In one ear, out the other, and back in the first ear with a slight delay

"Zachary, go brush your teeth** with your new tooth brush"

** Zachary runs out of the room at this point

12 seconds elapse; Zachary comes running into the room with great commotion.

"Hey dad, I'm going to brush my teeth with my new toothbrush, do you think that's a good idea?"

"Ummmm...yes, Zach, that is a good idea."

Secret Decoder COOKIES?

I want to make these! We've already done some Valentine crafty stuff (which I will post when I get around to it), but Oh, wouldn't these be fun to make with the kids? Yeah, I think they are next. Here's the link on the how-to: http://www.gourmetmomonthego.com/2009/02/secret-message-decoder-cookies.html

Last Year's Birthday Cake

On "Life As Mom" folks are comparing decorated cakes they've made. I was just going to link to the post where I had pictures of the cake I made for Payge's/my birthday last year, but when I went to look...there wasn't a post! My, oh, my. So, here it is, almost a full year late.



I made each little veggie with marzipan. It was Spring, and I was so excited to be gardening...it's almost time again, for gardening, and cake! YAY!

Thinking While I Run

After last Friday's post, I got some interesting email and comments, so I feel that perhaps I wasn't clear:

I read about other religions out of curiosity, but the more I learn, the more strongly I come back to the faith of being a Latter Day Saint. Why? It's a feeling. There's a difference. I read other things. There's a lot of truth out there to be gleaned. However, my soul only feels full when I take the time to talk to the creator I know and love. Knowledge about religion is great, but knowing God and his Son is better. Knowing they will help you in any situation, and having faith that their answer may be different than you want, but that it's what is best for your eternal salvation is completing in some way. To have a big picture before me of where I came from and where I am going makes each action I do have meaning. It makes washing my children's clothes mean something, it even makes the running I do feel like I am growing and training myself to be something God wants of me.

I know that there are a lot of chances to serve in other religions, but I love that we have a lay ministry. I love knowing that not one of the teachers, priests, bishops, etc. are paid to do what they do, and I know that my calling in helping the sisters learn and grow in the Relief Society is so necessary, yet completely voluntary. My children's Sunday school teachers put their heart and soul into teaching my children, and they aren't paid a dime. My friend is on the dry food cannery board, helping people to build up their food storage and be prepared for hard times, and she's not paid a dime. Our Bishop (known in other churches as Pastor) puts in long hours AFTER he gets done being a dermatologist all day to support his family, and he'll only be in that calling for an average of five years and then someone else in our congregation will take a turn. These men have no formal religious training, yet they speak with the spirit of God. I can't explain it, but you can feel it. True, there are those that might act in a calling unworthily, thus making a bad name for the rest, but by and large, the people I serve with--and serve for, are serving me and my family right back. So, when my husband is gone on weekends with the Youth to Scouting activities, I think about how the parents of those scouts have served me. I think about how someday my son will be a scout (if he so chooses) and there will be godly men willing to take them camping and put up with their weird teenage-ness when I need a break from it. I think of how my daughters will be looking up to the wonderful Christian women that will serve them in the Young Woman's program, where they are taught to strive for virtue. And then I smile.

Some say it takes a village to raise a child, but as a Latter-Day Saint, I know that where ever I go, I'll have a ward.

Update on our week.

Wow. It's been one crazy week. Oh, wait, it's been two...didn't realize today was Wednesday til just now.

Monday of last week, Zac slipped in the shower. He complained of headaches & loss of hunger, so I took him into the doctor. They said no permanent damage, but that he had bruised the tiny bones in his ear that he landed on, which was causing the jaw pain, which was making him not want to eat. We kept him on Tylenol til Friday, and his healing progressed fairly rapidly.

On Wednesday of last week, Chayce woke up vomiting with a fever, slept most of the day, and we watched some movies to keep the other kids quiet for her sake. Thursday, Zac woke with a fever (yes, on top of his pain from his fall). By Friday, both children were feeling fine and running around again. Which is good. I hate to see them sick.

