Karaoke with Hyrum

Hyrum and I were a bit bored this afternoon, so we played around on Singsnap.com.

Walking is good

So my visiting teaching companion and I have been walking together for 5 or so months. We used to walk every morning. Now that it is getting colder, and our 2 year olds are trying to give up their naps, we've moved our walk time to 1 pm. And we only walk several times a week. Well, this was our first week walking at our new time and this is the result of the walk:

They slept until 3:30!

Yesterday, it wasn't raining (on our walk, it rained all morning, though), the sun was shining, the wind was blowing (but not too hard). And this was the result:

I had to wake them up at 4:00!

If this keeps up, I can guarantee that we'll be walking ALL winter long!

God Loves ALL His Children -- including me!

"Coincidence is not an appropriate word for an omniscient God. He doesn't do things by coincidence but instead by divine design." - Elder Neal A. Maxwell (from his BYU Devotional address "Brim With Joy" given 1/26/1996)

One example:

Friday night was our Ward Temple night. I planned ahead and got us a babysitter booked on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I didn't get my backwards time planning correct (how you figure out what time to pick up the babysitter so you can get out the door on time to get to your destination in time), so we didn't make it into the 7 pm session with the rest of our ward (I didn't factor in the fact that the Temple is CROWDED on Friday nights). We got our cards for the 7:30 pm session and went to get ready. I arrived in the chapel before Ryan did; the front row was being reserved for people going through the Temple for the first time (I like sitting on the front row); the second row was pretty full as well, so I sat on the aisle of the third row. I was feeling quite grumpy that we weren't in the earlier session and we were going to miss out on the dessert get-together afterwards at the Englehorn's. I tried to read in 3 Nephi where Christ is in America to get my spirits lifted - it didn't work. I tried to focus on the hymns being played - I got distracted by the fact that a person wasn't playing them, the organ was playing by itself. I got annoyed when they removed half of the reserved cards from the front row, but I didn't want to move up there. So here I was, in the Temple, feeling grumpy about the situation and feeling annoyed that I even felt this way. A few minutes before we were to go to the Endowment room, a temple worker came up to us and asked if we were married. Then he asked if we'd be the witness couple. We said yes and moved up to the front row. A huge wave of relief came over me and I knew that God loves ME!

Another case to ponder:

My little brother stopped communicating with the family in August. No one heard from him. His cell phone was disconnected. He didn't reply to e-mail. When Dad sent him a letter to his apartment, it came back 'return to sender', with a forwarding address requested and it came back with a Kansas address. Well, two weeks ago, he called me. He needed some clarification on who he was supposed to give to for Christmas this year. (By the way, if you need a computer to randomly assign names for the members in your family to give gifts to, Ryan wrote a script that is pretty awesome!) I told him how much we were all worried about him, not knowing where he was, what he was doing, etc. He said he was doing much better now, but he wasn't ready to let us know what his location was or what he was doing. He wouldn't give me his phone number. He did say that he'd come to my house for Thanksgiving, since I'm hosting the Thanksgiving dinner this year. Mom and Dad were happy that I heard from him, but still worried about him. Well, last week, he called Mom and Shanda, Keturah, and others. He told Mom that the missionaries tracted him out and invited him to come back to church. I told Mom (and my little brother when he called me later in the week) that the missionaries finding him shouts to me that Heavenly Father really does care about each of his children and answers their prayers. I am sure that Mom and Dad prayed for him all the time, just like they do for the rest of us. They didn't know where he was, but Heavenly Father did, and He sent in members of His army to find him. And they did! It brings new meaning to the words in a prayer often heard to send the missionaries to find those who are 'pure in heart' and 'ready to listen and embrace the Gospel'.

Was it a coincidence that the missionaries tracted out my brother? Was it a coincidence that on the night that I needed a reminder of what is really important about my Temple service, we got asked to move to the front row, and serve as the witness couple? No. It is all a part of His divine design. He loves me AND He loves you, too!

A Historic Day

It truly is a historic day. With 53% of the popular vote, Barack Obama is now the President-Elect of the United States of America. He didn't get my vote, or Ryan's, or Sabrina's (in her GATE class poll). I find it interesting that the last time a sitting senator was voted President of the USA was JFK in 1960. They both had a perceived hurdle to overcome with the voters - Kennedy being a Roman Catholic and Obama being African-American. They both can wow crowds with their speeches. I sure hope that the similarities end there and JFK's end doesn't happen to Mr. Obama. I also find it extremely BORING that the Vice President-elect is also a sitting senator. As luck would have it, though, we shouldn't be hearing much from him.

