Quaking Leaves

Today a woman that I don't know emailed me to ask how we are related. 
These are the kinds of things that happen when you become obsessive compulsive about quaking leaves. 
Doing Family Search by itself was making me crazy-- no records or trails of any kind to follow if I got lost, or if somebody else got lost.  I opened up my free Ancestry.com and the world of family history is mine for the taking.  One quaking leaf at a time.  Curse those quaking leaves.  I love them, but I hate them.
As you put together your family tree, if there are any records (and there are millions) in conjunction with that name and date, a little shaking leaf appears in the right hand corner.  It is so handy.  You just click on it and it brings up one or two kinds of things:  someone else's tree and hard work, or actual records.  Both are extremely helpful, but must be watched with a careful eye.  Sometimes relatives go crazy and just put all kinds of things down all willy nilly.  I can tell you from my experiences indexing that reading old timey writing is not easy.  Mistakes are made and names are butchered as primary documents are translated into a digital format.  Lawrence becomes Luvisia.  True story.
The leaf doesn't just pop up your family story, it knits all of the stories together.  I had to tell the lady who asked how we were related that we weren't really, unless you consider the sister-in-law of a sister-in-law of a wife of a brother-in-law of my great aunt on my mom's side, related. 
I have begun to feel like the world is a giant tapestry and I just run around gathering up threads here and there, reinforcing what is already there, re-stitching things that have come undone, and making little patches. 
So, I guess I need to apologize for all those family nests I step in, because I take my grand discoveries from Ancestry and bring them over to Family Search.  I find duplicates and merge.  I add children to existing families that only included the child whomever did the work came through.  I find spouses and parents.  I add dates and events.  I try to cement the work that has been done.  I am finding whole branches of family and reserve their names for the temple.  I need to stop doing that, because I have enough work to last me a lifetime and I've only been going for 2 or 3 weeks now.  I also need to leave work for other people going along.  It's pretty fun finding green arrows and realizing that there is work for you to do at the temple, just waiting for a click of the mouse.
My best thing was finding the mother of one of my great-great grandmothers.  I found her and there was this tremendous feeling of joy that enveloped me.  "You found me!"  Then I realized that my grandma had the wrong husband for her.  I was indecisive.  You don't mess with my grandma.  Ever.  I wasn't sure if I could make the change.  All night James and Sarah bothered me (the right James).  "Make the change.  Don't you dare seal me to that man I don't know who coincidentally has the same name."  Okay.  Unable to bear it anymore, I made the change at 5:30 the next morning.
Last week Malynn and the youth of our ward took my list of 40 names to the temple for baptisms and confirmation for the dead.  Sarah and James are on their way.  In two weeks, Dan and I will take all of those names (and more) to do some more of their work.
When I was at BYU, I went through one semester as an El Ed major, because I mistakenly believed it was my best and brightest option.  After that drama, I looked into taking up art again, but I just could not feel it.  One of my roommates, who had been a roommate at Ricks College, said I should try history on for size.  It fit me.  While I love history, it was a puzzling fit.
When I started really getting into the meat of family history work, I thought, "What a lovely coincidence that I was a history major and learned so many of the tools that I am using here."  The Spirit spoke to my mind.  "It was no coincidence.  For this you were prepared."  
So, I'll just continue gathering threads and knitting them together until the family of Adam is one large, beautiful tapestry.


 

Power-Power

This morning Dan and Morgan got up at their usual time-- too stinkin' early.  Although both were up, neither of them answered the phone at 5:30.  I staggered to the phone and answered.  It was the boy's seminary teacher.  "You guys live close to the church.  Do you know if the church still has power?" 
I tried scanning my brain to remember if the church is on our same grid. 
15 minutes later, the teacher's daughter called to let us know there wasn't seminary.  I'm not sure if the church had power or not, but the whole south end of town lost power during the wind storm last night. 
Alison had been sleeping out on the couch in the loft.  She says her room gets too hot at night (which it does).  She heard me tell Morgan to go back to bed since there wasn't power at the church.
She sat up.
"What?!  The church lost it's power?!"
I said, "Yes.  The wind must have knocked a tree into something."
"Whew!  I thought you meant that the church lost its power power and we wouldn't be able to go to church anymore.  I didn't think that could happen and I don't think you would lie about that."
So.  This morning at 5:45, Alison and I had a nice conversation about the apostasy and how that will never happen again.  We talked about all of the people who lived on the earth during the 1800 or so years that there was no priesthood power available. 
With the world's problems solved, we went back to sleep until 6:45 when the next group of kids had to get up. 
On this anniversary of a day when so much went wrong and evil took a big step forward, I am grateful for the power of the priesthood that is on the earth.  I am grateful that there is a group of men who are honorable and try their best to live every day as Christ would have them do.  I am grateful that they exercise the priesthood of God in the countless ways that bless our lives.  I am grateful that families torn apart do not have to remain so.  I am grateful that we no longer have to believe that God does not speak to man today-- that we can and do receive revelation to direct our lives.  I am grateful that we are not left alone.
Power power.  It is in my home.  It is in my life.  It is in the lives of my children. 

Not the Summer of the Backyard.

Once Dan got his new calling, I saw my dreams and his promises that this would be the summer of the backyard makeover go up in smoke.
There were some blessings that Heavenly Father gave because He knew this would make me cry.  When our neighbors heard that we were tearing out the bushes on the side of our house that made us use their yard as our entrance to the only gate to our backyard, they offered to pull out the bushes and use them in their landscaping.  They called the utilities companies to spray the lines and worked.  By the time the kids and I got back from our month long vacation, the bushes were moved.  When the neighbors then realized that our gate was in fact our one and only entrance to the backyard from the front and that their tree that blocked our gate that they had previously refused to remove was going to probably die from the sidewalk we were going to put in, they mentioned that the tree could go.  That day, Dan lopped off the tree top, hooked the trunk to his truck and pulled it out. 
That was 3 weeks ago.  The tree sat in the back of his truck for a month, waiting, while Dan went to Scout camp, helped people move, and some other things. 
Today, the tree got dumped, we picked up the rubber tiles we are making the sidewalk with (they wouldn't have killed the tree, but shh....... the tree needed to go.). We picked up the gravel fill. 
It may not be a total backyard makeover, but it is a start.
I'll take pictures.

