "Spaghetti Guts Guy." When the Italians saw him, they would say "Mangia spaghetti molli freddi??!?" Is he eating cold, over-cooked spaghetti??!? And that would cause them to run in terror.

End of test post. (That story is 100% true, FYI.)