#4 - The Cat's Out of the Bag

Contrary to the pattern we have set with our last two children, this was actually planned. It looks like late April/early May.

Please Excuse Me...

I have to toot my own horn for a minute...

I was going through some shots that I accidently erased and found this:

OK, I did crop it a bit to get rid of Ken's GIGANTIC head. Just kidding, I did crop it and cut out Ken's head but only because I wanted to get a closer view. :) Anyway, compare this shot with this picture taken almost 4 years to the day...

Do you even know which person is me? I'm that fatty who just had a baby wearing the black shirt and red/purple skirt.

Are you freaking kidding me??!?!

I need to keep this picture and look at it often just so I can make myself feel good. I've lost over 45 lbs since then. Holy Crackers and Cheese!!! That's crazy!!! Seriously I have kids that weigh less then that.

I'm glad. This picture was seriously the motivation I needed tonight. We recently started our diets again (OK, everyone get their mutual laugh out of the way. We are constantly starting our diet again. We know it.) and I have been having a really tough weekend. Ben literally had to force feed me sausage for breakfast and a steak for dinner. I had to gag it down. I so did not want to eat that but after seeing this progress I am ready to eat a whole cow. Raw. Bring it on!!!

Maybe I should go to the gym instead of edit photos right now...

Spider Monkey is Starting School

Uly's first day of school was today. When I say first day of school I really mean it. He didn't go to preschool or any other type of formal school. He started kindergarten today and was so excited. He woke up this morning and the first thing he said to me was, "Mom, I'm so EXCITED!!!" It was adorable. When I pick him up today, I can't wait to here how his morning went.

Yummy Pea Salad

My aunt made this super yummy pea salad at our family reunion. I thought some of you might like it. If you make it you will not be disappointed!!!

http://unexpectednecessities.blogspot.com/2009/08/award-for-best-pea-salad.html

This picture of my nephew Matt doesn't really have much to do with this post. I just like it.

Reunion, Summer, Updates...

I don't want to cross post here so I'm not going to repeat everything I recently wrote on MomShots. If you want to see a few shots from our summer adventures and recent family reunion check out these links.

http://www.momshots.com/being-sneaky/

http://www.momshots.com/is-summer-nearly-over/

Mag and the Pudding...

The other night Ben was feeding the boys dinner. For dessert I had made them some chocolate pudding.

Mag was the first one done and so Ben put a nice glo

p of pudding on a paper plate and gave it to him. When he saw it, he started screaming, "Nooooo!!! Yucky!!! Nooooo!!!!"

Ben tried to force him into trying it and he just screamed louder and squirmed all the more; seriously freaking out.

Bewildered, Ben took it away from him and he instantly calmed down. Then Ben dished Gar & Uly their helpings and handed it to the boys. The older boys instantly started digging in and saying how yummy it was.

As Mag watched this he realized it was a treat and that chocolate pudding was something he might enjoy. He started asking for some and so Ben gave his plate back to him. He proceeded to eat and enjoy it.

Later that night, Ben and I were talking about what happened. We realized that the only brown goopy thing that Mag has ever seen in his short little life, is poop. We came to the decision that Magnus was convinced that his daddy was trying to feed him poop.

We can take sweet comfort in the knowledge that our baby won't accidently ingest any fecal matter in the near future!

From the mind of a 4 year old...

The other day Ben was asking Gar how old he was. Not used to being 4, Gar said he was 3. Ben corrected him and said that Gar was 4 years old now. Then he asked Gar again how old he was. Gar said, "Four mine old."

Ben said, "What? How old are you?"

Gar answered, "Four mine old."

"No Gar, you are Four years old," Ben corrected again, not quite sure what it was that Gar was actually saying.

"Right, Four mine old," Gar said again.

Suddenly we realized that Gar, who really has no concept of what a 'year' is was confusing the word with the word 'your'. He thought Ben was saying that he was 'Four yours old' and he was correctly saying that he was 'Four mine old'.

Out of the mouth of babes comes the most wonderful stuff.

Today is Your Birthday! Well it's My Birthday too!

