Muse, spiral binder, foam

Daisy and Abe and Seb all met up to go to the Muse concert together in August! Seb flew in from Denver. It was Daisy's first concert and Abe's first time hearing Muse live. They all loved it! And they even had nice weather for it. Yay!

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This glorious thing is the coil binding machine I just bought. I've had my eye on one for a couple years now and finally got it with some school money. I love it even more than I thought I would! I don't know that I could rank it above my label maker, but…it's close! 

Loooook at all these spiral-bound piano books! Things of beauty!

Teddy has been my intrepid assistant. He's better than I am at cutting and crimping the end of the coil.

For the chorister and organist in our church building. I seriously considered making these for the whole congregation, but since we just switched buildings, we're already committed to the plastic prong folders the other stake put in there. Sad!

(By the way, if you'd like a better word for that kind of folder, try "Duotang" on for size. I learned that lovely Canadianism from my friend Rachael. I asked her if that meant each of the little prongs was one "tang" and she replied "Ew. No.")

Also, do you think "Please do not remove from chapel" works for getting things left in the chapel? IT DOES NOT. The lovely chorister copy I made for our previous building disappeared after only three weeks. For a while I gave everyone the benefit of the doubt and assumed someone just accidentally packed it up with his or her stuff…but after a few weeks I started suspecting everyone of the THEFT. Was it you??? Don't fear my wrath…but fear God's!

Meanwhile I will be binding everything in the house. Don't mind me. (Actually, to be honest, binding this Calvin and Hobbes book may have been a mistake. The book was ruined by The Ruiners of All Things [my children, collectively, though not a single one will take responsibility for it] and I thought I might salvage it with a spiral binding. But the pages were so hard to get off the original spine, and so uneven once I did get them off, and so wrinkled and folded on the other end, that it was nearly impossible to get them into the binding machine evenly for punching. We had to wind the coil on and off about three times because it kept skipping pages. However, it is done now, and the book's miserable life extended for a couple more years, perhaps, so I guess that's good.)

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Clouds. So many good clouds this past little while.

A one-headed, two-armed, four-legged creature

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Two "fox men" (not sure what those are, really)

A good hamburger

Some stuff at Thanksgiving Point (America 250 Celebration)

Oh wow, these two

Ladies on the train

Secret Garden

"Hammocks" Clementine made for these bunnies to sleep in above her bed

Not sure why I took a picture of this, but yum

Keep practicing

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 2015 Conference.

There are so many talks I love in this conference session! I just can't choose! And I also can't do justice to them by just talking about pieces of them. But I guess I will just share a few of the things I highlighted because they hit me in the right spot right now:

The peace Christ gives allows us to view mortality through the precious perspective of eternity and supplies a spiritual settledness that helps us maintain a consistent focus on our heavenly destination. Thus, we can be blessed to hush our fears because His doctrine provides purpose and direction in all aspects of our lives. His ordinances and covenants fortify and comfort in times both good and bad.

—Elder Bednar, "Therefore they hushed their fears"

Each individual carries the divine image, but it is in the matrimonial union of male and female as one that we attain perhaps the most complete meaning of our having been made in the image of God—male and female.

—Elder Christofferson, "Why Marriage, Why Family"

The dance steps of the gospel are the things we do; the music of the gospel is the joyful spiritual feeling that comes from the Holy Ghost.…If you’re not hearing the music of the gospel in your home, please remember these two words: keep practicing. With God’s help, the day will come when the music of the gospel will fill your home with unspeakable joy.

—Elder Wilford W. Andersen, "The Music of the Gospel"

As God encourages us to keep on trying, He expects us to also allow others the space to do the same, at their own pace. 

[This talk also has the story of the missionary who is told by the Lord about his slacker companion, "You know, compared to me, the two of you aren’t all that different.” I have probably had that phrase come to my mind about a hundred times in the years since I first heard this talk…maybe more! I think about it all the time.]

—Elder Renlund, "Latter-day Saints Keep on Trying"

In a world where praise, position, power, accolades, and authority are sought on every side, I honor those wonderful and blessed souls who are truly good and without guile, those who are motivated by a love of God and their neighbors, those great women and men who are “more anxious to serve than to have dominion.”

