Leaving On a Jet Plane

"I'm leaving on a jet plane,  Don't know when I'll be back again."

 Well,  actually I am off to go visit one of my best friends, Carrie today.  I will be gone for 5 nights and  6 whole days.  I am so excited, it is going to be a blast.  Just Sofia and I are going.  Noah is actually really excited to be with Daddy.  They have lots of Manly boy stuff planned.  So they will have lots of fun

Leg Update

After x-rays, bone scans and numerous other tests,  Dr Katie could find nothing seriously wrong with his leg.  After looking at all the tests,  her guess is that he could have sprained his ankle and hip at the same time,  thus causing his leg to be immobile from top to bottom.  This comes from a slight colorization which means swollen something in his hip on the bone scan and his ankle in the x-rays.  This is what she said, when talking with her this morning.  He has been taking an anti inflammatory called Napperson since Monday

I was a bit concerned leaving him for six days, if he still was not walking and there was no resolution to what happened.  Last night, Kersten and his dad gave Noah a blessing.  In this blessing, it said that his leg would get better and that he needed to have patience and faith.  Almost immediately afterwards, he looks at us and says "It is all better".  He stands up off the couch and takes 3 steps,  makes a huge grin and goes bounding up the stairs.  We asked him what made the difference and he says with such simple faith that Heavenly Father did it.  He made his leg better.  This morning he kept talking about his good leg and that Heavenly Father loved him and now he can walk with no Ow's.  It really show what great faith my boy has.  

Books that Made Me Who I am....

I saw this on Emily's blog and then on Caroline's blog and Loved this idea.. It started with the question

"What books influenced you the most growing up?"

Anything by LM Montgomery.. (my favorite is The Blue Castle and Kilmeny of the Orchard)

Little Women By Louisa May Alcott (there is a boy named Laurie in it)

Anything by Rosamunde Pilcher (my favorite is Under Gemini)

Where the Sidewalk Ends,  By Shel Silverstein

Charly By Jack Weyland and anything else he wrote up until about 1997

Scriptures 

Anita Stansfield,  I got her first book when I was 14

Rebecca By Daphne Du Meir

All the Ramona Books By Beverly Cleary

Jayhawk and Return to Red Castle By Dorothy Keddington

The Babysitters Club Series

The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Reading List

I saw this on my friend Diana's blog and loved this. I seem to be seeing a lot of these lately. But it is fun and I love it.
So here is my list. Apparently the average adult has only read 6 of these books! How sad.

I have read 47 of them

If there are any I have not Italicize that are must reads please let me know

Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*The ones in Blue are the ones I have read and LOVED
*Look at the list and bold those that you have read.
*Italicize those you intend to read.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (most not all) 
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Leg update

it is not his knee, or cancer.  They have narrowed it down,  more later

Thumbs Sideways

Tonight was fantastic.  It was a night that dreams are made of.  And it was not because of what we did but who we were with and the outcome.  

My sweet boy Noah, woke up on thursday whining that his leg hurt and he did not want to go to school.  He has been anti school lately.  So I scooped him up and took him to school.  The saddest thing is that he did not walk at school.  He even sat on the grass at recess.  He stayed on the couch the entire day on thursday.  We discovered that it was his knee that was hurting him more than anything else.  I kept thinking he was being a drama king by not wanting to make it straight.  Kersten took him to the doc today.  Luckily, he does not have a fracture or anything of that kind.  From what they can see,  his knee cap is probably displaced and we need to get him to keep moving it to wiggle back in place.  They sent us some fancy patches to help with the motions.  Poor kid,  3 days of no jumping around playing Star Wars is killing him.  He even commented that he was sad cause he had to go right to sleep and could not play in his bed.  Ha Ha, I guess this is one way to quiet him down faster.

Since he is still down and has a fancy new Ace bandage,  We decided to have a fun family movie night.  He has been dying to see Speed Racer, ever since he saw the commercials for the DVD.  I made homemade pizza,  we bought some movie snacks, such as popcorn, whoppers and licorce.   We snuggled in our pajamas all of us on the couch,  with Tweet-ums crawling back and forth on top of the three of us.  She wanted to be with the person with the most interesting food.  Speed Racer was actually pretty good.  It stressed the importance of family.  Of being loyal , following your heart and of doing the right thing even if it is hard.  Noah was pretty excited about it.

