Tricky

Ever tried to take a picture of a dog and a squirmy baby? Tricky is a good description. Hyrum is not intimidated by animals...large or small. I thought it would be fun to do a photo shoot and see if I could capture how much he loves furry friends. No ideal shots emerged but these two do show his captivation.

Mr. Moon

The moon seemed to be begging for a conversation with me all night. So bright and beautiful. I woke up to it shining hello through my window several times. It made me smile. Just checked my email and this is the image a dear friend shared. My thoughts turned instantly to one of my favorite Buddhism quotes. The moon and I wanted to share it. I am going to aim for this today. Thank you for being so inspirational Mr. Moon. I will be sure and thank your creator in my prayers this day.

Meditate.

Live purely.

Be quiet.

Do your work with mastery.

Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds!

Shine!

Dear Daughter

We did it! More common ground.

So you won't dress like you are Amish.

You cut bangs when I begged you not to.

You prefer horses to kayaking or skiing.

You are pretty sure I am trying to choke you with my halo...

I just want you to know...singing songs with you at 1:30 in the morning is a highlight of my life. No place I would rather be.

I love you Goose!

Here is my token...a song less than 30 years old that I actually like. I hope we sing it again soon, thanks for sharing it.

I won't even mention how he has that popculture annoying twang to his voice.

Can we throw in just one John Denver next time?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwVeC7VeJYE

Kite Flying

Wednesday was gusty to say the least. This inspired Heath to fly his kite though I warned him it was the wrong kind of wind. Hands and ears frozen he came in twenty minutes later. With his usual vim and vigor he said, "Guess how high I got my kite?", after a brief pause and the reply, "How high?" from me, he said giggling, "As high as horsepoop."

Just another day in paradise

Pumpkin pie filling all over my kitchen ceiling and a crawdad with banded claws swimming in my sink. Looks like it will be a normal day in our home. I only left that can sitting there for a minute lidless. A minute was too long. Apparently Hunter was vigorously swinging the broom at Heath and the can of pumpkin looked like a good shield. Obviously the broom made contact. As for the crawdad...well, he needed a place to swim.

I really love my life, never boring, a surprise around every corner...or on the ceiling. And it is so festive for the day. Too bad the little stinkers are too short to clean it up.

Flush please

So I get up at 5:30am. So proud of myself, striving to get back to my old study habits. Pray, get dressed(my favorite black long sleeve shirt and my Australian apron I just sewed), ponder what to study. I already have a good jump on the day and have a good 90 minutes of study time before chaos ensues. I let the sugar gliders out for some sweet moments of freedom. They are running all over the front room, climbing the flag pole, jumping from my shoulders to the bookshelf etc... I am lost in learning. Time passes and I am drawn from my studies to the sound of splashing. It takes me a minute-- then I realize A SUGARGLIDER IS DROWNING IN THE TOILET! I run to its aid. He is all too grateful to run up my hand when I reach down for him. It is Charlie, the more precocious one. Thank heaven he didn't actually drowned. Oh joy-one of my dear ones didn't flush the toilet. Thank goodness it is just urine but Charlie is soooo freaked out by his ordeal that he runs up one of my arms and down the other and round and around me. GROSS! So much for wearing my favorite shirt and apron today, so much for uninterrupted study time. Life happens! Laughter is the only solution.
(p.s.- Did I mention the simple family goal lately has been to flush the dang toilet? Murphy's Law!)

Tickled for the Pearsons!!

My heart is leaping.

I feel a fresh sense of joy.

I want to run around the house and tickle my children,

look into each of their eyes--

let them know what treasures they are to me.

I want to turn on some music and swing them around and celebrate with them!

Why?

Because a precious spirit just arrived in the Pearson home.

Will that baby ever be loved!

We no longer have to wonder if it is a boy or girl.

It is a boy indeed.

I am sad it is not a girl because I wanted a Pearson girl to marry my Hyrum; someone like Sariah, Hailey or Heidi three dear dear ladies so full of goodness.

But I am thrilled it is a boy because the world can use more boys like the Pearson boys and Hyrum will have a playmate.

Welcome to the world Pearson baby. You chose your family well.

We cannot wait to hold you and watch you grow!!!

The Power of a Smile

I stold this from my dear friend Tracy's blog...had to share it!



