This has very little to do with my kids, but...

I consider myself someone who is not easily offended. You would have to be an incredible jerk for me to get to the point that I never want to talk to you again. There are lots of things that annoy me, but only momentarily and then I'm over it and move on. I have to confess that the recent media coverage on the "Are Mormons Christian?" issue has really bugged me; not to the point that I'm irate or up in arms over it, but I definitely find myself feeling somewhere between annoyed and miffed. What gives someone else the right to decide who is Christian and who is not? I have friends of other faiths, and while I recognize that we don't have the exact same beliefs, I would never even think of saying "you are not Christian because we don't have the exact same beliefs." We share a fundamental belief, a belief in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Redeemer.

Throughout this media discussion/debate, this littls song keep popping into my head:

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I know who I am.
I know God’s plan.
I’ll follow him in faith.
I believe in the Savior, Jesus Christ.
I’ll honor his name.
I’ll do what is right;
I’ll follow his light.
His truth I will proclaim.

("The Church of Jesus Christ" words and music: Janice Kapp Perry, b. 1938. © 1989 IRI)

That is one of my kids' favorite songs from Primary and I'm so glad they know it, so that when someone, someday confronts them about what they believe, this song will pop into their heads, just like it pops into mine.

I started rereading the New Testament earlier this year, and in the midst of this debate, I happened to be reading Acts 5 where Gamaliel counsels moderation to those who want to kill Paul and the apostles, saying:

38 And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:

39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

Any church founded by a man would not stand the test of time. I do not belong to a "theological cult." I believe the gospel that was established by Jesus Christ in the New Testament was restored in it's fulness by the power of God, under the direction of Jesus Christ, through Joseph Smith. I honor and revere Joseph Smith as a prophet of God, just as I honor and revere the prophets and apostles of the Bible.

I believe we have a living prophet today, Thomas S. Monson, who recieves revelation from a loving, living, unchanging  Heavenly Father to guide and direct all the saints on the earth today, just as He did through Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph in their days.

I believe The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ, to be the word of God given to us for our day, just as I believe the Bible to be the word of God.

I am a Mormon.
I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior and Redeemer, the only one through whom we can be saved.
I am a Christian.

If you'd like to know more about me and what I believe, please visit http://www.mormon.org/ and read my profile.

Busy Bubba

Bubba has been pretty busy with just the two of us at home during the day now. He sure was sad when Silly disappeared into the bus that first day of school. He just sat on the sidewalk, looking depressed for a few minutes, every now and then yelling "stop bwo-een me!" to the wind.

I love to hear him say, "Mommy, I have sumping tell you..." in his little sing-song voice. He never actually tells me anything after that; he just likes to say it every now and then.

A few weeks ago he started pretending that the step stool in the bathroom was his potty. The top step opens up and he kept opening it and trying to sit inside telling me he was going potty. I figured I better get the actual potty out of the attic before he really used the step so it is now taking up space in the bathroom once again. He uses it just about every night before he gets his jammies on and every now and then he wants to wear underwear and I let him (occasionally I just put it on over his diaper and he goes with it). I'm not pushing it at all. Right now he uses the potty when he wants to and he's completely proud of himself when he pees in it. I'm happy to leave it at that for now. I pretty much let his brother and sister potty train themselves and I'd rather change diapers for another year than push underwear on him.

His other favorite night time thing is playing "super" after he takes a bath. He now rejects all other hoodie towels except for the shark towel and then runs around saying "I super!" for a good long while.

Last Sunday on the way home from church, Cakes taught him how to show 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 with his fingers. HE did it over and over again on our 10 minute drive and hasn't done it since. If I ask him to show me 2 or 3 he just say, "I already did dat" and walks away.

Thursday he was counting pennies on my desk. He said, "one, two, fee, four, nine!" I guess he's got 1-4 down at least. I remember Cakes didn't count 1, 2, 3 for the longest time, she was probably three before she said that. She could say each number and she would tell you if there were 2 of these and 3 of those, but she took a long time to get the whole counting out loud thing down. (Come to think of it, she still has a major issue with counting out loud. She absolutely refuses to count out loud when she plays the piano.)

And lastly, I have no idea why, but for some reason he has decided that poking me is now part of his nightly routine. I tuck him in, sing him a song, give him a hug and kiss then head out closing the door behind me, but most nights he calls me back, wiggling his little pointer finger at me, saying "I wan' poke you" with a silly little squinty-eyed grin on his face. So I go back and he pokes me somewhere on my face then turns over and falls asleep. Whatever works I guess.