On a Roll

I've been in a writing, reminiscing mood.
You know how people talk about how it's amazing they are alive?  Yeah.  That was my youth.  All of these are true stories.
Drowning:
You know I can't swim, right? 
Every summer we would inflate the rubber raft and then stick it in the water trough to find out where the holes were (the water bubbles were a good indicator).  Dad would quickly patch the holes.  We would put on our adult sized life jackets which had lived another life in another century and had to be tied on to our lithe young bodies with baling twine (I kid you knot).  We would then face the wilds of the Snake River-- the part by us was a wide, slow flow.  We would paddle from the dock on the Roberts' land and go down to Mortimer's Island (the place where the naked hippies would cavort during Fiddle Week.... we didn't go rafting the third full week of June, fyi)  We would sometimes stop midway and get off on Seagull Island, which smells a lot worse than you would think.  No one died, though Dad's hired kid, Beaver Nelson, would swim beside the raft and pretend that sharks were attacking him.  It was good fun.
Once when I was little, we went up to McCall to the church camp up there.  I remember nothing about the trip except for one thing.  I thought that the water level around the dock would stay the same height.  It did not.  The only thing I could think of doing was to keep walking in the same direction and hope everything turned out okay.  I remember running out of air down there.  What I don't remember is how I got out-- did I walk around the whole thing or did I figure out to turn around? 
(Please feel free to insert "Where were your parents?!" at any point during these tales.  This is what fairly free range childhood looks like.) 
Battleground Park outside of Vancouver, WA will remind me of two things.  The husky foreign family in very tight, very revealing swimming attire-- the woman's bikini was a British Union Jack.  Not to be over shadowed by nearly drowning myself and my life guard trained cousin.  He was "this close to knocking you out." 
How about the time I didn't let go of the rope from the water wienie that was being trailed behind my uncle's speed boat?  We had all fallen off (and had nice, kid sized life jackets on), but all I knew was that I wasn't letting go.  I had learned to distrust life jackets.
Heights:
You know I am almost as terrified of heights as I am of spiders?
You would think I would learn, but no.  Year after year it was the same. 
Dad was never one of those hay farmers that left the hay bales in the field.  It's easier that way, to not stack the bales as you go.  You don't have to have tons of wagons trailing behind you.  You don't have to have two people-- one to drive the tractor and a strong, strapping man to lift 75 lb bales over and over as they come at a non-compromising pace out of the baler.  The wagons held two across, four high, and 12 bales in length = 96 bales per wagon, per how ever many wagons it took to clear out a field.  It was not uncommon to bring 5 wagons to the big fields.   It is hard, sweaty, prickly, dusty work.  The blessing of it was that it has to be done in the early morning, after the dew falls, but before it gets too hot to dry out the hay and have the leaves fall off.  It's much cooler then.   However, the downside of leaving hay in the fields, is that it frequently rains before you can get the hay in to a shed.  The dew also does it's own damage.  Wet hay molds and cows are particular about that.  A big concern is that wet hay heats up as it dries, causing fires.  Dad had/has some of the finest hay in all of Treasure Valley, because he cares to do it right. 

(This isn't a picture of us because #1, that hay stack is not straight and even and #2. we were John Deere purists.  We did not have a New Holland baler.  You get the idea, though.  Looking at this picture I can still hear the chunk-a chunk-a, chunk-a chunk-a, click, click, click of a bale being made.)

Mom sent us out to my dad when we turned 8.  That meant we moved pipe and hung out with him while he baled hay (until we were old enough to be of real use-- thank goodness I only had to drive the tractor-- when I turned 12)
We would frolic on the wagons trailing behind the baler; scaling up and over the back yellow rack, running down the length of the wagon, balancing precariously across the tongue, only to start again, all while the rhythmic chug, chugging of the tractor and baler worked their magic.  (Which brings up the time I fell off the wagon during these shenanigans and got ran over, but miraculously didn't die.) When the last wagon was left, we would just climb up the hay as Dad stacked it.  By the end, let's see, we were on a tower of hay on top of a wagon.  Dad would stand there, hot, tired, and crabby and tell us to jump down.  uh. 
Oh, it got worse.  As he would make the hay stacks-- taking the bales from the wagons to the stack using a multi-clawed, 8 bale hay fork attached to his tractor-- we would play on them.  There is really nothing finer than climbing and playing on a good stack of hay bales.  Eventually, he would finish.  The hay stack would be a good 15-20 feet high-- as high as the hay fork could reach.  We had to get down from that.  Of course, he would never suggest that we dismount by jumping.  That would be dangerous!  What he suggested still sends shivers down my spine.  He would shove the fork against the stack, the arms of the tractor stretched to their highest limit, and we would have to clamber down the hooks to the waiting arms of my Dad who was standing on the body of the tractor.  I'm not sure I ever did it without screaming and crying a lot first. 
Every summer.
That's enough hair raising for now.  I'll write more later.
*Edited because now I remember it is NOT a hay grabber thingee, but a hay fork or bale fork.
This is a 4040 John Deere tractor:  (It's not my Dad's.  I'm sure this one still has its air conditioning and is not a sauna.)

 

This is a bale fork.  Imagine it at the end of the tractor arms instead of a bucket loader, stretch it up as far as it can go, and then ask your 10 year old to climb down it.  That's what my summer terrors looked like.



Poetry by Sophie written 2014

Happyness
Happyness is when it's your birthday
Happyness is when your favorite TV show is On
Happyness is when you fall in love
Happyness

Silly
Silly is when you see a funny little man
Silly is when you marry a clown
Silly is when  your dress goes missing
Silly is when yo' kid names a cat after you.
Silly

Sadness
Sadness is when Thunder clouds send a pillar of light to strike the ground
Sadness is when the sky cries
Sadness is when you have the worst case of the worst Deisieze ever
Sadness is when your best friend dies
Sadness is when you get water worts, maskito bites, and strep throat at the same time.
Sadness is when your parents get rid of Netflix
Sadness

Summer Reads

When I was a teenager and read "Little Women" I was jealous of a family with so many sisters.  They put on plays together, they defended each other, they sacrificed, and loved. 
I have 2 sisters and 5 brothers.  My closest sister is four years younger than me-- a most inconveniently terrible age gap (though most of my very best of friends are four years younger than I am).  My youngest sister is 9 years younger; she was a little kid when I left home.  No plays unless the same age cousins came over.  No defense-- only whining.  The only sacrifice seemed to be countless hours spent babysitting them.  I believe sisters should share a room to learn to be unselfish.  I do not believe that sisters should have to share a bed.  Until they leave home.  When the 14 year old wets the bed and leaves the 18 year old in it.  Ever.  It's a true story. 
Now I have four daughters, close in age.  I have learned to smile and nod through the many plays and talent shows they put on.  They fight like cats and then two seconds later are the best of friends.  They have a double bed in their room and yet all pile on the twin bed, with limbs and hair everywhere. 
Yesterday I read a delightful book, "The Penderwicks".

First of all, how can you resist a book with darling old fashioned silhouettes on the front cover?!  I love the Penderwick sisters-- all four of them.  I love their personalities and their adventures.  I am again jealous of a fictional family.  The book, though not seen through the eyes of their dreamy, scholarly, widower father, is written with a love and adoration for the girls in a way that seems like he is telling the story. 

Now I am jealous of family vacations with four sisters.  Our vacations always involve going to see family-- not going on adventures.  We would never rent a cute little bungalow for 3 weeks, let alone 3 days.  We would bring movies and Nintendos and other electronic mind suckers (bless them). 

I am jealous of what I know amounts to fiction, but it is a fine thing to think about.

 

"It was the wackiest Sunday EVER" -- Sophie

Things have changed with Dan's new stake calling.  One of those things is that the girls no longer have a jungle gym to swarm over during Sacrament meeting.  Once a month, my nerves stretched to their hormonal edge, I can barely stand to have anyone touch me.  Today, I was hormonal.  Today, I became the jungle gym.  It was all I could do to not run screaming out of the chapel.  I held it together.  There may have been rocking and humming on my part, but at least there was no screaming.
Primary consisted of the usual cat rodeo plus some added fun.  We had runners and other sundry adventures.
At lunch time, Morgan was putting water in his mouth, and then leaning back to let the water trickle down his throat.  I told him to knock it off or I would let Heidi give him CPR when he died.  (Malynn reminded me that I threatened to smack him as well-- hormonal, remember).  At this point, Heidi opened a mouth full of chewed up grilled ham and cheese sandwich to let Morgan know exactly what CPR by her would involve.  It was a lovely moment of family tenderness.
 

