5 Things I Think My Children Should Know

Our cousin posted this entry on her blog over the weekend and it really got me thinking about the 5 most important things I want my children to know. So, here goes:

1. You are adored by two parents who want nothing but great things for you. This love is not conditional upon you acting a certain way or achieving certain things in life. This does not mean, however, that you will never be sent to your room.

2. Life is a journey, not a destination.

3. Work hard at your education, your careers, and any other pursuits you undertake.

4. Be honest. Especially when it's hard.

5. Be reliable. Be the person people can count on to do what you say you'll do.

And, sorry, I have to add a six and even a seven.

6. Tell the people you love that you love them. Thinking you're showing them doesn't count, they have to hear the words come from you.

And, shoutout to my husband's genes:

7. Yes, kids, you do have chocolate running through your veins.

Happy Haunting! We'll post some trick-or-treating pics later this week.

Simple Pleasures

-- A beautiful, crisp fall day with beautiful colors and delicious smells, where the air is so clean, you can see forever;

-- Finding enough change in your cupholder for a soda for mom and a slurpee for the 4 year-old;

-- My husband's chocolate chip cookies;

-- The Harry Potter books;

-- Recording your favorite show on the DVR and watching it, uninterupted by your kids, without commercials;

-- An empty sink and an empty dishwasher;

-- My favorite pajamas and my favorite sheets;

-- Knowing my alarm won't be going off at 6:00 tomorrow morning (the Guy may just let me sleep until 7:00!);

-- Listening to my oldest play her favorite primary songs on the piano;

-- Naps (for both mom and kids)!

What are your favorite simple pleasures?

Happy Fall, Y'all!!

They Call Me the Little Red Hen

Remember the story of the Little Red Hen who grinds her wheat and bakes bread for her family, who squeal in delight at what a domestic goddess their mother is? Well, move over, Chicken, 'cause there's a new sheriff in town. Check it out, but please . . . don't lick the screen.

I didn't take a picture of me grinding the wheat with my mom's wheat grinder. I have such great memories of that thing. It was always my job to grind the wheat on bread-making day. I remembered every sound the machine made.

Note to self: half this recipe next time. Yes, folks, that is what 8 loaves of bread look like.

And, drum roll please . . .

Now, I realize this is wheat bread, not cold fusion. But to me, I always thought of making home-made bread as the pinaccle of the "domestic arts." I was extremely proud of myself. Just ask anyone in my family and they'll tell you. And as an added bonus, my 4 year-old ate it! And she asked for more. That, my friends, is a victory.

Have a great week everyone!

Time to Put on Those Walking Shoes (Dust Them Off If You Need To)

I'm starting my training right now for the MS Walk in the spring. Trust me, it will take that long to get me into any sort of shape to walk, let alone run, a considerable distance. I hope you will all join me and bring along all of your friends. As you know, my darling husband was diagnosed with MS about two and a half years ago. There are good treatments available, but we can really do a whole lot more. So, bug your friends, enemies, co-workers, neighbors, people in line with you at the grocery store check-out line. If each of us can all raise a little and participate in this event, it will add up so quick. And it will let all the people who live with this disease every day know that we love them, support them, and will do anything we can to help.



Join me!

What About Bob?!

Meet our new family mascot . . . Bob, the incredibly large, run away screaming, shield your children's eyes spider. These pictures I'm including are not very good and do not give you the full sense of either Bob's size or his true creepiness. I was not about to get close enough to this little guy to get a good picture. So not worth it. I truly was expecting him to look at me and ask me to pass the ketchup. We think he's the muscle for a spider mob.

The kids were fascinated with Bob when we saw him outside our living room window yesterday. The guy even has a new phrase -- "Where's Bob?" We had a very educational talk about how spiders spin webs, what they eat (in this case, hopefully not the children), how many legs they have, you know. But now, it's time for Bob to go . . . very, very, very far away.

Reason number 5 (well, maybe 2) on the list of reasons why I love my husband: I am terrified of spiders and he kills them for me. Early in our relationship he was dubbed "bug boy." And the nickname stuck. Today, he has truly earned his boy scout badge in arachnid removal. I can very often pull myself together enough to kill spiders when he's not around, but there is no way (repeat, no way) I was going after this bad boy.

And so, farewell, Bob. Alas, we hardly knew ye.

postscript:

Bob has been successfully relocated in a spider-mob witness protection program. He is now living in Rhode Island under the assumed name of Harrison.

What a Peach of a Day!

Today was one of those totally unplanned, totally spontaneous days that give you and your children great memories of growing up. I was cutting up some peaches for breakfast and was less than thrilled with them, and I mentioned to my cute husband, "You know, we should go up to Peach Days in Brigham City and get some real peaches." To my surprise, he said "Sure. Let's go." We had such a great day. I think I was born about 60 years to late, because I love the small town, know everyone around you, real sense of community that we seem to have lost in our bigger cities. I mean, I almost teared up when I saw the Rotary Club selling raffle tickets to raise money to buy new dictionaries for the 3rd grade at the local elementary school. None of the buildings in town were over three stories tall, there was a statue of the city's founder in front of city hall, where, by the way, the high school orchestra was performing for the crowd. I was truly in my element.

After we ate some lunch -- the peach cobbler and peach fritters were absolutely sinful -- and rode the rides for a while, we started to notice something a little strange: there were no actual peaches at Peach Days. Thinking we must be not looking in the right place, we asked one of the festival staff (probably the Peach Days queen or the mayor). Turns out, Peach Days is kind of a misnomer: it really should be called "we used to have peaches at Peach Days but our town has grown and a lot of the peach groves have been cut down and now most of the peaches we do grow we sell to large grocery chains and they ship them out to the bigger cities" days. The closest we came to peaches was our cobbler and the fritters Kara had with her pulled pork sandwich. Good thing I didn't pass them up, right? Still, totally fun, still dying to go again next year (I'm planning on going early to see the parade, buy my kids cotton candy, wave flags, and possibly run for city council). But I won't plan on coming home with any peaches.

I think the best part of today was it wasn't really planned. We didn't worry about if the guy would get his afternoon nap or if my list of Saturday chores would get done as I had planned or if that church flyer would be completely prepared and ready to give out tomorrow. The best thing about today was being totally happy with my family and totally in the moment. So often we are so busy planning our next great move that we forget how wonderful right now is. So as I stood between my daughters, laughing as they rode the carousel, and watched my son perched on his dad's shoulders, I was happy, right now.

So, next time you have a chance to do something unplanned, worry a little less about crossing off tasks on a to-do list and enjoy the fabulous life you've been given -- right now.

Back (sniff) to School (sniff)

We're back to school here. This year, both my girls are school-bound. OK, so Ells-bells goes to school for 2 hours 3 days a week, but it's still school, and soon she'll be grown up and living on the other side of the country and she won't need me any more and I'll be old and grey . . . ok, deep breaths now.

The girls are really loving school. And I'm loving having them in school. We're very lucky that we haven't had any of the back-to-school drama a lot of kids put their parents through. We're lucky they're very intelligent and get along great both academically and socially. We're lucky we live close to good schools with people who love our children (almost) as much as we do. We're just lucky. And I only tear up about 8 times a day now missing then when they're gone. But that's the essence of a mother's role: hopefully we work ourselves out of a job.

So here are some back to school picks. Now, I know everyone thinks their kids are beautiful, intelligent and just about perfect, but I honestly just can't imagine more beautiful children than mine. Isn't genetics a hoot?