Dear Amazon

I have issues with the US Postal Service. On December 12th we attempted to mail a package from Harrogate, TN to Amazon in Lexington, KY. This shouldn't take long. In fact, according to Google it should only take 15 hours to ride my bike from my house to Amazon's Lexington offices. I could leave and get home in less than two days if I had the stamina.

Unfortunately the USPS decided to ship to Memphis, then Cincinnati, and currently I have no idea where it is going. All I know is it left Cincinnati on December 20th and has not made it to Lexington yet. This seems like poor planning on the postal service.

 All they needed to do was follow that red line. It would have taken about 3 hours... maybe less, but now we are sitting on 15 days. Oh Amazon, I hope you get my package soon.

Sincerely,
Brent

Monster Pancakes

We had a deliciously fun and Halloweeny breakfast this morning.

The girls loved creating their own monsters.

To read more about our monster day (and see pics of the kids), check out Because Babies Grow Up!

Studying General Conference

Elder Richard G. Scott

Brent and I started our official review/catch up/study of General Conference. He missed the Saturday morning session and one of the talks that inspired me to action was Elder Scott's talk in that session. I loved his powerful testimony of the scriptures and their value as friends in our lives.

When I was studying at the University of Utah I took Teachings of the Latter-day Prophets. In it our instructor had us watch different conference talks from the general authorities. He consolidated the talk onto one page and gave it to us to use while we watched the talk. I really liked marking up the written text while feeling the Spirit through listening to the general authorities teach the gospel.

I decided to do the same thing to study conference. It really helps me stay awake! As we watched Elder Scott's talk tonight I was reminded of the power of the scriptures. I loved his analogy that the scriptures "can become stalwart friends." Here are my favorite quotes:

"Scriptures are like packets of light that illuminate our minds and give place to guidance and inspiration from on high."

"To memorize a scripture is to forge a new friendship."

"A memorized scripture becomes an enduring friend that is not weakened with the passage of time."

"Jeanene (his wife) confirmed early in her life that those who consistently read the Book of Mormon are blessed with an added measure of the Spirit of the Lord, a greater resolve to obey His commandments, and a stronger testimony of the divinity of the Son of God."

My plan of action for this talk is to memorize the 8 verses Elder Scott quoted in his talk and then to re-memorize the scripture mastery scriptures from seminary.

If you want the one-page version of Elder Scott's talk, you can download it here.

The next talk I want to study is Elder Ian Ardern's talk, A Time to Prepare. Here's the one-page version of his talk, as well.

What talks inspired you to action?

Self-Portraits

We had a great first month of homeschooling. We learned about the ocean and finished up with a field trip to the aquarium in Gatlinburg. That could be a post all in its own so I think I'll save that for later. This post is about a must do at the beginning of the school year: self-portraits!

I had thought about it and meant to do it, but hadn't done it at all. Then we started doing art with another homeschool family following their curriculum and lesson two was about portraits and self-portraits with the assignment to do one.

I wasn't sure what we were going to get. Sammi has been drawing lots and lots lately, but I didn't know if she'd be that interested in a self-portrait. Boy was I wrong! The lesson was great because it talked about emotion, clothing and setting for the picture and Sammi made very conscious choices about each in her picture. Here it is:

Elli is always along for the ride on the more formal instruction lessons and I wasn't sure what to expect out of her. But I am very impressed with how she filled the page. And I love her orange hands!


Sammi was having such a blast that she created two more pictures. I love the story she wrote to go with the second one. She did it all on her own, no help from me! She's getting pretty good at sounding out words, if English wasn't so tricky, she'd have it mastered!

Bedroom at Night

Eating Breakfast

Here's the transcription, in case you need help. No cheating, though, this is only AFTER you've read her story! I am sitting at the table. Eating at the table and I am having breakfast.
Here's the deal, she still says breafkast which I think is adorable. I say it correctly as does everyone else, but I haven't specifically told her she's not saying it correctly. I love how her spelling reflects her pronunciation: brefgist.

Mud Daubers

We found something similar to the picture below on the back of the jogging stroller and the bike trailer:
When we peeled it off and broke it open, we found something inside I wish I had never seen! I hate spiders. And there were too many spiders. But these spiders were all dried up. They were grown up spiders, red, and shriveled. Looking something like this:

My toes curled at the sight and my whole body cringed thinking of what could possibly have created that fate for those spiders. I told Brent it would forever be a mystery because there was NO way I was researching that on the internet! Imagine the pictures I would find. Yuck! But as a twisted luck would have it, a friend knew what they were and filled me in.

Wasps. Specifically organ pipe mud daubers. They make the mud tunnels as nests for their larvae. Then they sting the spiders and cram them up the tunnels so that when the larvae hatch, they have a meal waiting for them. My toes are still curling thinking about all this awfulness that happened in our very own carport.

If this is any comfort, Wikipedia says, "Organ pipe mud daubers are also an exceedingly docile species of wasp, and generally pleasant to have around, as they serve to keep spider populations down. Stings to humans are very rare, bordering on non-existent, although if squeezed, they will sting in self-defense." Lovely.

Brent has decided against hugging them, even though we are grateful they keep the spider population under control.