F is for Foolishnessly.

RBC:Trying to organize boxes and boxes and boxes of photos and memorabilia back to 2002...

2 hours ago via Twitter · 

H:  

Wow. Geez. I hadn't heard that you broke BOTH of your legs! ~ That is THE project that I say I'm going to do when I break both my legs... however, modern medicine wouldn't allow that. C had his hip replaced and was walking within days. So, it's best to do it w/o added drama and pain. I'm VERY impressed.

about an hour ago · 

RBC: Yes, I'm impressing myself. Be watching for random pics popping up on FB.

about an hour ago

RBC: 

Why are YOU up? I'm working on pictures.

H: 

That will be cool. I'm Easter Bunny-ing. I actually have everything very organized but got distracted while trying to find a podcast/audio book to listen to while filling baskets and making fun tags. S(17) didn't come home until midnight. I had to wait ... she is hard to surprise. Although I did get her on the 1st with the fake grapes in the ziplock bag at lunch. :)

about an hour ago ·

RBC 

Fake grapes...fake bagels...I'm not going to trust you the next time I go to your house.

58 minutes ago

H:  

C (an erstwhile curmudgeon) was out of town for April Fools' Day ... I had Lots of fun. You can trust me, really. :]

The cottage cheese in the milk was a good trick. They didn't "get" it until the next morning. I'm still laughing about it. They are too. Once one of them poured the lumpy milk on their cereal, checked the smell, checked the expiration date, and yelled at me, they just waited for the next kid to. No one told anyone. The timing of breakfast/after school snack was perfect. Very funny.

46 minutes ago ·

Mr. Rogers, the Beloved and Missed.

--> FACEBOOK CONVERSATION <--

ML: I am looking OH SO ATTRACTIVE with tissues stuffed up my nostrils. Gotta love spring colds/allergies/whatever it is.

H: Ha! I was just wondering, sadly (C has a fire going), if I could slither up the stairs unnoticed. My puffy eyes, runny nose and blotchy skin must look so lovely. I've been crying -- reading about Mr. Rogers! Meanwhile, my kitten allergies have kicked in. I HAD to teach Miss M how to hold the sweet, furry, purring kitty! For a long time ... As Mr. Rogers would say to You, "I love you just the way you are!" -- I say it too M!

about an hour ago · 

ML: Well aren't you just sweet (as are the furry, purring kitties). But why have you been crying over Mr. Rogers?

38 minutes ago

H: Oh, I LOVE Mr. Rogers! I've been looking for something for a very special young man's 15th (!) birthday next Friday ... 

The more I read about Mr. Rogers the more I admire him. He was a man of complete integrity & humility, & unlike so many famous men, he was consistent & true his entire life. He cared passionately for children & what is Best for their positive growth; this is so sorely lacking in 2010. If K would have Mr. Rogers as a role model & not men with tricked out names like: Tiger, Jay-z or Jesse James, if he is 9/10ths like Mr. Rogers, I will die a happy mother.

When Mr. Rogers passed away K & I cried together.

I'm actually surprised at how strongly I feel for him. Just read that he showed up in Eddie Murphy's dressing room at Saturday Night Live when EM was making fun of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (with drug addicts etc.). When EM saw him, naturally he swore [great] and, naturally, Mr. Rogers hugged him.

I see a lot of Christ's example in him, the humility, intelligence, deep spirituality & love of children.

(Hey, thanks for a blog post here!)

M is for Missing ... K & J!

K is coming home on Tuesday night! Wa-hooo! I haven't laughed once, not once! since he has been at camp! Boo hoo hoo. Well, maybe once... I miss his silliness, having his friends around, his singing, talking about the news with him and the cello! He broke his right middle finger at camp, not sure how that will affect his cello-ing. His hand is taped up like a sharp shooter.

Tonight N & M were singing a song, well, 2 songs, not at all similar to each other though sung at the same time ... for J! They miss him the Most they say. He is both of their [?] best friend and their favorite brother. I can write this because I know that tomorrow they will say that K is their favorite ... what a fickle family of favorites. I miss his sweetness, his spontaneous kisses, his imagination and believe it or not his whistling! I also miss reading to him.

We've saved a few weeks worth of the funny pages for them both to fight over!

I don't miss the extra laundry, which I am getting 100% caught up on -- now that I've rinsed my last tie dye ever. School starts Wednesday for J! (C & I are really happy for him. The new school will be fantastic!) I'll just drop J & N off and take K & J's bags from camp directly to the Soap Box Laundromat and let Joyce work her magic -- then I'll come home and incinerate the boys' shoes. :P

House Update: My goal was to have the house "landed" before school starts. Every room.