—Elder Michael T. Ringwood, "Truly Good and Without Guile"

All of these talks are so good and any one of them would be well worth a re-read!

Butterflies

If you want to see something besides butterflies (and cute people, of course) in this post, you're out of luck! We visited the Butterfly Garden for a Field Trip Day and for some reason the butterflies seemed extra receptive to being held, so all the kids wanted pictures with their butterfly friends. And Daisy got to go with us because her school hadn't started yet! Reason enough to take a few pictures, I say.

Et voilà:

Clementine's first day of kindergarten (and a *BONUS DAISY*)

It cannot be, it absolutely cannot be, but it IS. My last child starting school! Oh how I wish I had ten or twelve more coming down the pipeline. (I would be a hundred years old and completely out of my mind by the time they graduated, but never mind that.) But if there must BE a last kindergartner, surely there could be no better one than this bright-eyed, friendly, curious, happy little Clementine! Oh that every teacher in every school could have a class full of girls like her! They would work for free. (Hey…I work for free!) It's so fun (if occasionally a little alarming!) to see what she thinks and what she decides to do about what she thinks!

The words "Don't come in! I'm doing a surprise for you!" are not uncommon ones to come from this little cherub's mouth. (Sometimes the surprises even involve cleaning up instead of…more messes!) She loves to plan out little ideas and carry out little projects and feels very grown-up as she does them! It comes of watching everyone else in the family at their work, I suppose: she likes to have her own work too!

I'm sure she'd be reading by now if I could have gotten my act together enough to teach her. She has picked up so much on her own about letters and sounds, and she writes all kinds of words just by sight-memory and watching Gus. I myself was already a voracious and advanced reader by age 5, thanks to my mom's undivided attention and all my brothers being at school. *Sigh.* I hope there are other compensations for my negligence in not making Clementine into the child prodigy she surely could have been!

She's certainly smart, though, and "sweet and good and clever," as I sing to her at bedtime every night. (You didn't think I'd sing all that rot about Clementine being "lost and gone forever," did you? Of course not. "You are sweet and good and clever, oh my darling Clementine" is much nicer, and truer too!)

Jumper in a jumper!

Gnomie backpack

Hooray for Clementine and hooray for kindergarten and hooray for Clementine in kindergarten! May she be just as bright and happy as this on her first day of college!

* BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS * BONUS *

Speaking of "sweet and good and clever," Daisy had her first day of BYU last week (as the "youngest student ever," as my brother called her, haha. Surely not, but she is only just 17!). It's fun that her first day and Clementine's could overlap like that! It's only happened one other time in our family (with Abe and Teddy), and I suppose it will never happen again! Technically maybe we could also count Gus and Malachi, but Gus started in the Fall of last year and Malachi wasn't really in college till January. And Seb was still in high school when Ziggy started kindergarten. So enjoy this rare occurrence while you have the chance!:

Two new schoolgirls!

I needed a backpack shot, of course. It's a little bigger and heavier than her kindergarten one!

Such good sisters, twelve years apart. Someday that will seem like nothing.

Gus and Clementine sat outside to wave goodbye as Sam and Daisy drove off to their first day of school.

I hope these two don't grow up and go to college anytime soon! (But I know they will! 😩)

Raspberries, rain, and the last of summer

We liked to pick raspberries every year in August, but last year's harvest was so pathetic we weren't sure it would even be worth it this year! Back in the good old days we used to get 25 or 30 pounds of berries with all of us picking. Last year I think it was 3 pounds😩. Still, we gave it a try. The plants weren't in great shape. The owner of the raspberry patch said the late freeze and the summer heat had been hard on them. But we managed about 11 pounds, so that was pretty good. Enough to make several batches of muffins and a bunch of pie!