From Our Home by C.E. Sargent:


When two smiles have met, two souls are acquainted. A smile is the sign that a soul gives when it would examine another soul…
By smiles we do not mean that which takes the place of loud laughter when the occasion is insufficient to provoke us to more noisy demonstrations. Nor do we mean either the transient smile with which one regards the ludicrous, or the habitual smile that often accompanies a low degree of thought-power. There is a smile that originates neither in the sense of the ludicrous, nor in thoughtlessness. Like certain articles of dress such smiles are becoming on all occasions. They sit with equal grace upon the visage of joy and of sorrow. They seem as appropriate when they wreathe the mother’s thoughtful face as when they live in the dimpled cheek of laughing girlhood, or with their magic play transform tear-stained eyes to twinkling stars.
These are the smiles with which we would adorn every home. We would set them as vases of flowers in every human abode.
Smiles should be the legal tender in every family for the payment of all debts of kindness, and each member should be willing to take this currency at its face value; for its value is beyond the reach of those disturbing influences that shake the world of commerce. And, what is better than all, it can never be demonetized, for it bears the immutable stamp of the divine government.

My fat chicken pillow

so much depends upon
a red wheelbarrow
glazed with rainwater
beside the whitechickens.

-William Carlos Williams

Isn't this chicken fabric adorable? This was my one and only sewing project for the summer. One big fat chicken pillow to add to my window seat. I didn't curse once while sewing it either. It was actually an enjoyable project.

I just had to share it along with one of my favorite poems.

4-H Bragging Rights

Hailey and Hank worked hard this summer with the Rock Creek Rebels. A long hard week at the fair brought many great life lesson and some serious payoffs. Horses are great teachers of many true principles in life. Way to go guys, we are so proud of you!!

Turtle Doves

Dove season is here. Trav and Hank both limited out the first day.
Hagen is currently in Hunter's Safety. He is itching to get his hands on his shotgun but in the meantime he is being his creative self; a turtle made out of pretzel dough. This picture doesn't capture how anatomically correct it is. What a guy!

Grass Tickles

Who sets a baby in the middle of a horse pasture?

He thought it was pretty funny.

I guess grass tickles naked baby bodies.

Without a Whimper?

GOD SAVE US!
PLEASE DO MORE THAN WHIMPER!

Something about the word whimper really bothers me. It makes me think of weakness, submission. I pray we will not allow this to happen. I pray we will rise up! Call our representatives, study the issues, STAND UP AND NOT BACK DOWN, and pray with fear and trembling before our God.

History turns on very small hinges.

The irony of this article appearing in the English edition of Pravda (Russian State Newspaper) defies description.

American capitalism gone with a whimper


It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.


True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.


Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.


First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.


Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America .


The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America 's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.


These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?


These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.


Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.


So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK 's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.


Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.


So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.


The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.


The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.


Stanislav Mishin� 1999-2009. "PRAVDA.Ru". When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors

Fun with the Lopez

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Bald Boys

So stinkin' cute!
Last week walking out of a store Hunter and Heath saw a boy about their age who was bald. Hannah then explained to them that when people get cancer their hair usually falls out so the boy must have cancer.
I then explained to Hannah the flaw in her logic. That the boy looked perfectly healthy and likely just shaved his head for fun.
Hunter and Heath overhearing my comments to Hannah then asked, with their trademark enthusiasm and a twinkle in their blue blue eyes if they too could shave their heads.

Hannah was thrilled to finally give a haircut. What can go wrong when it is all getting shaved off? Hagen did Heath's and Nan did Hunter's. There were giggles through the whole process as their hairstyle transformed in various ways until there was no more to shave. Hailey and her friend Becca finished the job later by literally shaving their heads with a razor.


The sun is sure shiny on their hairless heads.

The boys were in heaven up in the South Hills catching horny toads. I cut the top of Hunter's head off in the picture because it was colored with a purple marker.

Nan's Creativity

Hannah aka Nan was looking at this banana peel and realized it looked like a flower stem. She then grabbed the grapes and created this fruity flower...a grape hyacinth.

The art of observation leads to creative genius sometimes.

Hi Ho Cherry Oh!

Always the creative one!

I guess angels look up as well as down.

Our spunky twins. They always look like they are up to something.

I love their enthusiasm and passion.

This must be a great year for cherries! Our neighbors told us to come over and pick some from their three trees and they were LOADED! The kiddos love to pick things, especially when it is so easy. We had a great time. I couldn't help but marvel at how heavy laden each branch was.

