Time goes too fast....

I was planning to post my Halloween photos, but I haven't gotten them from my mom yet. She came over and took a bunch of shots for me, but she has been swamped with a stake play and being sick the last few weeks. So, maybe I'll post them for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Here's our pumpkins. The kids did a good job designing this year.

Anyhow, life has been speeding by. I really feel like time is going faster. Things I used to be able to get done in a day seem to take longer. It isn't that I am slower, if anything I am working harder but it just seems that the day is over after it has barely begun.

Someone, the other day, mentioned hearing a quote from Joseph Smith about time literally speeding up in the last days. I cannot find such a quote. If any of you have heard it or can find it please comment on it.

I did find a quote from Spencer W. Kimball. "In my estimation, the Lord’s time table is directed a good deal by us. We speed up the clock or we slow the hands down and we turn them back by our activities or our procrastinations."

I guess because I am procrastinating less, time is going faster?? This must be good news, it just doesn't feel like it, right? I am working on being balanced, but I am not really doing anything extra. Laundry, bathrooms, grocery shopping, yard work, organizing the pantry to fit all the groceries,

homework, preparing Sunday School lessons, loving and playing with the fam, mopping, cleaning up thousands of dead bees from the beehive we had treated in our tree (Sam is deathly allergic),

nursing the baby (Boy, bottles are tempting!), making dinner for our small army, holding a sad baby girl...etc...

I love my job, I just wish sometimes that I could be finished with everything and feel free to do other good things. Or even just to stand back and look at the finished product of all my labors. I guess I won't be doing that until I die, which I am not planning to do for a long time (I want to see my gazillions of great-grand kids.).

Pretty much, my life is wonderful, just a little overwhelming at times. I am happy to have so much to do!? I am never bored!

Halloween Preview

This year we have a fairytale theme going with our kids costumes, totally their idea. As you see we have a Prince, a Princess and a Black Knight. We are also going to have a Wizard, a Dragon, a 2 Fairies, a Clown and something or other that Sam is creating.

Nate, Drew and Laney were having fun acting out their parts this afternoon. I was doing a fitting and they wanted to play for a bit. I still have a couple hems to do and some more bling to add to Laney's dress. I also still have a cloak for the Wizard and the entire Fairy costume for Sara to make. Good thing I have a whopping 3 more days until our ward Halloween party. I am also glad that I NEVER procrastinate.

Our Family Looks Good In Vinyl

I made the stick figure picture at the top of my blog, with my husband and kids input, for our family reunion t-shirts. My kids wear their shirts often, and love to show everyone their family. (I think they like to shock people.) Anyhow, yesterday evening, in between crazinesses and after a couple of days of HARD work at my parents, I received a package. It was a great surprise to find our family in vinyl stickers. My way too generous friend Kim had created them for us. The kids LOVE it. It is fun to see our family taking up half of the window. Josh said, "You know, Mom, if you have anymore your going to have to redo this." I told him not to stress about it.

Thanks, Kim, for the our totally cute window. We love it!

Photo Tag

My friend, Kim tagged me, with the following instructions: I was to open my pictures file, go to the 6th folder, the 6th sub-folder, the 6th picture, and post about it. We have two computers with photos. There is only one photo in the 6th folder downstairs, so I will also post the 6th 6th 6th from upstairs too.


