my little skiier!

last week, lynn went skiing, for her first time, with her grade.

they were lucky enough to go to snowbasin and have a two hour lesson, then free skiing afterward.

I was lucky enough to head up, have lunch with her and spend the afternoon doing some runs with her.

it was my first time on the mountain in 4 years, and 15 since I have been to snowbasin.  they made many improvements for the 2002 winter olympics, and I had yet to enjoy them.

lynn, she’s a natural.  I will lay claim on her natural skill with my mayes genetics, knowing full well there are pitcher’s who enjoy skiing too..  she was just so good! 

I got there in time to see her finishing her first run.  I thought it was her fifth or sixth the way she came down that hill…  when she got to me I praised her for how well she did and asked her how many runs she had done.

“that was my first time coming down!”

holy.  crap.

we did a few runs on little cat, ate lunch, did a couple more runs on little cat, and she was bored.  she wanted to head up another lift and tackle more of the mountain.  (brave kid, again, it’s the mayes in her!)

we headed up the needles express gondola, and started at the top of the mountain.

there was one steep area that was all powder.  she had a hard time staying up, but she made it down!  we took the easy way down the rest of the way, taking sweet revenge to slo ride, and met back up with little cat.  she LOVED it.  but didn’t love the first part enough to do it again.  we played the rest of the afternoon on little cat, and stayed until they shut it down.

she was phenomenal, and I only fell 4 or 5 times…  not too bad!

I can’t wait to take her again!

I love being able to document these things, many thanks goes to my wonderful iphone, I have great video too thanks to this.

I used liv’s latest T + Mini Vol. 3 – Documented kit, split it so it is a one page layout of our fun day.

this kit includes all the goodness below:  the bokeh, the scratchy overlay, the paper, the scribbles, the frames, and masks..  liv includes it all and does it up right.

looking forward to catching up on project life!

a decade.

lynn is 10 today.

ten.

just in case you didn’t get that….

(!!!!)

she keeps reminding us about this annual increase by sating things like: I’m in the double digits!!” or, “I have been alive for a whole decade!!”.

she is a little excited.

please, someone explain to me why she is so happy, when I am so sad.

I am happy, don’t mistake my joy for sadness, but seriously, just where exactly, has the past ten years gone?  and while you are answering my questions, tell me why it went so fast.

(there is a little bit of mourning going on at this house.)

but really..

I am so thankful for this girl!

I was SO.FREAKED.OUT. to find out that we were having a girl.  SOFREAKEDOUT!!  turns out it isn’t that bad.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

she is our designated babysitter, and she is pretty awesome at it.

she is always helping.  (even when it isn’t a mandated punishment for flooding my bathroom.  what?  you haven’t heard that story yet?  I must document it soon.)  she is always asking what she can help with.  as my life has seemed to increase in the level of craziness, she is always the one to help me out when she can see that I am about to blow.  as I was getting ready for a book club meeting, she vacuumed the house, cleaned the bathroom, and tidied the living room.  she just knew I was going to lose it, I swear! 

she is pretty good about rolling with the punches with our “experimental parenting”.  she is the oldest, and sometimes, she gets the newest of stuff tested out on her.  if we don’t screw her up completely, she will be an incredible mother.  she will remember the tried and true.

but about that whole “being a mother” bit, she says she doesn’t want to do that.  she doesn’t even want to get married!  she wants to live with me and merrill forever and take care of us.

she will ever be a bookworm, and I love it.

she is eager and so excited to learn how to do many new things.  her latest is laundry, but she loves to cook with me.  she was my little assistant making thanksgiving dinner.

while I am emotional, a little sad, looking back on all of those pictures that I love of her as my little girl, I am so thankful at the same time.  so thankful to be her mother, to be a part of her everyday life, to see the sweet young woman that she is growing up to be.

happy birthday sweet lynnie-lou!!  I love you.

p.s. thanks for being so cool with me and dad when you opened your new walkie-talkie set and we were awesome and forgot to buy batteries for them.  your patience is quite impressive!

this would be lynnie-lou.

