Between the Towers

While I finish putting together Gwen's birthday pictures, check this out:

We've had this book for a few years. Love it. It's a true story, but it reads like a fairy tale or fantasy.

I just found out it's a movie too. Can't wait.

Our Town

Can you find our house? 5 points (Click on it to make it bigger.) How about Mom & Dad's? 5 points The town hall? 5 points Toquerville Mercantile? 15 points The park? 10 points The Wal-Mart? 0 points Woody's pond? 20 points The highway? 2 points The stake president's house? 1 point (It's easy. It's peach.)

Yesterday, before making the girls work their tails off all day, we went on a little hike. It's always fun to get up and away and enjoy the view. I took a bunch of pictures, hoping to get a few I could print and frame. The girls have grown a little since last year.

We didn't get anything frame-worthy, but we did have a good time.

The girls hiked higher than they ever have before. They think they're ready to climb over the mountain and down the other side. What do you think Ross?

<-- Here you can see Buffalo Rock. The girls named it Buffalo Rock because it looks like a buffalo. The buffalo is not a smart animal. (If you don't get that, refer to an inside family joke that's about 5 years old.) I think it looks like an alien. Matthew thinks it looks like this. What do you see in the rocks?

I (heart) nature.

Happy Healthy Heart Day

Have I mentioned that I love Bethany's 2nd grade teacher? (Yes.) To celebrate Valentine's Day, she designated this week as Healthy Heart week. Her class focused on healthy eating habits & the importance of exercise. For their class party today, she asked the parents not to bring candy. "Our country has a growing problem of obesity and heart disease. At a young age we can learn how to protect our heart and keep it healthy! The kids are more than welcome to make or bring valentines for each kid in the class Friday. However, please send only healthy treats or none at all. We can learn to appreciate people's kind words and keep our heart healthy at the same time." Amen sister. Here's what my girls took to school today:

I got Gwen's valentines here. Cute huh? She colored them herself. She's not my perfectionist girl, she's my get-it-done girl. Catherine actually colors better than she does. All I care about is there's not a commercialized, sexualized princess or fairy in sight. (Not that I have the integrity to never spend money on or allow that stuff in my house. I just occasionally get on a feminist self-righteous soapbox.)

Bethany's:

Have a happy & healthy heart day today!

It's a rainy day

Today we've had rain, snow, sun, and now hail. It is cold and wet and grey outside. Why do we need the rain anyway? 

It is the perfect day to spend in pajamas on the couch reading. Which is exactly what I did today, in between 4 loads of laundry and making lunch. Now it's 2:30 in the afternoon and I still need to do dishes, put away the rest of the laundry, and get dressed. I love being a stay-at-home Mom. I did work until 12:30 AM last night, so don't judge me too harshly. I read Coraline. It was a quick read; creepy, quirky, and clever. I think I'm going to read it to my girls before they see the movie. It looks like it might be good, but the book leaves so much to interpretation and the imagination and the movie just won't.

Postscript:

I just had to pick up Bethany from school and like I just pointed out, I wasn't exactly ready to be seen in public. I did change from pajama pants to jeans, but I was still wearing my husband's grey sweatshirt, Crocs (which are really only acceptable to wear in the garden or at a hospital right?), and my hair that needed to be washed was pulled back in a messy ponytail. I should have know better, but I wasn't going to get out of the car. Well, when I got to Bethany's school, she wasn't waiting for me. I waited about ten minutes; she still didn't show up. So, I ran inside & checked her classroom, hoping to run into her before I ran into her totally put-together teacher. No such luck. I met her teacher, the principle, the librarian and the secretaries, before I found Bethany waiting for me in the office. (She had been watching for me at the other parking lot.) Everyone thinks so highly of Matthew at work, that I felt bed for tarnishing his reputation by showing up at his place of employment looking like a refugee. They must wonder how I managed to snag such a handsome, responsible man, when I'm such a mess. Hopefully, I didn't stay long enough for them to wonder anything though. I just grabbed Bethany's hand & we ran back to van.