Today is Garland and Magnus' birthday. Gar is 4 and Mag is 2. They are growing up so fast and are such a joy and a blessing that they are in our family. They are wonderful boys.

We celebrated Gar's birthday last weekend when Ben's parents Val & Jim where here. Gar got a Spiderman costume and has pretty much been wearing it non-stop since. He loves it!

Watch out because he'll shoot his webs at you! He is a good aim!!!

Mag's birthday was celebrated a few days ago. He received a life size Brum pedal car. If you don't know Brum you can watch an episode here. It's his favorite.

So we are currently waiting and hoping Olea will have her baby today. It would be fun to have another birthday today. We'll see. There is still 12 hours left in this day!

While we have been waiting for the baby to be born, Olea, my mom and I have been preserving food. I guess that's what Walker women do when we get together. Some women go shopping. We can. My mom brought down a pressure cooker (THANKS! Uncle Jim & Aunt Carol!!!) with her and we made a big batch of chili and canned it up. We learned how to use the pressure cooker and it was not as scary or as hard as I thought it would be. Here are a few jars of chili sitting on the counter waiting their turn to get cooked.

I thought i would end this post with a cute picture. Here is Papa (Jim) and Mag both laughing.

Beautiful Olea

Olea and I had a few minutes one bright and sunny afternoon to run out and shoot a few shots of Olea in her pregnant glory. She is getting so close to being able to meet her daughter. It is so much fun to watch Adam and Olea go through all those new parent emotions. It really brings me back!

I wish I had had more kidless time to take some more shots of her but I have to be thankful for the hour I did have. Here are a few.

When Mom is Sick...

Magnus takes matters into his own hands. He doesn't come tell me he is hungry he climbs up and finds something to shove in his little cute pie hole. He also was kind enough to feed the fish for me. You can see the edge of the mud brown water behind him.

If it isn't clear from the picture, Mag pulled down two full container of Nestle flavored milk mix. One chocolate and one strawberry.

Mag is thinking, "Hmmm.... Mom may not be very happy with me right now. But I'm not sure..."

Here is another instance, from a few days ago, where Mr. Independent-Almost-Two-Year-Old decided to take matters into his own hands. I had some cherries sitting in this red strainer and Mag reached up and pulled them down. We found him sitting on the windowsill gobbling them down, pits and all. He was pretty proud of himself.

Children's Records

I really do mean to use the word record here. I wanted to share a link I just found today that is full of all these old children's records that you can download in mp3 format. You can burn it, play it on your iPod, whatever. The most important thing is that you can share these wonderful stories and music with your children.

http://www.artsreformation.com/records/

For even more fun, click on the links at the bottom of the page. They take you to TONS more of these great treasures.

King of Pop

Because this blog is kind of like my journal I just wanted to make a little post about Michael Jackson dying. It's really kind of goofy in that I even care. Usually the lives of celebrities don't affect me in the least but his death has kind of put me into a mood where I am thinking about being a child and my formative years.

I was about 7 or 8 when I first became aware of a world outside of mine in terms of music, style, fads, etc. I think Michael Jackson was a major part of that world.

Beat it was so hot. It was one of the first songs I ever learned the words to. In fact, I remember my mom bringing home the album on vinyl from the library. We danced and danced and danced and danced to that record for literally hours and hours.

That album was great full of incredible songs. Beat it! Thriller, Billie Jean, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'... That was a good use of vinyl!

Another memory I had was of spending the night at my cousin Kristina's house. She had the poster of MJ in his yellow sweater on her wall above her bed. I think it was this one:

Every night before we would go to sleep we would jump on her bed and kiss his cheek and tell him good night. Ah, youth...

Anyway, as freaky and nutty and wacko Jacko got I am still going to miss his musical contributions. I think he was really talented and in a league of his own. I am glad to have lived in his moon walking, sequined gloved, crotch grabbing time.

Concert Memory

This is really here so I have a place to record the memory. There aren't any pictures to go with it. This particular memory took place probably in 2003. Just a guess on the year though.

