JazznJenna Happily Ever After

Beauty is More than Physical Appearance

2012-02-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this article with everyone, because it's an issue that's really meaningful for me. It opened my eyes and really helped me feel better about my health and my self-acceptance. My favorite point was to realize that the "beauty industry" is not motivated to help us feel more beautiful because we NEED beauty help, but because they need to make money! We can't fault them for that, but we can be careful when we consider which products/services to buy into, and we can be more careful about feeling bad about our proposed "flaws"! Beauty is more than physical appearance! I hope to help others understand this, as I'm growing to understand it myself. It's all about spreading LOVE, including SELF-LOVE : )!

Beauty ReDefined Article

By the way, the title of the article suggests that it's all about "what men think", but it's really about more than that. It's about helping break down erroneous notions about "not being enough" in the eyes of others, especially the media. It's long, but if you have time, hopefully you can be uplifted by it like I was.

Our Holiday Creations

2012-02-05T19:13:00.000-08:00

My kids and I had a really great time being crafty this holiday season. Last year we started a new tradition when we made these snowflake ornaments. They were meant to be gifted to their school teachers, but I fell in love with each one of them so much (and they each took so long to make) that I decided we should get to keep all of them.

These little snowflake guys, made of felt, are all fashioned after the one "Jack Frost" in the center, which I have had for about 20 years or so. It's special to me, because my mom had taken me to a Christmas craft bazaar, and she told me that I could pick out one thing that she would buy for me. The Jack Frost ornament is what she bought for me. I love their little nylon faces stuffed with fluff.

This year (Christmas 2011, I mean), I decided we would not only have a great time making ornaments again, but that this time we'd make enough to be able to give some away. We succeeded on both accounts, and had a wonderful time creating together. We made clothespin ornaments this time. Again, modeled after some special ornaments from my childhood.

You can see the two clown ornaments here which were our "heirlooms" to copy. I remember painting these ornaments with my siblings and our mother when we were younger. And I remember giving these ornaments away to the families we visited when we went Christmas caroling (a tradition I always thought I'd carry on with my own kids, but we haven't managed that one yet).

Didi, Goldie, and I made snowmen, Santas, and soldiers. And, Tootie made his own original designs (seen next to the clowns).

We worked together in our basement, and tried to get most of the painting done before school, and before Tootie woke up for the day. Because if you know Tootie at all, you know that it's best to keep him as far away from paint brushes and paint as possible.

Tootie would have liked to help more, but it was challenging enough for me let him help at all. (I found myself questioning often..."PAINT this year? What was I thinking!?) He did sneak down to our crafting station on occasion long enough to paint a few undesirable items. Fortunately, nothing too valuable was completely covered in black paint (just a few small things that I was able to clean up with some scrubbing).

Last but not least, I wanted to share with you the adorable "Sock Snowmen" that we made in January. I got this idea off of a crafting blog as I was searching for ideas for my Activity Days calling in the church, where I lead 10-16 girls ages 8-11 a couple times a month in an evening activity. We didn't make these with the girls at the church, but I thought they were just too adorable to pass up having in our home during our first big snowy Pennsylvania winter.

They're made with rice and socks, and a few small notions, and were very fast and easy to make. It was a blast. As you can see, Tootie was allowed again to join the girls and me in our crafting time, and he is just as proud of his little snowman as the rest of us. We did manage to make one to give away as well, to our favorite next-door neighbor that we love dearly.

I wonder if we'll come up with anything to do for Valentine's Day besides the cards they'll take to school and send to our loved ones? I'm getting an itching to be crafty again...and it's kind of exciting that I'm branching away from papercrafts just a little bit. If you have any perfect Valentine craft ideas, send them my way!

Who Moved My House? Part I

2012-01-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

I confess, I've yet to read the book "Who Moved My Cheese", although it is on my long want-to-read list. Nevertheless, I thought that would be a good idea for my post title, as I share with you some of the reasons I'm a fan of MOVING. No, not moving one's body parts around in an aerobic manner--although that's a great thing to do 5-6 times a week, or moving from one's assigned seat at the dinner table to another--a faux pas in our house...rather, I'm talking about moving out of one house and into another, and particularly when those two houses are in different cities, states, or countries.

I have lived in 8 different states, 1 district, and 1 country other than the U.S.A. My father was in the navy while I was growing up, and that accounts for over half of the states that I lived in. The rest of my moves were attributed to my marrying an eternal student who started his college career in 1993, and is currently still a student (I feel it's okay to lovingly use that term of endearment "eternal student" for my dear hubby until he actually receives his doctoral degree, sometime in 2012 if all goes well!). I must not neglect to mention however that he is now a student who has full-time employment (hallelujah!), hence our most recent move to Pennsylvania.

After all of my moving, I have learned to love it! I say "learned to love it" because of course it wasn't always easy. The most difficult move for me emotionally was probably when I was in the middle of 6th grade. I thought my life was over, and was sure I'd never be able to make new friends. But sure enough, I have been able to make new friends everywhere I've lived, and I can't imagine missing out on all of the amazing and wonderful people that have made my life so rich.

And even though it's more the people and not the places that have taken permanent residence in my heart, I'd love to share with you what I remember and love most about each of the places that I've lived.

I was born in Virginia. I can't claim any memories of VA because we moved from there when I was 2 months old. From there, I believe we moved into my grandparents' home in Utah for awhile, which I also don't remember (I remember the house from my older childhood memories, but don't remember living there). Then we lived in Washington D.C. for a few years, where 2 of my 5 siblings were born (I'm the 2nd oldest). But the first home I really remember was in South Carolina.

South Carolina was palm trees, swimming at the beach and enjoying all of the tiny sea creatures there, beautiful brick homes, rain that brings frogs all over the road, and missing my dad while he was away on a navy ship for several weeks. Collecting locust shells from the trees and sticking them all over our shirts. Pine needles all over our front yard, and prickly "gum balls" all over our back yard. My last 2 siblings were born in South Carolina. We lived there for 5 years, and moved on to our next state of California when I was 10.

Southern California for me meant hot summers, orange trees and lemon trees and lots of other kinds of yummy trees right on our property, avocados that were free because they had dropped on the side of the road, green rolling hills, and having lots of bilingual friends. I began learning Spanish at this young age and even got to star as "La Caperucita Roja" (Little Red Riding Hood) in my school play in 3rd grade. I also started my singing career in 3rd grade, when I sang "Over the Rainbow" as my first solo in front of the whole school. Hooray for encouraging music teachers! This is the town where I started to gain a little independence as an older child, and I loved being allowed to walk into town with my girlfriend to use my spending money at Pizza Hut and the Hello Kitty store.

In the middle of my 6th grade year, as I mentioned, we moved to Nevada, which I didn't actually learn to pronounce properly until we got there (you'd think that Californians would know that the "va" in Nevada rhymes with "hat", and not "hot"). Our town was a farmland in the middle of the desert, and is one of my favorite landscapes in the world. I love the rolling tumbleweeds, the sandy light beige dirt we all had for front yards, and best of all, being able to see for miles. None of those tall leafy things to obscure our view : ). With my town being partly a dairy farming community, the smell of cows always makes me feel at home (as do Wrangler jeans and bales of hay). I was blessed to live there long enough to graduate from high school, so I did a lot of growing up there. High school in Nevada for me was a happy time. It meant becoming a musician as I developed my singing voice, played a few different instruments, and furthered my Spanish-speaking skills. I did a little dating but mostly in groups, and I had the best group of friends (many of them from church, most of them from band and choir), that anyone could ever ask for. Nevada also gave me my first jobs, babysitting (which I loved), and working at Burger King (good times).

From Nevada, I headed off to college at BYU in Utah, but I'll save those stories and my other adult living-location adventure stories for the next post.

I'll finish up with the top 5 reasons a child can love moving:

1. Once the house is all packed up and cleaned out, it's really fun to run around and act crazy in the empty rooms.

2. If there are any big giant furniture boxes, maybe Mom & Dad will let you use them to build forts later.

3. Pen pals. Who doesn't enjoy getting long-distance love in the mail? I have one childhood friend that I've stayed in touch with for going on 30 years. Whether they be hand-written or e-mailed, getting letters from friends is the best.

4. Being the new kid in school can make you the cool kid that everyone wants to get to know. And after the novelty rubs off, at least you can still wow your friends with stories of this mysterious unknown land that they've never experienced.

5. Okay, the truth is, children don't really love moving. But in hind sight, it's awesome! I LOVE that I got to experience all of those different places in my growing up years.

To be continued...

30 Days of Gratitude 2011

2012-01-19T10:38:00.001-08:00

Click here to view this photo book larger

These are the thoughts my kids and I recorded in November, with some photos to add to the memories. You may have read mine in November, but I thought you might enjoy some of the things my kids said : ). Here's to being grateful, all year around. (I recommend clicking above to see the book larger, and then "view full-screen").

Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T05:18:00.000-08:00

2012, what a cool thought. I have enjoyed writing it on paper a couple of times already, and haven't yet had to cross off writing "2011" by mistake...yet.

Well after a brief yet long Christmas break (brief because it was shorter than the winter breaks we were used to, and long because the kids still got bored), I just now saw my first child head back to school at 6:45 a.m., and everyone else at the moment is still sleeping, so I thought I'd take a few of these silent minutes to put some of my New Year's thoughts down. There are two things I've been wanting to articulate: 1) my favorite highlights of 2011, and 2) my goals for the new year. ...Yes, I do like to set New Year's resolutions, and yes, I do like to try to keep them. At least for 6 months or so, which I feel makes my goals share-worthy.

2011 Highlights:

*In March we had the super-funnest Family Reunion ever, with all of my siblings, in Boise. It was sad that Mom and Dad couldn't be there, but we were all so happy for where they were, in Virginia on their mission.

*I ran my first races ever. None of them were races for which I officially registered, 'cause I'm kind of lame that way, but I ran them nonetheless and this year began to think of myself as a real runner. Pretty cool, in my book. I ran (jogged? who cares about that distinction, anyway?) 4.5 miles in the Butte to Butte, and I completed my own personal 10K, along with my sister, who ran it the same month on the other side of the country.

*We moved across the country, from Oregon to PA, in August, because my husband is awesome and got an awesome JOB even before he officially finished his doctorate. He is awesome. And we love our new home.

*Our younger daughter turned 8 and was baptized by her father. That was a special day.

*My brother and his wife were able to adopt their second child, a beautiful little girl! That made me happier than words can express.

*Our oldest child turned 12, and that's an important age in our church! The kids graduate from being in the "Primary children's" group, and get to now be considered one of the "youth". He received the priesthood last Sunday. His grandparents were here to support him in this important milestone, and it was really funny when Grandma kissed him on the cheek after the ordination and left lipstick lips on his cheek, simply in order to embarrass him in front of his peers : ). It was another special day for our family.

*Some fun musical changes: I became the kids' piano teacher, and our oldest two kids started on new instruments: the trumpet and the saxophone. Oh, and Tootie discovered he likes the drums (who's surprised?). Good stuff!

Goals for 2012:

*Read 12 books. That's up from the 6-8 that I believe I read in 2011. I love to read, I really do. I just have a hard time sitting down to do it (I guess unless it's on the computer). Probably because I can't really multi-task when I'm reading, and because I fall asleep too easily when I read at the end of the day. Anyway, the books I finish this year may include: The Book of Mormon (goal is to be done by the end of June), the New Testament or Doctrine & Covenants, the book I just started called "The Case Against Spanking", The Diary of Anne Frank, Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland, The Hiding Place, The Kingdom and the Crown, something by Jane Austen, Charlie's Monument (which I want to read to my kids), Matilda (which I'm currently reading to my girls), The Diary of Anne Frank, and I don't know what else. Books are so much fun.

*Fitness goal: to maintain my weight. I'm working on a goal with my family, and my personal plan within that goal is for me to exercise 5-6 days a week, doing 45 minutes per day of my aerobic and weight routines. Running outside when I feel up to it, which is usually only when the weather is nice.

*Music goal: like last year, I want to continue to practice the piano. I would like to learn to play 4 more hymns in the hymn book. Someday I would love to be good enough to have "piano player" as a calling in the church. Maybe in the Primary for starters?

*Homemaking goal: start planning dinners in advance, in line with The Nanny Plan, on The Food Nanny show.

*Limit my computer time a bit. I would like to try for doing just 1 hour per day on most days, and have one day per week when I do no more than check my email in the morning. Thursdays--no computer after 9 a.m. That should help me have more time to read, right?

Maybe I'll think of some more goals later. These are goals that I'm feeling quite motivated about though for now, so there you go. Do you have any new goals for this year that you can share with me?

(Oops...I think I already used up my hour for today's computer time. Can I start over?)

The Christmas Story

2012-01-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

This is such a wonderful and adorable depiction of the Nativity, I know you'll love it. Merry Christmas. (Can I please keep saying that for just a few extra days, even though it's passed?)

October and November

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-08:00

One of our many Philadelphia Zoo trips to come (since we bought a year pass...I hope we make good use of it!).


How do you like my new stamp station all set up? I have one more long table now along the left side that gives me a lot of work space. I haven't been able to use this area much yet.......OH, BUT I PLAN TO. Notice my little collection of rainbow pictures that my kids have made? It is still growing, and I call it my "rainbow wall". It's one of my favorite collections : )!

Isn't this a funny picture? Goldie had a sticker book for making faces, and we got pretty silly with it one day. Good times.

Hay ride for Tootie's preschool class. A very cold day...I love these fun field trips. It's one of the best parts of being a mom.

Tootie and I carved 2 of the pumpkins. If you look carefully at the one on the left, you'll see a special secret (secret to this blog) in the design!

We had fun at the S'mores Night at Hershey's Chocolate World. This singer guy was a good entertainer at the campfire party.

One of the highlights of our November was getting to meet Grandma and Grandpa at the D.C. temple and visitor's center on the day of their temple trip with their soldiers. The kids thought the soldiers were pretty fascinating, and this man was kind enough to answer questions for them and pose in the picture with them. I thought it was funny how they were afraid to stand close to him in the picture though, and this is as close as I could get them.

Happiness!

Can you believe these amazing sunsets!!? This is a scene from our back door.

I had to come up with SOME way to celebrate 11-11-11, and this is what I came up with--a yummy cake : ). And I was able to take a picture of my computer clock at 11:11 on 11-11-11, too. It was very cool. Oh yeah--I almost forgot~we also hid coins in the cake (washed, of course), in increments of 11 cents!

(11 candles, of course!)

