Ponytail!

She finally has enough hair for a ponytail!!And Rina, you can make fun all you want. I think she's adorable.

School days

Logan had his second day of Joy School today, and I manged to get his backpack made in time, so here he is with it on! I know, those straps are impressive, hey? He really likes it and I had a hard time getting him to take it off in the car. Yay!

Randi was our teacher today. She was awesome!! Logan was begging to "Do it again!" before we even left the house. Since Randi and I have the littlest of the littles in our group, we agreed to trade off watching our littler ones when we are teaching, so I got to take Lisa home with me today.We had lots of fun! The girls were so cute playing together. I was really impressed at how well they both shared. Lisa had a great time terrorizing the cat. Fortunately, Godiva is used to that sort of "fun". She's had plenty of practice!!

Gymastics!!!!

We are packing in the fun these days, first with Joy School, and now with gymnastics! Logan LOVES it!! Before class even started he was "hanging" out on the equipment.
Although there is room for 6 kiddos in his class, he is currently solo. It is awesome, since he gets one on one coaching, but I think it would be fun for him to have a buddy or two in there. A friend of ours from church should be starting next month, so that will be fun.

Class starts out with warm ups.
Logan bear crawls...
Bunny hops...
and stretches.
Some times he is more cooperative than others.
His favorite thing is the big trampoline.
Today the skill that we were working on was straddling with his legs. Here he is jumping over the stuffed animals. He really had fun doing this!
A fun forward roll keeps things moving.

They set up sort of obstacle courses to work on different ways to use the skill of the day. Here are some parts of the course today.
Straddling an object while coach rolled it back and forth. This was really fun!Then straddle-jumping up onto something. Logan had a little trouble with this, since he's a little short, but he climbed.Jump!

Myra wanted in on the fun, too. Since we are the only ones there, she has the run of the gym. She loves it, too!

Another forward roll.
Bubbles!!
And a try on the rings. He hung there really well, but we won't be trying any iron crosses just yet.

First day of school?!?

...Already?!?! Seriously. How is my little man old enough for preschool?

But here he is with his class. We are doing a Joy School type preschool, where the moms rotate teaching the kids. We started today at the Smith's house.

Here is Logan, all ready with his "backpack". With all the wedding sewing going on I haven't had a chance to make his backpack. I have this adorable pattern and great plans... I WILL get made before next week!Fortunately, he doesn't care. He has been so excited!! He wouldn't stop jumping all morning!

Boy Genius and the little Fashionista

I know, blogging all over the place this weekend, but I had to brag on my two little darlings. Logan brought me this

just now. I not only did not help him write that AT ALL, I wasn't even in the room when he wrote it. He's been writing simple numbers like 1 and letters like L and J for a while now, but zero has had him stumped. I'm so proud of him!!

And here is our wee fashionista. Black high heel platforms with cheetah print pants - that's my girl! Pardon the shirt that doesn't match at all. She made a mess at dinner and it was the first one I grabbed.

Obama and Health Care

So I'm frightened.

I read the President's speech about health care, and it sounds very nice. Until you realize that nearly every promise that he makes is a blatant lie. He promises that everyone will have coverage, and says he won't raise taxes to do it, which strains common sense. He promises that there won't be a one-payer, government run system, but the bill currently floated in the house makes this a virtual certainty. Mandating absurd levels of coverage for private insurance, and then subsidizing the public program with taxpayer money, guarantees that the public option will be cheaper for the consumer, driving the private insurance out of business.

See http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/10/health-care-speech-obama-economics-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html

All this in the face of a questionable economy, and the largest spending spree in history, possibly by any nation, ever.

Who the devil thought up this garbage?

Well, at least we know how Obama got elected. He contracted with the community organization called ACORN, which he used to work for, to register voters. This organization then proceeded to fraudulently register hundreds of thousands of voters across the nation. They are currently under investigation for voter fraud. But that's not the sick part.

Two conservative journalists posed as a pimp and a prostitute, and went to two local ACORN offices to ask for help and housing funding to set up an apartment where they could bring 13 year olds from Africa to use as prostitutes. The ACORN officials not only didn't call the cops, they helped them find ways to avoid the taxman, and helped them set up this so-called business.

Don't believe me? Can't blame you. The videos are available here: (http://biggovernment.com/), you will have to scroll down to see them. Full text also available.

I just finished reading the bit in the Book of Mormon that talks about how this is a blessed land unless we are no longer righteous. Boy are we in trouble.