I have gone to a bunch of fun concerts. My friends and I used to go to concerts all the time when I was in high school and college. Now that I'm an old married foggy we don't get out to them as often as I would like. Here's kind of a funny story from a really fun concert Ben and I went to:

We went to see Bad Religion about 8 years ago. I bought the tickets online and when we went to the venue we found out there was assigned seating and we had seats that were pretty high up. Not the kind we like. We also found out that you had to have a wristband (separate fee) and they were all sold out. So the show starts and Less than Jake opens for them. It was a good opening show. In one of the first songs they say to the audience, What is this? A punk rock show or what?!? Why are you all sitting up in your seats like good little boys and girls? (I'm paraphrasing here as my memory is a bit foggy).
So right after they said that we and tons of other people jump up and rush the pit. We get down there and it is a blast. We're right in the middle of it all and having a great time.
Less than Jake finishes and they clear the stage and get ready for Bad Religion. While they are doing that, the crowd monitors are walking around checking for bracelets. We hide as well as we can but there really isn't anywhere to hide so we get kicked back up to our seats.
Bad Religion starts their show and it is the mad rush all again except this time the security is all beefed up and they have these linebacker college guys standing guard and trying to keep the crowd back. My 6'4", 250 lb hubby totally gets into football mode and I just grab onto his neck and shoulders and hang on for the ride. He muscles his way through the crowd and those security chumps while I am just hanging on for dear life. He pushes through their defense and we get to enjoy the rest of the show the way punk rock shows are meant to be enjoyed - up close, sweaty and singing along as loud as you can.
It was awesome.

Growing Up...

All my kids are growing up so quickly. Here's a shot of Uly today. He's getting so big. He is 58 lbs today as well.

The original thought for this post was that I need to grow up. I realized this aftrenoon that I need to grow up and get some flower vases. I have this beautiful pink rose bush that is offering armfulls of blossoms and I am sticking them in the few vases I have and then in juice pitchers. It's a bit sad.

Aren't these roses divine?

Rachel

Again with the blog neglect. I took these photos a while ago but haven't really posted them anywhere. I posted a few to Facebook but that's about it. I finally went through them and edited them a bit and am getting ready to print some and put on a disk for Rachel.

Rachel is a member of my favorite Springville family - the Petersons. They used to be our neighbors and we are still in contact with them regularly. There is an awesome babysitter gene that each of the Petersons seem to have been born with. They are all just great kids and their mom is fantastic too.

Rachel is a Senior in high school this year and will be graduating in a few days. Here are a few of my favorites.

Margaret

I have been neglecting all my blogs lately. I've kind of been in an uninspired funk. Whatever. One day it will end. Life will go on.

It's stupid because I have no reason to feel blah. I've got these beautiful little boys that inspire and delight me at every turn. I just can't seem to shake it though. It's been going on for a while - a few months at least. I still take a million pictures but I just don't feel like spending any time on my computer editing or posting them.

Anyway, whatever... This is not a plea for sympathy post. It's just a fact stating post.

Maybe if I had a new camera... (cough! D90 cough! cough) hehehe

I do have some great new-ish shots to share. Here are a few of my niece Margaret - Trena & Aaron's beautiful baby girl. I finally edited a few of them. I had some camera trouble when I was shooting Maggie's photos so I didn't get as many as I would have liked. However, I think a few of them turned out nicely.

Adversity Talk in Church

Ben and I spoke in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. I thought I'd put my talk up here so I could be reminded to change my attitude when needed.

Note: You are welcome to use any of this talk, I only ask that you leave me a comment.

Trials: We all have them. We are all faced with different types of trials that are unique to us. Some people are faced with illness, others with financial difficulty. Some are faced with addiction or hard heartedness or betrayal by a loved one or a class in school that seems difficult. The list is as long and varied as there are people on this Earth.

We are all faced with challenges to overcome. The key to dealing with these challenges is to decide how these struggles are going to affect us and how we are going to deal with them.

In short, our attitude toward adversity determines our emotional outcome. We can choose to let our situation get us down and make us feel depressed and hopeless or we can choose to face our problem head on and overcome it.

