I saw SLEEZE triangles and other 4th grade geometry

Thank You to April for this awesome piece of homework humor. I'm not sure how to spell isosceles triangle either.

April's baptism

Very proud of my little girl.   

There should be an award for this awesomeness.

So we're driving home after Jessica's birthday dinner and I spot this piece of awesomeness on the car in front of us.

  I of course yell, "Squirrel!"

The reactions of my various children were priceless and thanks goes to Krista for snapping this pic with her phone.

Samuel the Lamanite vs. Facebook

Wahoo! Dancing books, this is so cool :o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8

My kids and I love this one.  We have watched it over and over.  I'm considering doing some kind of stop-motion film of the kids toys just to see if I can.  Of course I've got no time to do it in so there's little chance it will happen but it's a cool idea.

Fire in the fireplace

We moved into this house in Dec of 2003.  Today we have the first fire in the fireplace.  There have been maybe three aborted attempts where the smoke got a little out of hand but I'm not counting those.  We could tell the fireplace, well, it's sort of a wood burning stove thing, has been used often by previous owners but getting it started ourselves was a problem for some reason.
It's major issue is apparently our basement location.  Cold air falls so it has farther to fall and more to displace for a two-story chimney.  I've been told we had to roll up a long 'wand' of newspaper and stick it up the chimney to get the air to 'draw' upwards.  Ummm, holding a burning stick in my hand with my arm up a dirty chimney just hasn't seemed real appealing.
My motivation today?
Well, Jared is cleaning out his office.  WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE!! and he wants me to sit here and shred paper.  My husband has like ten file boxes of old papers and taxes and forms and etc. and we have one of those shredders that says 'no more than 6 sheets' at a time on the side of it.  Yeah, I'm in the mood to burn something.
I rolled up this weeks adds in a long 'wand', lit the end on fire, stuck it up the chimney, relit it, relit it, relit it, relit it, relit it, got out matches because the lighter was getting hot, and lit it again and the smoke clearly began to flow away from me and up the chimney.  SUCCESS!!!  Then I lit a bigger stick and a bigger stick and got the log to start burning.  (I know, seems simple but I never had a fireplace before this one and I already mentioned how often we have used this one.)
Now we have a cheery tax scented blaze going.  Jared shows up with piles to feed the blaze and I keep an eye on the little people to make sure no one 'helps' throw things in, like unwanted siblings.

The e-card version of the Christmas card

December 2011


Dear Family & Friends,

We hope this letter finds you healthy and happy this Christmas season.

Jared has had some changes this year. He went from working with the Scouting Program to being the Sunday School President in our Ward. He has also gone from working full-time for a Chinese herbal supplement company to working and traveling full-time for a company that sells high-end longboards. He still does taxes and finances for quite a few other businesses and individuals and is always looking for a good profitable company where he can put his financial know-how to work. Jared was able to travel to China in November and had a great time.

Amy went from a Nursery calling at church to being an Assistant Bear Den Leader. She is happy to have gotten back to her pre-pregnancy weight again and hopes to keep herself in shape. She enjoyed getting to get to take the whole family to California for a few days this year as most of the kids had never been to the beach. She reads and writes in any spare time she can get and she enjoys keeping up with everyone on facebook. Amy is still supporting Ron Paul and encouraging her friends and family to get informed about their local and federal government no matter who they support.

Krista is 11 this year and in the 6th grade. She is on the Student Council and enjoys being at the top of the elementary school food chain. She is still dancing and is working on her pre-pointe classes in preparation for joining the Utah Valley Civic Ballet Company some time in the next couple of years. Krista loves to read, is doing well at learning to play piano, and enjoys Family Search Indexing and other fun computer activities.

Kylie is 8 and in 2nd grade. Kylie was baptized in November and was excited to have some of Jared’s family travel all the way from New Jersey for this special event. Kylie is also in dance and takes jazz as well as ballet this year. She is learning to cook a few different things and is in her first year of piano lessons. She loves Monster High, Poptropica, and Zoobles, all of which are popular kid things right now. She is great with gadgets and math and may have a chance of filling her Grandpa Bauman’s dream of having an engineer in the family eventually.

April is 4. She has a crazy imagination and keeps her mom on her toes by coming up with “creative” things to do with her time, like cutting her own hair, painting the furniture, and checking to see which household items marker will wipe off of. April loves to dress up and will often change her clothes a couple of times a day. April is taking her second year of dance and loves it. She has learned most of the alphabet and is starting to try to sound out words and spell.

Andrew just turned 3. He loves all things Diego and Dora related and will watch episodes of their shows over and over. He loves to jump and climb and he’ll sing “Bound, bound, bound and rebound!” (a line from a Pixar short film called Boundin’) as he ricochets of the furniture. Being the only boy is still a little rough for Andrew but a new friend moved in next door this year and he and Henry (pronounced Hen-uh-wee by Andrew) have hit it off really well and enjoy fun activities like collecting sticks, eating dirt, and crashing toy cars.

Jessica turned 1 in August. She is tall and skinny like all her siblings. She is walking, loves to climb, and is starting to run. She really likes yogurt and goldfish crackers. She is quite the chatterbox and says a bunch of words, some of her mom’s favorites are bla-blanba (banana), un-un-un (run, run, run), and all of her siblings names; ihta, tahyee, ahpul, ahandew, and detitah which she yells as an echo when Mommy calls the kids.

