Like father, like son.

Once upon a time, a loooonnnngg time ago, but not so long ago I can't remember, we had a garage. We even parked cars in our garage. Then came the woodshop. Don't get me wrong. We love the woodshop. It's wonderful to live with "Tim the tool man" There are a lot of projects in our house I owe to Tim, as do many other neighbors and family members. So when I'm scraping ice and snow off my windows through the entire winter, I remember my shelves, my benches, my cutting boards, my night stands... Yes, it does make scraping snow and ice off windows a little more bearable.

So on to the story. I promised Nate a project in the woodshop the other day. In the ideal, perfect world, dad would have been helping him, but in the real world, dad had to leave for work, and I got to be Nate's assistant. Actually, I had a lot of fun watching him work, and was amazed at his abilities, especially since neither of us are allowed to use tools when Tim isn't around. :-) Nate started off with a foot long 2"x4". He clamped it in the clamp on the wood table, and started sawing away...with the handsaw! He sawed the entire length of the board, and then wanted to sand it. We cheated; we did use the power sander. While sanding, Nate discovered he could shape the wood pieces with the sander, and started making a pinewood derby car. He then got out the chalk line, and marked across the edges where he'll cut with Tim when they're out there together. He has plans to get wheels, etc. He's a little too old to race it, but the therapist in me thinks he's resolving all kinds of past issues that have to do with letting his dad, the woodshop expert, make his pinewood derby cars. He lost twice. Apparently expertice with wood doesn't win pinewood derbys. Kidding aside, I loved to watch his creativity. Being one of those artistically challenged people who can look at a block of wood and see...a block of wood, I admire anyone who can make a 3-D image move from their mind to an object. On this particular day I was happy to play assistant. I held the table while he sawed, and plugged in the power sander...and just enjoyed getting out of his way and watching him work.

Family Home Evening

Monday night...Family Home Evening. Tim says that his dad, who is an career institute teacher and mission president said that Family Home Evening always starts with "Love at Home," and ends with "Master the Tempest is Raging." It is a funny description of what Family Home Evening can feel like...and we all laugh because we've all been there. I have to say though, for the most part I enjoy seeing our children get excited about knowing that night is for us, and being excited about learning. They're still kind of young to be pulling the teen attitude on us, so we'll just keep enjoying it as long as we can.

Tonight was one of those payoff nights. Megan was in charge of the lesson, something we've just started assigning to the kids. Part of my reluctance has been knowing that Tim and I often have something specific in mind we want to teach, so turning it over to them means giving that up once in a while. I was aware that yesterday Megan was planning the lesson, but didn't remember to ask her what it was about. I knew she said she needed donut holes. On the way to get donut holes, it did occur to me I could ask her what the lesson was about. She explained it in terms of the donut holes--that the donut holes are living a Christ-centered life. He's the hole and everything is centered around Him. I have to say I got a little teary-eyed when she said that. Our stake president challenged us recently to have a goal to live Christ-centered lives. I had thought, "We really need to review that for Family Home Evening," and here Megan was, teaching that for her lesson. I said, "You were really following the spirit on your lesson." She told me she'd looked at different lessons and kept coming back to that one, so we got a little moment in the car on the way to buy donut holes to identify how the Holy Ghost was working to help her teach a lesson our stake president had wanted families to focus on. I love those spontaneous teaching moments with kids, when you hardly have to say anything, but you know the spirit is teaching them and they just know.

Megan's lesson was great. She asked questions, used scriptures, and involved everyone. Our humorous moment (gotta have a few of those, right?) was when Megan asked, "Can anyone guess how our lesson is like donut holes?" Joie, who raises her hand to every question in primary and Family Home Evening, whether she knows the answer or not, was bouncing off her seat with her hand in the air. She had to know, right? So Megan called on her and she said, "Faith is like a...(pause) little donut hole." Seriously, that will be one of our infamous family quotes that cracks us all up as soon as it's said. That was followed up by (singing to the tune of "Faith is Like a Little Seed") "Faith is like a little donut hole. If planted it will grow...donuts." Maybe you had to be there, but we had a good laugh. I'm incredibly thankful for the gospel working in the lives of our family.

Ballerina Girl

I keep meaning to post this one, but haven't. Joie begged and begged to take ballet, then saw Megan in gymnastics and just had to sign up. Four whole months later she was finished with her gymnastics career, and was begging again to take ballet. She is now taking lessons with her friend, and to be honest, a bit frustrated that she couldn't dance The Nutcracker after her first lesson. In true Joie form, she thinks big. She doesn't talk about taking lessons, she talks about "dancing in Ballet West." So here she is in all her glory...and after one week is begging for a tutu because her teacher said it was ok to wear one.

She remembers when she first got her wings

And how she opened up that day

she learned to sing

Then the colors came, erased the

black and white

And her whole world changed

when she realized

She's a butterfly, pretty as the crimson sky

Nothing's ever gonna bring her down

And everywhere she goes

Everybody knows she's so glad to be alive

She's a butterfly

Like the purest light in a darkened world

So much hope inside such a lovely girl

You should see her fly, it's almost magical

It makes you wanna cry, she's so beautiful

God bless the butterfly,

give her the strength to fly

Never let her wings touch the ground

God bless the butterfly,

give her strength to fly

Never let her wings touch the ground.

(Lyrics to "She's A Butterfly" by Martina McBride, shared with me by Beth and Becky.)

Good-bye

(Read the following 3 blogs backwards, starting with the bottom flower picture and going up.)

Then Joie turned the flowers to look out the window, locked the door again, and we said good-bye. Then we got in the car and she asked if I could turn on "the angel song." (Calling All Angels by Jessie Clark Funk)

And then...

Then we went inside and Joie took some more pictures.