Three Things

When I worked custodial at BYU, we came up with a game to occupy ourselves during the long hours of sweeping and vacuuming.  It was called "Three Things" and it involved a lot of imagination.  One of your fellow workers would give you three seemingly separate things and you would have to make up a story using all of them. 
Here are my objects that I'm going to spin a story around.  Lilac bushes, straw bales, and baked beans.  Also in this story is an apology to someone long wronged.
The story begins with a lilac hedge.  When we moved to our "new" house, my mom wanted a hedge of lilacs like the one we had at our "old" house-- you know-- the one across the road.  My dad gathered up sucker plants and put them along the western and northern edges of the lawn.  To keep them alive in the summer, Dad poked a hole in the bottom of a bunch of 5 gallon buckets and we would keep them filled with water that would trickle out and keep the ground moist around each baby plant. 

I don't know a kid alive who doesn't like to make forts, no matter what the construct:  under a table, couch cushions, blankets draped across objects, etc.  Only the truly lucky kid has straw bales to make enviable forts.  We were pretty good at fort making.  Mostly our forts were made en situ.  We didn't usually have permission to lug straw bales around outside of the sheds.  Our very best fort was built in front of the barn.  It was fantastic.  It had at least two rooms and if we had to stoop over to be inside, it wasn't by much.  There was an actual roof, but I don't remember if it was pieces of corrugated tin or more bales.  We repurposed some old carpet scraps to place on the 'floors'.  One night we decided to sleep in our creation.  There was a pesky mosquito that kept whining in our ears and I'm sure that was the reason, not the darkness of an Idaho night in the country that sent us back to the house. 
What little time we had away from chores was spent in our fort.  We sneaked cans of baked beans out there.  We built a fire in our fort and heated our unopened can of beans over an open flame in a dusky, close aired environment.  We did not die. (There are several things we did as kids that should have led to our demise, which cements the theory that God has something in store for us.)

It would be nice if our story ended there.  An apology for brain damage would suffice.  But no.  A greater wrong was done.  Unfortunately, there was a witness to the oldest three kids' shenanigan;  a smart little boy who watched us build a fire in our fort and not die.  He tried the same thing with disastrous results. 
Despite the hammer of anger that reigned that day, there were several blessings.  Little brother did not die in his fire.  The farm did not burn down (then).  He came back to the house yelling about a fire and I ran out barefoot.  I don't remember everything clearly, but I do remember that the hose was not near long enough.  I found one of those buckets with the hole in the bottom and filled it up with water from the well.  This is a miracle in and of itself.  If you've ever tried to fill a cup up with water under pressure, you know how quickly the cup can be snatched away from your hand.  Imagine water coming full tilt out of an eight inch pipe.  Imagine a very short girl trying to get a bucket up and over the side of the cement box that the water poured into, and holding on to a five gallon bucket while the water rushed in.  I did it, but I don't know how.  I remember running out to the barn, banging the bucket against my leg, while water slowly trickled out of the hole and more sloshed over the top.  I remember the hot, soft summer dirt and the ever present pokey puncture weeds.  I remember Dad suddenly being there in a hot summer rage. 
Unfortunately for little brother, he carried the full brunt of justice that day.  It was years before he got to touch a match-- a sad, sad punishment for a little boy.  There was a ceremony years later when he was awarded his own box of matches. 
I'm sorry, little brother.  That was really cowardly of us to let you face the punishment by yourself.  I hope you can forgive us.
----------- 

Now it's your turn.  Here are three objects for some brave, imaginative person:  a wooden chair, an old photograph, and a backpack.    

Toe Nail

How do you fix a toe with a blood blister under the nail?
Last night, Heidi ran out into the garage that is covered in saw dust from Morgan's project.  She slipped and fell on a scooter.  When Dan brought her crying into me, I noticed that her big toe had a big purple lump underneath the nail that extended out and down the front of her toe.
Dan's solution is the first aid approved solution and one that gives me the shrink-winkies.  I am suspicious anytime anyone wants to drill a hole in a toenail.  Just ask Mortimer Brewster how he felt about his deranged brother sticking pins in his nails:

Heidi vetoed any such action.  She limped about today and went barefoot (which in and of itself is not unusual) for most of it.  I warned her that when her Dad got home, he would want to do something about that toe.  Luckily for her, the situation changed when Alison accidentally danced across the sore toe.  Tears were shed.  An angry mother yelled.  Blood was let.
Hopefully it drained enough.
I will cheerfully restrain a child for a shot, digging out a sliver, or extracting an imbedded rock.  I can not sit on her for that.

Eagle Project

Morgan and Dan (mostly Dan) have been working on Morgan's Eagle project.  The project is to  make two range safety signs for Ensign Ranch's gun range. 
They planned it all out.  I took Morgan around to beg for monies.  We took him to purchase supplies.  Dan got a stenciling kit for his router. 
The boy is 15.  We have to keep reminding ourselves this for various reasons, some more discouraging than others. 
As Dan has been type setting each line, he says he has a new appreciation for Mormon carving out the words of the Book of Mormon.  The rules they had decided on have gotten much less wordy.  They got 3 rules done this past 4 day weekend.  3 out of the 14 that will grace the two signs. 
It has to be done by the 3rd weekend of June.
They (and by they, I mean Dan) are getting faster.

My Grandpa

This is a story that I got (the long way around) from my parents about my Dad's dad.  I'm not exactly sure when it takes place, but my Grandpa's mom died when he was about 13-14.  The family (13 kids, 11 who lived) had spent their entire lives moving around.  They mostly moved back and forth between Hillspring, Alberta, Canada and Weiser, Idaho, but it seems there was a time they were in Nebraska because some of the kids were born there.  Grandpa's dad left a teenaged Bertha Marie and Joseph Edward (most of the kids went by their middle names) home to raise the 7 younger kids while he found employment away from home. 
Grandpa married at the ripe old age of 40 after spending a lifetime caring for his family, to a pregnant woman, recently left by her husband.  That's my Grandma.  I remember him always as an old man.  He always wore overalls.  In his pockets, he carried peppermint candies, coconut neopolitans, and sugared orange slices.  He was very generous with them.  His right hand was curled into a hook.  When he was younger, his hand was caught in a machine belt and it got torn up.  Because the family had no money to pay for 'fancy' care, the doctor wadded all of the tendons and hand guts into a ball and stitched a patch of skin over the top of it, leaving the fingers permanently bent and his hand stiff.  At least he still had a hand.  He had special metal knobs on the tractor steering wheels so he could still drive with that hand. 

