And she picked...

The purple frames:




Cute, huh?

This Week's "Field Trip"

How many kids get excited to visit the dentist? Mine do. Eye exam? Yep. Well, except maybe Joey, because he hates getting drops put in his eyes (gets that from Rob).

But they love trying on glasses...

Joey's vision is 20/15, but he can't resist a prop. I love the Napolean Dynamite specs. If he grows his hair out again, it'll be the perfect Halloween costume.

The big news is that Ellie needs glasses, just a little long-distance correction. She liked these three pair:

So, what's your vote? I'll post her choice when we pick them up next week...

Finally, the kids with those awesome disposable sunglasses:

Lucky...No, Blessed

Ever since the boys quit soccer, our Saturdays have been blissfully open. This week was an exception. The boys left at 7:45 a.m. for a merit badge day. I joined them for a couple of leader classes from 10:00-12:00. Robbie had most of the merit badges they offered, so he came home with me after lunch, and Joey stayed until 4:00 and worked on rank advancement. Here they are in the fingerprinting class, which they both enjoyed. Their other favorite was the electronics badge.

Robbie and I hurried home, changed and cut brownies to take to Grandpa Backman's 90th birthday open house. We feel so lucky to have him in our lives.

I wish I'd thought to get a photo with all three Robert Backmans...

It was great to see Rob's brother Rich, from Atlanta. We missed Matt & his family, and of course Joe wasn't there.

Judy is the oldest of seven daughters. We love all of Rob's aunts.

Here's a shot of all the family there—two of the Champneys came from California and Texas, and the Prices came from California, Texas and Germany! It was so fun to see everyone.

These are the grandkids who made it:

And the great-grandkids—this should have been a video, not a picture. It was pretty comical.

We picked Joey up just in time for a photo before everyone went home.

We had dinner at El Farol's with the Marshes, and I didn't even have my phone camera with me for a photo. When we finally got home I collapsed finished my gospel doctrine lesson. It was a productive, fun, exhausting day. Not much time for St. Patrick's Day traditions, but the leprechauns did make an appearance the night before, leaving gold Rolos inside the kids' lockers. And as Ainsley pointed out, we didn't want to wear green anyway...that's Slytherin's color. :)

Lucky Charms Graph

In case anyone else is doing a kindergarten learning center on St. Patrick's Day. :) I couldn't find a graph that was free and high resolution with all eight charms, so I made one. Feel free to use it. Just give each kid a baggy with Lucky Charms in it, have them sort their charms into piles, then color in the graph with a matching crayon. When they're done, they can eat the cereal.

Twelve Photos on 3.12.12

My "theme" this month is color.

• I love the way the girl's rooms turned out—that's another post to come, but here's a sneak peek.
• I'm also so excited to see a few flowers and green leaves sprouting up and can't wait for Spring!
• I stocked up on lots of colorful fruits and veggies at Target, and will be making yummy Spring Rolls this week.
• Ainsley spent most of the morning coloring—right now she's into Bratz Girls' coloring pages (I can't stand them, but I guess it's better than watching TV all morning).
• I painted the girls' fingernails green for St. Patrick's Day.
• Rob very grudgingly agreed to let me take a photo of him wearing the new shirt I picked up at Costco—I love the color!
• Robbie had a water polo game tonight. Water polo is seriously fun to watch, even though it makes me tired just watching. :) They won.
• Finally, I found Joey reading in his room, instead of putting on his pj's. No collage of photos representing this day would be complete without piles of dirty clothes. Just keeping it real.

Mr. Dramatic

It seems like every haircut Joey gets takes an inordinate amount of coaxing and/or bribery, and is usually a picture taking event, because it happens so rarely. I guess if long hair is the worst form of rebellion we get, we'll count ourselves lucky.

School happenings

Joey's class is studying debate, and he did a good job arguing against vending machines in elementary schools.

The kindergarten classes had a "Kindy 500" road trip. They were each assigned a state and made a cardboard car—Ainsley got Arkansas, which was a bit of a challenge. We used the state seal for headlights, the state flag for tail lights, and although ASU is represented on the license plates, the Razorbacks have decals on both side doors. There's a bumper sticker for Bill Clinton's hometown too. We probably should have added a Walmart sticker on there somewhere...

The Kindy 500 happened to fall on the same day as Dr. Seuss day, thus the crazy hair and socks.

The Next Flying Tomato

Joey is snowboarding each Friday after school for six weeks, and has loved it so far, in spite of the lousy snow conditions. When we bought his snowboard, the salesman commented that he could be the next Flying Tomato. Yep. Wish I'd been able to take a few action shots, but obviously not enough to drive up to Brighton.

V Day

This year I helped with the Valentine's party in Joey's class—I made scones, which were a big hit.

Here are the kids with their Valentine boxes. Poor Robbie, no parties, notes or candy in Junior High.

Luckily he loves our family tradition of books for Valentine's Day.

