Sunday, September 30, 2012

Fall leaves

We took a sunday drive up American Fork canyon. The leaves are beautiful!!!

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Here are a few more pictures. I'm trying to keep the pics updated. This is Maddox and Asher on one of the hikes they took. Love this picture and the pretty fall colors!
Emily had a YW activity where they did paint twister. She had a blast!!

Darci got some new sun glasses. She's looking classy.....and just like her mom. :) She is such a cutie!!

I love, love, love this picture! Timothy is zoned out and Kingston is driving a car on his face. It makes me laugh every time I look at it. Maybe cuz we've been there.

Maddox and Asher insisted on having flowers behind their ears. Looking good!!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Done and done!!

Yesterday I made the last of the salsa. My last batch for the season. I can't even count how many batches I have made but I know it's close to 2 dozen. It's been like 2 steps forward-1 step back with how much Nathan eats of it. :) But (crossing my fingers) there will be enough of it to make it through the winter........who am I kidding.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Weights

This is the weight room I've been going to for the last 4 almost 5 months.......every tuesday and thursday morning. During the summer Steve and I would go but now that school has started it's just me. We'll go on saturday mornings if he's around and not off on one of his many adventures. :) It's taken a while but I have noticed improvement in my arms. Emily told me to make sure that I don't get "relief society" arms......so I'm working on it. :)

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Jaron's birthday dinner

Jaron wanted chicken pizza for his birthday dinner. I forgot to take pictures til we were eating the third pizza. But it was good.

Jaron wanted a Baskin Robbins cake-chocolate cake, strawberry ice cream with chocolate frosting.

It took Steve and Jaron to light the candles before the candles started melting. They were very thin candles.

Blow!! Happy 24th birthday Jare-bear!!!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Pictures

I try to get all the pictures I can on our blog but I know there are some that I forget. And I know that there are some that I have repeatedly put on too. Cute Darci with her beautiful smile!!

Cool Kingston!!

I think Darci is teething. :)

Maddox and Asher wanted flowers behind their ears. I had to take this pic. really fast as the flowers kept falling out. Maddox and Asher also like sitting on Uncle Jaron's feet and having him walk around. Great leg exercises. :)

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Happy Birthday Jare=bear!!!

I can't believe how fast time goes by.......24 years. Incredible. This is also how I see Jaron. The cute little kid running around constantly talking.

Jaron and Emily

Jaron, Nathan and Steve

Happy Birthday Jaron. I am so, so proud of you!! You bring so much happiness into my life!!! I love you Sweetboy and have a wonderful day!!!

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Happy Birthday Darrell, Dad, Grandpa........

Yesterday we went up to Salt Lake to celebrate Darrell's 80th birthday. His birthday is really monday but we thought since Klint, Mary-Jo and their family were there, it would be fun to celebrate it.

We took Darrell and Dyann out to dinner at Spaghetti Factory. Emily and Kiera love hanging out together......great cousins!

After dinner we went back to their place and Darrell open his many presents.....oils, brushes, canvases, easel and more. He's ready to paint.

We had cake. Just ask Steve....it was the best cake he's ever had. And it was really, really good!!

Happy early birthday Darrell!!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Love this!

This blog was written by Jana Riess and I think it's great!!

http://www.religionnews.com/blogs/jana-riess/everything-i-need-to-know-about-hospitality-i-learned-from-molly-weasley

Everything I Need to Know About Hospitality, I Learned from Molly Weasley

"The first time we meet Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter books, she welcomes the stranger. At King's Cross Station, she patiently teaches Harry the trick of finding Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, not because she knows he's famous -- she has no idea who the scrawny boy before her might be -- but simply because the very core of her person is suffused with hospitality.

And when, later in the scene, she does discover his identity, her immediate thought is not that he is famous but that he is alone in the world and needs a little mothering. She cautions her daughter that Harry won't want to be gawked at like some creature in the zoo.

A few months later, she sends Harry a homemade Weasley sweater for the holidays, much to Ron's chagrin. But to Harry, who has never received a Christmas present, the hand-knitted sweater signals belonging. It brings a message: You are part of us now.

As I explore our spiritual practice of hospitality throughout September, I keep circling back to Molly as the hospitable person I want to become. She's not a perfect person by any means; she has a fierce temper, succumbs to a dubious Author Crush, and has lousy taste in music. But she is always, always one who welcomes the stranger. In Book 2, when Harry visits the Weasley family, Molly immediately treats him like one of her own children. He's given a little extra food to fatten him up, but he's also allowed to go out and de-gnome the garden, doing household chores like everybody else.

She regards him as both special and not special, which is just about right, I think. One trick of hospitality is treating people not as you would want to be treated yourself, but as theywant to be treated, which is usually much harder.

Treating people like we would wish to be treated ourselves is great in theory, but in practice it can be an extension of our own ego and selfishness. Molly and Harry butt heads a few times in the later books over his growing adolescent need for independence, but she ultimately respects his need to not be, quite literally, mollycoddled.

It's not just Harry who benefits from Molly's open-handed generosity. The Weasley home is a safehouse for all sorts of flawed humans (Mundungus Fletcher, anyone?), not to mention assorted creatures that others might censure, such as werewolves. Molly feeds everyone her famed cooking, despite the fact that it's not like her family is drowning in cash. The Weasleys are perpetually short of money with their own large family, but you never see either Molly or Arthur turning guests away because they're poor. She refuses to accept Harry's Triwizard Tournament prize money when he attempts to press it on her, even though a thousand galleons would go far to alleviate her own family's poverty.

Molly's no saint, except when she is; her fierce love for her own family extends outward to create an entire community with bonds of love. Until the end of the seventh book, we only see her magical power in terms of housewifely arts -- she can make potatoes jump out of their jackets (please, please teach me how to do that) and knitting needles clack amongst themselves. But in the Battle of Hogwarts, we get a glimpse of a different, powerful Molly Weasley -- a strength that has informed her character all along, but is galvanized into action when her daughter is attacked. "Not my daughter, you bitch!" Molly hurls, singlehandedly dueling Bellatrix Lestrange to the death in order to protect the Weasley family.

But that's just it. Molly's protectiveness has never been reserved just for her own seven children. From that cocoon it has ever extended outward to include the stranger and build community. In a fantastic twist of irony, the woman who is best known for welcoming the stranger kills the woman whose very name means "the stranger"; Bellatrix has spent a lifetime as the anti-Molly, and she is about to pay.

And so it is that Molly Weasley, housewife, deals the penultimate death blow to the Death Eaters.

Her hospitality helps save the world."

Thanks Jana for the great insight. :)