One of the prophets from my youth, Spencer W. Kimball, experienced many trials in his life. This was told by President James E Faust in a 1998 First Presidency message. He said:

Early in life, President Spencer W. Kimball learned the necessity of work. He had many painful experiences in his early years preparatory to his great ministry. As a young boy he nearly drowned. He suffered from Bell’s palsy. His mother died when he was a youth, and while he was still a young man he lost his beloved sister Ruth. Shortly after marriage he contracted smallpox, and Sister Kimball counted over 100 pustules on his face.
He learned early about financial reverses and lost some investments. Like Job, he suffered from boils, which continued for many years and on one occasion came on his nose and lips. On one occasion he suffered from 24 boils at one time; not long thereafter he began to suffer the excruciating pain of heart attacks, which continued for many years and finally resulted in open-heart surgery. He became bothered by a hoarseness of his voice, which was relieved through a blessing from the Brethren, only to return later, along with the boils. A serious cancer in the vocal cords required surgery and thereafter voice training and cobalt treatments. The Bell’s palsy returned, and skin cancers were removed.
President Faust says that, “The result of this refiner’s fire was to be manifest in a refined spirit, sensitivity, an understanding heart, kindness, and humility.”

President Kimball went through a lot in his long life; he lost loved ones, dealt with painful and humiliating illnesses, he also struggled with finances. However, he didn’t let these trial turn him into a bitter old man. He faced this adversity with prayer and humility. He turned to his loved ones and he turned to the Lord.

President Kimball could just as easily have let himself feel angry with his lot in life. He could just as easily have cursed the Lord and holed up in his home feeling sorry for himself.

Because he chose to face his adversity head first and rely on the Lord for strength and support he grew from his trials and tribulations. He would not have become one of the Lord’s beloved Prophets and the leader of our great Church if he had chosen to let the adversity in his life bring him down and overcome him.

Personally, I look at the challenges President Kimball faced and I am very thankful for my own challenges. It is the same kind of thankfulness I feel when I look back on my Mormon pioneer ancestors and my other immigrant ancestors. I am thankful for their adversity and I am thankful for how they chose to overcome it. I am reminded that we each are given trials that we can handle. The Lord knows us and knows what we can handle. We will not be challenged with more than we can overcome.

I am reminded of Nephi, when told to return to Jeruselem and retrieve the golden plates from Laban. First Nephi Chapter 3 verse 7: And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I awill go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no bcommandments unto the children of men, save he shall cprepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.

We are each are given our own personal challenges that are unique to us. We probably won’t be commanded to sneak into a city and kill our cousin so that we can retrieve our genealogy. However, we are commanded to endure to the end in Matthew chapter 24 verse13.

Jesus said: “But he that shall aendure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

Often our challenges are not direct commandments from the Lord but are obstacles that Satan throws in our face. Sometimes the adversity in our life is even caused by our actions and our own poor choices. We have been given Free Agency and sometimes we make wrong choices and then have to suffer the consequences, however we can face them the same way – with a positive attitude and by relying on the Lord for strength, guidance and direction.

We all struggle varying degrees of adversity at different times in our life. When I was preparing this talk, my husband reminded me of a time in our life that had quite a bit of adversity. We were 22 and 23 year old kids who were just newly married, living in San Diego in a hole in the wall apartment. We had no furniture other than a bed and an a few items we had scrounged from our parents. We were driving a car that belonged to Ben’s parents and we were driving a two hour drive twice a month to his parent’s house in Hesperia, California so that we could do our laundry and go grocery shopping in their pantry.

We both had part time jobs and made enough money to pay the rent, utilities and occasionally buy beans and rice. If I remember correctly, we had Ben’s mom’s Chevron card and so she very generously paid for our gas.

Ben was a full time student and I worked as many hours as I could get at a SCUBA dive shop. We didn’t have money for anything. We were so poor. But we had a really good attitude about it. Sometimes, especially when I was trying to balance our checkbook, we would get kind of down about it. However we would quickly remember the things that are important. We had each other. We could rely on the Lord for the necessities and were very happy.

