After hearing people say " hit the wall " several times , Isabelle leaned over and quietly asked me what it meant . I explained it to her . It wasn 't long before she was begging to get down on the track and run , track meet and all . Yesterday , she and Nolan came and asked me if I would take them to the track so that they could go for a run . It was a warmer - than - usual day around here and I had a half an hour before I had to go pick up Maddie , so I agreed . This is the conversation that I heard as they elatedly ran off to get their " running shoes " on : As a side - note , Kami is having a really great experience with track and has been consistently improving her times . This week her 800 time was 2 : 55 , and her mile time was 6 : 44 ! She wants to get her mile down into the 6 : 30 's next week . I 'm hoping that we will have some good weather at one of these meets - so far they 've all been very cold , and very windy , and usually rainy as well . For the last few years we have made " resurrection cookies " the night before Easter . These cookies have ingredients that have scriptures that go with them and tell the Easter story . You put them into the oven , seal the oven closed with a few pieces of tape , representing the sealed tomb , turn the oven off , and don 't look at them again until morning . The next day when you bite into them , they are hollow , representing the empty tomb , and you read some more scriptures to go with it . For some reason they didn 't turn out this year . This morning they looked like they had risen and then fallen and were hardly even hollow . These are cookies that don 't taste that great and usually end up in the garbage can anyway , so that activity was a flop . I guess it 's good that we at least got the Easter story read in the process ! After I fell into bed exhausted last night , I remembered that I hadn 't done the Easter baskets . I decided that I 'd get up really early the next morning before the kids . Well , during the night I woke up ( at 3 : 45 ) and I was starving to death ! I guess I hadn 't eaten much the day before because I was feeling so miserable . I couldn 't sleep , so I decided to get up and eat and take care of the baskets then . I ended up surprising Shawn and the kids . Shawn because he hadn 't noticed that I had left and when I got back into bed I stuck my freezing cold feet on him to warm up . I 'm sure that his favorite job is being my foot warmer ! When we moved into our new ward , one of the first things that we noticed was that the ward choir was very small , so we started attending . I 've never been much of a singer , but I do like to sing . I can carry a tune , but I 've never thought that my voice had a good tone to it , I can 't hold my breath for very long , and have always seen myself as more of a " choir voice " . But I think because I went to ward choir , the ward percieved that I was a singer , because suddenly I 'm asked to sing at things ! It is the strangest thing . Last week , a woman in the ward called and asked me to sing with her and one other woman at our adult meeting of stake conference . Just the three of us . I wasn 't so comfortable with that , but agreed to do it . We practiced on Tuesday and right after that I caught a cold and lost my voice . Well , I could talk , but only quietly and my vocal cords felt so strained ! I wasn 't too worried , because I figured that I had all week to get over it . I haven 't had a cold in the longest time , and what a time to catch one ! Instead of getting better I seemed worse and more miserable every day . I still felt pretty miserable Saturday , and could barely sing when we practiced in the morning . I tried not to talk as much as possible for the rest of the day . I did send up a lot of prayers - Who could take my place when it was supposed to be a musical number from our ward ? It was the neatest thing , though , because I got up last night to sing and felt just fine the whole time and have been over my cold ever since ! Isn 't that amazing ? I was so thrilled about not having my voice crack or something that I didn 't even care about the numerous other woman in the stake that can sing 100 % better than I can . Too bad they didn 't hear what I was sounding like before so that they could truly appreciate the musical number ! These are the women that I sang with . I absolutely love them . Heather is my neighbor just across the road , and also our R . S . president . She and her family are wonderful and they are so good at putting together social get - togethers . For instance , right after conference she had everyone over for chocolate chimichangas - delicious ! ( You deep - fry tortillas with hershey 's chocolate inside them and then serve them with vanilla ice cream and whipped topping . ) Isabelle has apparently taken it upon herself to decorate the house ! I find her master - pieces all over the place , but her current bulletin board seems to be Shawn 's and my bedroom door . One side of it looks like this right now : The other side has her continued evaluations of Shawn and I . I am now on my third paper and Shawn is on his second . She says that whoever gets finished with their third paper the first , wins - the suspense is killing me - I hope