I have a lot of pictures to post and thought a summary would be the best way to get them on here.

Bryce has loved preschool so far. Back on the 5th Cameron and I got to present his VIP (which happens in honor of the child's birthday). It was so fun to help our youngest child feel special by talking about him and telling his classmates the things he enjoys to do. He loved handing out a special treat to his preschool friends. When you are the VIP you also get to take the class book home. Bryce looked through it over and over again. It contains a profile on each student and has pictures of things they've done in class up to that time. He took pictures of the book with my camera.

The morning of the 9th we had a long photo session with my parents and siblings and families. I'm really excited to see them when they're done. The kids loved being with their cousins and crazy uncles. After the photos Cameron and Dane had to take off for Dane's soccer game.

Dane thoroughly enjoyed soccer again this year. He gets kind of goofy, not very focused, but the kid has fun!

After the soccer games, Dane had the very special opportunity to go to the BYU game with his dad. I painted the Y insignia on his cheeks and after than, Bryce and Ella wanted in on the face painting.

This is a butterfly...sort of. I think my skills are a bit rusty. Bryce just wanted two lightning bolts on his cheeks.Cam reported that Dane enjoyed the football game (it probably helped that they won), but it's still a bit long for him. He crashed on the way home. It was a long day. While they were at the game, Ella and Bryce and I went to Toy Story 3 at the dollar movie. I had an awesome time watching them watch and I cried again.

A week ago, Bryce and I took a trip to Gardener Village with Angie and Sophie. As Buzz Lightyear he was a CELEBRITY! Every little boy 2 and older were whispering excitely to their mothers as he passed. I told him that any time he heard someone say 'Buzz Lightyear' that he should wave. My son was his own parade. One mother even had her child shake hands with Bryce and got her son's photo with him. The kid was in awe.

Bryce ATE IT UP!

Sophie and Bryce helped their mommies with the Witch Scavenger Hunt that would yield a prize at the end of a 25 cent cookie.
Bryce took a bunch of odd pictures, but this one turned out all right.He insisted on this final one.This past week we watched our final soccer games of the season.

I think Bryce was relieved it was all over.

This week has been an excellent one spiritually for me. I feel so full of gratitude. I am generally more at ease and I'm definitely happier. It's wonderful to see your own efforts pay off and the blessings that come.

Speaking of blessings, yesterday Zealand came to visit. He brought my mom with him. He's at one of those stranger anxiety stages and doesn't much like us, but Ella began playing the piano for him and it really settled him down and he started to babble and crawl around. (He's 10 months now)

At the end, though, Cam wanted to hold him (he's been very wary of his uncle lately). You can see how nervous he is, but he didn't cry.

I hope your Halloween preparations go well. I need to get started on Cameron's. Lots to do!

Ella doesn't miss much.
She could have stated Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's famous quote "God is in the details" herself. I mean, the girl actually saw her name written in the clouds. Out of courtesy, I looked to where she indicated in the sky and her name was there! A small e, an upper case L followed by a lower case l and an upper case A. Did you know that clouds formed triangles with holes in the middle? Ella did. I only wish I hadn't been driving or I would have snapped a picture. Did I mention that this happened on her first day of kindergarten and she was quite nervous? These are tender mercies given to a 5 then/6 now little girl.
One day she noticed the magic of a small rainbow on our wall or ceiling, I forget which and we had to search for it's source and I got to teach her how to be even more perceptive.

Ella wants to be an artist right now and I think she's found the right vocation.

Anyway, rainbows...

Because Ella was so excited about the rainbows I started to look for prisms. Can you even read that word without thinking of the scene from Pollyanna and trying to make sick old Agnes Moorehead happy with them?So I have been looking for prisms and I was out with just Ella two saturdays ago and we found a prism candle holder. I plan on taking it apart and harvesting the prisms so that the house can be filled with rainbows. In the meantime, I just stuck it in the window. About this same time the sun began shifting a bit to the south and has turned the glass shelves in my garden windows to large prisms.

Rainbows have really brightened up our house!

Vanilla rainbow yogurt anyone?

I hope your day is filled with rainbows and sunshine and the ability to get through it all.

Even when I look at that post title I think that the subject here must be chocolate. But it's not.

Chocolate really isn't my biggest weakness, besides chocolate is a joy.

My biggest weakness is time management. There are so many things I want to do, I could never possibly do them all and then there are my home duties and family duties and wife duties and daughter duties, etc.

This little guy is my new best friend.

For as long as I know, The FLY Lady, has been stating that "You can do anything in 15 minutes!" She has suggested that one who wants a cleaner house and chaos-free life will want to have a small timer to carry around with them from room to room to do 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there. I tried just using my oven timer, but I'm telling you, this little guy is magic. He cost me less than $3 and helps me keep going and going. I can do amazing things in 15 minutes. I set it for 15 minutes and use it in one room at a time and keep working until it goes off. I get more done in each room than I would have just tackling it head on and then getting distracted as I put things away in various rooms. Oh, I could go on, but I won't. This is what I've been doing this week. It's been good.

The best product has been more time with these lovely people.

It has been a joy getting to know you three again.

Cam arranged a get-away for us this past weekend that was most welcome! Yay for good husbands!

On our way to St. George we read The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling outloud and listened to Miss Saigon since Cam had never heard it and we're going to the show in SLC.

We took our traditional travelling snacks: Double Stuf Oreos, licorice, bagels and cream cheese, string cheese, salt & vinegar chips, and apples. We didn't even have to share.

In St. George we just relaxed. We shopped a bit, saw a movie, ate out and played Lord of the Rings Risk in our hotel that evening.