Pictures of the weather in TQ:

Be my Valentine

My girls are really getting into the spirit of Valentine's Day. Me, I've never felt very strongly about Heart Day. It was fun in grade school, there were lots of cards & candy, but it was also stressful. I remember my 5th grade teacher telling us that we had to bring Valentine's for every kid in the class. That was fine except for one boy in the class, David. I could not take the chance of him (or anyone else in my class) thinking I actually liked him by giving him a Valentine. It didn't matter that everyone in the class had to give him one and he had to get one for everyone else. I was in 5th grade. I couldn't think that far outside myself. I spent the evening of February 13th meticulously going through my box of valentines and choosing just the right card for each member of my class. I passed over David's name a few times, but I finally finished all the other children and had to pick one for him. You're the apple of my eye. Um, no. I love you. Ew, definitely not. Let's be friends. No thank you. We make a great pair. I'd rather die than tell him that. Or, more importantly, have anyone find out that I told him that. I'd go out on a limb for you. Maybe. This one had potential. There were no hearts, no holding hands, just a picture of a Toucan. It just might work. I took a pen, added a few letters and the obligatory to: David, from: Emily and put it in the envelope. When he opened it the next day he would read, I wouldn't go out on a limb for you.

I am not proud of this story. It pretty much makes me sick to think about how this boy, with few friends anyway, would feel opening such a card on Valentine's Day, the one day of the year where everyone in the class had to be nice to him. He should have had a classroom full of friends that day, but I was afraid to let him even think that I liked him. I did not want to be his friend. Years went by before I considered his feelings. I had moved a few times before I realized how cruel that was. Ugh. I wish that I was telling this horrible story about someone else and not me. I still feel badly about it. I have been relieved to learn as a mother that now kids take Valentines to school with their name only on them, so they can pass them out quickly. My daughters, however, are not following that rule. They're personalizing their Valentines. Here's a conversation I had with Gwen yesterday:

Gwen: Mom, I have another friend that I like better than Emily.

(I don't know whether to be worried, shocked, or relieved, Gwen and Emily are inseparable and it's not always a good thing. You know how little girls can be.)

Me: Oh? Who's that?

Gwen: Seth.

(Oh! It's a boy!)

Gwen: Today he gave me a lot of smiles & I gave him smiles.

They are not in the same class, but apparently they smile at each other while waiting for the bus after school. Gwen told me, "It all started one day when I gave him a smile and he gave me a smile back. And that's how he became my best friend."

Then she asked me how to spell Seth, so she could give him the heart she made in art class.

Gwen's Valentine for Seth

Detail of Gwen's Valentine. She attempted to hide this lovey-dovey detail by awkwardly holding this corner of the picture when she showed it to me. Gwen & Seth, sitting in a heart.

Bethany has been working on a few special Valentines as well. The first one she made was for a boy in her class named Jessie who has glasses. It says, "When I was looking for a friend, I found you." The two o's in looking are eyeglasses. I'm not sure if she has special feelings for Jessie or if she just recognized the creative possibilities of his shortsightedness.

At least none of them wrote, I wouldn't go out on a limb for you.

Toe Fettish

I have many of posts in various stages of readiness, but in the meantime, here is a picture illustrating my husband's love of having his toes pulled. It gives me the willies, so usually I won't do it & he has to enlist the help of the halflings.

Happy 100th Birthday, Grandma!

In honor of my Grandma Lucy Cox's 100th Birthday this Saturday, my cousin Heidi has been compiling a book about her life. (Thanks, Heidi for doing this.) Grandma is a great woman and deserves to have someone do this for her.

Hopefully Heidi hasn't been buried in last-minute submissions. (Sorry for my part in that. Thanks for the extension of the deadline.) And hopefully she was able to get it sent off to the publisher so she can have her life back. (Again, thanks, Heidi!)

I've decided to post what I've submitted. Here are the three stories that I wrote along some pictures of Grandma:

Just tell him, “I Love You”

            The first year after we moved to California we had a nice visit from Grandma and Grandpa Cox. I was four, so I don’t remember much from that visit except that they didn’t stay long, that Grandma spent a lot of her time sitting in her Volkswagen Rabbit crocheting, and that she brought a big load of fruit leather for us.

