So Maya and Eden decided to do some exercising after school yesterday. They found my ipod and picked out some music. I'm not quite sure what prompted them but this is what they looked like.
Now go to my sidebar and pause the music.
This is what Camden thought about his crazy sisters...
It was the first time he really laughed. I'm so glad we captured it on film. Isn't it the cutest sound ever!
This was just too good. I had to blog about it. The assignment was to do a report on a sea animal. Well Eden didn't want to focus on just one animal so this is what she came up with...
"I love sea shells. They are cool. I love 'em."
"Sea weed is a plant that grows in the ocean. It is food for fish and people can eat it too."
"Octopuses have two eyes, three hearts and eight arms. They don't have bones."
"Sharks have lots of teeth. They are very sharp."
"Dolphins are really smart. They can hear better than humans."
The best part was when she was finished she said "I couldn't have done this without you mom. Thanks for your help."
Yes I helped with the research, I didn't know octopuses had three hearts!...but most of the facts she already knew. As we were stapling it together this quote came to my mind. My friend Kerry shared it with me just the day before...
"Motherhood is the ideal opportunity for life-long learning. The mother's learning grows as she nurtures the child in his or her development years. They're both learning and maturing together at a remarkable pace. It's exponential, not linear. Just think of the learning process of a mother throughout the lifetime of her children. Each child brings an added dimension to her learning. For example, in the process of rearing her children, a mother studies such topics as child development, nutrition, health care, physiology, psychology, nursing with medical research and care, educational tutoring in many diverse fields, such as math, science, geography, literature, English and foreign languages. Development of gifts such as music, athletics, dance, public speaking, and... the learning examples could continue endlessly! ....
... A mother's opportunity for life-long learning and teaching is universal, my point is, my dear sisters, don't ever sell yourselves short as a woman, or as a mother. It never ceases to amaze me that the world would state that a woman (mother) is in a form of servitude which does not allow her to develop her gifts and talents. Nothing, absolutely NOTHING, could be further from the truth."
~Taken from a talk by Elder Robert D Hales BYU Education Week 2008
So think about that the next time you do a homework project with your kiddo.
Before you go any further you will need to scroll down to my music player and pause it so you can see/hear this.
A couple of months ago Maya was asked to give a talk at church in front of all the kids 8-11 yrs old. Her topic was "Heavenly Father sent me to my family". She wanted to write her talk all by herself. This is her talk. She is sideways because I filmed her sideways and I can't figure out how to make it right side up. So once you get passed that minor little detail, you will need to brace yourself for some serious preciousness....yes that is a word.
Back in August my brother in law and sister in law decided to buy us a couple of fish, they were named "Li'l Aric" and "Li'l Jess".
We are not pet people, I'm more of a human person vs. animal. But since they were a gift I took care of them as best I could. Within the first week or so Li'l Jess committed suicide. I was cleaning out the fish bowl when she took a giant leap straight into the garbage disposal. I screamed when she did it and called Aric right away to tell him. He wanted me to put my hand in the garbage disposal to see if she was still in there. Yeah Right!
So for the past eight months Li'l Aric has been all alone. He even survived being ignored for nine days while we were in South Carolina. We thought for sure he would have starved to death...but nope.
Last night while I was doing the dishes we had a crazy storm roll in. So I thought I would take a couple of pictures...
This was the sight just outside my kitchen window. That is snow.
Ten minutes later it looked like this. That is sunshine.
Just after I took that picture, I looked down and saw this:
I have to admit it, I screamed like a little girl and called for Aric. But seriously...how does this happen! How many goldfish have you known that have committed suicide? He jumped right out and landed on the counter...so CRAZY!
I had Aric carry the stiff little sucker and put him in the toilet to be flushed out to sea.
You would think that the story ended there...but no. As soon as Li'l Aric hit the toilet water his fins perked up and he started moving.
So we quickly took him out and put him back into his bowl.
He seemed a little slow, which Aric attributed to brain damage from being deprived from the water for so long.
Unfortunately, by this morning, he was a goner.
Aric flushed him this time, even though Eden could see his fins barely moving. It was just the right thing to do. Clearly he would of had a DNR order if he could've.
So we are back to being a no pet family and that's the way it should be. We obviously are not cut out for it, as our only pets have taken their own lives because we are so bad.
Now I just have to convince Eden that it is okay to use that toilet again. She's afraid that he might come swimming back and she might find him in our toilet...while she is on it.
