Happy Halloween From the Fire Department

This year we decided to go as the Fire Department. Ok, Ivan is wearing a monkey suit, but we decided that he could be the fire monkey. (Is that like a rally monkey? sure.) We decked Lincoln's Radio Flyer out to look like a fire truck. It took us until 1:30 Friday night, but the results made it worth it. We were pretty proud of ourselves. 

Try as we might we could not fit all four of us in the wagon. But we could get three.

We trick or treated at Aaron's Aunt Debby and Uncle Richard's house. Yes, we loaded the wagon/firetruck into the back of the van just to take it to that one house so they could see. :)  Then we headed over to our ward's trunk-or-treat. Aaron took the boys around in the wagon while I passed out candy. It was fun. We won a prize (a piece of paper) for having the "most original" costume. Yay for us!!

We are also happy to note, that for the first time in three years, everyone on Aaron's side of the family made it through Halloween night safe and sound, with no injuries or surgeries to speak of. Good job Swans, let's keep it up. :)

Spread the Word

My sister-in-law, Lisa, is a person I look up to a lot. She just seems to have it all together, and accomplishes so much with her family. She homeschools her four kids, and writes articles for homeschooling websites. Recently she decided to start a blog that explores ideas about education. Not so much educational philosophy or different curriculum, but more in depth about wisdom and learning, and what they really are and how we achieve them.

She asked me if I would like to be an author on the sight with her. I took it as such a great compliment. I don't know that I have much to contribute, I hope I do, but, I really felt honored that she wanted me to team up with her on this. 

Anyways, my faithful blog readers, I'm asking for your support on this. The address is http://wisdomspath.blogspot.com just take a look and see what you think. If you like it, share the address with your friends. We're excited about the site and the things it's trying to explore and would really like to get the word out about it.

B Day

Today was "B" Day at my friend Suzy's house. We colored pictures of school buses, sang wheels on the bus, played with balloons, pointed out that there were two babies in the room, made bumblebees out of small balloons and those fuzzy tube things (what are they called?), blew bubbles, and took bites of bread and butter for our snack.

We had a great time! My favorite was the balloon bumblebee. I think it was Lincoln's favorite too, because he carried it around with him everywhere he went. It's always fun to see the creative ideas that other people come up with.

Next week it will be my turn again for "C". Any ideas?

Families Really Are Forever

Last night Aaron and my mom and I had an awesome experience. But let me start at the beginning.

A week or so ago, a friend in the ward offered to babysit my kids so Aaron and I could go to the temple. We arranged for it to be Tuesday night. We were just going to do a normal session. Then, I found out that next Sunday I am teaching a lesson on getting excited about family history work in Sunday School. So, I decided that since Aaron and I had gotten really into family history right before Ivan was born that I would go back and look through some of our stuff.

While doing so, I stumbled across the new family search sight. (www.new.familysearch.org) I've been hearing a ton about this sight forever, because they had just launched it in our Texas stake right before we left, but they hadn't gotten it going in Utah yet. Well it's AWESOME!!! Within five minutes of registering for the sight, I had 10 names ready for temple work, and all I had to do was click the mouse a couple of times.

You'll never guess who some of those names happened to be. My grandma, Maxine Lemmon, and my grandpa, Earl Lemmon, had never been sealed, because of this my dad was never sealed to his parents. There were also a few of Earl's brothers and sisters and himself, that had never been sealed to their parents. We decided that it was time.

So last night, my mom came down and she and Aaron and I had the chance to seal my grandparents, and to seal my dad to his parents. WOW!!! I've felt the Spirit in the temple before, but never like I did last night. There was such a strong feeling of peace and love. It was amazing to me how much more personal the ordinances seemed when I was doing them for people that I had known, people that I love dearly. I thought to myself, "This is why family history, and ordinances for the dead are so important."

The other really awesome part was how much we learned. The sealer doing the sealings took lots of time to instruct us, and ask us questions, and taught us lots of things I had never thought about before. I wish I could say I learned that much every time I went to the temple. Such a special experience. I'm glad my mom got to be there with us.

Anyways, if you haven't checked out the new family search sight (see the link above) then I think you definitely should. It's pretty amazing, and super easy. And if you think all your family work has been done already, you should double check, because you might be surprised.

