Occupation: House Guard

I am every woman, but the woman I like best is House Guard! I taught today out of the book of Titus. Paul teaches the younger women to learn these lessons from the older women:

Love your husband
Love your children
Be good
Be chaste
and to be KEEPERS AT HOME.

These are all fabulous "old school" lessons, especially for women today, but I have never liked the term "housekeeper". On forms when you have to fill in "housekeeper" for occupation it always seems so degrading. I do so much more than clean my house. Besides, people who work clean their house, so what sets me apart as someone who stays at home to clean my house? When I fill that section out I always end up feeling like a slacker.

The Greek translation of the word "keeper" is "guard". I like the title "House Guard" much better In fact, I think I will start writing that on those dumb forms. (maybe I will put House Guardian so that I don't sound like a bulldog).

"House Guard" describes what I do so much better. I am keeping evil influences out of my home and my children's lives. I monitor what goes in those heads and out of those mouths. I am able to be involved with their choice of friends, media, and entertainment. I make certain that they are eating what they should, that they are studying as they should, and that they are learning the scriptures as they should.

I am a House Guard.

LDS Movers-R-Us

LDS Moving Company: "We move for blessings". Every Elder's Quorum member knows what I am talking about! Tonight we went to visit a widow/new member of our ward. She is 90 years-old and wants to be my kids' "Houston Grandma." Her kids are out of state and our grandparents are out of state--works out.

I asked her what inspired her to get baptized at 90 years-old. She said that after her husband died she needed to move to a different home closer to the hospital. The people from her church sent over two guys and one truck to help.

When our church found out about her they sent the whole crew, she described. She was so impressed that she looked into it, and voila she got baptized.--Love it!

Of course, before going over I prepped the boys on why we were going and so forth. Tyler was to tell her that he will be getting baptized and to ask her why she got baptized. When it came time for him to talk he just kept saying, "I don't want to ask her anything."

Then, Ethan, sweet, always-has-the-best-things-to-say Ethan is given an opportunity to speak. What comes out of the mouth of that angel?----"We are all going to DIE!"

Not such a hot impression on our new grandma.

Armpits For My Birthday

Bad Guys Beware: Ethan is going to wrap you up in armpits!

A couple of days ago Ethan asked me for "armpits" for his birthday. At first I thought that he was mis-pronouncing a word so I kept asking him to repeat himself. Sure enough, clear as day, he wanted armpits. He talked about it all day long.

I asked him what he was going to do with them. He said he wanted to "wrap up the bad guys." I thought, well I guess that is pretty good torture to put a nice sweaty, smelling armpit over a bad guy's face. It brought back memories of some of the wrestling holds my brothers would put me in as a kid.---pure torture. Waterboarding ain't got nothin' on that.

As the day went on he kept asking for them, I was given a suggestion to have him draw them, but as he is three, the drawing was just circles. That didn't help since armpits are circular in nature. :)

Then, I asked him what color they were. He said, "Umm, maybe white, yeah, I want white."

Apparently he likes Caucasion armpits.

The next day was Tommy's birthday (the boy we care for). I asked the boys what I should get for his birthday. Of course Ethan pipes up with, "Maybe he would like armpits."

Finally, after some good questioning, Landon figured out what he really wanted-----handcuffs!

Happy Girls, Sad Boys

Can you tell which kids were good in church and which ones just lived through a "mama bear" tongue lickin' and time-out for irreverence in Sacrament meeting?

Besides that, the day was great. We always have fish and honey and bread for Easter to celebrate Christ eating with his apostles, post-resurrection.

We started with Honeycomb cereal for breakfast.

Dinner was swordfish, honey, french bread, mediterranean noodles, and grape juice.

Don't Try This at Home

Jared heated up a boiled Easter egg in the microwave today. (I still can't figure out why---aren't boiled eggs better cold?)

After opening the microwave and putting his hands in to get the egg, it exploded! Hot egg got in his eye and it took a few moments to determine if I was going to have to find a babysitter for six kids on Easter.....I mean to determine if he was blind in one eye. :)

It's Easter, Not Carnival

Happy Easter everyone-

When I found out that Landon was a boy in the ultrasound my first thought was, "Yay! clip-on ties!" I love clip-on ties.

When I found out that Isabel was a girl my first thought was, "Yay! Easter dresses!"

I was shopping for an Easter dress this year. What happened to little girls' dresses? They aren't cute and frilly like they used to be. My mom has a way of always finding the "birthday cake" princess dresses. She found one for Isabel that is adorable. This year I needed to get one for Angelina, who is older. This posed a bigger challenge.

I thought that I was alone in my quest for a modest, little girl dress. But as I was looking I heard another mom say to her sister, "Where do they think these girls are going---a nightclub?" I started to laugh and joined in with them and their frustration.

Thankfully I found the last (literally) cute, modest dress, and it matched perfectly with the one Isabel already had---fate! :)

BFFs

Each place I live I pick up a new BFF or two. Our jaunt in Chicago during our law school era brought us into contact with the wonderful Wrights! Not only did I find Denise (pronounced "Neesie" by Tyler as a child, thus my nickname for her) but Landon found Loren.

