What Can I Say!

I just love dogwoods. I would love it even more if I could grow them here in Utah.

The Bear's Blanket for When He Goes into His Cave.

Never follow a bear into his cave.

Henry is thinking about all the cousins who went to Crappaw's brithday.



Penny, Jacob, and Samantha came.


Spencer wanted to blow a kiss to his Auntie Sarah and Uncle Jason. Sorry I couldn't get him to blow more kisses. I guess this one will have to do.


Calvin was there but he only wanted to talk about Pokie Man.



Tom and Liane are very excited about Tom's 30th birthday present! She will be coming sometime early in October.


Isabella finally decided to smile and say Hi! Sarah and Jason.


Erin was very happy to finally have her brithday.


Benjamin didn't want his picture taken. He tried to hide but I found him.

Love What You Do

Henry B. Eyring quoting his father Henry Eyring

“You ought to find something that you love so much that when you don’t have to think about anything, that’s what you think about.”

I always thought I was just being OCD when it came to thinking about how and why children learn and teaching them in school. I guess I should embrace my OCDness and quit worrying about it.

Henry's BIG OWIE!

Henry fell off the back steps and got an owie on his elbow. Poor Henry! He needs kisses from his Auntie Sarah and Uncle Jason.

I guess they can't come so... Henry is sending them two BIG kisses.


Eat your heart out Auntie Sarah!

How do You Get Henry to Eat His Dinner?

Henry says, "MA, I dare you to make me eat my chicken!"



Mommy says, "NO eating your chicken, NO 'emmies'!"

Henry thinks about the "emmies." He wants the "emmies!"


Henry takes a bite of chicken.


Henry gets the "emmie."


Henry eats the "emmie." Poor mommy has to start all over again with the next piece of chicken.

Our True Identity

This video is very much worth watching.

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

WOW! What a day! Today I had my students make kites. I should have taken my camera to school today but I didn't think about that this morning as I ran out the door. I had the students take a paper plate with a football shaped hole cut out of the center. I also had a paper punch size hole on each side of the plate. I had the children color their plate with crayons, colored pencils, and markers. Last night after school I had cut 1 inch streamers from red, yellow, blue, and green crepe paper. I had the children glue these on the bottom middle of their plate. The final step was to tie a string onto both side of the kite. When everyone was finished we went out side and ran around on the front lawn of the school. Talk about happy children. They ran and squealed to their heart’s continent. Nobody was complaining. Nobody was fighting. And best of all it took all of the class time!

Personal Space

This is going to be a work in progress. This year I've had the luxury of having a district P.E. Specialist come in and work with my morning Kindergarten class once a week. She has been so helpful showing me several activities I can use with my afternoon class. One of the most difficult activities is personal space. I would like to find activities that teach children how to stay out of their classmate’s space. Physical contact is a big thing in Kindergarten. Every day I'm barraged with tattling about somebody touching, hitting, kicking, or breathing on them.

Before I begin any game I explain to the children that the first one to finish or the last one standing may not be a winner. To be a winner my rule is one, you must play the game. Two you must have a good time. And three you have to learn something. The person who finishes first or is the last one standing could be a looser. And the person who is last to finish or the first person tagged out could be a winner. In fact the entire could be a winner or a looser depending on who follows my rules.

One activity is to have the children walk, skip, or hop around the room, while music is playing, without touching anybody. If they touch anybody they are out and have to sit on the sideline. When the music stops everybody left on the playing floor must stop and stand still until the music starts again.

One problem that I have found is that there aren't many sites to teach personal space for P.E.

John Dear

My son John and his family came over to help install molding around the baseboards and windows. After twenty plus years and all the little chicks having flown the nest. I finally found enough of different "John Deer" fleece fabric to make blankets for Deedle Deedle My Son John's children. Spencer just about thought he had died and gone to heaven when he saw in blue blanket. Blue is his favorite color. The other children were excited but actually think Spencer's hands might have been shaking when he picked his blanket up.

Celtic Cross

One of my uncles made this comment about this particular Celtic Cross. I found it rather interesting. I quite by accident added the red cross at the last minute.

Crosses in Celtic stone stelae, etc., have often been mistaken for Catholic Church introduction. But they predate the arrival of Catholic missionaries to Britain. They are better understood in terms of the Book of Kells, and the Sons of Horus in Egypt (and in the Book of Abraham), and in Indian (Hindu) mandalas, and Navajo "Whirling Log" sand (dry) paintings. They represent Earth, Air, Fire and Water, East, West, North, and South, breathing, circulation of the blood, intellect, and digestion, i.e., balance: the four gods of the four corners of the Earth, the matter from which the bodies of Adam and Eve were formed. The name of Adam means that he was "many", a composite, made of earth, air, fire and water, or of dust from the four quarters of the Earth. When a Navajo prepares her/himself for her/his Navajo version of the Endowment, s/he must travel on foot or by horseback with a hataathi (singer, cantor, if you will)) to each of the four sacred mountains bounding Navajo territory, and the hataathli takes a bit of soil from each mountain, and puts each in its little buckskin bag. Then in the ceremony, the singer puts all four bags into a larger bag, and pronounces the initiate to be "First Man". The four mountains are far apart, in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona... and in the case of some western Navajos, Navajo Mountain in Utah.

Note that the curved blue lines around the red "cross" connect to "below" and "above" points, whereas the east and west do not complete heart-shaped figures with points. That is because at the time of an Endowment ceremony, the righteous on Earth below make contact with the Holy Ones in Heaven above. The same idea appears in the Star of David.

I Need to Get Up on the Soap Box and Speak My Mind!

http://www.standard.net/topics/opinion/2010/03/26/obama-reid-pelosi-deserve-our-thanks

One of my brothers posted a link to the above article about civility in politics. You would have thought he just asked the family to join up with a jihad. It's not that I don't appreciate debate or the expression of opposing ideas. I’m offended by the pompous and degrading direction some of these debates have gone. I’m ready to say the entire group of debaters, “Get down off your rameumptom!” I feel like I’m being treated like some ignorant lower form of life.

There are several other members in my family who have stopped reading these debates because of the partisanship that is being voiced. Now weather these comments are being made innocently, on purpose, or with some kind of an agenda they are out of place and are driving wedges in the family. If individuals have a need to continue the debate they need to do it privately off line.

I just love this quote!

“Women should be women and not babies that need petting and correction all the time.”

---Eliza R. Snow