If this were Mark's blog...

In response to an email from his mom asking everyone to "count their many blessings," Mark wrote this:

Jesus Christ and the Atonement,
repentance and forgiveness,
the gospel and the church,
the wife and kids,
mom and dad,
brothers and sisters,
family and friends,
my employment and my work,
a little piece of land,
our warm and dry home,
food and clothing,
cars and bikes,
mountains and hills,
great rivers and small streams,
American and Mormon history,
Joseph Smith's papers and the Joseph Smith Papers Project,
dinner and a movie,
Rock and roll,
Mountain Dew and Cocoa Puffs

High Window

This day is rolling along slow and peaceful. It's sunny and warm, and you can almost smell the golden leaves piling up all around the house. Some friends came to play this morning, different friends are here now. But the kids and I are staying put.

Right now the kids and their favorite neighbors are out on the tramp. They're concocting different games, all somewhat dangerous or violent, and then conferring hotly on the rules. Jesse is across the yard, draped belly-down over a swing and trailing his fingers in the dirt.

I'm upstairs puttering around with the never-ending laundry situation, occasionally looking down on them from my high window. They don't know I'm watching. They're all beautiful to me, and precious. Just because. Even when they're fighting, a little obnoxious, a little stinky. I love them just because they are here. Their little souls shine brighter than the sunlight.

I think that's a little how Heavenly Father sees us.

Mute

After slogging through a head cold all last week, I woke up this morning without a voice. The best I can do is a milky-water whisper that has almost no volume. People on the phone can't understand me at all. The kids keep looking at me quizzically and saying, "What?!"

I've always known I talk too much and too loud to my kids. I'm always hollering things like, "Get your shoes on! Get in the car! Everyone in the CAR! Hey, why aren't you in the car yet? Where are your SHOES?"

So today, by force, I walk downstairs and softly intone, "Everyone get in the car, please." And that's it. I don't say anything else, because I can't.

And guess what? After a few minutes--those minutes when normally I'd be hollering--they're all in the car.

Things happening while I was too busy to blog

~ A visit from my Dad. My Daddy loves me no matter what, which makes him pretty awesome to have around.

~ My completion of 10 hours of foster care training in one week. Nevertheless, as of today, our license is expired while our background check gets processed. Apparently it takes a few weeks to determine that we haven't committed a felony since they did our background check twelve months ago.

~ Mark and my outing to a grown-up Halloween party. We dressed up, which I don't believe we've done since Disco Night at Classic Skate back in our BYU days.


~ My 38th birthday, which was lovely. The kids went out of their way to be sweet and solicitous all day.

~ Trick or Treating. This year we had almost zero costume drama. Jesse really got into the spirit, but Roscoe opted out.

Levi, if you can't tell, was Frodo Baggins the Hobbit. He was entrusted with my engagement ring, and he carried it safely through his journeys.


Other tidbits from our week:

How to

How to write four resumes on the first day the kids are off track*--

~ Beg neighbor to invite Jesse over for a play date. Thank heavens that neighbor says yes. Thank heavens for neighbor.

~ Get big bucket of toys from off-rotation stash in furnace room. Order remaining kids to stay in Haley's room playing with said toys.

~ When kids get tired of said toys and promise to play outside quietly but instead torment, bicker, and run in and out incessantly, banish them back to bedrooms.

~ Promise lunch at Sonic in exchange for continued cooperation.

~ Deliver on lunch at Sonic, thereby saving hassle of serving lunch at home.

~ Let kids watch a movie.

~ When daughter says, "Hey, Mom?" cut to the chase and respond, "No."

~ Since exercise time isn't going to make the cut today, engage in power shopping. Try to do a week's shopping, get it home, and make dinner in 35 minutes. Load even big kids into shopping cart, along with 200 pounds of groceries. Notice elevated heart rate as you schlep all to van.

~ Serve homemade soup for dinner--frozen from a double batch last week.

~ When husband arrives home and volunteers to do dinner dishes, sneak away for a long, hot shower.

* Not recommended. Do not try this at home.

Friday Roundup, Too Much Edition

~ 1 ~

This week has been too much for me. Not sure which straws broke the camel's back. I keep thinking of an interview I heard with a female NASCAR driver who said that she always tries to drive just on this edge of losing control and crashing--because that's where the speed is. I think I generally organize my life to be just this side of too much--because that's where growth and happines are. Also the potential for wipe out.

~ 2 ~

In 90 minutes, my elementary school kids will be off track, meaning they'll be home for the next three weeks. For the first two weeks, they'll annoy each other and me. In the last week, they'll hit their stride and remember how to make their own fun together. Then we'll have the trauma of getting back on our school schedule.

~ 3 ~

It's been two months since Malory went home, and we haven't heard a word about a new foster daughter. Where is our baby?

(Don't think too hard about the senseless disconnect betweens items 3 and 1.)

~ 4 ~

Because the kids are going off track, they had their school Halloween parties today. Out with the big buckets of costumes. Logan is Death. Levi is Harry Potter. Haley is a fairy princess. Jesse will not be the devil again, because it's just not funny anymore.

I think sweat suits are the key to successful Halloween costumes. They're practically one size fits all, they keep the kids warm under impractical costumes, and they're an easy base. Add horns to a red one and you're the devil. Add a tuu-tuu to a pink one and you're a princess.

~ 5 ~

Last night Roscoe and I went to a lovely dinner party hosted by my talented cousin Bethany in honor of her sister Annie, visiting from New York. Bethany does it all up right, and it was fun for me to introduce Roscoe to the world of adult dinner parties. I coached him in advance on how to say to the person next to him, "And how do you know Annie and Bethany?" and how to keep a conversation going by asking follow-up questions.

~ 6 ~

You can teach your kids to memorize their phone number by having them sing it to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

~ 7 ~

Speaking of DCFS, I just realized that our foster care license expires next week and we have done 0 of the 12 training hours we need to relicense. *sigh* I'm gonna have to beg for an extension and take a bunch o classes pronto.

Ancestral Homeland

This weekend we drove to Mark's ancestral homeland.

First, we went to The Ranch, where Mark's ninety-five-year-old Grandma still has a couple dozen cattle and where a huge, delightful pack of cousins, second cousins, aunts, and uncles has set up their own little village. Dirt roads connect five different households, and we walked along visiting one after another. The boys went down to the ranch proper to fix fence--a real cowboy moment!--and then Uncle Dwight let them loose with his four wheeler, Jeep, and motorbike.

Uncle Dwight shows Logan the ropes; in the background you can see some of the decades of detritus of the ranch.

Haley on the zip line.
Grandma Ruthie lights candles for Grandpa McGee's 69th birthday.

Mother and Son.

Then we drove up the mountain to The Cabin, an old WPA project that Mark's family loves like it's Shangra-La. We canoed, threw rocks into the lake, sipped hot chocolate, and told stories under our sleeping bags.

Grandpa teaches the boys poker.

In the morning, we had our own little sacrament meeting on the deck with Mark's parents. My favorite moment: When Logan volunteered to share his testimony and said, "I really love you guys."

Nothing like some clean desert air and cool mountain breezes to blow the baloney right outta a city kid.