I bought some chicken dinosaurs at Costco which Sarah was going to heat up to serve for the "babysitting dinner." Pete was pretty excited. "Can I have some chicken nugs?" he asked. (This one is for Bex.)

Eliza was looking at a LEGO catalog with Peter, surveying a castle, knights, and princesses. She spied one princess in the castle, "a dismal in distress!"

Making s'mores, Anna said, "Just so you know, I don't like graham crackers." After a bite, Sarah said, "Pretty heavy duty, Mom." Peter's assessment: "I could eat two billion!"

"I got a 2-headed one!" Anna, commenting on eating her puffed cereal.

"That's what you need to send me on my mission, Mom: Gatorade powder packets." Nate's random comment while eating breakfast this morning.

"Guess what?" Anna asked this morning. "Grandma has CDs that are this big [her hands stretched apart 8 inches]." She's talking about the records that are Disney stories that Anna plays on my sister Becca's old Fisher-Price record player.

I bought some live ladybugs today that Anna and Peter were arguing over as to who would get to let them out. Lane asked if we had to let them out tonight as it was so late. "They have to be let out at dark," I instructed. "Do they come back to the container in the morning?" Lane quipped. "Yes," I teased, "they're specially trained lady bugs with tracking devices on them, and you can track them on an iPad." Peter heard all of this in wonder and awe, and ran to report to his brother: "Nate! You can contact those ladybugs on Mom's iPad! And they come back in the morning to the container!" Poor Peter, when I told him I was just joking, he was so disappointed!

"What do you want for your birthday breakfast?" I asked Lane. Mockingly, he answered, "Really chunky oatmeal, 42- grain bread, hand-churned butter." Sounded perfect to me!

Peter: "1 1/2 years until Nathan will be able to drive."

Lane: "Frightening, huh?"

Peter: "And then he's going to take me to In-n-Out Burger!"

I got into the car after I had finished swimming laps during the girls' swim team practice. I commented on how I wanted to go home so I could blow dry my hair. The girls protested. Julia cheerily said, "Your hair looks beautiful. It looks like you blow dried it, and then someone dumped a bucket of water on it."

I had 22 messages on my myjobchart.com message board. About 17 of them were from Eliza. "Check your email. Nooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwww," she said.

"I wish school weren't over today," Rebecca lamented, after having a year with such a wonderful teacher.

"Is Aunt Becca coming this summer?" Julia asked. "Mm hmm," I confirmed. "That's good," she continued. "Then we won't be totally bored."

I woke up the children this morning (May 24) with a "Good morning! It's snowing outside!" Their responses: Eliza--"THAT'S NOT FAIR!" Nate, earnestly--"That is SO cool!" Peter, gazing out the window unbelievingly, "It's not a-posed to snow...."

Perhaps the only thing missing from the institute this week is the opposite sex. This year's students are all girls. No one is exactly sure why, but student Caroline Richards, 13, of Pleasant Grove has a guess.

"You picture angels playing [the harp]," Richards said, "and boys don't want to look like angels."

From article "Harp institute draws students from across county," by Lisa Schencker, Salt Lake Tribune, July 15, 2010.

Sarah noticed that Anna's antibiotic had a flavoring added to it: caramel-orange-raspberry (?!). She wondered what Anna thought of it. "Does your medicine taste good?" Anna explained, "Not really. It kind of tastes like rotten wood." Lane reminded me of another time when Anna had told him her medicine tasted like "the wall."

One of the great parts of having friends from another country is how a young child thinks about the possibility of a country besides their own. I love how this is shown. Nate was late getting home from school. "Where is Nate? Where is that boy?" I wondered outloud, a little annoyed. "Maybe he's in Korea," Anna suggested.

Peter was headed off to school after I dropped him off at the curb. He paused, then turned and called out: "Do I still get to go to playgroup?" "Yap!" I answered, a little surprised by what came out of my mouth. Yap? I guess that's what comes out when you think "Yeah" and "Yep" at the same time. Kind of like the Electric Company: "yeah" + "yep" = "YAP!"