Boo!

Today I remembered a song we used to sing when I attended Bev's Preschool called Boo! but I couldn't remember both verses, just the one about the witch. Anyways, I Google searched it, and found this awesome sight that not only had the lyrics but music you could play to go with it. The sight is:
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0111082/html/Activities/music.htm

The lyrics go like this:

Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
I'm a ghost to scare you.
From Halloween Town I"ve come here this night.
All dressed from tip to toe in white.

Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
I'm a witch to scare you.
I wear a dark cloak and have a tall hat,
a flying broom and a big black cat.
BOO!

Anyways, I thought it would be fun to teach Lincoln the song and have him perform it like we did in Preschool. I've been singing it to him all morning, he's gotten pretty good at it, for a two year old. I also made him props, a ghost and a witch, so he could hold them up while he sang. That was his favorite part, he wasn't much interested in learning the song until he saw that he got to wave the ghost and witch around while he did it. Then he was all over it. Ivan woke up in time to get in on the fun as well. Here's the best we could get on camera:

One, Two, Free, Four, Fibe!

I finally got a video of Lincoln counting to 10, sort of. He can count all the way to 10 just not when there is a camera pointed in his direction. But he gets most of the way there. :) He never really seemed interested in counting, even when we started trying to work with him on it, and it seemed like we just counted anything and everything while he was around, but that he wasn't really picking up on it. Then the other day in the car he said, "One, two, three, four!" And I was really happy and I asked him, "What's after 4 Linc?" And he said "Fibe" and so on and so on until we got to 10. Then he asked me to do it again. So we started at one again. We did this all the way home from Salt Lake to Provo. Not only that, but he's got the right number of fingers down, up until five. I guess he was picking it up, but just needed some time to process it.

Aren't They Cute?

I love these two little guys! They make me so happy (most of the time at least). My favorite is that tonight Lincoln asked to wear his jammies "like Iman's". I bought them matching (ya, I know) footie jammies the other day at Costco. And Lincoln picked right up on the fact that his and Ivan's were the same. And he was excited about it! I love that. I hope they grow up to be the best of friends two brothers could be. Nothing makes me happier than my family.

BYU Homecoming 2009

Aaron and I decided that it would be fun to go to Homecoming this year. We have a special place in our hearts for Homecoming, because when we were dating, it was after the Homecoming dance that we had our first kiss. Ahhhh. :)  My mom and Kerry were willing to take the boys overnight, which made the evening so much more fun and stress free.

We went to eat at the Old Time Spaghetti Factory, an excellent choice. Aaron had tortellini and I had chicken penne, both of which were very tasty. It was really nice just to have dinner with the two of us, and be able to talk to each other and focus on what the other was saying without worry about which child was throwing food, or who was going to tip the water over any second.

The dance was fun. It was supposed to be 40s and 50s music, but somewhere between the description on the BYU page and the actual dance that idea got thrown out. It was definitely modern music, most of which neither of us were familiar with, but it was still good, and we still enjoyed ourselves. In fact, we kept joking that neither of us had been anywhere so loud or so sensory stimulating in a really long time. Strobe lights, a fog machine, some serious base....ya, not our typical weekend environment ;) But we really did have a great time. We were both impressed that we can still pull of a flip while swing dancing, and Aaron was impressed that I can still sing all the words to the Spice Girls song at the top of my lungs. "So tell me what ya want, what ya really really want...." haha :) Yes, I own that cd, and yes, I still like it.

We had a great night's sleep, with no interuptions from any children, ours or otherwise. Saturday morning we slept in until 8:30 (ya, I know, that's pretty pathetic) and then had a relaxing french toast and bacon breakfast. Then we did some yard work around the complex together. It was nice just spend the whole day together. Thanks mom and Kerry for watching the kiddos.

Theme Day: Airplanes

A little while ago, I stumbled upon this book called "The Absolute Best Play Days" by Pamela Waterman. In it, it has 52 different themes for activites you can do with kids. Each theme includes craft suggestions, indoor and outdoor activites, snacks, books, movies, music, and games; that all revolve around the specific theme. It gives you ideas for how to adapt theme activies to kids ages 2-7. And lots of the materials it calls for are things you have already in your home. Needless to say, I was super excited about this book and have been waiting and waiting to try it out.