I have re-filled my “bribe bin” yo.

what’s that?  you have not heard of the “bribe bin”?

a couple of years ago, my friend told me about one other mom’s idea to take the money (cha-ching) that she WOULD HAVE spent going somewhere to have pictures professionally done, and spent it on crap.  dollar store, target dollar isle, crap.  she filled a bin with it, and when her children happily acquiesced to her request to take a picture, they got to reward themselves with a treat from the “bribe bin”.

dude, I hopped on that like that one suess character hopped on pop.

it is a marvelous thing. 

my trip to the dollar store produced pop rocks, ring pops, sour patch kids, swedish fish, and a plethora of princess stickers.  all of these things exist in my little girls’ idea of heaven.

but, I have added a couple of little details to this.

a) I get to pick out their outfit.  but sometimes their little outfits, chosen so creatively, are my muse.

2) I get to style their hair.  this comes in most importantly for peyton.

III) I pick the time and location.  I need good light.

four) I even invented another requirement, that nails need to be painted.  I don’t care how long it stays on, they must be manicured!!

so needless to say, peyton was the first, obviously,  and the other two have been waiting, and asking, and begging, pleading even, tears have been involved…  to have their turn.  pop rocks are more popular than I had anticipated.

lynn was the most dramatic about it, so she was next:

(and I had a really hard time picking my favorites, don’t judge me.)

but this laughing sequence is the best ever….

my replacement.

lynn and I went to a mother daughter activity a couple of weeks ago.  she learned how to decorate cakes!!  sure, she’s seen me decorate a cake or two in her lifetime, but there is something that gets a girl more excited when it isn’t her mom trying to teach her.

a fabulous lady in our ward taught the girls some of the ins and outs of cake decorating, and even shared a few new fun things with me!

I am looking forward to the day when lynn will take over decorating duties, and I can just enjoy eating the cake.

“babe”raham lincoln.

so lynnie-lou-hoo had a biography study that we worked on for the better part of february.  they cold choose pretty much anyone, and lynn chose abraham lincoln.

I was a little surprised to say the least.

she went with it though, and enjoyed it, for the most part.  there was a bit of drama during the process, she was really worried about her speech.  but she did great.

last night there was a wax museum for all the third graders.  grandmas came, they brought cousins and even great-aunt doreen came.  it was nice to have such a great show of support for lynn.

(and she was so happy when the night was over!)

ashley had to get in on the action too.

the kid cracks me up!

a memorable day for lynn.

dixon (father-in-law) serves as a state representative.  he was assigned to lead the house in a prayer and the pledge of allegiance for the morning of january 27th.  he asked lynn if she would like to come and lead the house in the pledge.
it was quite a day.
I am sure that merrill and I were far more nervous than she was!
in fact, many of my pictures turned out quite blurry.  between the tears in my eyes, and my shaky hands, it’s no wonder!
my sister-in-law informed me that there is a video clip of it online (which is fantastic, because I am not sure why/how we didn’t get it all recorded).
you can see it here.
(you have to scroll down a bit, get to january 27
she got to meet many representatives, and madam speaker, becky lockhart.

afterwards, we got to go to the “treat room”, where grandpa made sure no one left hungry.

it was quite a memorable day for our little family.
we are so proud of lynn!

little lynnie turns 9.

I was a little (and to say a little, is totally understating it) shocked to think that it has really been 9 years since this kid has entered our lives.

I like to relive every moment of her entering our world, reliving that moment when she made me a mom.

gosh that was awesome!

today, I am thankful for her.  she is turning into such a little lady!  I mean, she really was all along.  sure, she had her dinosaur phase, her super-hero phase, but all the while, underneath it all, she has been a girlie girl.  she called lip-gloss and lipstick, “glip-gloss” and “yip-stick” for the longest time.  she never went anywhere without it.  still doesn’t.

lynn, I love that you love to read, even if it is four different books at a time.  I love that you sing, no matter what.  even if your friends (or family) give you weird looks, you belt it out.  you are silly.  I love it when you are tired, and something really tickles that funny bone of yours.  that giggle is awesome!  I will buy you orbit gum just to hear you do your own version of an orbit commercial.  that giggle again…

I am thankful that you are such a great help with your younger sisters.  I am so happy to see you take peyton and give her make-overs.  I love seeing that special relationship that you have with her.  I am so happy that you and ashley are so close.  even on the worst days, when you two swear that you will never play with the other one ever again, we can find you two snuggled up together in one of your beds.  sometimes you are even asleep!  you have inherited my gift of gab, and it is quite entertaining to have you talk, non-stop, as soon as you are in the door after school.  I love that you have also inherited my love of carbs.  a roll with butter should be considered part of every meal, especially your sack lunch (which is a sandwich, drink, sometimes chips, and cookies).  I am thankful that you give everything your best, that you can be so stressed over an up-coming test, but you get 100s like it’s nothing.  you give it your all.  I know that you and your dad are best buddies, you almost couldn’t survive with him gone for two weeks, but I am thankful for the relationship that we have and that is growing everyday.

