Service challenge

Yesterday I was planning my lesson for Gospel Doctrine next week. We're probably a little behind most people because of when we had our snow day and church was cancelled. We're on lesson 15, which covers Mosiah 1-3. In the lesson, it has you discuss the leadership qualities of King Benjamin and things that impress you about how he led. After you discuss that, it asks the question, "How were the people affected by King Benjamin's leadership?" and has you read Mosiah 1:1 and one in Mosiah 6 (I can't remember which specific verse). Both verses mention how there was no contention among the people through the rest of King Benjamin's life. As I read this, I got to thinking about how my kids, like most kids, often fight. I decided that this week in part of preparation for my lesson, I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to try to get my children to serve each other and do nice things for each other to see if it helps reduce some of the fighting. As I thought about it, I remembered other times where one of them would do something nice and help another and they'd get along really well for a while. I'm also going to make sure we don't slack off and get in our regular family scripture study and family prayer. Tonight for FHE, we'll probably have a lesson on service and what it means to serve others and ways we can do it. I'm actually pretty confident that we'll see positive results from this, especially as Bryce and I join in the service too.

So my challenge today is to join me in my experiment and then let me know how it worked for you. If you do it and let me know by like Saturday, I could even use examples in my lesson. :) And if you think, "I don't have kids, so I can't do this," you're just kidding yourself. You can still do it at work or with extended families or neighbors. I'm also thinking of calling one or two families in my class and asking if they'd join in the experiment.

Running

As many of you already know, this last Wednesday, I decided that instead of running on my treadmill like I usually do, I would go run outside and take Ozzy with me. It was a nice evening, a little cloudy and would sprinkle rain a little bit, but not bad. So it was nice for running.

Things started out okay. We ran up the street to the street that kind of circles the subdivision and then started around. Ozzy was pulling a little bit, but not bad, and helped me keep my pace up and not go too slow. We ran past Caspian (the street Jarom and Katie live on) and were heading down the street. There were some other people out walking their dogs, a chow and a poodle, and Ozzy decided that they looked pretty interesting and he'd rather watch them than watch where he was going. He kind of stepped in front of me and took me down. Hard. I'm a little ashamed to say that I swore at the dog when he did that. Nothing too bad, and Bryce would say it's not even a swear word, but it really is. Just the fact that I actually swore at him is probably evidence that I've been around Bryce for a while. I then made the dog lie down while I assessed the damage. I had a nice scrape on my elbow, my sweats were ripped across the knee, I had scratches on that knee, bruises on my hip (not that I could see, but that I could feel), and had kind of pulled something in the back of my knee. I also looked around to see if anyone had been watching, and luckily it appeared that no one had. Then I got up and continued on the run. Even if the dog hadn't tripped me, I don't think I'd be taking him running again. When we got home, he was in worse shape than I was, with his hips or knees that bother him. But when I had to limp around because of the pulled something in my knee, I thought that Ozzy had effectively nixed any more running for me for the week at least.

Surprisingly enough, on Thursday, the pain in my knee continually lessened and on Friday, while every muscle in my body was still sore, I was feeling well enough that I thought I could run again. So after I gave the boys lunch and put Daniel and Chris in bed for their naps, I got on the treadmill to run. About halfway into my run, Chris got out of bed and he and Alex decided to come into my room. I told them to get out until I was done because I didn't want them to get hurt, so they decided to run around the treadmill and then back out the door. For some reason, Chris decided to step on the treadmill while he was passing it and fell. I guess my scrapes must have looked like fun, since he now has a nice scrape on his knee in the same spot as the one on mine. I do think I'd rather have him copy me with something like picking up his toys and cleaning the house rather than getting scrapes on his knees.

Nature Center and zoo

Today we went with Alex's preschool group to the Nature Center. The kids all had a really good time and the tour guide was good at keeping their attention and making them stay with her and not run ahead. Mostly we got to look at a whole bunch of fish, birds, and squirrels. They did also get to see lots of mounted animals, like bears and wolves and deer and elk. It was a great activity for them for little to no cost. If you don't do a guided tour, it's free, although they do willingly take donations. If you do a guided tour, they have a $10 mininum and you have to schedule the time in advance. I may take all the boys back there sometime when Ben can come with us to check it out.

Here are some pictures from the outing:

Everyone is looking over the bridge at the fish below

These are the fish below

Looking at the fish from under the water

The big one is looking at me!