I win , I hope I win ! ! : ) It 's so funny that she persists at this and writes something up nearly every day ! We shorten the name Isabelle to " Belle " a lot around the house . A few days ago I overheard her talking to a friend and she said , " Sometimes my family wants to get my attention and they say , " Hey , Belle ! " And it sounds like they 're saying hay bale . And sometimes my mom says , " Close the door , Belle . " And it sounds like she 's saying doorbell ! " I was working on a sewing project yesterday when Isabelle came in wondering what she could have for a snack . I didn 't want to stop working , so I told her that there were oranges and apples in the fruit basket . She turned up her nose about that because she is not a fruit - lover . She left for a little bit and examined the fruit basket and then the basket below that , where she found some corn on the cob . She came back into my sewing room and jokingly said , " Can I have some corn on the cob ? " I told her that she could try it and she looked really surprised and said , " Raw ? ! ? " I could tell that she really wasn 't interested . As an after - thought I told her that Jesus ' apostles were really hungry one day ( which happened to be the Sabbath ) and they were walking through a cornfield , so they began eating some corn as they went , and I was pretty sure they ate it raw . I told her about how the Pharisees were angry about it because they thought the apostles were breaking the Sabbath . Isabelle 's smarter than the Pharisees because she said , " What ? People still need to eat even if it 's Sunday ! " Last weekend Shawn flew over to Seattle to meet with a couple of doctors on Saturday . He planned to fly into Boise on his way home , but because he would get there so late at night , he told me that he would be driving home early Sunday morning . Luckily that 's the first time that he 's ever been gone on a weekend , because frankly I didn 't enjoy it much . So there I was not enjoying it much on Friday night , while he was enjoying an evening with my brother Nathan and his family , when suddenly I got a telephone call . It was the stake executive secretary wondering if he could meet with Shawn and I at 9 : 00 on Sunday morning . I explained that I wasn 't expecting Shawn until 10 : 00 , so he said he 'd have to talk with the stake presidency and get back to us . I called Shawn because by that time he was heading back to his hotel , and we speculated about what they could possibly want . Shawn told me everything that the Stake Presidency is over , and we decided that it wouldn 't be any of those things . Then we remembered that Stake Conference was going to be this coming Sunday , and decided that they must want us to speak at it ! Sunday morning , Shawn made it home in time for his Young Men 's presidency meeting , and he said that he began to feel a little bit uneasy because the members of the bishopric were there and they were all grinning at him . I met him there right after his meeting , and we went in to meet with the Stake Presidency . There was just one member there at first , and he made a big deal about getting the other men together . When he took off to do that , I asked Shawn why it was so important to have all of them there , and he told me that he was getting some different ideas about what this meeting was all about ! Anyways , he was called to be in the bishopric , because one of the members of the bishopric has been battling cancer and isn 't doing too well . We learned about this calling about fifteen minutes before church started , they announced it in sacrament meeting , ( we hadn 't had time to tell the kids and their faces were classic ! ) and then wanted Shawn to be ordained and set apart right after church . Shawn wanted his dad to ordain him , and after calling him between every meeting was finally able to get a hold of him just in the nick of time . I think that Shawn is really going to love this calling - he will be over the Young Men and scouting and really enjoys both . I am excited for him and anxious for myself . ( I hope I can handle sacrament meeting and more time parenting - on my own . ) I think that I 'm in for some serious growth myself from his calling ! I already thought that I was going far beyond myself with all of his traveling and being on my own so much . Now , on some of the days that he was normally " home for sure " , he will be gone with his calling . Luckily , a bishop 's counselor doesn 't have nearly the demanding job that a bishop has . I 'm sure that we will all be just fine . One of my favorite memories of the day was talking about the surprise of it all as we all drove home from church . I brought up that we would have to sit more strategically during sacrament meeting with an older child beside each younger one for the inevitable time when I would be leaving the meeting with Abe . I looked into the back and saw Kami in tears . At first I thought she was upset about something that I 'd said , but when I asked her what was wrong she said , " I 'm just so proud of dad ! " We got Pumpkin and Guido because the kids decided that Priscilla was lonely - she WAS running off all the time when the kids were gone to school . We saw a free kittens sign just down