Are you too clean?

I have a ton of Halloween related pictures to post but I haven't download them off the camera yet, so I thought I'd mention this study I heard last week on the news. Maybe some of you saw it too.

One thing I have never been accused of is being too clean -- I have however had a picture of pig taped to my bedroom door while growing up -- thanks mom! Now, I am not dirty either. I like to think I have found a happy medium, at least that's what I tell myself.

Cord for years (probably due to his line of work) has been telling me that anti-bacterial soap isn't such a good idea because good bacteria are being killed as well. So when I recently heard of a new study encouraging kids to have pets and play in the dirt my ears perked up.

According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, the prevalence of allergies and asthma has risen steadily. Some believe that hyper-cleanliness only makes it harder for kids to develop a good immunity system. Exposing children to dust and dirt could help fight off allergies and asthma.

I went looking for the news story I heard but couldn't find the exact one. But I did find several great articles like this one . I really liked how it says that "dirt is making a comeback -- good news for little boys" and this one talks about "gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs". That could be a whole new country mouse story.

I guess I was glad to hear that we should encourage our kids to get out and play. I think too many kids stay inside and play video games or are so over scheduled they don't have an opportunity to dig or play in the leaves or even the sandbox! So read the articles and tell me what you think. After all "God made dirt and dirt don't hurt". Right?

Another long weekend -- another trip

Last weekend the kids were off school Thursday and Friday and we went to St. George. This weekend they were off Friday – so naturally we took off again. On Thursday we took the kids out of school an hour early and loaded up the van with treats, pillows and movies and headed north, this time for or annual trip to Grandma K.’s house.



My grandma lives in Twin Falls, Idaho and every year since we have been married we have gone to her house in the fall to rake leaves and help her in any way we can. The kids LOVE going to her house and have the greatest time raking and playing in the leaves. I only wish they liked to rake the leaves at our house as much.



While the kids were raking we saw an enormous cloud of black smoke from a fire. It looked like it was only a few blocks away. We thought it might be the nursery/garden café where we have lunch each year so we all loaded in the car – including Grandma – and went for a look. It ended up being a portable building next to a church that was next door to the café. The flames were huge and watching the fire fighters was fascinating to the kids. I have never been that close to a burning building and I have to say I was pretty fascinated myself. Well, later that night on the news we saw that it was a planned burn and we laughed that we thought we were seeing a big news event.




While we were in Twin Falls we went to see the new temple and we also drove by an elk farm (who knew there was such a thing?)and the kids loved seeing this buck.


After leaving Grandma K.’s house on Saturday we headed a little further north to Brady (Cord’s brother) & Kate’s house in Boise. We got there just in time to borrow some costumes and head over to Boo at the Zoo. We met Cord’s aunt, uncle, cousins and their kids and had a blast.

Just look at these costumes -- can you say random?

Cord, Brady & Aunt Adeline

Alli & Finn

Julie & Cord

Lily & a snake -eww! (Karen I hope this picture isn't too scary)

On Sunday we watched Hector, Georgia and Pearl in their primary program, ate some delicious posole and then we loaded the car back up and headed home.

On the way home there was no fighting. The kids didn’t touch each other in an annoying way. There were no arguments about what movie to watch next, no spills and no bathroom stops. They didn’t fight or shoot rubber bands at one another. No, they sang hymns and said I love you more times than I can count. -- Oh wait that was just a dream.

We had a great trip -- the 11 hour trip to California for Thanksgiving is coming soon!

Rude

Now I know I am setting myself up for ridicule here but I am going to say it any way...The other day I was watching Oprah (insert Cord's sigh here) and the topic was civility. She had Dr P.M. Forni on talking about his book Choosing Civility.

Some of the things he said were good reminders for me. Not that I consider myself to be a rude person but there are times when I get impatient and probably take it out on the wrong people (is there a right person to take it out on?) He pointed out that "the quality of our lives depends on the quality of our relationships. The quality of our relationships depends on our relational skills. Civility, good manners & politeness are time proven, very effective codes of relational skills."

We should treat each other -- stranger or not -- with respect in every situation including people who work in the service industry (and bad drivers). Then good old Opera had the audience take a rude test. Can you guess which questions 98% of the audience answered yes to?

