June Irish Feis (Fesh) Competition with over 400 dancers!

My Irish Dancers!!! Both Danced 6 dances
Hailey medaled 5th of 18 in 1 and 2 Honorable Mentions.
Sierra Got 1 2nd 2-3rd place and 1 HM. They danced beautifully!

Yesterday was my birthday; I turned 29. “How long have you been 29,” some of you Twilight fans might ask. “Awhile…,” I might reply. Megan, my 16 year-old, finds my being 29 more and more disturbing each year as my age at her birth continues to decrease. Ben at 6, however, is less concerned. When asked [...]

This picture is very important because it is probably the only picture where my sister Christine was trully and sincerely happy to have me on her lap. See, before I was born it was just Chris and the two boys. She really wanted a sister. So when I came along, she was thrilled. Unfortunately, her delight in me didn't last long.


It probably ended right about here. She was the oldest of eight, carrying the heavy burdens required of most oldest children, babysitting all of us so Mom and Dad could go out, the experimental first child, heavy-laden with responsibilities and duties the rest of us had little or no concern for. And see me? I'm the cute one on the very far right--a middle child. Not old enough to be labeled a big kid. Not young enough to be excused as a little kid. Just the spoiled rotten but mostly forgotten middle child. Put Chris and I together and things got ugly. Really ugly. For most of Chris's childhood I was the thorn in her side, the terrible baby sister that always got in the way.

We had dish duty together. Chris hated dish duty. I loved it but that's only cause I was a little OCD as a child. Chris was usually in charge of washing and I was usually in charge of rinsing and drying. Chris would wash whatever it was that needed washing and then hand it over to me. Instead of just rinsing it and setting it aside I always, ALWAYS had to inspect it for remains of food Chris might have missed. If she missed a spot, I'd immediately chuck it back in the sink and would snear, "You missed a spot." Over and over and over again.

When Chris was left to babysit I hated it. I hated it anytime Mom and Dad left us. But I especially hated it when Chris was left in charge and I can't tell you why, but I was brutal about it. I would gather up the younger kids and form a club--a bad babysitter watch club. We would follow Christine around the house and write down anything she did that we thought was bad. When she started getting mad at us for following her around, we'd write down even more bad things. I don't recall handing over the list to anyone but I definitely remember the list and the torture we caused Christine.

As mean as I was to my sister, I also totally admired her and thought she had the coolest clothes. I raided her closet constantly and wore whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like it. I'm pretty sure it drove her mad. I also thought she had the cutest boyfriends and did everything in my power to make them want me instead of her. I'm pretty embarassed and ashamed of myself looking back and remembering some of the horrid things I did to embarass her and try and snatch some of her man's attention. It really is a miracle that she didn't ever lash out and kill me. Thanks Sis!


Now you probably wonder if we ever got along and the really great thing is, we did. There a came a point in our lives where we shared something deep and dark that no one else shared that bonded us beyond what either of us could have ever dared to imagine. And I continued to annoy and she continued to despise but somehow despite the two of ourselves, we knew we had to love each other. We understood each other. And we learned to put up with each other because we knew we needed one another. And from that point on, we got along relatively well. I remember once, she let me come spend the weekend with her up at college. I thought she was SO COOL. I don't remember much--walking in the snow to rent a VCR, eating in the cafeteria, little random things like that. But I do remember how much fun I had and how that one weekend changed the way I saw Chris. She let me drive her little yellow VW bug through the neighborhood. I don't think she was supposed to, but she let me and I loved her for it. When she would come home from college with her long, beautiful red hair she'd let me play with it and braid it to my heart's content. I was always jealous of her thick beautiful red hair and her matching freckles.


And then there was our bus trip to Scotland. Mom and Dad had tickets to go on a bus tour up to Scotland but couldn't find a babysitter or some other similar problem and decided to let Chris and I go with a family friend, Aunt Jan. I think that trip bonded me eternally to Chris. Oh what fun we had! The bets on not peeing on the bus, the cute Scottish guards, the underpants on the radiator, Aunt Jan floating away in the ocean. I don't think I've had a better time. And it wasn't about where I was or what I was doing but all about who I was with and that I loved her dearly.


So that brings us today. Christine's 29th (hee! hee!) birthday and my chance to share how trully and sincerely happy I am to have her in my life. We still bicker. We still disagree. On some things, we stand world's apart. But I think we still share that special bond that binds us together through thick and thin, through the good and the bad, through all of our likenesses and all of our differences. And I'm sorry for all the years we wasted fighting over dried on crusty food and how many times she said a bad word while my parents were out. But I'm glad we survived each other and came out on top--laughing and loving and living together. I love you Sissy, and hope you have a wonderful birthday. Thanks for putting up with me and loving me inspite of myself.

Out here on the East Coast it seems like everything is more expensive than the rest of the country (except for maybe California). Food is more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Housing is more expensive. Day care is more expensive. Electricity is no exception. We live in a teeny-tiny Cape Cod with just under 1300 square feet of living space. In the winter months it costs us about $300 a month to keep the lights on. In the summer--well, you can just about double that price to run the A/C. For real. Everytime that bill comes in the mail I feel physically ill. It probably doesn't help that we moved here from Utah where it cost us a whoppin' $30/month to run the lights. I think our worst bill out in UT was our water bill and that rarely broke $100/month--and Utah's a desert!

