Biting off what we can chew

I am a bit impetuous. When I decide that I want to do something I want to do it all the way and I want to do it right now. Because of this I often get into new projects way over my head. Such was the case last year when I decided that I wanted to start gardening. Some friends of ours had been renting a plot at the Mayor's garden (a communal garden owned by Indy Parks) and enjoyed it, so I thought I would give it a try too.

I don't remember the official plot size of our garden last year, but I quickly realized that I was in over my head...again. By mid-summer our plants that had acutally grown were dwarfed by weeds and barely producing fruit. I let nature take its course and chalked it up to experience.

I wasn't about to give up though. This year I decided that we would create a small garden at home that would not overwhelm me (hopefully).

Here is a photo of our tiny garden. It was 2' x 3', which seemed almost pointless, but it was a much better experience for us than last year. And, as was last year, it was a great learning experience.



One fun thing that we grew in our garden this year was cotton. The owner of the garden shop where we bought our plants (that was one thing we learned - it is so much easier to plant plants than grow plants from seed) gave the kids a cotton plant - just for fun. This is a picture of one of the pods before it opened. I have to admit, I kept expecting it to say "feed me, Seymour", but it didn't. Eventually the pods did open, though, and we had cotton. I was going to take a picture of the cotton, but I never did and eventually got tired of it sitting around the house and threw it away. But it was kind of cool to see how cotton grows.



This last picture is of some mums that I planted last year. They bloomed so beautifully this year that I actually would walk out to the sunroom and look out the back door for no other reason than to see my gorgeous mums. They made me happy.

Catching Up

In spite of my promises to do so, I never got around to posting more about our summer. Now with fall in full swing and going into the holidays, I've decided to give up on posting about summer for now and move right into fall.

One part of our summer that carried over into fall was our visits to Kings Island. Our good friends live in Cincinnati and have season passes to Kings Island. Last fall we went to visit them and to go to Kings Island and ended up buying season passes. We went to Kings Island several times this year and went one last time during their Halloween celebration.





Of course, we loved the opportunities that our trips to Kings Island gave us to visit with our friends, the Hudsons. They were generous hosts and our kids absolutely loved playing together! Becca especially loved playing "mommy" to baby Tate.

I can't believe I'm having this conversation!

Not too long ago Isak, Becca and I were out on one of our daily roadtrips when, from her seat behind me, Becca asks, "Mom, who can I marry?"

My response was that of probably any mother of a five-year-old. "Becca, you don't really need to worry about that yet. It will be a lot of years before you get married."

She responded, "I know, but I just want to know WHO I can marry."

Deciding to play along I said, "Well, do you know any boys your age?"

She and I both began to list boys that we know who are her age. Being a five-year-old, her world is still quite small, so the list was only about five or six boys long. She considered some of them more seriously than others, but was generally not pleased with the selection.

In an effort to ease her mind I told her that because it will be a lot of years before she gets married, she is bound to meet many more boys that she can choose from.

The conversation ended, but she was still clearly unsatisfied with her marriage possibilities.

I couldn't believe I had just carried on a conversation with my five-year-old daughter about her marriage prospects.

I was reminded of this conversation tonight when, once again, Becca found a topic of conversation that I was just not prepared for.

"Mom, who is the cutest of the Jonas Brothers? Nick?"

"I really don't know, Becca. Who do you think is the cutest?"

"Is Nick the middle one?"

"I really don't know, honey."

"Yeah, I think Nick is the cutest."

So now I'm wondering, what kinds of questions is she going to ask me when she is 15?

Blessings

Several months ago I was called into the stake Young Women's presidency of the newly formed Indianapolis West Stake. As part of that responsibility I was involved in planning and was able to attend Young Women's Camp and Youth Conference this summer. I can't even begin to explain the blessing that this has been in my life, but I will try.

The greatest blessing has been just simply spending time with the youth and feeling their enthusiasm and witnessing their susceptibility to the Spirit when they are all together. I am constantly amazed with their openness to their leaders, to one another and to the gospel. I hope they realize how incredibly amazing they are!

Another great blessing has been the opportunity that my preparation for these events has given me to experience the power of the Spirit in my own life. I have become increasingly aware that when I try to do things on my own, I struggle, and often fail. But when I allow the Spirit to guide me, the path before me is clear and I am able to fulfill my assignments successfully.

Also among the many blessings that I have received this summer through my association with the youth is the association that I have had with other leaders. I am continually impressed by the desire of the leaders of our stake to help the youth understand how truly special they are and the Spirit with which our activities and events are organized. I am constantly being lifted to higher ground by the examples of those I work with.

As I have seen the blssings flow into my life over the past few months I am in awe that I have been given this opporunity and that my Heavenly Father loves me enough to bless me in so many significant ways. With the blessings that I experiece as a wife, mother, daughter, friend and servant of the Lord I find that very often my heart if full to the point of overflowing.

More Ear Tubes and No More Tonsils

On August 8th Isak went in for surgery to have ear tubes put in and his tonsils taken out. Do you remember that Becca just had this done a couple of months ago? Becca is always such a trooper when she doesn't feel well and she handled the recovery from her surgery remarkably. I didn't expect the same from Isak, and rightfully so. Not only is he two years younger than Becca, but he is also a little less tolerant of pain and discomfort.

The day of the surgery he did quite well, but only because he had an allergic reaction to the morphine that they routinely give to help patients as the wake up, so they gave him Benedryl. Loaded up with morphine and Benedryl, he was pretty at ease for the rest of that day.

The day following the surgery the story changed. Tylenol with codeine (which we didn't use with Becca at all) became ever so important in our home over the next few days. I felt a little uncomfortable giving it to him so much, but they gave us a huge bottle of it, so they must have been expecting that he would need it, right?

After the first week he started to improve noticeably each day and by the end of two weeks he was back to being his fun, silly, active self. It takes experiences like these to help me really appreciate having healthy and happy children.

Besides gaining perspective and appreciation for good health, the other benefit of having a child have surgery is lots of snuggle time. And Isak is the snuggliest snuggle bug I know.

Kindergarten

A highlight of our life lately has been Becca's transition to being in kindergarten. The Saturday before school started our family went on the traditional school shopping trip, purchasing new uniform outfits and the requisite items on the supply list.

The day before school started we carefully packed her backpack with all of the supplies that she would need to deliver to her teacher the next day.

After lunch on Tuesday, August 12, I drove Becca to school. We arrived early and Becca sat watching the clock waiting for "1-2-1-5" to appear so that she could go into school. Much to her disappointment the teacher didn't appear until "1-2-2-0". She eagerly jumped out of the van and lined up with the rest of her class to go to kindergarten for the very first time.

At "1-2-2-1" I pulled away from the curb at the school and started to cry. My baby - my long awaited, miraculous, angel baby - was starting a new chapter of her life. At "1-2-2-2" I called her daddy to tell him what a big girl she was and to share my joy with the one person who loves her as completely as I do.

At "3-2-0" I walked to the bus stop. When I was still a few houses down from the bus stop the bus arrived. Becca appeared and broke into the fastest run I'd ever seen her run, squealing "mommy" the whole way. When she reached me she threw her arms around me and my heart swelled with love for her and with appreciation that, although she has grown so much so fast, I am still her safety net, the one she runs to with delight.

Summer - In Retrospect

Due to a camera glitch I can't yet access photos taken earlier this summer. Hopefully we will get that glitch figured out, but until then, I'm going to begin blogging our summer in reverse. Otherwise, I will get so far behind that there will be no cathcing up!