the road , and when we stopped to pick up ONE we ended up picking up THREE . I can be one of those sucker parents at times , and they were all so pretty that it was hard to choose ! There was a white kitten , also , that has already met his demise . : ( Anyway , here is the thing . We live in a mice - infested area , and I would much rather have cats to take care of that , than to spend money feeding mice ( de - con ) . We do feed our cats cat food as well , but the cost comes out to the same , or even better , than what it would take to feed all of these mice , plus the cats are catching all the mice . absolutely thrilled But here is the other thing : Priscilla just had kittens this week . SIX of them . This was a very exciting event for the kids , and I remember feeling so excited to find new baby kittens around the place when I was growing up . I 'm glad that the kids got to experience that . . . but I 'm beginning to have future visions of not being able to take a step outdoors without stepping on a cat because the ground will be swarming with them . Imaginings that someone will ask how to find our house and people will say , " You know . It 's the cat house . The one that has a gazillion cats all over the place . And of the person saying , " Oh yeah ! I know exactly which one you 're talking about ! ! " So . . . we need to make a decision . Do we take them in to get them fixed ? Because here is yet another thing . I have a very strong superstition that you are setting up your pet for imminent death the second that you pay for something to be done for them at the veterinarians . That 's what happened to white kitty " Casper " , and a cat before that and a cat before that . We live not too far from a very busy road , and our cats are out - door cats . You get the picture . I just don 't want to pay out the money for nothing . I was awakened last night by the sounds of a crying child . Initially , I thought it was Nolan , but as I reached the top of the stairs I realized that it was Isabelle crying . When I got to her , she was sitting up in bed sobbing with her hands up to her face . I asked her if she was feeling sick , to which she said no . I then asked her if she had had a bad dream , and she nodded and continued sobbing as she said , " but I think it was real ! ! " I snuggled up to her in her bed and told her to tell me all about it . She said , " well , I dreamed that you told us that we had to eat dog food . " I said , " was I being a mean mommy in your dream ? " , to which she said " no , but I think it 's real that you want us to eat dog food . " So I reminded her that I like us to eat foods that are good for our bodies and I didn 't think that dog food would be good for humans . Plus , we don 't even have a dog ; thus no dog food for me to give to her . She settled right back into a contented sleep . This morning I asked her more about her dream and she said that I had been making home - made dog food and mixing it into my bread dough before I baked it . She said that when I took it out of the oven , Caden had said , " Yum ! My favorite ! ! " Kami just experienced her first track meet and she did such a super job ! I was running to pick up Caden and Maddie from piano lessons and got to the track meet right after she finished the 800 meter run . ( sigh ) I had Shawn grab a few pictures ; she got first place with a time of 3 : 13 . Then we had to wait for awhile for her next event and try to keep her , and ourselves , from freezing to death . These spring sports are brutal ! It was cold and rainy and the little girls spent their time fighting over who got the umbrella , while Abram and Nolan ran up and down the ramp that led to the stadium seating , and Caden was nice enough to keep an eye on them . Kami 's final event , the 1600 meter run , ended up being the final event of the meet . She was the only girl who signed up for this one , so she got to run with the boys . At least that 's an automatic first place ! : ) She held her own with the boys , though , and finished with a time of 6 : 54 . Not a personal best , but close . We were proud of her , and she is excited for the next meet . Shawn and I put the little kids to bed last night and then went grocery shopping . I couldn 't help noticing that all of the things we needed to purchase were things that I had just purchased last week ! In the past , we could go about one month on what it takes a week to get through now . I guess we 're not the only adult appetites in the family anymore ! We got home and I realized , as I went to put the chicken away , that I didn 't need to divide it into smaller portions anymore before I stuck it into the freezer - the carton it comes in is just the right size for us now . I guess that 's a plus ! This morning , as we ate our favorite breakfast of pancakes with pear / blueberry puree on top , Shawn announced that we were down to our last jars of pears . When did that happen ? I was just down in the storage room a couple of weeks ago and we still had quite a few . . . I had to go take a look a little while ago just to make sure . Yep , sure enough , and the salsa is pretty low , too . I thought I had amounts , etc . all figured out and suddenly they all changed ! ! I really quite