We took these pictures at Temple Square after our family reunion in July. I love them. For some reason, it really touches my heart to see the children as they look at the temple and the reflecting pond with their cousins.

As usual, the idealism portrayed in the pictures is far from what really happened. It looks so peaceful but it was crazy. We had 14 children with us that night. I kept thinking someone was going to fall in as they ran from one place to another and leaned in as far as they could to reach the money in the reflecting pond. In fact, we decided not to take a family picture. It felt like we were pushing our luck as it was.

Just like life. You get snap shot moments, just like the photo of the kids with the sun and the temple in the background, that remind you what you are doing this for and what the goal is. The rest of the time it's busy and crazy. It feels like we have had a lot of those happy, snap shot moments lately.

I love this picture, too, because the Evans' family minus Nancy (one of Rich's step-sisters) went with us to the temple. I love having them in the picture, too.

My big goal in life, the whole purpose of just about every thing I do every day is to get my children into the temple all together one day. The family reunion made me realize, more than ever, that I want not just my children, but the Evans children and the Snyder children and the Keables children and the Walker children (Idaho and California) and the Arellano children and on and on to be there, too.

I guess it's just really being part of the Father's work, 'to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life' of our family. And everyone's family.

Spiritual Food

Katie and I attended Girls' Camp together this summer. I went as a counselor group leader and Katie went as my YCL (Youth Camp Leader). Together with another YCL, we were over eight 2nd year campers. This was my first experience at Girls' Camp as a member of the church.

The YCLs had their own tent, but I was stayed with the eight girls in a tiny cabin. We slept together, ate together, hiked together, and attended all the activities, other than free time, together. Because of this, all my regular personal habits, like kneeling prayer and scripture reading, didn't happen.

I loved being a counselor, but one challenging thing was the lack of sleep. It took until nearly midnight every night to get everyone settled and in bed before I could finally fall asleep. Then, one of the girls was determined to get a hot shower every morning, which meant she and her friends next to us were up at 5:30 am every morning.

I need more sleep than that or I start to get really crabby.

Then, on Thursday morning, one of the girls thought it was funny to pretend she was talking in her sleep. She pretended that she was swimming with Justin Bieber and that he was drowing. She would scream, "Justin! Justin! No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" in a high-pitched voice, over and over again. The other girls believed her and kept trying to wake her up. She would pause for a minute, and then she would start all over again. She did this from 6 to 6:30 am. All I wanted to do was sleep. The camp alarm wouldn't go off until 7 am, and I was desperate for just another few minutes, but I never could go back to sleep.

I was very crabby that morning. I was wondering how I would talk to her about this so it didn't happen again. I was not feeling like using my nice, kind leader voice.

After breakfast, we had what they call Sacred Grove time. We had to find a place as a group, and we had 45 minutes to read our scriptures and write in our journals.

The camp we attend is built on a mountain, and the lodge overlooks the lake below. You can see the view in the picture above.

We settled ourselves on a rock behind the lodge, with the trees and rocks around us, and a clear view of the lake below. A Stake leader had challenged us to read three specific sections of the D&C, so in this gorgeous setting, I settled in to read for 30 completely uninterrupted minutes.

It was as if I had been hungry and sat down to a great, big dinner. I felt spiritually fed. I felt my heart soften, and my mind fill with love for our Father in Heaven and His Son, and for my camp girls. Suddenly, I remembered how the Savior wants us to treat one another and I felt like being kind and patient with the girls, even though I was tired.

That 30 minutes kept me going for the rest of the week.

I was reminded by this experience that my spirit needs to be fed just as badly my body needs to be fed.

This is supposed to make you laugh, not post comments about what good parents we are (although we aren't necessarily turning those down)

Last Friday night, Rich and I went to the temple together. I happened to sit next to a pregnant woman. I discovered after the session in the changing room that she is expecting her 8th baby. We visited for a few minutes, sharing thoughts and ideas about our families. Her name is Aurelia.

