Eyes to See

The last two general conferences the question I've had in my mind is how our family could be more loving and united. It just seemed there was always so much contention here over one silly thing or another.

Two Sundays ago I was being set apart as the Wolf leader in our ward, and during the blessing the words "the love that permeates your home" jumped out at me. Has he been in our home?!? Then I thought of where that blessing was really coming from, and what He knows and sees. What was I missing?

During the next week I was sometimes shocked, amazed, and humbled at the things I saw happening in our home. The little kindnesses, the laughter (one night crazy wild what-did-I-feed-them-for-dinner-this-is-so-weird-they-are-being-so-fun-together laughter), singing while they sort laundry together, smiles, and happiness.

I don't know if the miracle came from the blessing, or from my eyes being opened, but it's been two weeks now and I'm still seeing it. I love my wonderful family! (Even when they are contentious, because that still happens too.)

Someone is missing . . . 

There's Just Something About Food

On Saturday, this guy got hankering for some good food.  He found a really great recipe for blackberry rib sauce, and was all over trying it out.  With ribs already in the freezer from a good deal a while back, he was in business.

Shortly after the cooking was over and we were beginning blackberry rib bliss, this guy came home from being a pioneer for 3 days with some of our homeschool friends.  We got to hear some of his stories in between bites.

When that was gone, it was proposed that maybe s'mores were in order.  That was quickly seconded (and thirded and fourthed...)

(Hello chickens in the background!)

In the picture below you can see our favorite s'more method.  Those Keebler striped cookies with the marshmallow are much easier and in my opinion better than the traditional graham cracker and chunk of chocolate.  The chocolate is well-spread and melts nicely, and the cookie breaks without being getting really crumby.

This is my favorite picture of the evening.  Looking at the picture above, I was sitting in the chair next to Jamie with Isaac on the grass between as, as you see him above.  While I was getting pictures of everyone, I turned the camera to get him but couldn't see what I was getting very well.  After taking this, I pulled my phone up to see if it took very well.  Jamie quickly started telling Madeleine to get her s'more away from Isaac, but apparently his quick little fingers had already grabbed enough to get marshmallow.  By the time I turned again (seriously, seconds), it was on his hands, shirt, and blanket.  I ran in for wipes, and by the time I got back his pants were involved too.  I love the pre-chaos captured here, with Madeleine's hand tempting him with the perfect s'more.

Today after church I asked Adam what he wants to eat this last week before he heads off to camp again.  After dutch oven cooking on the pioneer trail, dutch oven potatoes topped the list.  Knowing today was probably more low-key than the rest of the week, we dove into that and had most of the pre-cooking preparation done when Jamie got home from after church meetings.  He quickly set us straight on the appropriate dutch oven potatoes recipe ingredients, and the men folk got to cooking.

Delciousness again.

This picture is actually after that meal was over and the dutch oven berry chocolate cobbler was about to be partaken of.  Melanie has the serving spoon at the ready.

Multiple times both evenings the words "wholesome family recreation" came to mind.  It's lovely sitting around a campfire or a dutch oven, filling our tummies with great food, laughing, and sharing that time together.  An important piece of what helps "establish and maintain" successful families, but so simple.

To Last Forever

One morning last week I woke up at 4:30 am, wide awake.  When I realized I wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon, I pulled out my phone, glanced at my e-mail quick, then remembered a talk I've been wanting to reread -- Sister Linda Burton's talk on "The Power, Joy, and Love of Covenant Keeping."  

But I really didn't get very far into it before my mind turned specifically to the marriage covenant, and I went searching on my Gospel Library app for a talk on that instead.  I found one called "Eternal Marriage" by F. Burton Howard that I dove into.  It's a good one, and I was reading and highlighting away till almost the end, when I hit what I was woken up at 4:30 am to be taught.

Elder Howard led into it with a story about their silverware, and how over the years his wife carefully cared for it, to the point that he was thinking she was a little over the top over this silverware.  But then he realized,

If you want something to last forever,

you treat it differently.

My eyes stopped there, the Spirit teaching me.  I thought first and the most about my marriage, and eventually about my children.  Words came to mind like a list from the Family Proclamation - love, respect, compassion, forgiveness, trust.

And accompanying that, the desire to be better.