Tootie's class did an elaborate Thanksgiving program for the parents, full of songs and stories of the first Thanksgiving celebration with the Pilgrims and Indians. Lots of fun!


He made his own vest with real Indian writings on it. Oh, that smile of his--it gets me deep down : )!

Our Thanksgiving Day feast. YUM!

Our guests this year were the two full-time elders that are serving in our ward. We missed being able to get together with family, but it was still a really nice day for us. Shark and Jazz had a nice time in the morning too, playing in the Turkey Bowl with other friends from the church. We played games (Scattergories and "Write to 100") after the meal and had a great time.


This is our handsome family scientist--testing whether play dough dries faster in the house or outside. What do you guess that he found out? He flattened both dough balls into pancakes, and he observed it for 3 days.We were surprised that our hypothesis was wrong--the play dough outside showed practically no signs of drying after 3 days, and the play dough inside was a crispy cracked white thing. We took photos and he presented his findings on a big display board, and got an A on the project : ). Way to go, Scientist Shark!

Silver Linings and My Pocket Full of Change

2011-10-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

I just found this beautiful song on Nienie's blog and thought it would be a nice complement to the "Love/Hate" post that I had in the works. So I'm putting them in one post together. It's a great blessing to be able to see the silver lining to our dark clouds, isn't it? And yet, sometimes it's still fun to list pros AND cons to things that we enjoy. So, here's to seeing both sides of the coins in our pockets full of change : )!

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Re: Not having my own car
LOVE: being forced out of my element ("I can do hard things"), the extra exercise, fresh air, and being independent ("I don't NEED that, I am creative and can get things done anyway.")
HATE: feeling embarrassed about it sometimes. having to ask for a ride occasionally. sometimes not being able to do what I'd choose to do if I did have a car.

LOVE: Our new home in Pennsylvania! And "living in the country" is so refreshing, quiet, and we love the farm lands.
HATE: Having to drive so far to get to church. We used to live a 12-minute drive from our stake center/ward building, now we're an hour from our stake center, and 25 minutes from our ward building. I wouldn't mind it as much if the kids didn't whine about it every week! It doesn't help that 2 of our kids consistently get car sick (including vomiting on occasion).

LOVE: that I've still been able to keep up my exercise habit 5-6 days per week, despite not having a gym membership anymore.
HATE: that I haven't played racquetball once since we left Oregon. Waaaah : '(.

LOVE: noticing the differences in the way people talk around here. Such as the "upside down" intonations of their questions, the different vocabulary words ("yous" instead of "you guys"), and the funny pronunciations (Lancaster = LANG-kister, Lebanon = LEB'nun), etc.
HATE: that I still don't understand the difference between a city, a township, and a borough. Maybe I'll get the hang of that someday.

LOVE: Tootie's preschool class. Tootie LOVES it too!
HATE: that it's only 3 days a week, 2 hours per day. We could use an extra few hours...2 hours a day 5 days a week would be nice, or 3 hours a day 4 days a week like we had last year would be awesome. It's hard for us to fill up all the other hours of the week with good stuff to do while the other kids are in school.

LOVE: reading good books.
HATE: not finding time enough to read.

LOVE: massages.
HATE: that no one is giving me one right now! ha ha ha : )

LOVE: my Stampin' Up! business.
HATE: that I am currently in the "find new customers or die" stage...again. Hopefully for the last time though (at least for a long time).

HATE: Snow. That cold yucky (albeit pretty) stuff that is falling from our sky right now.
LOVE: Seeing my kids get so excited about snow, and knowing that they're going to make me hate it a little less as we find joy playing in it this weekend, and for the next few months, probably!

HATE: Messes in my house.
LOVE: Being a Stay-at-home-Mom!!!

DISLIKE: Halloween...Not my favorite holiday.
LOVE: Candy (Not burning it off later though). And, seeing my kids have fun dressing up. I don't love doing that now that I'm "old", but I know it's fun for kids. I love that I have 4 amazing kids that keep me enjoying things that I've outgrown.

As for counting my blessings, I think my life is almost pretty much perfect. I am so happy with where we are right now. Life changes a little bit every day, and I love the direction it is going. I'm so happy to be me.

Fall Fun

2011-10-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

Goldie and Tootie and a neighbor. Sometimes the kids ask to have their picture taken when they're having fun, when I wouldn't have thought of pulling out the camera. Those pictures can be some of the best.

We finally got around to taking down the birthday balloons we had hanging up in our dining room, and wanted to make a little more use of them, so Tootie and I invented "the birthday stick". He carried this with him in the stroller on our outing downtown to the library and it was quite the good time, yes it was.

I just love this sign. It's at the edge of the Lutheran Church parking lot where Tootie goes to school. I wish we had one at our own church parking lot : )!

We had fun examining this "Ladybug tree". There must have been hundreds of ladybugs on and around it. And believe it or not, this is the first time in my life I have ever seen such PINK ladybugs! I knew there were yellow and orange ones, but pink? That's perfect!

Here we are on a very fun little hayride, a great way to celebrate the fall.

The kids had a lot of fun worrying about the other hayride truck catching up to us. We were in the lead, and we won the "race". It was funny how they kept imagining our lead shrinking and expanding, since both tractors were just going about 5 miles an hour.

Shark couldn't have been more pleased with our Philadelphia Zoo experience, because we got in some high quality lion-watching time. They didn't do anything amazing for us, but at least they weren't in hiding like they were when we went to the Oregon Zoo.

flamingos!

Philly Zoo...see you again soon.

The Best Movie I've Seen in a Long Time: "Two Brothers"

2011-10-16T17:46:00.000-07:00

As part of "The 5000 Days Project", the movie "Two Brothers" is a completely awesome documentary about 2 LDS brothers who are interviewed periodically over the course of 10 years. It starts out when they are 8 and 10 years old, and ends with one coming home from his mission and one leaving on his mission. The older boy serves his mission in Chile, and the younger brother gets to play college football before his mission. It's so cool to see them grow up and see how they change in that amount of time. Shark and Didi and I watched the whole 80 minute movie glued to our seats. I wish it could have been even longer.

I heard about it because I'm on BYUtv's email list. I don't know how long they'll keep the whole movie on their website, so I'd highly recommend watching this movie asap while it's on there. It's also being sold on DVD for $20 (better to watch the free version!). It's totally worth the money though; Shark wants me to get him a copy for Christmas.

Watch it, and tell me what you think! We LOVED it. I hope you will too!
See the Trailer HERE
View the movie HERE: Two Brothers on BYUTV

It's Great to be Eight

2011-10-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

We had Goldie's 8th birthday party the week before her baptism. Last year she got to celebrate with a big "friends" party, so this year she got a small family party. She had a fun day even with just us, though.

I asked Goldie what kind of cake she wanted...the Piglet part was her choice, the rainbow part was my idea. Didi helped guide me this year with the design; she knows the rainbow order better than I do (though she informed me that I ended up making the rainbow upside down), and she was a great frosting color mixer. She also helped me remember to put the (washed) money in the cake, continuing with my family tradition.


I thought this "Tangled" poster was a fun gift to give her, and thought this photo turned out cute. It's as if the characters in the poster were standing right next to her/looking at her.

After she thought all the presents had been opened, Dad brought her to "the big one" : ).

By the way, today was Goldie's first Fast Sunday since she turned 8. Now as a full member of the church, we were so proud of her for choosing to fast one meal this morning with the rest of us, and she also was brave enough to bear her testimony in sacrament meeting. What a brave girl! Isn't it great to be eight?

Goldie's Special Baptism Day

2011-09-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

Goldie's baptism was extra special for a few reasons.

1. She was baptized by a very special person: her father, just as her siblings were before her.

2. She got to be baptized in a special dress: her grandmother made it, and her mother was baptized in it almost 30 years ago. Her aunt Angela and her big sister Didi also wore it for their baptisms. Isn't that nice?

3. She had some very special missionary guests at her baptism: Grandma and Grandpa Elkins were given permission to leave their duties in Virginia for a couple of days to come up for the special event. We LOVED having them here!!!

(We also really appreciated the support from several members of the ward, who came to the service. The full-time missionaries were also present, along with 3 investigators. It was so nice to have a group there to support our family.)

4. She had a very special service: talks were given by her grandparents, prayers were given by Shark and Didi, and we had a VERY special musical number: Goldie asked to sing a duet with me, her mom! She chose to sing "I Love to See the Temple", and sang the whole first verse solo, and we sang the second verse together. It was really sweet!

It was definitely a very special day for Goldie, and for all of us. I, for one, had to concentrate really hard on not crying during the song we sang together, and barely choked out the closing words, "a family is forever." Awesome.

A Happy, Healing Day

2011-09-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a story for you about how one of my desperate prayers was answered. Sorry if it's kind of long. It was an emotional couple of days for me, so I wanted to include the details.

Tootie's preschool class didn't start for about 3 weeks or so after his 3 older siblings started school. That turned out to be a LONG time for him to be without playmates or places to go. As we only have one vehicle, and that vehicle goes to work everyday with Dad a half an hour away, Tootie and I were for the most part homebound. Tootie was getting pretty bored, and I struggled to come up with enough entertainment for him and still keep a balance in my day for myself and all of my other wants and needs.   (Taking Dad to work frequently so I can have the car has not been a feasible option for various reasons).

I had a bit of a breakdown one day. I was worried about both of us, and wondered how we would ever rectify our situation without our getting another car to give us freedom to go out and about.   There is nothing super close to our home, the stores where we shop are all 1-3 miles away. All I had to help transport Tootie was a red wagon. Plus, I had misunderstood the location of his preschool--I thought it was 5 miles from us, so I really wondered how we were going to get him to and from preschool 3 days a week without burdening someone else to transport us (later I found out I just had the wrong address).

I prayed that night, very sincerely, that the next day would be better for us. That we would have something to do, that Tootie wouldn't be bored, and that I could feel satisfied with what I got done in the day. I was pretty serious about these requests, and hoped that Heavenly Father would somehow help me. Hoped He'd help me meet Tootie's needs and bless me with some relief from the stress.

The next day, I decided I would brave the streets and see what that little red wagon could do. I set Tootie up with some snacks, a hat to protect him from the sun, and I decided we were going to head out to the pharmacy where I needed to pick up a prescription (about a mile and a half away), and then we would head over to the public library to have some fun (a little farther still).

The walk to the pharmacy was hot and tiresome. The wagon + a 40 pound boy + lots of hills + no proper shoulder on the road turned out to be awkward and challenging for such a distance. But we made it. And, although I felt too beat to continue all the way to the library, the pharmacy turned out to be a blessing in itself. Inside the store, there was a little waiting area for kids, with lots of puzzles and toys. Tootie and I played there for I think at least 20 minutes before heading out. It was fun. Then right outside the pharmacy, across the street, we spied a jungle gym that belonged to an apartment complex. "Can we play there, Mommy?" "Sure!" I replied, and I was so glad that for once I wasn't thinking "I hope he doesn't make me stay longer than I want to, 'cause I have places to be." I was grateful for the playground--the first one we had found in our town, so far, since we'd moved here. There, we had lots of fun with caterpillars--"a whole family of them." Fun!

As we headed home from there, I made the most significant discovery of the day: we walked right by a Lutheran church...one that happened to have the same name as the place I knew Tootie's preschool would be. I inquired within, and sure enough, it was his school, where his classes would begin in a couple of weeks. Why was I so excited? Because I realized that his school was not 5 miles from my house, it was only just over 1 mile from my house. It was walkable! I wouldn't have to bum a ride! If I could just find a stroller on craigslist or something, I'd be all set.   We played at his new school's playground for another 15 minutes before we headed home. I almost cried as I pondered how much more mobile I felt with Tootie that day, and how independent I could be without a car. And how at least this day, as I had requested from Heavenly Father, had been so much better than the day before. Pharmacy task done (without a car) and waiting room puzzles completed, caterpillar family adventures, playgrounds discovered...pretty much a wonderful day so far.

And then can you believe...one of my neighbors was throwing away a perfectly good stroller the following week? I asked, and they said I could have it. Blessing!! It's in great condition and it's working out perfectly for the trek to and from preschool. So much easier than pulling the wagon. I push him there, leave the stroller, and jog home 1.2 miles. Jog back an hour and a half later, and bring him home in the stroller. Perfect. And if it rains, I have learned I have 2 neighbors with kids in the same class who are more than happy to give us a ride. Awesome.

Now the preschool classes are in full swing, Mon/Wed/Fri. Until we get a second car, I feel we are going to manage just fine. The extra jogging time to and from the school complements my exercise routine perfectly. We spend plenty of time together at the playground each school day before coming home, and Tootie is so happy. I feel I'm living with a more relaxed, slightly less productive schedule than before, but the important things are getting done, and I am not as stressed. I am going to enjoy these next few months with just Tootie and me at home...my last school-year months of having a small child at home all day (or almost all day). Thank heavens for our stroller, for Tootie's preschool class, and for my ability to run a few errands whenever I need to--without having to beg rides. Why, today I even was able to walk to the bank and the post office, which are just up the road from the preschool. I love that I can be car-less and still do a few things! And I loved my happy, healing day, receiving all the blessings that I had asked for. Thanks, Heavenly Father.

We Can Find Happiness

2011-09-19T10:46:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a young adult, I've been fascinated with the concept of finding happiness. Happiness that overpowers stress, worry, sadness, happiness that fills you up. The gospel is my #1 source of this peace and happiness that I continually seek. I am so grateful for the peace in my life! I love chances to share it, too. I hope you enjoy this clip, as I did.

First Day of School

2011-09-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

Our kids are going to be in 4 different school this year. (Tootie's pre-school still doesn't start for one more week.) And not only that, but they all leave the house at quite different times: 6:45 a.m., 8:00 a.m., 8:45 a.m., and 9:15 a.m. And Dad leaves the house at 6:45 a.m., so if I want to work out in the morning, I get up at 5:25 so I can be done before he leaves. That's a hefty morning schedule, if you ask me!

Shark, ready for 6th grade. And, ready for Mom not to be as present as before. I was the only parent at the bus stop, just long enough to give him a hug, take a picture, and then step back before I really embarrassed him (ha ha). Only one other parent was kind of there, watching from her car parked discreetly 200 yards away. Wow. I can't believe how grown up he is.

Shark waiting for the bus (notice the lack of parents).

Look at all the fancy new clothes! It's so much fun to get dressed up for all the excitement of the first day. Jazz's official first day of Teaching was Tuesday, the day after our kids started, though he'd been working on campus for a couple of weeks already.

