Worth the Wait

It’s a daunting task to get a family picture taken with 8.  So daunting, in fact, that I’ve been putting it off for a very long time.  The last family picture we had taken was 2 1/2 years ago.  Sadie was about 9 months old.  I didn’t like it so it’s still sitting in the big envelope it came in.  The family picture that is displayed in our living room was taken 5 years ago when Soren was 5 months old.  When I told Sadie we were having a new family picture taken, she started to protest until I showed her our family picture on the wall.  I pointed out that she is not in it.  She quickly changed her tune and started telling the kids that we were having our picture taken so she could be part of our family.

I can confidently say these are the best family pictures we’ve ever had taken.  I am so happy with how they turned out, including all the individual ones of the kids and Jeff and me.  My friend, Lynne, took the pictures and did an amazing job.  She’ll tell you she does it as a hobby, but her work is completely professional.  I think it helped that the kids, especially the younger ones, know her and weren’t afraid of her.

We’re good for another 5 years.

The View From My Front Porch

First I heard a pop.  I looked out the window to see a truck across the street that had hopped the curb and was out of control.  Then a crash.  Stepping onto my porch, this is what I saw:

I ran in to call 911 and found my phone wasn’t working.  Trying to figure out what was wrong, I quickly realized that the power was out.  For us, that also means no phone.  I grabbed my cell phone only to find the battery was dead.  I plugged it into the charger only to remember the power was out!  All of this happened in a matter of seconds, but already neighbors were gathering around and I saw others on their phones.  Before long, the emergency vehicles started arriving:

Pretty soon there were also several police cars, an ambulance, and eventually 5 trucks from the Electric Company.  With an officer directing traffic (the street was down to one lane for about 3 hours), the utility workers started removing the severed pole. (Yes, severed.  If you go back to the first picture, the pole has been completely knocked off its base.  The rest is under the vehicle but was still sticking out of the ground far enough that I think that’s why his front wheels aren’t touching the ground.)

With the pole out of the way, they were able to remove the vehicle.

In between the utility workers, you can see the stump that was under the vehicle.  It’s amazing how deep in the ground those posts are.  The part sticking up is only about 1/4 the length of what was underground.  Once they got that out, they drilled out the hole and inserted the new pole.  (By this time, I was in the house trying to find something for dinner so no photos… sorry!)  We were without electricity for 3 1/2 hours and the utility workers worked for another 30 minutes beyond that finishing and cleaning up.

So what happened?  Well, my guess was that a tire blew and caused the vehicle to go out of control.  But in talking to a neighbor, she said that the driver thought he must have dozed off.  So what I thought was a tire blowing was probably the truck hitting the curb in the first place.  The amazing thing is that the driver walked away.

This is the driver with his wife.  She showed up about an hour and a half after this whole ordeal began.  Their embrace when she arrived was very sweet.

Since my kids thought they were going to die of boredom with no electricity, at least we had a good view from the front porch!

Pillow Cookies

Whenever Jeff makes his homemade buttermilk pancakes with buttermilk syrup, there is always buttermilk leftover. These super soft cookies are just the thing to use it up. Don’t be afraid to make a double batch because they disappear quick!

PILLOW COOKIES (Buttermilk Cookies)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2-1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

FROSTING:
3 Tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
3-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts, optional

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; add to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk and mix well. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 375º for 10-12 minutes (I usually only bake mine for about 9 or so) or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks or aluminum foil to cool. For frosting, combine butter, sugar, milk and vanilla in a bowl. Beat until smooth. Frost cookies; sprinkle with walnuts if desired (I like to use sprinkles or colored sugar on top). Makes about 3 dozen. (Note: I can frost all the cookies with 1/2 batch of the frosting.)

From Quick Cooking Magazine.

Say What? #3

Today during Sacrament meeting, Jeff and Sadie had the following conversation:

Sadie:  “I love Jesus.”

Jeff:  “I love Him, too.  He’s my friend.”

Sadie:  “My friend is Santa Claus.”

Well Said #2

“I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.”

-Dr. Haim Ginott

Now, just replace the word classroom with HOME and the word teacher with MOTHER. Food for thought. It’s been true for me.