            As Grandma is prone to do, she did a great deal of teaching on that short visit. One lesson that she taught stayed with me for a long time.

            One day during the visit I provoked my brother, David, into an argument. I don’t remember how it started, but I do remember that at the crescendo of emotion my two-year-old brother was screaming that he hated me. Grandma told me, in her sing-songy teacher voice, “Each time he tells you that he hates you, tell him that you love him.” I didn’t believe her that it would work, but I tried it.

I’m pretty sure it’s not how she intended me to react, but every time he’d yell, “I hate you!” I’d reply with, “I lu-uve you, Day-vid.” As you can imagine, it freaked him out and I won the war with a new weapon. He made the mistake of telling on me for loving him. “Mom, I’m saying, ‘I hate you’ and he keeps saying that he loves me!” (What’s Mom going to say?) Victory!

Grandma didn’t correct me and force me to say it the right way, she just chuckled.

            Several years later, while I was serving a mission, I had the opportunity to do street contacting. My missionary companion and I would approach people (usually families) in the street, and try to talk with them about the gospel. One night we approached a rowdy group of young men in a bad part of town. As my companion and I tried to talk to them about the things that were most important to us, I heard Grandma’s voice in my head, “If he tells you that he hates you, tell him you love him.” Just then, one of the men— dressed in black from head to toe— walked up to me without saying a word, and spat in my face from about three inches away. I didn’t say anything out loud but I knew that grandma would be proud of me if I walked away without getting angry. With Grandma’s words in my head, I was able to wave to the group and say goodbye without any hatred in my heart, “Buenas noches, hermanos!”

            Who knows what trouble I’d have gotten into if Grandma hadn’t taught me that great little trick?

Sunday Dinner is the Saddest Meal of the Week

I was able to spend six weeks of summer with Grandma and Grandpa when I was fifteen. I loved it. The visit to Lovell, Wyoming was better than anything a boy living in a desert town in California could have imagined: I went fishing almost every morning with Grandpa. Grandma stayed up late and told me exciting, sad, and interesting stories about her life. I played with distant and first cousins. I bought and burned a gazillion firecrackers. I ate green apples off of trees. I learned to drive a stick shift on wild and rutted roads. I rode a bike everywhere. I met friendly people who knew my parents when they were my age. I built stuff with Grandpa in his shop. Oh, it was great. Everything was great… except the food.

            Grandma makes interesting food. By “interesting” I mean, “sometimes disgusting”.

She’ll make spaghetti and decide to add ricotta cheese… except that she doesn’t have ricotta so she’ll just substitute sour cream for the cheese… and she won’t have two cans of tomato sauce, so she’ll add half a can of barbecue sauce… and she doesn’t have spaghetti, so she’ll use egg noodles…. Interesting. Grandma never seemed to mind, or to notice that the food was “interesting.” She just put it on the table and Grandpa would grumble something like, “This tastes like fish food. I wouldn’t feed this to a carp. Oh, I can’t eat another bite.” Grandma would just say, “Eat-up!” in a cheery voice and go on toasting and buttering bread and fixing more stuff while we ate. We’d fill-up on her bread and stir everything around or eat it to be polite. Either way, I think she was oblivious to how we felt about the food.

One Sunday Grandma made a chicken dinner for us after church. It was delicious. I don’t remember what was in it, but I do know that it was all good stuff. Grandpa and I were eating with gusto and then I looked up and saw that Grandma was sobbing at the table. I asked her what was wrong and she just said, “This is the most un-appealing meal I think I’ve ever made.” “No, Grandma. This is great. What’s wrong with it?” She said, “Look at it. Everything on the plate is one color.” I hadn’t noticed but everything on the dish was either pale-green or white. “But it all tastes good, Grandma.” She perked-up and remembered that she had something that would save the meal. She went into pantry and found a bottle of pickled-something-or-other. It was orange and “interesting.” She put it on each of our plates. She was happy—and we had something to push around and grumble about.

Get Me Some Hooch!