Anyway, back to my point, electricity is just plain expensive out here and I'm sick of it. So this year I've decided to protest a little bit and give the electric company the bird. I've shut off the A/C (except on the really humid days). And I've grown out my hair just so I don't have to blow-dry it anymore. I can just toss it in a ponytail or braids and put a couple bucks back into the bank account. I've also decided to use a clothesline instead of our dryer to dry the clothes. It's a lot more work, hanging all that laundry out to dry but with the time I spend on my hair--the time thing pretty much works itself out. And plus, hanging laundry out on the clothesline is sort of therapeutic, kind of like digging in the garden--I quite enjoy it.


I'm not sure that we're gonna save hugely here but I'm determined to give it a shot. And if it saves us a couple fifties in the process--cool! Maybe with the money we save we can purchase a wood-burning stove and stick it to the heating oil company come November. I could cook on it and heat the house with it. And if I have the kids make candles for a project this summer, we could totally use them to light our home during those long winter months and really stick it to United Illuminating--wouldn't that be great? Guess I'd better get the boys busy chopping wood and melting wax. There's nothing like giving my kids a good work ethic while they're young as well as a lesson or two in pinching pennies and living it the rough way. I just hope they don't turn around and give me the middle finger! How rude!

Aaron is going to hike down the Grand Canyon with my Dad in September so he has started training. We have this backpack that we can put Ethan in and he loves it. He calls it his pack-pack. This morning every time he saw the back pack he asked if he could get in it. It has been tons of fun taking a walk every night. It is also nice that Aaron gets to carry Ethan, and all of our water bottles and I get to walk and enjoy the conversations.

I don't know if I've told this story before or not, so bear with me. But several years ago when Hunter was diagnosed with Diabetes we lived out in Utah. A lady in our ward had twins not too long before Hunter was diagnosed and I thought she was amazing. I had such a hard time transitioning from happy newlywed to mother that just taking care of one baby was very difficult for me. The thought of two babies at once was probably my worst nightmare ever. So one day this amazing lady and I were talking and she said something like, "I'd rather have twins any day over having a child with diabetes. I don't know how you do it." And I said, "I'd rather have two kids with diabetes than twins. . . ever!" Little did I know at that time that twins were in my future and that my worst nightmare would be realized some eight years later.


I'm definitely singing a different tune these days and I'd have to tell you that having Jericho and Justus has been one of the greatest blessings in my life. . . ever! They are definitely a joy to have around. They are growing up so entirely fast it makes me a little sad and yet they still seem so deliciously small and squeezable. I'm certainly in no rush to see them get big and lose these few brief years when they fit just perfectly in my arms. The way they feel, the way they smell, their tiny chubby hands, their pookey little lips, their sweet little voices, their dirty little feet--I'm going to miss all of it terribly when they're all grown up and gone. Oh, how I wish I could stop the clock and enjoy them a little bit longer. Unfortunately that's never going to happen. So the best I can do is try and capture their adorableness with my camera and freeze them in time right here so I can look back and always remember how wonderful these two little bundles of joy are.


A week or so ago, while we were out running errands I was getting ready to load the three babies into the car and I said, "Look out Jericho, so I can open the door." Jericho immediately broke into song, "Open the door and seize the day!" Both boys love music--any music--but it seems Jericho has a little more soul than his identical and is usually the one to bust the moves when a favorite song comes on.


Both boys frequently wrap their silkies around their heads and tell me that they are baby Jesus--which is code for "I need you to snuggle me." They are oh-so-hard to resist when they do that. I'm not sure why they chose baby Jesus necessarily, but I think it's the fact that they don't know any other babies. They do know however, that babies get snuggled and they think they have to be one in order to get cuddled. If only they knew I'd snuggle them anytime, even without the baby Jesus get-up.


The babies are frequently correcting each other and ordering each other around. The other day Justus said the blessing on the food. When he was finished Jericho said, "NO! Say PLEASE bless the food." A fight then followed where Justus was insistent that he'd said bless the food and that was good enough and Jericho demanded he say it again, but include please.


Both boys love everything nature and can't walk past a flower without stopping to smell it. If they see a worm they've got to pick it up. And if one of them finds a flower or a worm, the other one has to have the exact same thing. Sometimes it makes life a little difficult. For example, the other day while we were out taking our blossom walk, we found a big, fat, juicy worm. I picked it up and Jericho immediately snatched it and proudly showed it off to everyone who would pay him some attention. Justus really wanted a worm of his own and burst into tears and refused to walk any further until we found him one. Lucky for me, a neighbor was out working in his garden and I asked him if he happened to find a worm, could we have it? We watched him dig for a few minutes and then, just as we decided to continue our walk, the man found another worm and presented it to Justus. Oh happy day! Another time we were out for a walk, on our way to pick Noah up from a playdate. As we walked along we passed a lady who was out in her garden, planting flowers. Justus couldn't resist taking a whiff and before I knew it, he'd picked several of her freshly planted flowers and I was mortified. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't been sitting out there watching or if she hadn't just planted them. But she had. I quickly reprimanded Justus saying something like, "Oh no, Justus! Don't pick those flowers." And he immediately threw them on the ground. Ugh! I helped him gather his flowers off the ground and apologize to the lady and we finished our walk, Justus proudly displaying his flowers the entire rest of the way. They love bird-watching and catching fireflies, puddle-jumping and playing at the park, digging in the sand, swimming in the lake, pretty much anything and everything in the great outdoors.


