Our Magic Ice Maker

About a year ago, someone (read Steve) dropped a bunch of frozen blueberries into our ice maker. For a long time, whenever you'd get ice, a few blueberries would drop into your glass, too. We tried to clean it out, but they must have been stuck somewhere we couldn't reach. Since then, we've ceased to be surprised by the blueberries and even get a little excited about getting one - after a year, it's a rare occurrence and kind of a treat.




This summer, when Emma Sallstrom was visiting with her family, she discovered a treat even better than the blueberries. She was getting ice, and an ice cream sandwich dropped out of the ice maker into her glass. She was so surprised and must have thought that our house in Utah is the BEST place to visit in the world!!!


Of course, Abby was right behind her with her own glass ready for a try at the ice. It was like playing the slots with all the kids clamoring for their own turn! I don't think Emma will ever forget our magic ice maker! And now, we're all on the edge of our seats waiting to see what will pop out next.

I'm Addicted

A couple of months ago, we had a man come to our ward and talk to all the adults about the new way genealogy and temple work is going to be done. All the changes they're making are going to make submitting names for temple work and tracking what's been done on those names so much easier and more efficient. The project I was most excited about is called Family Search Indexing. The Church is creating a searchable database of all the records pertaining to family history, and anyone who wants to can volunteer to transcribe names from images of old Census records, birth records, death certificates, etc. Go to http://familysearchindexing.org/ to get started. The oldest records I've worked on so far are Revolutionary War Pension records from the late 1700's.

The other day, I was working on a 1900 Census record from Kansas. The last family/household on the record was made up of a bunch of brothers and sisters, no parents. They also had two lodgers living with them. I noticed that the first lodger, a 27 year old man, was from Utah and the second, a 24 year old man who'd been married for 3 years, was from Idaho. So I was curious about what they were doing there, and scrolled over to the far right of the census image where occupations are listed. Their occupations were listed as "Traveling preacher" and "Mormon preacher." It was so exciting to stumble across a couple of missionaries from over a hundred years ago! I felt like I knew them.

I've gotten totally addicted to indexing. I set a goal of doing one Census page per day (about 50 names) which takes me about half an hour or less. So far, I've extracted about 8,000 names. You should do it, too; you can index between games of Solitaire or Free Cell, and then you'll feel good about wasting time on the computer!

Abby's At It Again

Right now, Abby is outside trying to catch crickets with her butterfly net. A few minutes ago, she came inside and told me she almost had one, but it hopped into a bush. " I shook and shook the bush really hard, but it was really brave and wouldn't come out." She doesn't understand why the crickets run from her. (I'm sure they were watching from the bushes in horror as she and her friend, Andi, tortured Jiminy.) She looks for the ones that are missing legs so she can help them! For information on how she "HELPS" crickets, see my September 5th post.

How do you keep a straight face when you listen to your kids? If you laugh in their faces, they'll quit telling you things!

We Hit The Mother Lode

In the morning, the sun shines on the front of our house and comes through the beveled windows in our front door. So we always have rainbows on our floor in the morning. (If you need a refresher on this, see "How Stuff Works: What Causes A Rainbow.") This has been a major source of excitement for all of the kids at one time or another, most recently for Sarah and Abby.

This morning, Abby asked me why we have so many rainbows on our floor. Then she suddenly gasped and started looking closer at the floor as she asked excitedly, "Is there gold in our floor?!!" After searching her whole life, she thought she'd hit the mother lode!

I started to explain about light bending and different wave lengths, then just said, "Maybe we do!" That's certainly no worse than the Santa Clause lie, right?

"O Cricket From Your Cheery Cry . . . "

"O cricket from your cheery cry, no one would ever guess how quickly you must die." ~ by Basho

Abby used to be really into dress-up and Barbies and all the princessy stuff. But lately, she has become obsessed with bugs.