Waiting for our second bus of the day, Didi's bus, as she's off to 5th grade. This bus stop is about a 3-4 minute walk from our house, so there will be no more "the bus is here!" announcements from within the house like we used to have ;).

Here's Goldie, ready for 2nd grade!

Our New Home, Sweet Home.

2011-09-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

I may have posted this picture already, but I wanted to remind you of the fun play structures in our back yard, that belong to the elementary school--and tell you the bad news: After talking with the principal, I have learned that Tootie and I are not allowed on the playground during school hours. Not when the school kids are at recess, not when they are NOT at recess, not ever, during school hours. It's pretty much one of the biggest bummers in the whole world. Tootie has been pretty good about not crossing the line, but I think this proximity (and our using or just our being present on our own grass during recess time) might be causing a little bit of tension between the recess duty teachers (including Goldie's teacher) and me. "Tootie, don't go over there, you're going to get me in trouble," I say : (. I hope the tension dissipates and that it won't be a problem for the next 9 months. Craziness.

The front of our home. We think we have wonderful neighbors!

Here is our pretty dining room.

View from the kitchen into the dining room, and behind Jazz is our back door to our yard and the school.

Our family room...I'm super thankful for the carpet rug that we were able to add to this floor (it came with the house). I'm not a big fan of hard wood floors in rooms that really should have carpet (bedrooms, living room...). I'm also grateful that our floors are actually "faux" hard wood, and not the real thing--I think the real ones are too fragile. Faux floors are good enough for me : )!

View from the family room to the dining room

Front door and stairs up to the bedrooms. The stairs down to the basement are also on this side of the house (if you had Superman's x-ray vision you could see them through this wall). I love our basement, and our bedrooms are the right size for us.

We aren't done hanging up pictures, or even unpacking boxes for that matter, but this place definitely feels like home, and we love it.

A Really Big Move--Part III--Oh the Places They'd Go

2011-08-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

A view from my favorite place on earth: BYU campus. No way we could leave the West without saying good bye (or "so long") to our alma matter.

Here is the BYU music building where Jazz and I lived while getting our degrees in music. The Harris Fine Arts Center. It's so funny to think of how when we lived in this building, we were single students. Now look! We never envisioned bringing 4 kids back with us to visit this building someday. It gives me warm fuzzies inside to think of how far we've come since the HFAC days.

This is the spot where Jazz and I met, on the stair case in the HFAC. That was about 14 years ago! I think we might look just a few days older than we did then, maybe...

I regret not putting myself in this photo, since it's always better to have people in the pictures you're taking of special places. But anyway, I wanted a shot of this other favorite BYU locale of mine (and its related sister-copy centers, including the one at the MTC which is going to be torn down--boo!)--where I worked for almost 5 years. It was a super fun place to work, and I can still un-jam a copy machine like nobody's business.

This was a really fun hike we took with some Lovell cousins, up to a little waterfall in Salt Lake. Our kids complained the whole way up (which I think took all of 10 or 15 minutes...could have had something to do with the thousands of feet of difference in elevation than what we're used to), but had the time of their lives once we got to the falls. I just love the magic of waterfalls.

Yes, I know this picture is foggy. That's the beauty of it. It was so incredibly humid when we stepped out of our van for this little pit stop by the Mississippi River that my camera lens fogged up, and it took me several minutes to get it un-fogged.

In front of the Mississippi River. Speaking of which, here's a funny quote from last week...I was telling Goldie who her teacher is going to be this year, after getting a call from the school. Then Tootie piped up, "I know who my teacher is going to be! Mrs. Sippi!" Get it? Mississippi? He he he : )

Jazz with our wheels at the Mississippi.

awwww : )! Back on the road again...

Chicago Temple

Kirtland, OH Temple

Inside the Whitney Store, in Kirtland. This was a really neat tour. It was a special place for historical events for the prophet Joseph Smith, and we really enjoyed feeling the Spirit there.

(look how long Didi's hair is!)

Next stop--Harrisburg PA, for one night. I missed the "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign, but I figured this one would do just as well. Welcome to toll roads, yippee.

We drove through Hershey on the way to our new home; it's only about a half an hour from us. What a fun place! What could be better than a chocolate city?

Don't you love the street lights in Hershey?

I got these cool shirts at Hershey's Chocolate World, one for everyone in our family so we can wear them to Disneyland next year! Aren't they perfect? They are tie dyed (like Eugene), and have Kisses on them (representing PA), so I have both of our homes all "wrapped" into one in these shirts. I couldn't pass them up. Don't ask me how much they cost, 'cause I already got in trouble for that!

Didi is eager for a real cow-milking experience someday--this one didn't quite cut it. This is in Intercourse, PA, part of the area where the Amish people live. We spent a fun few hours there as tourists, after we got moved into our home and before our Lovell family members left.

We're slowly learning the differences between Amish and Mennonite, which seem very similar. There are a lot of Mennonite people here, even in our town. They're most noticeable by the simple old-fashioned clothes that they wear, the bonnets that the women wear, the long beards that the men have (with no mustaches), and the horse-and-buggies that they drive. It's sure fascinating to share the roads with them!

Isn't this a beautiful building? I'm really impressed with Jazz's new campus (this isn't the music building where he'll work, but I thought this was a nice representation of the campus).

Jazz's new office!

And last but not least, here's one more teaser for the upcoming post about our home. These units look kind of close together, but inside it feels very roomy to us. It's so nice to come home to this place! More later...

A Really Big Move--Part II--Our Western Family

2011-08-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

We really enjoyed connecting with our "Western Family" for our last "pre-PA" visits. Our first family visits happened in California, our first stop in the cross-country journey. We stayed at Jazz's parents' house in Sacramento, and we got to travel south just a little bit to hang out with Jazz's sister Julie and Brian and kids for one afternoon. We loved seeing their home and eating out with them at a favorite family-friendly restaurant.

Thank heavens for Skype so that these fun cousins can keep visiting regularly : )!

Add caption

After California, we were off to Utah for stop #2. We got to stay with Jazz's brother Steve and Lisa and their 3 kids. They have a beautiful back yard that was perfect for a pizza picnic...and trampoline fun, and even camping under the stars and in a home-made tent! Thanks, Steve, for helping Shark practice his scouting skills!

It was really fun to reunite as well at Steve's house with Jazz's cousin Stacey and her beautiful 6 kids.

Our stay in Salt Lake was packed with one fun activity after another. We really enjoyed this little hike to the waterfall. Our kids complained the whole way up (which took probably all of 15 minutes), but when we got there they frolicked and played, their hearts spilling over with joy. There's something magical about waterfalls, don't you think?

Brothers : ). Isn't it funny how they can both be the "big" brother and the "little" brother, at the same time?

This past year Shark has fallen in love with babies and toddlers. His cousin Ada returned this affection and even wanted only him when she got injured in a big fall. It's really fun to see how he has grown to connect with the little ones.

Despite our late arrival to Salt Lake, we were still able to visit with Ellis and Angela & her family our first night, and meet Ellis' beautiful girlfriend Helen. She's really neat!

We felt really lucky that even though we had to miss out on a cousins reunion on our late arrival night, were able to reschedule and save time for a visit on Friday, at Derek and Sherilyn's office. Derek's wife was able to bring all of their kids over, and Melanie was able to bring all of her kids up too, so we had a full board room full of cousins! It was a fabulous visit and I thought the setting in the office made it extra special for some reason. It had been way too long since I had seen these wonderful cousins, and we had some fun laughing together, even though for just a brief time. This was one of my favorite hours in Salt Lake : ).

We were able to reschedule our visit with Bryan and Kirsten's family and get a second visit with Angela's fun family on Friday, as well.

We didn't think it was very fun to hang out with them, though. NOT!!!

Lucky us--Grandma Benson happened to be traveling west across the country at the same time we were heading east, so we were able to meet for a quick stop along the way and share hugs and smiles with her, and a couple of Jazz's other Benson family relatives.

We spent a few nights in hotels along the road, but our favorite night's stay was in Nebraska, with Jazz' mom's first cousins. I have never known anyone from Nebraska before, and now not only do I know a handful of really nice Nebraskans, but I get to be related to them! Cool! Thanks for the wonderful stay! It was so nice to meet you all.

I love this picture. Grandma Lovell is the queen of Nursery Rhymes. And Nursery Rhyme time is laughing time! It's so much fun to see her recite the poems with the kids over and over until they know all of the words with her. This was in our hotel in Harrisburg, PA. We're almost there!

Just 4 days after our arrival to PA, we got to celebrate Tootie's 4th birthday. Those 3 people on the right made our trip so much easier! They helped us in countless ways. They got to stick around for awhile after we arrived--not just to help us unpack the truck and get settled a little in our new home--but also to see a few sights before going home.

This is it! Our new home. I'll show you more pictures of the inside in an upcoming post. As you can see, Byron (Jazz's dad) was the first to head back home to CA, but before Cynthia and Chad left, we were blessed by a visit from John and Amy, coming all the way from Oklahoma. It was super fun to have them here! We are thrilled to know that they have not-so-secret intentions to move back to the East as soon as they get a chance : ).

We were lucky and blessed to get so many fun visits with family members and friends before leaving the west for good, or for a long while at least (and I'm sorry I didn't get photos with everyone--especially our friends in Springville!). Anytime anyone wants to come play tourist in our neck of the woods, please come see us or stay with us! There is so much to do and see around here, you know you want to come! If you can't come over, perhaps we'll get to see you during one of our visits next summer when Jazz graduates, or in the future. Meanwhile, PLEASE stay in touch! (Leaving a comment on our blog here would be a great place to start--let us know you dropped in!). Loves to you all!

A Whole Lot of Pictures for a Really Big Move-Part I

2011-08-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is our Eugene apartment, the day before we packed the truck.

This is the first time I ever saw our apartment this clean. When I arrived to move in here, all of our stuff had already been unloaded. Though it was small, this may have been one of my very most favorite living places ever. I will miss you, Spencer View.

Lots of great friends showed up to help us load the truck. We love our Eugene friends! Thanks, everyone!

Tootie thought the truck-loading ramp made a great slide.

Our truck, and our little ones. Can you believe Tootie was born there, and now he's leaving as an almost-4-year old?

The moving company. Shark and Didi had left Eugene a couple of weeks prior, as they went off on an adventure with Grandma and Grandpa Lovell. We met up with them in Sacramento. Jazz drove the big truck with Goldie at his side, and Tootie and I were travel companions in the van. I drove all the way to Sacto by myself! OK, so I was following the moving truck the whole way, but still...

So long, Eugene! Thanks for a fabulous 5 years!!

We Did It! My First Race

2011-07-21T17:53:00.000-07:00

WE DID IT! This is us at the finish line of the Butte to Butte race (pronounced "Byoot"). Shark and Didi were able to walk the race accompanied by a favorite babysitter, and I was able to run the race the whole way--my very first time running a race! I was so proud of completing this challenge, as it was something I never thought I could do (running is hard!). This was on the 4th of July, and it was a fabulous way to start off our holiday, with our community.

These friends helped motivate us and inspire us to take on the challenge of the race. What a great experience for us all--if you've never done a race, I highly recommend it! Just look at our happy faces :D!

Jazz and Didi by the river that runs through our town.

This one is just for fun. One of the great things about packing up a house for moving is finding Halloween costumes and other such hidden items that had been tucked away--things that you didn't remember you were missing. Tootie had fun scaring the whole neighborhood with his mask and tutu--I thought it was hilarious.

Of Lovells and Lions

2011-07-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

"the twins" : )

We got to spend the day with our friends Kendall and Lainie and kids, so that made it extra fun.

Since the lighting of the big bear picture wasn't working out, I just zoomed in on Goldie, and I just love how the closeup of her turned out.

We finally made it to the Portland zoo on a good day (our last trip got rained out). With the weather being so perfect we were optimistic-- our main goal was for Shark to get to see the lions. Technically we met our goal, but only barely. Shark was the only member of our family that managed to see any lions at all--he spied one lioness for about 3 minutes before she disappeared and took a cat nap in hiding. The rest of us never saw any. Oh well! I thought it was fun to take all the pseudo-lion pics that I could instead.

One of Each

2011-07-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here are a few photos for you--one of each of us.

Jazz wins the prize for bringing Shark the best birthday surprises this year. He traditionally takes each of the kids out for lunch on their birthday (and as we have in the last few years, this year we celebrated Shark's half-birthday instead of his actual too-close-to-Christmas birthday). Shark was caught unaware, however, when during their lunch date they ended up at the movie theater--he had been dying to see the movie African Cats and was elated with the surprise. When he got home that afternoon, he was heard to say, "The euphoria of this day is almost more than I can take, and I haven't even opened my presents yet." Way to go, Dad!

Here is Shark with his 5th grade teacher. Shark's favorite activity during his 5th grade year was the overnight field trip to the aquarium when the kids got to spend the night in the shark tunnel! His favorite things about his teacher this year were "her ideas and her enthusiasm." She really was a wonderful person to spend the year with.

Here is Didi with her 4th grade teacher. Her favorite things about being in this teacher's class were taking the field trip to the state capitol, and "at the end of the year when she visited us [she had been absent quite a bit due to her foot surgery], when I told her about our move, for about half an hour she spent time with just me, teaching me about Pennsylvania." That meant a lot to Didi, naturally! Also from Didi: "Even though she wasn't there for the whole year, she helped me and my friends a lot, and she helped make my year a really great one. It wasn't until we got a lot of substitutes that I realized that I missed her a lot. Everyone was tired of having substitutes for the whole year, and when she came to visit, we said, 'EVERYBODY, CLEAN UP, REALLY FAST!' and 'SHE'S HERE! SHE'S COMING! EVERYBODY GET IN YOUR SEATS!' And when she came, she brought us with banana splits because we had fulfilled our goal of 45 points. We were all so glad when she came to visit us one last time." {And my mom is so cool for making a special trip to the school that day at the end of the year just to take this picture!}

Here is Goldie with her 1st grade teacher. Her favorite activities of her 1st grade year included drawing and recess. For her caption, I quote the following from her: "My teacher was awesome. We can both get a little bit crabby sometimes, but that doesn't matter. What really matters is that she's a good teacher and I love her a lot, and she's meant a lot to me for the whole year that I was there." And, "It's been a really fun place at my school, and I'm going to miss this place sooo much when I move. I only have 3 weeks left. But since that time, the same picture that I had, right there that you see, that's just one life moment that I'm going to remember for a long time. Bye, Goldie." "(Not Goldilocks, 'cause I didn't have long hair at that time, ha ha. Bye!)"