I finally pushed myself to continue in the talk.  "If you want something to last forever, you treat it differently.  You shield it and protect it. You never abuse it. You don’t expose it to the elements. You don’t make it common or ordinary. If it ever becomes tarnished, you lovingly polish it until it gleams like new. It becomes special because you have made it so, and it grows more beautiful and precious as time goes by."

Beautiful.

In our homeschool group we've been memorizing Doctrine and Covenants 6:33, and that came to mind.  "Fear not to do good . . . for whatsoever ye sew, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sew good ye shall also reap good for your reward."  That first word, fear, is sadly powerful in the wrong way.  Sad that the desire to do good can so easily be derailed, even within a family.  Laying there in bed I made some immediate commitments to myself with some specific ways to be better.

I'm so incredibly grateful for a Heavenly Father that cares enough about making sure I got this precious message that He sent it when things are quiet, even if it meant missed sleep for me.  I've been so blessed with  a wonderful husband and family.  They are the joy and the greatest work of my life, the things that more than anything I want to last forever.

Quarters from Heaven

Yesterday Melanie offered to clean out the little van, and took quite a while gathering garbage and vacuuming it really well.  I was working on something else and didn't go down to check on her, but had to pick up the boys later from something and noticed immediately how nice it looked.

As I pulled out of the driveway I called her to let her know how great it looked and to thank her for her hard work.  Just as I hung up, I heard a sound I quickly identified as a coin, then felt something hit my shoulder and land in my lap.  A quarter had somehow fallen from a coin holder that is mounted on the ceiling of the van.

I had to laugh.  Though it should have fallen on Melanie for doing such a great job, it made me think of how quickly we probably get blessed for doing the right thing and being kind, even just by being grateful and saying thank you.  Stronger relationships and willing service are definitely great blessings.

Bigs and Littles

Why I love having both big and little kids around:

1.  The littles have so many others to love and take care of them.  I tell my bigs often how boring their early life was.
2.  It's great practice for the bigs to help take care of the littles.  After all, we're raising future parents.
3.  By the time the bigs are having children the littles should be big enough to learn from them by helping to take care of their littles - as long as they live close enough.
4.  Littles love so easily, and bigs need that.

Several sweet sibling pics that make my heart happy.

These Are Our Hall Ways

If I posted all the started posts I write, there would be a lot more on here more often, but it would all be a lot more incomplete and unpolished (maybe no one would notice the difference??).  Maybe I should publish one once in a while just to throw people off, or challenge the world to finish my randomness for me.

We have a family mission statement.  It is about two months old now, and it took us almost a year to write (I blame myself).  Our writing process went something like this:

• One family home evening we talked about what a mission statement is, and told everyone to start thinking about things that make our family different than other families so we could jot those down in a week or two.
• A few months later, we talked about it again, and said, "Hey, remember when we talked about having a mission statement?  Now let's write down some ideas."  We passed out note cards and had everyone write down at least five ideas on how our family is different from other families, or the kinds of things that are important to our family.  When it was over, we read them through, I gathered them up, and put them in my scripture bag.
• A few months later, we pulled them out again, looked them all over as a family, grouped similar suggestions, and talked about ways we could reword some things to include other things as well.  When we were done, they all went back into my scripture bag for further fermenting.
• A few months later, I pulled them all out again and typed up the ideas.  Over the next few days I looked at it and stewed over it, changed the order of a few things, adjusted wording here and there, then e-mailed it off to Jamie for his thoughts.  He gave some suggestions, and I incorporated those in.  A bit more minor tweaking, and voila, it was finished and ready for the rest of the family.

As you can see, the process could have been a lot quicker, but maybe we needed that time to come up with some of the best parts.  It really was a family effort.  When it was complete and I read it to the kids, we pulled out the cards and talked about where each of their ideas worked in.  They were all pleased.  Except for one thing, which I will mention at the end.  But here it is.

We are the Hall Family

and these are our Hall Ways.

The Halls are great people! (That is always said with vigor.)

As family members and friends, we love each other and serve each other.

We love spending time together, both playing and working.

We love to learn great things.

We can do hard things and we do the right things.

Miracles happen when we're working together.

We focus on Christ, study the scriptures, and follow the prophet.

The temple is our goal.

Together, we are the happiest family.

