Yes, today I am busy

I was just going through a mental list of all the different things I must, or sincerely desire, accomplish a little bit of every day. It is a pretty good list:
Housework
Alphabet time with kids
Meals: create and clean
Gospel Study
Herb/Gardening Study and Planning
Zumba practice/review
Exercise
Laundry
Naptime
Literature reading
Food Storage maintenance/preparation
Family History/Journaling/Blog

and in the middle of all those things is my kids. The honestly do take more priority, for which I am very happy that I can nurture my little ones on demand. But yes, there is always something worthwhile to be doing without creating too many other fun projects on the side (tonight we are having project "Salsa Verde" and I am very excited!)

Weekend of Enchantment

Friday we joined the YMCA for some back to school family fun for as long as we could in the heat. It wasn't until the next day that our adventure really started. We had been telling the kiddos that we were going on a fast road trip this weekend and it would be an adventure so by Friday Faith was asking "When are we going on our adventure?" So cute.
The party started Saturday after I was done with theatre. We loaded up and headed for New Mexico "Land of Enchantment." (so says the billboard) On the drive there we had several failed attempts to pump up the tires a bit and finally found a place that had enough air pressure to get the tires filled correctly, and until such time Josh was fretting over it excessively. I do appreciate that he worries about such details because I kinda treat cars like disposable unessentials. On the car ride there we taught Faith how to get semi-trucks to honk their horn! AWESOME! It made me so excited to share the joys of real car trips with my kiddos! We sang songs and read books and looked for trains, which there are a lot of in NM as well as border patrol cars.
After driving for a good while and it was getting dark Faith said "I want to go back home now, my body is telling me it is time to go home." She was getting tired, so we had to get her excited about our hotel room. Which wasn't really exciting until the next morning when we shared the joys of jumping on the beds with them and having pillow fights!

The whole purpose of the trip was so I could get my Zumba Gold liscence. Whoot whoot! Yep. I am a liscenced Zumba instructor and I love it! So while I was in class all day, Josh took the kids to some Church, to Barnes & Noble and then it was gracious enough to cool down a bit and they found an awesome park to play in until the came to pick me up. Then we drove back home.
The kids were troopers for such a quick trip. I couldn't fathom being away from them for a night. Josh and I really like long car rides for the time it gives us to reconnect. It was enchanting.

Shocking surprises for today

Shocking discovery #1 - Apples and Pigs go together. I don't know who first discovered that one - was it the first Polynesian that thrust an apple in a roasted pig? Was it the farmer who fed the apple cores to his pig and thought 'you are what you eat' theory up. I don't know. There is definately a correlation though. I've been reading Roald Dahl's book "Fantastic Mr Fox" and even in there Farmer Bean has a apple and pork farm.

These are all speculative relations between the apple and the pig - the real evidence I have is this: I made some fabulous pork chops last night by merely browning the meat, putting it in a pyrex, dumping a bottle of my apple pie filling over the top, covering it with tin foil and let it bake at 350 until the meat was cooked! Fantastic indeed! I felt like the sly fox "I did! I hit it right on!" It wasn't all my idea mind you, I was looking in a recipe book for pork and there were several recipes for pork with apples, and me being so lazy, I figured I already cored several apples and put a bit of sugar with them when canning so why not use that? Brilliant.

Shocking discovery #2 - I live in one of the highest concentrated areas of West Nile carrying mosquitos in the nation!!

Based on this evidence: the state of Arizona has 18 of the less than 100 reports of West Nile in the US. That is about 20%. A local family practice that I know of from an inside source has documented 4 of those 18 cases in the state. That is like 30%! So overall, there is more incidence in my geographical area of West Nile than anywhere else. And do you know what west Nile causes? Viral meningitis, which is basically fluids backing up in your brain and nearly killing you.