And crepes for dinner. New this year is a low carb recipe that I found on Pinterest—they're surprisingly good!

A Happy Birthday

Sadly, I am now at the age when I have to do the math to remember how old I am. Fortunately, I was born on a decade year, so this isn't too difficult.

My 42nd birthday was a good one. Rob took the day off and took me to breakfast and lunch at Hagermann's, with a trip to Ikea in between. Huge sacrifice for him, I wish I'd taken a photo of his virgin trip there. We picked up a cute sewing table/desk and chair for Ellie, and Rob finished painting her room so we could get her moved in before she came home from school. I love finishing a project. Also, I got a Kindle, and I'm loving it! I thought I'd hold out for an iPad, but I think this is actually a better sized tablet for me, since it fits in my purse.

I am also now old enough to be amazed by the progression in technology during my lifetime. Wonder what they'll invent in the next 42 years? I hope to find out. :)

Twelve Photos on 2.12.12

This month I decided to go with the obvious theme for my twelve photos on the 12th. I tortured my family for individual shots, and even let Ellie take one of me.

The photo of Joey practicing was in a teasing attempt to make him smile, even though he was, as usual, not happy to be playing the piano. I ended up generalizing what I love as "music" but I also love the fact that Rob is willing to enforce practicing most days, and that my kids are developing a useful talent. Also, I listened to a fabulous talk this week that uses piano lessons as an analogy for grace. It's a BYU devotional by Brad Wilcox, and if you haven't already, you should really listen to it or read it right now.

I had a friend take a photo of our gospel doctrine class. This probably belongs in the love-hate category. I love the gospel, and am learning so much as I prepare to teach from the Book of Mormon. What I HATE is being in the spotlight for even one minute.

Our dinners are pretty simple on the Sundays I teach. This week we had bagels with cream cheese and sauteed onions and peppers. Easy, but seriously delicious.

I've found a new chocolate chip cookie recipe that I love. (Thank you Pinterest). One of the secrets is that the dough is prepared in advance and frozen, so the bottoms gets nice and crispy, but the inside is moist and chewy. The bonus is that you can make one pan at a time and have fresh-baked cookies more than once. Here's the link.

I love our Valentine tradition of giving books. And I love that I had everything purchased and wrapped in advance this year!

Finally, I love Downton Abbey. It's become a total soap opera in season two, but one with great cinematography, acting and costumes. :) We got rid of our DVR a while ago, so I've been watching religiously on Sunday evenings. It's been about 15 years since I last cared about a TV show enough to watch it when it aired (back then it was Seinfeld on Thursday nights). Fun.

Inspiration for the layout here. No, I'm not that creative.

No more Cub Scouts!

Scouting has been a pretty big part of our lives for the past five years. I've been a den leader for nearly five of the six years my boys were in cub scouts. This month has been extra busy, since I've been finishing up my commitment as Webelos leader, planning the joint Blue & Gold Banquet/Arrow of Light Ceremony AND I've been called as to help with advancement for the eleven year-old boy scouts. No pressure there, I'm only following in the footsteps of the great Lois Banks. Joey has been so excited to finally become a boy scout so he could earn homemade slurpees and other treats...but no, he gets me instead. She did fix them each one last slurpee on January 13th, when they turned in their reading merit badge cards. I used my phone, so it's not a great photo:

Here we are at the Court of Honor on January 18th.

Robbie was awarded his Life, so it's Eagle project time.

Although Joey earned his Arrow of Light back in September, the ceremony wasn't until January 19th, after most of the other Webelos had finished theirs. The pack meeting was great, we have such great leaders now I'm almost sorry to be done with cub scouts. Almost being the key word there. :)

Overcoming Overwhelming.

A couple of years ago I decided to take a daily photo, and have managed to post 313 daily photo entries since then. But it just isn't fitting into my life right now, so I was excited when I saw this post about a project that seems a little more doable right now. The idea is to take (or narrow down to) twelve photos every month on the 12th, ending, of course, on 12-12-12.

I immediately loved the idea, and spent some time considering what 12 photos I wanted to take this month. Twelve things for which I'm grateful? That was nixed by Rob, who didn't want to have his photo taken. Twelve resolutions? Even I'm not that crazy. Twelve favorite things? I might do that one in a future month. For this month I decided to do a photo essay about my life right now. If you read my belated November entry, and noticed the still-missing-but-soon-to-come December report, you might (correctly) assume that I've been overwhelmed. I am working on overcoming that—here's how:

I'm a "half-empty" girl by nature, but I've learned that happiness really is a choice, and a result of positive, "half-full" thinking. So for each negative, dark thought, I try to find at least a silver lining.