Saturday, Stephen had the Klondike Derby with the BoyScouts. He enjoyed it, but came home achy. We chalked it up to exertion, but he awoke Sunday morning with a high fever, vomiting, and a sore throat. The fever and vomiting passed by Monday night, but the sore throat remained ever so painful. Today--Wednesday (really? Already?) Stephen went into the doctor to figure out what he had. They did some tests. H1N1 AND Strep. Seems the kids probably had a day of the former, but Stephen got stuck with both. He's on some major drugs (legal, prescribed) at the moment to help him rest so this can all go away.

As for Payge and I? Well, we haven't caught anything. We're healthy as can be, so we run around taking care of everyone else. I'm still convinced that the Virgin Pressed Coconut Oil improves immunity (it has high amounts of lauric acid, which helps the body fight viruses, bad yeasts, and the bad bacteria). Given that Payge and I are the only ones that seem to enjoy it on a regular basis, well, I'll draw my conclusions and my husband will tell me it's only correlative not causation. Ha ha.

If you decide to order some, though, given my testimonial, use the code: 5356715 for a free book on the other benefits of coconut oil to be included in your order. It's a pretty decent book with some good recipes in the back. http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/

01/20/10 PHD comic: '63% of internet readers will like this comic'

01/20/10 PHD comic: '63% of internet readers will like this comic': "

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com
title: "63% of internet readers will like this comic" - originally published 1/20/2010 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

"

A Six Year Journey

For the past six years, I've been doing a little research. I ebb & flow, of course, as there are many other things to do and learn, and I don't like to let one thing take too much of my time. So, my progress has been slow, but I think this is good, because it allows me to digest what I'm learning and thinking about, change my opinions--if need be, and then move forward.

It all started with an experience. Some of my readers may have already heard this, and that is OK. I was asked to present it at a Stake Relief Society Meeting a few years ago, and given the way it was received, I learned that I wasn't walking as fine of a line along heresy as I thought I was. This is good, as it has allowed me to move forward and learn more without fear, even though I believe I would have gotten to the point of listening to promptings more strongly than opinions of others sooner or later, I believe that having given that presentation was a stepping stone.

The experience occurred not long after Zac's birth. As I stated there, my months following delivery were very full of anger, hate, disbelief, and a bunch of other nouns that mean nasty things. I won't deny that I did not see motherhood as a blessing at that time (it is now, though, just to clarify). One night, I was feeling particularly low, and remembered that I had been taught to pray in order to feel better, but all I could do was cry, yell, and plead. I suppose that is a prayer, but it wasn't very respectful. It went something like this:

I'm supposed to pray to you, via your son, who they say suffered everything. Everything? I cannot fathom that a man, even if a God, could understand the anger and disappointment I feel from this delivery. What man can understand the emotional upheaval that is going through my body? How dare you say that you can empathize with me, and I don't want pity, or sympathy, I want someone who has done this! You have never done this.

After my angry words, I just sat there, I suppose finally relieved that I'd told someone off, even if it was a deity. As I sat there, I noticed that I had started to sing, mostly to calm my baby who wasn't too happy that I was in such a bad mood. Really, though, he was rarely very happy at this age. The thought entered my mind, so calmly and peacefully, "Listen, listen to the words you are singing! Believe me when I say there is someone who knows, who cares and who will pull you through this, LISTEN!" So, I listened...how could I not? The voice was so piercing... I listened to the words coming out of my mouth:

I had learned to call thee Father, thru thy Spirit from on high, but until the key of knowledge was restored, I knew not why. In the heavens are parents single? NO! The thought makes reason stare. Truth is reason, truth eternal tells me I've a mother there.

Written by Eliza R. Snow, for the full version & music, click here.

I sang it over and over again, until it sank in. It was something I did not understand before, though I had sung these words before, the truth hit me hard. I was not alone, and there was so much more to heaven than I understood, more than we could ever fathom, even than could be written in the scriptures.

