LDS Women

There has been a lot of discussion lately about women in the church and "equality."  I thought this article was really interesting and rather eye opening. It's long, but definitely worth the read.

http://mormonscholarstestify.org/1718/valerie-hudson-cassler

P.S. Sassy, do you remember her from the WRI?

P.P.S. Thanks to Cougarboard for the link. I don't know where they find this stuff.

Lauren Story

Yesterday, Preston and I were both standing in the kitchen when Lauren walked in, pulled open the junk drawer and grabbed....a handful of chocolate chips.

We don't usually keep the chocolate chips in the junk drawer, but she had pulled a stool into the pantry, found an unopened bag of chocolate chips, and cut them open with the scissors in the junk drawer.

We keep the scissors somewhere else now.

Weekend Updates

1. I drew a picture of the layout of our house (just like we used to do during General Conference) because apparently, the kids' pictures don't give you a very good idea of what it's like. It is definitely NOT drawn to scale, especially the upstairs. The office/3rd br is much smaller and the kids' room is much bigger.

2. Can you guess what this is a picture of?

3. I forgot to list another of Lauren's current interests in my previous post:  knitting. She often uses her sunglasses to knit me sweaters while we're driving. They're always blue because she knows that's my favorite color and she's thoughtful like that.

To You from Whitman

 

A few words about our house:  It is old and has some definite quirks, which, depending on my mood, are either charming or super annoying. We find ourselves frequently cursing the previous owners for their laziness and lack of maintenance and cleaning.  But, we are glad to have it. I haven't taken any pictures of the house, but here are a few the kids took.

 

A few words about our town:  We love it. We can walk to the (really nice) town park, the library, the post office, any of the downtown businesses, the train station, and even some members' homes. Target is less than ten minutes away and we have TWO Wendy's within ten minutes. Our neighbors are nice and our street is quiet.  Fun fact:  Whitman is the birthplace of the Tollhouse cookie.  Another fun fact: It is not named after Walt Whitman. Interestingly, this poem? I wrote in fourth grade still applies.

A few words about Preston:  He is doing fine. His work is going well, he enjoys working with the young men, and for some reason, continues to pay very close attention to BYU football.

A few words about Lauren:  The newest four-year-old in the family is full of energy and knows her own mind. She started preschool last week and loves it. She also enjoys Primary. Her current interests include rainbows, maps, writing long strings of letters and asking me what it spells, and drawing pictures of our family (standing under a rainbow). She hasn't worn shorts once this summer and I can't remember the last time she wore jeans. It's a skirt or dress or nothing. She is approaching two years of wanting to read Goldilocks and the Three Bears every single night. Her favorite places to go are the park, Ikea (45 minutes of free babysitting!), and the mall.

A few words about Andrew:  He is still so, so cute and so sweet. Andrew REALLY likes dogs. He never misses one if we are out for a walk or at the park or in the yard. He also likes watching Dog with a Blog and knows exactly which of his books have dogs in them.  A few days ago, Preston asked Lauren who Andrew's best friend was. She said his best friend was Mayzie. His love of dogs inspired our new widget. People comment everywhere we go on how blond his hair is and how cute he is.

 That's the scoop from around here. Come visit us sometime!

May

My goal for May was to do fun things with the kids. Because honestly, I would rather stay home most days and let the kids play quietly with their toys and then watch while they put them all neatly away, and just do small outings close to home, like the park or the library.  But the reality is that the kids get bored at home, they don't play independently very well, the house becomes a disaster zone, and we all get on each other's nerves if we stay home too much. So I tried to do some fun things and I think I succeeded.

We went to zoo - twice! I even took some pictures. I also got a free adult pass for taking a survey about my experience so we can go again!

 

We also went to the beach a few times and went to some playgroups, as well as the park. I think I did as well as I could with a baby who still naps twice a day and an exhausting three year old.

Andrew continues to be cute.

He also continues to have crazy hair.

 



 

Lauren went to the dentist this month, who told me that it's time to crack down on the thumb sucking. It went well for a couple of days. It's not going so well anymore.

 

When Lauren gets bored, she likes to take the camera and tell me, "I'm gonna take a lot of pictures of Andrew."  She also takes some artistic shots of herself, like this one.

This is a picnic Lauren prepared for us one day. On the menu: English muffins, strawberry jam, three grapes, and a raw egg.  Yum.

Twenty Questions

Lauren is an inquisitive child, which is always (usually) fun. Below are twenty questions she has asked over the past few days.

1. Are monkeys cute?
2. Are ducklings cute?
3. Are boys people?
4. Can you put on some carousel music?
5. How do you make a lowercase 2?
6. Does Afton live far away?
7. What do bugs eat?
8. What does bicycle start with?
9. What o'clock is it?
10. Does McDonald's cost money?
11. Is bacon healthy for our bodies?
12. Do fairies make rainbows?
13. What do elephants eat?
14. What do birds eat?
15. What do mouses eat?
16. What do pteranodons eat? 
17. What color is poop?
18. What do prentzels taste like?
19. Do dogs have mouths?
20. What does stepsisters mean?

 

 

Numbers 3 and 5 are my personal favorites.  There is never a dull moment with Lauren around.

Photo Shoot

Lauren decided to practice her photography skills on Andrew last week.


She started while he was still asleep.

Then he woke up.

And thought it was fun.

But it got old fast.

Real old.