We recite this every morning now before scripture study.  Everyone memorized it really quickly.  About two days into it, Sammy told me we're bragging there at the end.  I told him it's not bragging, because every family, when they are together, can be the happiest family.  I mentioned what he said to a friend who also has a family mission statement, and she said, "He should hear ours then!"  Part of theirs mentions that among a variety of other wonderful things, they are "gooooood lookin!"

At least once a week someone mentions something that we should add to it, whether it's something funny like, "We love our baby!" or a portion of a scripture that we feel would apply well.  I don't think there will be any changes at this point, but maybe somewhere down the road we'll look at that.

And the Award Goes To...

While I was hanging out at the hospital, calling for room service and getting my toenails painted (seriously gals, I know the hospital to deliver at), I was tumbling blog post ideas through my head. Then I came home and reality hit, so it hasn't exactly been top priority. Almost a week ago I was told it was high time my new little friend was introduced on my blog, so here she is!


Madeleine Anne was born March 11 at 12:59pm. She weighed in at a perfectly average 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. Her family all thinks she is above averagely beautiful.

During my hospital stay I had several favorites I wanted to give kudos to, so here they are.

Favorite Doctor: The lovely and talented Dr. Sharon Fillerup (yes, you read that right). She delivered all four of the girls, and has even changed some of their nasty first diapers and attended blessings and birthday parties. The kids call her Aunt Sharon. We love you!


Favorite Visitors: Most definitely the other kids! They were so excited to meet the new baby, and they found out it was a girl when they arrived at the hospital. Those who wanted a brother quickly forgot about that and fell fiercely in love with her.


Favorite Picture: This is what I meant by that last comment.


Favorite Compliment: From the anesthesiologist after the epidural, "You have a really skinny back!" After all, he sees a lot of backs, right? Speaking of which...

Favorite Drug: I love you Epidural. Labor is such a beautiful thing as soon as you arrive.

Favorite Movie: "Pure Luck" with Martin Short and Danny Glover. Thank you for coming out on DVD just in time!

Favorite Dodge: Not going to the "How to Take Care of Your New Baby" class. Hello, I've done this already. Scrub the head, take care of the cord, feed them, change them. Did I miss anything?

Favorite Hospital Service: Our hospital now has a salon inside, and offers a free spa service to all new moms! The choices included a haircut, style, manicure, pedicure, and facial. For the facial and pedicure they do it right in your room, so I chose the pedicure. Wonderful, wonderful!

Favorite Meal: The "candlelight" dinner (with no candlelight) with Jamie, provided by the hospital for the new parents.

Favorite Support Person: My wonderful husband, before, during, and after. Before baby when my body needed a break on the couch, he would take over. During labor he would constantly check to make sure I was okay and had what I needed. Since Madeleine was born he's made pretty much every meal, done the dishes, ran kids where they needed to be... and is the cutest daddy ever with his new little girl.

Rough Week, Made Better

A week ago tonight Melanie started fevering and Erin started throwing up. Erin was fine the next morning, happily sneaking Halloween candy bars.

I stayed home with the girls from church Sunday to make sure they were healthy, including Carolyn, figuring she sleeps in the same room as the two sickos and could easily pick it up. I kept thinking all day that while Melanie was still fevering off and on, I could have taken the other two. That night Carolyn let me know it was good that she stayed home. After a very rough night, she also perked up pretty quickly the next morning.

Monday and Tuesday my kids thought I was a big mean ogre, not letting them play with anyone. I kept telling them that it's just better they not play in case they pass the sickness on, because then they wouldn't be able to play with their friends even longer. They don't get that at all. Funny, though, about 5 minutes after Adam got off the phone with a friend telling him how mean I am and won't let him play, he was laying on the couch. After some prodding, he told me his stomach was hurting. That evening, he delivered as well.

Everyone has been fine since. So why am I sharing this?!?

Because I'm grateful for good friends.

If the rest of my week hadn't been so busy (along with all this, I get to talk in church on Sunday), I would be posting pictures of the kids eating pizza Tuesday night. Our good friend Todd heard that I was dealing with all this on my own (Jamie was out of town through a lot of the "fun"), and had pizza delivered to us for dinner. Thank you Todd! It was delicious and lifted my whole day knowing I wouldn't have to figure out dinner that night.