• 1. Are you chronically late?
• 2. Have you ever typed an e-mail while talking on the phone?
• 3. Have you ever interrupted a face-to-face conversation to take a non-urgent cell phone call
• 4. Have you gone through a supermarket 10-item express lane with more than 10 items?
• 5. While among friends or co-workers, have you yawned without covering your mouth?
• 6. Have you ever texted or talked on a cell phone in a movie theater?
• 7. Have you let your dog relieve himself on your neighbor's lawn?
• 8. Have you ever cut in front of someone in line?
• 9. Have you ever stolen someone's parking spot?
• 10. Have you ever let your child kick the back of the seat in front of him and not apologized to his victim?
• 11. Have you ever not RSVP'd to an event by the date requested?
• 12. Have you ever gossiped?
• 13. Have you ever taken someone else's food or drink from the office refrigerator?

Anyway, it was a good to be reminded of the golden rule. I love this quote from Dr. Forni's book.

"We never touch people so lighly that we don't leave a trace" -- Peggy Tabon Millin

Sunday Afternoon

Saturday night we left the warmth of St. George and arrived to beautiful weather in northern Utah too. Here is a view from the condo. We really had a great time shopping, swimming and going to the movies (and Karen yes we do need to get together next time!)


Like many of you, we took a Sunday drive up the canyon. It was so beautiful! We usually head up earlier in the fall -- so I was afraid we has missed the fall colors and that the trees would be brown by now. But as luck would have it we caught all the trees in perfect fall glory. We took a lot of pictures and a nice lady walking the trail asked if she could take a picture of all of us.






It was so nice to get out and enjoy fall. To make things even better we came home and had warm pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!

Fall Break

On Thursday we braved the traffic and headed south to St. George. The weather has been nothing short of perfect -- a balmy 87! We have been enjoying a condo owned by Cord's company. I think the kids favorite part is that there is a flat screen in every room so they can lounge in bed and watch t.v. -- how easily they are impressed. I love having a place with a kitchen so we don't have to eat out for every meal.


Yesterday we went to the temple. I love the picture of the kids crossing the street because Cole grabbed Will's hand as we crossed. What can be better than seeing your kids show love for one another? We had a nice time talking about the temple and going through the visitors center. There were several weddings so Lily got a chance to see some beautiful girls in beautiful dresses.

My Goofy girls!

We had a picnic lunch and then headed over to the Dinosaur Discovery Park. Barry fell asleep on the way so I hung out in the car for a while with him. From what I hear -- Cole LOVED it there .

Cord said one of the guys that leads the tours took the kids behind the rope and let them take this picture next to this T-Rex foot (claw?) print.


And of course the kids swam...and swam...and swam...

We are having a great time. I'm not sure what the plan is for today which in nice.

Catching up

This week I have been busy trying to organize my house -- ugh! It is so overwhelming! I went through all of my clothes and donated 3 garbage bags to MS. I had Cord go through his stuff and he added 3 more bags! I still feel like I have so much to do and I have to remind myself to take things one day and one room at a time.


For YW this week the girls had a modesty fashion show. The parents were invited which is always a little hard for me because Cord is at mutual too. So I schlepped the kids down to the church and we saw Alli walking the runway of the RS room.

This week "reflections" projects were due. Reflections is a PTA sponsored humanities contest. There are several areas like visual arts, photography, even dance. The theme this year is "WOW!" which I thought was pretty random.

Lily really wanted to do photography and decided she was going to spell out wow using her friends. We tried a few times to get the right number of kids but in the end she had her siblings spell out each letter individually and then we mounted them on poster board. I wish I had a picture of Cole's drawing. It is a really good drawing of a lighthouse.

On Tuesday I went with the cub scouts to the art museum. Here they are with their two leaders. I love going to the museum and am so glad it is just a few blocks away. They have an exhibit from the Utah Watercolor Society that is fantastic.


One final thing...Barry & Alli were chasing each other the other day -- playing and having a great time when I heard blood curdling screams. I ran in the kitchen to find that Barry, while running, had a pencil in his mouth and YES he fell and punctured his mouth with the pencil (squirm)!

He was crying so hard and blood started coming out of his mouth. I finally got him to open his mouth where I could see a hole! I had him rinse his mouth take some Tylenol and rest. When he let me open his mouth again the bleeding had stopped and the "hole" had closed to a dot (whew). He didn't want to eat the rest of the day but woke up the next morning like nothing had happened. Kids are amazing -- I would have whined for a week!


This morning I woke up to this beautiful view. We are in St. George for fall break. More from here soon.