Starting ballet, and a few other things

Summer came to a close sooner than anyone wanted (actually not true; Junie had read every book in the house and was bored out of her mind and couldn't WAIT to start seminary again, but it was sooner than I wanted!). We had kind of a "soft start" with new ballet classes starting in early August, math classes and seminary in mid-August, and piano lessons (with a new teacher!) at the end of August. I guess it was good because we could get ourselves on schedule bit by bit.

Because the ballet teacher said she would put the classes right next to my big girls' classes, I let Clementine try out ballet this year. She loves it, of course (though she keeps saying "When do I get to do real ballet?"—meaning dance on a stage in a costume) and is so cute hopping around, leaping, and doing pliés with a look of serious concentration on her face.

The Three August Birthdays

Three good children born in August. At LEAST three. Daisy turned 17! Her sisters made her a birthday crown.

We seek before we find

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Morning Session of the April 2015 Conference.

I actually hated the story Elder L. Whitney Clayton told in his conference talk (about a little girl who was the only survivor of a plane crash with her family, and had to walk, injured, in the darkness before anyone could help her. It's just too painful to think about) but I guess it is memorable! And I like the message Elder Clayton drew from it. He talked about the different aspects of her courageous journey and how they are like our own journeys through life.

One part that stood out was this sort of inversion of a common scripture:

Alma’s call for us to desire to believe and to “give place” in our hearts for the Savior’s words reminds us that belief and faith require our personal choice and action. We must “awake and arouse [our] faculties.” We ask before it is given unto us; we seek before we find; we knock before it is opened unto us. We are then given this promise: “For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”

I like that emphasis on the uncertain space before we see miracles or even feel peace. It can feel so long and hard! But that is our space to act. (And God is still there even then. We just don't see clearly.) And we can trust Him that our asking, seeking, and knocking will not be ignored.

Filling our homes with good

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the General Women's Session of the April 2015 Conference. 

I'm not sure why the women's session appears first in the conference archives for April 2015. Usually the Womens/YW sessions are last. But maybe this was the point where they started counting the Women's Session as part of Conference instead of…whatever they used to consider it. And maybe it took place before the week of the other sessions. Anyway, it means I read two women's sessions in a row, and that was fun!

I think my favorite talk from this session was by Sister Bonnie Oscarson (my friend!…at least, her daughter is my friend)…but the quote that stood out to me was from Sister Cheryl A. Esplin.

When filled with the Spirit and with gospel truth, we have the power to withstand the outside forces of the world that surround and push against us. However, if we are not filled spiritually, we don’t have the inner strength to resist the outside pressures and can collapse when forces push against us.

I just like this analogy. It’s like the parable Jesus told about the evil spirits that came in again to the empty house. I like the idea of proactively filling our homes with so much good, rather than just fearfully trying to keep bad things away.

A family sundered!

It was my dear friend Rachael's hour of need! What could I do but go to her? (I do have to admit here that she's had at least two other hours of need during which I was sadly absent. But I am mending my ways!) Rachael's son was getting married and, thanks to Seb's flight benefits, I was in a position to hop on a flight to Edmonton and make myself useful. I brought Goldie (also on the flight benefits this year, as you may recall) to make herself useful as well.

Meanwhile…the rest of the family went to a Nielson Family reunion in Fairview at this place, Hideaway Valley Lodge. I, of course, didn't see it in person, but it looks like a cool place. Sort of four houses joined together by a big sport court/common room in the center. So when they cooked dinner, for example, they were doing it in four different kitchens and then just bringing it all out into the common room to eat. I guess it worked pretty well?

Lake Catherine 2026

It's been a year or two since we've done our favorite summer hike. Four years, in fact, I see upon consulting my records! Goodness, where does the time go? We were in Quebec one of those years. In Oregon one of the others, I believe. Still, hard to believe that last time we went (for Daisy's birthday) she was only turning 13! A baby!

Pioneer Day, &c.

We often go to my mom's ward's Pioneer Day party on July 24th. They've been doing it since before I was born—homemade ice cream and a pioneer parade for the Primary children. I used to love it so much when I was little. But they didn't have it this year, so we had our own very modest pioneer day celebrations. We made homemade root beer, and homemade bread and butter, and our own homemade ice cream. All delicious!