Today was the day. Lincoln's friend Nathen and my friend Suzy (Nathan's mom) were coming over to play today, and I thought it was time to pull out the book. Suzy and I have been trying to do some very minimal teaching of letters to the kids (Lincoln already knows A-J but we decided to start back at the beginning) and we'd switch off every other week and come up with activities based on letters. So, for example, today was my day, the letter was A, so I pulled out this book and decided to do airplanes. We had so much fun!

First we colored an airplane puzzle. I made this puzzle myself. I went online and typed "free airplane coloring page" into a Google search. When I found one I liked, I copied and pasted it into a word document. Then using WordArt I made the word Airplane with the A's in red, and the big and little A at the bottom. Then printed. I drew in puzzle lines. Then let Lincoln color it before I cut it out. I think he might still be a little too young for paper puzzles though, because, he did like coloring the puzzle, but as soon as we cut it out, instead of wanting to put it together, he just wanted to rip the paper. But that's ok, we'll try again some other day.

The next thing we did was decorate paper airplanes with Halloween stickers. I had pre-made the airplanes (well, ok, Aaron pre-made the airplanes, and was utterly apalled that I did not have the knowledge of how to build one. What a horrible childhood I must have had!) because I didn't think two year olds would be too interested in the folding part. Also, on the top of the airplanes I taped a piece of a straw. Once the airplanes were decorated, we threaded a piece of crochet thread (but yarn, or any other kind of string would probably work just as well) through the straw piece and taped it up so that it went across the room, with one side as high as Lincoln could reach standing on a stool  and the other side pretty low to the ground.

Lincoln would stand on the stool, and I would hand him his plane. Then he'd throw it, just like you do a normal paper airplane. But instead of going all crazy, and not flying very well (that's what my airplanes always do at least) this one zips across the room along the string. Lincoln thought it was great, and played with it for a really long time. I think if I ever do it again though, I'll find something to tie the string to, instead of taping it. The tape held for a little while, but of course Linc had to pull the string and it kept coming untaped. Also, I think it would be more fun to find a bigger area to do it in. I used the short side of my living room, and taped the string from the hall door to the front door, and that worked, but I think it would work better with more space and a steeper slant to the string.

I say steeper angle, because sometimes our plane got stuck in the middle and Linc would have to push it more, which he didn't mind at all, but ya. Anyways it was still a really fun activity, and I think the kids enjoyed it. (My camera ran out of batteries during the actual activity. So these pictures are all a reinactment Lincoln did for me after Nathan had already gone home.)

And of course let's not forget the most important part: the snack! It was really easy to make. I took a cheese stick and shoved a pretzel through the middle of it to make wings. Then for the tail, I just broke another pretzel in half and poked it into the back. Wa-la! And Lincoln thought it was so cool.

So that was our airplane themed morning. You can see now why I am so excited about my cool book. There were more things in there too, that we could have done if we wanted to. (I actually did try to find an airplane book at the library, but as per usual the Provo library was pretty picked over, so it didn't happen.) That's one of the great things about the activities in the book, you can do them in any order and adjust them to fit your schedule really easily. We will most difinitely being doing theme day again soon!

7 Months Old

Somehow, behind my back, Ivan got to be 7 months old. Crazy. He's growing up so fast. I remember sitting around watching and waiting for Linc to hit every little milestone and it took forever. But somehow, now that I have two of them to chase around, Ivan's milestones seem to be sneaking up on me.

Point in case...Ivan has a tooth. TOTALLY NOT EXPECTING THAT! Lincoln did not have a single tooth in his head on his first birthday. In fact, I think he was 13 months when he finally started to cut one. Well, Ivan has been super crabby this last week, and one night I was holding him and letting him suck on my fingers when, ouch! He bit me. I was so surprised, I think I almost dropped him. But ya, his two bottom front teeth are coming in. I'm not very excited about it, because I know what I'm in for this time.