I have since had this re-affirmed to me while attending the LDS temple (Oh, I'm Mormon, or Latter-Day Saint, for those who don't know), in moments of watching how men and women need to work together for any ordinance to work while in the temple. It takes two. Two for more than procreation, two to create, to love, to fulfill important ordinances, to complete the whole plan. Two.

The rest of my journey (and only thus far, I'm far from done, but since I have a whole lifetime ahead of me...) has taken place by searching for truth in other religions. That doesn't mean I've converted over to other religions, but that I read about their beliefs, look at how they came to be, and think of how they apply when looked at through the lens of the revelations of God having a body, that we are to become like God (completely, not just in manner or intent), and temple ordinances.

I've found great things while studying Buddhism, Taoism, Wicca (yes, Wicca, not Satanism, they are two different things, and Wiccans/witches aren't devil worshipers as many fairy-tales make them out to be. I'm clarifying because I hear that way too often.), Islam, Catholicism, and Evangelical Christianity. Of course, there are some things that I balk at, some things that seem right, but that I feel the need to digest more fully, and some things that just sink right in. My husband and I discuss my readings often, which is good, since otherwise all he'd know about is numbers (I love you, Honey!), and one of the sections of my journey lately has taken me back to Wicca, researching some of the point of view of women from their beliefs.

Interestingly, what they believe goes along with the song I posted above: God is a couple, or at least that's how I'm reading it. I hope if someone who believes this way is reading this they will give me more insight. I want to share a few quotes that I've found from a practicing (and published) Wiccan that I found interesting. Her name is Dianne Sylvan

The problem with believing that women are responsible for the fall of men is that, if a woman had the power to do that, it meant she had POWER. If the female gender could bring down the wrath of God and bring sin into being, or incite men to lust and madness just by showing their ankles, then we must be formidable beings, indeed.

Interestingly, Mormons believe the fall was necessary. That mankind could not have procreated prior to having knowledge of good and evil, so they could not have progressed. We believe that though we are fallen, Eve did us all a favor by creating a way for us to actually make it to earth, and that we might know good and evil, as the Gods.

On body image, she states:

The first thing I usually think when I see a supermodel on television is, "I could snap her like a twig!" Twigs for arms, knees bigger than her thighs, wobbling about on high heels; the paragon of womanly virtue on the runway is a pitiful sight. The popular image of beauty is, in essence, powerlessness. Skinny little girls who look too weak to lift a spoon...are what we are taught we should be.

I actually found myself wondering who really sets this standard, who puts it into our minds, because I know that men are not the ones necessarily saying what is in fashion, women help there, so who is? I have a theory of who really wants us to think being powerless is attractive (Satan, ahem), but then of course I get launched off my soapbox by my fashion-loving friends. Not that looking good and being healthy are bad. No, I think strength and keeping your weight under control by eating nutritious foods and using your body's strength is a great idea, which helps us fulfill part of the purpose of our creation, which is learning to trust our body and see what it is capable of, but that isn't possible if we're abusing it with processed junk that God really didn't intend for us to eat. Hence, the word of wisdom.

Another good point about body image that she makes is this:

Samoans are obese by American standards. However, they have no stigma placed upon being big, and for some odd reason their incidence of heart disease, high cholesterol, and other weight-related illnesses is much lower than ours despite their larger girth...that was until the American [...] attitudes began to cross the ocean to the island countries. Could it be that it isn't so much being fat that kills you as hating yourself for being fat?

In our family at the moment we've been studying ancient Greece. Amazing time period. Really. While I am definitely of the Christian variety, I find the faith they put into their Gods and the universe to let what is best for them happen inspiring, and if it goes wrong there must have been a reason (like maybe the God needed to help someone else more...), so they kept trying. There is much more to it, and we haven't gotten into it as deeply as we will in the future, but still, knowledge of other faiths seems to bolster my own quite a bit.

Speaking of women, this one is a mother of three, and they are noticing that I'm not answering them, so I will cut this post shorter than it could have been. Of course, that might be a blessing for some of you. ;)