 

Here is the story finally:

It was nearing Christmas time.  To be more exact Christmas day would come during the week.  It was just about dark at four o’clock – as darkness comes early on the Canadian prairie.
Marie watched anxiously for the children to come home from school.  They would be cold and hungry.  The fire was burning brightly in the cook-stove.  Burlap sacks were lying on the floor by the outer door to help keep out the frost and snow.  Marie saw the children coming and turned from the window to open the oven door from which came an appetizing odor.
Baby Willie, a brown eyed, brown haired little boy, who had been sitting on the table cutting pictures out of a magazine, now held out his arms to be lifted down.  As Marie lifted him down, she kissed the top of his head and whispered, “The children are coming,” and Willie gave a squeal of delight!
Just then, the door burst open and in trooped the six children of school age.  Lida with curly-hair, turning from fair to brown, and blue eyes with black eye lashes.  Arthur, with white curly hair and blue eyes.  He was Lida’s constant companion.  Laughing Emma, with brown wavy hair and eyes so brown as to appear nearly black.  Anna, fair haired and blue eyed – so shy she hardly dared speak.  Truly a Monday’s child as the rhyme goes – “Monday’s child is fair of face.”  Anna was born on a Monday.  And last but not least there was Morgan with soft brown hair and sparkling eyes.  They all talked at once, saying – “Anything to eat?” “My, I’m hungry,” “Just about starved”, and “When do we eat?"
Marie opened the oven door and carefully lifted out a pan of scalloped potatoes which was:  peeled potatoes, lightly salted, and baked in water to keep them from burning.  As Marie set the table she started the game they played so often of late.  They would start naming something they would like to eat and pretend they were all on the table for supper.
Just as they were ready to sit down, Marie stepped to the bedroom door and called softly, “Mary.  Come, dear, supper is ready.”  As the invalid sister came into the room she took one look at the table, then burst into tears crying, “Just potatoes again?  Oh Marie, I’m so hungry.  If I could only have a little piece of bread I would be so happy.  I wish Papa would come home.”
Marie took Mary into her arms and held her tight until her sobs grew quieter.  Then speaking softly she said gently, “You know dear, Papa has to work so Nelsen won’t have to come home from his mission for lack of money.  We wouldn’t want him to come home before he was honorably released, would we dear?”
As Mary shook her head Marie said, “Edward has gone to see if his money has come yet.  You know he worked so hard building the road so he could earn money for food.  He hates it when all we have to eat is potatoes, too.”  Then Marie continued, “If we all unite and pray, Heavenly Father will give us the strength we need, even if all we have to eat is potatoes.  Shall we pray now, Mary?”
Mary said, “Will it make things easier?”  At Marie’s nod of assent they all knelt in a circle around the table.  It was a simple petition asking Heavenly Father to give them strength to carry on and to help Papa earn the money to keep Nelsen on his mission, and to bless Nelsen so he could stay on his mission until he was honorably released.  As the prayer was finished they all knelt silently – each sending up their own silent prayer.  Anna’s voice broke the silence with, “Please bless Santa Claus to come this year.”
Supper was eaten in silence with Marie saving part of the potatoes for Ed.  He came into the house as the family was finishing supper saying, “My, it is cold outside.”  Mary asked him if his money had come and Ed replied, “No, but here is a letter from Papa.  Here, you read it Marie.”  Marie opened the letter and read:
“Dear ones at home:  I cannot be home with you this Christmas, but I know you will make the best of the situation.  I know I have left you in good care.  You, Marie, as the eldest, are capable of holding and keeping my little flock together.  You, Edward, as the oldest brother at home (two brothers were away) are faithful to your trust to provide for my little flock.  You, Mary, so ill since the death of your mother, try to be brave, dear heart, and do not grieve too much.  Try to be cheerful and help your brothers and sisters all that you can.  I know it is hard, dear one, but try to be brave.  You, Lida and Arthur, study hard and gain knowledge while in your youth.  Obey your older brothers and sisters and never do anything that would grieve your Savior and Redeemer.
Now my little ones, Emma, Ann, Morgan and my little William Leroy – help Marie and Edward all you can by obeying them always; study hard and know this – that Heavenly Father is watching over you and His Guardian Angels are around you to keep you and help you.
I love every one of you and pray that I soon will be with you.  I am ever praying the Lord to bless you and guide continually.  I remain, Your loving Father – James. E. Hansen”
As her voice ceased, Marie looked around and her little charges.  Edward had his face turned away.  Mary was leaning her head against the chair back – her eyes closed – her lips moving in prayer and the tears rolling down her cheeks unheeded.  Lida and Arthur with clasped hands and heads together and Morgan quietly rocking in the little rocker.  Emma and Anna with their arms twined around each other.  Willie had his face buried in her lap.
Marie spoke cheerfully, “All right, it is bedtime.  The last one in bed is a rotten egg.   
After the children were in bed, Ed said, “My money is at Waterton Park.  I will go after it in the morning.”
Marie asked, “How will you go?”  Ed replied, “I’ll walk.”  Marie exclaimed, “But Edward, it is twenty-six miles to the Park.”  Ed answered, “I know it is and that will make fifty-two miles in all but I can get a ride for twelve miles and that just leaves forty miles to walk.  I can make it and besides I would have to go even if it were farther than that.  Today is the twenty first of Dec. and Santa Clause must come to bring the kiddies shoes, overshoes and clothes to wear.  And they’ll need candy, nuts, apples, and oranges.  We also need bread for Mary.”  Marie said, “Go, and the Lord be with you."   Before Ed left the next morning he and Marie knelt by the table and asked Heavenly Father to give him strength for the journey and to let His Guardian Angels to watch over those at home. 
Ed’s journey to the Park was just ordinary.  He secured a ride for twelve miles, then he walked briskly the rest of the way.  He knew the need to hurry in order to get back home that night. 
As he walked along he sang snatches of songs and now and then he would sing a song from  beginning to end  He also recited poems such as “The Death of King Arthur,” the “Ancient Mariner,” and “Home” by Edgar A Guest, “Only a Dad” and many others.  He was facing the west wind most of the way and it was cold.
On arriving at Waterton Park, he received his money and immediately started back home.  He still walked briskly but he could feel himself getting tired.
As the day grew to a close the wind grew colder and Ed could feel his feet beginning to drag.  He had to walk slower.  He began to get colder and colder – almost beyond endurance.
While still about five miles from home he grew so tired, cold, and hungry that he began to get drowsy.  He wanted to lie down and rest but knew that would never do.  He must keep going.  His knees began to hurt and send sharp, keen pains to his head.  He had thrown his knee-cap out of place while participating in athletics in school.  It still bothered him, especially when it got cold.
Finally his knee began to stiffen with the cold until he had to drag it up even with the left leg, and always step out with the left leg.  As he fought to keep going and stay awake.  He prayed in short disconnected phrases, “Dear Father in Heaven, help me.  Please don’t let me fail.  Dear Father, I must keep going.  Oh, Father, give me strength.”
At last he stumbled and fell full-length.  He lay still.  He struggled to fight off his faintness but he was so very sleepy.  His knee began sending sharp pains through his system.  He muttered, “Oh, Marie.  I just can’t keep going.”  Then a little more distinctly he heard his voice, “But I must.”
He endeavored to rise and as he reached his knees he knelt there and prayed, “Oh, Father in Heaven, I know Thou hast granted strength unto me this day as in all  my days, but merciful Father, I cannot go on without Thy aid.  It is just a little thing I’m asking, but it means so much to my loved ones.  Thou knowest, Oh, Father in Heaven, that they are hungry.   This little money means Christmas to them.  They need clothes to keep them warm.  We know that we could be joyful on Christmas without money or presents for we have love and faith abiding there in our little home.  Nevertheless, thou hast said for us to provide food and shelter for those we love, so grant me strength to go the remaining two miles.  All glory and praise be thine – in the name of Jesus Christ – Amen.”
Ed struggled to his feet and plodded wearily on.  Yet he was more light-hearted and hopeful.  His knee ceased to send sharp pains and just throbbed enough to keep him awake.
With the welcoming light shining from the kitchen window, he was able to drag his stiffened leg the remaining way to find his faithful sister, Marie, waiting for his coming with a dish of steaming potatoes and a cup of cold water.
Once again Christmas came to the humble little home in the heart of the Prairie.

