Broccoli

One day in early spring, we were eating broccoli and Jacob asked "Where does broccoli come from?" I was aghast that he didn't know, and explained it was from a plant. A few days later we were at the nursery and saw small broccoli seedlings. I showed Jacob, and we decided to give them a try in our garden this year.

Here they are at the end of May.
(far left)

It took about 45 days to be ready to pick. One thing I love about growing our own food, is the appreciation it gives me (us) for the whole process. I didn't have to pay for water for them, since it's been SO rainy here, or transport it, and it took up quite a bit of space - it's a large plant for what it yields AND the plant was gone after we picked the bunch. A 45 day investment for 1 bunch! Seriously, I can't believe broccoli isn't more expensive ($1.69 a bunch at my local store right now.) I had the same experience the first time we went raspberry picking - labor intensive! Nothing like 1st hand experience to make you grateful for the ready access we have to such varieties of food at a relatively cheap price!

I cut it and we ate it with dinner that night. It was delicious, and made me so happy to know that it was cut just about an hour before, that we grew it without chemicals or pesticides, and no extra energy or resources were wasted transporting it great distances. Hooray!

Jacob, "snitching" a piece.

We all loved it, but Jacob ate it with his usual enthusiasm - plus some, since it was his idea to grow it in the first place.

So Yummy!

We picked another bunch about 6 days later, and have 4 more getting close. It's a delightful surprise that, even though they were all planted at the same time, they are maturing at different rates. Perfect, as it means a steady flow of fresh broccoli for us!

Father's

I wanted to post this last week for Father's Day - better late than never.

I am LOVING the Mormon Messages on You Tube & the church website.

When I was 8 years old (Emily's age), my Dad read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy to my sisters & I. I dearly loved that time, and have such great memories of it. He read a chapter a night, and did really great different voices for each of the characters, which made the story easy to follow. I can still hear his voice in my head, reading it to us.
He made it come alive, and gave me a love of reading that has lasted all my life.

I just recently found out that he would pre-read each chapter of those books during the day - so he would be familiar enough with the story to use the right character voice at the right time, and have the story flow seamlessly. Finding that out touched my heart so much. My Dad was a very busy man. He had a job with a lot of responsibility, at the time 5 (0r 6 ?) kids, a stake president for most of the years I lived at home... Knowing, even though not until years later, that he had gone to that effort for us brought tears to my eyes.
Thank-you Dad, I love you.

Now I have my own family and am married to a very busy man, who works ridiculously long hours in a stressful and demanding job.

Rick has got up 40 minutes early (4:50am) every day of the school year for the past 2 years in order to drop Rebekah off at Seminary, bring the car home to me & make the 6:20am train. He even got up on many days that Rebekah accidentally slept through her alarm, leaving him ready early for no reason. This also greatly benefits me, leaving the little one's and I free to sleep for 45 extra minutes each day, before we have to go and pick her up. On Sunday's he's frequently up early for his assignments for the High Counsel for church. You would think that would make him desperate to sleep later on Saturday mornings, and I'm sure he is. He doesn't. On Saturday's he gets up with Jane and Jacob and scurries them to the TV in the basement to let me sleep a little longer. A true sacrifice. I am sure I have not thanked him enough, but I am so grateful for his commitment to our family and his compassion towards me, that he would give up the most precious of commodities in our house - sleep.

There's a real man. I adore you babe!

Happy Father's Day.

Little Boy Heaven

"Fathers & Sons" the church camp-out for boys & their Dads - seriously the highlight of the year for Jacob.
He asked every day for the week before if it was the day to go.

Rick got him a little fishing rod. I thought it was bound to end in disaster, and envisioned lots of tangled line & a hook lodged somewhere in Jacob's body. However, it was great & Jacob caught not one, but TWO fish - reeling them in entirely by himself.

I think the look on his face tells you all you need to know!

He apparently also spent a great deal of time playing in the fire. On Saturday night I washed his hair, rinsed it out, then did shampoo again, rinsed and conditioned. When he got out of the tub, his head still smelled like campfire!

One of the guys in the ward had his boat there. The next day Jake went out with the boys. Again, a picture tells a thousand words - Jacob is the one on the right.

Jacob really had the GREATEST TIME OF HIS LIFE.

Rick took these pictures with his phone. I didn't dare send my camera with him (I love it way too much) and wanted his entire focus to be on keeping Jacob alive (there were several pep talks and some eye rolling before they left.)

Next year though, I think I will at least send the point & shoot, because this is just too priceless to miss. I sure love my guys!

More Swimming News

Here's what we've been up to with swimming -

Emily swam in a swim-a-thon to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. She swam 100 laps (over a mile & a half) and raised $105! Not to shabby for a little 8yr old. Thanks to everyone who sponsored her!
She got this T-shirt for doing it. I'm so proud of her.

For the end of the year for Aqua Tots (where my kids swim through the school year) they had a swim meet. Emily took 1st place in the backstroke and 2nd place in freestyle. The freestyle was so close, I couldn't even tell who had touched the wall first - they had to go by times. The winner only beat her by .38 of a second!

