I Blinked

Really, I swear. That's all I did...blink. I closed my eyes for just a second. Not even a second really. I didn't take a nap. I wasn't even daydreaming. Just a blink.

So tell me, then. How did it happen?

How did we get from here:

to here?

In the blink of an eye.

Because seriously, I'm not even talking about all this:

It's just not fair. Where do I file my complaint? I am being dealt with unfairly.

I only got one little girl. Little. Not anymore. She's as tall as I am and still growing like a weed.

She's not allowed to grow up this fast. I'm not ready.

Mady turned 14 today. The first picture was taken the night she was born. The second picture was taken this afternoon. She is growing up to be such a beautiful young woman. She would make any mother proud, I'm just glad I get to call her mine. She is becoming everything I could have hoped for and is such a tremendous blessing in our home.

She is friendly, happy, helpful, caring, sensitive to others, and has an amazing testimony of the gospel. What else could I ask for?

Other than a few more blinks of this:

But since I know that won't happen, maybe time could slow down so that I can enjoy this a little longer:

(and no, it' not what you think. Those are IBC rootbeers.)

I wonder if I could ask for a redo? I did blink, after all. That's not too much to ask, is it?

History

There is something Connecticut has that Utah doesn't....it's called History. Now I am not saying that Utah doesn't have any history, but (at least the area we lived in) it just doesn't have stories like this:

We live on a road called Josie's Ring. Most of the road is actually hard-packed dirt, it is only paved at the very ends. We are in the sticks. Not the sticks like Eagle Mountain, but if you looked at the pictures of our yard that I posted in December, you'll see it is literally the sticks. Big sticks. Around here they call them trees. Not like the trees in Utah, but towering 60 foot tall trees. And not just one or two, but a forest full. Literally. But I digress...

Silently we have wondered about the interesting name of our street. Did it have to do with a girl named Josie? Maybe a wedding ring? Well this week we were told the story.

The area we live in is an old orchard. (What kind is irrelevant.) It was owned by a man named Josie. He used to light a ring of fire to trap the coyotes in so he could shoot them. One night, Josie set his ring of fire. As the story goes, he was a little tipsy that night. Had a few too many to drink. And ended up burning to death in his ring of fire. Thus, the street through the orchard was named after him, Josie's Ring.

Now that's history. Crazy and fun. Makes our street name just a little more interesting. As much as I love Decrescendo Drive, it just doesn't have that kind of History!

A Swear Word

Today we were assigned to clean the church. On the way down, Jackson said, "mom., this is gonna be fun...cleaning the church I mean." Thankful for his good attitude, I commented, "Yeah, service is fun."
It didn't take him long to correct me. "No, Mom. Service isn't fun. Service is a swear word!"
How do you respond to that? At least he thinks cleaning the church will be fun.

Recipe for flubber

I had a lot of requests for this, so here it is:
you need water, elmers glue, borax, and food coloring


FLUBBER

What to do:
In a large container combine and mix:
1 ½ cups very warm water
2 cups Elmers white glue
A few drops of water color and/or glitter if using clear glue
Mix this combination thoroughly
In a small container combine and mix
1 1/3 cups very warm water
2 level tsp 20 Mule Team Borax
Mix this combination thoroughly
Use your hands to mix the contents of the small container into the large container.
Lift and turn the mixture until it is fully combined. Discard any leftover liquid.



It is a lot of fun, and will keep for quite a while in a plastic bag or container. My boys love to put it in a cup and make noises by sticking their fingers in it to release air bubbles. You know what kind of sounds I'm talking about. Jake could do that for hours!

Enjoy!!

Callings

I got my new calling a few weeks ago. I am the new bear den mother. As of right now, I have one bear!
It took a little longer for Phil to get his calling. Anyone want to take a guess?
It isn't official yet, so I can't say. Stay tuned....

Shell Collecting

The kids were out of school Monday for President's Day, and it was a beautiful sunny day. Deceitfully beautiful, as it turned out, cuz it was stinking COLD. Down by the shore, anyway, and that is precisely where we went.
We took the boys down to one of the beaches in Milford, about a 25 minute drive from our door. (Am I rubbing that in, oh, I'm sorry...)
There were literally thousands of shells for them to pick from. We weren't as prepared as we should have been, and didn't bring bags, but we did have one in the car. I just took pictures, and my hand was FREEZING! But it was beautiful. Here's a little taste of what I saw...

I love this one:

And this is my favorite:

Valentine's Day

I decided to carry on a Wilkins Valentine tradition this year. It was fun to make these big sugar cookies, and I was even happier when Phil told me how good they tasted on Sunday!

I also carried on my own tradition. It's been going on for probably 8 years now. I make a "fancy" dinner, (chicken cordon blue, asparagus, funeral potatoes, jello and rolls this year)
decorate the table, and end with a delicious trifle. We changed up the trifle a little this year, and it was DELICIOUS!

Makes me hungry just looking at the picture!

The day itself was great. Phil, Mady, Jake and I all spoke in Sacrament Meeting. I was so proud of my family! They all did a great job! At least for me, it was a Spirit filled meeting. And that flowed over into the rest of the day for me. We had some friends over to share dessert with us. They brought a "porcupine cake", very cute!

It was fun to get to know their family a little better. A great end to a fantastic day.

Oh What Do You Do on a Snow Day, When ALL the Kids Are Home?

Here is what we did on Wednesday:

I made flubber:



The kids had some friends over and they played Wii.

Jake and Marek built a snow sledding course, starting on the deck, going down the stairs, around the corner, and down the 2+ foot drop to the back patio:


Sledding:



More flubber:


A little light reading:

and of course, more Wii.


The kids were exhausted come Wednesday night. I guess snow days don't have to be nightmares for the parents!

Not that I want another one too soon.

A Visit from Spiderman

We have some crazy times around here, and our three boys definitely keep life interesting. So we shouldn't have been surprised when we were met by this one day:

Spiderman was in the house....You can't blame him, really. It does look very much like a bleached Spidey Mask. Maybe that is where the whole idea of Spiderman's costume came from to begin with, a little boy putting underwear on his head...

It wasn't the first time Jackson put something on his head. He left the hotel room one morning on our trip to Connecticut with a shower cap on his head. The lady who rode the elevator down to the lobby with us got a big kick out of this sight:

Jackson, you crack us up. Thanks for giving us new perspective on old things. Such creativity is welcome here!

Forts (by Gabe)