But on to the exciting news...Ivan is crawling!!! Yay!! I love it. Everyone told me that I would not be as excited for my second one to be mobile, boy were they wrong! If Ivan is mobile that means I don't have to carry him around all day, and I am all for it. He's crawling about a month or two earlier than Lincoln did. And Ivan really has a desire to move. You can see the determination in his cute little face. Linc was always just content to lay there, if something wasn't within arms reach, then he didn't really want it anyway. I think it might have something to do with the fact that Lincoln was such a chub. Ivan is definitely a healthy little guy, but he's a lot more slender than Lincoln was.

Feeding is going well. I decided that this go around I was going to make all of Ivan's baby food. It's not nearly as hard as I thought it as going to be. I just stick whatever it is in the blender, then poor it out into ice cube trays, let it freeze, then pop them out and store them in a tupperware in the freezer. Right now Ivan eats two cubes of baby food at each meal. (And I just found this out the other night, each ice cube in an ice cube tray is one ounce) He eats breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with bottles in between. The things he eats so far are: oatmeal cereal, applesauce, carrots, peaches, green beans, and bananas. I'm hoping to add broccoli this week.

Sleeping is not going well. Ivan still does not sleep through the night most nights. Occassionally he will, but Lincoln is up every night now too (which is going to be the subject of a different post some other day) so, it really doesn't even make much of a difference when he does sleep through the night. We've tried letting him cry it out. That worked really well for Lincoln. But it doesn't seem to be working at all with Ivan. He'll cry for up to an hour (and would probably cry longer, but an hour is my limit) until we go in there and feed him and put him back to bed. The most he gets up per night is twice. Grrr.

In other news, he's starting to get really squirmy. Which is making diaper changes more and more of a challenge. I think we're going to have to bust out the old "one leg over" method here before too long. Ivan always wakes up happy and smiley. He must have inherited that from his dad, because he sure did not get it from me. Ivan also loves his big brother, he watches him like a hawk and wants to be involved in everything he's doing, much to Lincoln's dismay. Ivan is for sure more of a mama's boy, then Linc ever has been. Ivan must always be very aware of my presence, because as soon as I walk out of the room, his little head will pop up, and if I'm not back in a few seconds, the crying begins. But we love the little guy, and we wouldn't trade him.

Yesterday while we were getting ready to go to church, Lincoln kept begging me to do his hair. So I put some mousse in it and combed it with my fingers until I got an almost curly look. (Which gives me hope that he might still inherit his dad's curly hair, and not my stick straight stuff.) Then I hairsprayed it in place, so that it would last long enough for this picture. We took the picture next to the "puh-tin tat" (pumpkin cat) because it's Lincoln's favorite Halloween decoration. When he wakes up in the mornings he asks to go outside and see the "puh-tin tat". Oh, ya, and in his hand he is holding the chap stick. He loves to put on chap stick. He also loves to throw a fit whenever I take it away from him.

Brainstorming

Remember that really long expedition into my inner thoughts a couple posts ago called, "My Thoughts on the TJ-Ed Conference"? Well, it's time to revisit it. Groan if you will, but this is my blog and I'll do what I want with it. In my post I mentioned a goal I made. I'll post it again here:

"By the 24th of October I will brainstorm (put some serious thought into) my life's mission (because I never have before), by defining things that I am interested in and the things that truly give me joy. "

Now, don't misunderstand me here. I don't expect to be able to define my life's mission in two weeks flat. I expect it will take a lifetime to define, hence "life's" mission. :) But I do intend to analyze my life at it's current stage and see if it can give me any clues to the direction that I'm headed. The lens I've chosen to look through is my interests and the the things that give me real joy. I feel like if I can define a few things under each of those categories, I will have a better understanding of where to go next.

Things I am Interested In (aka My Likes)
Canning
Sewing
Reading
History (all kinds, but especially American History from the colonies until WWII)
Socializing
Writing
Talking
Learning
Record Keeping (i.e. family history, blogging, writing in my journal, etc.)
Sports
Music
Planning parties (birthdays, showers, book group, holiday, you name it and I'll think of a way to throw a party for it.)
Thinking
My Kids
Gardening (in theory, I'll let you know when I actually have my own garden that's bigger than a flower box)
Dancing (all kinds, but especially country swing and ballet)
Cooking
Traveling to New Places (actually, I'm not that excited about the actual traveling, maybe I should just say new places)
People

Things That Give Me Joy
Making People Happy (not like, 'ok are you happy now get off my back' happy, but really genuinely happy)
My Family
Creating Something
Feeling that I made a difference
Working Hard
Reading
Learning
My Religion
Seeing my kids do something I taught them (at least the good things)
Trying something new and succeeding



I'm sure there are more things I can ad to both lists, but right now both kids are awake and screaming for my attention and focusing is getting a little difficult. So this is all for now, but I will be revisiting this again soon.