THE END

Written by Mary Hansen                                                        Nom de plume – Edith Darling



 

Family History, I'm looking at it

I've really got to move my shellfish picture further down the blog list.  I'm getting tired of looking at what seems to amount to a clam exhibitionist. 
I have been working on a family history project inspired by my sister in law.  In a massive frame, there is a family fan chart (of sorts) that includes 6 generations, pictures of 5 of those generations, and ours will have pictures of the Boise Temple (where we were married) and the Seattle Temple.  It has truly been one of the most fulfilling things I have done with my time.  I am completely and totally enamored by the family search website and all of its sub-sites.  The pictures!  Oh, the pictures!  Bless the people who are loading pictures and memories onto the site.  I want to go home and spend time this summer helping my parents to load up every little thing they have.  It's important.  It brings family history alive. 



  This is my maternal great-grandparents, John and Jennie Ellen Rowlett.  The story goes that she was in love with his younger brother (perhaps Gold Standard Thomas Rowlett) and wanted to marry him.  Her family vetoed that and made her marry John, the eldest brother.  This is them on their wedding day.  She is pretty grumpy about the whole thing.  I think it was also her 16th birthday.   

 

Something new

Today I touched a gooey duck.  I've heard tale of such a creature, but have never before seen one.  It looks like this:

 

I didn't need the ferry full of 9th grade boys and girls to tell me exactly what it looks like. 

Today was a field trip for their Pacific Northwest history class.  We went to the Seattle aquarium for 30 minutes, speed walked to the ferry terminal, rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island, stepped off the ferry, stepped back on the ferry, rode back to Seattle while listening to Jennifer from Taylor Shellfish farm talk about how the shell fish industry has helped clean up and keep Puget Sound clean, speed walked to the buses, and rode home.  

I learned all I needed to know to keep up my goal to consume as little shellfish as possible in this life and the next.  They are the filtration system of the ocean; i.e. liver and kidneys.  I don't eat those either. 

Spring Break

Spring break....  I wish I was the Mom that adored her children so much that she hates for spring break to end.  I wish I didn't harbor regrets that the minute we got the MMA Cage, er I mean trampoline, we became the cool house and hoards of neighborhood kids traipse in and out our door.  Don't get me wrong.  I love my kids.  I even enjoy it when their friends want to spend time here.  I really hate the bickering. 
I guess it could have been worse.  We are shutting off Netflix on the 15th and the kids are going berserk trying to catch up on all of the shows they will be missing.  Wouldn't you know it?  Last week Netflix added Star Wars Clone Wars to their queue and updated Scooby Doo Mystery Inc to include season 2.  Frenetic viewing.  That's what's been going on here.
Between the bickering and the constant tv streaming, it was time to get out of this house.  Yesterday I had Dan call Ensign Ranch and book us a cabin for the night. 
It was nice to be away.  It's getting nicer the older our family gets.  No toddlers to throw themselves into flames or to impale themselves on sticks sharpened to a razor's edge by a certain Scout whom I will not name.  I am a much calmer camper these days-- if it can be called camping to rough it in a cabin.  We did have to walk to the real bathrooms.  The girls wouldn't use the porta-potties and I don't blame them.  These bathrooms did not have a daddy long leg infestation, so life was good.  Sophie thought we kept going to the outhouses and held it all afternoon, night, and morning.  She led the morning trot to the bathroom. 
There was a spider incident.  Just one.  It was sufficient to keep me up all night wondering if every little tickle was a spider deciding which juicy part of my body was the most succulent or if every thump upstairs was a child being slowly wrapped in a spider's silken web to be saved for dessert.  Yes.  I'm that irrational about spiders. 
This morning we got up early.  Straining bladders and the morning chill pretty much demanded it.  After we took care of our morning ablutions and cleaned the cabin, we headed to the stables for the kids' $3.00 parent led horse rides.  Ah, yeah.  You read right.  That's parent led.  I don't do horses.  I took Sophie around on her trusty steed, Tracker.  He kept edging me over into the nice piles of fresh horse poop.  I know it was on purpose.  He also told me that the other horses in the neighboring corral were lazy and he didn't think it was fair that he should have to work when they were just sitting there.  He stopped to make his whining convincing.  Sophie kept talking, which was interrupting my steady stream of prayers to keep her mounted and the horse docile, so I got rather frustrated with her constant chirping.  The ride was supposed to be 15 minutes, but she was lucky if she got 10.  Next, they stuck Heidi up on the horse I was leading and I couldn't do it.  Dan had already led Alison on the frisky appaloosa, but he had to take Heidi, Morgan, and Malynn.  They've all decided that they are now horse people and desperately need a horse and lessons.  Sure.  We'll just keep the horse on our back 40 feet of trail easement.  I'm sure our neighbors will be delighted. 
I had a delightful talk with the missionaries that serve at Ensign Ranch while Dan walked the horses and his kids all over the corral.  Did you know that they regularly have up to 4 young elders there?  It is a special 6 + month mission that they have to apply specifically for.  There are three couples there; one arrived 2 weeks ago from Sandy for an 18 month mission, and another from Vernal a little bit before them.  The longest resident couple has been there for a year and still has another year to complete their 2 year mission.  I love that there are so many options for couples and young adults to serve their missions. 
Despite my fear of creatures large and small, it was a nice get away.  We'll have to do it again.
P.S.  All of the horse pictures are on Dan's phone, so it may be awhile before any of them get posted. 

Why Isn't Anyone Stopping Me?!

This could be about anything.  It could be about the ridiculous amount of jellybeans I've consumed this year.  It could be about my disinclination to get the laundry done before I leave this weekend.  It is actually about family history. 
LDS.org gave me a password and set me free to wreak havoc.  I was under the assumption that what I did in the privacy of my own computer stayed with my own account.  Alas.  I don't think it does.  What's even worse is that my name is getting posted with the "changes" I've made.  Why isn't anyone stopping me?! 
I guess I could have read the directions, but all I wanted to do was to get my living grandmother's predecessors to show up.  I knew her parent's names so I added them, only that made new people who didn't connect to their predecessors.  So, I merged them with the existing id number.  I'm so afraid I am ruining the whole thing.  Somebody is going to hunt me down and did I mention THAT MY NAME IS ON THIS THING NOW?! 
p.s.  I think I know where Malynn's height came from.  Her Great-great Grandpa Rowlett. 

A Pickle

Last year Malynn begged to try out for "Les Mis", the musical that the high school performed.  Subject content and the fact that she would be 10 years old and hanging out with high schoolers led us to say no.
This year she is 11 years old and since she was a lead cast member, hanging out with 8th and 9th graders.  She built friendships that she feels will last for the eternities.  The final show was an emotional one for the actors.  Kids started crying before the play was over and instead of striking the set, they spent an extra hour feeding into their hysteria.  I was there.  It was painful to watch.  Morgan thought something was wrong with him because he couldn't cry.  Malynn worked herself up to a wailing point. 
Now there is a sense of let down.  She wants back in with these older, cooler friends.  Last night we found out that she'd been calling them, not so much covertly, as just failing to mention that she was on the phone.  (She doesn't have a cell phone)
This morning I tried to explain to her why we didn't particularly want her calling these older boys kids.  After I got done giving all of my reasons, she said, "Can I call him tonight?"  Ugh!  Not getting through!
What to do?  Do we let her call these kids and let it slowly die a natural death, even though everything in me is screaming that doesn't make any sense at all?  Do we put a stop to it and give her a better diversion? 
I guess I need to go think diverting thoughts.