One of our daughters was waxing affectionate: "Mom, you and dad are the best parents ever!" I smiled and returned to her, "Would you please keep that in mind the next time you get mad at us?" She smiled, and I happily reminded her of our exchange that night when she refused to come to dinner :).

Another daughter wrote a sweet note that she slid under our door at bedtime (after we scolded her and told her to get to bed!). "Thxs for all you do. You are the best family anyone could want. I love you....P.S. Dad, will you help me w/math tomorrow morning?" Nothing like a little buttering up....

Rebecca was sampling a new "Lara Bar" that I had picked up at Costco to try. She was excited to taste it. She took a bite enthusiastically. "Lara bars are good!" she chirped, smiling. Then she continued to chew, as she paused and her eyes looked to the corner. "They're not so good, though," she assessed. One moment and wrinkled nose later, she stopped chewing, pulled out the wrapper, and put the rest of the bar back in it. "Actually, I don't like them," she politely concluded. I was cracking up!

"Mom, do you some people have potbellied pigs for pets?" Peter asked me today at lunch. Hmm. How to answer such a random question of which I know nothing? "I bet that at least they do take them on walks!" he continued. Wow. I bet you're right!??

The children in our family have a fetish for Top Ramen. Eliza wrote me a note, wanting her siblings not to see. "Top a ramen [sic] please?" I told her there was some leftover in the fridge. She protested, I don't want a little bit! I want a lot-a-bit!"

Nate has started working on his Eagle project. Eliza asked, "Did Dad ever get his Eagle...or his Beaver?"

Peter and Lane went to watch a rugby game today with Nate. Before the game they stopped to get some fish tacos and ate them in the back (the bed) of Lane's truck. Peter, enjoying himself, plied Lane for some family history: "Dad, did you have a truck when you were little and sit in the back of it and eat tacos with your dad?" "No," Lane responded. Peter, all seriousness, furthered, "Did you have a horse and cart?"

Several of Nate's friends came over on Friday night (like 5 of them). One of them hadn't met our family before. After seeing some of the children, he remarked, "You all look alike, everyone of you!" (I think I've heard that "you didn't break the mold" comment before...)

Peter and his play group friends were talking in the car. Peter confessed that a girl in his kindergarten class had given him a kiss!! One of his friends was not impressed. Peter was concerned about his friend's reaction: "Don't get mad at me," he defended. His friend replied, "I'm just saying that's totally uncool, dude."

(For those of you Activity Day leaders who wonder if Activity Days has an impact) I walked in to Rebecca's room one morning, when she had been worried about being able to get up to finish an assignment, and asked if she had remembered her prayers. "I was just going to, because of the prayer pillow." She had made a little pillow with a jingle bell on it that week in Activity Days.

We were talking about which movie Rebecca wanted to watch for Friday night. I thought she said "Mormon Barbie." We started to chuckle at that. "I can just see it now," Rebecca started. "Barbie walks into church. 'How are you doing? I'm Barbie!'"

Nate, when Peter got a stuffed buffalo for a gift: "Buffaloes are making a comeback." (Peter loves this buffalo which came from Cody, WY.)

Anna was in her birthday suit one day when I asked her why. "I feel like I just can't wear clothing."

Anna prayed, "Thanks for Jesus and his apossibles [apostles]. And I'm sorry Jesus died on the cross."

We went out to lunch. Peter got pop with his children's meal. He made "Sprite" out of rootbeer and fruit punch!

Anna talked to the shark toy she had just gotten from the dentist's office: "Open up big and wide for me..."

