Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Unlike my father, who doesn't want to be reminded, my mom likes to hear Happy Birthday...cute pics of her when she was little can be found on her blog here.

Everyone should watch this...American Teacher

Werty has been tossing around some ideas for a documentary on teachers and teaching in Utah, dispelling some of the popular myths about teaching. The realities of how long a teacher's day really is and how little respect and compensation they receive in return. Time after time I have heard from students that teaching would be their last choice for a profession because they make too little money and have to deal with too much crap. Sometimes it's hard to convince a kid to stay in school and improve their literacy beyond an 8th grade reading level when they get a job selling something and are making twice as much money as their teacher...well, someone else has made an excellent documentary addressing many of the same issues that Werty has been thinking about. It's worth watching. It's called American Teacher and you can find it on netflix. You can find the American Teacher website here for more information. I particularly could relate to the teacher who had her first baby and the stress of trying to pump at school. There were many times when someone needed to talk to me and discuss ESL stuff during my prep, leaving only the passing time between classes for me to pump and Gloria had to watch my class for a few minuted until I could finish and get back."Where's the teacher?" "She'll be back in a few minutes." "Why, where'd she go?" "She had to take care of something really quick, that's all." And I would be hearing this through the wall, thinking, you don't really need to know what I am doing...because you are a teenage boy who would be really embarrassed. Anyway, watch the video.

Child Stats + Pics

We made it to the doctor's this week, even though Little Miss is closer to 5 months old than 4 months old. She was so sick with the respiratory virus we caught from my mom when she was really turning 4 months old that I didn't want to give her shots yet. At least I was able to take them both in together instead of making two separate visits. Here are the stats of my two healthy, growing children.

Little Miss: 4.5 months
weight: 14 lbs 11 oz 60%
height: 25.5 inches 75%
head: 16.5 inches 55%

BooBear: 3 years
weight: 36 lbs 6 oz 85%
height: 39.5 inches 80%
head: 20.5 inches 90%

BooBear with the hose. While BooBear and his cousins did not actually get in the wading pool two weeks ago at playgroup, they did have a great water fight - along with his Aunt Rena and his mommy. Since then he and I have had a few water fights. I have found that if he has the hose, and I have his toy watering can, it's a pretty fair fight.

Here is Little Miss with her "giraffey."

Little Miss loves to sit up, and here is the proof. She is taking increasing interest in both her toys and her big brother. He has taught her how to spit "raspberries," which she often does to try to get his attention. This afternoon she let out an actual extended laugh as BooBear was playing with her feet.

Little Miss having her first taste of solid food. I am happy to report she is not allergic to anything so far..

While Werty has been spending long hours at work this week to meet a deadline, I have been keeping BooBear busy with baking projects! Here we are making biscuits. I wanted to try the lowfat version, using neufchatel/cream cheese instead of shortening, and BooBear wanted to use his small rolling pin from his playdough set. The biscuits were wonderful. I'm definitely going to make them again.

Isn't he cute with that little rolling pin? He used it again on the pie dough (see below).

BooBear, Little Miss and I picked apples for FHE. Then we made them into two pies.So delicious! This is the third pie dough recipe I have tried from my baking cookbook, and it's my new favorite.

12 Years Ago...on Sept 13th

Today is not a remarkable day for most people. For me, it marks 12 years from when I went in to the MTC to start my LDS mission. Deciding to serve was one of the most important decisions in my life. I have been checking the news a lot this week with all of the horrible events going on in the middle-east. And it put me in a reflective mood. First, when I left to serve for 18 months, I knew that my life was going to change, but I had no idea that my country was going to change as well.

I watched the heartland of our country turn to prayer with "God Bless America" written on every business sign after 9/11. I saw how quickly the sentiment started to fade as well. But there were many permanent changes to our country. For example, going home from my mission we had to be briefed on new rules for packing and all of the security requirements we would encounter at the airport. I used to do cross-stitching on airplane trips when I was in college - I can't take a needle and tiny pair of scissors on a plane anymore. Being a missionary, you are somewhat removed from the world, so there was a lot I didn't get to process until I was home.

My second item of reflection is how globalized our society is due to modern technology. In the last couple of years we have watched y0utube and social networking sites play a role in political upheavals. There are many positive results that can come from being closer to people on the other side of the world. I used to tell my students that I can't understand how racism can thrive in a globalized society. Racism comes from ignorance. We come in contact with people from different races, countries, cultures and religions through both modern transportation and the internet. As we get to know a more diverse group of people, we see how much we share in common, how much of what we value is the same. Unfortunately, we have seen this week that there are those men who use technology for evil purposes, to spread ignorance and hatred. And because we are so connected by our media, a crackpot charlatan in CA can put something on y0utube and cause violence and chaos halfway across the world. With one amateur film, he has undone so much of other people's sincere work to bring peace and understanding in the far reaches of the world. It makes me angry that one evil man, a nobody who isn't even honest about his own name, was able to convince people that his hatred and ignorance is representative of our country.