I think they call this torture

Soo...... numbers came in and they are not good.  I guess I finally have to admit defeat and give up my sugar loving, hedonistic lifestyle.  I guess.  There's a part of me that is weeping right now at the injustices of mortality. 
My plan for this week is to start upping my water consumption.  I rarely drink, except at meal time when I guzzle down lots of cold milk.  My life plan of wandering around thirsty is apparently "not healthy".  My goal is to drink a glass of water every two hours.  Actually, the goal was to drink one per hour, but life gets in the way and every two hours was feasible this morning.  Not to make light of anything, but so far it feels like water-boarding. 
Who knows what is next?!  Maybe coconut oil pulling.  I read about that the other day.

Items of Business for Today

First things first...
The play!  It was fabulous, with an understanding that these are kids ranging from 11-15 putting on a Broadway level musical.  They really did a wonderful job.  The dances were complicated, the songs numerous, and some of the characters larger than life.  It was nearly 3 hours long, but it was engaging through out.  The girls sat through the whole thing enthralled.
Morgan was the first one on the stage as the curtains opened and the play began.  He played the young prince who turns the enchantress away.  His 'pompous walk' in no way resembled what he showed me a few days ago, and that's a good thing.  As the play progressed, he went on to play in the village scenes as the candle man.  I was really impressed with his dancing.  I didn't know he could do that.  He has a great sense of timing and kept right up with all of the steps.  (He did not get that from his father).  He also came on twice as a wolf, first attacking Maurice and then the Beast.
Malynn was absolutely darling!  She seriously was alit from within, barely containing her grin and her excitement to be there.  I listened to her practice her lines earlier and she knew everyone's-- tone, inflection, etc... she had it down.  Sometimes, during the performance you could see her mouthing the other people's lines. 
I love these kids.  They make me so proud!

This is the 'white cast' during dress rehearsals. 
You'll note that Malynn looks like she is surrounded by giants.  That's because she is so dang short.  They are all standing at the same level on that row.  She really is that small.
That's the second item of business.
We got all of the results back from her growth tests.  She is as normal as can be, except she is in the 1st percentile for girls her age.  The endocrinologist explained that part of the reason why she dropped so drastically from 19 % to not quite 1 % is based mostly on the law of averages.  Girls this age start to grow 5-6 inches per year instead of the 2 inches that they've been doing for most of their lives.  Malynn, though extremely small for her age, is consistently growing those 2 inches per year.  There is nothing that they can do for that since she is not deficient in growth hormones.  Now it's a waiting game.  She may have a growth spurt a little bit later, even though according to her bone age it should be now.  We'll just have to see.  If it doesn't happen, it's okay.  Someday, she will make a 5'3" man super happy.

18 Sheets

Here the rug is: 

18 sheets, torn up into strips.  All the blue sheets Goodwill had to offer in the 3 or so weeks it took me to make it.  It weighs a lot, which is actually kind of good because the weight keeps the rug from slipping around until I can get a thing to put underneath.  It still doesn't cover the whole floor, but I've got to admit I was mighty tired of it by the time I got this far.  I might add on to it when I get up the gumption again.

Trouble

I'm in a first world quandary. I can't find Easter dresses for the girls and I'm getting a little bit worried.  We have gone Costco dresses for years, but there has been no love for them lately by the girls.  The two best things about getting seasonal dresses there is that they are visually delicious and quite affordable.  Alas, the downsides are accumulating.  The dresses either have skin-scraping sequins or uncomfortable seams.  The dresses don't always go up to size 12 for Malynn.  Heidi is so thickly built that I have to get a bigger size to button the top shut, but then the dress is way too long.  (Everything is too long on Malynn, so I can't count that against the dress in particular.)  I have scanned Zulily every day waiting for the right dresses.  Lots of cute dresses, but they either don't have sleeves, are more than I want to spend, and I can't get enough sizes in the same/same-ish style.  Grr!
In the grand scheme of things, not a big deal. 
I could dust off my sewing machine and make some dresses.
I can barely hear you laughing over my own maniacal laughter.

last year's Easter dress-- the only time she wore it

When a little imagination can get you killed

I'm all for imagination.  I spent much of my life living there.  Yesterday, Sophie tested the limits of imagination.  I was simultaneously overjoyed and frightened.
#1.  "Mom!  Come watch me do my new pirate trick!"
I came into her room and found a "rope" tied around one of the blades of the ceiling fan.  "See, I'm going to stand on Ally's bed and grab the rope.  Then I'm going to jump and swing over there.  Isn't that cool?" 
"No.  You're not."
"Crying."
#2.  "Mom, can I borrow one of your big laundry baskets?"
Suspicious "Why?"
"For a new trick."
"Just be careful.  And no swinging on fans!"
A few minutes later.
"Mom, come look at my new trick!"
This time, she'd tied her rope to the laundry basket and slung the rope over the banister with the idea that she would jump from the top of the stairs while holding on to the rope and do a nice swing to the bottom of the staircase, with the laundry basket as the anchor.
"No.  You're not doing this."
"Crying."
#3.  "Mom, look at this cool trick! I found this board and I'm going to make it my plank.  Ally's going to hold one end at the top of the stairs and I'm going to jump off the other end."
"Who are you trying to kill?!  Yourself or your mother?  No more tricks!"
"You hate me and all of my ideas!"
Just the ideas, dear.  This  mother will never inspire her children to new heights.

Can't make it small

When I was on my mission, one of my companions taught me how to crochet.  She taught me the basic stitches and then said I would have to start out with dishrags.  I didn't want to start out with dishrags.  I wanted to make an afghan.  So that's what I did.  It was huge, stretchy, and had various widths.  It was awesome.  (It was later destroyed when I realized how much awesome-er I could do.)
It's not my fault.  It must be a gene and I know exactly where it came from-- my Dad.  Years ago, he took a stained glass class at the community college.  They learned the skills, made their little boxes, and then had a final project to do.  I'm sure most of the students skated by with the least amount of work possible.  Not Dad.  He made two long panels to go on either side of the front door of their house.  They are beautiful and have been a part of that house since I can remember.  The setting sun shines through the browns and reds and casts colored lights on to the floor.  Lovely.  The whole house is full of his beautiful creations.  When he had his sprinkler head accident and his face was so badly damaged, one of the things I worried about was his ability to create more stained glass art (probably the least of his worries).  His eye had to be reset in a new metal cheekbone and the doctors never did get it quite right.  I couldn't believe that he would be able to do the intricate work involved in placing those little pieces of glass just so and then soldering them together.  I underestimated the body's ability to compensate and the drive my dad has to create beautiful things.  It was after the accident that he did my favorite work-- a pair of redwing blackbirds that reside in the window so that one of the first things you notice about the house as you drive down the road (besides the red roof) is that sweet bit of Weiser wildlife designed by my brother and built piece by piece by my dad. 
That isn't where I wanted to go with this post, but it just came out.  That story is an amazing one.  Where I was going kind of pales in significance. 
My sister in law makes darling crocheted rag rugs and has inspired me.  (Sorry, Christi, I can't let you keep this to yourself.)  I made a little one, just to see if I could.  It's okay.  It kind of curls up around the edges.  Our TV room floor is getting hammered by chairs being scraped across it and things getting dropped.  It's looking sad.  To get a rug is cost prohibitive.  So.  Being my father's daughter I have decided that I can make a rug that will protect a whole room.  I should have been taking pictures, but I never remember that part.  It is now just over half the size of our king sized bed and getting very heavy.  I think that's huge, but then when I throw it on the floor downstairs, it looks like a baby blanket.  It already has 7 sheets torn into strips and crocheted together in it.  I have to keep going back to Goodwill to find blue or white sheets.  I don't want to count the times I've had to take rows apart because it has started to ripple.  Back in the beginning when the rug was a mere baby of 1 1/2 x 3 feet, I had to undo the whole thing and start over because my base was wrong and the whole thing couldn't be fixed.  I did use the opportunity to teach Alison about repentance, so I guess there was something good in that, but I felt like crying. 
I'm not sure how much further I can go with it.  I don't know that I can lug it around as it gets bigger.  I don't know if there will be enough white and blue sheets in the greater Maple Valley area.  I'll just keep going until one of us gives out.
P.S.  100% cotton sheets make your hands hurt when you tear them into strips, but the poly/cotton blends do not.
There are a lot of strings created as you tear the fabric into strips.  Have kids handy to strip all of the strings off, like corn silk off of the cob.
Be careful as you pull the strings off.  String cuts like a knife and hurts just as bad.
If you weren't an asthmatic before, breathing in all of the fabric dust will make you one.  I feel for the furry lungs of the people in material factories.
Your husband will not like the constant tearing sound.  Do it while he is away.
Roll your fabric strips as you go along.  If you get too much built up, it is like untying your kid's shoelace after they let a fellow 2nd grader tie them and then quadruple knot them.
It really is better to take it apart when you notice something going wrong that to keep going, hoping it will resolve itself.

