At five months old, I think Heidi is already contemplating skipping the scooting stage and going straight to crawling! Yikes! She loves to get up on her hands and knees like this and rock and rock. Then she loses control sometimes and does a  faceplant. From the day she was born she has had a lot of upper body strength.

She loves to suck that bottom lip these days.

That's the face of determination. "Stay right there, Mom. I'm coming to get you!"

Thanksgiving 2011

This year we had Thanksgiving with our friends the Rasmussens and the Gillenwaters, and also the missionaries. I volunteered to make rolls, potatoes, stuffing, and pie. I made pie crust on Tuesday and pies on Wednesday. Heidi was quite excited to taste the spoon I used to mix the apple pie filling.

I made a peach pie and an apple pie, both with apple crisp topping instead of a pie crust on top. I did this last year and loved it. Unfortunately I forgot that last year I had added the topping after the pies were about half-baked already. I put it on in the beginning this time and the topping on the apple pie was a little burned. The peach pie turned out pretty well, though:

I spent most of the morning and afternoon cooking and cutting and rolling and baking. Heidi ended up in the Baby Bjorn will I rolled out the second batch of rolls, and Kevin helped by putting the cut up potatoes in the pot. Ryan helped by taking Kevin out of the house when Kevin started thinking it was his turn to use the knife!

Even though I had tried to plan ahead and get things started early, I still ended up running pretty late. Our stoves are rigged so they don't get very hot and it took quite a while for all the potatoes to get soft. I ended up making the stuffing at the Gillenwaters (which also took forever). Ryan picked up the missionaries and I rode with Annie Rasmussen so there was room for the missionaries in our car.

We had a lovely feast. Annie made a beautiful and delicious turkey, and I was so glad it turned out to be so amazing because she certainly was stressed about it. She also brought pumpkin pie and sweet potatoes (I think she and I were the only ones that ate them--but they were really good!). Zoe Gillenwater, the hostess, had cranberry sauce and olives and she made some acorn squash, broccoli, and chocolate cherry pie.

Kevin plays really well with Asha, the Gillenwaters' daughter, and they had a wonderful time running all over the house.

What kind of parents would we be if we didn't show Kevin how to put olives on his fingers?

Heidi ended up falling asleep just before dinner and didn't wake up for three hours! So kind of her! (And yes, she still slept through the night.)

After dinner Ryan took Kevin and the missionaries home and Heidi and I stayed with Annie and her baby to help clean up. We had a fun time chatting on the way home.

When I got home my family called and we drew names for sibling Christmas presents.

So we had a really nice day!

And then I collapsed in my bed!

We Are Everything to God.

"And while we may look at the vast expanse of the universe and say, 'What is man in comparison to the glory of creation?' God Himself said we are the reason He created the universe! His work and glory—the purpose for this magnificent universe—is to save and exalt mankind.

"In other words, the vast expanse of eternity, the glories and mysteries of infinite space and time are all built for the benefit of ordinary mortals like you and me. Our Heavenly Father created the universe that we might reach our potential as His sons and daughters.

"This is a paradox of man: compared to God, man is nothing; yet we are everything to God. While against the backdrop of infinite creation we may appear to be nothing, we have a spark of eternal fire burning within our breast. We have the incomprehensible promise of exaltation—worlds without end—within our grasp. And it is God’s great desire to help us reach it."

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "You Matter to Him". General Conference, October 2011. (emphasis mine)

Some of the extreme environmentalists seem to believe that the most evil beings on the planet are humans and cows. I think it's one of Satan's meanest tricks to persuade people that the world would be a better place if there were no humans on it. The truth is that the earth was created so that God's children would have a place to learn and grow so that we could reach our full potential. My favorite part about this quote is that "we are everything to God." We are His work and His glory--"to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39) Isn't that inspiring?

Video. (for those who read my posts in their email and don't see the videos)

I've been in kind of a rut of spending too much time on the internet lately, and I wanted to just find a couple of websites that were uplifting and helpful so that I could read those and then be done with internet reading for the day. Just in time, two blogs showed up!

First, I started following moneysavingmom.com in my Google Reader (now that I've discovered she has a "lite" RSS feed so you don't have to read every grocery deals post she makes!). She has a lot of really great insights about budgeting and money-saving. She's been doing a series called 21 Days to a More Disciplined Life. It's been really helpful for me because lately I've been so frustrated with my lack of discipline in some areas. She talks about making specific goals and working on them one at a time. I decided to join in. I'm going to start by giving up candy, cookies, etc. except for a treat on the weekends or some special occasions. I am also going to work on being on time to things, specifically by aiming to leave fifteen minutes earlier than I normally do and getting things ready to go the day before instead of at the last minute.

I've also started following http://www.keepapitchinin.org/. Ryan's sister Amy has been contributing to a series of posts called Eminent Women on that site, and there are also many other interesting posts. I've enjoyed learning some new things about church history. The author doesn't put up with any of the contentious drivel that is showing up in the comments of so many websites lately, so it's all very uplifting!

held together by a thread

Check out this shirt. Ryan got it on his mission. It already had holes in it when we got married and he insisted it was still good as the holes continued to grow. But now even he admits (reluctantly) that it's time to throw it away. It was a bittersweet parting.

eating a "spicy"

Kevin saw a jar of jalepenos that I had in the fridge and started asking for "pickles." I told him, "These aren't pickles, they're spicy." He insisted that he wanted one, so I gave in, thinking he'd take one lick and not want anymore. Instead, he ate the entire thing with a grin on his face and kept telling us he was eating "a spicy."

first Christmas dress

Heidi has a lot of Christmas dresses. This one probably won't fit her at Christmastime, so I thought I'd better start having her wear it now. It looked so cute on her.

not much to say

I don't feel like I have much to say about this week. Kevin and Heidi are doing lots of cute things. Kevin has learned how to tell us not to do things (No! Don't gibberish gibberish babble babble--I wonder where he got this one from . . . ), and also how to ask us to come play. He also tells us to sit down. Heidi grabs her toes sometimes and plays on her tummy with her legs and arms up in the air like she's swimming.