So, here's my call out to the cyberspace universe: there are many people in the US, educated people, who have respect for the religions and cultures for those on the other side of the world. We are all children of God. We are all important in His eyes. And we should treat each other as such.

Happy Birthday BooBear!

BooBear had a great birthday, and he's finally old enough to notice! He opened his big present after dinner on his actual birthday - a bubble mower. He has been pining for one since early April when he played with a few of them at the store while I was buying a car seat for Little Miss. When I went back to the store to purchase one, they were sold out. And then his cousin received one for his birthday soon after that, and his cousin didn't want anyone else to play with his...so, yeah. I think the mower is the biggest hit we have ever had with him. He loves it so much that he didn't want to let go of the handle to go to bed that night. It makes a satisfying engine-like whirring sound, much better than the first one he played with at the store. He ran it around the house all evening. Then in the morning he insisted that Werty needed to cut the grass with him. So, Werty and BooBear cut the grass together, and when the grass was done, BooBear kept going. "Do you want to come in and have some lunch, honey?" "No, (sigh) I have much work to do. I have to mow grass." By the afternoon, Werty had to take it apart and clean out grains of sand that were gunking it up because he has taken the mower EVERYWHERE in the front and back yard, including 'mowing' the sandbox.

Saturday evening we had a family BBQ to celebrate BooBear's birthday. Because of being sick, he hadn't been to play group for two weeks, so he was excited to see his cousins. The weather held just long enough (a microburst wind took out one of our front tree branches while I was cutting the cake inside...no, really.) and we had a blast. Thanks to everyone who came.

I had been planning his cake for the last two months. Given that we spent the summer watching the construction project across the street, and BooBear can name all the trucks, a construction themed cake seemed a perfect choice. I did some internet research for ideas and fondant tutorials. It's always nice when the result turns out how you wanted it to. When BooBear said, "Wow" about three times, and "Cake's beautiful, mommy," I decided it was worth it. The top layer is a chocolate ganache with toffee candies. The bottom layer is marshmallow fondant. Now he is having fun playing with the trucks from the cake along with his other new toys.

Guess Which Hand?

BooBear is turning into a 3 year old, with lots of new games. Like, "Guess which hand, Mommy?" He lets you pick one hand and then the other - because there is never anything actually in his hands. Then he pulls the item out from behind his back and proudly says, "Here it is!" I guess that's his interpretation. He also pretends things are 'broken,' like our shopping cart at the store today, and he yells "Stop!" and then pretends to fix the wheels before we can go again. Sometimes his explanations are logical, and sometimes non sequitus, and I am reminded that this was the age when my brother Ovaltine used to tell the funniest jokes.

Little Miss loves to talk to people, especially if they smile and talk to her. Her new game is trying to pull her binky out of her mouth with her fingers and then get it back in. So far, she has gotten close, and has even turned it all the way around to the back. She is also a good sleeper, sleeping on a schedule, usually only waking up once between 10pm and 6am. So different than her brother was.

Projects and Fun

I thought I should share what we have been up to these past few weeks.

Um, I put in this pic just because my baby is so darn cute. She is a pretty patient Little Miss, even during her baths.

Here is BooBear with a sparkler at his Aunt Sue's house. This is the first year that he enjoyed fireworks. The last two years, I have had to keep him inside because he was so scared.

BooBear arranged the pieces of the Yahtzee game on his bed one day, Werty called it BooBear's first photo composition or something like that.

Here is the construction going on across the street. It starts every morning around 7am, even on Saturdays. It's very loud and dusty.

Werty's cousin and her kids were in town for our monthly FHE, and we had them over for a backyard BBQ. As you can see, we finished the sandbox. We got too much sand, so we have been giving some of it away to those we know who already have sandboxes and might need some "refill."

All of Werty's cousins' kids like babies, so they all wanted to hold Little Miss.

 Werty has been fixing up his motorcycle. He hasn't really ridden it in three years. Turns out, it has a leak in the gas tank. He is actually working on it right now. There is a complex process of prepping the gas tank for the apoxy sealant to work. One step involves putting screws inside the tank to scrape out the deposits. Then you take a magnet thing (shown here) to get all the screws out again. Here is the magnet picking up all the deposits. Werty took this pic because he thought it looked like his magnet wand had a mullet.

We had play group at our house again this week. This is what the sandbox looks like now that we have given away some of the sand. BooBear calls the group of cousins close to his own age his "real cousins" after the BBQ with his 2nd cousins. He wants us to know that when he says he wants to see his cousins, he means these guys, his "real cousins."

 

We have also been working on the unfinished wall in our basement. Werty took it apart (as seen above with BooBear trying to hammer nails into wood), put in 5 new outlets and the fiberoptic cable for our internet. We are currently in the middle of the mudding process. In the first pic, you can see that one of the outlets is high up. The plan is to mount a TV there eventually. So, yes, we have been working on a lot of projects these last few weeks.