The next day I got a call from my mom, telling me what she was making for dinner and offered to bring some over when it was ready. Since everyone was still fine at that point, I made some certified germ-free rolls (touched only by my sterilized hands) to send home with her to enjoy with the dinner she had put together. Thanks to you too Mom!

It's amazing the difference a little food can make. Or maybe it's true, that it really is the thought that counts. Thanks for thinking of us!

Progressing

I'm really impressed with all we've been able to accomplish this week. Tuesday and Wednesday we got amazing amounts done. Thursday we were gone most of the day so not much. Friday and Saturday not as much as the first two days, but still progress, beautiful progress. It's such a great feeling! Don't come over expecting everything to be spotless because we still most definitely live here, but I won't be nearly as anxious about people discovering what lies beneath.

Speaking of progressing, other things are progressing as well, including another secret I've been holding onto for a while. Secret for about 13 weeks actually, though the secret has been progressing for about 18. Here's a clue:

Didn't help? Maybe this...

Still no? How about this:

NUMBER SIX that is.

If from all that you still don't know what the picture below means, maybe the Motor Mouth post will help clue you in.

Personal Revelation

I've been tossing a question around in my head for a while. I love to learn new things and want to constantly be learning and studying great books, but lately I've felt really disorganized in that. Like I had no direction, no goal, no anything. So every time I was ready to move onto something new I just felt lost as to where to go, and I've ended up reading less because of it. Saturday afternoon I was driving home from helping to paint the barn at my grandma's house, thinking about it again.

Saturday night I attended the general Relief Society meeting. I don't think there was anything said that made me think of it, but at one point the same question popped into my head, and a moment later I had my answer. I need to study things about home and family.

Before going to bed that night I took a few minutes to stare at my bookshelf and pulled off most of the books that I felt like could fit into that category. Here's a partial list:

Daisy Chain by Charlotte Mary Yonge (currently reading)

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott

Nurtured by Love by Shinichi Suzuki

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

Little Britches by Ralph Moody

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney

The Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families by Stephen Covey

The Power of a Positive Mom by Karol Ladd

The Book of Mormon: It Begins with a Family (essays)

The Book of Mormon: A Pattern for Parenting by Geri Brinley

Glimpses into the Life and Heart of Marjorie Pay Hinkley

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss (thanks Lara)

Like I said, a partial list. There are some here that might leave people scratching their heads but I have my reasons how they fit into home and family. It was also just perusing the bookshelf next to my bed, not all the other bookshelves throughout the house. I'll stick with these for now.

This also includes home and family skills I need to learn. The ever-hovering cleaning/decluttering skill I find so hard to keep up with, canning, meal planning, gardening, and many other skills I can learn to strengthen my home and family. All the things I'm currently a failure at. This list could go on for miles, but I'll spare you the gory details.

I'm excited! I noticed a book that I had checked out from the library recently that doesn't fit here, and I can easily decide to take it back for now and save it for another time. Doesn't mean I'm not willing to throw in other books, but that my focus is on home and family.

Direction. Purpose. Peace.

Any other suggestions for my list?

Banana Boats in a Pizza Box

In this episode of "coolest mom ever," we'll start with the pizza box oven. Google pizza box oven and you'll find lots of descriptions that are basically the same on how to make one.


Basically, cut out part of the lid to use as a reflector to direct sunlight into the box, cover that and the bottom of the box with aluminum foil, cover the hole you made in the lid with saran wrap to keep the heat inside while still allowing the sun to heat things up, and put a piece of black construction paper in the bottom to help absorb the heat. They also suggest using string or something else to angle the lid just right so it can direct the most sunlight in.

One of the sites I looked at mentioned that they can get up to 275 degrees. You can see our thermometer in the picture above because I was interested to know how hot it would get. Ours made it to 217, and it was a pretty throw-it-together kind of project. Maybe we'll attempt to make it better sometime, maybe not.

My main goal in doing this was to make banana boats. I remember doing it at girls camp ages ago and thought it would be fun. Cut your banana open down the side with the peel on, open it up a bit, and shove in marshmallows and chocolate chips. I guess you can also do this around a campfire, wrapping your banana up in aluminum foil and setting it in the coals.

Melanie isn't a banana fan, so she used graham crackers instead to make a s'more.