Overwhelming is the cold, gray deadness of winter. Today was an exception, actually, with beautiful blue skies. Still, I don't even start feeling warm unless it's at least 72 degrees, and going outside in the inversion is pretty much the equivalent of smoking a pack, so I have a hard time wanting to go out and enjoy the much needed sunshine. Rob tells me he recently read an article stating that there is no scientific evidence for seasonal depression. Hmm, sounds like a man saying there is no such thing as PMS to me. :) My personal experience tells me that light, warmth and color all have a major impact on my sense of well-being.

Overcoming means a daily dose of Vitamin D. I do try to get outside as often as I can, but as it's dark and icy at 6:00 a.m., most of my walks get moved inside a gym on a treadmill. Again, I have only personal experience, not scientific evidence, but D3 seems to help me cope.

Overwhelming is illness, in its many forms. Today Ellie was home from school, after throwing up the night before. She's not one to tough it out, and spent a lot of time crying, sobbing and moaning. This isn't something that makes me (or Rob) very sympathetic, unfortunately, though it did break my heart when she told me that she thought she must have cancer and be dying. I reassured her about that, but couldn't do much about her sadness that she would not be receiving the perfect attendance award she'd hoped for this year.

Overcoming happens when a wonderful friend brings by 7-Up for your sick child so you don't have to leave her, and then stays to visit for an hour and lifts your spirits too. My good friend Jackie Moulton saved the day today, and although she's super modest, I talked her into sharing some of her wonderful poems at book group tonight. It was such a great evening, I came home feeling completely recharged, and so grateful for beautiful writing and amazing friends. I've struggled with multiple health challenges this year, with my back and eyes, and although it stinks, it may actually be worth it just to discover how generous and kind people are.

Overwhelming is being called to teach gospel doctrine. I'm intimidated by the idea of teaching people more experienced and well-read than I, and the sheer volume of available resources to help is more overwhelming than comforting. These are just a few of the books we have; there are enough online resources to keep me reading 40+ hours a week. (Speaking of online resources, I've started keeping my study notes on another blog: http://gospeldoctrinenotes.blogspot.com/). Yes, I shouldn't be complaining about feeling overwhelmed when I make work for myself. I figure I'm preparing anyway, so if it can help anyone else, great. Ideally I'll start posting my thoughts before the lesson, not after. :)

Overcoming is the realization that this is really the only essential reading. Reading the Book of Mormon has been one of the best tools I've discovered for coping with feelings of being overwhelmed. I am grateful to have a calling that motivates me to do this more regularly and with greater intensity.

Overwhelming is what I think when I consider the amount of cleaning and organizing that need to happen around here. I could have taken any number of photos for this—the piles of laundry waiting to be washed, folded and put away, or the messy storage room. The lockers seemed least objectionable, even though Rob had to warn Joey not to put an important assignment in his locker, so it wouldn't be lost in "the vortex of crap." It makes me tired just thinking about it.

Overcoming, for me, means doing a least a few household chores consistently. Starting the day with our bed made always makes me feel better, and Rob too, since he always makes a point of thanking me when I do it. I like clean surfaces, even if I know that a "vortex of crap" is lurking behind closed doors. One other mind trick that helps me when I'm overwhelmed with the mundane repetitiveness of it all, is to focus on the person (or people) I'm serving. Thinking of Ainsley while I fold her tiny, fancy, girly clothes always makes me smile.

Overwhelming: trying to help not just my own two boys, but a group of Webelos, and now 11 year-old boy scouts earn their rank advancements and merit badges. Anyone who read my Ode to Lois Banks will know what kind of standard I'm trying to live up to. It's a pretty big deal. Overwhelming pretty much sums it up.

Overcoming. Here's the thing though. I love this quote by Kahlil Gibran, "Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart." I really want to be someone who makes a difference in other people's lives, the way I've seen Lois make a difference in Robbie's life. I don't think this is something that just happens without any effort. I hope I will make the most of this opportunity.

Overwhelming is feeling over-scheduled. My schedule is pretty relaxed compared to others. I know this, but also know myself well enough to know that I need down-time almost as much as I need clean counters. :) I want the kids to have opportunities to develop talents and discipline, so we're involved in piano, scouting, sports, ballet, sewing lessons, etc. I want to be involved in their education, and so I volunteer in their classrooms and help in the PTA. Yet I hate feeling like I don't have time to read, which restores me.

Overcoming: Although I love every opportunity to sit down and turn actual pages, when there just isn't time, I listen to audiobooks. There are many books that I actually prefer the audio version. The Harry Potter series, narrated by Jim Dale, is amazing; and The Help and Ender's Game were both better listening than reading. Today I finished a spy novel that Rob recommended, The Kill Artist, by Daniel Silva. Not very high-brow, just some suspense. Sometimes that's exactly what I need in my upward-spiral efforts. I almost never watch TV, but have just discovered the BBC's Downton Abbey, so I can add that to my guilty-pleasure escapism.

Whew. That's a long, semi-confessional post. One written mostly for my kids, since I hope it's a lesson they'll learn much earlier than I did. Anyone have any good ideas for next's month's twelve photos?