Life is beautiful

Life is beautiful.
Even when it's not.
Life is beautiful.
Even when kids fight, laundry piles up and the garage door breaks to the tune of a $235 repair.
Life is beautiful.
Even when renters don't pay, bills exceed paychecks, people get sick and the scale stays stuck on that last 10 pounds.
Life is beautiful.
Even when car batteries die, kitchen ceilings leak and people lose their jobs.
Life is beautiful.
Even when friends move away, or worse, when friends die of cancer.
Life is beautiful.
Especially when babies are born, children laugh, dress up for Halloween or sing silly songs.
Life is beautiful.
Especially when leaves change colors, flowers bloom, and the sun shines bright.
Life is beautiful.
Especially when elections are over, when justice is done and teacher conferences bring good reports.
Life is beautiful.
Especially when hot chocolate is the drink of choice and Mother Nature gives an extra hour of sleep.
Life is beautiful.
Even when there's not time to blog about it.
Life is beautiful.

Bruises anyone?

Is it any wonder the girls woke up complaining of bruises and headaches. And they wonder why I don't love to share a bed with them when we stay at a hotel. Hmmm...go figure.

Fall Foilage

In honor of Cannon coming home from school today and stating, "Mom, look at the beautiful foilage," (a challenge from his teacher to use the new word) I'm posting our attempts at some Fall pictures.

No need for cable.

When we canceled our dish satellite last year, I was only sad about two things.

I was not sad to be saving X amount of money each month.

I was not sad that my kids couldn't spend hour upon hour in front of the Disney Channel.
(Consequently, that meant no more Zack and Cody...hallelujah...happy to say goodbye to those whiny, obnoxious boys!)

I was not sad that we wouldn't argue over what to do with our time now that we couldn't watch tv.

Nope - -none of those things broke my heart.  
(Yes, tears were shed around this house but you can bet they didn't come from my eyes.)

The only two things that made me sad were that we couldn't watch HGTV or BYU-TV anymore.

(Perhaps I shouldn't admit this...but I don't even watch BYU-TV on any sort of regular basis. Granted, I probably should as I am sure it has great programming. I just don't watch much of anything anymore it seems.)

I was sad for the two times each year when General Conference is broadcast from Salt Lake City. Two times a year when I try to park myself in front of the tv for 8 hours over the course of the weekend, gaining insight and inspiration from Church leaders. I was sad that I wouldn't be able to TI-VO conference to watch and re-watch later. That is the sole reason I held out canceling our cable for so long. (I did miss it again when the CAVS were in the play-offs and the broadcasts were not on regular tv channels, however. I don't anticipate having that problem this year.)

With today's technology, however, it is no longer a problem. No longer do all 7 of us have to crowd around the computer in the office trying to listen and watch. No longer do we have to get dressed up and head over to the church to watch the broadcast from the chapel. No longer do we have to invade Greg's parent's house and mooch off their cable. (Although, we might still choose to do that.)(How blessed we are to be able to watch and listen and learn from the comforts of our own home.)

Greg hooked us up. Quite literally. He connected his laptop to the tv in the family room. Then he hooked up his portable speakers and we were good to go. Given that the feed stalled a few (dozen) times, it quickly became Cannon's job to be our IT guy...hitting the live feed button when necessary and quickly restarting the webpage when things froze up completely. But hey - -it kept Cannon from falling asleep.

Sure, it wasn't a perfect system. But it worked. And it worked rather well.

Well enough that we have no need for cable.

A faster internet connection? Well, that is a wish for another day.

Poor kids...they inherited their mother's face

Today was a beautiful day for soccer. Given that we had 4 games...that was a good thing. You'll notice that Addysen is not in these pictures. That is because her game was scheduled for another city and we weren't able to be in all places at once. Wouldn't you know..it was her team's first win this season.

In case it's not obvious from these pictures, the kids played tough. That's always good. The unfortunate thing for them is that they have inherited my "exercise face." You know, that lovely, red/purple/bluish blotchy looking thing that happens to some of us with any sort of exertion or effort?

How unfortunate. I still remember when I played soccer and some well-meaning (?) parent came up to me and said, "Are you ok?" Given my puzzled look, she replied, "You don't look ok. I didn't know 8-year-olds could have heart-attacks." (Powerful comment...given that I have remembered it all these years...Although, now that I think about it...does your face really reflect it when you are having a heart attack? Probably not so much.)

Well - thank you very much. Lucky for me...and for my kids...it just means we give it our all and go all out no matter what we are doing or what we are playing.

At least it looks like that...even when we don't.

Should this really take 45 minutes?

Look closely and see if you can figure out what is wrong with these pictures. Oh, what's that? It's obvious the dishes are dirty? Good observation. Now would be the ideal time to tell you that this is how I found the CLEAN dishes after Brynnley had dish duty.

Pay particular attention to the sippy cup in exhibit #1...Yes, you are viewing that correctly...the lid is still on. I guess she thinks that the soap lemonade (see exhibit #2) is perfectly acceptable.As for the chocolate in the plastic container...well, let's just say, "not quite cutting it."

As if having to inspect each and every dish isn't time consuming enough...interruptions such as, "Mom! I can't find my other shoe," and "Mom! I need a snack," and "MOM! Did you fill out my field trip permission form?" only add to the process. Oh, and did I mention the delays of getting breakfast for Cambrie, straightening someone's (or many someone's) hair, finding yet another shoe, checking the computer to see about the weather, checking the calendar to see what the day holds, mixed in with yet another, "MOM! My bus is coming!"

Who says that multi-tasking is a good thing?

*********
PS - As I attempted to post this, a certain someone who shall remain nameless is reading over my shoulder, critiquing my grammar and my writing. No wonder this is taking 5 times longer than it should.

7 children and the Indians

I got all sorts of crazy looks when I walked into the game with 7 children. Good thing we were meeting Greg and Ted there.

Shin Soo Choo -- Cannon's favorite player.

Although we didn't feel overly appreciated at the Indian's Fan Appreciation night, we managed to have a good time at the game. And hey -- they won -- always a nice bonus.