GARAGE: Getting more and more there. H Bike, huge fan, wire equipt., tie dye materials, clay etc. now have a place to call their own. The entire space is now overrun with school supplies & donations, and of course the tub/misc. stuff to sell. Tie dye and clay are neat and tidy and put away. Still need to move and sell or donate the tub, then I can park INSIDE the garage. Huge sofa-holding-cardboard boxes are gone. Donation stuff needs to go.

DINING ROOM: Almost useable for working in. Will have Project party to celebrate the landed room. Sewing projects are in boxes, fabric is folded and tidy, do-dads are in boxes. To mend pile needs attention and to be done, at night.

LAUNDRY ROOM: So close! The floor is visible (a flood helped). Must iron all the wadded up stuff and fabric for quilt edges. Moved it into the family room, which violates a new rule: All laundry stays in Laundry Room -- didn't want to get dye on it as I rinsed out the tie dye. Amazing amount of clothes, table cloths, towels, getting rid of lots of it actually.

MASTER BEDROOM: Perfection. Simple. Empty. Clean.

ENTRY WAY: Clean. Counter useable for the "don't forget as you go out the door" spot! L------ville is up and looks fun, complete with new architecture, touched up buildings, stars and N's new fort. :)

Oh dear. Is M for Mutiny?!

Actually, M ADORES her dad. The M-smother factor is crazy high, sometimes dangerously high. But she does love her Uncle Nick... we all do! Michelle, S & S too! We are thinking of you today.
xxooxx

V is for Verb-ing. Or: I got a bad case of the Verbs.

I'm up late. Have an odd sore throat, should be in bed but I'm doing something I haven't done in weeks & weeks... catching up on friends/family via blogs. Honestly, I don't get the entire computer thing but I did love watching my niece KtG's 2 beautiful daughters be adorable with lollipops (she calls the candy "a sucker"--which is what S, at age 2.5 (14 years ago!) wanted to name her little brother, which is how he got the nickname, Lollipop, just sounded like a more polite name). And I enjoyed seeing my pals Noelle & Molly in the fine Utah Valley Magazine. Zina's very authentic chicken stock is, ummm, inspiring.

Learning Facebook, houseworking, reading, grooming, shopping, cooking, loving, spinning, yard work/rototilling/planning, speech therapy going, homeschooling, churching, skiing, visiting, quilting, attending parent/teacher confrontations, I mean conferences... Right now I feel that I'm doing a lot and none of it very well. Did I mention praying?

Actually, my mind often drifts to a cousin, the mother of a baby who later this month will have surgery for bilateral cochlear implants. He is actually a very blessed child. (N & M would really benefit from bi-lateral CIs but I can't sacrifice my family on the alter of insurance appeals and we really don't have approx $+50,000 EACH right now.) My thoughts are on his mother though. For all the blogs, Facebooks etc. I wish I could just call and talk to her. How is she doing? This is a brilliant, connected mother, with a super-fantastic husband. I don't want to intrude or leave any more messages. Their family is huge and supportive so I wonder if I need to talk to her for my sake. There are so many questions that I'd like answered. Perhaps I could answer some of hers...

M, whose language is faltering, told me today that my sketchbook is all fulled-up. I'm going to filled it up a bit more and am looking forward to starting a new one.

N's baptism day = H's gasp + SH's CAKE! + N(cousins)

The beautiful boy and his cake.

I gasped when it looked like he was going under with his implant on! He didn't.

Aren't those great colors?!

The party was a lot of fun. Many people from C's family came -- Thanks! It was a special day for N and for all of us. Almost makes me think of having a gingerbread party... almost. The cleaning-up of the house was pretty much a miracle. N's concept of the Gospel was as well.
It was a sweet day with S saying the opening prayer, I stumbled through a talk and K played the cello. The spirit was strong and it meant a lot to have so much/many [?] family and friends there.


Nice composition of tie dye and icing. Makes a very groovy 8.

FUNNY true story

One advantage of not sleeping is making discoveries while not making any noise in the house... can't vacuum, might as well clean up my computer's desktop. Realize that I've never posted this. It is a sketch of a night a year and a half ago:
26 May 2007
6:40 p.m.
Roll Camera! Action.

Higgin-s drive up in a full Suburban. Steph, Dave, 4 children and one friend, Tatum. The plan is to do some tie dye.

H is asleep in the van, lost track of the time. Crashed there after a Long day. Even in the van 4 people have come up to her and talked to her, before the friends arrive.