I am thankful that it was you who grew in my belly first.  you that we get to practice all of our parenting skills on.  I am thankful that you are such a good kid, and we don’t have to practice too many things on you (ashley bears the brunt of that, that darn kid).  I am thankful for your bedtime kisses, your spontaneous hugs, even though the top of your head is getting ever closer to mine…

I am thankful for how persistent you are at everything you do.  even if that means practicing your cartwheels inside the house, in the family room, when I have asked you not to, repeatedly.  but you don’t give up!

besides the fact that you look just like your dad, you were meant to come to this family, and I am thankful, above all, to a loving heavenly father who trusts me (somehow) to be your mother. 

I love you.

Say it isn’t so…

Summer, over, really?

I don’t like the idea of this.

So I am going to proclaim that it isn’t over, nope, not really.  Not yet.

We still have stuff we want to do.  So much more fun to be had!

So what if they are “in school”.  I will just pretend that it is just a practice run until our summer fun is really over and done.  (Well, more like when the weather doesn’t shout summer at us anymore.)

Sunday night, we slept out on the trampoline, you know, one last “hoo-rah” before bedtime becomes nazi-ish again. 

(And when I say “we”, I really mean just me and the girls.)

We attempted this in July, the night of the 5th (really our 4th what with the real fourth being on Sunday and all..) but a little rainstorm somewhere around 3 in the am cut out night out on the trampoline short.

This time, I was going to have all our bases covered.

- good weather (check)

- mosquito repellant (check)

- plenty of cushiness (check, check, check, check)

- sprinklers off (check)

Or so I thought on that last one.

4:30 am I hear the combined gush of air and water and then one drop, that was all it took, right on my forehead.  I was up faster than I have been in a long time, running back into the house, out to the garage, and turned that water off!!

It was pleasant sleeping after that.

Well, until that period of time, right before dawn, when I would swear to you it gets its coldest.  I wasn’t sleeping too well then.  I wished I’d had my socks on then.  So instead, I curled up in a little ball, snuggled close to Peyton’s warm little body and fleece blanket, and all was better.

Yesterday evening was back to school night.  We knew exactly what we were going to get with Ash’s teacher, and we were ALL very excited about that.  Lynn was a little nervous about her teachers.  There was a last minute switch to her teaching line-up that left my already nervous daughter that much more.  I think some of her fears were put to rest after meeting them.

We came home and had family home evening.  We talked about prayer, that the girls can always go to their Heavenly Father in prayer, whenever they need help.  Even if it is while they are sitting at their desk and need help.  We also talked about the priesthood, how it blesses our lives.  Merrill then gave them each a father’s blessing to start their year off right.

Peyton was so excited, she even got one too.

That is a tradition I cherish.

Then there was last night.

Sleeping (or trying to).

In our own beds.

At a nazi-ish time.

I don’t know who slept worse..  me or them. 

Third grader..  times-tables and cursive?  Really?!  Good heavens, I had to buy her a flash drive as part of her school supplies.

And then there’s the first grader.

I will miss her terribly come 11:30.  She will have lunch, at school.

It is a happy time of life.  It really is all good…

But it sucks that summer is over.

the kid who doesn’t want to try anything new, tried something new. (!!!!!)

indulge me for a minute, mmmkay?

(proud parent moment coming your way.)

lynnie-lou doesn’t like to venture out and try new things often.  she is a teensy-weensy little bit like her dad in that regard, he doesn’t care too much for change.  this kid, well, she goes above and beyond that and doesn’t like pretty much anything out of the norm. 

new meals?

not a snowball’s chance…

a different color cap on the milk and her world implodes.

this summer, we (her dad and i) were trying our hardest to convince her to venture out and try something (anything!!) new.

first, there was a cooking class.  she would have gone with her cousin (notice the “would have” there) but bringing it up only brought her to tears.

she told us that she was interested in art camp so we, very excitedly, got her in there.  she loved it..  after being nervous that she wouldn’t know anyone there…

my friend called, wondering if lynn would be interested in taking ice skating lessons.  her daughter has always wanted to, but thought it would be funner with a friend. 

let me tell you, merrill and i were doing our best to talk this kid into it.

she tried crying.

she tried stressing.

she tried to out-right, flat-out say no, and we wouldn’t let her off that easily.  we told her to sleep on it.

the next day (the day of the first lesson), the kid told me that she didn’t want to do it because she was scared she would get hurt.  crack her head open, break her leg..  she had dreamed up some real great possibilities.

so i enlightened her.