I was listening to Talk of the Nation today on NPR and one of the commentators was saying how he heard on CNN someone talking about Govenor Palin being a top contender for the GOP nomination in 2012 and he thought, "Wait, this election was just yesterday, it's too early for 2012." And all I say to that is, remember the Democratic National Convention in 2004? Right after Mr. Obama gave his stirring speech, the network news guys were saying that he was the up-and-coming member of the Democratic party. And a few minutes later, he was sitting down with a network news anchor who asked him about a run for the president in 2008. Mr. Obama replied that it was John Kerry's convention and he wouldn't say anything about it. I think the media has been in love with the idea of Mr. Obama being the president since they first heard him talk.

But I digress. This election has pushed Ryan over the edge. He has started a blog. You can check it out here. Like I said, it truly is a historic day.

Synonym Girl, Firefighter and Cookie Monster

I am not a fan of Halloween. In fact, I find it hard to believe when someone tells me that Halloween is their 2nd favorite holiday of the whole year. I say, "What? It beats out Thanksgiving? Easter? The 4th of July? Really?" This most likely is due to my upbringing. We didn't celebrate Halloween. I never wore a costume. During Elementary school, my mom would check us out of school before the Costume parade and class party. I never went trick or treating. I never handed out candy. We never carved pumpkins. We had a pretty good tradition, though. We'd go out to dinner or see a movie. I think we saw "Condorman" and "The Man from Snowy River" on those occasions. When our family size increased, and Dad's salary decreased, we would turn off all the lights at our house, chain our black dog to the front porch and watch videos on a rented VCR. Ah, those were the days.

Our ward had a Trunk or Treat activity on the 30th. I was seriously thinking of not going, but then a young man in our ward working on his eagle project, requested that we bring cans of food for the food bank, so that gave me an excuse to go. I bought the bulk candy from Winco and gave out as much as we got back. (We then gave out that candy on Halloween -- it's not bad to re-give halloween candy, is it?)

One thing I like about halloween is the costumes. Here is the collection of the costumes I've made for us over the years.





Spiders (1998) This was my first time making a costume. We had help from Ryan's parents in that they gave us the sweatshirts and socks to use.














Flowers (1999)

Ryan was a Black-eyed Susan,
Sabrina was a Daisy and
I was an Impatiens.





We were flowers again in 2000.





Royal Family (2001)

Ryan was King Stephan,
I was his Queen (she has no name) and
Sabrina was Sleeping Beauty.





I have no pictures from Halloween 2002. I was recovering from jaw surgery, though. Maybe we didn't celebrate that year...






Tinkerbell (2003)








Fauna (2004) We reused the tinkerbell costume and made a green cape and hat so Sabrina could be the fairy Fauna from "Sleeping Beauty." No surviving pictures.





Mary Poppins (2005) OK, so I only made the hat for this costume, but that was a lot of work, and new material to work with. Do you know what buckram is? Or what it is used for?

I bought the Penguin costume from disney.com for $8 when I was expecting in early 2003. I've used it now for both Roderic and Hyrum. Both cried while wearing it.










Sir Topham Hatt (2006)

Sabrina made herself a Rocket Ship, complete with a fuel tank hole for her candy to get put into.






Sabrina was diagnosed with Pneumonia on Halloween 2007, so we didn't go out. Instead of going to the ward party the Saturday before, we went to the Meridian Symphony concert. She was going to be Maria from "The Sound of Music", Roderic would have been a firefighter and Hyrum would have worn the penguin costume.




Cookie Monster (2008)














Pinkie Pie Pony (2008)

My neighbor buys her girls' costumes on clearance the year before, so her 3 year old should have been Blue from Blues Clues, but she didn't want to be Blue, she wanted to be a My Little Pony. I offered to make the costume for her, complete with the balloon embroidery on the backside using Stacy's machine.






M&M Cookie (2008)

Cookie Monster needed a cookie to go with him.










And if you don't know who Synonym Girl is, you'll just have to ask Sabrina!