Happy Birthday, Daddy

Birthday wishes to the bestest dad in the whole world!

My favorite things I inherited from my dad:
1. My red hair: I know this sounds silly and slightly vain but being a redhead is part of my identity. I love being a redhead. I'll admit that I almost feel sorry for my one sister (out of four) that isn't a redhead. My mom sent me this quote yesterday. "Blondes are noticed but redheads are never forgotten." My whole life people have commented about my hair color. I hate it when people call it orange. I do not have orange hair. I have red hair and I love my red hair. Thanks dad, for giving me red hair. Now if I could only pass this on to a daughter of my own.....hmmm.

So you probably have to click on the picture to see my dad's awesome red hair but check out the bow tie also. This was at my Dad's grad night at Disneyland in 1973.

2. My obsessive organizational skills: The picture of my dad's shop pretty much explains this one. My dad saves everything that could be of some use and he knows exactly where it is in his shop. His shop is more organized than most people's homes. While I'm not a fabulous house cleaner, my house is organized. My life is organized. Everything has a place and everything is put in it's place. If I could I would also organize your life. Pretty much organize is my middle name as my husband (and friends) will readily attest to. Probably I didn't inherit the obsessive part from my dad (I managed that one all on my own) but definitely the organized part.

3. My dad is an excellent communicator (just ask David, I did NOT inherit this) and a great writer and editor (I'm fairly decent at this one) and both of those help him be a wonderful teacher especially a gospel teacher (I aspire to inherit this gift). I "inherited" the gospel from my mom and dad because my dad chose to listen to the missionaries and get baptized when he was 19 years old. My parents got married a few months later and a year after that they went to the temple and were sealed to each other. Less than 5 fives later I was born in the covenant to my parents who raised my in the church and taught me the gospel. The greatest gift my parents ever gave me was the gospel. My mom and dad are my family's pioneers and I honor them and their sacrifices to give me the gospel the same as we honor the pioneers who crossed the plains.
My dad was my Sunday School teacher when I was maybe 13 or 14 and then he was called to be the Bishop so I grew up with lots of opportunities to hear my dad teach in a church setting. He's really good at it. Also I remember asking my dad once about death and he went a got Mormon Doctrine and taught me the Plan of Salvation. I love teaching the gospel. I love teaching my 14 and 15 year old Mia Maids and I love teaching the Plan of Salvation. One thing my dad did in Sunday School was first ask us what we talked about the week before and would reinforce what we had learned before moving on to the lesson for that week. I'll admit I do this on a regular basis in Mia Maids without even thinking and it always makes me smile when I catch myself doing it.

4. My dad loves to take car trips. He can sit in a car for 12 hour stretches, just looking at the scenery and going somewhere. I tell people that I have been to every inch of the state of Utah and I'm really not exaggerating. However I don't remember most of that because while Dad loves driving in the car, I hate it. So I spent most of the car rides doing my favorite thing...sleeping. My Grandpa (and Uncle Bruce) and him are known to talk about roads. Such as "You know on Interstate-such and such when you pass such and such city and take Exit such and such..." and Dad knows exactly what my Grandpa is talking about. Pretty much my dad could do that for the entire Western and Mid-Western United States. He has them memorized. But the point of this is that somehow I have a really great sense of direction and I love maps. I like reading maps and studying maps and I can memorize them and keep pictures of them in my head. If I was awake for the car trip I was often in the passenger seat reading the map. (Which is where the New Mexico "Land of Enchilada" story comes from) So while I do hate the car trip part I think I inherited the rest from dad.

I could go on and on but really I'm still trying to catch up with my dad. I figure as long as I keep walking in his footsteps I'll turn out okay. But I can't finish without mentioning something else. My father is Mr. Fix It. I can't count the number of times he has helped us with the house, the yard, the cars, buying stuff, selling stuff. Next his promised to help me figure out how to invest my IRA. He's brilliant and has an answer for everything. When we were getting ready to leave for our Yellowstone vacation we didn't have the right stuff to plug the trailer lights into our Expedition to tow it. David and Dad messed around in the shop and fixed it. Later at home I asked David what they had done to get it fixed and David replied "Oh you know, your Dad concocted some "Dougie Device" and made it work." I love his term Dougie Device because it so aptly describes my dad's skills. Remember that shop of his and how he keeps everything. That stuff really comes in handy at some point and my dad really has an amazing talent for handiwork, finish work, automotive and motorcycle work and on and on. He and David rebuilt my entertainment center to fit the new big screen T.V. and we love it. He also helped David remodel our bathroom after a bunch of water damage and then came back and sealed off the bathroom window so well that if we wanted water to get through the window we couldn't manage it. That's only a few example but THANK YOU Dad for everything you have done for me and my family. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!

