One more day

There is this sister in our ward whose baby died on Wednesday morning. She was two months old. There were no health problems and nothing to indicate something was going to happen. I went with my girlfriend to the viewing last night to offer support and it was heartbreaking. The baby girl was just beautiful. She looked like a porcelain doll. When I got home, I found myself hugging my children even tighter, especially Kam. Ever since my friend in Texas lost her son, I have noticed my own sense of relief each morning that I awake and still have my children with me. Over the past two weeks, Kam has been waking up in the middle of the night and I am GRATEFUL when I go to him because I know he's okay. As irritated as I might be over the sometimes incessant squabbling, at least I am lucky enough to have them here with me. And Kam....who seems to be going through another "Mommy I need you to hold me ALL the time" phase, is sweeter. He is such a sensitive child and is quick to give me loves, which he does frequently.

All the loss has made me realize what a blessing each day is and to be able to share that day with your children is an even greater blessing. I am such a lucky mom.

Perspective

It seems so unfair that the world should continue on as if nothing happened when a son from Helaman's Army has been called home. A parent should never have to bury their children, but sadly it occurs all too frequently. The son of a friend of mine was called home today. At 17, he truly was everything the sons in the Army of Helamen should be. His calling now is so much greater than we can ever understand and this tragic passing has put things into perspective for me. In the end, it won't matter how many friends you have, how well you kept your blog up, how clean your house was. It all comes down to how you taught your children. Did you teach them to hold to the rod with all their might? Did you teach them about the light of Christ and how to receive him in their countenance? Are they part of the army willing to share the truth of the gospel with the whole world? Did you teach them to love God? Did we teach them that God is loving and just? Did we teach them to LOVE?

As we were reading scriptures, Shelbi was unfocused and distracting so I sent her to bed. I was angry because she wasn't listening and I don't want her not knowing what sets our church apart from the others. As I was turning out the light, she said to me, "bye bye, Mommy." I started to cry as I recognized a teaching moment was about to pass. We might not get 15 or 20 more years with our children and I couldn't help wanting them to be closer to me tonight. As I hugged her, I cried and told her she would someday need to find out for herself if this is the true church. I want my children to be valiant and brave and ready.

My heart goes out to my friend. I love you and your son has been such a righteous example and influence. He will be greatly missed by all whose lives he has touched.

The epitame of all things not funny

The evidence: It all started a few days ago when I felt some irritation towards Shelbi because I found a yellow foam disc (from her foam disc gun...they're about the size of a 50 cent piece with a hole in the middle) laying on the rug in the living room. It looked like it had been picked and there were tiny pieces of laying on the rug....that I had just vacuumed. Shelbi is notorious for picking things....especially foam (you should see the Texas Rangers pointer finger we got for her...or what's left of the lettering). The next day we found what looked like flaking by our garage door. We figured it was part of the weather stripping (which it was) that had gotten crusty and needed to be replaced. Yesterday I opened our hall closet to fetch a blanket and found a few small scraps of toilet paper on the floor. I was momentarily suspicious until I remembered that Kam has learned how to unroll the toilet paper. After the unrolling, he will grab some, then proceed to tear it to pieces. Makes me laugh, but still frustrating!

It all came to a head this morning. I thought I had done well hiding the Easter candy in our closet behind some clothes that were hanging up. When I went to retrieve it, this is what I found:

Conclusion: The Easter candy was indeed raided....but not by my children. As Dallin and I talked, other things became more clear. How did we not see the signs? Oh, we saw them! We just didn't dream something like this could happen in our new home when we're only lived her for 2 months! Not to mention it is still WINTER! After some brief searching, we found the culprit....which I don't have a picture of because I was in the living room with Kam ready to scream "like a little girl" (as Gavin put it)! Dallin found the mouse in our hall closet and devised a plan to catch it then beat it to death (he got the idea from Chevy Chase on Christmas Vacation). We closed Kam's door and the bathroom door and stuffed blankets under them in the event the mouse escaped and made a break for it. We put boxes in the hall to block its escape into the living room. Gav and Shelbi were armed with bats and told that if it jumped the boxes, they were to beat the mouse! Luckily for them, Dallin caught the mouse under a towel and trapped it. That was when he looked in the closet and discovered ANOTHER surprise....


4 baby mice! Seriously, what is it with wildlife in our house? It's just gross! Because the kids LOVED the baby mice (again....ew!), Dallin decided that he couldn't just pound the mother and her babies. We would release them in the wild.....far, far, away from our house.



The mother is trapped in the towel by Dallin's left hand. The kids really wanted to keep them, but we told them no. Mice are just GROSS!



We drove the mice out of town and release them into the wild. We think this was a fluke thing (it better be) and that there are no more mice in the house. Just beware of the fumes! I don't think you can ever use too much bleach!


P.S. Maybe we should get a cat.....