Afterwards,  I had one of the best mommy moments ever.  Sofia fell asleep at the end of the movie.  So Noah said his prayers etc, outside of his room.  After potty time and brushing his teeth,  I carried him into my room for his nite time prayers.  He asked if we could sit in the chair,  I fed him in as a baby.  It sits in the corner of my bedroom.  I snuggled him on my lap.  And teased him that he sure had grown a lot since I fed him as a baby.  In Noah language he explained that he ate good food,  used his strong muscles and he turned one, two, three and now he is four and so so big.  I asked him if he wanted to talk to Mom about anything.  He nodded "Yes"  and said he wanted to talk about Stormtroopers in a bubble.  Apparently,  some Stormtroopers got stuck in a bubble and Darth Vader was going to be mad.  We talked about different ways to get them out of the bubble.  He also used the Choke force on them.  I told him Darth Vader would not like it that he used his signature move and would clash lightsabers with him.  Then in a brilliant Noah moment he said that he was Anakin and could not fight himself when he uses bad choices.  

I asked him about school.  He has complained bitterly the last week that he wants "No, school".  I asked him if school was thumbs up or thumbs down.  He waved his thumbs back and forth.  So I asked if it was thumbs sideways.  We both laughed hysterically.  He proceeds to explain to me that school was sideways because they did not let him play guns and lightsabers the whole time (this is all explained in sound effects by the way).  His teachers make him sit down and write, listen and blah blah blah.  In his exact words.  At this point I am trying to suppress my laughter.  I commented that he could play guns and lightsabers at recess.  He puts his fingers really close together to explain it is too little time and then spreads his arms really big to say that is how much time he wants.  We discussed different ways that would make school more fun and when it was okay to play lightsabers.  We talked for another 10 minutes or so.  Going back and forth with the subject,  Starwars, School,  silly Sofia,  his knee and church tomorrow.    

This reminded me how important it is to slow down.  Life is so hurried for there is so much to do.  Between all the responsibilities of all my roles,  I need to stop and just talk with my boy so he feels understood and that his opinions matter and are valid.  In some ways his owey knee has been kind of nice.  He has slowed down.  In fact forcing us to slow down also.  

I Am...

I am your parent;

you are my child.

I am your quiet place;

you are my wild.

I am your hush now;

you are my lyrical.

I am your peace on Earth;

you are my miracle.

-- From Maryann Cusimano 

"Love's You Are My Miracle"

I'm Tagged Again

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the Person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
5. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

Here is the blog of who tagged me: http://teresa-ofwhatalife.blogspot.com/
Thanks Teresa,

So I have been tagged and it actually was kind of hard thinking of things new to post about myself. I really am an open book to most people.

1.I have a dream to go back to school. I want to get a degree in Speech Language and Pathology. I would have to get a Master's to be able to practice. I could help Noah a lot more and lots of other kids also. It goes along really well with my other degree. It would be a perfect mom job. You could set your own hours if you practiced privately. Oh, well, we'll see what happens with that one.

2. My favorite computer game is Sims. I love building the houses and decorating. Then as you play your Sims, to see if they like it. I usually get bored playing the same Sim for awhile so I just go and build another house. I could waste a lot of hours doing this.. I also love Bejeweled and doing word search puzzles.

3. I really do dislike being late for things. I also really dislike being too early, I feel like waiting around is a waste of time. So in my ideal world, I am right on time for everything and so is everyone else.

4. I am very easily entertained. It really does not take much for me to enjoy myself. Sometimes this could be to a fault. I am quick to say I loved it. So it is good for me to step back and contemplate how I feel about something more than directly afterwards.

5.I get really frustrated with technology. It is just suppose to work. I don't like fiddling around with it. Once I have learned how to do something, I usually can do that forever now, I just don't want to take the time to figure it out. If someone will show me, that is much better.