We are studying acids and bases in Chemistry right now, and have been for 2-3 weeks. For some reason I find it all incredibly boring. I think it's because with a lot of other Chemistry topics I have studied, the material has been applicable to my life to some extent, but with the topic of acids and bases we haven't talked much about real-life examples. I perked right up when we had a problem on the homework comparing the solubility of marble in acid rain versus regular rain. (The reason acid rain is a problem is because marble is more soluble in water if the water has acid in it, so it dissolves faster than it would in regular rain.)

Or maybe I'm just having a hard time with acids and bases because I lost my mind and can't find where Kevin put it.

What's Actually Taught in Sex Ed Class

I usually hate NPR. I think about 85% of what they say on that radio station is the same old stuff they've been talking about for the past three years. Global warming, Obamacare, the recession, Greece, alternative energy sources, gay rights and gay marriage, and a few more topics--over and over again. And there's something in the tone of all of it that really rubs me wrong. If you don't believe that our ancestors were monkeys and that humans are single-handedly raising global temperatures, then you are anti-science, and if you were just educated some more then you would of course believe both.

I could go on about that, but I wanted to mention a specific show that I listened to today called What's Actually Taught in Sex Ed Class. Here's the link to the transcript if you want to read it:

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/01/141908773/whats-actually-taught-in-sex-ed-class

One of the main themes that kept coming up in this show was that teens need a resource where they can learn about sex. I kept thinking, How about the parents?!! How about church leaders? How about other role models? Why does it have to be the school's responsibility to teach this? And I guess what it comes down to is that a lot of parents aren't teaching their kids to be responsible and to recognize that sex doesn't just happen--it's a choice and you don't have to give in to your powerful urges. So schools feel like they have to pick up the slack and become the child-rearers. I do think that it is helpful if the schools are available as a resource for parents who want some support and help teaching their children about it, but the responsibility needs to fall on the parents, not the school. People on this show were calling in talking about all the things they thought the schools should teach--from the anatomy to birth control to abortion to childbirth education. There's a lot of talk about how abstinence-only education doesn't work, and I can say that I understand why--the twenty minutes my health teacher spent talking about abstinence wouldn't have been very convincing for me either if I hadn't had excellent parents and church leaders--people who I had a good relationship with--who talked about it with me. If we leave it up to the schools to raise kids, our society is going to be in a really sad state of affairs. They keep coming up with all these fancy programs for schools to follow to teach kids--why are they trying to reinvent the wheel? That's what the family is for! It doesn't seem very efficient to me to allocate funds for teachers to teach these things when good parents could keep their money and do a better job of it.

(And now that I've said all that, I will say that I realize that there are kids who don't have any good role models and would never learn those things if it wasn't taught at school, and I don't really know what to do about that problem other than missionary work.)

Another related thing that I have been thinking about a lot lately is that sexuality is all over now, which means that kids are exposed to it at a much younger age. What that means is that parents now have to discuss this topic with their children at a younger age than they used to. I'm not saying that five-year-olds need the sex talk, but we need to explain things as they can understand them, and bear our testimonies to them about chastity and the powers of procreation. It's a scary thought for me because I know that this will likely be much more challenging for my children when they are teenagers than it was for me (and I wasn't a teenager very long ago, you know). It is really important to talk to our children frankly about it.

The Gospel Principles manual discusses this in the chapter about chastity:

"By the time children reach maturity, parents should have frankly discussed procreation with them. Children should understand that these powers are good and were given to us by the Lord. He expects us to use them within the bounds He has given us. (Chapter 39: The Law of Chastity, Gospel Principles, (2009))

Here is what M. Russell Ballard said about this subject:

"Third, dare to have the “big talks” with your sons. You know what I mean: talks about drugs and drinking, about the dangers of today’s media—the Internet, cyber technologies, and pornography—and about priesthood worthiness, respect for girls, and moral cleanliness. While these should not be the only subjects you talk about with your sons, please don’t shy away from them. Your boys need your counsel, guidance, and input on these subjects. As you talk about these very important matters, you will find that the trust between you will flourish.

"I am especially concerned that we communicate openly and clearly with our sons about sexual matters. Your sons are growing up in a world that openly embraces and flaunts early, casual, and thoughtless promiscuity. Your sons simply cannot avoid the blatant sexual imagery, messages, and enticements that are all around them. Fathers and Church leaders need to have open and frequent discussions that teach and clarify how young men of the priesthood handle this issue. Be positive about how wonderful and beautiful physical intimacy can be when it happens within the bounds the Lord has set, including temple covenants and commitments of eternal marriage. Studies show that the biggest deterrent to casual sexual activity is a wholesome attitude that connects such personal relationships with genuine commitment and mature love. Fathers, if you have not had this “big talk” with your sons, please do so, and do it soon." (from Fathers and Sons: A Remarkable Relationship)