Are animals allowed at your school? Because they let this one with a big long tail in to attend the 5th grade graduation ceremony, without question. Tootie had been sporting this type of tail everywhere he went for several days (a couple of weeks even, perhaps), and I thought it was the cutest thing. Each time people would ask him what kind of animal he was (and yes, he'd make the appropriate growls for you upon request), he'd give a variety of answers such as a lion, a battle cat (as in He-Man), or an "owl cat" (that one is still a bit of a mystery to me). Our son with the tail--so funny. : )

Here I am with one of my favorite friends, Daisy. She and I are posing in the hallway of our local movie theater (in front of my favorite Audrey Hepburn poster), where they broadcast the opera productions from the Metropolitan Opera of New York. She's been going to the opera her whole life, and goes to these local theater broadcasts regularly, and I'm so glad she introduced me to them! She's also been a big fan of stamping and comes to my card classes, and I love visiting and laughing with her. It's friends like Daisy that have made my stay in Oregon a wonderful adventure.

Shiner

2011-06-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

Look who got his first big shiner...Shark did. Guess who gave it to him? Didi did! They were throwing the softball back and forth, and one came unexpectedly, landing right on Shark's nose. He had a good time telling curious onlookers "you should see the other guy..." and "he's getting the R.I.P. treatment" ha ha : ).

Seek for a Better World

2011-06-26T20:27:00.001-07:00

This is a very long post...but I thought some of you might enjoy reading the talk I gave in church today. It's about 10 minutes long. Here goes nothing : ) (pretend like you're sitting in the congregation)...

I am grateful to be with you today. I am always grateful to be with you, Sundays at church are always a highlight of my week. I love being a member of this church, and I have loved being a member of this ward. Our family has about four weeks left before we move for Jazz's new job which we feel extremely blessed to have--he will be a music professor this fall in Pennsylvania. It's funny--when I told one friend that we will be moving on Pioneer Day, she pointed out to me that we will be like backwards pioneers--going across the country in the wrong direction, on Pioneer Day :).

Doctrine & Covenants 25: 10, the Lord gave counsel to Emma Smith saying,

"I say unto thee that thou shalt lay aside the things of this world and seek for the things of a better."

I'd like to share with you some of the ways I have learned to apply this counsel to my life.

First, how do we define the things of the world?

I would define holding onto "the things of this world" as living a life without consideration for Heavenly Father's eternal plan for us, or for his commandments. In other words, living only for what feels good and right in the present moment, with little consideration for others or for future consequences.

Elder Neal Maxwell gives another explanation that I liked: "When we speak of letting go of the world, this does not mean forgoing its sunsets, its beautiful music, nor, best of all, its people. The 'world' is a way of life that takes us away from, not toward, God. Away from, not toward, happiness. Away from sense to nonsense."

Many people we know seem to have made a conscious choice to refrain from including religion in their lives because they feel that the effort is not worth it. One friend of mine recently said "I have nothing against religion, but I have no use for it." It makes me sad to think about all that he is missing out on.

I would like to share with you part of the testimony of my friend Maria, whom I met on my mission. She and I served in Spain, her native country. She wrote in a letter to me:

"My life was "religion free" for a good portion of

my life. What I'm grateful the most for our religion is for the perspective it brings to everything I do. Before I learnt the Gospel and joined the Church life seemed at times too difficult. When I faced adversity I easily felt discouraged and wondered what the purpose was for my existence. I cannot explain how my heart was changed when I heard for the first time that we existed before we came to this earth and that we really had a Father in Heaven that loved us beyond our understanding. Someone that knew my heart, that saw my potential to become like Him and lovingly showed me the way to return to my heavenly home. I learnt to be thankful that in His wisdom, He prepared a plan for us to help us achieve our potential as His children. I could finally understand why it was important for our growth to have trials and sorrow in our lives."

Having the Church in my life anchors me. The voice of the prophet speaks clearly to us all and keep us focused on the things that really matter. The simple truths of the Gospel are available to each one of us and in them we can find the peace and happiness we all search for.

So to state it simply, I believe the Lord was counseling Emma (and of course the rest of us) to lay aside worldly cares, and be active, faithful members of the church.

The second part of the scripture talks about seeking for a better life.

A better life comes in part through spirituality. One thing that I've really appreciated learning recently through my associations with good people here in Oregon is that spirituality can be an important part of our lives even outside of the church. One of my friends told me that he finds spiritual renewal in music more than anything else. Some find it by running miles and miles, or being close to nature. Barbara Johnson shared in her talk in Stake Conference that it was through meditation and yoga that she finally was able to re-strengthen her spiritual connection with Heavenly Father. It's wonderful for us to enjoy this connection with God in all different forms. As my husband once put it, we do not have a monopoly on spiritual experiences. I think what's most important is that we follow the spiritual promptings that Heavenly Father does send us. If we listen, He will lead us closer to Him by guiding our life's choices, and we will find ourselves learning about, understanding, and desiring his will for us. And He will give us opportunities to make necessary changes--to help us find that better world.

One very dear friend of mine was raised in the church, but spent several years in her youth not living the church standards. To paraphrase for you some of her experience in her words, she told me,

"(I decided I wanted to change when) I realized how unhappy I was, and I knew what I was doing that was making me unhappy. I also remembered how happy I had been back when I had been living the gospel before, and I wanted to have that again. I wanted to make the change several times, it just took awhile to make the change. ...I had to get rid of bad habits and replace them with good things." During her time of lesser faith, she had never actually stopped coming to church. She made a new commitment though, and made the changes, and came into full activity. She ended up serving a mission, and now has a happy family of her own that is committed to living the gospel.

Elder Bruce Hafen: “Reaching out from the center of light, Jesus “entices” us with a spiritual gravitational pull toward him. … “Repentance and forgiveness eliminate the rubbish and the bad habits that can hold us captive in the worldly orbit.”

Part of the good news of the gospel is that laying aside the things of the world does not mean we must sacrifice our happiness now so that we can have it in a future world.

If I could give my friends and family just one piece of wisdom regarding finding happiness in this life, it would be that "we can make a conscious choice now, to be happy now."

In college, a friend once casually asked me "how are you?'" I replied, "overwhelmed, and stressed, but I feel that way all the time, so that's normal for me.

He said, "well if that's normal for you, you need to change something about your life."

-since then, I have always been very interested in how to find happiness.

A fun quote from Mary Englebright inspired me last week--it said "Be HAPPY, for no reason at all."

One of the first scriptures we memorized with our children was "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy".

It's not a new concept that being happy is a choice. We are in control of our attitude. On my bedroom mirror at home I have written in marker a scripture from Proverbs: "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine", reminding me that every day I can choose to have a merry heart, regardless of what's going on around me.

When I worked as a secretary right after college, a favorite boss of mine taught me the value of a good attitude--anytime we asked him, "Bob, how are you today?" He would always answer, "The best in the history of the world!" I try to follow his example whenever I remember him, because it always uplifts me.

The last experience I want to share with you is a lesson that I learned from another new friend I made here in Oregon. I was telling her ,

"I will be so happy when we get out of college and we finally have money someday. All my life I've been waiting to get to that point. I never had too much as a child, and not sure if I'll really be rich someday, but at least when we get out of school...I'm hoping...

My friend lovingly replied, "But you know, money isn't everything."

And when she said that, my first thought was, "Yes, it is. I saw on TV that 'a study showed: People who have money are happier than people who don't.' "

But the more that I thought about it, and pondered her current situation (raising two children on her own, having to go back to college while she's a single mom, and having financial struggles of her own), I realized, there's no good reason for me to WAIT to be 100% satisfied and happy with my life. After all, when I get started counting my blessings, I can see that the most important blessings that I ever dreamed of for my life--I already have them. But what if I didn't? And what if I actually got stuck in “student’s-wife” status forever? I guess there's no guarantee that my husband won't change his major again, and again, and keep himself enrolled in school for eternity... (we’ve been in college this long, what’s a few more years?). Hopefully he didn't hear that ;). But would THAT be a good reason to wait to be happy? No. I know of lots of people that have yet to receive blessings that they are longing for desperately, and yet, they have a super-hero ability to express gratitude for what they do have, and they are happy.

The bottom line is that Heavenly Father wants all of his children to be happy, not just in the life to come, but even now. And he will bless us with that happiness if we ask him to. Happiness, like faith, I believe, can be his gift to us, when we do our part and make the choice to be happy.

I love the happiness that I have found by living the gospel. True religion helps me lay aside the things of this world, and allows me to experience “that better world” which is promised.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Happy Un-Birthday, Angela!

2011-06-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Today is my little sister's un-birthday. So, I thought that makes now a great time to tell you some of the many things I love and admire about her. : )

I love my sister because she is brilliant, organized, and sooooo smart! This is a picture of us at our last family reunion, tallying up the guessing jars guess sheets, to see who wins which prize jar. She made the tally sheets. She also got all of the planning emails going for the reunion itself, organized all of the meal preparations, helped delegate the different activities so we could have one big giant BLAST from beginning to end of the reunion, and helped us figure out the costs of things so we could all pay a fair share. She's THE mathematician of the family, and a great book keeper. I love that she is such a smarty pants, and I look up to her for her planning/event organizing skills. She's so cool like that.

I love this picture of Angela. It's of her in the hospital right after she had a baby. I wasn't there, but I believe she is just enjoying watching her other children enjoy the new baby in the room. Angela's middle name is Joy (no really, it is). And I love, love, love how joyful she is. She really knows how to have fun, feel happy, and make others feel happy around her.

Here she is with her now 1-year-old. She's naturally a wonderful, loving mother. She loves motherhood as much as I do. And her babies are so cute!

Here is Angela with her family so far : ). I love watching her family grow. And, I know that any baby that has entered the world via her family is a lucky baby, indeed. They have a very happy home. I'm so grateful for that.

Here is Angela and me with our four brothers. You can see that we have an awesome time together. We are the best of friends. I love that Angela and I both have cool naturally curly hair...which became curly only once we were teenagers (and which grows straight while we are pregnant or nursing). Some people think we look alike, and at times we have been mistaken for one another. We think that's pretty funny.

This is one of Angela's many "look how great I'm doing with my after-baby weight loss!" pictures. She is my Weight Watchers hero! She has a great talent for sticking with her exercise and diet goals, and has done such an awesome job of regaining her pretty figure after each baby was born. She truly motivates me, and I love looking to her for inspiration.


Angela is a super-mom. She does the coolest fun crafts and family home evenings with her kids. I admire any mom who can parent 3 young boys at the same time--that's a lot of energy. She sets a good example for them by balancing her hobbies and her have-to's (work, exercise, church activity, supporting her husband in school, etc.). Again, her kids are so very lucky to have her!

Here are a few extra things I love about Angela:
1. She has an awesome amazing smile. Happy, and gorgeous teeth. What a fun blessing for all of us because she shares it every day!
2. She is a great cook. She makes the world's best chocolate chip cookies. It doesn't matter which recipe she uses, they always turn out. She also makes wonderful dinners for her family all the time. Lucky them!
3. She's really funny. She has a great sense of humor, and we ALWAYS laugh when we talk with each other. And I love her laugh. It makes me feel so happy.
4. She's devoted to her faith. She shares the gospel with her children, and lives her religion. She's a worthy Christian and a faithful member of our Mormon church, and she serves in her callings well.
5. She enjoys the same shows as me--American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. It's fun to discuss the season highlights with her, the same way sports fanatics exchange game stats.
6. She's forgiven me for being a mean older sister when we were growing up. I'm sorry for always piling stuff on her bed when she didn't like it, and for any of the other mean stuff I did. I'm so glad that we survived our younger years and have become such great friends now as grownups.

I love you, Angela!

Spring Happenings

2011-05-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent photos of our life. Enjoy!

How naughty am I? I've heard that we are not supposed to take photos during church. But, I did it anyway. Just this once! I had my camera in my purse, I did it silently and without a flash, and I hope not too many people saw me do it, 'cause I don't like to set a bad example. I promise I won't do it again... This is our group of primary children singing songs on Mother's Day. It was Tootie's first time being up front, and he did a great job for someone his age (3)! Goldie is right next to him in the light blue shirt, and Didi is in a navy dress behind the blonde girl also in a navy dress. Shark was home sick that day, or he would have been up there too. I don't know about everybody else, but I love those cute primary group performances. (P.S. The older gentleman on the far left of this picture is the brother of Dallin H. Oaks. Cool, eh?) P.P.S. Isn't our organ beautiful? It was hand-made by a local organ-maker, and there aren't many like it.

I love the pink blossoms near our home. This was part of our Sunday afternoon walk (Jazz and I were willing to bear the allergies for the sake of the beautiful weather and scenery). Can you guess which of our 2 kids could use new bikes? Hint: one has an invisible bike, and one has a pink princess bike, and could use a slightly more masculine one.

This is my Wednesday afternoon Spanish class (with just one or two kids absent). We were playing the Memory game, and citing the picture words in Spanish as we found the matches. You can see my trusty assistant Shark in the background there, working on homework (on a laptop borrowed from the school--so different than when I was a kid and computers were as big as our car) and waiting to assist me in whatever I need. I pay him $1.50 per class to hand out snacks, copy down information from the board, and help me straighten chairs and clean up afterwards. It keeps him in the room with us (he had not wished to be part of the learning group this year), he's very helpful for me, and he gets a little spending money. Win-win!

Here's our lot--ready to be chopped up for our traditional breakfast the following morning, "eggs a la goldenrod". Mostly only the girls in the house love it (and most of all me, since my dad used to make it for us when I was a kid), but Jazz obliges because he's such a fan of family traditions.

These eggs were not hidden, we save that for the plastic eggs filled with candy, but we decorate them nonetheless. It's one of my favorite Easter traditions.

I got to accompany Goldie on her field trip to a local arboretum, which was really fun! We saw all kinds of different plants and a few forest animals, disgusting banana slugs (groooooosssssss) but I think the kids were just as excited about seeing a spider or a squirrel as they were about anything. It was fun to hike around with them for a couple of hours, and just laugh about all the funny things first graders can say. I'm sorry that I decided to leave Tootie behind--I didn't know what the situation would be like, but I think he would have loved it, too.