6. I am a visual learner. I think that is why I excell at reading, colors, shapes and art. That is where my best grades were in school. Noah is also very visual. With his talking school, he does so much better if he has a queue.

So there you go, Some more useless information about the one and only me. Hope you enjoyed it.
Now I tag...... I know the suspense is killing you..... Amy, Lena, Nik, Carrie and Kieran

Grateful Sunday 9-14-08

Kersten: I had a glorious weekend, although Friday was one of my most frustrating mom day so far.  I was tapped out to the max and a bit sad, for I was suppose to go to my family cabin for the weekend.  And a bit relieved that I could stop packing. My sweet husband came home with some Gerber daisies,  new cordless phones and an order to get out of the house.  Oh sweet bliss.  I ended up reading my book in the car in a parking lot,  eating a cheeseburger.  But it was heaven with no other distractions around.  I came home happy to kiss my kids goodnight.  I also got a nap yesterday morning.  Kersten totally out did himself this weekend.  I am so spoiled.

Flight: I am also going to go visit my best friend, Carrie in a couple of weeks.  And early b-day present.  I am giddy and so excited to see her and spend 6 days with her.  :D  I really am so spoiled.  Sofia and I are going to have the best time.  Kersten even arranged the babysitting for Noah.  

Lagoon:  We went to Lagoon yesterday.  We got tickets for a third of the price. Kersten's brother Jason and Verity came also.  They were so patient with our restrictions with our kids.  Noah's favorite ride was the spaceships with the guns.  We took turns with the kiddos and went on the new ride Wicked and the spider.  We had a fun family day.  We came home tired and happy.     It was a lovely day.  I am so glad we went.

Talking:   We had such fun coversations with some of our siblings and their spouses.  Emilee and Gearold surprised us on Friday night and talked late into the night.  They brought pie and we just chatted until the wee hours of the morning.  So fun.  After we went to Lagoon we just sat and talked with Jason and Verity until late.  It was just so lovely to connect with family on a personal level.  Loved it.

Children's Book- Tops and Bottoms

I am starting a new series where I will showcase some of my favorite children's books.  I love, love, love children's books and have collected them even before I had children.  I am quite passionate about these books.  I really cannot say I have an absolute favorite children's book.  I have quite a few.  In no particular order of when I post these.

Tops and Bottoms  By: Janet Stevens

It is the story of a lazy bear and a Hare.  The bear owns all the land and Hare and his family are starving so they come up with a plan. 

"We can be business partners!" Hare says. "All we need is this field right here in front of your house. I'll do the work of planting and harvesting, and we can split the profit down the middle." Hare says soon afterwards, "So what will it be, Bear?" "The top half or the bottom half?" Hare doesn't mention what crops he will grow to bear, because, of course, he will plant veggies that bear fruit(or, well...vegetables) underground. Carrots, radishes, etc.

The next growing season, Bear will naturally choose the bottoms, but-again-he doesn't demand a certain vegetable to plant, so Hare plants vegetables like cabbage that grow above ground.

Finally Bear gets smart-or at least he thinks he is-and demands to have both the tops and bottoms of the crops; Hare agrees? This time he plants Corn so that he gets the middles.  Tricking the bear once again.  

Finally Bear gets so upset that he says he will do it himself.  Hare and his family get land for themselves and the message is that "Hard Works Pays off"

It is a Caldecott Honor book, so a lot of you might have seen or read this one before.  The pictures are incredible.  Rich with a lot of detail and new discoveries that make you look at them over and over again.  Hare wears a carrot Hawaian shirt and Bear always has a loose tie and big boots.    One very original thing about this book is it's format.  Instead of reading the book horozontally,  the only way you can read it is vertically.  

This book is clever, witty and humorous.  We love it,  and a plus is that Noah will read it sometimes even though it is not Star Wars.  

