Would you like me to crush your spirit now or later?

Alan spent the rest of his sick day planing/trying to build a club house/island in our back yard. He worked hard on it for hours. He asked me to help him dig (the moat that would make it an island). I said no. Does the kid give up? No. He comes up with this.

In case you are wondering, it's a sign up sheet. It says please come dig at our house Saturday. It is currently in our front yard. He even attached a pencil for you. Would you like to come and sign up?

I'm not sure if I should let him go with this and get frustrated at the end result, or if I should get this over with and just tell him that this is ridiculous. I drew the line when he said he wanted to knock on doors to ask people to help. Alan isn't letting up either. As soon as he got home from school today he went to the box to see who had signed up. Maybe I'll try paying him 50 cents to forget about it.

Sick Day

Alan was sent home from school yesterday with Strep Throat. We were able to get him started on antibiotics last night but he has to do the obligatory 24 hours on antibiotics before he can return to school. The reason he was sent to school on Monday is because the kid just doesn't act sick. So Alan's "sick day" so far has been spent riding bikes, jumping on the trampoline and having a picnic. Gee, missing school sure is tough.

Sometimes you need to leave a hint

Sometimes you need to leave a hint

(Note that I even attached a coupon)

But the end results are so worth it.

Didn't he do a good job?

Happy Valentines Day Husband!

Favorite Blogs

I haven't blogged in a while. I just haven't really felt like it, nor do I have much to say at the moment, so instead I am going to plug some of my favorite blogs to read. Actually, my favorite blogs are those that belong to friends and family. I love to see how everyone is doing and I think it's a great way to keep in touch. But the blogs that I am listing are blogs that I do not know the author but I like to see what's on them anyway.

First and Foremost Cake Wrecks This is the one I read the most. It gives me a good laugh to start the day.

Next, I am not a crafty person but I do admire those that are. How About Orange has some cute ideas, most of which I have not tried, but I like to look at. I did try the Origami boxes at Christmas time and filled them with truffles to give away. So cute!

An entertaining read is Light Refreshments Served Just fun stuff. Check out the Lime Pound Cake with Raspberry Sauce in the recipe section.

My most recent find (thanks MSK) is Hey Good Lookin' Whatcha Got Cookin'? I am not a health nut like she is but I have been a long time believer that the absence of fat and sugar does not make something healthy (I still love over processed nacho cheese sauce though).

OK this one is really only for people in my Stake. This is a blog I put together about how to answer questions about the cannery. If you are not in my stake it really won't be helpful to you. Sorry.

Enjoy! But try not to spend too much time on the computer!

Thankful

So last night I was making dinner. It was almost ready I just needed to cook the corn. I boiled the water on the stove and I think there was something that was spilled on the stove because there was a little bit of smoke. I opened the window (we do that here in January) and pulled out the frozen corn. Dang it! The corn was frozen in one huge hunk. I stood there for a moment trying to chisel away at the corn when I suddenly heard a loud buzzing noise and then a small explosion came from my stove.

It looked like the whole burner was on fire and sparks flew all over my kitchen. Not small sparks either. I seriously thought "houses burn down all the time, now it's happening to me." I'm a little disturbed by how unclear my thinking was though. I always thought that in an emergency everything would come to me to know what to do. Not so. I didn't hesitate however to yell at the kids to get out of the house. However, as I said my thinking wasn't clear because the kids were already playing outside. I just stood there for a moment thinking "where is the dang fire extinguisher" (Under the sink in the very back behind the detergent, grocery bag and cleaning supplies. Maybe I should move it to somewhere a little more accessible). Luckily for me the explosion had burned a hole in my pot (Seriously, it burned a hole in my metal pot. Who has ever heard of that happening?), and the water poured out of the pot and put the fire out.

I am thankful that none of the sparks hit me, or the roll of paper towels, or the pile of grocery ads, or anything else flammable.

I am thankful that my corn was frozen in a huge hunk so that my hand wasn't directly over the pot pouring the corn in when it caught fire.

I am thankful that my pot of water put out the fire by itself.

I am thankful that Murphy's law doesn't hold true. So many things could have gone wrong and they didn't. I didn't even have to use the fire extinguisher.

I'm thankful that my house is still standing and my family is all safe.

I am thankful that I have better incentive to prepare for a fire (yes, I moved the fire extinguisher).

Seriously, How does this happen? I'm a little worried that it could happen again?

What's In A Name

I think birthday's have gone really well when a kid really feels special at the end of the day. I think today was a successful birthday. Hyrum turned four today. He got to celebrate with his first "friend party" at the park. It's true what everybody says. I can't believe it's been four years already, but at the same time it feels like he's always been part of our family.

When I was pregnant with Hyrum I really wanted Alan to have a brother to play with and we were thrilled to find out that we were having a boy. The only downside was trying to find a boys name that we liked. I really didn't have any ideas. One day I found a baby name website (I was perusing those quite a bit) that let you do a search for names with a certain meaning. I put in the meaning of brother, the name Hyrum came up, and I had a name for my son. I already liked the name Hyrum. It sounded cool, and of course the first (and really, the only) Hyrum that came to mind was Hyrum Smith. I'm thrilled to name my son after him.

Hyrum Smith was brother to the prophet Joseph Smith. I imagine that his parents were inspired to give him a name that meant brother. After all he was the brother of all brothers. He stuck with his brother through thick and thin and even died with him. I obviously don't want my boys to suffer the same fate, but I hope that when my boys are older they will look to Joseph and Hyrum as examples of how they should be as brothers.

For now, even though they are each others favorite punching bag, they are also the greatest of friends.

My Hyrum