Aurelia asked me how I handle all the laundry. She expressed, "I don't have the laundry handled yet. I don't have a system that works. The toys? Those I have handled. But not the laundry."

As I left the changing room, I thought to myself that we don't have much "handled." But then I realized that this was pessimistic thinking. We have all kinds of things handled.

Rich and I made a short list:

We have putting our kids to bed too late handled.

We have looking past the over-flowing laundry baskets handled.

We have saying sorry over and over again handled.

We have feeling overwhelmed handled.

We have ignoring the mess handled (well, maybe not handled, but we are pretty darn good at it.)

We have collapsing on the bed in exhaustion handled (which might explain the mess...)

Yep, we have a lot of things handled. I hope the other stuff that we don't have handled doesn't matter too much. ; )

Jacob and Katie turned 16 and the laundry piled up

16 years ago, when we had our newborn baby twins on May 17, three days before my birthday, I was just glad I was able to finish my college classes and get through graduation before they were born. It never occured to me what having two birthdays at the end of May would mean later on. It's not as bad as having two birthday in December, but it is pretty bad.

In the month of May, we attended one track trials, two track finals, two orchestra concerts, three awards banquets, and three graduation/promotion ceremonies. We had my mother-in-law visit, celebrated the twins birthday on two different nights, and held a 16th birthday party on a third, separate night. We also searched for and purchased a used car (after we found out the cost of insurance if we put one of the twins on Rich's car).

I personally went to the DMV three times in one week. In person. For things you cannot do on-line. And I'm not done. I get to go back to the DMV one more time next week. None of these were to transfer the title on the new car.

All of these activities involved our oldest three children who are attending public school. (This is why I always say that home schooling is easier.)

Of course, normal life also went on. During the month of May, we had multiple birthday parties to attend and gifts to buy, and we were invited to three different baby showers. And I had to go grocery shopping and birthday shopping (and baby shower shopping). I was also supposed to be doing laundry, but something had to give. Beth was attending a weekly soccer clinic and Daniel was also playing two sports with its different games/meets, something he will continue to do all summer. (We are against this as a rule in our family but for Daniel--Mr. Energy--we make an exception...)

We also attempted to celebrate my birthday. That didn't go so well in the immediate family, but extended family, friends and Facebook birthday greetings came to the rescue!

Oh, and I need to mention that we all had the stomach flu over the course of the first two weeks of May. All ten of us.

Now my point in writing all this is not to have a pity party. I love our big family, and really busy times come with the territory. However, writing it down justifies to myself why I have about 20 loads of laundry to do and why I cried for an hour after I got home from Stake Conference, telling Rich "I just can't do anything else!" And it explains why all I wanted to do on Memorial Day was sleep.

It also explains why I have about ten different things to post on this blog.

So if you are going to have twins, I wouldn't have them in May or June (or December) if you can help it. Either that, or just get used to wearing some of your clothes for a few days in a row! ; )

Thoughts on throw-up

Have you ever noticed that parenthood is filled with lessons on not controlling things? From when you get pregnant to what you can stand eating when you are pregnant to the sex of the baby (and you didn't even get to know that before the baby was born until about 20 years ago) to when you have the baby to when they do just about everything they do. It's all mostly out of our control most of the time for a long time.

One great, messy example of this is the stomach flu. When a child gets a cold, or even a virus with a fever, often you can just give him some juice and settle him on his bed to read some books or watch a movie. You can just check in here or there to see what you can do to help. Life often goes peacefully along it's way--maybe even more peacefully with one active body out of commission.

But not with the stomach flu. When the stomach flu hits, you drop everything to take care of it, ready or not. It can hit anywhere, anytime, and you can't anticipate how long it will take over your life. It will determine what you do with your time for as long as it hangs around--sitting next to a child with a bowl, washing endless loads of laundry immediately to get rid of the smell, trying to get a child to take tiny sips of clear liquid (never red, anything but red).