He is such a trooper.

And he also has awesome hair.

Real Life

• Over the past 10 days, Andrew has experienced vomiting, a double ear infection, a baaaaad diaper rash, and three teeth coming in at once. This kid is in rough shape.

 

 
 

• Lauren ate two and a half bananas yesterday. She had some sliced banana with her french toast for breakfast; then, shortly after breakfast, I noticed another banana was missing and so was Lauren.  The toes sticking out of the coat closet gave her away. The stinker was eating a banana in the closet. Then, after dinner, Lauren walked into the living room chewing something. I asked her what she was eating and she said broccoli. The broccoli smelled a lot like banana and she had left the evidence right on the counter.  Are we the only parents who have to discipline their child for eating too much fruit?

• Andrew has taken to rising at 5 am. If he is not already in bed with us, I bring him into bed hoping against hope that he'll want to snuggle back down for some more sleep. After 20 minutes of him climbing all over me and pinching my neck, I give up and get up.
• Lauren had her own episode of throwing up on Saturday night, which led to her coming into our bedroom at midnight saying she needed to sleep with us. Andrew joined her at 3. It was crowded. And unpleasant. And anything but restful. I feel more tired now than I did after Andrew was born.
• Last Thursday I took the kids to Target. As we were pulling out, something about the car seemed weird, and after we got onto the road, I knew something was wrong. I pulled into the closest place I could, which happened to be an Ace Hardware, and sure enough, a flat tire. I had managed to leave home without my cell phone, so I did the only thing I could: went inside and asked someone to "help" me change the tire. I helped by sitting inside the store with the kids while a nice young man changed the tire for me. That was fun.

• Yesterday I asked Lauren if she wanted a mini-pizza for lunch (on an English muffin). She said yes, "and Andrew can have a Mickey pizza."

That's real life around here lately. What's going on with you?

January Recap and February Challenge

Did January seem like a really long month to anyone else? ;)

We declared No-Sugar January officially over on January 28th when we were out of everything (including grocery money) and had to make an emergency run to the store for the cheapest jar of peanut butter and jelly. That also happened to be the same day a box arrived with heart-shaped cookies and other sugary sweets. It's tradition for me to eat my whole cookie as soon as it arrives, and well, tradition is tradition.

I am glad we did this. I didn't notice any drastic improvements in our health, but we weren't completely sugar free either - I continued making our regular bread recipe which has some sugar and we had birthday cake with Uncle Bud and dessert when a family invited us over for dinner. Ideally, that's how it should be - desserts as a rare thing on special occasions and few sweets otherwise, but it's rather alarming how quickly we've fallen back into old habits.  If nothing else, it was good for me to have to say no to Lauren every time she asked for cupcakes, chocolate, chocolate milk, muffins, etc.   Going completely sugar free forever would be really hard -  I don't plan on ever doing that but we really do need to be careful, so we will continue trying to practice moderation, probably failing, and then trying again.  That's life, right?

Our goal for February is to track all of our expenses and account for every penny. We have done this on and off through the years, but really fell off the bandwagon last year - it was a rough year financially. But now that Preston has steady work and we are looking to eventually buy a home and pay off debt, it is more important than ever. We got a head start last month, so it should be easy! 

Below is a recipe for a cookie-like treat that tasted really good when we were not eating sugar.


Banana Date Cookies

• 3 bananas
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups rolled oats

Instructions

Mash bananas, leaving some pieces. Add chopped dates and oil. Beat with a fork.  Add remaining ingredients, mix lightly. Let stand a few minutes for oatmeal to absorb moisture. Drop from spoon on ungreased cookie sheet. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake 25 minutes or until nicely browned. Loosen with spatula and let cool on cookie sheet.

Read more at http://www.favehealthyrecipes.com/Cookies/Banana-Date-Oatmeal-Cookies#7iWcqq1Yq6hBLT5b.99

Thankfully, we are not homeless...

...but it's good to know that if we ever end up on the streets, Lauren will be comfortable.

Challenge 2013: January

The challenge: January's challenge is to go all month without eating sugar. That includes any form of sugar, including "natural" sugars like honey and maple syrup, and definitely includes artificial sweeteners, which we really never eat anyway.  We're doing this challenge family style, within reason (ie, I'm not policing what Preston eats at work or telling Lauren she has to say no if someone offers her fruit snacks at a playdate).

Why am I doing this?   We eat a lot of sugar. Too much. We're not very good at just eating one cookie or keeping ice cream in the freezer for more than 48 hours, plus if you start reading labels it's amazing much sugar is in even "healthy" foods. I'm hoping that this challenge helps calm our sweet tooths and resets our palates. Mostly, I just want to prove that I can do it. I'm also interested to see what, if any, effect it has on our health. I haven't really been feeling well for a while and I wonder if eating better will help with that. In addition, I'm interested (hoping) to see if it will have an effect on Lauren's behavior (you can laugh here if you want).

What will we eat?  I have a list of of meal and snack ideas that don't involve sugar. I actually don't think it will be that hard, for me anyway.  By noon today Lauren had already asked for Old McDonald's, a donut, chocolate chips, and chocolate milk, which only served to confirm that this challenge is very needed. I think it will be more about changing habits, like walking through the kitchen and grabbing a handful of chocolate chips just because they are there, and staying occupied in other pursuits.

I'll report back at the end of the month. What are you resolving to do this year?