CHANGE

Change has been on my mind lately. I hate change. I understand the benefits of change but I still passionately hate it. I have a friend (an amazing friend) whose mother is fighting cancer so I've been thinking about changes. Jacob started Kindergarten today and I've been thinking about changes. Man, I hate changes!! I hate the unknown and the pain of making the unknown known. I hate feeling helpless. I just wish there was something, anything, I could do for my friend. I wish I could be with Jacob every moment of his day. This morning I watched him walk into a school building and I don't know what's going to happen in there. I feel helpless! I try to see Kindergarten as the beginning of Jacob's school career but mostly I think of it as an ending of having my son with me all the time. An ending of me being the person he spends the majority of his time with. That's dramatic, isn't it? I just hope I will always be my son's major influence in his life (at least until he gets married) and when I'm not there that he will remember my influence and what I've taught him. Thankfully, I'm the only one who's terrified about Kindergarten. Jacob is so excited for school. I finally asked him if he was nervous about anything and he said "Nope, it's a little scary making new friends but then it's easy." And this morning he woke up and came and woke me up and said "It's my first day of school!!!" Not exactly what I wanted to hear considering I was still up at 2:00 am crying over the first day of school!

Jacob with his mom and dad. I'm very grateful Dad went to work late and took Jacob to Kindergarten with me. I needed all the support I could get this morning.

See, Jacob actually ran away from me to catch up with his friend, Jake. He didn't even give me a hug good bye. He's going to do so great in Kindergarten. I hope Jacob has this attitude for every new thing he does. I don't remember much about Kindegarten but I do remember being scared and I remember when I moved to Provo and started 2nd grade in October, my mom left me in my classroom and I started to panic. So I told my teacher that my mom had my pencils so I could see her again. This little boy named Daniel (yes, I still remember) told me I could have one of his pencils and handed me this little stubby pencil that was maybe 2 inches long and I was so upset because then I wasn't going to see my mom again. I guess even though I hate changes, I'm really grateful that Jacob seems to look at it as an adventure.

Here's Jacob waiting in his line with his friend, Jake. His 3 other friends are in the other class and while of course I stressed about this, it doesn't seem to phase Jacob at all. He told me there were lots of new people to be his friends. Wow, if I had that attitude when I went to school (oh, and college) life would have been easier.

So to end my long ramblings I'll post a poem I came across in college. I read it in the book "A Quiet Heart" by Sister Patricia Holland. It's by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Let us then labour for an inward stillness-
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence, where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will and in the silence of our spirits
That we may do His will and do that only.

BYU Fall Sports Kickoff

Last Tuesday night was BYU's Fall sports kickoff. This was David's third year attending. I had a Mutual activity that night so he took all the boys by himself. Very brave, man! The boys got to run races, play soccer and volleyball, and other little activities. David bought all of us this year's BYU football shirts. I was so happy because they finally had them in kid sizes.

I love Jacob's face in this picture. He is just so determined!

This is Adam getting ready to score un gooooollllllllassso!

Little Parra BYU fans!

Jacob, Matthew, and Adam

Jacob after playing volleyball

While all my boys were off at BYU, I was at Deer Creek with our Young Men and Young Women boating. I can't remember exactly when our family started boating but it is a love of mine. I hadn't been waterskiing in over 6 years. The girls were speechless when I showed up with my own slalom ski. I skied three times that night and even though the water was terrible, I had a blast. Of course the next day I was reminded about all those little muscles you use to waterski. I was just in heaven riding on the boat. The tubing was pretty fun too after the kids (okay, just Matt) stopped trying to kill me on it. Thanks, Mike! I had so much fun!!!! (Note to David: I NEEEEEED a boat!)