Noah's First Day of School-Age 4

Noah's first day of full school was this morning. Here he is with his super cool new Transformer backpack.  I let him pick out his clothes and of course it was one of his blue Star Wars shirts.  This was for meet the teacher day which was yesterday.  He wore his red C3PO and R2D2 shirt for today.  . He was really nervous and kind of shy. But his new teacher, Ms Amber was really smart and showed him all the cool places and toys in the room. He said he liked her. When Lily showed up they immediately started running around like crazy together and he was in his element. It helped make him really excited for today.

Here is a pic of his new teacher, Ms Amber, Noah and his friend Lily.  My camera has started to have this haze over each picture.  Time for a really new camera. He was so excited and nervous for school, he woke up at a quarter to seven this morning.  He ate breakfast and chocolate milk.  He watched the cartoon Iron Man while he got dressed.  He was so full of nervous energy that you could feel it vibrate in the room.  We were a couple minutes early.  So he had to kiss his baby like 8 times and give her squeezes so that she would not miss him and know that he would be back.  This spured on that a couple of the other kids had to also hug Sofia cause she was a cute baby and Noah was willing to share.  He had a couple of kids he knew from last year in his class.  When Camden saw him,  his face lit up and he jumped up and down and came and gave Noah a hug.  Camden's mom took their picture together.  We hung up his backpack, found his name collar, where he got mad that it said Noah instead of Anakin. He is also Iceman today so that would have been fine also.  But plain Noah was just NOT okay.  He waved goodbye and he ran to play.  I hope it turns out to be a marvelous day.  

Grateful Sunday 9-7-08

This week I am grateful for so many thing:

Weekend:  We had such a fun weekend.  It started on thursday where we went to the Utah State Fair.  On Friday we were going to go camping,  traffic was at a standstill so we went up Sat morn and spend the day on The Land, which was gorgeous.  I love being up there .  ( i will post later about the specifics of these events)

Noah: Or as he corrects you every time, his name is Anakin. He is working so hard right now on his words. Really, he is doing well. He is so snuggling and joyful most of the time. He wants to be good. And if you remind him of the reasons to calm down and be good. He works hard to do that. It is nice to see a bit of a silver lining with him.  

School:  I went to Noah's preschool orientation on thursday.  His new teacher Miss Amber is so enthusiastic and young.  She sounds very creative and organized.  Which will be fabulous.  I also started searching out all the options this week for Noah's education in the elementary years.  I feel like the Lord is opening doors and showing me where to go and look.  I want him to have what he needs to succeed even if he can't talk perfectly until high school (it could happen).  I am really excited and hopeful.

My Sweet Family:  Right now, I have been concentrating on just enjoying my children and my husband.  They kids are at such fun ages.  With Noah going back to school this week, there will not be as frequent quiet moments with all of us.  

Kersten's New Calling:  he grew himself into his calling as the bishop said.  He grew his beard, hoping to inspire no callings.  He is a ward missionary.  Which he is excited about and just right for him right now, with his work and school.  It is fun to see him excited about it.

In the Rain

It has been raining a lot this weekend.  On Sunday when it started to rain,  I was sitting on the floor at my in-laws.  When my son comes and grabs my hand and says "Mom, come"  waving his hand in a come this way motion.  

He had to show me the rain.  

 It was dumping water on everything.  The sound of the rain pattering on the roof was intense. Grandma Monika and Noah were standing on the porch catching the rain in their hands.  I took off my socks and Noah followed me.  We would run out into the rain and come back to make footprints on the pavement.  Over and over again.  As Grandma watched us in our silliness. 

Noah started seeing Count Dooku in the sky and started fighting all the bad guys in the rain.  He even tried to explain what battle he was fighting as Anakin Skywalker.  I really am lucky that I have someone talented enough to save me from all these bad guys that surround our house.  

I grabbed him up off the driveway in one big swoop.  And I started singing and dancing.  Of course, the song was "Singing In the Rain"  one of my all time favorite shows and songs.  Noah laughed as he lifted his face to the sky and water dripped down his face.  My heart knew that this was something I will always remember.  We finished off the dance with a big dip.  For that is how most great dances end.  My pant legs were soaked and my hair was all wet.  But,  all was right and good with the sound of laughter from my boy.

Thank you, my son for showing me the rain.  And for knowing that I did really want to see it.