(that is part of my job as “mom”.)

“did you know that you could fall down the stairs and break your leg?”

“well…”

“does it stop you from coming down the stairs?”

“no…”

“did you know that we could get in a car accident today?  maybe even die?”

(shocked expression.)

“does that stop us from going anywhere?  do we just sit at home?”

(still shocked.  maybe i took this a bit too far..  nah.)

“did you know that when we fly to disneyland this fall, we could crash?  does that stop us from going?”

“we could get there some other way…  we could drive?”

“did you know that it is more likely that we get into a car accident than our plane crash?”

okay..  maybe i went a little too far.

but guess what?

she decided to learn to ice skate!

(and she had fun.)

(after she was over the nervousness..)

so they look like they are dancing..

they aren’t.

they caught each other, saved each other from falling.  probably breaking open their heads or something..

the funniest thing had to be seeing lynn, talk to herself constantly!  when she was near riley, she would yammer on to her.  i kept telling her, like she was really going to hear me, to knock it off!!  she is such a chatterbox.

this is after they crashed again..  well, after lynn crashed and her arm, flailing, took out riley’s leg.

as i type this, she is over my shoulder, yammering on even more about how excited she is to go next week..

julie and I are too.  we get a great core workout from all the laughing we do while we watch them.

reading habits of my eight year old girl.

this kid cracks me up!

she loves to read.  we have busted her many times reading as she walks home, nose completely buried in her book…

and she just can’t read one book at at time.

oh no!

she is usually reading at least three at a time.

everyday, she’ll read one chapter out of each book, or a certain amount of pages, and move on to the next one.  once she as read a little from each one, then her reading is done for the day.

what gets me, is that she remembers everything that has happened in each book, details of the characters and plotlines too.

i am afraid that my mind might just jumble all of those books up, and then there would be nothing but sheer confusion.

not with her.

this particular week there were four reads going on at once, and she read to me while i painted.  that was funner than boring old music. ;)

Rocky Mountain Oysters

Lynn has been asking more and more questions about babies, where they come from, and male & female relationships.

It is a time of life that I knew would inevitably come, but one that I hoped wouldn’t show up for a couple years more.

I answer these queries as they come, with little bits of information at a time, following her cues and prompts.  I haven’t broken down each part and how it functions, just some basics.

“Moms have eggs in their ovaries…  dads have sperm in their testicles…  they meet inside the moms body to form a baby.”

Now, I haven’t told her exactly how this all “gets together”..  just term it as “sex”.  She doesn’t need to know the “ins and outs” of it all. 

(No pun intended.)

(That was kinda a doosy.)

Anyway, Lynn knows some basics.  Just enough for right now.  As more questions come, I tackle them.

So a couple of weeks ago, we were watching “The Office”.  Michael was headed-off to Denver, Dwight was kinda ticked about it.  As a parting gift (of sorts) he gives Michael a plate of “Rocky Mountain Oysters”.  Now, if you know Michael, you’ll know that he dug right in.  He was chomping on those things.  I mean, he was really eating them up!  Right in the middle of his chewing, Dwight reveals that they are really bull testicles.  Get it..  Rocky Mountain Oysters….

Lynn turns to Merrill and asks:

“Dad, what are testicles?”

There was a little pause. 

I anxiously awaited his response.

He made his way through a decent explanation, one that was a bit, um, stumbled through?  He even told her about scrotums. 

(I have to admit that at this point, I was trying my hardest to not let my laughter out.) 

After he finished his explanation, Lynn gave a little, “Oh…” then I turned around and said, “Lynn, remember we talked about testicles?”

I re-iterated just a little bit about our past conversation and a little light went on in her eyes.

“Oh!  Yeah!!  I remember now.”

She skipped away totally satisfied.

Merrill just looked at me and said, “You couldn’t have jumped in sooner?”

More ink, I think.

Hey, look at that!  I am a poet and didn’t know it!

(Cheesy, I know, but that is what I do best.)

