General Conference

When we decided to finish the basement this year, we set the goal of being able to watch October general conference in the basement.  And we did!

And it was pretty awesome.  We had two great days of snuggling up, 

listening,

and writing,

and coloring,  

 and of course, puzzling, 

 while we enjoyed conference in the new area of our house.  And it was a historic one!  12 new temples announced (one more reason to take the whole family to Puerto Rico!), a call to keep the name of Jesus Christ at the center of the name of our church (after all, it is called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), the shortening of Sunday church meetings from three hours to two, with an emphasis on the importance of gospel learning in the home, and a challenge to read The Book of Mormon before the end of the year, which Leah and I started right away!

As always, it was over much too soon, but I know that the spirit of general conference will stay in our home for a long time!

Not A Box

The kids have been having loads of fun in a washing machine box (pun intended) after I shamelessly snagged it from an appliance delivery man a few weeks ago.  It's finally past it's prime, and when I broke it down tonight I found this inside- a picture of each member of our family, and what looks like a wagon and a floating head.  

I'm not entirely sure who drew these pictures (I'm guessing it was Emma), but I do know that an old lesson learned has proven true once again.  There is nothing as fun and full of possibilities as a great big, empty box.  It's been a costume, a blank art canvas, a house, a dungeon, a castle, an animal shelter, and a secret hideout over the last few weeks.  And I've been reminded once again how less is more when it comes to fostering creativity in children. 

And not entirely unrelated, we were talking around the dinner table last week about how I had been selling unneeded items from our home and building up a small cash pile as a result.  Someone asked why I am always getting rid of stuff, to which I answered, as I always do, "because I like throwing things away, and I like getting rid of things we don't need or use because then I don't have to take care of or clean them."

And Jason said, "Mommy loves getting rid of stuff.  If there were 100 people in a room, Mommy would be better at getting rid of stuff than 98 of those people."  And did I take that as a compliment?  

Yes I did!

That's not to say that I don't enjoy having things- we aren't so minimalist that our kids don't have any toys or that we don't buy needful things when, well, needed.  But I have learned a lot about my feelings toward stuff over the years, and I've learned that it makes me happy and less anxious about my job as a homekeeper to keep the amount of stuff that is around to a reasonable minimum.  

And that's one more reason that cardboard boxes are the best!

Another Good Kid

Lest we all think Mommy is the only one with stories from childhood to share around here, Daddy has been telling lots of stories from lessons he learned as a "good kid who sometimes made bad choices".  Here are two, told in his words-

When I was in middle school, after lunch every day all of the students were sent outside.  We didn't have a playground and it wasn't recces, exactly, but everyone had to go outside to get some fresh air and exercise for about 20 minutes.  There was a big field and some tennis courts and some places to play, but mostly we just wandered around with nothing to do.

And when boys have nothing to do they start to look for trouble.

My friends and I decided that, since all of the teachers wanted us to stay out of the school, it would be a great idea to try to sneak into the school without getting caught. 

Who tries to sneak into the school?? 

Preteen boys with nothing better to do.

So a big group of us figured out which doors were unlocked, and we would sneak into the building, one at a time, and we would run as fast as we could down the halls and the teachers would see us and yell, "You kids get outta here!" but they never caught us.

Eventually they got smart and started locking all of the school doors, but we were even more clever because we took a tiny little pebble and stuck it in the door frame so that the door looked like it was closed but it really wasn't.

Then we could sneak into the school again!

So about nine of us slipped into the school, and we ran and ran and ran down the halls, and we passed the teachers and they yelled at us but they never caught us!  Our goal was always to get past the cafeteria, up the stairs, down the hall and to the far end of the school without getting caught.  And one time we made it!

But another time we barely made it into the school before one of the teachers saw us.  So we all turned around and ran out of the school and hid behind some bushes.  We all made it except Jesse.  He was caught.

"You're coming with me," said the grumpy vice principal who had had many of his 20 minutes of after-lunch silence ruined by the naughty boys that kept running through the halls.

"It wasn't just me!" Jesse protested.  "What about Jason? And Ryan and Jack and Jeremy?  They're all hiding behind those bushes right over there!"

I couldn't believe it.  He ratted us out!

And the vice principal looked right at us.  He squinted at the bushes and I thought for sure he saw us all crouched down, but he just turned away and said, "I don't believe you.  Let's go." 

And we were all safe! 

Once I realized that we really could have gotten into big trouble, it didn't seem like much fun to sneak into the school.  So we didn't sneak into the school anymore, and Jesse wasn't very happy with us because he did get in trouble even when the rest of us didn't.

(I'm sure there is a really great story that goes with this picture.  It's the only one I could find of middle school-ish aged Jason.) 

*****

When I was in middle school, I didn't try very hard to do good in my classes.  I didn't struggle to learn at all, so I didn't have to work very hard to get good grades.  But I also didn't care very much about homework, or studying for tests, or trying very hard at all.  Sometimes I turned in my homework, sometimes I didn't, and I didn't think it really mattered.