What a little champ - she was so proud of her ribbons.

Now summer swim team has started and Emily is swimming for Lake Isle.
Since they are still in school though the end of June, they have practice every day after school. It has been either cold or cold & rainy. Jacob & Jane and I hang out and play while we wait for Emily. I've been in the water only once. It really is COLD. This does not prevent my swimming little boy to get in - he has been in every time we go - even on the day it was torrential rain.

He is often the only one in.

At least he has the pools to himself.

Seriously, check out the lifeguard in long pants and a sweatshirt!

Insomniac

Jane is the worst sleeper of any of my kids. BY FAR.
She has slept through the night about 5 times in her entire life. Yes, she's three.

I don't believe in "cry it out" - but Jane almost converted me.
The problem is she's incredibly tenacious, and the few times we've tried it she has screamed with 110% intensity for over 3 hours - by which time all the other kids & Rick are awake. Rick gets up at 4:50am during the school year, and Rebekah not much after that to get to seminary (& then work and school), Emily has to go to school - we just can't have their sleep interrupted, so Jane has us over a barrel.

Also it's so easy to just pull her into bed with us when she wakes up, and she's so darn cute ....

Anyway, because I am often up late working, she sometimes wakes up and comes downstairs to find me. Usually she just needs a drink and then I take her back to bed. The other night I was in the middle of something, and my hands were wet. I told her to just hold on a minute and wait for me to finish. I looked around, and she had fallen back to sleep on the dining room floor.

Comfy!

Jacob's Kisses

(Thanks to Ben Blair who took this picture at Pepsico Gardens in April.)



As I was tucking Jacob into bed he said

"Mom, when you give me kisses, they go straight down into my heart."

love that boy!

Mass Murder

Every year I buy ladybugs (ladybirds) to scatter on our garden. They do not eat the plants, but they DO eat small bugs like aphids that are harmful to our plants. They are pretty to look at, and my kids love them. There's nothing bad about ladybugs.

Just over a week ago, I noticed that there were a few small aphids on the tomato plants - since I am committed not to use chemicals on my veggies - I announced it was time to go buy the ladybugs and on Monday morning we did.

To release them you are supposed to water the garden then wait until dusk, since they don't fly at night.That way, with a water source they will stay on the plants all night in search of small bugs, and as long as they find a food source, they will stick around indefinitely (no food source means the bad bugs are all gone, so I'm OK if they fly away then.)

It has been pouring rain for weeks on end here. It's driving me crazy! When we came home that day it was raining, so I figured I wouldn't need to water and we'd just wait until dusk. I put them on the shelf in our vestibule. As it turns out a tub of ladybugs can be a bit stinky, so later in the day I moved them to just outside the door under the cover of our big maple tree.

Several days later Jacob, Jane and I returned home to find a package on our doorstep. Jacob declared "Mom, we got a package! Maybe it's worms, or caterpillars, or ladybugs." I loved it and was just priding myself on raising a kid who would assume any package coming to us would contain those things, when I realized - THE LADYBUGS!! I had forgotten all about them. I hurried to the spot where I had left them. It was sheltered, but after several days of heavy rain, the tub was more than 1/2 full of water.

I usually sprinkle them over all the plants, but instead just dumped the entire lot upside down on the soil in the vegetable garden. Only about 10% of them were still alive. I left them for a while to see if any revived. Those who were alive crawled into the rosemary, and I spent some time picking them gently out, one by one and placing them on the tomatoes and other plants that needed them. I buried the bodies of the others in the soil - hopefully they'll still benefit the garden with their little bodies.

So, I am sorry and hope by confessing my neglect to the world, I will somehow ease my guilt.

And if this blessed rain ever stops, we'll go buy another tub.

All 13 Articles of Faith

Emily is an extremely self motivated and goal oriented person. I love it - it makes my job so much easier. I'm very competitive and goal oriented too, so it also makes it very easy to understand her personality.

When Emily turned 8 she got to start participating in the "Faith in God" program at church. One of the things to do is to memorize all 13 Articles of Faith. All Emily had to do was see that there was a sticker chart on the back wall, and she was all over it!

She finished memorizing them in May, and was awarded this certificate in Primary.

Man I love this little girl! I am so proud of her.Here she is with her certificate - signed by the Bishop & Primary President. Well done Emily!

Now you can help me teach them to your younger brother & sister.

• 1. WE BELIEVE in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

• 2. WE BELIEVE that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.

• 3. WE BELIEVE that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

• 4. WE BELIEVE that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

• 5. WE BELIEVE that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.

• 6. WE BELIEVE in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.

• 7. WE BELIEVE in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

• 8. WE BELIEVE the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.

• 9. WE BELIEVE all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

• 10. WE BELIEVE in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

• 11. WE CLAIM the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

• 12. WE BELIEVE in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

• 13. WE BELIEVE in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Joseph Smith