Say What? #2

One day Sadie and I were reading books on my bed. She reached over and dropped something on my shirt. Fearing the worst, I asked her what it was.

“A Booger.”

Fears confirmed, I said, “Eeew! Don’t drop boogers on Mommy!”

So she got up and laid on top of me and said, “Mom, I’m a booger!”

Cute little booger!

The Birthday Girl

Savannah on her first birthday. She’s loved birthday’s ever since!

I can’t believe our Sanna-girl is 11 years old today. She has been looking forward to her birthday for months and it’s all we’ve heard about for weeks. All 6 kids were in our room bright and early for family scriptures this morning – 6:15 to be exact – so Savannah would still have time to open all of her presents before school. She had a nearly perfect day but was mourning bedtime because, “Now I have to wait a whole YEAR for my birthday!”

There are so many reasons we love Savannah. She plays the piano beautifully, she loves to sing, she is totally crazy and silly and weird, she bursts out laughing at the mere mention of the word underwear, she is a great friend and model student, she loves to eat raw bread dough as well as frozen peas and frozen tater tots (still frozen), she makes great mac & cheese as well as yummy fudgy chocolate cookies, she is thoughtful and sensitive, she loves dangly earrings and fingernail polish… I could go on and on. One thing that makes me laugh is that she is a totally picky eater. You can tell her something is the best thing you’ve ever eaten and she would rather sit at the table until the cows come home than take one bite. Okay, that part isn’t funny. However, if you tell her something is disgusting, she suddenly wants to try it. Seriously. Tonight Jeff drank something that wasn’t very good. He said, “Eeew, this tastes like medicine.” Savannah piped right up with, “I want a taste!” Another time I smelled something that was rotten and gross. I was coughing and spluttering from the rancid smell when Savannah says, “Let me smell!” I know, it makes no sense.

We love you, Savannah, and are glad you had a great birthday!

It’s always a good time when you’re with Savannah!

Finding Faith in the Fog

I attended another meeting of our County memoir writing group last month.  While you can’t really call what I came up with a memoir, it is an experience I’ve thought of many times over the years but had never written down until now.  Here it is:

I was probably about 21, give or take, and living at home. An extra car was needed at home on this particular day so Dad agreed to take the bus to work. But the bus stop was at the Mall which was 2 or 3 miles away and so Dad, always the early riser, woke me before sunup to drive him to the bus. Even though I was quite familiar with the road, I was barely creeping along because it was an extremely foggy morning. It was still dark out and the headlights only reflected off the fog in front of me making it even harder to see. When I finally turned onto State Street, I found myself peering over the steering wheel straight down at the lines on the road so that I knew I was staying in my lane. We crept along like this for a while before Dad offered his advice.

“Look up,” he said. 

“What?” I wasn’t going to look up or I wouldn’t be able to see anything. 

“Look up,” he calmly replied. Then he added, “If you look up, you can see the street lights. They are bright enough that you can see much farther ahead. 

Cautiously, I looked up. Sure enough, I could see 3 street lights straight ahead, pointing the way to go. It was amazing how free I became to speed up and drive with more confidence. Soon we came to the traffic light signaling that we had reached the mall. There were a lot of lights now, scattered around the parking lot, and I easily found the bus stop and waited with Dad until the bus came. 

By the time I left, the fog had lifted enough that the drive home wasn’t nearly as scary, but I would have been okay anyway since I’d learned to look for the lights. 

Many times in the years since my foggy drive to the bus stop, I’ve thought of this experience and reflected on the analogy. We are creeping through life, sometimes frightened of where the next step will take us or unsure of what is around a curve in our journey. We continue on like this, getting by — until we are encouraged to look up. It is frightening to take our eyes off the road. What if we crash? What if we lose our way? But we do it. We look up. And we see the light. We see His light and realize that there is a better way. We don’t have to creep along unknowing any longer. We follow His light and find freedom we have never known. Suddenly our perspective has changed and we understand things we didn’t understand before. We are aware of possibilities we never knew existed until now. And all because we trusted Him enough to look up and follow His light.