A Day of Creation

I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of this. This is without questions the hardest sewing project I have ever attempted. (Don't be too impressed, I've only been sewing a little over a year, and I'm teaching myself. Today's big challenge: sewing around a curved corner.) My step-sister Tanya is due in November with little baby Graham. Her baby shower is Saturday, so I thought I'd probably better get started on her present. It consumed my life today. My kids were ignored. My husband had to beg me to make dinner. But by golly, it is finished.

I got the idea from my sister-in-law, Sydni. She made us a similar car seat cover for Ivan when he was born. The one she made is definitely better, I have a lot of practicing to do before I come anywhere close to her sewing skills. But, I am pretty proud of myself for how well this one came out. Ribbing is a lot trickier than it looks. I sort of had a pattern, but it wasn't very clear. Between that and Ivan's I managed. I'm really excited to give it to Tanya. I hope she likes it. I also hope she isn't reading my blog. :)

Takin' After Uncle Ryan

Aaron's brother Ryan is a pretty adventurous guy. For his newest and craziest adventure, he and a couple friends bought a sail boat and are making preparations to sail it from California to Australia. That will give you a little background on the commentary in the video.

Tonight Lincoln found the baby bathtub and brought it out and called it a boat and played like he was sailing. Then it got to be bath time, and he asked, "Take boat tub?" So we agreed. Once we put the water in the big tub, the little tub started to float, and it was way more fun than we had anticipated.

(This explanation is mostly for when I make a book out of my blog, because it won't have the movies in it.) Lincoln says, "I'm sailing." And I repeat, "You're sailing." (Whenever I take a video of him talking, I try to repeat what he says, so that years down the road when we aren't used to his baby talk we'll still know what he's saying.) Lincoln asks if he can lie down. I ask if he's sailing like Uncle Ryan. Lincoln asks to lie down again. I ask him if he's going to sail to Australia. I ask him if he can say, "Australia". He gives it his best shot. I ask him if he can say, "Uncle Ryan" and he says, "Ryan. Boat." And I say, "Ya, Ryan's gonna go sailing in a boat." Then Linc says, "Tip over." "And I say, "Ya, he's gonna tip over." Then I laugh, and say, "Just kidding, we hope not." Then ask Lincoln to look at me. He tries and the boat wobbles and he looks right back down ans says, "Whoa." I say, "Whoa." And Linc says, "Crazy." I say, "Ya. Is that funny?" Linc asks if he can lie down. Then asks for help a couple times. I tell him he doesn't need help, he's doing good, he's sailing. I tell him to say "Hi Grandma". He asks for help again. I tell him again to say, "Hi grandma" and he does, then says, "I sailing boat." And that's pretty much the end.

My Thoughts on the TJ-Ed Conference

"On Nest Building"
by Carol Lyn Pearson

Mud is not bad for nest building.
Mud and sticks
And a fallen feather or two will do
And require no reaching.
I could rest there, with my tiny ones,
Sound for the season, at least.
But—
If I may fly awhile—
If I may cut through a sunset going out
And a rainbow coming back,
Color upon color sealed in my eyes—
If I may have the unboundaried skies
For my study,
Clouds, cities, rivers for my rooms—
If I may search the centuries
For melody and meaning—
If I may try for the sun—

I shall come back
Bearing such beauties
Gleaned from God’s and man’s very best.
I shall come filled.

And then—
Oh, the nest that I can build!

I spent the last two days at a Thomas Jefferson Education seminar. I don't know how many of you have heard of a Thomas Jefferson Education (TJ-ED), I did a book review on it not too long ago, it's written by Oliver Van DeMille, and I definitely recommend it. I LOVED the conference.

