Dancing with Daffodils

I had a goal to read 30 books this year and thanks to a great website that helped me keep track, I did it! Some were long and emotionally intense, some were okay, some were fun, some were so depressing, but each one was a journey and I'm grateful for books and the joy I find in reading. Here is my list! 1. Ms. Bixby's Last Day --I loved this book. So sweet and meaningful. 2. The Midnight Rose --Reminded me of The Forgotten Garden except in India. It was good. 3. House of Robots --I read this to my kids and loved it. It was positive and smart. 4. The Orphan Keeper --Sad but interesting read and I suppose it had a happy ending 5. The Emperors of Chocolate --Fascinating but outdated (it was published in the 90s and a lot has changed since then). I loved learning more about Mars and Hershey and now I look at the candy in line at the grocery store with a more educated eye. 6. The Family Romanov --Interesting, kind of slow, but I learned more about them and that was the idea...

I learned two very important lessons yesterday. First, I am not a performer. Second, practice does not make perfect, unless you can practice in the very environment in which you need to perform. I was having a fantastic day yesterday. We had some wonderful and seriously quality family time, I found a $20 bill hiding in a Christmas mug, and there was the most perfect and magical Christmas snow falling. I was even excited to be participating in my church's community Christmas concert. I have a friend who is an amazing singer and she asked me last year for this same annual concert to accompany her while she sang O Holy Night. I got the music and it has six flats (this means it is challenging) but I spent hours practicing it last year and performed it well enough. I made a few mistakes but felt it didn't distract too much from her performance. When she asked me again this year I was excited because I already knew the piece and therefore could focus on nailing it. I started prac...

Ten years ago we lived in southern California and had season passes to Disneyland. It was a tough year because I struggled getting a job and also getting pregnant, but it was a super fun year going to Disneyland at least twice a month and exploring all that the greater LA area offers. I was also working with some amazing teenage girls at church and I loved them dearly. After two years of trying to get pregnant, I finally succeeded and spent the last month of our annual pass to Disneyland just walking around but not riding rides. The sad part was that then I miscarried and by then our passes had expired. It was too tight financially for us to go back just for a day but right before we moved, one of the girls from church (also a fellow Disney enthusiast) took me to Disneyland for the day. She knew how sad I was over the miscarriage and how I felt like my Disney experience was incomplete and she took me and gave me such a magical day. It is one of the kindest things anyone has ever done...

Sorry for the 4-month hiatus. I've had lots of thoughts floating around my head and haven't taken the time to sit down and develop them. I've decided that I just need to write them down so I'm anticipating a few shorter, perhaps less refined posts over the next few days. Starting off with one on weight. I put on a decent amount of weight with my first two pregnancies but nothing obscene and after the first two kids I used Weight Watchers and managed to lose the extra weight. That got me back to normal (thought not to my ideal) and I was feeling pretty good, especially because I knew I would be pregnant again. After kid number four, I was heavier than normal and then due to some hormonal changes with my body I put on 10 pounds in what felt like over night. At this point I was almost back to my pregnancy weight, which was way more than I really should weigh and I'll admit I was feeling pretty low about it. I started exercising two or three times a week at a gym wi...

It has been too long since I've written. I'd get a good idea and then go off to the pool with the kids and promptly forget about it. Summer is the season that I enjoy my kids most. I'm not busy trying to get them certain places at certain times and I'm completely in charge of our schedule, which I love. They have time to be more helpful around the house (which is good since they have more time to make messes) and we get to play together. I love swimming with them and watching them play at the park and reading together and going on adventures together. I like being able to say yes more often because it is okay to stay up a bit later when we can sleep in the next day and no summer is complete without at least one ice-cream-for-lunch day. I love watching fireworks with them and going to the beach together and doing things that help me feel happy and have fun too. I feel more relaxed and generally like a better mom during the summer. As a kid I spent my summers riding my ...

My husband and I started dating in the late fall of our senior year of high school. I broke up with him in March because I felt like we weren't good enough friends. I told him I needed the cake to go with the frosting and things seemed a bit too serious to me and not fun enough. But then we started hanging out as friends and things were more relaxed and wouldn't you know it by July I was in love with him. But by then we had graduated high school and my parents were moving across the country and I was headed to college far away from where he would be. In my head I thought, well, we have three weeks before I leave so we'll make the most of it and then we'll just part ways. I was wrong. I remember laying on the floor of the apartment my parents were living in while their house was being finished in Idaho and just crying on the phone with him, just days after I had left. He kept saying that we had been blessed with a wonderful relationship and he just didn't think we ...