I marveled at how gently Lane handled a misdeed. He was driving in from work when he saw Peter sitting on the corner of the neighbor's yard. He asked him if he wanted to hop in the truck with him for a ride up the driveway. Peter glumly declined. Lane joked with him, and tried to cajole him, but could not get him to budge. Lane asked if he'd had an accident. No, he hadn't. Finally, the reason for his immobility: "Daddy, I accidentally borrowed your hammer." "Accidentally?" Lane asked, trying to hide his amusement. "Yes." "Should we go get it?" "Yeah." Peter climbed in the card, and they retrieved the hammer together, Peter's burden obviously lifted.

We were listening to songs from the movie Mulan. Anna, obviously puzzled, asked, "Her name is Mulan. Why do they keep singing 'Anna to us all'?" (You have to know that we pronounce Anna "Ah-na").

Eliza was working on a survey for school. "Which of these five sports do you play best?" The list included volleyball, baseball, football, soccer, and tennis ball [sic]. "Is dressing up a sport?" she asked me, deadpan.

Anna challenged Peter, "Tickle me. If I don't smile that means I'm not ticklish. Daddy said so." (Can you hear that nah-nah voice?) I went over with a tickling hand, and that stoic little girl kept a stolid face the whole time. I think it's more just her iron will than her ticklishness!

Anna finished singing the Alphabet song: "'Next time won't you sing with me.' That means next time you actually have tosing with me," she accentuated.

I was eating a succulent pink grapefruit for breakfast. Anna asked for a bite. She decided, "I like it. It's just a little bit yucky."

Looking forward to playing with Paige after school today, Eliza prayed in family prayer, "Please bless school to go fast!"

God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other in the kingdom. The people of the Church need each other’s strength, support, and leadership in a community of believers as an enclave of disciples. In the Doctrine and Covenants we read about how important it is to “… succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.” (D&C 81:5.) So often, our acts of service consist of simple encouragement or of giving mundane help with mundane tasks, but what glorious consequences can flow from mundane acts and from small but deliberate deeds!

Spencer W. Kimball, “Small Acts of Service,” Ensign, Dec 1974, 2

A book a day keeps the pout-pouts away.

Deborah Diesen

There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children. The choice is different and unique for each mother and each family. Many are able to be “full-time moms,” at least during the most formative years of their children’s lives, and many others would like to be. Some may have to work part- or full-time; some may work at home; some may divide their lives into periods of home and family and work. What matters is that a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else.

Elder M. Russell Ballard, "Daughters of God," April 2008 General Conference

"[Easter] is about eggs and candy...and Jesus!" Anna exclaimed jubilantly as we went down to the basement to gather the Easter baskets.

Peter, looking at the book Runaway Ralph, mentioned, "THAT is CREEPY!" Anna responded eagerly, "Can I see?"

Peter, after school: "I got stuck in the eye with the point of a pencil. It really hurt, but I didn't cry."

Liz: "That was really courageous."

Peter: "You know how Nate is tough? I wanted to be like him."

Peter had inside recess yesterday. I asked him what he did during inside recess. "I played with James. I did what I love: played with snakes. Then we did what I hate: played withgirls!"

One of our children was upset over not having been able to watch the movie we were planning on. In discussing it with Lane, she said, "You just don't understand. When you're a dad, life is so easy for you! Life has been SO hard!" When Lane asked her what had been so hard, she said, "Yesterday, I was at [my friend's] house all day!"

There was a bowl of Rice Chex waiting for Anna on the counter when she woke up late today. Nearly in tears, she adamantly asserted, "But Dad promised I could have itmeal [oatmeal] for breakfast in the morning!" I wondered if she is the only child in history, next to Oliver Twist, to have wanted oatmeal for breakfast?

"What color are Sleeping Beauty's shoes?" Anna asked while coloring a picture of her. "I don't know," I replied. "Haven't you seen the movie?!" she demanded incredulously.

Looking at the cover art for the Sound of Music CD, Anna remarked, "She jumped in her high heels!"

"Mom! Hold onto the iron rod!" Anna said to me as she extended a part of her blanket to me when we headed upstairs.