Some background on me first. I have had several pretty strong experiences in my life that have made me feel that I am very much responsible for the education that my children will receive. I don't feel like I can delegate that responsibility to someone else (i.e. the public school system). Home schooling had crossed my mind a few times, but I didn't really know anything about it. Then, I married a wonderful, smart, intelligent, thoughtful man who had been home schooled. It gave me a lot of confidence, not in myself really, but in the method. Now that we have kids and the time for their education is rapidly approaching (still a few years off, but trust me that's plenty rapid!) I have been feeling this pull, this constant almost nagging feeling, that I needed to learn something about homeschooling if I was going to do it. Because, even though I've graduated high school, and done a lot of college work, I still feel like I know nothing. So, I've been researching. In my research I came across the book A Thomas Jefferson Education, and we actually read it for a book club I'm in. I loved the book. Absolutely loved it. The things they said about education made sense....and it's not a homeschooling book necessarily, by the way, it's a book about a way of life, where continuous learning is your way of life. I love that idea. I am always wishing I could remember what I learned in school, or could know about certain topics in more depth. But I always felt like we just learned a bare minimum to pass a test and then moved on. But this isn't a post about the book, if you want to know more about the book - read it. You won't regret it. After I read the book, I wanted to know more. I went to the George Wythe University web site and found out that they travel all around the country and do seminars on this stuff. They were doing one in Lehi. I convinced Aaron to let me sign up. And then, because I'm the kind of person that hates new situations, I begged and begged my mom to sign up with me, until she gave in. True love right there. :)

I was so nervous yesterday, but there was no need. Dr. Brooks was the main speaker and he was wonderful, enthusiastic, and the things he talked about made so much sense! We talked a lot about how the public education system was failing. For example, in Oklahoma, they did a survey, and only one in four high school students can identify George Washington as the first president of the United States. Sad! We talked about lots of things, that hit home to me. We talked about what providence is: there is a god, we are his children, and he sent us here for a purpose. Does this sound familiar? We talked about the purpose of education, and how it is NOT to be able to go out and get a good paying job, but rather to be able to identify your life's mission, to prepare for that mission by gaining the skills necessary to fulfill it, and lastly to execute it. We talked about the stages of learning, and how there is no "one size fits all" way to teach that works. We talked about some ways to be great teachers

1. Classics not textbooks-going to the original sources, instead of what someone said about what someone said about what someone said. And a classic isn't necessarily a book, but anything you experience that you can learn from again and again. We learned that you absolutely CANNOT take the challenge out of education. It's supposed to be hard, and with good reason. We learn and grow the most when things are hard and we have to stretch.

2. Mentors not professors-a mentor being someone who has something to offer you, usually someone you seek out yourself. Not just the person who stands up in front of a bunch of people and gives his opinions on things as the law.

3. Inspire not require- Great education occurs when students study. Students study when they choose to. Students choose to study when they are inspired.

4. Time not content

5. Quality not conformity.

We talked about phases of learning, and this was my very favorite part. First of all we learned that behavior determines what phase your in not age. A lot today we worry about what age we should be preforming at what level, and in reality it has nothing to do with age, but what we are ready for, and when we are ready for it, we'll start behaving in a certain way.

The first phase is the Core phase. This is where you start. It's your foundation. There are no academics in this phase, what you work on is being able to identify good & bad, true & false, right & wrong. Values. In this phase you establish values. And the method through which you do this is by working and playing.

The second phase is love of learning. You can tell you are transitioning into this phase because you become more aware of the things around you and you start asking questions about those things. This stage is kind of like a butterfly, you flutter around learning lots of things, but not really going into much depth. In this phase you want to have a time set aside for learning to occur, say 2 hours, but you have freedom of curriculum, then you have to be in some way accountable for what you learned, and there needs to be a healthy environment and resources (usually provided by the parent).

After that is the scholar phase. That's when you get to the point where you want some constructive criticism, because you want to improve in a certain area. You spend a lot of time studying in this phase.

Then you reach the depth phase. Where you choose one area and go way in depth in that area.

I bought a book to read about the phases of learning, and I'm very excited to read it and learn more, because these ideas simply fascinate me. So if those explanations above seem brief, it's because they are. :) Because I haven't learned nearly what I'd like to learn about them.