What a great moment. Granted, by the time I had my camera up, the pose was gone, but they were willing to do a re-pose for me. ; )

We let our kids dress themselves. Once in awhile we put our foot down and say "I'm sorry, but that combination isn't okay for today." Other times, like this day, I just laugh so hard deep inside and think to myself, "I am so glad children--especially those in this community--don't care what their friends wear. Mis-matched socks are the norm, here!! We might as well enjoy this freedom while it lasts." Ha ha ha : ).

My Life Rocks

2011-05-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

I feel like all posts need a photo, so I thought I'd put on this great one of my great sister-in-law and me that was taken at our family reunion last month. It doesn't have too much to do with this post except for the fact that I was really happy when this picture was taken, and I'm feeling really happy right now, and I wanted to post some reasons why. Get ready for a new list, 'cause here it comes.

*I love my husband. Does anyone else in the world feel that way as much as I do? I don't know, but if they do, they sure are a lucky, blessed person. I couldn't be more grateful.

* I love my kids. They drive me crazy most days!! But in the moments when I'm not feeling crazy, I KNOW that I have the world's best kids. They really are amazing, and awesome. Good, and smart, and cute, and wonderful. I love them so much.

* I love our apartment. It is tiny and cramped, and we hardly have enough room to house guests ever, but it is a very nice place to live. And, it's in a beautiful, quirky city, where a lot of good people live. It was culture shock for me when we first came, but now it's a part of me. I feel a little more well-rounded after our almost 5 years here. I'm not ashamed to hug trees a little more often now than I did before!

* I feel like I get to do almost everything I want, all the time. I like working for my family as a stay-at-home mom. I get to exercise 6 days a week. I get to use the computer for checking blogs, facebook, and email, a bajillion times a day (and I'm trying to figure out how to limit myself on that, without cold-turkey quitting on those habits). I get to watch TV shows and movies almost whenever I want (that is, usually when I'm cleaning, or reposing after the kids are in bed; otherwise, the TV is off. I'll take the quiet whenever I can get it). I am currently reading 2 books that I really like (they may both take me weeks yet to finish, but I'm having fun with them). I even get to take a nap when I really really need one, like yesterday, when I had an awesome nap for an hour and a half, right before the kids got home from school. OK, I don't really get to stamp as often as I'd like to, but when I NEED to stamp, I do. And I love it. Do I sound spoiled, or what? (...Wow, I almost made it sound like I hardly do any work. Rest assured that that is not the case.)

* I like my calling in the church. I am the Compassionate Service Leader. I get to feel like I'm doing important service when it's needed, and I don't feel the stress of preparing weekly lessons. I'm grateful for this calling. The harder callings will come back around to me later, I'm sure, so for now, I'm glad I have this one.

* I have really fun friends. People that make me laugh. People that care about me. People that play sports with me. People that I look up to. People that amaze me. Good people that do good in the world and add beauty to my world. I love my friends.

I am blessed, and I feel rich. I love feeling rich--it's something I always wanted to be. I've learned that "rich" is a feeling, not a way to be, and I feel it. Hooray!

Happy Birthday Superman

2011-05-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

This picture is a little blurry, it was taken by one of the kids (first time using a camera, I think). But it's just a cute little representation of our other April birthday that we got to celebrate a couple weeks ago--Jazz' 36th. We enjoyed a nice lunch together while all the kids were at school, and opened gifts at home after dinner. Jazz had fun receiving birthday wishes all day from friends and family, especially on facebook where he made some pretty funny jokes about people NOT wishing him a happy birthday (the nerve... ha ha).

Here are 36 things to describe Jazz, things he loves, things he does, or things we love about him, in honor of his 36th birthday:

1. JAZZY
2. loves Smallville
3. Superman everything
4. has great hair, even if some of it is gray
5. cold cereal makes a great bedtime snack
6. hazel eyes
7. needs sunshine
8. soon to be Doctor Lovell!
9. guru of Stevie Wonder's music
10. makes jokes to help people stop being mad
11. gives great hugs (not to mention kisses)
12. wears size 11.5 shoes
13. got his first set of contacts this past year
14. NY Jets die hard fan
15. favorite movies include Lord of the Rings trilogy (as well as many superhero movies)
16. foreign language experience includes Italian, German, and Hebrew
17. not a big fan of the reality TV shows his wife watches
18. left-handed
19. loves to collect music and books
20. not a fan of rainy gray winters
21. doesn't like cats
22. does a pretty good James Stuart impression ("Merry Christmas Mr. Potter!")
23. reads stories to the kids in a cool British accent
24. closing zip-lock bags is not his thing
25. likes his chocolate "unadulterated" (no fruit or mint-flavored chocolate for him)
26. is great at following new recipes
27. likes to analyze the chord structure of hymns WHILE we're singing them in church
28. favorite kind of ice cream is peanut butter chocolate
29. is great at teaching our kids right and wrong in a loving way
30. asks the kids at dinner every night "what did you learn in school/church today?"
31. plays Baroque music to fill the home every Sunday
32. looks at his fingers when he types instead of the screen
33. takes great care of his wife on her birthday and Mother's Day (and every other day!)
34. cooks the family meal every Sunday to give Mom the day off
35. do not crunch your food near him unless he is crunching too
36. loves the babies he watches in the jr. nursery at church!

Happy birthday, Jazz! We love you!

Random Old Favorites

2011-05-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

With not too much new happening right now, I thought I'd just make a quick post of some of my old favorite pictures that I have have. It's fun to see how the kids have changed so much in just the last few years. I'll try to come up with something more current to post too, or soon. Meanwhile, enjoy the fun faces of the past!

TEN

2011-04-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

Didi turned 10!

This is at her family party at home. Mom did most of the pre-bday shopping, but Dad took her out on her bday for a special "pick out your favorite thing" shopping trip, and she chose two books. This cute little patchwork dog was a special surprise for her, it was something she really wanted but wasn't expecting. I was excited for her to open it. Her reaction for the camera didn't disappoint : ).

This year she got to have not just a family party, but a big "friends party" as well (our kids get them about every 4 years). She chose "pink" as her theme, which was so easy to work with and lots of fun! She was our original pink princess, after all. Isn't she gorgeous!? I love her confidence and her poise. She's my beautiful big girl!

Take Note

2011-04-10T17:09:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful experience I had today. These are some good friends of mine that I sing with, as a new choral ensemble; we've named ourselves "Take Note". Isn't that a fun name? Just one other person in this picture is LDS, and he joined the group just temporarily-- since today Take Note provided two special musical numbers for our sacrament meeting. It was so cool to have my friends come to our service and share their talents and beautiful music with us!

I was especially excited to have them come this week, because it was our ward's "Invitation Sunday." That is, we were all encouraged to invite our friends to our special sacrament meeting...the talks were especially prepared for our invited friends who might not yet be familiar with our faith. The talks were perfect, it was neat to see a cute young couple be confirmed members of the church (as their baptism was yesterday), and the music turned out beautiful--as nice or better than we had ever practiced it. We sang a local friend's composition of "The Lord's Prayer", and also a piece I snagged from our ward choir music collection, a nice arrangement of "Jesus the Very Thought of Thee." Beautiful music, that's why I sing. I love it.

I'm just sorry my dear hubby Jazz had to miss the whole thing, as he's returning from the Reno Jazz Festival tonight after 5 days away from home. (Can we all sing together--"I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home"?!)

A Couch Miracle

2011-04-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

I HAD to grab my camera when I witnessed this miracle. All four kids happened to be sharing the same love seat, watching TV, and no one was complaining about their personal space being invaded! Not a single "he's touching me" or "I was there first" or "scoot over, PLEASE!" I couldn't believe it! They were all sharing space, and there was actually peace in the air. Had to capture this moment for posterity : ).

Mom & Toot

2011-04-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some recent pics of Tootie 'n me. I think about how my mom used to say how she treasured her time at home with my youngest brother, since he was her last baby at home while the big kids were at school, and they shared some good pre-school-ish times together. They were buddies. I think Tootie and I are that way, too. It's just him 'n me a lot of the time. We can be like two peas in a pod sometimes.

I heard a quote the other day (can't remember where) that has stuck with me. It said something like this: "The joy of motherhood is found in moments." I have those kinds of moments with this little guy all day long. He really can make me laugh.

Like when today he and Didi were talking in the car on our way home from his school. He was talking about his upcoming birthday (which is actually about 6 months away). Didi asked when his birthday is going to be, and he said "In six days." She said, "your birthday is about every six days, isn't it." "Yep," he replied, 'cause that's the way it is with him. Half of the stuff he ever plays with, he "got it for his birthday" (in his dreams?). No wonder he tells everyone he is sixteen--he has birthdays more often than the rest of us!

Tootie took this picture of me.

This was a "take a picture of me, Mom" moment : ).

He snuggled up next to me and then asked Dad to take a picture of us. Awesome.

This may look worrisome, but never fear, nothing's wrong...he was just allowing the university's brain development lab researchers to chart his brain activity during some cartoons that he watched (they let him play with fun toys while they fitted him in the special "space hat"), and he didn't mind at all. We were (paid) volunteer guinea pigs for their research project, which was pretty cool indeed. This was the same project that involved our parenting classes and his "Brain Train" classes, that he really loved. We gained some cool skills during this project!

I love that Tootie loves to do puzzles with me. He can whip out 50-100 piece puzzles all on his own now, too! Tootie is a bright, handsome, energetic, super-hero 3 1/2-year old, and I'm so grateful that he's mine. I love ya, Toot!

Parenting Tip: Be PlanFULL

2011-03-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share something that I learned in our parenting class (put on by the university here as a research project) that I think is wonderful. It's a way to help avoid power struggles. They call it being PlanFULL. The technique is this:

When you know you're very likely going to have a power struggle in an upcoming situation, plan ahead with the child. Before the situation arises (especially just prior to it--such as right before you have to take the child grocery shopping with you, or just before time to do chores, before sitting down for Family Home Evening, etc.),

1-be clear about what behavior is expected, and

2-be clear about what consequences will occur when those expectations are not met, and

3-be clear about the reward for good behavior.

4-(this is the most helpful!) MAKE DRAWINGS on little post-it notes as you are going over what you're discussing! Then stick them somewhere where the child can see them during that situation. The visual aids make all the difference in the world.

Today I decided it was time to use this method with Shark, as we approached time for him to practice the piano. Sometimes he can get really frustrated and say things like "there's nothing left for me to practice and I still have 20 minutes left" (which is of course completely not true)... "can't we please cut my time short today?" So I was planfull with him, and we covered what needs to be done during his practice time.

There's one more thing you need to know. Being planfull does NOT eliminate misbehavior. Kids will be kids, and they have to test us constantly. BUT, the goal is to avoid the power struggle (where both parent and child are angry together).
NO, Shark has not been an angel because of our planfull-ness, but at least ONE major goal was achieved: MOM was much less stressed with his misbehavior. Because, I knew HE knew what was going to happen--and he was making informed decisions with his behavior. Simple warnings do the job now, consequences are JUST, and no yelling is involved. And Mom is not pulling her hair out. WOOHOO!!!

Just wanted to share.

The Coolest Fire Hydrants Ever

2011-03-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

This past year we had a great time seeing these fire hydrant works of art popping up all around our neighborhood. Aren't they amazing? I decided I needed pictures of all of them, they are all so unique and entertaining. So the girls and I picked one afternoon to go exploring, and we believe we've located all but two that we've come across, and have photos of nearly 30 different hydrants. We had so much stopping every couple of blocks to pose with the different hydrants. Don't you wish your town's fire hydrants were as cool as ours?

Evidence

2011-03-13T23:07:00.000-07:00


Here is yet another example of evidence that our house is inhabited by children. I went to make some rice the other day, only to find that my rice container had been contaminated with playthings. I had to laugh!

"Rosey"

2011-02-24T11:47:00.000-08:00

Photos of my kids with friends like "Rosey" here make a snow day all worth it.

Healthy Goals--an invitation

2011-02-23T11:50:00.000-08:00

HEY GUYS!

I have been thinking. That's what I do. I realized that there are about 4 weeks left until my family reunion with my siblings (which in case you didn't know, I'm really excited for), and I decided that's just the right amount of time for me to set some good short-term goals.

My sister and I discussed the pros and cons of our past reunion's activity of doing an auction, where for the month before the reunion, everyone earned points they could spend by doing things like service, reading scriptures, whatever. We decided not to repeat this activity this year, which is fine because we have tons of other great stuff planned (thanks, Lala !). Nevertheless, I've decided I would like to set up a points program and do some goals for my own family here, and some by myself, too. I wanted to share them with you, to see if anyone else would like to join my bandwagon and set their OWN individual goals, and share their progress with me or all of us. Is anyone else in the mood to set, work towards, and achieve some goals in one month's time?

Here are the goals I'm setting for myself:

I would like to lose 5 lbs before the reunion. I already exercise 5-6 days a week consistently, but I haven't been watching what I eat at all. So, I'm going to start doing that. Writing down what I eat has always been extremely effective for me, but it's been really hard for me to stick with it for longer than a couple of weeks. I'm going to write down what I eat 6 days a week, and 1 day I don't have to write. I won't be tallying up points everyday, but I have a pretty good idea of what's great and what's good and what's not-so-good. So that's my plan, and I'm going to see how it works. (And I'll focus on eating more veggies and fruits and I'm going to measure my portions, and all that good stuff).

We could use a boost in our family scripture reading, so I'm going to set a goal of reading with my kids or as a whole family 5 days a week. I'm going to make a chart that we can color in to measure our progress.

I want to reward my kids for doing their chores on time, and practicing the piano on time each day, so I'm going to make a chart for them to earn points for that. I will have a special reward for them for earning a certain number of points as a group, and individually, and I'll let them help me decide what kind of rewards they would like.

I would also like to think up a list of RAKs (random acts of kindness) that I can reward people in my family for. Here are some of my ideas:
-write a letter to someone and tell them you love them
-clean something without being asked that's not part of your chore
-Take a deep breath when you're feeling mad, and walk out of the room too cool down
-read the scriptures on your own for at least 10 minutes
-read a book to Tootie
-getting off the computer or Wii when time is up with no complaints
-help Tootie clean up his messes
-set a personal goal and achieve it
-work on Faith in God requirements
-admitting you're wrong and saying "I'm sorry"
-help someone else work on their chores (including Mom)

I welcome other ideas for my RAK list!

If anyone would like to join me in setting a goal of any kind, I would love it. If not, just tell me I'm gorgeous and that will be good enough. Or not ; ). Any support is appreciated!