Last week was a dark and heavy week for me; not my usual "dancing with daffodils" kind of moment that I want to record but there is something I want to remember from last week. My sister texted me 10 days ago to tell me that her doctor had found an abnormal mass in her breast and that they were testing it. She asked us to pray for her, which we did. Monday we found out it was malignant and she had to wait until Friday to have an MRI done to see if the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. All last week this information weighed on me. I was consumed with worry and sadness and felt like tar was running through my body instead of blood. My heart literally felt heavy to me and dark. I also had a friend get hurt by some really unkind words and then later in the week my daughter was upset about an incident at school when a kid in her class was rough with her for no reason. It sounds dramatic now but in the moment it felt like everyone I loved was being attacked and it crushed me....

Earlier this week marked a couple of anniversaries for me. The first was that it has now been 14 years since I've returned home from serving a mission for my church in Kiev, Ukraine. I remember that crazy last day where my two best friends and companions and I went to say goodbye to some of our favorite people. One of our quick stops was to see a family I was very close to and the father had made us beautiful wooden plant stands. They were gorgeous and are still floating around somewhere in Kiev because we were not allowed to bring them on the plane. I was heartbroken and when I went back to visit a few years later I told him the sad tale and he just handed me one from their home. It wasn't nearly as beautiful as the one that he had previously made me but I made sure to get it home this time and it still stands in my dining room as a wonderful reminder of my Ukrainian family. Lots of missionaries are kind of nervous to come home because there are big decisions to make and rea...

I am not one to do crazy things. I am very afraid of pain and so avoid anything dangerous where bodily harm is likely, such as skiing. I did try mountain biking once but ended up walking my bike down the mountain because riding down a dirt path with rocks and trees in the way seemed a little iffy. I like to plan and organize and while I love surprises, I also like to be prepared. So it was quite surprising to my mom when I called her from the Chicago airport in June 2000 and told her the changes to my plan. I had been in London on study abroad from January to April and then done a two-month term at BYU in Provo, Utah. It had been six long months since I had seen Josh and while I was in London, it had even been hard to talk to him very much because of the prohibitively expensive long distance phone rates, as well as the fact that I was sharing one phone with forty other students. I was so anxious to see him and was thrilled to get on a plane headed to Rochester as soon as my last fina...

I went to story time with my kids last week and the theme was favorite things. While they talked about favorite foods and colors and animals, it got me thinking about my favorites and what really makes me happy. So pretend you just opened up your favorite magazine, of which I am of course the editor-in-chief, and here is my list of favorite things I think you should check out. 1. Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights. A few years ago I was teaching my co-op preschool kids about the zoo and I got a CD out of the library called What A Zoo by Joanie Leeds and the Nightlights. I liked it so much that I brought it on a road trip with us and miracle of miracles, my husband liked it too. Here's why: She considers herself a rock star and even though she's singing songs for kids, they sound like real music. They are catchy tunes and clever lyrics and fun to sing along to, whether you are a kid or adult. I'm wondering if I should be ashamed to admit this or not but I really do love her ...

As I was watching my recorded Golden Globes last night, I was blown away by Ryan Gosling's speech after winning in the best actor category. He was gracious and thanked his co-stars and the director and mentioned how every actor stands on the shoulders of lots of wonderful people who help them achieve great performances. Then he thanked "my lady" (who is Eva Mendes). He said while he was off singing and dancing, she took on the responsibility of raising their daughter while she was pregnant with number two and also helping her brother in his battle with cancer. He said that if she hadn't been able to deal with all of that, that someone else would be standing on the stage right then. I love this as a wonderful example of how a relationship, and especially a marriage, should be. Husband and wife have different roles and responsibilities and it is in doing our very best in our part that we help each other succeed. I certainly wouldn't have the ability to manage our ...

12. The Mourning Dove by Larry Barkdull. This is a really short book we read for book club and it is the story of a boy who goes to live with his grandfather when his parents die. It was sad and I felt like the author wrote the story around the advice and teachings he wanted the grandfather to pass on to his grandson. It was fine; not my favorite but there are some nice ideas in it. 13. Under a Painted Sky by Stacy Lee. This is the story of a girl who lives in Missouri back in the frontier days when Missouri is the edge of the wilderness. In an attempt to avoid a man attacking her she ends up killing him and running west to avoid the law. I liked the story and appreciated that it had some suspense to it. It has good characters and it is also a bit sad but it worked out and was a good book. 14. Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George. This is a re-telling of the 12 Dancing Princesses and it was okay. I liked the characters but already knowing the story kind of ruined i...

My house is so messy right now but instead of cleaning like I should, I decided to write a post about the books I read in 2016. Some were good, some not so much and I always wish I could read more but here is what I read, in the order which I read them. 1 and 2. I am Half-Sick of Shadow and As Chimney Sweeps Come to Dust by Alan Bradley. These are a continuation of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, which I loved. These books I did not love so much. One of them took Flavia out of the house and to a school in Canada and I didn't like that at all. The Christmas one was okay but didn't nearly have the depth of the first in the series. Somewhat of a disappointing read because I really do love Flavia as a character and had been looking forward to more of her but it didn't work for me. 3. Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen. I read this for book club and was half-way through it before I realized I had already seen the movie. It is a good one though. Simple, good points, an...