We elected this jerk. We are ultimately responsible.

What to do? You could try protests.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoPud1TeubM&feature=related
Estimates of the crowd vary, but some place it at nearly 1 million people.

My father taught me, If no good people run for office, who is left? I'm not signing up to run, obviously, but it seems to me that the time to sit on the sidelines and wait for the good-ol'-boys in DC to fix things is well past.

Miles of Trials, the Trial of Miles

There is a section in the book at left, that speaks of Trials. It states, basically, that to go from mediocre to great, requires not great effort, but great sustained effort, over weeks, months, years. Miles upon miles upon miles. The high level marathoners in the world, for example, typically run between 80 to 150 miles per week. And if you happen to be a Kenyan runner, you know that you have put in some 10,000 miles of running by the time you hit high school, most of it in high altitude, hilly terrain.

Is it any wonder that they sit atop the distance running world?

There is decent evidence that it takes about 10,000 hours of a certain type of dedication to acheive expert status, regardless of the field. Chess, medicine, archery, running, stand-up comedy, perhaps even prayer; it's all about the same. However, 10,000 hours of the wrong type of effort leaves you no better.

The "proper" effort is defined by endless soul-searching and upward striving, in trying to find your weaknesses and take specific action to correct them. In running it's easy: if you are slow, run fast. If you can't handle the distance, run farther. In other aspects of life, it's a bit more difficult to see just what the problem is and how to correct it.

This journey of trying to lose weight is a case in point. Not eating for a day (Fast Sunday, anyone?) does not contribute to weight loss. It's taking a little bit off, day by day, that makes the difference, and sustaining this difference forever. It's changing the approach to food. It's realizing that you don't have to give in to social pressure, or your own body's pressure, to eat junk you shouldn't eat.

This is unsustainable until you have a goal. My goal is to be able to run a marathon, but also to be able to have the energy and ability to play with my kids and enjoy my life without being limited by my lack of fitness. Weight loss plays a big role here, as I can't really imagine running a marathon, or running around the park with Logan, with an extra 35 pounds of fat jiggling around the middle.

The guys over at Gym Jones (http://www.gymjones.com/knowledge.php?id=36) were responsible for the fitness of the actors in the movie "300" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(film)). They had specific goals and a very narrow time frame, and through very hard work managed to acheive. The following is an excerpt from their website as linked above:

"Maybe you'll overcome your self-imposed (or worse, society-imposed) limitations and shine even more brightly. Wow, you're getting it: positive reinforcement for hard work and suffering. So maybe you give your goal even more significance and you begin cutting away the ideas and the expectations and the people who you believe prevent you from achieving it. Now you become a real selfish [jerk], and you begin paying attention every second of every minute of every hour of every day, and you sustain your awareness for weeks and months at a time. You no longer think yourself a unique snowflake, you're a steel-edged blade shaped like a snowflake and you're spinning at warp speed. You're the biggest fish in the pond... Now you have options."

They go on to describe the options as 1) continue evolving and improving, gaining physical and spiritual strength 2) keep that same level, maintaing physical but losing spiritual/inner strength, or 3) stagnate and lose both the fitness you fought for and the inner strength that you gained.

I submit that although the Gym Jones guys were talking about fitness, the same thing applies to any endeavour. If you have a goal, and it really means something, then the way to acheive it is via...suffering. Suffering brings acheivement. Suffering brings salvation.

What is your goal?

Boys and Girls

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

Lest you should wonder...

Boys like to play with lipstick.

Girls like to WEAR lipstick. (even if it is a crayon - note that the color coordinates with her top.)
Boys object to the camera.
Girls POSE for the camera.
Boys like to eat their toes.
Girls like to cover their toes with shoes (or polish!).
Boys jump right in!
Girls scope out the scene and plan.
Boys attack the presents, perhaps even before permission has been given.
Girls wait, and let brother do the work.
Boys do not match.
Girls accessorize.
They still love each other very much!

Bedtime Story

Logan shares one of his favorite bedtime stories with Myra. Daddy helps a bit, but he's pretty much got it down.

He has since learned how to correctly pronounce "kittens" and "mittens", but I love the way he says "kits" and "mitts" in this video. I'm so glad that I got it when I did!!

Shoes...

Myra had a bit of a stomach bug today, so after three outfits (one of them mine) ended up in the wash, I decided that a diaper alone was a better option.Apparently the appropriate accessories for a diaper are bright green sandals. Who knew? She wouldn't take them off.