I'm a Spanish Teacher

2011-02-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Who knew I'd ever end up being an elementary school teacher? Not me. I teach Spanish at my kids' elementary school for a couple of hours each week. I have very small classes--just about 12 students total (including my 3 older kids). I love it! I think the kids in my classes are amazing and so cute, ranging in age from kindergarten to 5th grade. I like being the one in charge, I like having such a neat space to work in, and most of all, I love seeing the kids gain a small Spanish vocabulary over time. We play games, sing songs, make flash cards...and the parents pay me directly, which is nice for me : ) (I'm not actually hired by the school district, I rent the space from the school. It's a nice little "extra income" for us). I got this job in a funny way--I started out just as a parent with kids in the class; then I took on the role of parent program coordinator and I helped to hire the teachers when others stepped down; and then when one teacher quit mid-year, I decided to give it a whirl. And now I'm doing it, and loving it! I just wanted to share with you that little part of me, 'cause it's fun, and I for one am surprised and happy learning that it's something that I can do that I didn't know I could do.

Basketball and Flying Practice

2011-02-20T14:08:00.000-08:00

Goldie is currently enjoying her first team sport, basketball. She plays on a team made up of 1st grade girls. They play with a lowered hoop, traveling and double-dribbling are legal, and although they do play "real games" every Saturday, they don't keep score. They decided it was necessary to call them on back court guarding, though, which helps minimize the chaos quite a bit. I find it somewhat unfortunate that most of the opponents they've had have been second grader teams (a year older than them, and there's quite a difference in height), but the girls are all incredibly good sports, and have fun.

We can't leave stuff piled up on the couch unless we're willing to find it on the floor later--having been shoveled off to clear the runway for flying practice. This activity can last a good 20 minutes if only Mom is home, but Dad usually puts a stop to it since our couches are starting to fall apart. The other most popular flight path is from the kitchen table to the couch--a more risky but perhaps a more exhilarating airborne experience.

10 Jazzy Things

2011-02-15T13:55:00.000-08:00

Let's pretend that it's still February 14th, one of my favorite days of the year. Let's pretend that I had time to write this post yesterday, on the day of our anniversary, when we celebrated 13 fabulous wonderful amazing years together.

10 things that I love about my Jazz, today:

1. I love that he always gets me awesome flowers on our anniversary. This year's flowers were especially beautiful: 12 roses and one other great big beautiful flower whose name I don't know (who can tell me?), and one other bud of the same kind. Jazz didn't want to get me 13 roses, he said, because that might be bad luck, ha ha ha ; ).

2. I love that he loves to take me to restaurants on very special occasions. I love eating out, it's my favorite.

3. I love that he cooks at home when he can--especially on Sundays, and on days when he can see that I'm just not up to it. How many other husbands can cook better than their wives? I'm glad I got one of those kinds of husbands.

4. I love that he is so handsome. It's so silly when he makes "aren't I handsome" faces in the mirror when he shaves and gets dressed up, but I love it. I'm attracted to him, even so much more than when I first knew him (even in his words, he gets better with age), and mostly so when I see him being such a smarty pants, teaching a class, giving a lecture, or talking about smart stuff that is over my head. I love how I love to look at him.

5. I love how he smells. When we kiss, I love to breathe deep and take him in. In church on Sunday I leaned over and smelled his clean white shirt, and he asked "does my breath stink?" But I laughed and confessed that I was just trying to catch a whiff of him (because it makes me happy). He thought that was weird, but I thought it was funny.

6. I love that he has days that he can work from home sometimes. And when he doesn't, I love it when he comes home from work. His face in the doorway (coming in) is one of my favorite things to see every day.

7. I love that he's going to the parenting classes with me that are sponsored by the university here, as we're part of a test group for our preschooler. I love the little efforts and the big things that he does to improve himself as a parent. He is an awesome dad.

8. I love his taste in music. I love that even when we don't have music playing in our home (a lot of Stevie Wonder lately, which he's researching--love it!), he's got music on the brain. Can you believe he even analyzes our church hymns out loud for me during the prelude music? He can't listen to music without taking it apart, and knowing what it's all about. I love it. He's such a smarty pants.

9. I love that people besides me love him so much. It's no wonder he got this new job at the college where he'll be working this fall--the new faculty fell in love with him right away and could tell that their students will too. He just fits. He's a people person, and he knows how to treat others with respect, and humor, and he carries himself with dignity.

10. I love that he has more gray hair than me, even though he's younger, ha ha!

Thanks for all of our wonderful amazing years together, Jazz! I love you!

15 Happies, and 5 unknowns

2011-02-14T17:03:00.000-08:00

My cousin Emily had a fun post today with a list of things that make her happy. I loved reading about it. Even though it's taking me forever to get around to posting pictures, here are some of my favorite things, off the top of my head:

1. racquetball
2. a good sweaty workout
3. sappy drippy love stories, movies, and songs
4. chocolate + anything white and creamy, or plus anything minty (no skimping on the mint, and I prefer it to be green)
5. Smiley faces, and rainbows, and Hello Kitty all made me happy when I was a little girl. They still do today.
6. singing, and being the star soloist of the song. sorry, but it's true.
7. popcorn
8. healthy yummy foods at restaurants. being fed by someone else.
9. a clean house!!!
10. kids and babies that make me laugh or give me warm fuzzies.
11. feeling the Spirit at church.
12. reading...TIME to read.
13. watching movies with my Clearplay DVD player, which takes out all the smut that I don't want to see : )
14. my husband (funny that he landed on #14, and today is the 14th, our anniversary--ha!)
15. speaking Spanish, teaching, and reading Spanish.

fun fun fun!

And, my other friend Elizabeth challenged me to post 5 things that you may not know about me, so here goes:

1. In pondering what our next house will be like, I would be happy to wash our dishes by hand for the next 10 years if it meant that I could have an enclosed back yard for our kids to play in. And when we get that yard, we're definitely going to get a trampoline.
2. I'm torn about the whole hair dye thing. I love the color of my hair, and I don't want to mess it up with a fake color. I know I can't keep plucking my gray hairs forever (they're coming faster now)....so I need to figure this out.
3. I miss babies. I know we're not going to plan anymore children for our family, but I wish I could find myself a family that needs someone to babysit their infant part-time. I miss the smell of a baby, I miss the cuddles when they are sleeping, and I actually even miss carrying one around on my hip (a little).
4. I wish teasing and whining could be banned from off the face of the earth. Seriously.
5. My favorite TV shows are competition shows (all of them are except for Smallville). I follow The Biggest Loser, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and Supernanny . I get pretty frustrated when I miss an episode. It's a wonder that I can survive my addictions without us having DVR. Thank goodness for hulu.com, and our old-fashioned VCR that is capable of recording things onto video tape, unlike most modern machines : ).

There...now you know a little more about me. I promise to post some pictures, asap!

Ornaments 2010

2011-01-23T20:44:00.000-08:00

Didi, Goldie, and Shark all helped me make these. Good times, for sure! I've not been very good at organizing family craft time in the past, but we had so much fun, I already know what kind of ornaments we're going to make next year. You'll have to wait and see!


This was our original ornament, Jack Frost. My mom bought him for me at a craft fair we went to together when I was a little girl. His poor little nose has seen better days. I've always loved this ornament, so I decided this year we'd make some friends for him.

Meet Shark Frost, in the beanie, and Jazz Frost in the cap. I love the way these turned out!

And Santa Frost. I think this one is my favorite. We had so much fun making these! I had thought these would make great gifts for our kids' teachers, but in the end I fell in love with each one so much that I couldn't bear to give them away. So, we get to keep them all, and they will all live happily ever after on our own family Christmas tree year after year.

Christmas 2010 Highlights

2011-01-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

I was glad that in some measure we were able to squeeze in our tradition of making a candy house when our friends pulled out their gingerbread house kit. Didi and Jasmin did the honors, and did a great job.

We can't go to our best friends' house without enjoying music! Kendall and Jazz collaborated for some beautiful clarinet & piano duets (Jazz later went to piano and left the clarinet to Kendall), and I loved it when Lainie sang for me one of my favorite songs, "Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most", despite her cold.

Cousins in spirit! (Except for Goldie and Alyse, who are twin sisters in spirit.)

Our tree was probably a fire hazard as it blocked our back door, but oh well. Tootie had something against our garland and tried to remove it every chance he could; not sure what what up with that, but at least the ornaments stayed on the tree a lot better this year than last year. The candy canes were just a Christmas Eve addition--thanks, Santa!

Stockings.

Essentials.

Goldie's favorites included her pillow pet and her new bedding (comforter and sheets), and a pretty fabric-covered glass plate.

Tootie had a Superman Toy Story Thomas the Tank Engine Christmas.

I got what I asked for! A long-sleeved BYU shirt, and a brown purse (which Jazz did an awesome job of picking out himself!). Jazz topped me off with some other thoughtful gifts, and also shown are the wonderful gifts from my mom & dad. So nice!

Didi received the biggest gift in size--a new bike. She was also really excited about the watch set, and the Woodstock stuffed animal from Goldie (which we had a hard time buying while she was in the store with us).

Jazz had a BYU shirt Christmas, and his favorite was the Beethoven records, nearly completing the big set he already enjoys.

Shark had a Ducks Christmas--including an autographed poster from Mikey the Duck himself! (the football team's mascot is one of Jazz's students).

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

No doubt about it, Shark's most exciting toy of all wasn't a gift he had received, but the iPod he bought off of Craigslist on Christmas Eve. He had saved his money for months and months for this. I'm proud of him for saving and earning something he really wanted.

Inside the tent box--the surprise Christmas gift which came in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa Lovell.

Look how big our kids are! Next year will Shark be taller than Mom???!

We couldn't wait. We wanted very much to spend Christmas in our own home as our own little family unit, but once all the presents were opened and we got the clutter cleared away, we hit the road and made it to Sacramento by dinnertime. On the road on Christmas Day wasn't what I had in mind, but in the end, I realized it was super fun to be in both places on that special day.

Didi and Goldie love their new matching jammies with their cousin!

I loved my outing with one of my best friends. We got to go to the Crocker Art Museum. She's so great to treat me to such cultural enrichment! I had never been to a museum like that before--it was amazing. Thanks, Jazz, for letting me slip away for the 3+ hours to enjoy it!

"It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight..." I think they rehearsed this song together about 50 bajillion times.


Christmas cookies! Because we all got the flu the week after we made about 5 batches of cookies (the week before Christmas), unfortunately we didn't get them all passed out to our friends. But we enjoyed the baking time anyway, and eventually they mostly got all eaten. Better luck next year : ). Overall, we had a fabulous Christmas season!	Merry Christmas, everyone!

Ada wins the award for cutest of the cute this year. I can't get enough of her happy shiny personality.

Thanks, Stephanie.

2011-01-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

From my journal today, Sunday, 11:40 a.m.

Feeling sorry for myself a little. Goldie has a bad cold & needed to stay home from church. Jazz's calling in the nursery needs him there for 2 hours, so I was elected to stay home. After sacrament meeting Jazz brought Tootie home 'cause he won't go to Primary by himself yet (tough transition from nursery), and plus, he has a cold too. I was really bummed about missing church--I always look forward to it so much.

So at home I sought to find something inspirational on the internet, and I came upon a beautiful gem that I believe will enrich me for a long time. The story of Stephanie & Christian Nielson. They're an LDS couple who, when parents of 4 children, were in a terrible plane crash--and they survived. He, with burns on 40% of his body, and she, with burns on over 80% of her body. Now she is back to mothering full-time, after recovering from her 3-month long coma while they repaired her body. Now she is a stronger person--yet still the same person--yet a new person with a new life with so many new struggles and limitations.

She said in the "Conversations" interview on LDSradio.org that sometimes she wishes she could shake [people like me] and tell us to be grateful and not take the ease of life for granted. --What a blessed, lucky, rich life I live.

She has a new life, and she is happy. She remembers that while she was in her coma she was given the choice (!!) to either stay on earth and live through the challenges, or to stay in heaven where she could also be happy and have lots of important work to do. She thought of her husband and children, and said the choice to stay with them was so easy.

And now she continues to inspire millions of people through her upbeat blog about her life as a wife and mother (for which she had a couple hundred thousand followers before the accident, but now it reaches a worldwide audience).

Two things that she said particularly struck me are:
"To me, beauty and motherhood are one. They are the same thing."
and,
"I am Stephanie Nielson. I am not my body."

Thanks, Stephanie. I am excited to start following your blog.

A few more thoughts:
-Every morning she wakes up and stretches, and showers, and scrubs her new scarred skin. It's painful, and it takes about 2 hours. I can pull it off in 5 minutes if I have to. Something else not to take for granted.
-At first her children had a hard time looking at her. It took months for them to do that. :(
-There are so many things she can't do now that I can do every day. HOLD HER CHILDREN. Wash her children in a hot/warm bath. Open ziplock bags easily. Wear skirts without tights. Little things!! I'm so grateful!

Visit Stephanie Nielson's blog

Hear Stephanie Share Her Story on Mormon Messages

Eugene Creche Family Picture 2010 (3)

2011-01-08T17:27:00.003-08:00

Eugene Creche Family Picture 2010 (1)

2011-01-08T17:27:00.001-08:00

Eugene Creche Family Picture 2010 (2)

2011-01-08T17:24:00.001-08:00

Favorites of 2010

2010-12-24T18:42:00.000-08:00

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…those are some of Maria von Trapp’s favorite things. What were a few of ours this year?

Jazz’s favorites this year included: completing his Jazz Arranging requirements with an awesome recital in June. NY Jets football. Advancing to candidacy this month—becoming “ABD”—or in simpler terms, all he has left now for his doctoral degree is that little dissertation! Milk chocolate. Watching 9 ½ seasons of Smallville in just a few months.

Jenna’s favorites: watching 9 ½ seasons of Smallville in just a few months with Jeff. Singing the works of Beethoven with the local Symphony & Chorus. Teaching Spanish part-time at the elementary school. Completing lots of Shutterfly photobooks. Seeing my parents begin a full-time LDS mission in Virginia. Visitors to our family blog : ). Dark chocolate.

Shark’s favorites: U of O Ducks & Arizona Cardinals football. Playing on a tackle football team that remained undefeated until the championship game. Football games on the Wii. Interviewing 3 Ducks football players for TV! Harry Potter books, the Oak Ridge Boys music, and lots of audio books. Baby Ruth candy bars. 5^th grade.

Didi’s favorites: joining her first team sport--volleyball. Being in a Marimba band, impressing her friends with her piano skillz, singing with Mom in the church choir. Drawing in a real art school. Finger knitting. Math. Learning to cook. The Beatles’ music. 4th grade.