Let me start by saying this photo does not do this situation justice. I was shopping at Wal-Mart with baby Daniel and the almost 3 year old twinners. I had them tied, sitting down in the basket of the cart with the long rainbow shoe laces that I ALWAYS kept in my purse to contain my little busy bodies. I used them like seat belts. I had Daniel buckled up in the part by the handle of the cart. The twins couldn't stand or reach out of the cart so I knew I was good to do my shopping. I needed to get blue paint for the pine wood derby. I let Daniel hold the paint since it was plastic wrapped and he was only 8 months old. I didn't figure he could get into trouble with it and I didn't want it in the basket with the twins. Well, of course Daniel dropped it in to the basket and I didn't notice. I was in the girls section looking at clothes when I noticed that the twins had opened the bottle of paint and had been putting it on like lotion. It was ALL over them and the cart. My clothes were ruined, having blue grid lines from leaning on the side of the basket to clean them up. I got paper towels from the lady at the dressing room area. She stared at the idiot mother trying to wipe up the quickly drying blue paint on her little cuties. I was so embarrassed. Lots of more stares came our way. The paint you see in the photo is what was too dry for me to wipe off. They were COVERED in paint before the wipe down. I didn't have a digital camera at the time so I stopped my buddy Jen's house and had her snap on for me. I knew I needed this moment documented.

This is the photo from upstairs. Sara and I were doing a photo shoot of her pretty Sunday curls. She was having fun modeling for me. She is a delight! Here are a few more shots.





Now I am tagging 6 friends: Dandi, Jessi, Nan, Jen, Leilani and Emily.

Our Mini Get Away

Richard's Grandma Blake passed away about a week and a half ago. She was the sweetest little lady. She was always happy to see our troops and genuinely loved all her grandkids and great-grandkids (over 100 great-grands). I am sure she was ready to rejoin Grandpa and was happy for a rest from her well used body.

We threw together a plan to make it to the funeral in a hurry. We have many people to thank for helping out with our kids, the Anways, the Klippels, the Jensens, the Wilsons, the Tanners, the Youngs, the Wrights and my parents the Ely's. We really appreciate all of you for taking such great care of our babies.


We drove up on Thursday. It was quite different to only have Susanna with us. The weather was beautiful and we had fun sing along with Cd's and talking without the usual interruptions. We stayed the night at the Red Lion Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. It was a fabulous hotel; loved the Bath and Body Works shampoo, conditioner, lotion and soaps.

Friday, we got up and played mostly at the Church History Museum (I love history!)and Welfare Square(We got to try the bread, cheese and chocolate milk the church produces. It was pretty darn good.). At the museum we were able to read all the labels and signs, unlike when we are trying to keep hold of our 9 sweeties. They have a new Gordon B. Hinckley display with a lot of his personal things on display. It is still hard to believe he is history now.



That evening we went to stay at my friend Kim's lovely home. She is an amazing lady, so inspiring and creative. We had a great time visiting, watching her hubby John get his hair trimmed with all of us in the bathroom, eating a delicious dinner at Zuppa's, meeting her parents and then chatting back at her place about pretty much everything until well after 2am. I am sure that we wore her out. She is just too much fun and such a dear friend I didn't want the fun to end.


We left Kim's and went to Grandma's funeral. It was a touching tribute to her. She was a spunky lady with many adventures and lots of faith. Richard wore one of his Grandpa Blake's ties that Grandma had given him. It was cute to see him being sentimental. We had lunch with his parents and siblings, nephews and niece, aunts and uncles, and heaps of cousins.

This is a picture of Rebecca on the left, Richard's twin cousin (they were born 1 day apart), Richard and another cousin JoAnn, I think. It was hard to keep so many names straight.

After lunch, Kim kindly brought me my pillow, which we left behind, on her way to the BYU game (Go Cougars!). The cousins then all hung out at a mansion his cousin rented for the night. It was a gorgeous 15,000 square feet, with beds for 50. Richard has a great family. I love to be a part of the family.

After pizza dinner we went to stay with my buddy from when I was a YW, Emily. She has a great home from the 60's. It has character, in a good way, and a beautiful view of Provo and the lake. I had a lot of fun catching up with her and her hubby Steve. We talked and Richard and Zanna slept on the floor for a couple of hours. At midnight, we headed for bed. I got Richard and Zanna downstairs to sleep, but Rich couldn't get back to sleep. He finally got back to sleep around 5am.