No need to panic. With the gila monster (most poisinous reptile on land), scorpion (probably the most poisionous insect), black widow spiders (found in nearly every house) and diseased mosquitos - Arizona is still the fastest growing metropolitan area in the US! I should count myself lucky.

The Miracle of the Patio Pavers

I have not been able to catch what the children have been doing lately on my camera because they move to fast- faster, that is, than my anitquated camera. I can however show you what the kids and I have been doing. Walla! We have been laying out the patio pavers that Josh bought from a junk dealer to see exactly how much patio we can make out of them. And yes, Faith and Danny have been some key helpers in this little project. They love to lift the bricks and bring them to me on cue. Danny brings me the little rectangles and Faith is in charge of the squares. Every evening when the sun goes down we head out for some nocturnal arranging. We still can only get about a foot laid out before we are sweaty and stinky but I love the time with my little helpers. When I take the wheelbarrow over to retrieve more pavers from the side yard, each kiddo has to help me push it - by that I mean hold on to one of the handles and be jerked and drug practically in the right direction. We talk the whole time and Faith likes to remind me what a big helper she is.

And as far as I can calculate - the pavers that we bought will create the EXACT size of patio that we want for the barbeque! That is a miracle. The whole time I was counting out the remainder of the bricks I was thinking how Christ made enough loaves and fishes to feed the five thousand, and just so, the little miracles such as exact amounts of cheap junk deal pavers to make a very pleasant backyard which has actually become a very big deal for me and my happiness is a miracle the only the Lord knows how much I appreciate. I love having the stories of the Savior in my head while I work. Perhaps that is why I like to work in the yard so much.

I didn't last long enough

Yesterday, I had my house clean. Oh it looked so very nice. It smelled nice too! The kitchen was clear, the floors buffed, the bathrooms shiney, and the kids, happily watching a movie while I got it to such a state. Alas, it didn't last more than an hour. But I did enjoy it for one glorious hour. Perhaps it is the contrast between doing nothing for days that makes it so nice....perhaps today I shall do nothing again.

Real time

Monday afternoon: Talking to Grammie on the phone. The picture she is holding is of herself as a baby in her blessing dress crying, thus, she is telling Grammie "When I was a baby I cried, and cried, and cried." This is one of her favorite phrases to differentiate that now she is a big girl and she doesn't cry any more. She says it when the little kids that we are babysitting are fussing or throwing fits. Always it is started "When I was a baby I cried, and cried, and cried. But now I am a big girl." With always a cock of the head and a very stern grown-up look on her face.
Tuesday morning: Self-directed scripture study. While I was brushing Faith's hair I was trying to get her to sing some songs with me or tell me stories. As I started to sing "I am a Child of God" Danny lit up and said "Jesus!" and then pulled the heafty family Book of Mormon out of the closet. Each night we tell the children a 'picture story' and then read from the Book of Mormon. They are very accustomed to their picture story and won't lay down until they 'see Jesus.' Danny is more intent on the pictures, but Faith has grown into the stage that each picture does have a story. As I was finishing her hair and Danny was flipping through the pages Faith could tell me the stories from the pictures. -Picture of Nephi with Laban "That is Nephi killing the bad guys" says Faith. Next picture of Jesus coming down from the sky "Jesus killing bad guys" says Danny. "No, Danny! Jesus doesn't kill bad guys." Danny quickly flipped past Jesus on the cross and Faith was adament that he return to that picture. She is very inquisitive right now as to why Jesus, whom she really loves, got hurt so much and died. This morning she was asking why the nails were put in His hands to make the owies (she has a 'reverent picture' of a little girl looking at the ressurected Christ's hands which she looks at during Church).

Saturday:Sea Witch Show

Whereas most little girls dress up to go to the theatre and see the princess shows, my son got on his cowboy get-up - OH SO CUTE! Faith also wore her oversized Belle dress for half of the show then got tired of it cuz she couldn't wiggle around as much.
That is the Sea Witch, surrounded in a sea of little urchins, I mean kids, and signing autographs.