MaeLyn's Musings

One day a couple months ago, I looked into the kids' shower. I don't usually do that. It's kind of gross.  I have these unrealistic thoughts that since they're the ones who use it, they should be the ones to clean it, and they believe that some magical fairy is going to clean it for them, and that's never actually happened. But anyway the point is that I looked into it.  I'm not sure now exactly what I was looking for. I think maybe I was making my shopping list and I was looking to see if I needed to buy more shampoo for them. Anyway, I noticed that there was a tile loose. I wiggled it a little, and it fell right out, revealing a hole in the wall board behind it, and a whole bunch of mildew. Ick! Josh helped remove the old tile I had no idea how long the tile had been loose. When I mentioned it to the kids, they told me it had been like that for months. "And you never told anyone?" I asked. "Well, no. I only think about it when I'm in...

Every few years, the Young Women in our ward have a Spaghetti Dinner and Auction as a fund raiser for girls camp. People donate things to be auctioned off, and all the money goes to the girls camp. When I heard they were having the auction this year, I decided to make some amigurumi to donate. I crocheted the animals, then took them to the park for a photo shoot, and then made up little cards for them. It was a fun project and kept me busy. The dragons were definitely my favorites!   Here are samples of some of the cards. The auction was held last Saturday. We were seated at a table in the cultural hall, which had been decorated to resemble the Italian restaurant from "Lady and the Tramp". Hannah and the other young women served salad, spaghetti, and rolls for dinner. A silent auction was held on tables on one side of the room. Later, with our bishop serving as auctioneer, more expensive items were auctioned off to the highest...

On Wednesday, March 23rd, our morning began with a cell phone buzzing. Seminary was cancelled. Shortly later came the call that school was cancelled. A peek out the window showed maybe a half inch of snow on the ground but snow was falling steadily, and weather reports were calling for a blizzard that would last the entire day. By the afternoon, we had almost two feet of snow on the ground outside our front door! The kids had a blast building forts and caves that afternoon. Josh checking the depth - 21 inches! Hannah climbing out of her snow cave Hannah inside her snow cave Josh building the walls of his fort John working on his fort Peter enjoying the snow When the sun came out... kind of.  A neighborhood squirrel came around looking for a warm nest and discovered my Halloween craft pumpkin on the shelf just outside our patio door. He proceeded to chew a hole in it, dig out the stuffing, and spent the next couple days warm and snuggly inside it...

I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting on Easter Sunday. Here is my talk, as I wrote it out (which is always slightly different from how I actually give it): I. The Plan   Once upon a time, we lived with our loving Father in Heaven. There was nothing we wanted more than to be like our Father. Not only did he know everything there was to know, not only was he perfectly good, not only did he love all his children totally and unconditionally, but he also had a perfect body – one that would never get sick or injured, one that would live forever. And we, well, we didn’t have bodies at all yet. We were just little spirit children, and we didn’t have much experience yet. But we loved our wonderful Father dearly and we wanted to grow up to become like him. Father, being wise and loving, made it his work to help us obtain what we desired – bodies that would live forever, and also a chance to gain experience, to learn and grow so we could eventually have the kind of life that our F...

Hannah and John performed in their school musical last week, a fabulous production of Beauty and the Beast. Hannah was a "silly girl" (the one in pink) and John was the baker. In the magical castle, Hannah was a fork, and John was a salt shaker. They both did an amazing job! Here are pictures. (We also ordered a copy of the video made of the play that night, and should get that in a few weeks so if anyone is interested in watching, we could loan you the video sometime.)  The rest of these were taken following the performance:

This year we decided to treat the kids to a new experience - we took them to the Boulder Dinner Theater to see "Peter and the Starcatcher". The play was based on a book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. We've all read the book and really enjoyed this version of the origins of Peter Pan. We arrived at about 6:10pm to see a crowd in the foyer. Steven picked up out tickets at the desk, and we stood among the crowd for a few more minutes before they opened the doors to the theater at 6:15. As we slowly made our way with the throng to the doors, we admired the posters on the walls, displaying other shows that had been performed. I didn't know there was a play entitled "Chess". When we reached the doors, we were shown to our seats. There were three levels in the theater. Our seats were on the middle level, at a table set for a six. We could look out over a balcony and see the stage clearly (and fairly close) without having other people in front of us (beside...

Peter and Josh had a six day weekend. Yes, I wrote that right: six days, no school. It started on Wednesday. Hannah and John were still in school, so it was just the three of us hanging out at home when I got a phone call from Arlene, who is the office manager at our condo clubhouse. She had to go to the dentist and was wondering if I could go in and sub for her for a few hours that day. (This wasn't totally out of the blue; I've been subbing for her on Saturdays this year so she can attend her grandsons' basketball games.) So the three of us went to the clubhouse to hang out for about three hours. The boys managed to keep themselves entertained playing pool and experimenting with the equipment in the weight room while I answered the phone when it rang and took messages for Arlene. That afternoon we went to the library, and that evening the boys and I had scouts. On Thursday, we had parent teacher conferences. We started with Peter's teachers - Ms. Priola for readin...