Over the years, we have had the stomach flu show up in the middle of the day but mostly in the middle of the night (why is that?), after a trip to the emergency room, while on vacation, while driving home from vacation--twice, with freshly cleaned carpet, with freshly washed sheets, while on a field trip, in the nursery at church, and even once in Sacrament meeting.

For example, for 48 hours last month, Jeffrey was battling the stomach flu. One Monday night, he fell asleep during family home evening. Rich layed him on our bed (big mistake), where Anna had also fallen asleep. Suddenly, Anna woke up soaking wet. Jeffrey had thrown up all over himself, all over Anna, and all over our bed. We immediately stopped what we were doing to deal with the mess and give two children a bath.

Two days later, as he was getting out after taking Beth to soccer practice, he threw up all over the inside front of the van. (He later assured me that he stayed in the van to throw up because he didn't want to get out and ruin the grass. Thanks, Jeffrey.) Again, we dropped what we were doing to immediately clean up the mess.

You either bow down to vomit and clean it up right away, or you pay a pretty serious consequence for a long time after.

Why are there so many life lessons in parenthood that force us to accept giving up control? I don't know. I am thinking it must be heavenly psychotherapy, preparing us for the day that we have a teenager on our hands who will not let us be in control anymore.

You know, that's not a bad theory. Throw-up, and overdue pregnancies, and teething babies, and that baby boy that the ultrasound tech assured you was most definitely a girl, and boys in general, are all here to prepare us to give up control when it matters most, when the teenagers need to grow up and learn to do some things on their own and make some important choices.

Whatever the reason, we sure get a lot of practice.

Post-conference Review

Well, it was just as good as ever. Women's Conference never fails to help me see things more clearly and feel more able to care for our family. This picture of Rich's sister Jen, my roomie, and I was taken after the conference. See how happy and refreshed we look? (What you can't see as clearly are our bleary eyes caused by staying up until at least 1 am every night--all part of the fun!)

Here is the link to the post-conference information, including re-broadcast information and transcripts of selected talks. I would highly recommend Julie B. Beck's talk which is not being re-broadcast. You can only get the transcript. It is excellent. It's not on the website yet but will be in the next week or two.

I thought I would try to record some things that touched me but haven't had the time. So instead, I added some quotes that I love to the sidebar under Favorite Motherhood Quotes. Enjoy!

Top Ten Reasons I Love BYU Women's Conference

This week, I am going to BYU Women's Conference with Rich's sisters, and I can't wait! Here are the top ten reasons why I love Women's Conference:

10. Other people cook all the food.
9. You get to spend all your time with family and friends that you usually never see. (And everyone wears name badges, so when your visiting teaching companion from your freshman ward happens to be there, you remember her name!)
8. You get to attend spiritually uplifting classes and see members of the General Auxilliary Boards, and hear an Apostle speak, all with no children around. In fact, children are not allowed, so you don't even have to feel guilty for leaving them at home.
7. BYU isn't exactly close, which means you get to either drive or fly there, visiting with friends or reading or just relaxing, all without any children around!
6. Did I mention that there is no kitchen so you actually can't do any cooking and must buy all food out? BYU and the surrounding community have a lot of yummy food options.
5. You get to go to the BYU Bookstore. (If I have to explain this, then you mustn't love bookstores, especially the BYU Bookstore, like I do.)
4. You get to attend the Shadow Mountain Music Sampler night in the Marriott Center, which is like going to a free LDS music concert. Also, you can participate in the service night. I never have, but this might be the year! Really, you can do as much, or as little, as you want. (And you guessed it, no children!)
3. You stay up late and talk and laugh and eat snacks and get almost no sleep but have so much fun with people you love who live too far away. (And you can't make the snacks but must purchase them--no cooking allowed!)
2. You get to be back at BYU with its memories and beautiful campus. Everything at BYU is fun. And this only lasts two days. Anyone can get away for two days.
1. You come home motivated and refreshed (and tired). And you feel ready to cook and you love being back with your children again.

So you can see how much fun it is. And you can see why I am so excited. You can still sign up. Here's the link.