All in all from this conference I just felt inspired. I felt like if I roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty and put in the work, then I can get results. It doesn't seem unattainable for me anymore. I want to know things. I want to be able to converse about the things I know, in an intelligent way. I want to take the things I know and figure out a way to use them for the positive, whether it be in society or in my family or both. AND I CAN! I have come away from this believing that I can. And that I can help my kids to do the same thing. I have a different definition for success now. I used to think that it meant that you knew everything about everything, and you graduated from college with a high paying job and you went down in history with everyone remembering who you are. And for some people that is success. But it doesn't mean that people who don't fit that can't be successful. We all have different missions in life, whether it be to be Einstein or whether it be to be a nameless person who plays music for people at the hospital. If we are fulfilling our life mission (and by the way a life mission will be something that contributes to the greater good of human kind, whether in a big way or a small way) then we will feel fulfilled, and THAT is success. That's awesome! And I believe it. I believe that I can succeed. I don't have to feel like I'm becoming dumber because I'm not in school right now. I don't have to feel like the absolutely only thing I was put on this earth to do was have and raise a family. Which by the way there is nothing wrong with, and I am happy that that is one of the things I get to do, but it doesn't have to be the ONLY thing that I do.

At the end of the conference today, Dr. Brooks had us write down on a piece of paper and sign our names to, a goal that we would accomplish at the end of two weeks. I don't remember the last time I actually had a real goal, let alone a timetable in which to complete it. It's a little intimidating. But this is what I wrote:

"By the 24th of October I will brainstorm (put some serious thought into) my life's mission (because I never have before), by defining things that I am interested in and the things that truly give me joy. "

And I signed it and dated it, and I have every intention to fulfill it. I know it might not sound all that hard, just thinking about what my life's mission might be. But really, I have seriously never thought about this before. I always just planned that I would graduate high school, go to college until I got married, and then I would have a family. Period. That always seemed so far away, that thinking beyond that seemed impossible. Well. Here I am, I'm 23 years old. I graduated high school, I attended college until I got married, and now I've started a family. And that took me what? All of 5 or 6 years to achieve? Now what? And not that I don't value my family, because I do, and I definitely think that they hold a place in what my life mission will be....but there's more. And I want to find out what it is. I believe that God gives us talents and interests that we can develop to use as tools to accomplish our life's mission. That's why I want to start there. I mean everyone has an idea of what they like and don't like right? But I want to go a little deeper. I want to pinpoint those things, and write them down, and compare them to each other and see if that will give me an idea of the direction I will be headed. I believe that God also gives us our patriarchal blessings to point us in the right direction. I want to study mine closely again with my life's mission in mind and with my interests in mind. I want to understand the things that really and truly bring me joy, and see if those things fit into my interests, or into what my patriarchal blessing says.

I want to find my life's mission. When I do I will have a purpose. And when I have a purpose, it will make moving forward, even if, and most especially when it's going slowly, a lot easier because I will have perspective.

Wow. So there they are, my thoughts, all layed out. I told you this conference was inspiring. It's funny reading back over this, I don't know if I could ever say these things to anyone out loud. I wonder if anyone would even want to listen, or if they'd just think I was a little bit whacked. People don't talk like this out loud anymore. Maybe they should. But these are the things that I'm feeling today, and I don't want to lose them. When I get frustrated, I want to come back to this, and feel what I am feeling now.

Time For Some Ivan Videos

Although this started out to be a video about Lincoln's house, it's not that exciting if that's the only thing you look at. I started filming Lincoln building a house because sometimes when he builds houses he talks about it non-stop and I think it's cute. This was not one of those times. However, Ivan is what makes this video hilarious. He was so excited when I pulled out the camera, I just had to laugh. Also, you can hear him say, "Mama" in the background, which I have been trying (unsuccessfully) for weeks to get on film. I'm pretty happy that Ivan's first "word" or at least coherent sound, was mama. Lincoln's was dada, which is awesome, but ya know.

And this video is of Ivan laughing. I love it. It's one of my favorite sounds in the whole world. And yes, I'm aware that I sound retarded, but it's awesome what you'll stoop to as a parent just to see your kids' eyes light up and hear them laugh.