Alex and the grizzly

Alex in the bear cave

Chris in the bear cave


Last Saturday we went to the zoo for Kyle's and Sabrina's birthday party. Since they were doing Earth Week activities, the boys got to see the River Fish and do some fun activities at the zoo. It was a bit chilly, but ended up being a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures from that:

The River Fish and the kids

The River Fish trying to get Chris to come to him

The story lady at the zoo

These were the kids all making "cotton tops"


And just because I thought it was cute, I'm adding this picture. Chris had pulled out our baby bathtub and decided to put his turtle in it and put the blanket over the turtle and then got his pillow and a blanket to go sleep by the turtle.

8 years in the making

About 8 years ago, I started putting together a quilt made out of denim squares cut from old jeans, as well as some strips of flannel sheets. My grandma Borrowman even let me have her sewing machine so that I could do it. I was pretty excited to be making this quilt and took my time gathering the jeans and cutting out the squares from them and sewing the squares together. I would make bigger squares out of 9 small squares and put the flannel strip around that. I had almost all the bigger jean squares put together and had two rows complete with the jean squares and the flannel strips (I'd do 4 big squares per row). Then somewhere amidst all that sewing, I stopped. It may have been because we moved from our apartment or I may have just gotten busy with work and such. I don't really remember the real reason I stopped. I do know that my grandma's sewing machine stopped working quite as well as it had been, so that might have been a pretty large factor in the reason for stopping. So for the last 6 or so years, it's been sitting in a closet waiting to be finished, largely forgotten.

As you may know, Bryce gave me a sewing machine for my birthday. I was pretty excited about it and sewed some baby gifts for a few people, sewed a pillow back together that had been coming apart, and kept thinking of things I could sew. Yesterday I decided to pull out the old quilt and start to work on it. I was surprised at how much I had actually gotten done and wondered why I had stopped in the first place, and why I hadn't pulled it out and worked on it within the last few years. Then I remembered my grandma's sewing machine, that's still sitting up in our guest bedroom, and thought, "Oh, yeah. That's why." So after lunch and after I had put Daniel in bed for his nap, I started sewing squares and strips together. I took a short break to go get Ben from the bus then got back to work on it, stopping again to give the boys baths and then to head over to get pizza and ice cream for dinner. After we got back home and put the boys in bed, I had to run to the store to get some stuff for preschool at our house this morning. While I was there, I bought batting for the quilt and some new scissors and some thread. I got home and worked on it until I had finished putting the top together and put it with the batting and the bottom sheet and pinned the edges together to be ready to sew and finally went to bed at 1:00 in the morning.

This morning I got up and figured I'd have to wait until naptime again. Ben was sick and stayed home from school, but I didn't think that would affect my being able to finish the quilt. So after preschool and lunch, I put Daniel back in bed, got the sewing machine out, and finished sewing the edges of the quilt. I had just finished doing that and was taking a needle and thread to tack down parts in the middle so that the batting wouldn't get too bunchy when we have to wash it and through regular wear and tear, when Bryce called and wanted us to come pick him up because he was sick. So I loaded up the boys, we picked up Bryce, and came home, where I once again got back to working on the quilt. So now after 8 years and a few hours of work, a bent sewing machine needle, and a sense of accomplishment, my quilt is finally finished.

Now I need to find something else to sew.

Anyway, here's a picture of my completed quilt:

Hearing Test

Alex had his hearing and speech test today. Before the doctor actually started the hearing test, he asked a few questions, like if his vocabulary is delayed or if he has balance or motor skills problems, or if we think he may have a hearing problem. I answered no to all of those, and he pointed out Alex's selective listening (we asked him to turn around in his chair and he ignored us for a bit). Then the doctor looked in Alex's ears, which looked good. After he looked in the ears, he started the first test where they test the pressure on the ear drums. Alex's were just fine. Then Chris, Daniel, and I had to go out because it needed to be quieter in the room. Not too much later than that, he came out and got us and told me what each of the tests did and said that Alex's hearing is fine, that he has no problems with that. He also had a good understanding of speech and vocabulary, and he did notice that Alex does have a hard time forming some of his words. He didn't seem too concerned about that and didn't even give us anything to work on with Alex for that, so it is something that may improve over time, especially if we help him work on some of it. At least now we can say that we know for sure that when Alex isn't answering us or seems to hear us, it's just that he's not paying attention.