The other day, Steve came across her and her friend, Andi (the bishops daughter), outside on the driveway torturing a cricket. They had cut it in half. Of course, he was horrified that his sweet little girl was outside torturing bugs. When he told her that wasn't nice, she said, "Its leg was broken so it had to die." The cricket was missing a leg, so they pulled off its other one (I guess to help it walk straight???). Then they cut its head off "to put it out if its misery." See, her intentions were good. At least to begin with. They ended up carrying the cricket's head around inside of an acorn cap, kind of like Jiminy's head on a platter. I'm sure it wasn't her idea; you know what they say about the bishop's kids!

Today, she came inside and told me excitedly that she'd found a whole bunch of worms (it rained last night). She said so innocently, "I put them in a cup with some water and bark, and now they have lots of friends! Except one keeps trying to get out." The nerve of that one for trying to get out! She also fed them some dirt.

A couple of hours later, when we left for school, she said a bit anxiously, "I forgot to say goodbye to my new pets."

"What new pets?"

"My worms!" (duh, Mom)

" . . . oh"

After she thought about it for a minute, she decided, "That's okay. They're probably sleeping anyway."

I guess we're the proud new family to a cup of worms!

When I came home from running errands this afternoon, she was outside digging in the dirt again, probably looking for more worms. She had a couple of leaves stuck to her nose that make her look like she's turning into a katydid - must be her budding X-men persona.

Sam Loves His Ba

This is what poor Sam has to resort to when his bottle gets left in his crib. He tried to pull it out first, but it wouldn't fit through the slats. Must be kind of like having your best friend in jail.

Abby's First Day of Kindergarten

I just dropped Abby off at school for her first day of kindergarten. The rest of the kids started school a week ago, so she has been anxiously counting down the days since then. She is in afternoon kindergarten which doesn't start until 12:40, but she got up this morning and was dressed before anyone else. Of course, she had to get undressed again to get a shower, but she still gets an A+ for effort. After she was re-dressed and had her hair done, she put her backpack on, and she has worn it for the rest of the day. When I got home from taking Sarah to school at 9:00 this morning, Abby came out to the car and said, "I'll just wait in the car" (for 3 1/2 hours). She has pestered me all morning about when it will be time to go, so I finally showed her on the clock: when the short hand is between the 12 and the 1, and the long hand is on the 5, it will be time to go. That helped a lot! Since then, she has complained that the clock moves too slow (if only . . . ) and reminded me every 5 minutes that it is almost time to go.



Abby was a little worried that I was being too slow to get dressed, so I asked her if I should just go in my slip and underwear. She gave it some thought, and decided I'd better put clothes on so I could walk her to the door. After I got my skirt on, I asked her, "Do you like my skirt." (It's new.) She said, "Well . . . " I was beginning to think she must not like my new skirt, but then she said, "I think it will look better with a shirt." Oh, of course. What was I thinking!? On went the shirt, and then she liked my new skirt just fine.

We got there early enough to take her picture in front of the school's sign, and then off she went to her class. And I'm trying not to cry.

This Would Never Happen at Steven's House

Steven showed up at my house a little over a week ago when I had been gone for about a half hour. That's all the time it takes for my house to be completely taken apart. He walked in just a few minutes before I got there to naked Sam, flour all over the floor (Yes, that was about the 8th time - slow learner that I am, I finally moved the flour out of reach.), flour all over Sam's nether regions, various kitchen items and papers strewn all over the floor, countertops, etc., and several loads of laundry waiting to be folded in my living room. As I diapered Sam, swept up flour, and pulled out my hair, Steven tried in vain to help. He had a very concerned expression on his face the whole time he was here. I think he's worried about me.

Sweet Anna

Y Sugar and spice and everything nice - that's what little girls are made of.

My Big Brave Boy

Sam, my brave big boy, tried to follow me down the stairs last night, but a few steps from the bottom, he started crying and whining, and he refused to go any further. There was a costume monster hand on the step just below him that he was terrified to get near. I had to lift him over it while he twisted around in my arms to look back at the hand and make sure it wasn't following him. Then, when he went back upstairs, he had to press himself as close to the wall as possible to get past that scary hand and whimpered the whole time he was touching the step it was on! Click on the scary hands to see us torture him.