Anna and I were recounting the story of Abinadi and King Noah. We got to the part where King Noah and the wicked priests had run off, and the priests were upset with King Noah. I started to say "Then..." to tell that they burned him at the stake, when Anna jumped in and said, "They fired him!"

"I've been careful with these since I was 6 1/4." Peter

When taking a bite of a store-bought, freezer-section pot pie, Peter exclaimed, "Holy cow! That's some good stuff!"

Peter was noting how quickly the Sweet Peas are growing. He pointed to his plant and boasted, "Mine is just leading the way! It's the growiest!"

Anna gave a Family Night lesson while licking half of a lemon. I can't remember what the lesson had to do with it, but in between licks she named off what she would do to help each person in our family. For Mom and Sarah: "Help [them]." For Nate: "Clean up his room." For Julia: "Help her say her prayers." For Rebecca: "Help her put her glasses on everyday." For Eliza: "Help her clean up her room." For Peter: "Help him pick out his clothes." For Lane: "Help him teach a lesson."

Eliza's sacrament meeting note to Sarah: "You are the best bigger sister on the earth."

We were talking about summer coming. Sarah said, "Will you just ship me off to boarding school in summer and bring me home for family vacation?" This sounded kind of unusual to me for her to ask, so I questioned why. She explained, "I just don't want to do yardwork!"

Nate was telling me how his friend has a certain kind of gun, which he thought was an AK47 (but isn't). [Remember, Lane was born in Cody and his mom is as good of a huntress as anyone you know, with the exception of Lane's oldest brother, so talk about guns is nothing radical here.] "C. [a friend] has an AK47. If you were cool like that, you'd buy me one."

"I hate practicing! It is the bane of my existence, the death of me!" Nate, waxing eloquent on his great love of practicing.

"I want to make a quote: Someday I want a yarn doll. " (Anna, when I sat down to blog.)

"I'm so thankful you got married so you could have me!" Anna said out of the blue, embracing me in a bear hug.

I have learned that the great part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.
Martha Washington

It was Sunday morning. Lane and I were away for a weekend together. Peter called us on my cell phone for the 42nd time. This time he was crying. "Anna got to pick the sugar cereal," he lamented. (The first person awake on Sundays gets to choose it.) "But I woke up at 7:90-something!" he protested.

After dinner, Peter got out a pen and a scrap of paper and started to write. "Mommy, how you do spell 'sorry'?" he asked. Lane wondered aloud, "Did you make a mess?" "No," Peter told. He brought me the paper a few minutes later. It was a note to his teacher: "Dear Mrs. R., Sorry I am sick. Love, Peter."

I was helping Anna button up her sweater. "I can do this button," she informed me. "I'm a little bit of a good buttoner."

Anna walked into our room after waking up, her hair disheveled. She plopped herself on my lap. Rebecca sat close by and reached up to touch her hair. "Don't mess up my hair!" Anna chided.

Lane had just taken a look at the dishwasher drawer that had rolled out on to the floor and the inside of a kitchen cupboard that had been gauged by the drawer runner because of a missing rubber cover. "Who knew that children would be such maintenance items, both to themselves and to the things they touch?" he observed.

Anna had just finished drawing with chalk. "Mom, I have to paint everyday." She is such an painter at heart!

"It just breaks my heart to see this," Peter (6) commented when he saw a photo of a mother returning from war, embracing her little daughter in the airport.

"Mom, someday I want a typewriter," wished Anna after watching a video version of "Click Clack MOO."

"I said to him, 'That is really RUDE!' but I said it in a nice way...kinda." Peter, recounting at lunch about his day and his negotiating a sticky situation.

The definition of a good teacher: "Sister H. is SUCH a good teacher," Sarah observed. "She gave us each 3 homemade Oreo cookies!...AND lemonade!"

Sister Tanner

I grew up in a home where there was a very good marriage, but I remember my mother saying over and over to me, “This is work; to have a good marriage is hard work.” She wasn’t saying that they didn’t have a good marriage, but she meant that you never let a day go by without thinking about blessing the partner in your marriage and working on this and thinking about his or her needs....