Hopes for a New Library

"The richest person in the world - in fact all the riches in the world - couldn't provide you with anything like the endless, incredible loot available at your local library." ~Malcolm Forbes

In November while we are all voting for our choice for President, I will also be voting for a new library. My town has a small library (much too small) and funding is short (what's new) so a bond elections has been set up and we will vote on whether or not the public wants a new library.

The picture above is a rendering of the proposed library -- isn't it beautiful?! Who wouldn't want a beautiful new building to house beautiful new books? Not to mention have rooms available for children's and adult programs. Right now there is no where to sit and read in our library and for every new book purchased one has to be taken off shelves because there is no room. My property taxes will go up about $5 per month which is so little when I see what we get in return. So any of you that live here -- I hope you will also vote for books!

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." ~Jorge Luis Borges

Create

Last Saturday Night I attended the General Relief Society Meeting (for the women of my church) in Salt Lake. The concluding speaker was President Uchtdorf and he gave such a great talk. It was just what I needed to hear. He spoke about how women tend to apologize for imperfections that sometimes only we can see. He told of how his wife no matter how remarkable her meals are always finds something wrong them.

I do that so often! I have a hard time being satisfied with what I do and tend to pick things apart. You can always count on me to point out the mistakes in a quilt I've made for instance. But I do love to make things. I like to sew and to bake and make things for my house. I guess I just need to stop worrying about how it will all turn out and instead enjoy the process of creating.

President Uchtdoft encouraged women to create. He said "The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before. Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty."

What a statement! We can all create. Regardless of our perceived talents (or lack there of) we can all create something -- friendships, happy homes, gardens, blogs, a cake, or more if we want to. He also reminds us that "What you create doesn’t have to be perfect. So what if the eggs are greasy or the toast is burned? Don’t let fear of failure discourage you. Don’t let the voice of critics paralyze you—whether that voice comes from the outside or the inside. If you still feel incapable of creating, start small. Try to see how many smiles you can create, write a letter of appreciation, learn a new skill, identify a space and beautify it."

So I decided to finally stain this table Cord & I bought about 6 months ago. I was scared to stain it because I had never done it before. I was really worried that it would look streaky and to tell you the truth I was really worried about making a color choice (There are sooo many choices and what if I made the wrong one?!). So last week I decided not to stress out over it and just buy some stain.

Here it is in the process.

Waiting to dry

Here is the final product. I think it looks pretty good (even though there is a bristle of the brush stuck in the polyurethane -- I know, I know I'm not supposed to find fault). Now I have to decide what to put on top of the table. That is stressing me out too! :)

Anyway, I hope that you try to create something and are happy with what you do! If you would like to read the talk click here

Yikes!!

We have now found 5 Black Widow spiders in our house! I am kind of freaking out! We are having the house sprayed and Cord went around the house sweeping away any webs on the outside of our house and I have been cleaning everywhere I can think of with my handy dandy vacuum hose.

We talked to some of our neighbors and apparently they have them too. And most of them have been dealing with them for years. I have lived in Utah for about 20 years and have never seen one before. The weird thing is just how clear the hourglass is on their belly's. Anyway I am feeling a bit like Little Miss Muffet!

My Friend Karen had this quiz on her bog and since I love Jane Austen I had to take the quiz too. See who you are by clicking the link below.

Take the Quiz here!

Christmas Gift Idea

I think this would be a super fun gift to give or receive -- or make for yourself. I showed the idea to Cord and he laughed. I'm not sure what that means...men, they just don't understand crafts!I saw this on crafty crow a great blog with tons of ideas for thing to do with your kids.

You can go here and buy a set of blank nesting dolls and paint your own. They have a ton of sizes and amounts you can buy. Let me know if any of you do this I'd love to see them.

Bathroom Project -- nothing to do with a toothbrush

The kids bathroom is far from what you would call stylish. So I tired to improve it a bit by making some new hooks for the kids towels. Heaven knows they can never put the towels on a towel bar so I am hoping hooks work better.


I got some white letters at the craft store and decoupaged some scrapbook paper on them. And then last time I was at Ikea I picked up these hooks. I think they turned our pretty cute. I also put some bigger hooks by the sink for the hand towel (thanks for the idea Shauna) so I am hoping I will find it on the floors less too!

Then I decided to make a towel for each of the kids -- well I didn't "make" the towel, I just put their initial on it. I printed each letter out on my printer and cut it out. Then pinned the letter to a white hand towel and cut it out. I satin stitched all the way around and wallah a pretty cute towel.