Lynn decided she wanted to be a leprechaun, or maybe a small hobo, I still haven’t decided.  The pink be-jeweled leotard really is throwing me off..

So is the hot pink nail polish.

Shortly after this picture was taken, she went and added a moustache.

I wonder where Peyton has been getting her ideas?

Lynn assured me that the little girls don’t think what she did was a good idea.

Ashley assured me that she thought it wasn’t a very good idea.

Peyton remained silent.

Rest in peace, my beloved, big forest green spatula. April 2000 – February 2011

I am a little sad, I mean, I don’t have a picture of it?!  I probably do..  pictures where chocolate chip cookies are involved.  It was a good spatula.  He served faithfully.

But before I get any further, I have to state that it is all genetics.  Either those, or my example in parenting.  One of those are surely to blame.

My mom broke a few cooking utensils (wooden spoons mostly) on my older brother’s behind.

I learned so many valuable lessons from watching his behavior and the outcomes of it.  I was a good kid.  Such a good kid…

Get to this point in time, and sweet little Lynnie-lou-hoo has developed quite the attitude.  I will blame it on her female hormones, I don’t wish to believe her to be capable of being such a punk purposefully.  We’ve had a few run-ins since she has turned eight, and they are not fun my friends.  Not one smidgen of fun.

Last Saturday, she was on a tear about something so dumb.  So dumb I can’t even remember it.  She kept pushing it, arguing the point, and I kept telling her to leave it alone, it didn’t matter.  (See how much it didn’t matter?  I can’t, for the life of me, remember what the issue was!!)

I was making macaroni and cheese for the little ones, she wanted grilled cheese, and then she threw in the notion of a pickle, and well, that got my mouth drooling, so I decided, then and there, to make one for me too.. 

(Just for the record, I did not regret that choice.)

Anyway, she kept pushing it.  Pushing me!  I had had enough!  ENOUGH.  So to get her attention, I slammed my forest green, almost 11 year-old spatula on the counter top making an impressive “WHACKKKK!” sound effect as it made contact.

Well, it did get her attention.  It ended the conflict pretty quickly, and I went on attempting to flip my delicious grilled cheese sandwiches.  One turned effortlessly, the second one, not so much.  It was like something was making it stick to the bottom of the pan.  As soon as I finally got it turned, the top slice of bread (which had most recently been the bottom slice of bread), was all smooshed and crumpled-up like, the middle cheese layer partially exposed.

What did this to my lovely grilled cheese sandwich?

Oh well, on with it.

That spatula was also totally pro at cutting my delectable grilled cheese sandwiches into adorable little triangles.  (See all the lovely qualities it possessed?)  As I set out utilizing it to do what it did only second best, I noticed something was terribly wrong.

I looked at my forest green spatula, the one that is slightly oversized, perfect for grilled cheese sandwich-making, pancake flipping, and the like, and it was cracked!!!  It was cracked in five separate places.

Fatal fractures.

I was overcome with grief.

How could I go on without it?

Sure, I had other spatulas.  Smaller spatulas.  They had been around as long as the green guy, but they were not fit to replace him.  Not even close.  All their years of co-existing in drawers an utensil caddies did not benefit them in the ways I desired.

They are puny.

I have tried not to make grilled cheese this week, I just can’t do it without him!

He found his burial in the garbage can.

I told Lynn of the fatality that her behavior had caused (I had NOTHING to do with that…), and adequately guilt-tripped her.

(All this is joking, of course.)

But today was a happy, bittersweet day.

I went to Target.

(See, I sat the word and you get all warm and fuzzy, admit it.)

Among all the other things I forgot to purchase, let alone look at, I remembered to go take a gander at the supply of big guy spatulas.

I found a replacement.

He is all silicone-y.

He also has a happy new home in my kitchen utensil drawer.

Just wondering if the silicone element will make him less breakable in case I need to WHACK!! him on the counter too.

What do you think?

I {heart} days like this..

So right now, we have lots and lots and lots of snow.

I love it.  I cannot lie.

But I doo look forward to days like this:

I am sure the girls do too.

It’s “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes” week at I Heart Faces.  Head over to  and see who else has entered the toe end of the human body.

Shall we laugh?

Despite the “funk” I've been in, the kids are still hamming it up good around here.

 

The other day, after Ashley did something she thought was quite obvious, Peyton asked her a follow-up question,  Ashley thought the answer was quite apparent and replied, “Are you blind?”.