I let him sleep until 9, but we needed to get to church and on the road. We woke up to find a light dusting of snow. It was falling in little flurries. Such a treat for us desert dwellers. Emily fed us a yummy breakfast of puff oven pancakes, bacon, toast and grapefruit. So good! It was hard to leave, I love Emily.

Susanna was a happy traveler and kept us, as well as everyone else, smiling. She is such a sunshine.

The snow continued to fall lightly about a quarter of the drive home. We enjoyed listening, over and over, to a new CD "All About You" by Kenneth Cope that Kim so kindly gave us. It is filled with fabulous songs about the Savior. Richard and I both felt inspired. We read quite a bit from the first volume of "Hearts of the Children", a wonderful novel during the civil rights movement, the cold war etc. (We love to read together.) We also had plenty of yummy snacks thanks to our two sweet hostesses.

Thanks again to everyone who made our whirlwind of a trip so amazing!

Truths

I am what I choose to be. Proverbs 23:7 "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he."

I am happiest when I choose to look at the things I did today, not the things I didn't do. Today I held sick children and made soup, that was it.

Prayer helps to get things done. Martin Luther said something like.. "I've got so much to do today, I'll have to spend and extra hour on my knees to make sure I accomplish it."

I am more willing to do things when I pretend to be excited about doing them.

Being silly throughout the day makes the day better for everyone.

Life is funny, if I look for the humor.

If I have something to go through or something hard to do, I can choose to be happy and do it or I can choose to cry about it. Either way, I have it to do. I might as well choose to be happy.

The Lord is very patient with me, I should have patience with myself as well. I am still learning.

Speaking in a loving calm tone, especially when it seems impossible, always brings the best results.

Getting worked up over things only brings stress and unhappiness. There is always another way to handle the situation; it is an opportunity to be creative.

If I show my faith through being obedient first, even when it isn't easy, the blessings will always follow. Abraham was willing to kill his son to be obedient and look where it got him.

Life is like a roller coaster with ups and downs. And just like on a roller coaster, the downs are much better when I put up my arms and say WEEEEEE!!!! and know that the up side is coming.

If I can't do anything about it then I shouldn't worry or stress over it, and if I can do something, then I should just do it.

When nothing else works I just remember, "This too shall pass."

The Price of Freedom

Sunday evening I took Sam, Josh and Tim to see The Price of Freedom. It was a free performance paying tribute to the amazing patriots of WWII. The city of Gilbert celebrated Constitution Week last week. This was their closing evening. It was outstanding! My boys were riveted and touched by the heroes of that era. It was a great way to help instill gratitude for those who are brave enough to protect our beautiful country and all the freedoms that come with it. One young man, for his Eagle project, made displays for each of the Arizona soldiers who have died serving our country since 2002. He updates it every year. I was surprised by how many there were. The displays had their names and some of their goals and dreams and then also how and when they died. Let's just say not many people left with dry eyes, and some of us had red noses and a handful of tissues to throw away.

The performers were all incredible. Many of them were moved to tears as well. The composer Rob Gardner, some where around 30 years old, is a musical genius. To be able to hear the orchestration, each instrument's part, and then put it together with the rest blows my mind. He is so fun to watch as he directs. He has such passion and feeling as he does it.

My family talked to Rob Gardner and Tyler and Linsey Maxson (the Maxson's have lead parts) after the show. We asked them how we could get them to bring the show to the West Valley. We are working on it. We need the funds for the orchestra, but the performers will come for love of the show. We also need a place to hold the performance, this last one was at Glibert High School. Any ideas or any one interested in helping to bring more great LDS performances to this side of town let me know.

Rob Gardner is also the writer/composer of Joseph Smith the Prophet, Saints and Pioneers, He is Jesus Christ, The Missionary Hymn Project, Blackbeard the Musical (get tickets for this weekend at the Herberger Theater downtown also starring the Maxsons) and Twelve Princesses. Richard and I saw Blackbeard opening night and loved it. I am taking our four oldest to see it Friday night. I am happy to help get the word out about this amazing young composer.