Vote For Us!

One of my new favorite websites (powerofmoms.com) is holding a photo contest of images of motherhood. Voting takes place now through Friday, February 22nd. I submitted five photos (picasa only lets me put 4 here but the other one of us is obvious). Would you mind voting? You can vote for five pictures. Please cast your vote for your favorites (we hope it includes us).

Thanks.

Teaching Responsibility

I love my mom and dad. I think they did a good job raising me and teaching me the difference between right and wrong. Now that I'm a parent I often look at a situation and find myself remembering how they would have responded. They taught me about being responsible.
Yesterday in Young Women's we had a lesson on order and fulfilling your responsibilities in the home. I was reminded of an experience from first grade (or maybe it was kindergarten...I don't think so but I can't say for sure) that shows one way my parents taught me (from a young age) to fulfill my responsibilities and shows how dedicated they were to following through. I've been impressed that it needs to be written down. So here goes...

I must have made it a habit of being late for the bus, which meant someone would have to drive me to school. We lived about 1.5 miles from my elementary school and about half a mile of that was a dirt path across a field. My parents wanted to make the point that it was my responsibility to be on time to the bus. So as the story goes, I was told that if I was late again I'd have to walk to school. Now to a first grader a mile and a half is really far. But even then, I was late one more day. So, I had to walk to school.

Now before you judge my parents you must know that my Dad followed me the whole way. He walked his bike along side me (so he could then ride the mile and half home). I think I remember crying a lot. I also remember thinking I was going to be sooooo tardy and feeling ashamed of that.

You know, I don't think I missed the bus again.

Christmas 2009

Just finished this super fun collection of our family's Christmas memories.
I started off the month and decided to take a picture a day that I'd put into a layout. Some days I forgot and other had a gazillion pictures. So choosing was the hardest part. Here are the best of the best.

Some memories of this past Christmas:
- F learning to crawl
- M very ready to sit on Santa's lap and ask for a purple toothbrush (He readily obliged)
- Daddy's papers, finals, & organ jury
- Playing with the Little People Nativity (Mary disappeared early in the month and we didn't find her until the day after we packed up all the Christmas decorations...'Sarah' was happy enough to stand in)
- Pooh-pooh popsicles
- A little snow storm
- Lots of different crafts
- M crawling into F's crib when he wakes up
- M making a gingerbread house at preschool
- Daddy finishing finals just before the blizzard
- the Blizzard of 2009
- Decorating the tree
- Sacrament meeting at our house
- Digging out
- Building Mommy's first really tall snowman
- Sledding in our side yard on Christmas day (Little F too)
- M loving wrapping presents (our baby Jesus was wrapped and disappeared under the tree early in the month)
- mix-mixing lots of fabulous goodies (white christmas chex mix, fudge, english toffee, & cookies)
- Leaving clam chowder for Santa
- M kept talking about needing to go to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus and needing to "go up" to him...so we went to the Visitor's Center

Inside her head

As we drove up to the library today this is what M said:

M: The library is safe.

Mommy: What?

M: The library is safe from the big bad wolf.

Mommy (after looking at the library and realizing it's made of brick): Oh, the library is safe from the big bad wolf because it's made of bricks.

M: Uh-huh.

Mommy: Ok.