Shortly

The concern has been building gradually as a certain little someone has been growing less and less gradually.  Or would that be more and more gradually?  Whatever means that she's not growing is the one I'm conveying here.  Last year, Malynn was at 19% height for her age group.  Now she's not even on the chart at 4' 4 3/4".  Sophie is taller than her by more than an inch and Alison is only 1 1/2 inches shorter. 
I don't want to be a nervous nelly mother, but we've decided to start the ball rolling to see if something is going on here.  Her parental median growth chart puts her at 5'6".  Ha!  I'd like to see her reach 5 feet, but that's a whole 7 inches from where she is now, with only two more years in the average girl's growing period.  That kind of growth needs some super high wedge shoes and a miracle. 
They did an x-ray of her hand today to check for bone age, which can be different from the actual age (I bet that makes paleontology hard).  Next she has to get blood work up done to test for anything from hormonal imbalances to Celiac's disease.  We'll have to wait and see where all of this takes us.  I'm not even sure we would do something drastic if it came down to it.  (Malynn asked me today if they would give her surgery to make her spine longer.  Uh.... no.)
It's not all bad.  I think if people (and her overbearing mother) would stop commenting on it, she would be just fine emotionally.  She has a HUGE personality and can fill a space just by being in it.  She's always, and quite literally, looked up to everyone around her and I think it's become the norm for her.  She was a shoe in to play Chip in the local school production of Beauty and the Beast.  And as we all know, big things come in small packages. 

 

There May Be Hope

You know I love to bake.  I know I love to bake.  What you may not know is that I hate to make and bake sugar cookies.  They are a recipe of patience and endurance.  I have yet to meet a sugar cookie that is worth all of that effort.
Until yesterday. 
I've had this recipe in my printed off recipe notebook for awhile.  It looked interesting.... for a sugar cookie.  Amazing results were promised.
I cleaned my kitchen yesterday and thought I might as well do something else I hate for those I love on Valentines Day.  So, I pulled out the notebook and started making cookies.
(I've never been to this particular bakery, but the cookies are a Swig Sugar Cookie copy.  I tried to find the place I found the recipe from, but can't.)
They are delicious.  And well worth the little bit of effort it takes to make them.  No chilling, no rolling out, no cookie cutters.  They are my kind of sugar cookie.  I got 4 dozen cookies, but must admit to eating a fair amount of the dough and made the cookies kind of big, so maybe 4-5 dozen per batch.

Swig Sugar Cookies
1 c butter softened
3/4 c vegetable oil
1 1/4 c sugar
3/4 c powdered sugar
2 T water
2 eggs
Cream ingredients together.  In a separate bowl mix together these ingredients:
5 1/2 c flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cream of tarter
1/2 tsp baking soda
Add to the creamed mixture.  Mix until well combined-- it will be dry and not sticky.  Roll in to golf ball sized ball and place on a cookie sheet.  In a bowl, put 1/4 c sugar and a pinch of salt.  Dip a cup with a small bottom into the sugar and press down the dough ball, leaving a bit of a ridge on the cookie and crumbly looking edges.  Bake at 350 for 8 minutes.  (My cookies were kind of thick.  I found that 9 minutes was better and didn't over bake them.)  Cool
Frosting:
1/2 c butter, softened
3/4 c sour cream
1 tsp salt
powdered sugar
milk
Cream together the butter, sour cream, and salt.  Add the powdered sugar and milk if you need to to get the right frosting consistency.  (I found that I didn't need to add any milk). 
Keep the frosting at room temperature.  To make the cookies legitimate Swig cookies, the cookie is supposed to be cold and the frosting room temp.  My cookies have been out on the counter all night-- the frosting is set and still good.  I haven't died from eating one at breakfast.

Hope springs eternal!  If there is a sugar cookie worth the baking, maybe there are other miracles yet to be seen!

Today I Made a Chocolate Cake

Six years ago, minus a day, I was in a race.  A friend of mine was due with her baby a week after mine was due, but was scheduled for a C-section a week before Arianne Claire was to make her appearance.  This was my 5th pregnancy and I was d.o.n.e., done.  I asked my O.B if I could get induced on the due date.  She didn't like it, but agreed.  Her nurse misunderstood and actually scheduled the birth for 10 days before the due date.  I quietly sauntered out of the office, grinning.  I was going to win the race. 
Dan and I showed up at the office on the 5th of February, 2008.  The doctor stripped my membranes and gave me whatever drug it is that starts labor.  We went to the hospital.  I have a life policy of having as little pain as possible, so was immediately plugged in to the i.v. and epidural.  You'd think after having 4 babies, this would have been a cinch.  Alas, it was not.
Arianne was not done baking and refused to come out.  The world would be cold and cruel and she was very content where she was in her sunnyside up position.  The nurses came and went.  One adjusted the monitor and lost the baby's heart beat and panicked.  They lowered the Pitocin.  I labored all night. 
At six the next morning, the O.B. came in and chastised us all for starting an epidural and because labor had lasted so long, if the baby wasn't born by 8, I was getting a C-section.  We had a hardy little Asian nurse.  She kept giggling because I was so very white and she couldn't get over it.  Despite that, she was a tough little cookie.  With every contraction, she would reach up and adjust the baby and pull her down. 
The O.B. was called back in shortly before 8 am.  Arianne was born soon thereafter.  Only, it wasn't Arianne, because Dan pulled his trick of changing everything while I was in my post-delivery euphoria.  He wanted the name Heidi.  I was adamant that we stick with the middle name of Claire until I said "Heidi Claire" and knew it could not be.  We settled on Shay. 

Heidi has been a blessing.  She is fairly even keeled and can be just fun to be around.  I've been going through my Facebook comments journal and finding little gems about her that I'd forgotten.  Like how she was terrified of broken things, but couldn't walk away from them.  Like how we never thought she would grow any hair.  Or the time she fell asleep with her sweet baby hands cupping my face.  Or when she yelled at me from the tub and said she couldn't feel her feet and when I came to check on her, her feet were hidden under a washcloth.  Or how about the time she was coloring during Sacrament meeting and realized that the little circles she'd drawn on the page looked like poop, so she yelled, "Oh my gosh!  He's poopin' out his butt!"  What about the time she told me to lay on the sidewalk so she could trace me with chalk and then drew wiggly stink lines coming from my pits and bottom regions?  Or what about her 'flying shirt' and how every time she put it on she zoomed through the house flapping its wings? 
These pictures are from our photo shoot in December.  I love this little lady.