Sister Tanner

There’s a wonderful quote from John Milton, an author, in Paradise Lost. Adam is talking about Eve, and he praises her and says, “Those thousand decencies that daily flow from all her words and actions, mixt with Love.”⁴ I think about that a lot. If we could have companionships that were like that, where we think over and over and over about what we can do—

Sister Lant

To help. You know there has to be a division of labor to some extent in a marriage, because you can’t do it all by yourself. But it has occurred to me—well, it’s evident—that the division of labor for young couples today is different than it was when I was first married. I watch the young couples in my family—my children and their spouses—and the way they do things in their family. It’s different than we did. They still get the job done. They work together in a different way. And in many ways it’s better than the way we did it. The point is, though, that it’s individual. Each couple has to work out how they will do things.

Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting: Building Up a Righteous Posterity
February 9, 2008

Roundtable Discussion

Anna and Rebecca were playing hide-n-seek. Rebecca told Anna to count to 10. In a hurry, Anna counted, "1-2-3-10!"

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried--than before, more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

And now my beloved brethren, I would exhort you to have patience, that ye bear with all manner of afflictions; that ye do not revile against [others]..., lest ye become sinners like unto them;

But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions.

Alma 34:40-41

Sarah finished her plaid skirt at the end of the week and wore it today with heels, keeping her heels on all day. "I like wearing heels," she chirped.

I had just finished a triumphant violin/harp practice session, and exclaimed joyfully, "How long did I practice? An hour?!" Peter responded, "More like TWO!"

Rebecca was singing lustily, "I could have danced all night" when Nate, eating his bowl of Lucky Charms, grumped, "Becca! Stop singing!" "Nate, practice tolerance," I chided. "I did," he defended. "Already."

The children put on some dancing music ("The Contradiction" by Celtic Woman). Anna approached Sarah and bowed and extended her hand, asking, "May I take a dance?"

Eliza took a bite out of an orange slice and grimaced. "It tastes kind of awkward...for an orange."

When I commented about the children's choice of maple bars and strawberry milk for breakfast, Nate remembered Bill Cosby and justified, "It has wheat and milk and eggs--a perfect nutritional breakfast, Mom."

A man seemed to have lost everything in a disastrous flood. He wept, not for the loss of his worldly goods, but because he could not locate his beloved wife and four children. There was a very real possibility that they had drowned. Soon the word came that they were alive and waiting for him at a nearby emergency facility. What a joyous moment when that family was brought together again! As they rejoiced, the man said, “I have my family again, and although I stand without one earthly possession left to my name, I feel like a millionaire” (quoted by Robert L. Simpson, in Conference Report, Oct. 1980, 11–12; or Ensign, Nov. 1980, 11)

"I know how to spell 'Christmas koalas: e-y-i-r. Is that correct?" (Anna)

I asked Rebecca what her favorite part of the Olive Garden was, since she chose it to go out for a birthday lunch: "The breadsticks. Without hesitation, the breadsticks."

After eating lunch out with Rebecca on her birthday, Anna recalled, "I ate the fettucine alfredo, and my tummy poofed out!"

"Man, never has 35 degrees felt so good." Sarah, after a week of record cold temps.

Anna was having a tantrum the other day. I reminded her of the song, "You better not pout, you better not cry." The following night, Anna had been too tired when it was bed time and shed more tears. Peter's prayer reflected his concern for her: "Please bless Anna to be able to get presents for Christmas."

Anna was watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie when Clarise started singing, "There's always tomorrow." Anna looked at the reindeer incredulously. "Reindeers can sing?" she asked, astonished.

Anna sat near the bowl of mini marshmallows waiting patiently for me to come help her make the ornaments I'd promised. Her cheeks were puffing out slightly. I smiled at her, and she immediately said, with some kind of unknown food in her mouth, "I only had 2!"