Goldie’s favorites: joining her first team sport—basketball. Having her mom as her Spanish teacher. Starting piano lessons. Chewing gum. Writing stories. Having crushes on boys. 1^st grade.

Tootie’s favorites: starting preschool, going 4 days a week (LOVES it! And so does Mom). Taking the cushions off the couch for jumping time. Watching movies. Playing outside. Drinking out of the milk jug. Being 3.

A favorite for all of us is CHRISTMAS! We wish you a very merry Christmas full of love and laughter, and blessings that you desire, from our Heavenly Father. Please keep in touch!

Love, the Lovells

Jazz's Year in Review

2010-12-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays! 2010 came and went in a hurry. In fact, it seems as though each year blows by so quickly—perhaps we should measure time in five-year increments. However, the Lovell family certainly made the most of it. This fall, I started my fifth (and hopefully final) year of doctoral work in music theory. Year four academic highlights included some important milestones. I completed my two, yes two, comprehensive exams in theory (Fall 2009) and jazz studies (Spring 2010). I spent most of the school year preparing music for my jazz composition recital, which was presented June 5^th, 2010. I had some really great performers on the recital, including a former musician buddy from California, and a dear friend from my Ricks College and BYU days. I taught a fun month-long course over the summer on the music of Stevie Wonder. It was an analysis course that undergraduates could count toward their core curriculum requirements. Since a class like this had to be built from the ground up, I pretty much ate, slept, breathed all things Wonder-ful for a month. The students had a good time living with this music, and responded well to the challenges it presented. The class culminated in a two-day presentation of individual song projects and performances imitating Stevie’s style. I get to teach it again in a ten-week format next term. Good stuff. After the class ended, I took a much-needed month-long hiatus off of anything remotely academic. For the last 4 years, the pedal has been to the metal year round, and I thought it prudent to take a breather as I approached the final hurdle of my program….the dissertation (cue ominous music).

I began working on the dissertation in earnest this Fall. For my project, I examine the music of Stevie Wonder—a topic that I decided could easily hold my interest for the duration of dissertating! The faculty graciously gave me one additional year of the stipend I have been blessed with this past four years. They also reduced my teaching load so that I could have ample time to prepare my proposal, which took most of the term crafting, re-crafting and de-crafting. By my fifth draft, I finally had an acceptable document to submit, and officially advanced to candidacy at the beginning of December. Thank goodness! My goal for completion of this document is August…we’ll see. Finally, I have sent out around a half dozen job applications throughout the country. Most of the colleges are located in the east—my hope to one-day return to California seems futile given the current economic situation! Out of the sent applications, I have received one invitation for an in-person interview in Pennsylvania. We are excited and hopeful at the possibility of getting a full-time teaching gig after living on a shoestring the past four years! Wish us luck!

The rest of the crew continues to plod along with various activities too, and seem to still be okay with referring to me as husband or Dad as the case may be. Jenna has excelled as the “game-manager” of the family, and does so much to keep things together. She has been such a strength and support to me as I finish this last stretch of schooling. With four kids, she has her hands full, running them around to football, basketball, volleyball, art classes, scouts, piano lessons and church activities. She still finds time to make a little money on the side with her stamp business and Spanish teaching at the elementary school. Did I mention that she also gets up at 5:30 six days a week to work out? I have learned over the years that I am not the REAL busy one in the family.

I am also very proud of my kids, who are growing like weeds. When asked about school, Shark gives me the running yearlong tally of touchdowns he has scored at recess, a number he puts at 50 and counting. He is a college football fan to the core, so much so that he gets weepy when his team is down by a few points (temporarily) to an opponent. Didi has really developed a keen eye and steady hand for drawing—partly a natural talent she inherited from Jenna's mother. She is also becoming quite the pianist and recently performed the popular minuet in G major from the Anna Magdalena notebook. Goldie-girl is little miss chatterbox, a skill she’ll share whether others are present or not, and which occasionally gets her in trouble at school. She has a crush on three or four boys in her first grade class at the moment. I live for her bright smile-it regularly melts my heart. Tootie the terrorizer is playing up the 3-year old shtick, routinely creating messes, teasing and/or beating up his older siblings and then looking cute as a button when he wants to. It will be bittersweet when he grows out of this phase. He loves his part-time preschool experience and apparently is quite the angel for his teachers…

Well, I hope all is well with you and yours. Please keep me informed of coming and goings. I would really love to hear about them.

All the best,

Jazz

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

2010-12-16T16:23:00.000-08:00

This is where I am and how I am for four of my favorite hours of each week. Try to imagine me swinging that stringed device at a hundred miles an hour with a little rubber sphere flying up and sideways and around and back (look out!) for much of those four hours. "Does it hurt to get hit by a racquetball?" an innocent beginner once asked. Well...better a racquetball than a racquet, BUT, let's just say, more than one of us have actually seen stars on these courts, ha ha! All of these players are members of the church, and all but 4 of us are full-time missionaries, as this is the early morning gathering place on "preparation day" for the missionaries. I get to play every Monday and Wednesday, with Wednesday being with a much smaller group--just 3 of us (me and two other friends who are not part of this group). It's a great workout, and LOTS of fun--lots of jokes, kidding around, and laughing at our mistakes. Can you tell I love it?

I love clouds. And I like photography. Did you know? I like to try to be a cool photographer of anything that makes me smile. These clouds made me stop and stare for awhile, so I wanted to share.

My one solo gig this season : ). Jazz is on the piano you can't see, and together we provided some background music at the community Créche event for about 30 minutes. I like getting to show off my favorite Christmas songs.

Nature photographer me again...this time capturing a shot on my way home from racquetball (happened to have my camera with me that day) of the cutest tiny snail ever. I had to put a leaf there so you could see how small it was. Of course I wouldn't want to catch it and take it home for a pet (don't slime me!), but isn't this the cutest?

This picture has to go in my "Evidence" file. One thing I love about living with children is finding unexpected evidence all over the house of their existence (aside from the miniature shoes, messes, diaper station, etc.). This was a funny moment for me--I had just finished washing all the dishes by hand (no dishwasher here), and when I drained the sink, there it was--evidence of our children. Who would ever expect to find a lion in the sink at the end of the day? It made me laugh.

This was one of my favorite Christmas cards that we created at my stamp camp last month. My own design. I used a reverse-image technique for making the trees reflect in the snow, and a masking technique with a brayer to color the sky.

I am so grateful for all of my favorite things that bless my life!

Didi Darlin'

2010-12-16T15:02:00.000-08:00

Didi got to choose any sport she wanted. Since we haven't yet seen the practicality her choice of fencing, we agreed volleyball would be a great choice. She loved her first season. The audience cheered every time the ball made it over the (lowered) net, and Didi had some great serves for points. Their young team even won a few games.

GO OREOS!

Didi is definitely an artist in the making. She really enjoyed her drawing class at a real art school. This was her favorite project.

Marimba! Just as her brother Shark did last year, Didi got to participate in the 4th grade Marimba band. Her piano skills made her one of the band's "most valuable players" and landed her a bass part, helping to keep the band's rhythm and tempo in check : ).


This is just a cute picture of Didi and something we thought was really funny--"Fresh picked Rainbows", being sold at the Holiday Market where she played in her Marimba concert.

Didi has had a very busy Fall, full of music (marimba, piano, and she sings in the ward choir now with her mom), a team sport for her first time (volleyball), honing her artistic abilities in a drawing class, and not to mention her being busy excelling at school--she was just selected to be in the TAG program ("Talented and Gifted") due to her reading skills being in the 98th percentile for her age group. Go, Didi! You're doing GREAT!

Snow Day part 2

2010-11-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

It snowed, it froze, it melted, and then it snowed again. The bottom line is that this rotten snow storm might keep us from going to Idaho for Thanksgiving--dag nabbit! Big bummer. But the kids had fun today anyway.

I love this picture!

$10 haircut

2010-11-23T09:41:00.000-08:00


This is the "before" do.

Probably the longest his hair has ever been in the back.

He didn't want to experience the temporary mo-hawk fun, so I went for the sneaky little tail. It only stayed long enough for the photo.

Did he want this hair cut? NO, but it was well worth it to him for the $10 his dad paid him! (He's trying to save up enough $$ to buy himself an iPod).

We know his hair wasn't super duper ali-ooper long, but it was long enough for us to miss his handsome short hair. So we asked him to consider allowing the old Shark guy to come back into the family. Mom loves her short-haired guys!

It's Amazing What Kids Can Do with Just One Inch of Snow

2010-11-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

I'm sure we'll be seeing 8" snowmen all over the apartment complex in no time!

IMPEL shirts are the best!

2010-11-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

I'm just throwing out a plug for my favorite modest layering shirts company--Impel. If you "Like" their page today, you could win a shirt in one of their contests today (I did!). I wear their shirts almost every day for covering shoulders and adding waist length, etc. Hooray for Impel shirts!

Another Interview and Pink Leaves

2010-11-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

Shark got another interview opportunity for his journalism projects class. The funny thing about this encounter was that even with all the research involved before the interview, it wasn't until after the interview (which was so much fun) that we learned that this Duck--Brandon Bair--is an active member of our LDS faith, and even in our stake (a neighboring congregation). He's a returned missionary, and one article said he "volunteers with the scouts". So Shark is thrilled to have this Duck as a new role model!

I think one of my very most favorite things about living in this city is the PINK LEAVES in the fall. After they've done their time in green, they change to red on one side, and pink on the other before covering the ground in a blanket of Valentine colors. Heck, some of these leaves are even Valentine shaped, but those are usually the yellow ones that complement the pink and red ones. You have to agree it's fun to see these February colors in nature, and in the fall!

I'm a super-wannabe photographer, but I thought some of these leaf pictures could have even done my family photographers (my brother and a couple of my SILs) proud. They're so beautiful! I can't walk home through these leaves without getting a big smile on my face, and grabbing my favorite few to enjoy at home. I have many of them pressed for safe keeping ; ).

Something Bad and Something Good

2010-10-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was quite a day for us. We spent the night in the ER to get Jazz through a kidney stone passing. The attack came on at about 11:15 p.m., about 1/2 an hour after I had fallen asleep on the couch while we were watching our favorite show together, Smallville. He had had stones about 4 years ago, so he recognized the signs and we acted quickly--asked our our neighbor upstairs to come down to watch the kids so we could rush over to the emergency room. For about an hour and a half he was in excruciating pain, before the pain meds finally did any good. In the end we were there for about 4 hours, which included them doing a scan and finding out that this was the only stone currently invading, and none others are in sight for now. Poor Jazz...my opinion is that this is worse than baby labor, because you DON'T get a baby in the end! He's doing much better now, just living in fear of the next one, that's all. The doctor confessed that since this is his 3rd or 4th time, he can be affectionately known now as a "stone former". Not something you want to be remembered as, you know?

    But something good happened yesterday, too. I got to go to the Portland temple for my first time. I was really excited, because we've lived here 4 years and I hadn't been inside yet. I got to do baptisms with our Relief Society sisters. I was worried about going since I had only had 3 1/2 hours of sleep the night before, but it was great.
    The coolest part for me was getting to be a missionary while I was there. There was a man inside the temple with his little girl--visiting a very pretty atrium room inside the temple waiting area. He stopped to talk with me, as I was also alone in there looking around. He said "This place is amazing! Are you having worship services here right now?" I explained the difference between a temple and a church.
    He told me that he's Glen Beck's #1 fan and that he just found out that he's a mormon, so he came to check out this temple that he had seen before. He said he wants to learn more about the mormons. --Can we say, "Music to my ears?" Or, we could say, "asking Jenna if she'd be willing to share what she believes is like asking her if she'd like some chocolate chip cookies".
    So I told him about the missionaries, and he gave me his phone number and I gave him mine, and then I grabbed a passalong card (with a number for the missionaries) from the temple's front desk for him, and I gave a temple schedule to his daughter since it had a picture of the "princess castle" on the front.   It was really cool! He also told me that his wife is having a baby next week : ). I told him I'd call him later to see how he's doing, and he was really appreciative of our conversation. I was very excited about it, and look forward to talking with him again.   I love being a missionary.

Fieldtrip to the Farm

2010-10-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

I got to accompany Tootie on a fun field trip with his preschool class this week, to a real farm (more "real" than a pumpkin patch--as proven by the cow pies we had to dodge the whole time). We enjoyed picking and eating as many raspberries as we wanted, along with apples right off the tree--yum! And each child got to choose a pumpkin to take home.

Raspberries, yum!

Walking with Farmer John to see the cows (if you zoomed in you could see 2 or 3 black ones laying down in the grass ahead of them).


It was a full class of preschoolers and their parents. I'm so glad I got to go too.

"There's poop on my pumpkin, Mom!" (it was just mud, really)

"I like getting on the tractor today!"

On TV

2010-10-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

"Hi, this is Shark, reporting for 'Something to Talk About'."


Shark has a very cool elective class at his elementary school whose teacher has created some awesome journalist opportunities for him. Last year Shark got to interview the head coach of the university's football team (which interview ended in tragedy instead of on TV, since the sound guy messed up and there was no sound on the recording), and this year he got to interview one of the key university players. It was a really fun experience for him, and he did a great job! It was fun to see him on TV this time!

Here's the interviewer and the interviewee (who did have more clothes (his full uniform) on during the interview, but I wasn't able to take a picture until after the interview was over and we caught him on his way out).

Here's Shark with his friend, who has played football with Shark the past few years, and who also got to interview a university football player that week.

This was a really fun time for us four, as we hung around during Shark's interview. I was very grateful that Tootie was happily engaged in his preschool class at the time, so we could relax and not be playing chase to keep him away from the cameras, etc.

Sharing My Creations

2010-10-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

The challenge for this design was to make something "add shimmer to a dark color", and the one above it was a color challenge (make a design with those 3 colors). They're featured with the designs of 3 of my other talented stamping friends on our stamping challenge blog: http://craftycatwalk.blogspot.com/

These are the four cards we made at my embossing stamp camp.
They each use a different embossing technique. Fun stuff.

This is one of the cards we'll make at my Christmas Cards stamp camp in October.

Just wanted to show you some of the fun cards I've designed for my stamp camps and such. I really enjoy the designing aspect of my hobby business : ).

