Pies and playing

Faith helped Grammie make pies for our Thanksgiving feast.

Danny helped Daddy stuff his face.

Max the dog helped the girls figure out traffic rules.

The little clown bike helped Nancy have some foolish fun.

Nancy helped Danny play on the mini-bike.

How to keep cool in an Arizona Winter

More than Raindrops on Roses

This morning I stripped the house of autumnal decorations and decked the halls with colorful lights and fake evergreen garland. I haven't skipped over Thanksgiving, oh no no no, just transitioned into a celebration of Christ and His life, which starts with the giving of thanks and continues on until the celebration of His Ressurection. Maybe I am a bit corny to tie most holidays inbetween to Christ as well, but it seems to fit. The New Year is all about making goals to become better, in essence, to become more like our Savior as He has asked us to. Valentine's is the celebration of love which is the greatest gift of Heaven imaginable on earth; it is the little glimpse into truly heavenly life. And then Spring brings in the glories of new birth, the Ressurection that will make it possible to return to our Savior.

Lest I be accused ungrateful - I add my list of gratitude to those circulating about that make us all feel like singing "These are a few of my favorite things...."
- Josh Button
-my kiddos
-being able to stay at home with my kiddos every day and watch the marvelous things they do
-smiling, genuinely seeing something that makes me smile and enjoying the moment
-being bold enough to make new friends and finding out that everyone is quite nice
-clean floors and a made bed
-hand-me-downs and heirlooms; old stuff is really neat
-family history, not like the really in the past kind but just a few generations back, learning about the people that I can remember or that I admire
-feeling the influence of the Holy Ghost
-knowing that I am blessed
-new projects

New Days, New Ways

Today I took the kiddos to the Arizona Museum for Children. After our last children's museum go I realized that everything goes dead at those places from 12-3 in the afternoon. Thus we planned our trip perfectly and had the whole place to ourselves!!!! Seriously, at least 2 full hours there were no other kids in the building. SO fun. Fun places like that to take my kids makes arizona okay.

I have been lately reading a lot of "No Impact Man" a fantastically different kinda think book. I have been taking mini steps toward revolution of self-sustainabilty and I like the ideas in this book. The main message is not that we should all worry about greenhouse gases, but the quality of life we are really seeking. EXACTLY! Get the trash and the rush out of the way and you find what is really important; health and family. Throw in the truth of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and life is perfect.

I have realized in light of all my recent thoughts that although I am not perfect, I am okay with getting more perfect. I love people. I love the gift of charity. I love having words from the Prophets cycling through my thoughts. A good run with good speakers makes my day. Nap time and some great reading material makes my afternoons even better! Reading the Book of Mormon with my family is fantastic.

Mental Anguish

Perhaps my previous post was a bit dramatic, I just didn't have the mental where-with-all to go through the story one more time.

The associated press version is: Mesa and Gilbert SWAT teams were called out 8 am Tuesday morning to respond to a drug bust in --Apartments. Four suspects were apprehended after tear bombs were shot into the apartment. Several packages of trafficed illegal drugs were found int he apartment.

So why do I get the feeling that by sitting here calmly in my apartment two doors down from said incident that I am defying all motherly instincts? Shouldn't I be frantically packing up our belongings, shipping our children on the next bus up to Idaho and screaming at the management about having been held hostage in my own apartment with small children while there is a gun raid going on next door!!! Granted yesterday after we were cleared to usher the kids to the van thus avoiding the release of tear gas from the bombed apartment I took my kids out of the complex and didn't really want to return, at all. I laughed nervously on the phone as I explained it to Josh and my Mom. I went and got a large milkshake and greasy fries. I drove around writing down he numbers on any "For RENT" house I saw. I did return by dinner time not being able to justify eating french fries for a second meal that day, after all there were no gun shots other than the tear gas bomb and policemen really are nice sounding on the large intercoms. Yet, when I returned 'home' all the neighbors were casual and talking together as if the morning was only mildly unusual.

So do I just ignore what happened? Continue on said plan of waiting until offers go thorugh on houses we want to buy? Do we jet out of here before anyone knows we packed a box? And why was it so easy to get up, say forget it, and mop the floors to be ready to go to story time at the library?

"Don't worry sweetie, the nice men with guns are helping us get to the car..."

needless to say...our move-out date has been expedited.

Gunga Din

Saturday night we watched a movie called “Gunga Din” which I picked strictly for its title. While we were living with Mildred (a lovely 93 year old woman), she constantly had old movies on her TV. One night we went upstairs to watch some black-and-white with her. We watched a cute movie that will forever remain titleless since it was on AMC and they don't have commercials and the fact that even if I did hear the name, I would forget it. The black-and-white was a cute show in which a lady mistakenly ends up with an orphan baby and then likewise get it mistaken for her bosses seed. At one point this awkwardly positioned couple is having one of the ‘my baby is so smart’ conversations in the park with a veteran parent couple and the new pretend dad says ‘oh yes, our infant recited all of Gunga Din just last night” it was a funny conversation that Josh and I have used ever since as the ultimate display of ridiculous one-up-manship. If ever we catch ourselves in a bit of that silly prideful comparative conversation then we stop it with a quick reference to Gunga Din. So when I saw the movie I had to pick it up. Much to my great happiness, it starred Cary Grant! The show was hilarious. Grant at his most comical and rather young. And the movie gave away the secret to the often referenced Gunga Din, it is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling. Now I might just get literate and read the poem!