            There were a several years when Grandpa Burl’s health was bad, and Grandma Cox bore the burden of caring for him. These were years of Ensure and oxygen tanks and medicines. One night Grandma told me a story about how hard she had to work to keep him strong.

            During those years Grandpa was spending very little time out of his chair. But, in order to get him some exercise, Grandma would help him climb out of his recliner so he could walk outside and sit in the front yard with his oxygen tubes stretched under the screen door. Later she’d help him back up so he could walk into the house where he’d write letters or read or watch Grandma’s Cedar Wax Wing fly around the front room. He’d ask for a hooch, and she’d help him stand but would often ask him to get it himself. (When Grandpa was young “hooch” was a can of Tab Cola, but by this time it was Diet Mountain Dew.)

            Late one night Grandma helped Grandpa up but found that he didn’t have the strength to get down the hallway to his bedroom by himself. She tried over and over again to help him walk, but finally went into the back room and retrieved a furniture dolly (like you use to move refrigerators) to wheel him into the back bedroom. She put him on and eventually got Grandpa into bed. After she finally got him in bed and undressed and ready to sleep he said in a weak voice, “Lucy, get me a hooch.” She was tired. She was not feeling very charitable. She went down the hall and got a cold Diet Mountain Dew from the refrigerator and put a straw in it. She came into the room and set the hooch on the vanity table on the other side of the room from Burl—way out of reach. She just left it there and went to bed.

            After an hour or so she was feeling bad for having done what she had, so she went in to check on him. He was asleep and snoring loudly. His can of hooch was empty.

Potential

Bethany made this after our bike ride last week. Can you guess what it is? Here's a hint:

The Virgin River in Zion.

I haven't blogged about my oldest for a while and unfortunately, it's because she's gone all day and I just don't see her as often. She goes to school with her Dad, stays after for a little while, then drives home with him again. It has been a really neat experience for them both. Matthew can't listen to NPR in the car anymore (Have you met Bethany? She talks a lot anyway, but if she can get you in a closed environment like a car, she'll talk you ear off. She invented the phrase.) but the Daddy-daughter time is so worth it. Right honey? Next year both girls will be attending Matthew's school. I'm so excited. This year, Bethany gets hang out in his office after school, read books in the library & help the librarian shelve books and wipe tables. She even gets to eat lunch and play with her Dad at recess occasionally! So cool. It warms my heart (I know that's cheesy, but it does) to see her so excited about school again and bursting to tell us about what she learns everyday.  Her teacher is only a 2nd or 3rd year teacher, but she's amazing. I don't think she's ever heard a good idea for organization or getting kids excited about learning or anything related to teaching and not implemented it. I am very impressed by her. She teaches keyboarding in 2nd grade (a year early - I didn't learn until I was in jr. high. Who am I kidding, I still have to look at my fingers!), her class learned to tell folk tales in their own words and performed them at a story-telling night, they have made blankets after school to give to soldiers in the Middle East and children in hospitals, plus also, she manages to actually teach the curriculum and manage her classroom (something her last teacher struggled with - the reason we moved her). She is kind and soft-spoken, the class has a pet hedgehog, she has a school store every week (way to implement math huh?), etc. I could go on and on. I think she spends all of her extra time and money at school, and I'm not sure she can keep it up, but I am so glad Bethany is in her class this year! And she uses PATTERN BLOCKS. I have been mildly obsessed with pattern blocks since I was in 2nd grade. Every time we get a toy catalog, I tell Matthew how much I love those things & how my teacher took a picture of me by a creation of mine in grade school. (We get a lot of toy catalogs, so he gets a little tired of that story.) Anyway, Look!

(I love this picture because of the pattern blocks AND because she has my dad's chin.)

I took her to choir practice with me today. I really can't sing, but she's been begging me for weeks. I loved sitting by her, explaining the different parts to her, and following along with her. I didn't even feel like socializing with my friends there; I just enjoyed sitting by my daughter, being thankful for this hour we had together before another busy week. We had an awsome lesson in YW today, Finding joy in our Divine Potential, and I was already a little weepy, so listening to my earnest little Beth sing Hark All Nations got me a little choked up. I love moments like that where being a Mom rocks the house!