The next morning we ate the hotel continental breakfast and finished our game right before check-out and going to church at 11 AM.

After church we took the long way home and enjoyed visiting the Jacob Hamblin home in Santa Clara, UT. We drove through Snow Canyon and hiked a bit there.

We visited one of the oldest LDS chapels still in operation in a little place called Pine Valley and we went rockhounding by Central, UT.

We listened to Les Miz and The Phantom of the Opera, read more Beedle the Bard and genuinely enjoyed being on our own on a road trip for the first time since 2004.

Love you Cameron!

On the craft blog I have created with my good friends Angie and Anisa, we are doing a give-away to celebrate our 40th post.

The prize is one of three paper-bag albums and all you have to do is leave a comment stating which one you'd want to win should your entry be picked.

So head over to http://twiddle-thumbs.com/ and comment to win! What are you waiting for!?!

By the way, if you think they're cute on the outside, they are 150 times cuter on the inside!

Four years ago yesterday, around 11:30 PM, we were advised to take our precious little 3 month old, Ella, to the emergency room at Primary Children's Medical Center. We bundled up our baby and not quite 3 year old Dane and began the drive to the University of Utah medical campus. Ella had been having some bowel complications over the last two months, but it started getting worse the night of Christmas Eve and came to a scary head on January 30th (a Thursday). We were admitted at 6:00 AM and Cam and Dane left Ella and I so they could go get some sleep.


Ella was in the hospital for four days, receiving a colon biopsy on Sunday (that came back negative for Hirschsprung's Disease and she was released on Monday.


The point of this post is not to talk about her issues then, but to praise this wonderful hospital and it's staff.


I was so amazed at the quality of care we both received during this time. She was taken care of so tenderly by her nurses and they were always inquiring into my needs. All the facilities are top of the line. I was not allowed to nurse her for a time, but they had great equipment for pumping and so I could keep the flow going. They also had showers and a chair/bed right next to hers. I didn't leave her side and didn't have to (though I think I went home for two hours at one point, it's all a little sketchy this many years later). These 'comforts' simply allowed me not to worry about anything, but her. Such a blessing! The staff was so gentle with Ella and did everything to make her comfortable and happy. Even when she had to be put under for the biopsy, her surgeon came and spoke to us in ways that we could really feel comfortable about what she would be going through.


Dane came up on New Years Day (his birthday) with Grandma Cindy and my nephew, Kyler, and we were able to have a small party for him in one of the playrooms on Ella's floor.

A short time before this, Dane had to come to Primary Children's for a tear-duct probe. He was also put under. When he woke up, he was not doing well, very upset and disoriented (of course!) and the staff were so patient and helpful and not at all phased by his reaction.

I hope that Bryce never has to see the inside of Primary Children's Medical Center, but if he did, he would see bright colors everywhere, walls lined with artwork by children and smiling faces everywhere. He would receive the utmost competent care possible and his parents would be greatly comforted.
If you ever have the chance to give to this wonderful place, whether through the fountain at the mall, Pennies by the Inch or by attending the Festival of Trees, please do. They give wonderful medical care regardless of the patient's family's ability to pay.

These are pictures of us at the Festival of Trees. Dane loved the blown glass tree with lights synchronized to music. Brycie loved the Winnie the Pooh tree. This is Ella by a Tinker-bell/Fairy tree.

So you say you want to get into genealogy and research your ancestors and all that family tree jazz?

You say you'd start today, but you hesitate because you've never seen a census chart or marriage record?

You say you simply don't have the time to get into the true trenches of researching your people...yet?

Well, I would like to make a humble suggestion: try Family Search Indexing!

Family Search Indexing gives you the chance to work on someone's family history by indexing various records from the United States and other countries that will help them to find and ultimately help you to find where your ancestors came from, what they did for a living and other cherish-able information.

Give it a try! It's absolutely free without any strings. The benefits to you is that you can easily get comfortable with the records you'd use when you are able search for Uncle Joe and Grandma Zerelda and you really are helping further the connections of families everywhere and that has got to feel good.

Click here to volunteer!

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with www.familysearchindexing.org site. I just love to do this volunteer work and view these little slices of history.

It's long, but worth the watch. I honestly wept.



We are all creators, always creating.

I just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl with Dane last night. It's been so fun reading chapter books with him. Since we began Charlotte's Web sometime last year, he's been hooked.

Charlie is such a charming, sad little character and the only one that the eccentric Mr. Wonka treats with true kindness.

Near the end of the book, when the other four children have gone and Mr. Wonka tells Charlie that he's won, I took a second to ask Dane what he thought Charlie had won. Instead, he told me why he won. "Charlie wasn't foolish or greedy like the other children" he spoke, sagely. Dane seems to automatically look for the lesson in the books we read.

I got downright weepy at the end of the book. The great glass elevator crashes through the Buckets' home and everyone is told they are coming to live at the factory. The three still-bedridden grandparents do not want to go, but their bed is wheeled onto the elevator anyway. Grandma Josephine says: "Will there be anything to eat when we get there? I'm starving! The whole family is starving!" (as indeed, they are) And then sweet, sad, little Charlie says, laughing: "Anything to eat? Oh, you just wait and see!" It made me cry.

I recommend this book whether you have anyone to read it to or not!

With Dane in school all day, we don't get to see him a lot and usually he's playing with friends on his every-other-Friday off. Well, we got him all to ourselves last Friday when the kids and I went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. It's a fund-raiser for The Utah Boys (and Girls) Ranch.

Anyway, we had such a great time that we were there for nearly 5 hours. There was so much to do for all ages and I really, really loved being there with my kids. We're taking Cam with us next year!