I put these overalls on Justus the other day and he immediately said, "Look at all 'em pockets!" They discovered pockets almost a year ago but it seems like just recently pockets have become a hot commodity around here. They love to know just where their pockets are and almost always have their hands stuffed in them. It's even better if they have snacks in them. A few weeks ago I was cleaning up at the end of the day and came across one of the boys' sweatshirts. The pocket was completely loaded with grass and clover flowers and rocks and woodchips and dirt--all of them treasures I'm sure. I just hope those treasures don't turn into things like spiders and frogs and snakes. Yuck!


Jericho and Justus have all sorts of loves right now. They love their pacifiers and their silkies. They love Courdory the Bear and nose nuzzles and storytime with Daddy, especially when he reads them Marvin K. Mooney (which they have completely memorized). They love books. They love trains. They love watching Caillou and Mr. Rogers, Wizard of Oz, Snow White, Polar Express and "the train show." They love bubble baths and Daddy's eggs and swinging on a tire swing. But best of all, they love each other and take care of each other and it always makes me think, it's too bad we don't all come with a twin brother or sister. It must be wonderful.

Thursday Mr. Weatherman forecasted a bright sunny day in the mid-eighties. So I planned a lovely day at the Lake with the six boys and a playdate. When we woke up Thursday morning it was anything but bright and sunny and was only in the low seventies. Gar-umph! A little stubborn and a lot adamant, I decided we were going anyway and loaded all of our stuff in the car and headed out. But as we pulled around the corner I stopped the car and asked one of the boys to say a prayer that it would be sunny for us while we were at the Lake, even just a little bit. We've all become a little desperate for sunshine and I was so bummed that the day had ended up gloomy instead of bright that I figured a little prayer wouldn't harm anything but just might help everything. I think Hunter volunteered first. Then Caleb said a prayer and Jericho and Justus and then Noah and finally me. Six sunny prayers later we were finally headed for the Lake.


As you can see from the picture, the sun did not miraculously appear. It remained overcast and miserable for most of the morning. But then, around lunch time the sun peeked around the clouds and shined on us in all its magnificant glory. Ah, to feel the sunshine on our backs! Denver, the only one who didn't say a prayer but who listened intently to everyone else's prayer, came running over, shouting at the top of his little voice, "Mommy! Heavenly Father heard our prayer! The sun finally came out!" All of us were thrilled and spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the sun, soaking up its rays.

Later that evening, we all realized that we'd been terribly sunburned. Terribly. And that's about when we decided that when it comes to prayers about sunshine--one prayer is probably plenty. That said, this week's forecast is looking a bit gloomy and it might just require more than one prayer to fix.

We knew it was risky when we headed out. Of course, it’s been rainy and overcast for weeks now, so rain in the forecast was nothing new and not unexpected. There was mention of scattered thunderstorms, but hey, a little lightening and thunder only makes camping more exciting, right? When we got to Black [...]

June is almost over and school only just let out for the summer. Ben and his friends have spent the last couple of days cleaning out their desks, toting home their artwork, and enjoying pizza parties. Last night I asked Ben if he was excited that school was almost over. Today we [...]

Mark and I had a pretty big fight this morning, which rarely happens. By rarely, I mean in the twelve years that we've been married I can probably count the number of fights we've had on one hand. We really get along very well and when we do disagree we usually are able to talk things out quite calmly and rationally. But not today. Our washing machine started leaking over a month ago and after several promises that it would be fixed and several cancelled fix-it-man appointments I finally lost all patience and blew a gasket. I ended up in the basement switching laundry and sobbing buckets of tears. Jericho, Justus and Caleb were quite traumatized by the whole event (probably because this was the first time they'd witnessed a fight) and they immediately followed me downstairs, very concerned about the fact that I was crying (which is an even rarer occurrence around here than our fights.) I tried to convince them I was fine and told them to go away and play for a few minutes. They dissappeared into the toy room and a few minutes later Justus returned with a Nerf gun and said, "Mommy? Can I save you?" Then Caleb appeared with another Nerf gun and said, "We will shoot Daddy if he shouts at you. We will save you." I couldn't help but chuckle at that point and then I told them that Daddy hadn't shouted at me but that I had shouted at Daddy to which Caleb responded, "Then we will shoot you for shouting at Daddy." Lucky for both me and Mark, none of the little boys can shoot the Nerf guns and we both remained unharmed.