Our other family member, the comet-tailed goldfish name FySh, is somewhere around 13 years old and doing well for a fish of his extremely advanced years.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Love, The Stone Family

Glade's 25th Birthday

I made the Calvin and Hobbes cake.

Andrew, Krista, Jessica, April, Glade, Kylie

Happy Laundry

I had to share this.
I was washing a batch of towels so I could carry one around (It's Douglas Adams Day) and after the machine finished I opened it up to find an amusing surprise.

Yes, that's a smiley face refrigerator magnet.  No idea how it got in there (well, I've got five kids so some idea...) but it looked so cheerful after taking a ride in the washing machine so I grabbed my camera to share the happiness.

Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart and Jane Austen

I love the editing job on this video.  Great video clips and they sync with the audio really well.  Turn up your speakers and DANCE   :o)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2DYVLNhXdE

This song and the song Dynamite are both fun but I haven't heard the other songs on the CD so I'm not sure if I want to give in and buy it for Krista.

Christmas Card 2010

The final product :o)

Pretty Flowers

Jared brought me these.

No particular reason.

They're pretty.

Isn't that nice.

I don't know what kind they are.

The 170's!

I made it down to the high 170's!

This is excellent.

I am very happy with myself.

Close to 220 in the last few weeks of pregnancy in early August so that's about 40lbs-ish of loss.

It's taken me about six weeks to lose the most recent two pounds so it's slow going now.

I'll get back to 160 probably in the Spring.

I was 150 in high school and in great shape so I'm happy with 160 after five kids and fifteen years since high school.

I owe a lot of my success to a very supportive bunch of ladies I met in an online weight loss support group for Christian moms.  We face a lot of the same challenges with our lives and lifestyles so it's great to have them to talk to and to be able to cheer each other on.

Cute Sweater - Second Generation

I wore this when I was this size.

I have small fuzzy memories of this small fuzzy sweater.

Poem - The Question

This is from The Book of Virtues on Google books:
The Question
Were the whole world good as you –
–not an atom better
Were it just as pure and true,
Just as pure and true as you;
Just as strong in faith and works;
Just as free from crafty quirks;
All extortion, all deceit;
Schemes its neighbors to defeat;
Schemes its neighbors to defraud;
Schemes some culprit to applaud-
would this world be better?
If the whole world followed you––
followed to the letter–
Would it be a nobler world,
All deceit and falsehood hurled
From it altogether;
Malice, selfishness, and lust,
Banished from beneath the crust,
Covering human hearts from view–
Tell me, if the world followed you––
Would this world be better?

      I had a bit of this poem memorized from somewhere "If the world followed you, followed to the letter, tell me, if it followed you, would the world be better?"  I wanted to add it to my facebook page as my current favorite quote.  Not knowing the author, I did a bit of googling and found that it's from a longer poem and no author is listed.  Now I'd love to know who wrote it but in the mean time I just think it's a good poem to live by.

Lemon Upside-down Pie

I had a nice relaxing birthday at home.

The only glitch was that my lemon pie (I like this better than cake ;o) ) suffered a horrible fate on the way home from the store when Jared braked suddenly and the improperly restrained pie fell off the seat and landed upside down in a smooshed mess in the lid of the pie box.

The up-side of this accident was that since the pie was no longer "sliceable" I was unable to measure out a correct portion and had to eat as much as I wanted straight out of the container with a fork. Also, since it wasn't pretty, the kids didn't really think it looked good and I was left with plenty for myself. Happy Birthday to me!

Friday the 13th

When I was little my mom would tell us stories about my grandfather and Friday the 13th. He wouldn't go out or go to work or do things on a Friday the 13th. I think it was sort of a combination Irish thing and being a miner. Both the Irish and men who work in mines for a living tend to be a bit superstitious.

So, in tribute to my grandfather, I wore my four leaf clover today and told my husband it's not a good day to have the baby even though I am beyond ready.

Good luck today :o)

Fingernails

For those of you who know me well you will know what an accomplishment this is. I've been a nail-biter for as long as I can remember and have tried to quit countless times. Here are my fingernails actually grown out right now.

Lindsay (H.) S. was my inspiration this time around. We both have anxiety issues that we deal with in different ways. She once gave me a manicure back in the day and I appreciated so much that she was so nice about it even though my nails were a horror. She's been going through a really bad time right now and I think about her a lot. She's handling things with grace and cheerfulness and I decided I would give myself a firm kick in the behind and do something constructive kinda in her honor.

Mothers Day

Here we are. Andrew on my lap, April in the blue shirt, Kylie in the pink shirt, Krista in the white shirt. We played outside for a while in the afternoon while Jared made dinner for my mom and I and the rest of the family. It was a pretty good day. I got flowers and chocolate and a couple of nice cards.

Making The Bed

It's been proven that starting your day by making your bed will create a small sense of peace.

Try it. Let me know if it works.

What ways do you find/create peace in your life?

I want this blog to be about how to have peace in my life and throughout the world. We can hope for peace and pray for peace, but how do we create some?