Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Out of Commission

This past week I was really sick, at first I just had a sore throat and cough. Then Thursday hit and I was hungry but nauseous, had anxiety shooting all throughout my body, my head was spinning and dizzy and foggy, I just couldn't function at all. So Lance took the kids Thursday while I took a five hour nap. They went downtown to Riverfront Park and fed the ducks, played on the big wagon slide, rode the carousel, ate at the mall; I really missed out on all the fun. Friday wasn't much better so I had a friend take the kids in the morning and a babysitter in the afternoon/evening while Lance worked.

Days like that make me wish Mothers got sick days. But we made it work and by saturday my head was much better and I was up and at 'em again.



Cora's Update

Cora doesn't need to wear her orthotics any more which saves us a few minutes getting out the door. Her balance and movement have been good so she'll probably just need a little shoe insert but for now she doesn't need anything.

Her speech is coming right along! She'll finally repeat the first letter/syllable of a word if I ask her to. Our latest homework example:
  • cuh - cup
  • buh - baby
  • puh - please
  • mmm - more
We still do sign language with her and after she signs we touch our throat and say, "Now say it with your voice, Cora. Say ju. Ju. Ju for juice." It takes her a few times to get it but she eventually does. Which for her, is great progress! She also said her first prayer yesterday at dinner which was so cute. I say a sentence and she repeats it with a grunt, I'm sure Heavenly Father can interpret her grunts, right?

Her two allergy panels came back all negative for environmental allergies and the only food is milk. So until we can get the rash under control and her skin back to baseline, we can't reintroduce foods yet. Which I'm ok with, if her gut needs more time then I'm fine with that. She's been doing great lately and absolutely LOVES school. We're so blessed to have her!!!


Farm Bits

This is my latest project and I'm so in LOVE!!!

ABC's & 123's

Kimball latest obsession (besides the phantom mask) is writing his letters and numbers. Some letters he can write on his own and the rest I write and he copies it. This was the first time he wrote his name, proud mom moment!

The workbooks we use for mommy school, the tiny notebook he uses for church, and any other papered thing, he writes on. Boxes, stickers, mail, garbage, whatever. When we color and have art time instead of coloring he'll turn the paper over and just write away. I love it and I love that he loves it. I should probably work with him more on his numbers and letters but he's doing well figuring it out by himself.

To Embarrass Him in 10 Years


Phantom Boy

Kimball has been obsessed with this mask lately. It came in a set with a toy gun and a badge to be a marshall but I'm pretty sure the bad guys wear masks, not the good guys. 

This particular night, I went upstairs to check on the kids before bed and I found Kimball sound asleep with the mask on. The following pictures are from speech, etc. he wears it everywhere we go although I did make him leave it in the car for church.
 


 

Thursday, May 12, 2016

The Parable of the Divers

*This was given in Sunday School while I was in TF visiting. The teacher gave me this story and said it's from (Stephen E. Robinson, Following Christ: The Parable of the Divers and More Good News [Salt Lake city: Deseret Book, 1995], 34-38.)

"Many years ago, when I was somewhere between nine, and eleven, I participated in a community summer recreation program in the town where I grew up. I remember in particular a diving competition for the different age groups held at the community swimming pool. Some of the wealthier kids in our area had their own pools with diving boards, and they were pretty good amateur divers, but there was one kid my age from the less affluent part of town who didn't have his own pool. What he had was raw courage. While the rest of us did our crisp little swan dives, back dives, and jackknives, being ever so careful to arch our backs and point our toes, this young man attempted back flips, one-and-a-halfs, doubles, and so on. But, oh, he was sloppy. He seldom kept his feet together, he never pointed his toes, and he usually missed his vertical entry. The rest of us observed with smug satisfaction as the judges help up their scorecards that he consistently got lower marks than we did with our safe and simple dives, and we congratulated ourselves that we were actually the better divers. 'He is all heart and no finesse,' we told ourselves. 'After all, we keep our feet together and point our toes.'"

"The announcement of the winners was a great shock to us, for the brave young lad with the flips had apparently beaten us all. However, I had kept rough track of the scores in my head, and I knew with the arrogance of limited information that the math didn't add up. I had consistently outscored the boy with the flips. And so, certain that an injustice was being perpetrated, I stormed the scorer's table and demanded an explanation. 'Degree of difficult,' the scorer replied matter-of-factly as he looked me in the eye. 'Sure, you had better form, but he did harder dives. When you factor in the degree of difficulty, he beat you hands down, kid.' Until that moment I hadn't known that some dives were awarded 'extra credit' because of their greater difficulty..."

"Whenever I am tempted to feel superior to other saints, the parable of the divers comes to my mind, and I repent. At least at a swim meet, we can usually tell which dives are the most difficult. But here in mortality, we cannot always tell who is carrying what burdens: limited intelligence, chemical depression, compulsive behaviors, learning disabilities, dysfunctional or abusive family backgrounds, poor health, physical or psychological handicaps-no one chooses these things. So I must not judge my brothers and sisters. I am thankful for my blessings but not smug about them, for I wish never to hear the Scorer say to me, 'Sure, you had better form, but she had a harder life. When you factor in degree of difficulty, she beat you hands down.'"

"So, enduring to the end doesn't have much to do with suffering in silence, overcoming all life's obstacles, or even achieving the LDS ideal (which is similar to 'pointing our toes' and 'keeping our feet together'). It just means not giving up. It means keeping-to the best of our abilities-the commitments we made to Christ when we entered into the marriage of the gospel. It means not divorcing the Savior or cheating on him by letting some other love become more important in our lives. It means not rejecting the blessings of the atonement that he showered upon on when we entered his church and kingdom."

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Happy Mother's Day!

"I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know."
-Mitch Albom

Spoonfuls of History

I found this spoon last week in the ground as I was weeding and doing other yard work. It was buried out where our garden area is now. It's so cute! It's really tiny, about 4-5" long and has really neat elegant detail. It has two little spouts on each side of the spoon and although they're not symmetrical I'm sure they were at one point. I'm guessing this could have been a sugar spoon? Either way I love it!

This spoon got me thinking........our house was built in 1936. What sort of history has this spoon seen in it's lifetime? Did it live through the dust bowl years, did it serve soup while reading Gone With The Wind, did it serve the rationed sugar during WWII into tea cups, did it scoop ice cream watching Annie Get Your Gun, was it a fan of The Beatles, or maybe it was manufactured in 2005 to look antique and a little boy snuck it outside to dig in the dirt without his mother noticing?

Either way, it got me thinking about my own spoons. I hope when my children are grown they look back and remember their childhood spoons, they think of our family dinners and the way they constantly made faces at the table and had us all laughing until we choked on our food. I hope they remember how funny it was when Kimball discovered the back of the spoon was like a mirror and he made faces into the spoon only to have Cora do the exact same into her plastic spoon that had no reflection. I hope they remember the smoothies that cooled them down on hot summer days, and the treat of ice cream after dinner with mom and dad. I hope they remember how effective those spoons were at administering gross tasting medicine masked by honey at 2am. I hope they remember the number of meals it prepared for families in the ward. I hope they remember they each got one spoonful of cookie dough before the cookies were baked. I hope they remember the hot chocolate it stirred and kept them warm on blistery days. I hope they remember the spoonfuls and spoonfuls and spoonfuls of peanut butter that I just couldn't say no to.

In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap, the job's a game
And every task you undertake becomes a piece of cake
A lark, a spree, it's very clear to see

That a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
The medicine go down, the medicine go down
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way