A-R-A-C-K spells.....

doll, snack, surprise, and anything else Grace might want. I know everyone does it. You are talking to your spouse and you spell something you don't want the kids to hear. Grace has picked up on this, except she doesn't know how to spell. She will come to me and say, "Can we have a A-R-A-C-K?" And wait for an answer, like I know exactly what she meant!!! :)

Rhyme Time

Grace has recently learned to rhyme. I can tell you this has to be one of my favorite things! She comes up to us so excited and says, "Mom, dad and tad rhyme!!" and she really is SO excited.
Thaddeus is learning to count. It is so cute and I blame it on the age. He has it in his head that 2 is 3 and everytime you give him 2 things he says 3, and he will ask for 3 and mean 2. Anyway, this is how he counts, "two, three, two, three" or, "three, two, three".
I guess Grace will be our english wiz and TD our math wiz :)

Surprise, Surprise!

We have this beautiful tree in the backyard that sprouted beautiful tiny blossoms about April, before we moved in, and I thought for sure it was a blossoming cherry tree. Then came some bite size, cherry-size fruit and I figured this was the non-edible fruit of many blossoming cherry trees. Well, they continued changing colors from red, to deep red, and now they are purple. We were outside yesterday with a friend discussing the fruit and I mentioned that Grant had been tasting them as they matured to see if they would be good so we grabbed one down, a purple one and come to find out, we have a blossoming PLUM tree!! The fruit is edible, although bite size, literally. I don't know if I'll do anything with it this year but next year I think I will make jelly. They are too small to make jam but my mom said if you boil them down you can make jelly with the juice. So, come on over and get some plums!! Ha!

Other news, I would like to encourage you all to try indexing. I just started a week or so ago and it is so cool and easy. Go here to sign up and download the program. We can't go to the temple very often and I don't have enough free time to sit down and dig into geneology so this is my contribution. You download pictures of legal documents with names and dates etc. like marriage licences, draft cards, census reports etc. Then you type in the information you read so it can be searched. Pretty cool eh?! The program is all set up and you type the information in the correct box, done. I even did a Puerto Rico Census from 1930, all in Spanish. Pretty fun trying to figure out which name was the first, and which was the last(s)!! The site has all sorts of information and you can even test drive it before actually jumping in with both feet. You can do it for 1 minute a day or 24 hours a day! Contact your local Family History Center for more information!

Life Lessons

I have a friend here who has two female cats. One of them gave birth to some kittens about 3 months ago and the other one just 1 week ago. I find a very interesting parallel with the way these cats mothered, and the way the world works sometimes.


The first cat we assume was just too young to have kittens. She had never seen any mother cat before and only did the bare minimum for her kittens. She wouldn't nurse them or keep them warm. In her weird sense of needing to protect them she would put them in the rocky flower beds or in the middle of the lawn and leave them there. At one point my friend took the kittens and gave the cat only visitation rights. These kittens, after being bottle fed by my friend every 2-3 hours, even at night, only lived about 6 weeks.

Now, on the other hand, this latest mother lays with her kittens to keep them warm, she nurses them, she keeps them in a box and is very loving and does everything for them she should. My friend just ignores them to give them their privacy and those kittens, at one week, are already as big as the first set were at 5 weeks.


I know this isn't a perfect parallel, many abandoned kittens survive, many cats abandon their kittens for good reason etc etc. But, The world thinks we can just send children out to be taken care of. I do not believe that and know many others as well who don't believe that. We are the BEST teachers, care takers, loves for our children. (under normal circumstances of course) No child will do better in day care all day or with a nanny than they would have with their mother, who loves them best!! That is the plan Heavenly Father has so it must be the best one (again, under normal circumstances). No matter how imperfect I may think I mother, or how many mistakes I make in trying to do the best for them, they will never get the best except from me! And the same goes for all you other hard working mothers out there!!

Plus, I won't even go into the benefits of breastfeeding. :)

Here is a picture of the first kittens at 16 days;