Laugh it Up

Today while Faith and I were reading books on the couch, I looked over to see a giant rat sniffing at our screen door on our front porch. Luckily my cousins had kept rats as pets so I was not terribly afraid of the large vermin on the porch, just surprised. I quickly went to block the drain exit on the porch with the cooler and then went back inside to call the apartment complex. The nice thing about living in an apartment (and it may well be one of the only nice things) is that when you have large vermin you can get someone else to take care of them.

When I called the office I got the "WHAT?!" response followed by "but we don't have rats here." Sorry bud, you do now. They quickly dispatched their two kindly maintenance men that came skeptically and unprepared. A broom was not going to do the trick. After seeing our hidden friend camped out behind the barbecue the all believed me that there was a six inch black rat on my porch. They jumped back a bit from the porch and pondered on what they would actually do. Assessing that the rat was cleaner than a regular trash monger, they figured he was safe enough to capture by hand. It then took about 5 minutes for one man to find leather gloves while the other guy proceeded to aggravate the calm creature by forcibly trying to get him into a 5 gallon bucket, which it promptly jumped out of. Faith and I watched calmly from our side of the screen door.

After the attempt to get the poor creature into the bucket, Faith determined that he was hiding in the corner because he was scared and the best way to lull him out was to get a story to read to him. She promptly went to get a book and sat down next to the screen to show the rat the pictures. Soon thereafter the leather gloved custodian came back to pick up the misplaced pet and carry him away. Little did I suspect that the worker would want to carry the rat through my apartment and out the front door so that he didn't have to vault the balcony. I told him to get a firm grip and then he could pass.


Adventure concluded. I laugh. Josh apologized. I just laugh. It makes life worth it to have such funny experiences happen while living in apartments.... after all, my Grandpa Virgil was famous for saying "There's no use in complaining cuz no one gives a damn anyways."

Unsolved Mystery Uncovered

On Friday night when Josh and I left for a date, Faith was secure with her pink blankey, on the couch. That night when we returned, I tucked her into bed assuming that blankey was there beside her. Much to my amazement, in the morning when she tapped me to climb into our plush bed, pink blankey was not draping behind as I pulled her up. We cuddled for awhile and then got up and went on with our day. As she was about to go down for her nap, Josh and I realized that something was truly missing. Blankey had not been spotted that day at all! Where had it gone? I suppose we had not been direct enough with the babysitter about the importance of watching all silky blankets as well as the children. Faith was momentarily distraught that blankey could not be found. We looked all the usual places, and then the unusual places. I quickly subsituted in a fleece yellow blankey, which served a cuddling purpose. Yet the absence of the long comforting friend disturbed me! Had it been stolen? Had Faith left it outside and some stray cat taken it away to make a cozy bed? Had the babysitter dealt the ultimate punishment and banished blankey to a stinky death? WHERE WAS BLANKEY?!?

For days now I have been trying to calm down the nagging in my head as to the location of blankey. I kept trying to be reassured that it couldn't have been eaten by monsters or fit down the garbage disposal. It just had to be some odd place. It wasn't in the cars, or the fridge, or under any of the blankets or mattresses in the house. All closets were interrogated and found innocent. Yet blankey was still missing.

All it took was one good laundress to find that missing sleeping companion. Upon replacing all clean and folded clothing to their own rightful holding place, the misplaced misfit was discovered. Blankey had been camping out in the bottom drawer with Josh's jeans. Why? We may never know. But for now, blankey sleeps softly with her reunited mistress.

Make this a tradition...please

Josh and I celebrated our 4th anniversary on Friday night (late of course, no fun celebrating on the same day, right). We stayed up later than we have for approximately four years, but I just couldnt skip out at intermission! Despite my body's protests, my heart and eyes were captivated by our Oddette and I just couldn't miss her heart breaking end. I have waited years to finally see a professional performance of Tchaikoskvy's "Swan Lake." It was worth every moment.

For our second anniversary we saw a production of "Carmen" in ballet in Boise. We loved that one too. Great music and just mesmerizing altheticism. Even after my very limited attempts at Yoga and trying to hold my leg in the air for a few seconds I appreciat emore their balance and agility. Not to mention absolute grace! I kept thinking how lovely it would be to watch Faith dance that way, or dance at all (booty shaking doesn't count)!

Halloween 09

No coats.
No knocking on doors - just enjoy the decorations and people wait on the driveway to give you candy.
No frostbite. Faith is sitting next to her kitty pumpkin.