Silly Moments

Silly did a lot of bike riding this summer. We all set some goals when summer started and one of his goals was to lose the training wheels. He and Cakes rode their bikes while I pushed Bubba in the stroller several morning every week, all summer. I was pretty sure that when Scott took the training wheels off Silly would just go and never give it a second thought. Over Memorial Day Weekend, Scott took him up to the park, found it was closed, then took him to the middle school to ride where there was plenty of grass to fall in and not so many turns, driveways and street crossings to navigate. They weren't gone five minutes before Scott called me to say Silly was riding on two wheels like it was nothing.

Then we had to hold up our end of the deal, which was to buy him a new bike when he started riding on two wheels. He has done a whole lot of 2-wheel riding since then. It was pretty hard for him to get started at first since his new bike is a little too big and his feet can barely touch the ground when he's on the seat. He's got it down now though.

 

He's pretty serious about it too.

The one perk to having him in afternoon Kindergarten is that we have plenty of time in the morning to go out to the bus stop way too early and he can ride his bike for a while. I know getting that exercise before school will help him work, learn and concentrate while he's there. They only get recess three times a week, if they're lucky, which is completely lame, but I try to compensate for that in the mornings.

And speaking of school, he really doesn't have much to say about it. He came home the first day and said, "Well, now I know that my teacher is really mean!" She's tough, but not mean, and a great teacher. At the end of the week he came home and told me she'd noticed his dimples and now she thinks he's cute, as if that was terrible news.

Waiting for the bus.

Three times now the bus driver has just gone right on past me and forgotten that she has my child on her bus. Thankfully there's a bigger boy who knows us and he immediately starts yelling at her that she forgot to drop someone off.

And finally, soccer has started again. First the whole season was moved back a week because of Hurricane Irene. Then the first practice/game was rained out. Then a makeup practice was scheduled but it was rained out too. Finally, last Saturday they had their game in the YMCA gym since it was raining once again. He was so excited (after suffering two weeks of heartbreak because of the rain cancellations). Last year he was right there with the ball all the time but never once kicked it. This time he and one other older boy were pretty much running the whole game. It was awesome. He's awesome.



Getting his pre-game instructions. Twice the coach told him "just stand right here" but didn't explain that he meant "until the game starts" so Silly just stood in the exact spot while everyone else ran around until the coach told him to run.




He's #11, and #2 is his little partner. Right after I took this picture he kicked the ball again and scored! I don't know why, but he was really trying not to grin from ear to ear after he scored, which leaves him making this fish-face. I think maybe he's trying to hide his dimples. Fat chance!

 A few Sillyisms:

Somehow we ended up talking about birthday suits. He said you're always wearing your birthday suit, "except when you're dead, because then you're not in your skin anymore."

The other morning he asked me, "Do you know how I get so smart? I just look inside my brain!"

The Birthday that Took All Month

So, Cakes turned 8 at the beginning of August. We spent the day in DC on her birthday, she was baptized on the 20th, her birthday party was scheduled for the 27th, but then Hurricane Irene decided to blow through our neck of the woods so the party at Hurricane Gymnastics was canceled due to a hurricane. Thankfully, they were really nice and super helpful and let us schedule the party for Sept 3rd even though they had blocked that weekend out because of the holiday. If not for that we would have had to wait until the end of October!

She has been telling me prety much all summer about this garden cake she wanted. Mainly, that she wanted it to be chocolate, covered in green, have tiers and lots of flowers. Sure. No problem. I guess it's a good thing that my kids just assume I can make any kind of cake or Halloween costume they come up with; it forces me out of my comfort zone. So far I have managed to avoid seriously disappointing them. I decided to attempt fondant for the very first time ever. I must say it really is easy to roll out. That was no  sweat, which was quite a relief because I usually hate that part. However, I was not prepared for the placement part. I rolled them out to the right size but had lots of issues fitting it to the cake. But hey, that's what decorations are for - hiding the defects. Cakes helped mix the cake and helped decorate. She put almost all of the letters on herself and thought it was cool that all the words end in 'y'.

So...here it is...

All her little friends came and played in the gym for an hour. They all loved the foam pit but had fun trying out most of the other equipment too.

 

 

 

Everyone was having so much fun I had to talk them into eating cake. Never had that problem before.'



The traditional "mom's hands cutting the cake" picture.
Does your family have lots of these pictures? Mine sure does.





The whole gang.



 

The kids gobbled their cake pretty fast (I must say it was really, really yummy. I got the recipe from Wedding Cakes for You) and then Cakes opened her presents, which basically boiled down to replenishing our (I mean her) art supplies and projects for another year. That girl is always making something. And I'm not complaining. She is at this moment writing a book using the blank book, stickers and colored pencils one of her friends gave her for a present.

These are some of the pages she's colored out of her doodling books. Funny little story - Gummy and Mamie both bought Cakes similar doodling books. We've been doing lots of coloring around here. The fish one we colored together. The owls she colored with a friend. They're pretty cool books.