Another Great Video of Lincoln Being Himself

Today I was back in one of the bedrooms, and I came out to find Lincoln creatively jumping in Ivan's jumpy seat. I just laughed. I can't get enough of this kid!

Sunday at Grandma's House

Gramma Tam, Lincoln, Ivan, and Penelope

I'm sure my mom will be thrilled that I posted this lovely picture of her, but that's too bad, because it's the only picture we have of all of the grandkids in the Lemmon/Sparks family together. I'm proud to be responsible for two-thirds of them :) When baby Graham gets here in Novemeber, it'll only be half. But that's still pretty good.

On Sunday we went to Hooper for General Conference. The ENTIRE Lemmon/Sparks family was present, right down to the last grandkid. Juice (aka Jackson) even brought two of his girlfriends, so there were extra. That's quite a few people crowded into one living room. But it was fun. The kids loved having all the adult attention. And Lincoln and Penny got along really well, which made me happy. Ivan adored Penny. Every time she came close to him his eyes would light up and he'd grin and start flapping his arms around (that's what he does when he's excited).

Mom finally got her wish to have a picture of all three of her grandchildren together. It was a zoo trying to get them to hold still and all look at the camera. The above is the best we got on our camera. Maybe my mom got some better ones, but I'd be surprised.

More of Lincoln's Antics

I think Lincoln is going to be the ham of the family. This kid cracks me up on a daily basis. Pictured above is the latest stunt. He rides his bike around for a second, then very carefully dismounts and slowly pulls it down on top of him, at which point he says, "Hep ew, Hep ew. Mom! Stuck! (Help you, Help you (which means help me). Mom! Stuck!") Then, when you come over to help, he says, "I falled, I falled, I falled" over and over again, until you say, "Oh you fell." Then he'll say, "I stuck." And sometimes, he'll even add, "I ok." Then he squirms out from under the bike, picks it up, hops on, and starts the whole thing all over again. The picture above is made even more humorous because of the fact that he is wearing oven mits on both hands, which he also does pretty frequently.



Aaron took this video, but it's a little bit hard to hear (for some reason all our videos seem to be that way). Aaron asks Lincoln what happened. Linc doesn't answer, then I ask if he's stuck, he says stuck. Aaron says, Did you crash, and Linc says crash. Aaron asks Lincoln if he can get out, and Linc says, I falled, over and over until the video ends.



Aaron took this video too. Lincoln is in the huge pile of laudry all covered up. You hear the laundry pile say Daddy! And Aaron says, where's Lincoln? Then you see two hands, and then a head poke out of the laundry, and Aaron asks, Are you helping with the laundry? Blank stare. Aaron says, can you say hi Dad? Linc says, Where's Lincoln? Where'd Lincoln go? Where'd Lincoln go? He's in there. In there. Then Aaron says, can you say hi Dad? And Linc says, Hi Dad, it's in there. Then Aaron says, say bye-bye. And Linc says, Bye-bye. And climbs back into the laundry pile.

Our New Job

After just a little over two years without, I once again, have a job. Aaron and I just became the managers of our apartment complex. I'm really excited and very nervous all rolled into one. I'm excited because it cuts our rent in half at least, with the option of being able to work off the rest of it. That will be very good for us financially while Aaron is in Grad school. It'll also be a way to get to know all my neighbors, and hopefully be friends with them. Although I realize that maybe I'll get to know some of them a little too well if you know what I mean :) which leads me to the part I'm nervous about. I don't like confrontation, or being the bad guy. And I realize that occasionally those two things will be part of the job. But I'm going to buck up and give it my best shot!

Our first official day was today. The former managers brought us over all the keys/paperwork etc. Seeing everything we have to keep track of is a little intimidating. And already on the first day we are dealing with late notices, and contract terminations, policy clarifications, and a whole heap of people who decided that November would be a great month to move out (you have to give 30 days notice) which means we have to post listings online, and be ready to show our apartment. It's all kind of overwhelming, but is also kind of thrilling to feel like I have something to accomplish that will have semi-immediate results to show for it. Even though Danette has done training with us, I still feel like this is going to be a baptism-by-fire job, where you just have to jump in and get your hands dirty, to really figure out how it goes.