One day I got the mail out of the mailbox and I saw a letter from the school with my name on it.  It was my progress report.  Back in those days there wasn't as much communication between the school and home as there is now.  There wasn't any email or Blackboard or Google Classroom or Dropbox, or all of the other ways that teachers and parents and students communicate now.  If there was something that needed to be said, there was a phone call, a note sent home from the teacher, or a letter in the mail.  Progress reports always came home in the mail.

I wondered how I was doing in my classes, so I opened up my progress report and saw a bunch of A's and B's and one great big D in math class. 

D!!!  I did not know I was doing that bad!

But I did know that my parents would not be happy if they saw that D, so I folded up the progress report, and I put it in my pocket, and then I went into my bedroom and stuck it in my desk and covered it up with a bunch of baseball cards and books. 

And I didn't mention it to anyone.

My sisters' progress reports all came home soon, and my parents asked me if I had seen mine, and I said, "Nope!"

And a few more days went by and they asked again and I said, "Nope!"

And a few more days went by and they sat me down and said, "Jason, we know your progress report has been delivered to our house and we know you have it.  Why don't you want to show it to us?"

And I explained that I got a bad grade and I didn't know why.  But I got the progress report out of my bedroom and we looked at it together and even went to the school to talk to my math teacher, Mrs. DeNadio.  She was a mean lady with big frizzy hair and a lot of makeup, kind of like Cruella DeVille.  She said that I hadn't been doing my classwork or my homework, which was mostly true, but I knew that there were some assignments that I had turned in that she hadn't given me credit for.  So we looked in my desk and in her basket and updated all of the assignments that I done, and by the end of the year my grade was up to a B.

After that I started trying harder in my classes, and I learned that I couldn't make my mistakes disappear by trying to hide them.  I also learned that my parents loved me, and that they would support me while I tried to fix my mistakes.  And I never got a D in a class again!

Fun at School

I found this the other day, leftover from kindergarten.

 Only the first page was filled in.  Clearly we were done with school by this point.

 But this year is off to a great start!

 This week was the Jag Jog- a fundraiser run around the school neighborhood that takes all of the kids right past our house.  

  Judging by these smiles I'd guess they were having a pretty good time!

Provider

Without hard work, 

nothing grows but weeds. 

There must be labor, 

incessant and constant

if there is to be a harvest.

-Gordon B. Hinckley

Jason's in the middle of one of the busiest and most rewarding and frustrating times of the year- harvest.  He doesn't get nearly enough face time on the blog, nor enough gratitude for the incessant effort he puts in to providing for our family.

I realized years ago that the division of labor in our marriage looks a lot like the scales of justice.  Over the years we have divided the overall (and overwhelming) work that it takes to make our family function, and we each have our own separate and distinct list of responsibilities to carry out.  Same team, different jobs, all essential.

On my side of the scale I balance approximately 3,452 pebbles.  Some of them bigger than others, but many of them so tiny that they mostly go unnoticed, unless they are removed (think laundry, vacuuming behind the doors, doctor and dentist appointments, writing lunchbox love notes, replenishing the food supply week after week after week). 

And on Jason's side sits one huge boulder- PROVIDE.  

Day after day, night after night, season after season.  

He works so hard.  He loves his job, but more importantly he loves his family.

Having a career that he loves is an immeasurable blessing to our family.  Early 20's Jason and Melanie never could have dreamed that a corn breeder/geneticist career even existed, let alone understood how critical it is to have a job that you love.

 Even when he doesn't really like it, he loves what he does.

And even though we don't see much of the work that he puts into fulfilling his duty as the provider for our family, we know that he does it because he loves us!  And we love him for it, too.

Lunch Date

Our days are generally very full, but we have found little pockets of time when there are only one or two or three kids at home.  Leah and Noah are my morning buddies, with a full twenty minutes after Adam and Emma head to school that it's just the three of us at home.

After preschool, Noah and I enjoy a quiet lunch, playtime and a good nap every day.

In the afternoon, Adam and Emma come home a full hour before Leah does.  

And once in a while, I get to take one or two or three of them out of school for an appointment, which is occasionally followed up by a lunch date.  And apparently a siblings selfie.

Pit Stop

Murals have been popping up all over Iowa lately, or at least we've started really noticing them!  

 The kids and I had a few extra minutes last Sunday, so we posed in front of a whole bunch of them in a cute little town about an hour away.  This farm scene is exactly what Iowa looks like.  That could be a photograph.

 Just chillin' with the locals.

 Hi neighbors!  And petting the pup.

 Taking a drink.

 This is just a cinder block wall.  2D and realistic enough to catch some water and scale a window.

 I was there too!

And while Jason and I were on a date in Des Moines- rubbing a bottle and hoping for a genie...

 which did not work.  We got a parking ticket instead of any wishes to be granted.

But we still had fun on our mid-afternoon date of sampling oils and vinegars, 

 and having a rare and much needed uninterrupted conversation over lunch.  

 And I spotted a few more murals that we'll need to visit some day.  I think that keeping an eye out for wall murals is going to be our family's new thing!