Two down, one to go.

As usual, I'm a little late posting this. I have no excuse other than I had already been on the computer for a while and didn't want to spend anymore time sitting down.

Nathaniel and Jonathan started school last Monday. I think they are both excited to go back. Nathaniel didn't complain as much as I thought he might and Jonathan was excited once he finished waking up. Nathaniel can pop right out of bed but Jonathan is like me and likes to take his time.

It's been a while since I've been through this routine so we were a little behind schedule. But the boys were excited to go and so it was easier to get them to make up some lost time.




Jaaromy walked with them to make sure Nathaniel knew where to take Jonathan when they got there. I didn't include him in the picture though because it's more poignant to see them walking on their own.



I'm excited for them. We had met their teachers the week before and they both seem nice and I think the boys will have a good year.

Jonathan's classroom is on the opposite side of the school from where it was last year so I decided to walk down to make sure Nathaniel knew where to find Jonathan. Unfortunately, I had to take Brigham with me. He was fine until we passed the park. He was not happy that we didn't stop to play. Of course, the park is only a few hundred yards from our house and so it was a long trip to get the the school. I had to carry him part of the way because he would sit down in protest. If I put him down and threatened to walk away, he'd just turn around and start walking towards the park. I finally got him to walk although he was still crying. Luckily, we left in plenty of time so on one of his protests I let him just sit there.



Turns out this was excellent thinking on my part because after that he was more willing to keep going. He was happy to see his brothers and the walk home was nice. Of course we had to stop at the park on the way home. Nathaniel went ahead home but Jonathan came back after he dropped off his backpack. It was a busy day and I was so exhausted when it was over, but I'm so excited for them to be back in school.

Just one more week and Brigham will be back in school too!

Ignorance is bliss slavery

I love to read about politics and current events. No surprise there to those who know me. Lately, I've been feeling anxious that I seem to be the only one in my family(minus Kevin and Shaela, perhaps) that sees what's going on. We are in the Last Days and Satan is building up his kingdom. We all know this was going to happen, but did we consider what that might look like? I think too many of us seem to have a watered down picture of Satan in our minds. Yes, he's out there trying to get kids to do drugs and good Mormons to not do their Home and Visiting Teaching. He's also trying to destroy the family and I think most people are aware of that. We know he is trying to take away our Agency by tricking us into destructive habits. But have we considered that he is trying to take away our Agency externally as well? Satan's plan was to force us to be good so that we will all be saved collectively. We know this is a lie because you can't get something for nothing. We can't gain Exaltation without putting in the work ourselves.

In D&C 101:77-80 it says:
77 According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the brights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;
78 That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.
79 Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another.
80 And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose, and redeemed the land by the shedding of blood.

Heavenly Father wants us to be free to exercise our Agency. With His inspiration our Founding Fathers gave us the Constitution which, in turn, gave us the freest society in the history of the world. This was the only environment that His Gospel could be restored and also flourish in. This Constitution not only gave us the Restored Gospel but also unprecedented economic and technological advancement. The Founding Fathers lived and worked similar to every society over the last 5000 years, but in just two hundred short years look how far we've come. All because of freedom.

One major reason why this works is that the Declaration of Independence makes it clear that we get our rights from God.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
The Founders actually wanted it to say "Life, Liberty, and Property" but they were worried that some people would use that as an excuse to continue slavery. The government exists merely to protect these God-given rights. Too many of our government leaders act as if they are the ones who grant us our rights. Like the newly created "right" to Health Care. You can not have a right to someone else's labor. Otherwise that would make them a slave to you. The other problem with government-granted rights is that what the government gives, the government can take away.

The whole reason I started this post was because of this video. I think it perfectly illustrates how far we have fallen.


If people don't pay attention to what is going on around them, they will be taken advantage of. Power corrupts and if not kept in check it will, by it's very nature, take our freedoms away.

"If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.... If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed." -Thomas Jefferson

Thanks for reading my long post. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm very anxious about where our country is going and I feel like I'm the only one who is noticing.

What the...?

So I was looking at our garden and was pleasantly surprised to find this:



I'm pretty sure these aren't weeds. They are not like the other weeds in the garden and they are in the center of the mound spaced roughly 3 inches apart. I think maybe, just maybe, they're for real!

Brigham's Birthday

It's been over a week now and I'm finally getting around to posting about Brigham's birthday. Honestly, I wanted to post about it the next day but I was behind and had to catch up first. It was such a fun day I couldn't wait to post about it.

Well, I suppose it started Saturday. Jaaromy was getting frustrated with his phone. It's almost two years old now and was starting to show it's age. Mine was too, but I'm not as technologically picky as he is. So we called around to see if any of the AT&T or Apple stores had any in stock. They did not, but the Apple store said we could be put on a waiting list and they would e-mail us when they got another shipment. We were expecting another week of waiting but on Brigham's birthday Monday morning I got the e-mail. I wasn't sure what we were going to do. We really wanted to get the new phones but we didn't want to take anything away from Brigham's birthday so we came up with a plan. Jaaromy bought his present while he was at work and as soon as he got home we would go downtown to the planetarium and then walk over to the Apple store and then eat dinner at the food court and then go home and have brownies and open presents. It was the perfect plan.

And do you know what? It was! What a fun day we had. The kids always love to go to the Planetarium and since we didn't see a show they were able to just have fun and look around. I was most worried about going to the Apple store. We decided that if the kids got anxious I would take them outside to see the fountain. As it turns out, there was no need. There were a lot of people and Jaaromy had to wait in line for quite a while, but if any of you have ever been to an Apple store, it's like a toy store! They had iPhone 4's out for people to try out, laptops, and the funnest of all, iPad's! The boys and I started out looking at one, then the person next to us left so we had two, then the person next to us left again and we had an iPad for each of the kids to play with. Nathaniel was reading Beezus and Ramona on his, Jonathan was playing with, perhaps, the coolest Planet app in the history of the world, and Brigham played with the Magic Piano app. It was so fun! On a completely unrelated note, I know what I want for my birthday!

Dinner at the food court worked out great because we could each choose what we wanted for dinner. Then we went home for brownies and presents.


Brigham is finally starting to get the idea of blowing out candles. He still needed help but at least he's trying. After we sang to him he clapped his hands and said "Yay". It was so cute!


For presents, we picked up a planet video while we were at the Planetarium and Jaaromy also got him a bubble gun and a Bubble Storm.


They're both fun, but the Bubble Storm proved to be the most awesome present. It was pretty late by now but we still took it outside to try it out.


You pull on the trigger to wind it up and when you let go the helicopter flies into the air leaving a trail of bubbles behind.


Brigham LOVED it!

It really was the best day ever!

Temple Trip

Since we weren't eating at anybody's house on Sunday(two Sunday's ago now) we decided to go see one of the many beautiful temples in our valley. We had visited the Oquirrh Mountain Temple recently and so we decided to go see the Draper Temple. Last time we saw it it was still under construction. It is in a beautiful area, and I can see why people might pay more money for that view, it is spectacular. Especially at that time of day.
It doesn't really have a path to walk around like the OMT but it does have a nice sitting area. So I decided to take a couple of pictures with my phone.




We're still working with Nathaniel on how to achieve a natural smile.



I even had Nathaniel take a picture of me and Jaaromy.

I think he did a pretty good job.

We had a fun time. While we were there, a valve in the sprinkler box had broken and was flooding onto the street and into the lower parking lot. So the kids and I took off our shoes and waded in it. Brigham didn't want to get his feet wet so he walked on the curb while I held his hand and waded in the water. I was a nice temple trip.