Matthew

I took Matthew in for his 6 month check up last week. He weighed 16 pounds and 9 ounces. He went from the 50th percentile to the 25th. He's a runt!! (Okay, his height was 27.5 inches and that's the 75th percentile so not completely a runt.) It would help if he would eat. He refuses solid food and just the last two days will he take a formula bottle. The doctor suggested supplementing mostly to help him sleep through the night. He doesn't do that either. In fact he has completely regressed and is back to waking up 3 or 4 times a night. Does anyone want to guess at my mental capacities after a night like that? However we still think he is adorable. He cut both his bottom teeth in the past two weeks and is sitting up more and more. He loves to be in the same place where his brothers are playing. He loves to fall asleep with a blanket over his face and rubs his blanket on his cheeks when he's falling asleep. Then I have to remember to go back in there and pull it off after he falls asleep. These pictures are of the boys after baths and in their pjs. I love these pajamas' of Matthew's (thanks, Amber!). And you can see the nice tans Jacob and Adam are sporting these days after all the time spent at the pool.

Matthew loves to chew and chew and chew. Everything goes in his mouth. Yes, he's been teething but it's not just that. My mom bought him this cute set up sea animal bath toys and Matthew LOVES to chew on them. In this picture he has the turtle's entire head in his mouth. YUM-O!

And Matthew's next favorite thing to chew on is his toes. Double YUM-O!

Just keep swimming...

This summer Jacob and Adam did a couple sessions of swimming lesson and both of them did really well. I didn't think Adam would do the lessons since I wasn't in the water. But he just latched on to this girl who was an assistant and only two days (one at the beginning and one toward the end, go figure????) he refused to get in the water. Considering the degree of Adam's stubborness this is consider a success. However if he didn't want to do what the teacher was doing Adam would just ignore him and do whatever he wanted. Yet another Adam trait that didn't surprise me in the least. However Adam is a good little swimmer. Because he still has ear tubes in he should wear ear plugs but he hates them. So he just swims without and sometimes he pulls on his ears but he still swims under the water and everything. He does ask me to plug his ears though if his floating on his back. Jacob is also a great swimmer and he loves the water. We bought a pool pass this summer and spent at least 2 days a week at theh pool. Yesterday was the last day the pool was open for the whole afternoon since school started today. So we spent 3 hours there yesterday. I just can't believe school is starting. Jacob and Adam are estatic for school. I think I'm the only one that is sad.

On the last day of swimming lessons they get to go down the slide. That was Adam's favorite part. He loves the slide. He has to go down with an adult and right before we slide into the water he tells me everytime "Mom, don't forget to take a breath!"

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

With the help of my mom and brother Ammon, I took the kids to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. We arrived at 8:00 am and had a wonderful tour of the temple. They show a little movie before your tour and I learned that South Jordan is the only city in the world that has two temples within it's city boundaries. Isn't that cool? The tour was not crowded and there was no waiting. I had talked to the kids especially Jacob about what it meant to be sealed together. We love singing "Families can be Together Forever" and so I was trying to explain that the sealing ordinance performed in the temple is how families can be together forever. I told him getting married or sealed there was like starting a chain and that each of us were links in our family chain. In the temple there are many places to see circles linked together like painted on the ceiling as little decorative touches and the pattern on the carpet in the celestial room. It was so neat to be able to show those to Jacob and to see him remember the chain analogy. In a sealing room I got to just sit him Adam and show him how the mirrors went on forever and talk to him about how that symbolizes our family being together forever and how I wanted to be with him forever and that I would always be his mommy. I am so grateful that I have had two opportunities this year to take my children to the temple with me and show them the rooms there and explain a little about what happens there and why they are so important. We have all felt the Holy Ghost in both this temple and the Draper temple and I have felt the love our Heavenly Father has for me and for my little family. It is so important to me to take my children to places or create experiences for them to feel the Spirit and recongnize it and I'm grateful we have been able to attended these Temple Open Houses.

The left picture is the front of the temple and the right picture is the back of the temple.

Jacob and Adam enjoyed the cookies and water after the tour.

Thank you Mom and Ammon for helping me take my children to this sacred place. It was a wonderful experience for me and I'm so grateful to be a mother and get to share the gospel with my children. I've alway wanted to be a missionary and sometimes I think of myself as one as I teach the gospel to my children.