Pies and playing

Faith helped Grammie make pies for our Thanksgiving feast.

Danny helped Daddy stuff his face.

Max the dog helped the girls figure out traffic rules.

The little clown bike helped Nancy have some foolish fun.

Nancy helped Danny play on the mini-bike.

How to keep cool in an Arizona Winter

More than Raindrops on Roses

This morning I stripped the house of autumnal decorations and decked the halls with colorful lights and fake evergreen garland. I haven't skipped over Thanksgiving, oh no no no, just transitioned into a celebration of Christ and His life, which starts with the giving of thanks and continues on until the celebration of His Ressurection. Maybe I am a bit corny to tie most holidays inbetween to Christ as well, but it seems to fit. The New Year is all about making goals to become better, in essence, to become more like our Savior as He has asked us to. Valentine's is the celebration of love which is the greatest gift of Heaven imaginable on earth; it is the little glimpse into truly heavenly life. And then Spring brings in the glories of new birth, the Ressurection that will make it possible to return to our Savior.

Lest I be accused ungrateful - I add my list of gratitude to those circulating about that make us all feel like singing "These are a few of my favorite things...."
- Josh Button
-my kiddos
-being able to stay at home with my kiddos every day and watch the marvelous things they do
-smiling, genuinely seeing something that makes me smile and enjoying the moment
-being bold enough to make new friends and finding out that everyone is quite nice
-clean floors and a made bed
-hand-me-downs and heirlooms; old stuff is really neat
-family history, not like the really in the past kind but just a few generations back, learning about the people that I can remember or that I admire
-feeling the influence of the Holy Ghost
-knowing that I am blessed
-new projects

New Days, New Ways

Today I took the kiddos to the Arizona Museum for Children. After our last children's museum go I realized that everything goes dead at those places from 12-3 in the afternoon. Thus we planned our trip perfectly and had the whole place to ourselves!!!! Seriously, at least 2 full hours there were no other kids in the building. SO fun. Fun places like that to take my kids makes arizona okay.

I have been lately reading a lot of "No Impact Man" a fantastically different kinda think book. I have been taking mini steps toward revolution of self-sustainabilty and I like the ideas in this book. The main message is not that we should all worry about greenhouse gases, but the quality of life we are really seeking. EXACTLY! Get the trash and the rush out of the way and you find what is really important; health and family. Throw in the truth of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and life is perfect.

I have realized in light of all my recent thoughts that although I am not perfect, I am okay with getting more perfect. I love people. I love the gift of charity. I love having words from the Prophets cycling through my thoughts. A good run with good speakers makes my day. Nap time and some great reading material makes my afternoons even better! Reading the Book of Mormon with my family is fantastic.

Mental Anguish

Perhaps my previous post was a bit dramatic, I just didn't have the mental where-with-all to go through the story one more time.

The associated press version is: Mesa and Gilbert SWAT teams were called out 8 am Tuesday morning to respond to a drug bust in --Apartments. Four suspects were apprehended after tear bombs were shot into the apartment. Several packages of trafficed illegal drugs were found int he apartment.

So why do I get the feeling that by sitting here calmly in my apartment two doors down from said incident that I am defying all motherly instincts? Shouldn't I be frantically packing up our belongings, shipping our children on the next bus up to Idaho and screaming at the management about having been held hostage in my own apartment with small children while there is a gun raid going on next door!!! Granted yesterday after we were cleared to usher the kids to the van thus avoiding the release of tear gas from the bombed apartment I took my kids out of the complex and didn't really want to return, at all. I laughed nervously on the phone as I explained it to Josh and my Mom. I went and got a large milkshake and greasy fries. I drove around writing down he numbers on any "For RENT" house I saw. I did return by dinner time not being able to justify eating french fries for a second meal that day, after all there were no gun shots other than the tear gas bomb and policemen really are nice sounding on the large intercoms. Yet, when I returned 'home' all the neighbors were casual and talking together as if the morning was only mildly unusual.

So do I just ignore what happened? Continue on said plan of waiting until offers go thorugh on houses we want to buy? Do we jet out of here before anyone knows we packed a box? And why was it so easy to get up, say forget it, and mop the floors to be ready to go to story time at the library?

"Don't worry sweetie, the nice men with guns are helping us get to the car..."

needless to say...our move-out date has been expedited.

Gunga Din

Saturday night we watched a movie called “Gunga Din” which I picked strictly for its title. While we were living with Mildred (a lovely 93 year old woman), she constantly had old movies on her TV. One night we went upstairs to watch some black-and-white with her. We watched a cute movie that will forever remain titleless since it was on AMC and they don't have commercials and the fact that even if I did hear the name, I would forget it. The black-and-white was a cute show in which a lady mistakenly ends up with an orphan baby and then likewise get it mistaken for her bosses seed. At one point this awkwardly positioned couple is having one of the ‘my baby is so smart’ conversations in the park with a veteran parent couple and the new pretend dad says ‘oh yes, our infant recited all of Gunga Din just last night” it was a funny conversation that Josh and I have used ever since as the ultimate display of ridiculous one-up-manship. If ever we catch ourselves in a bit of that silly prideful comparative conversation then we stop it with a quick reference to Gunga Din. So when I saw the movie I had to pick it up. Much to my great happiness, it starred Cary Grant! The show was hilarious. Grant at his most comical and rather young. And the movie gave away the secret to the often referenced Gunga Din, it is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. Now I might just get literate and read the poem!