We first saw them at an Enrichment activity that we both arrived early to help with. Loren ahd just turned two and Landon was 21 months. From the moment they saw each other they were best buddies and always have been. They look alike, love to roughhouse, have similar temperments, and are both very smart. When they were little, if either got annoyed with the other, unlike other kids who start fighting, they would just walk to the other side of the room and start playing on their own. It was so funny to watch because they were like guys who need their "alone time".

Denise and I are great friends. We both love running together (especially along Lake Michigan with the Chicago cityscape as our view). We have had most of our kids within months of each other. She is ahead with 5 to my 4! Go Denise! Every time we decide to do something it is always an adventure. One of our highlights is when we were both pregnant (I was 6 monts and she was 8) and going on the train to downtown Chicago. We both had strollers and a little one in tow. The turnstile at the train was broken so we had to hoist our stollers over it, then do some kind of gymnastic move to hoist ourselves over it--PREGNANT! then carry the stroller and kids up a gazillion stairs. All while looking chic! :)As fate would have it they came to Houston (Pearland) for medical school ,and thankfully stayed for residency. So now we get to see them, though never as much as we want.

Our latest adventure was on Friday. We went to East End Park in Kingwood. Between her kids and mine we had 11 kids with us 9 yrs-old and under. The kids were playing in Lake Houston and Landon and Loren came running down the path. They had come within a foot of stepping on a full-grown cottonmouth (water mocassin). That makes two times Landon has had close encounters with poisonous snakes.---Thank you, angels! I owe you a few.

I'm Not a Paid Movie Critic-

I am not a paid movie critic--I promise, and I normally do not (and will not) continue to critique movies on a regular basis. Partly because that doesn't interest me as much as other stuff and because I don't watch a lot of movies.

But it is only fair to tout the good ones if I am going to bash the bad ones. We watched "Meet the Robinsons" during Priesthood Session on Sat. night.----GREAT MOVIE!

Great story line, funny, engaging, creative. With wonderful values: Family matters, it is okay to make mistakes, personal responsibility for our choices, forgiveness, the list goes on. It could have been a church movie.

Well done, Disney!

Static Electricity

Too bad we can't harness this energy and run our air conditioner

Monsters vs. Aliens

You know the scripture that tells that once you've been warned you should warn your neighbor? Consider this your warning! :)

Every time we finish reading the Book of Mormon the kids get to go see a movie at the theatre. I have suffered through two horrible movies since we decided on this family activity---Shark Boy and Lava Girl--biggest waste of time and money ever spent! And the latest, Monsters vs. Aliens.

I have issues with Dreamworks in general. I know that a lot of their movies are popular, but I think that they have too much "adult" content that gets passed as a G rating just because it is animated. To a kid, it is all the same--actually it means MORE to a kid when it is animated because they actually pay attention.

Monsters vs. Aliens is a pretty shallow movie, but my real beef with it is its use of the Lord's name over and over (once is bad enough), the feminization of men, and its nuances to homosexuality.

The premise of the movie is that the girl can be strong and independent without her soon-to-be-husband. But throughout the movie they show scene after scene of men being rescued by women, a girl coming on to a guy at "lovers lane" and the guy not wanting anything, etc.

The one guy who is "manly" is the General and he is made to look like a lunatic.

Some people think that it is okay for kids to watch this stuff because it "goes over their heads". I don't believe that. Kids are like sponges and pick up on everything. Everything they see influences them. Besides, I am not so worried about whether they catch things cognitively right now, as I am worried about offending their spirits.

I am personally boycotting Dreamworks from now on.

Fireproof

Great movie!!! Not the best acting throughout, but good enough. The story and message are spot on and very well done. And Kirk Cameron to boot!

Five stars for content.
Three stars for acting.

Apostle's Memorization Game

Here is a great idea to help your family/church kids learn the names of the apostles and their order of seniority. We did this in seminary today and we learned it in 15 minutes---never to be forgotten again.

I can't remember the name for this type of memorization technique, but you start with a number, give it a rhyme then make an association with the name of the apostle. Here is our list (some might not make sense because we personalized them for us).

1. Sun, Monson
2. Blue, Blue Bay Packer
3. Tree, Perry Tree
4. Score, Four score and Nelson years ago
5. Drive, Through the Oaks (The Oaks is the neighborhood our church is in)
6. Mix, Power Ballard (A power Ballad mix)
7. Heaven, Beam me up Scotty
8. Late, due to Hales
9. Spine, PerspEYRING
10. Hens, from Holland (They imagined the hens wearing little wooden clogs)
11. Leaven, UchtDOUGHorf (My personal favorite)
12. Shelves, CLean your shelves and make your BEDnar
13. Bean, ChriSTALKerson (play on Jack and the bean stalk---Christofferson)
14.Quarintine, Quarintine the Cook (imagined a diseased person making your food---gross)
15. TBA

Pretty fun and very effective!