Truly, you can count the pits in a cherry, but you can't count the cherries in a pit.

More proof of how abundant God's love is!

Independence Day

Have you read the Declaration lately? If not, here is your chance. I think it is the duty of every citizen of the US to know it and the sacred Constitution.

Declaration of Independence
Here is the first part of the Declaration of Independence.The original spelling and capitalization have been retained.

(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)
The Unanimous Declarationof the Thirteen United States of America



When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

It is time for another declaration I say. Despite all the corruption and acts of treason occurring in Washington D.C. American is still great. Americans are mostly wonderful people. We are so blessed.

The 4th of July has always been my favorite holiday. I love patriotism. I love time with the family. I love celebration amazing men and their virtue and courage standing up for liberty.

We started the day with Travis, Hank and Hailey riding with our 4-H Group the Rock Creek Rebels in the Hansen parade.

Trav, Hank and Hailey went for a ride in the S. Hills after that.

The rest of us came home and ate cherries a neighbor brought us.

Aren't our patriotic princesses adorable!

Hope is trying to keep Hyrum out of the cherries in this picture but she stole a kiss too.



We then had a family BBQ and headed for the river to kayak.
Tiki came too. She is quite the swimmer.

Hyrum fell asleep about 50 feet from launch. That is his head laying on the side of the kayak.

Our kayaking crew

Heaven!

This is where we got out to hike.

Back at the dock it got a little crazy.

Fishing, swimming, jumping off the dock, and dancing on the suburban.

We went to the fireworks show in town after kayaking and when they were over we stumbled upon a climbing wall. Hank, Hagen, Hannah, Hunter and Heath climbed it a few times.

This picture says it all.

It was such a long day Hagen didn't even get his socks off before he was asleep.

We were wiped out!
What a blessing it is to have the freedom and leisure time to have a day like today.

I am skipping all of the things in the declaration the British government did wrong but here is the last section of the declaration. May it stir in your heart a desire to do all you can in your sphere of influence to save our republic.

Thank you Founding Fathers!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776

Pennyslvania

We enjoyed our visit to Pennsylvania. It is a beautiful state.
A walk through a deciduous forests with the Pearsons was one of my favorite parts. Between Sariah's vast horticulture knowledge and Travis googling in the middle of the forest we learned much about the native vegitation.

Hyrum really liked this tree for some reason.

I learned to admire another American here. Milton Hershey was an incredible, industrious and altruistic minded man. He touched many lives and gave all of his fortune away to orphans when he died($60,000,000, now valued at 6 Billion).

Hyrum at the Hershey Lodge. The wallpaper had Hershey kisses on it.

Trav and I at the Hershey gardens.

The forest we walked in. It reminded me of The Sacred Grove.

Gettysburg was bitter sweet. I was so glad to go to honor the history and men but was overcome with sorrow for the suffering the conflict caused. Hyrum has his hand in a real cannon tube from the civil war. If he only knew the pain and destruction it caused. I am glad he doesn't.

Our tour guide was knowledgeable and passionate. We drove to the location of each battle. July 1,2, and 3rd. The union won the third day. 6,000 confederate soldiers fell in one hour. There were over 116 barns used as hospitals. Wounded men being cared for by the local woman. It is said the residents of Gettysburg and the surrounding area couldn't open their windows the rest of the summer due to the stench.

I hate war. All wars should be fought on paper.

I memorized the Gettysburg Address given by Abraham Lincoln in the sixth grade. It is truly one of the best things I did in my whole school career.

It is powerful and has many implications for our day.

Here it is:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

A historic trolley ride through the town of Hershey.

The Gettysburg museum was incredible.

God Bless America!

Hoo Doo Chicken Nachos-Yummo!

The shuttle driver recommended the Waldorf restaurant in Hummelstown. We may have to drive back just to eat these again. Homemade chips, chicken, jalapenos, green onions, ranch and salsa smothered in a HOT red Thai sauce. We liked them so much we took friends back the next day before our flight. I also talked the restaurant into giving me some of the sauce(they wouldn't share the recipe). Sadly, it is almost gone and not reproducible.

Hailey doctorin'

Hailey has learned much from her dad. One of the best principles she has learned is to take care of situations as independantly as possible by using knowledge she already has.

She is quit the little vet. Levi got a nasty rope burn and she devised a treatment plan and took good care of her baby.