Maybe You've Heard This Story (It's long and you might have to take a break and come back)

It all began with my mission exit interview with my mission president (February 6th, 1995).  The last 6 months of my mission were very, very hard.  I did not like or respect this particular man-- he had come in and turned a mission that loved its Sister missionaries into a place where we struggled.  I was more than ready to go home and lick my perceived wounds and move on with my life.  As a parting sentiment from our interview, he shot out, "Don't be surprised if you don't get married for three years."  Right there he cemented years of righteous indignation.
The next installment of the story started with one of my best friends at BYU.   She had planned her entire life to go on a mission, so when she neared her 21st birthday, she didn't continue her apartment contract-- didn't do any of the things a student would regularly do to get ready for the next semester.  Then her birthday came and she suddenly felt like she shouldn't go on a mission.  Her bishop told her that he felt the same prompting.  No reason, just should not go.  It was heartbreaking for her.  She had to scramble and find a new place to live.
She moved into King Henry Apartments over in the section of Provo that for whatever reason, hosts the more elderly of BYU students.  I lived one complex over in my own elderly domain.  That happened at the end of summer term 1997.
I was graduating in December of 1997.  I had been at BYU for nearly three years.  I had so many friends, most of them from work, and most of them 4 years younger than me.  These friends were distraught that I was leaving Provo unwed, much less never having dated because of my job (custodial 5-9 at night).  There was a sense of panic in them and I suddenly was set up with anyone and everyone they could think of.  One of my 18 year old co-workers confided in me that I was a catch.  Not because I was spectacular or anything, but because as a graduate, I could get a good job and support my husband as he went through school.  That boy was a thinker, and obviously a planner.  (I wonder if he found his own post mission college graduate.)
It was the week before Thanksgiving and my friend from King Henry said that she knew someone that she wanted me to go on a date with.  She said that we were both old and nice and that it would be fun.  She liked one of his roommates, so we could have a double date.  It was all set up.  We would have a late-ish dinner (I'd have to get off of work early) and watch a movie. 
Funny.  My aunt that lived in Dugway, UT stopped by that day-- I can't even remember why.  I met her on the back dock of the Benson building (work) and we talked for a little bit.  I mentioned my blind date.  We laughed and she said, "Maybe this is the one."  We laughed again, because it really was that funny. 
So, the date.  The first thing I remember thinking as Dan answered the door was, "Wow!  That's a man!"  (Keep in mind that all of my friends, boys and girls were significantly younger than me.)  He had spices in his hands and he kept dropping them as he tried to juggle them back and forth.  We had mashed potatoes (sans gravy because my friend didn't like gravy, but now I know was a sacrifice for Dan because he loves gravy) and chicken.  I'm sure there was a vegetable and dessert, but I don't remember that part.  I think we watched "Volcano" and pretty sure we made fun of the ending.  Dan kept getting up from the couch where we sat and sitting down closer to me when he returned.  (In his mind, he remembers me always scooching over closer so that when he sat down, I was already there.  He's wrong.)  I did, however, covertly reach under my folded arm and touch his sweater.  It was a Benson Building myth:  touch your date three times and you will get a second date.  Why not?  I was leaving in a month!  Besides, I had never had a second date with anyone (except my pretty crappy pre-mission boyfriend who was , did I mention, pretty crappy?). 
The date ended the way all of my dates had.  This was fun.  We should do it again. 
I went on with my life for the next week.  Home for Thanksgiving and the annual family grilling as to why I was still unattached.  Came back and two weekends later, Dan asked me to the Michael Mclean "Forgotten Carols".  I had written him off as a promise not intended to be kept.  There may have been squealing on my part-- not about the concert, fyi.  It turned out that the weekend after Thanksgiving his best friend's (from home) Dad had died and he was with the family.  It also was almost a promise not kept.  He asked a co-worker to go with him first and she turned him down.  That's me.  Second choice.  It's okay, though, because I wasn't sure that there could be anything.  I was leaving in three weeks. 
We dated for  the three weeks.  I was mean and confusing.  I did stick out my hand for a handshake and scooch in the door before he could kiss me, which he had thought about.  I did not speak to him for an entire date as we sat on a little flat boat and toured somebody's Christmas decorated slough.  It was really cold, so that could have been the reason, but I think it was more the confusion that I was feeling.  Then, to make up for that, I got up early the next morning and made cinnamon rolls for him.  I took time out of my packing and cleaning whirlwind to crochet him a scarf and gave it to him.  He gave me yellow roses.  Then I left.
At home I was kicking myself.  My mom joined in.  She was looking at a forecast of never having grandchildren at this rate and her clock was ticking.  My younger sister by four years was going to be the first of us married in January, but the older three of us were no where near marriage.  I called Dan to wish him a Merry Christmas, but of course he was home with his family and didn't get the message until later in the week.  He called and told me this story about how his friend had invited him up to Boise to check out a job, but that he needed a new place to stay since his friend was newly married and he wouldn't feel comfortable staying with them (enter the Molnars).  At which point, my eavesdropping mother started directing the "Hallelujah Chorus" and said he could stay as long as he liked. 
Dan brought enough clothes to stay for a week with the idea that he could leave at any point.  He stayed for a week.  We took him out to the beaver dam and walked across it to the island in the Snake River we like to play on.  He spent a day in Boise with Christian and then we spent a day in Boise.  On the way home, I had to know the ending of the story.  (I admit to sometimes reading the ending of a book early, just to make sure I'm right, but only if the book gets boring or the characters start acting stupidly) It was a pretty silent ride from Boise to Weiser.  The halfway point is a sign marked for the Nyssa, OR exit.  That was it.  I would ask him there, if he hadn't said anything before. 
We had a nice conversation that ended with us smooching in the parking lot for Feltham Growers.  He thinks that he initiated the kiss.  He may have thought about it, but was wasting way too much time.  I got myself where I needed to be and he finally took care of the rest. 
There we were.  January 1998.  What to do?  Do I move back to Provo?  Do we conduct a long distance relationship?  Dan didn't want the responsibility for my moving back to Utah.  I wasn't willing to be 7 hours apart.  I moved back.  I got a new apartment and went back to work at the Benson building.  We dated.  And smooched.  Quite satisfactorily.
February 4, 1998.  Dan had a big date planned.  We were going out to Salt Lake (the actual lake) and then coming in to listen to the youth symphony practice or something.  He was so weird. I kept thinking as we slipped through the sludge of the beach at the lake that he was going to kill me out there and bury my body in briny slime. 
It was dark by the time we got to Temple Square.  We had to go into a bathroom and clean up because our feet were encased in black ooze.  He took forever in the bathroom and came out more weird than before.  He took me to the Lotus fountain, and handed me a frame.  In it was a poem that he had written as a high school student that he had saved all of his life to give to the girl he was going to marry.  While I read it, he got down on one knee and proposed.  There in the dark and cold at the foot of the temple, with a lighted water feature playing in the background, the Williams family that you know now, agreed to be. 
That's why this day is special to me.
And darn it!  President Munns was right.