Those summer days in San Diego, were spent at the beach, partly because it was free but an benefit of that was that we were enjoying the beauty of our world and growing together. We also spent quite a few mornings at the temple. I think we went to the temple more those first few years than any other time in our life. I think part of that was due to not having small children at the time, but another part of that was due to our relying so heavily on the Lord for guidance, direction and strength.

Now that we are parents and we’ve been married for a million years, we are still faced with adversity. Thankfully we’ve been able to make more than $11,000 dollars a year pretty regularly, but we are still faced with challenges. I try to teach my children the power of a positive attitude. We regularly have talks in our home about changing your attitude and choosing to be happy.

I was reminded of this by my 5 year old son, Ulysses, the other day. I was upset about something and he said to me, “ Mom! You need to change your attitude.”

My first thought – which thankfully I didn’t say out loud, “ Was don’t talk to me like that. I am the mother!”

His words got through to me and took me aback and I was thankful for his reminder, He was right. I needed to change my attitude. I was thankful that my son was able to help me remember how much of a difference a simple attitude adjustment can make.

President Faust has a small list of suggestions that can help us have a good attitude when facing adversity in our life. In his talk he was specifically talking about financial troubles but I think these items can be applied to many other kinds of adversity.

He says:
May I suggest a few things we might do to be happy whether we are affluent or less affluent:
1. Avoid being totally dependent on material or physical things. This could mean considering a bicycle instead of a car, perhaps walking instead of riding a bicycle. In President Fausts’s day it meant skim milk instead of cream.
2. Learn to do without some things and have some reserve to fall back on. President Faust recalled an article in Indiana that brought much publicity and attention about a member of the Church who was a coal miner and who had a year’s supply of food.
3. Develop an appreciation for the great gifts of God as found in nature: the beauty of the seasons, the eloquent testimony of God in the sunrises and sunsets, the leaves, the flowers, the birds, the animals.
4. Engage in more physical activity, including walking, jogging, swimming, and bicycling.
5. Have a hobby that involves your minds and hearts and can be done at home.
6. Pay tithes and offerings. The keeping of this commandment will not ensure riches—indeed, there is no assurance of being free from economic problems—but it will smooth out the rough spots, will give the resolution and faith to understand and to accept, and will create a communion with the Savior that will enhance the inner core of strength and stability.
7. Develop the habit of singing, or if this is not pleasant, of whistling. Singing to one’s self brings less comment and question than talking to one’s self! President Faust’s father once came home from a deer hunt empty-handed, but his heart was renewed and his spirit lifted because, as he recounted with great appreciation, one of his companions had frightened the deer away by always singing trumpet-voiced as he walked through pines and quaking aspen. His father was more enriched by the mirth of the song than he would have been by the meat of the venison.

While President Faust is specifically talking about overcoming financial adversity, you can see how doing these things can help you have a healthy attitude so that you can face other trials in your life.

I know that having a positive attitude is not always easy. It is sometimes easier to wallow in self-pity and have a “Why me?” attitude. It takes work to be positive. It takes practice to be positive just like exercising a muscle. If we practice positive thinking on a regular basis and are in the habit of relying on the Lord we will more easily be able to shrug off Satan’s influence of unhappiness and face our challenges more easily. Unfortunately, some challenges won’t go away. Some challenges may actually be insurmountable. We may be afflicted with a specific trial for the rest of our lives, but if we have exercised our positive attitude muscle and our knees are well worn from prayer, our quality of life will be much better. We will be happy.

I would like to leave you with a few motivational quotes about attitude.

Martha Washington said:
"I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances."

Zig Ziglar said:
It is not what happens to you that determines how far you will go in life; it is how you handle what happens to you.

Merle Miller said:
"Everyone has his burden. What counts is how you carry it."

I bear testimony that through our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and our own efforts of maintaining a positive attitude we will have a better quality of life and be generally happier in the face of adversity.


I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ.

Spring has Spring

I just took these shots from my yard. Spring is really here!!!


We are going to go have a picnic now.