One little boy w/o his CI starts out the evening with a time-out in a closet. Freaking out in family room.

Adults at counter calmly eating fruit, bread and cheese. Roses on the counter, v. smelly.
Conversations about high school senior parties/trips. Drunk kids.

Amy, Jay’s wife, walks in with the wee bitty baby. Asking if it’s OK to change the baby’s diaper. Fine, fine. That means that Jay is here to get the llamas, all 7 of them? Just having a little party, did you call to say you were coming by? An hour later she is seen feeding the baby in the dinning room. No one sees or hears from her the entire evening.

The children are playing out side, they take the taekwondo kicking target outside and fill it with water, first time in 1½ years.

Wee bitty baby crying in the back ground.

Jumping on the trampoline?

The children start helping Jay get the llamas. Karl gets kicked in the hip. Joey, Karl’s friend in a tie dye shirt, was not out there at the time.

Julian’s animated friend Jared is visiting. They start making a movie.

Tie dye starts, can’t get the kids to come in to soak their shirts. Stephanie mixes up the die.

H starts to clean out garage, extract a second table. Gets a phone call about needing to pay $1.50 for Nathan’s school lunch account. Never mind that it is a Saturday night and he doesn’t ever take school lunch, and the one day (practice for 1st grade) he did he brought the money but the school never got it. Will send it again.

Sick boy in hammock: Gabe. Oh dear.

3 little girls, 2 w/ hearing loss. Running around squealing. Flashes of cuteness.
Gama (from California, didn't even know she was in town!) shows up with a very elegant silver cake server in a humble, crumpled brown paper bag. Talk about family reunion of sorts.

Neighbor Jeremy, C’s friend, shows up on a racing BMX bike riding wheelies. Tries out C’s grandpa bike, does wheelies on that too! (Later we found out that Jer's wife (also a close friend) was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and that same week his sister had passed away, to cancer.)

Husband of the house, C, is cleaning his mountain bike?
Jay & Jeremy talk.

Ann Maeser drops by mail from old house (we moved 4.5 years ago)
- announcement: random (unknown) ugly girl getting married. Good for her.
- K’s scholarship certificate $100.00, for string camp.
- Precious niece’s birth announcement!

Random neighbor with a dog shows up, we don’t know her but her dog drives our Ginger nuts. Must put G in studio. Bark bark bark.

Tie dye squirting all over.
S’s friend Ashley shows up. They start to tie dye. Will wear shirts on yearbook day.

Llamas in a trailer, some in the road. (K got kicked here) Some llamas attached to trailer, others loose walking in the road. Cars going by some slowing down, some going fast. Tatum combing baby llama -- it rears up scarring her and H.

Ice cream treats. Can I have seconds? NO. Push ups, drum sticks, fat boys.

More tie dye. More shirts, plastic bags, drips.

A cel phone rings.

H is wearing some favorite clothes, a linen shirt. & A tie dyed apron.

N is coughing.
Dave is coughing.

C takes girls on bike ride in trailer.

Children spinning around fast fast in hammock chair.
Dave sitting with Gabe, who is really not feeling well.

They are about to pull out when it looks as though Gabe is going to puke. H dumps cute plastic tub of rubber bands on to table. He doesn’t puke. She swaps for not so cute hotel ice bucket.

S and Ashley are sitting in a car, anxious to practice. No license.

All the lights are on in every room of the house.
9:40 p.m. Fin.

G is for Gilgal.

O is for Oma Stella.

My cousin Vivian sent this to me. Isn't it great? I miss my grandmothers A Lot.
My brother DFM is on the left, Oma Stella and then H.
Everyone thinks it is M... same great legs and great fashion sense.

S is for a Sunday Stroll. (17.5 miles by bike.)

Yesterday we went for a Sunday picnic up the Provo Canyon. It was lovely and everyone was on a bike, 'cept M who slept her way up the canyon in the trailer. N, J, K, S all cheerfully rode and rode and rode to the over-crowded park where we hung out for a long time. Picnic in tow -- feta walnut dip is messy, fresh pineapple is great. I rode with a wacky colorful chair on my back and my new helmet on my head. S made sure she was always about 200 feet away from me. She, in 16 year old modern style, text-ed friends (non-stop) and listened to her iPod.

It was a dream come true for me, like everyone skiing together. And, like a dream... no pictures.

Next time I think we'll head up American Fork Canyon... less commotion?

A is for lost Art. Willow Tree Headstone.

This is so beautiful. I weep just looking at it. Suits my mood today.

Ann Williams is a pioneer great grand-aunt of mine.