Peyton answered, “NO!  I’m Peyton!”

 

Tonight Peyton came up to me and said, “Mom, I’m just a superhero you know…”

Completely out of the blue and darling as can be it was…

 

Lynn has been a real bookworm lately.

To prove just how into books she is, she reads them while she walks home.

How would I know this odd fact?

While we were eagerly awaiting her arrival at the end of the day, watching for her out of the '”eagle’s nest” (loft window), there she appeared at the end of the fence, nose in a book.

She has been reading a verse of the Old Testament every day, and proudly marks it off on her reading list.  She also colors the heck out of every verse she reads.  After showing her my first set of scriptures, she still does it.  I thought that massacre with a hot pink highlighter would really speak to her, you know?  But it really didn’t.  Surprisingly.

She also find Ramona quite humorous.  Especially when she throws up at school.  I love to hear her giggle when she reads.

 

Merrill and I have been hard at work, trying to establish some great exercising habits, and little Peyton is right there with us.  Her jumping jacks are adorable, and she can do static lunge curls like a rock star.  The best is when she grunts doing crunches.  But I love it the most when she cheers us on, telling us that we are doing such a good job.

 

As we read the scriptures together for FHE, we always do a re-cap of what we have studied the previous week.  Peyton always goes off on some story about Nephi really being a princess, and traveling in a carriage.  She gets really into her plots.  It is quite cute.

 

Ashley is slowly coming out of her shell in school.  It is a relief to see her actually speak out loud and interact with the other kids, and her teacher especially.  Today in her class, they were discussing the “sp” blend.  The teacher asked them to share words that they could think of that start with that blend.  Ashley turned around to me and whispered. “Like spare?”  I nodded and told her to raise her hand and say it.  She turned back around and then turned to me again, that look in her eyes.  I nodded at her, she turned around and raised her hand!!!  Her teacher saw her, eyes grew wide, and she exclaimed, “Ashley!?”  and guess what?

She said it.

Out. Loud.

Miracle of holy miracles!

She also got a beaming report from her teacher at parent teacher conferences today.  I was thanked repeatedly for having such a great little girl.  She may not talk out loud, but she is pretty dang good.

Testimony.

This year for family home evening, we are delving into the Book of Mormon more.  We are taking the Gospel Art picture kit (the old one) and taking one picture at a time, discussing the story, and reading the most pertinent verses out of our scriptures TOGETHER.  Lynn struggles to look them up on her own, and this is a way to help her become a little better at it.  She is so excited to read them out loud, and the little girls are really enjoying it as well.

Every week, we do a re-cap of sorts, to refresh our minds as to where we are in the storyline of the book.  Tonight, Peyton went on and on about how Nephi was really a princess. ;)  Great story telling skills that girl has.

The story we were on was about the arrival of the Liahona, how it worked, and how they needed to be in order for it to work properly.

I shared a couple of stories about faith with them, personal experiences, (one that I realize I should record here..) and likened that to how the Liahona worked.  They needed to show faith, believing that it would give them direction.  Lynn was so sweet, as I was finishing she asked if she could share a story with us.

She re-told the story of her day at kindergarten, when she found no one in her classroom, and ran back outside to find me, only to find I had left.  She did cross paths with a sister in our ward (someone Lynn didn’t know), who calmed her down, reassured her, and helped her get safely back to school.

At the end of Lynn’s story, she told us, “I know that Heavenly Father blessed me.  He sent Sue to me so I could get back to school safely and so I wouldn’t be sacred.”

How proud was I!!  She gets it!!!

After the prayer, and after I sent off the little girls to get their pajamas on, I held Lynn back.  I asked her if she knew what she had just done.

“No…”

“You don’t know what that was that you just told all of us?”

She just shook her head.

“That was your testimony.  You shared something that you believe.  You shared a story of when you had to use your faith, and you told us how you were blessed.  That is your testimony of faith.” 

I am so thankful for family home evening, for this time of learning and sharing, to see how my children really do understand and grow from the teachings of the gospel.

Lynn’s special day (just the pix).

Our little family on Lynn's special day...

Really..  this is the best one.  Ashley did her best to look like a total gomer in the majority of the pics my dad snapped.  It was either awesome facial expressions or her dress in the air. :)

Merrill and  Lynn.