Back to School

2010-10-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Although I thought he might be sad, Tootie was great about seeing the big kids off for school on their first day. It reminds me of a story of my youngest brother who one morning asked my mom, "Are they gone? ...Yippee!" But nevertheless, I was also happy to see his excitement the other day when he saw the bus roll in after school and he came to me shouting, "Mom! My friends are here! My friends are here!", meaning his older siblings of course.

Here are "the big kids"! Off to start the new school year in 1st, 4th, and 5th grades. I don't know who was more excited--the kids, or their mom : ). Hooray for school!

Shark is in his element now that football season has started again. He prefers to play wide receiver, but I think he might be playing tight end right now. This is his second year of tackle football. I just think it's so cute to see these young boys in their full uniform like this.

"Before" Goldie's golden locks were trimmed.

Goldie's new look--just in time for the new school year.

Tootie is now in preschool, and everyone is happy about that! Especially him. He LOVES all of the structured activities and of course all of the supervised playtime in a child-safe environment (no computers or other electronic equipment around for him to explore and destroy--thank goodness!). He's pretty young for a 4-day a week class, but he's probably at the top of his class activity-level wise.


Didi had success in growing this lemon cucumber plant this summer in our small garden plot, despite the non-green thumb-ness of her mother.

We had a great summer, but we're sooooo glad that school is back in session!

Happy Together

2010-08-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

I love being at the temple with my sweetheart!

Sunburned Lovells

2010-08-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

This family photo was taken at the wedding reception of Jeff's brother, in July. We were having so much fun with photos and such after the beautiful ceremony in Manti Utah, that we hadn't noticed the scorching rays of the sun until it was too late. Oh well! It was a beautiful, happy day, and we were so grateful that we were able to be there for brother John's special day. Congrats to John & Amy!

Summer Campers

2010-08-29T20:07:00.001-07:00

Everyone in our family got sick the week of this camp out. Goldie and Didi, and Mom & Dad all got through with our illness before we got to the campsite, but Tootie and Shark suffered while we were there. It was a rough time, but isn't "roughing it" supposed to be part of camping? We had a nice time anyway, especially visiting with Jazz's family in the beautiful setting--the scenery in the redwoods was beautiful.

We Finally Made it to the Fair

2010-08-29T19:52:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at the County Fair. We spent big bucks to go on very few rides and eat a bit of cotton candy and popcorn, and unfortunately didn't discover until we were tired all of the many cool free things to participate in (the art exhibits, the livestock, etc.), but we had a great time. The kids were amazed by the magic show and the trick dogs, and were happy to all go home with a few cheap stuffed animals (from the "everyone wins a prize" games). Next year I think we'll start with the free activities, and then get them tired before we go to the rides, so that maybe it won't cost so much (yeah, as if that would work!).

What's up

2010-05-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

Just a few quick notes about what we're all up to...

Jazz is working like a mad dog trying to get ready for his recital, which will be Saturday, June 5th at 1 p.m. in the music building on campus (all are invited, of course). His time is exhausted by rehearsing his big band numbers, his smaller group numbers, practicing the piano so he can perform a bit on the big day, too, attending the recitals of those who are performing in his recital, and then doing a bit of missionary work and family time (which is sometimes just dinner, before he leaves again) when he's not "working".

I'm doing the usual, trying to keep up with everyone else's schedules, and messes. I was hoping to be in Utah this weekend to see my brother's family sealed in the temple (mom, dad, and newly adopted baby), but the scandalous flight prices had to keep me away from that exciting event :(. On a good note, I've been able to sing a little lately even though my choir is on a hiatus right now...that is, last Sunday I got to sing three different musical numbers! One was in another ward, one in my own ward (and I gave a talk with that song, for our "Favorite Hymn Festival" Sunday), and one at a baptism after church. Jazz accompanied me on the last number, which is always fun.

Shark is between sports seasons right now, so he fills his time with books, books, more books, and audio books, and a little homework, chores, scouts, and piano practicing. He's doing great in school, and he's glad that this week was the very last Spanish class of the year (which his mom co-taught), which leaves more time for reading--in English :).

Didi is getting better and better at the piano, though practicing isn't always her favorite thing to do (the worst is when it's your turn to "go first" among the 3 practicers in the house). She practices 30 minutes a day. She loves to organize things, such as her desk next to her bed. And she enjoys reading too, but balances that activity with other creative hobbies such as writing stories, sewing, working with clay, etc.

Goldie still dances and twirls just about everywhere she goes. She's getting good on the piano, too. We have enjoyed the kids' new piano teacher that lives right in our apartment complex. Goldie loves to read, too. She is one of the best readers in her kindergarten class, and enjoyed having her mom come in to her class once a week to volunteer as a reading helper--Goldie always got to have the first turn reading out loud :).

Tootie is ever running, ever destroying, ever throwing. Yesterday alone he broke a vase, and a big chunk out of my aerobic step, when he threw random items across the room. A favorite booby trap: he loves to take the guard bar out of the bottom of our fridge door so that when we open the fridge, all the condiment bottles spill onto the floor. His favorite movies are Toy Story and Toy Story 2, and he can quote much of those movies..."my eyeballs could have been sucked out of their socks/sockets!" He's a challenging handful, but his adorable face and beautiful hair and endearing smile and hugs help us love him to death anyway.

We're a happy, crazy, loud, loving family, and we enjoy weekends together when we can let our hair down (after chores are done) and watch movies together, play outside, and play games together. That's the latest from our family :)!

Mother's Day

2010-05-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day began with some wonderful traditional surprises--I loved the fancy breakfast, the chocolates, the cards, and flowers. My family knows what I like!

After church, we continued with the traditions of the day and I got to have a nice little photo shoot of us outside near our home. It was a really nice day!

"Something in [the] Store"

2010-05-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Dad took all of the kids with him on an outing to Barnes and Noble bookstore (he was giving me a break, so I could have a few minutes of quiet at home, how nice!). Goldie discovered something at the store that she REALLY wanted. It cost $12, and she had about $6 left of her own spending money (left over from Christmas, I believe). When she got home, she told me all about it, and for days she still never forgot about it. It was a copy of the New Testament enveloped in a wrap that made it look disguised as an adorable little girl's purse--pink and with flowers, handle, and all.

Then one day she came home from school SO excited--she couldn't wait to show me the fortune she had received in a fortune cookie. She read it to me, saying, "A pleasant surprise is in THE STORE for you!!!" She couldn't believe it! She KNEW it was talking about that purse book. I giggled, and tried to point out that when she had unknowingly added the word "the" (it of course actually read "in store for you"), she had changed the meaning, and I tried to explain what it really meant. But I let her continue to be excited, and since Jazz and I had already talked about it, I told her we could decide on some extra chores for her to do so she could earn it. We let her work for about 3 days doing extra chores, and now the "pleasant surprise" that was once "in [the] store", is now in her happy possession : ). Who knew...those fortunes really can come true!

A Dandelion Day

2010-03-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot of story to tell, but I just had so much fun teaching Tootie how to blow on dandelions on our walk this morning. I tried to capture the moments with the camera in my mind, but since I don't trust those pictures to last, I carried a dandelion home with us so I could use a real camera. I'm glad he had so much fun with it!

My Wife --by Jazz

2010-02-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

This is part 2 of our 12-year anniversary postings. This part is by Jazz. It's a little mushy, so if you don't like that kind of stuff, you may wish to just skip to another post : ).
----------
MY WIFE
Top 12 Great Things (to go with 12 great years) in my life with/because of Jenna
-In no particular order-

12- Great romance. [this item was modified and simplified by Jenna to make it more blog-friendly].

11- Four beautiful children. They really are beautiful. I don't just say that because I have to, but they are pleasing to look at and I have my beautiful wife to thank for that. I certainly had little to do with it. I couldn't be more pleased with the people they are becoming.

10- Companionship. I love having someone to go home to everyday-someone that loves me and is interested in my well being. Jenna is always eager to help me be the best husband, father, student I can be. Also, her willingness to travel all over the country while I attempt to figure my life out makes me so grateful for her.

9- Productivity. As a result of her companionship, I get more done than I ever did before, because I wish to protect and take care of her.

8- A laughing partner/Friday nights. We don't always see eye to eye on humor, since I tend to favor crude humor, but I enjoy the fact that there are things we both get a kick out of when it comes to TV shows: King of Queens, The Office, Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, just to name a few. I so look forward to spending Friday nights relaxing on the couch watching a movie or a favorite TV show.

7- Humility. The thought that she loves me despite my imperfections and challenges.

6- Frugality. Not too many women these days would have had the patience required to endure the many years of schooling coupled with the meager lifestyle that goes with it as Jenny has done. We have not incurred much consumer debt on Jenna's watch.

5-Clean clothes, paid bills, groceries bought. Jenna's home management skillz rock! Her willingness to do the regular tasks at home has made it so much easier for me to concentrate on schooling and work. I can't recall the last bill I paid it's been so long ago.

4- Rolls and no bake cookies. This may seem silly, but I love that Jenna is willing to indulge me in some of my childhood favorite eats. She learned how to make my mom's classic Thanksgiving rolls so we could carry on the tradition in our own home. She also learned how to make no-bakes the way mom makes them despite her aversion to cooking in general.

3- Music-making. We have been a pretty good team over the years, despite my shortcomings as an accompanist. Jenna has always been fairly patient with me even though I struggle with some of her music. I enjoy that we have been able to share her talents in all the states where we've lived. On occasion we have also shared similar tastes in music, and it is fun to enjoy and appreciate music together.

2- A captive audience. Jenna is always willing to listen to my ideas or musings on things, even though she may not know what the heck I'm talking about. She proofs my papers and has a much better understanding of basic concepts relating to math, grammar, etc. I appreciate the travel time in the car when I can use her as a captive audience to bounce ideas off of and in general think out loud.

1- Eternity. That I get to spend the rest of time with my one and only Valentine.

Jenna, I love you.

Jazz

Newsweek

2010-02-14T07:03:00.000-08:00

This week has been full of memorable events for us.

My grandpa, passed away at about noon yesterday -- 13 Feb 2010. He made it to 90 and passed very quietly. His youngest son was with him when he passed away. He was a wonderful part of our lives, and a funny and fun grandpa. We miss him. I am so happy that he is with his sweetheart again.

My brother and his wife became parents on Tuesday this week. Their little son entered the world weighing 8 lbs 7 oz, and is very healthy and VERY cute. He really is adorable and perfect and we are so excited for them! I can't wait to meet him. They are all doing great! The birth mother signs the final papers this Wednesday. She said that she loves the baby, but she always felt like it belonged with my brother and his wife. I feel so blessed to have been able to witness the miracle of him coming to their family. I love hearing my brother say "my son...who will become a great baseball player..." etc. : )

My other brother and his wife were also due to have a baby earlier this week, so we are waiting anxiously for their news. This will be their 5th baby, and it is a girl, so they will have 4 girls and 1 boy : ). I hope it is born today so they can name her Valentine! (Just kidding about the name)

Today is our anniversary--12 amazing and wonderful years! We had a fun date last night, experiencing a Thai restaurant for our first time. Not sure if we're sold on Thai food, but it was yummy for the most part. Jazz gave me roses (12!) before the date, and he wore one of the new Old Navy sweaters that I got for him. He's not silly like I am about this kind of thing, but with his clean shaven face (which I usually only get to see once--maybe twice--a week) and his new haircut, and his new sweater, I thought he was such a beautiful man sitting across the table from me...I loved to stare at him : ). I'm such a lucky wife. We went to the Sees Candy store for dessert, but were sad to find them closed, so we got some chocolate at a different store in the mall. Not quite Sees, but better than going dessert-less. We rented "The Invention of Lying", which I think Jazz enjoyed...I still look forward to watching it, since I unfortunately fell asleep about 15 minutes into the movie. Not our most exciting date ever, but it was a celebration nonetheless, and we're just grateful that we were able to find a babysitter since the whole world of couples seems to like to celebrate our anniversary on the same weekend as us. Go figure ; ).

2010-02-11T20:01:00.000-08:00

This Valentine's Day we celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary. How time flies! I think a good theme for my anniversary post would be listing 12 of my favorite memories of us together as a couple. Man, it will be hard for me to limit it to just 12...

#12: Jazz taking his own initiative to come over to my house and ask me out on our first date. I had only known him for about 2 days, though he had seen me around the music building on campus for about a month before he made his move.

#11: Moving from house to house (apartment to apartment) from one state to another, several times. In our 12 years of marriage, we've lived together in Utah (in I think 4 different apartments), New Jersey, Utah again, California, and now Oregon. We've been in Oregon 3 1/2 years, the longest we've ever lived in one place.

#10: Having each of our 4 beautiful children together. My favorite day was always delivery day, but EVERY day is a crazy adventure with these 4 blessings from heaven. We have the greatest family in the whole world.

#9: Our honeymoon! We didn't travel far, just an hour away, and it was in the middle of the semester, but it was a beautiful place and a wonderful time.

#8: Jazz's graduation ceremonies for his master's degree. I loved that day. I can't wait until the even greater day of graduation from school forever (with his doctorate), and then celebrating afterward with our family's trip to Disneyland. I mean, it is really going to happen, isn't it?

#7: Friday night pseudo-date-nights. We put the kids to bed, push our love seat and couch together, and watch a movie together all snuggled up. I often fall asleep on his shoulder half-way through the movie, but that's half the fun of being snuggled up.

#6: "Dad makes dinner on Sundays" days. I sure love him for giving me that time off from the kitchen! And, he's great at helping me fold the laundry, and he's always helping pick up the clutter, and he often helps the kids get the house super clean while I'm away at my Saturday morning stamp camps. He's a super home-making helper. He's the best.

#5: Shopping together at Borders bookstores. We love CDs and books and movies, and love to browse and pretend like we're going to buy a bunch of stuff, but then we usually put it all back.

#4: Going to church every week and the temple together whenever we can. I am so grateful that I married a man who is righteous and always striving to do his best. He is a good example for me. He is a great leader for our family.

#3: Playing Scrabble together every 4th of July. We always argue about who won the previous year. We both know I usually win though (don't tell him I said that, though). ; )

#2: Our first kiss. No, it wasn't on our first date. I think it was the day after : ).

#1: Seeing him come home from school/work every day. I love his face! He's for sure one person that just gets more handsome every single day. I love his presence in our home, and I love his hugs and kisses every morning when he leaves, and every time he arrives back at home. I love to be together with my sweetheart.

When Jazz and I got married we had known each other for only 3 months. We both felt a spiritual confirmation that this marriage was meant to be, and time has proven that fact. He is the perfect man for me.