A recipe I saw online said the campfire method takes about 5 minutes. We left these on for something like 20, though maybe they could have been taken off sooner. I noticed the temperature dropped quickly when we lifted the lid to put everything inside, so I didn't do any checking to see if they were ready besides seeing the chocolate chips really melted.

It also helped when the sun went behind a bunch of clouds and our temperature started dropping again. "They're done!"

They all loved them! I had more pictures but they involved a lot more goo on the face and in the mouth, so I'll spare you the gory details. But here is Adam trying to duplicate the expression of a woman on the back of our latest box of Cheerios (she is very excited to be lowering her cholesterol). I mean, showing you how happy he is to have such a really really cool mom.

P.S. I didn't get one. I planned on tossing one in after theirs were all done since our "oven" was already pretty crowded, but that cloud cover was there to stay. Major setback in a solar powered pizza box oven. Oh well, that just means we get to do it again!

Potion Station Sensation

First of all, a huge thank you to Kathryn who stole the idea from someone else but passed it on so I could steal it (I even stole the name of this post from her). I am always looking for ways to keep my "coolest mom in the neighborhood" status, and this is super cool.

So the basics. The idea is to gather fun things for your kids to mix together and make "potions." For our first time, I went with 4 colors of jell-o (the cheapest I could find), baking soda, vinegar, and water.


Disclaimer here - my children are not usually slow and methodical. To illustrate, I heard someone say once that when it's time to eat you can tell someone that comes from a small family vs. someone that comes from a large family. Someone from a small family will stand back and slowly make their way to the food. Someone from a large family jumps on it, because they know if they don't, the food is leaving. So yah, that's our family in a nutshell in basically any situation.


In this case, I set out some fun potion making items, four of our five kids jumped in to participate, plus two of my nieces and two neighbors were over. Only so much to go around, right? Eight kids around a few potion making items = lots of scrambling, lots of chaos, and lots of fun.

Again, nothing too high tech was involved, but the kids' reactions were priceless. I didn't tell them what any of the items were, just told them to mix and see what they could come up with. Carolyn was the first to get the baking soda/vinegar mix.

Immediately everyone else wanted theirs to foam, and wanted me to add whatever it was they needed. I told them to keep trying things, but when some still didn't get it to work I helped them out.

One of our extras repeated about four times, "This is so MESSY!" Yessiree!

When the ingredients were used up and they were done mixing their own potions with each others' potions, I asked them what would happen if someone drank their potion. I should have taken video of that, because by the time things were cleaned up and back to normal I couldn't remember what everyone said. One was really green so it was decided that would make them really strong and turn them green like the hulk. One would turn you into a frog or an ogre. One would make people fly. I don't know about you, but I would have a hard time getting this one to my lips, let alone down the hatch.


Next time it would be fun to try red cabbage water, and for sure I've got to include glitter. When we were done with the "organized" activity (I use that term very loosely), the kids took off with the cups and mixed up mud, sticks, leaves, probably bugs, and who knows what else.

For more ideas, here are some other potion makers and magic stew makers. Oh, and probably the best tip Kathryn gave - do it somewhere that you can hose off when you're done. Love that easy cleanup.

I Went to the ZOOOOO!!!

I don't want the title to be misleading. Really we go to the zoo several times a year. Buy a yearly zoo pass, get your money's worth. Know what I mean? If you don't, for us to go to the zoo and just pay regular prices it would currently be $48 ($55 when Erin turns 3!), family zoo pass is $80. When I renewed it last, we went three times within the next month, which rounds us out to it equaling $26 each time, not to mention how the $80 price gets divided even more every time we go (at least five times now). Now that's value!

But that is entirely beside my point. The kids and I decided Wednesday morning that it would be a great day to go to the zoo and we went, only this time I decided that it was high time that there was proof that I actually went with them. All the other moms out there know exactly what I'm talking about. Every family activity shows dad and the kids having a great time, mom is nowhere to be found. Well THIS time, *I* went too.

That results in pictures like this:




I deleted many overly terrible ones, but I got several that weren't too terrible.

Isn't this almost perfect - all of us getting ready to watch the bird show together. Would have been totally perfect if Carolyn hadn't leaned back right when I took the picture.

I also handed off the camera to the kids a few times so they could get something more than a head shot.

All in all, a wonderful day. On the way home we even stopped at temple square to track down where a falcon family is nesting that we've been watching on a live cam. And guess what! I went there too.