I keep reflecting on that day, it really was wonderful.  I am so thankful that we had it all to ourselves.  I am also thankful to see the change in Lynn, how she looks at her choices differently and how she truly understands the effect her choices have on her little life right now.

Lynn's Baptism.

Yesterday was such a great day for our little family.  Lynn was baptized and confirmed a member of the church.  Merrill did such a great job with both the baptism and the confirmation.  It was amazing to see Lynn walk down into the font with such confidence, to do just as we talked about with her.  Merrill said the prayer, and Lynn remembered just how we told her to sit and let him lay her back into the water.  I couldn't help but cry, joyfully, as I watched her go down into the water, and come back up with such a happy look on her face.  She was cold, but she was so happy!  We spent time, just she and I, while I dried her hair, and we got her dressed.  I have seen a change in her throughout this past year.  There really is something to that great number of eight.  She really does understand so much about this commitment she has made, and I know there is so much more that she will come to learn and understand.  It is quite a responsibility on my shoulders, as her mom, but it is such a great time for us.
While confirming her, Merrill blessed her that she would be worthy of all the blessings that Heavenly Father has in store for her.  I loved watching as she gave everyone there in her confirmation circle a hug.  There were some missing from that circle, some that she wanted to be there, but she was so thankful to everyone.
We enjoyed the rest of the evening together as a family. 
I prayed that the day would go smoothly, that the spirit could be with us in our home, that there wouldn't be stress.  It was a simple day but it was a perfect day.

Appropriate usage.

My sweet, innocent Lynn, is slowly (but all too quickly for may taste) gaining a knowledge of what words are inappropriate.

There are some people we know, people we are related to, might have possibly grown up on a farm, who still use “farm talk” for the word “poop”.

I will not use it here.

Lynn now thinks that as long as she uses that word in reference to animal excrement, it is okay.

Not so.

She came home from school the other day, and began telling me how ugly it was outside.  The snow is pretty much gone, leaving behind nasty, soggy, matted grass, and dog.. “leavings”.

Lynn chose to tell Merrill and I about the latter half of the conditions of the ground outside at the dinner table, while we were eating.

“It’s so gross!!  Everywhere you walk there’s dog (she gives sideways glances, then puts her hands to either side of her mouth to shield it, and then mouths THAT word.)  It’s nasty.”

I looked at Merrill who rolls his eyes and says, “Really?”

I asked, “Lynn, what gave you the idea to say that?”

“Well, it does mean poop.”

“But what made you think it was okay to say it?”

She didn’t answer, but decided to sing instead.

I have my own Brian David Mitchell!  (Singing to avoid unpleasant or unflattering questions….)

She avoided the question by either singing or changing the subject.  My attempted lecture turned into a one liner.

“Don’t say that word anymore.”

The next day was even better.

She came home, upset this time, asking me if a certain word was bad.  I told her depending on how it was used, it could be.

“Give me an example.”

She then said the last name of a good friend.

“That is not a bad word if you are saying their name.”

She explained to me that she was saying it silly, enunciating every syllable, and another girl, who has been taught advanced information, told Lynn’s friend whose name Lynn had been saying.  This friend pointed out to Lynn that, “..some people think that is a bad word, you might not want to say it..”

That had Lynn in tears.  She didn’t want her friend upset with her, she didn’t want her to have hurt feelings.  She didn’t even know that one syllable was considered a bad word!

She learned that day why that particular word was a bad word, and lost a part of her innocence prematurely (if you ask me).  I hope that she feels like she can come to me with more questions when they arise, and not be shy.

I had an experience when I was younger than Lynn.  I was in Mrs. Wadman’s first grade class.  Me and my table were in the accelerated reading class, and didn’t do reading or spelling with our homeroom class, but one day, Mrs. Wadman had to start the reading/spelling lesson a little early, so our table was there for it.  She was teaching about syllables and word parts.  She had “helicopter” written on the chalkboard.

“I will sound out the word helicopter slowly, so you can hear the syllables and make out the different word parts…  hel…..”

**GASP!!*

A collective gasp rose up from our table as everyone else in the class turned in our direction.  Mrs. Wadman turned red.

“I didn’t swear!!!  I didn’t swear!!  Don’t you tell your parents that I swore..  I was just sounding out “helicopter”!”

(Remember that Melissa?)

I learned my lesson that day about appropriate, and inappropriate.

Let’s hope that Lynn gives me a break for the rest of the week.

December 7th..