enjoy canning for the first day , or maybe for the first few batches . The kids usually like it for about that long , too , and it is fun to have little helpers sharing the burden and talking my ear off - until the novelty wears off . The older kids are usually in school by the time peaches and pears are ready , so they can 't help much . Sadly , by the end it is just me , the endless fruit and the jars . ( But when I really run out of steam , I must admit that Shawn has been a fabulous life - saver helper . ) Last year I thought I was keeping up a pretty good pace , but then I called my younger sister , Heidi . Among other things , we compared canning notes . I had been getting five batches done per day and was feeling like I had really accomplished a lot with that amount . Heidi , however , who also by the way has more children than I do , had managed seven batches per day and was pregnant and cheerful ! My sisters are amazing . I guess I am writing this because I am already filled with dread for this coming September , because I can 't stand the thought of doing more than I already did . But I love to have the fruit all year and I am disappointed when we have to forgo our favorite breakfast . What to do ? I am turning into a cannery . We had some big plans for our two whole days of spring break . First of all , we were going to get the yard completely ready for grass ! ( Boy am I ready to get rid of the muddy mess around here ! ) This would entail , among other things , getting a tractor to level and contour everything . Second of all , we intended to take the kids swimming one day and bowling the next so that their vacation wouldn 't be all work and no play . ( or fell down as was the case with the snow and rain that we woke up to the first morning of spring break . ) Our ideas of yard work were then dashed . Nolan , looking dismally out the window , stated matter - of - factly , " It 's a soggy day . " I didn 't think I heard right , so I asked him to repeat himself . He said , " Soggy days means that the clouds are down around us . " I think he was thinking of foggy days . As we waited for the extended warranty people to ante up , ( they 're just like an insurance company , trying to find ways they don 't have to pay ) Shawn 's dad was nice enough to let us drive his pick - up with an extended cab around . ( Shawn 's little red commuter car was just too small for all of us . ) You may be thinking that a pick - up would also be too small for all of us , and you would be right . But it wasn 't as small as Shawn 's car . There must be a little bit of red - neck in the two of us , because when we really needed to go somewhere all together , like to take Kami and Caden to their group piano recital , we threw a couple of kids in the back . So it wasn 't big enough for us to feel good about driving a long distance to a fun swimming pool , but it was big enough to drive , say , ten minutes from where we live . I had to laugh when we pulled up to the piano teacher 's house and Caden and Maddie came tumbling out of the shell on the back of the pick - up . I walked around to close it , and Caden , with his head lowered and looking rather abashed mumbled , " How embarrassing can it get ? ! ! ! " - as he imagined all the piano students watching from the windows as the Gees unloaded their sardine tin . So there we were , our plans dashed and unable to REALLY go anywhere . But do you know , we had such a wonderful time ! Shawn took the days off of work and we were forced to relax and we got to hang out and enjoy each others company . In our family , one of our favorite things is to find a really great book and have Shawn read it out loud to us . He is a really great read - alouder , we have gone through so many good books ! ! Shawn 's traveling schedule hasn 't been really conductive to this activity , however , because when we 're into a really suspenseful part of a book , who wants to wait anywhere from two days to one week before you get to see what happens ? So , we did some reading while we could . Then on Saturday the weather got a little nicer , so the kids helped Shawn set up the trampoline , which never got set up last year because we were so busy with finishing our house . So let me tell you , this was a very happy , exciting day for the kids . And let me also tell you that today was a very happy , exciting day for ME because those kids jumped on the trampoline for about two hours straight ! Do you know how much you can get done in two straight hours ? ! After almost fifteen years of marriage and I don 't even know how many burnt up vacuum cleaner belts , Shawn and I decided to spend a little more money and buy a vacuum cleaner that actually does the job and lasts longer than the many " Walmart specials " that we have purchased - and wasted money on - in the past . We have actually been looking into what we think would be the best vacuum cleaner for a couple of years , and recently settled on a Riccar . I am so thrilled with it ! As I read up about them and as we went together and tested one out and looked it over , we couldn 't help recalling our experience trying out a Kirby about 1 1 / 2 years ago . This is an experience that we still get the giggles about when talking or thinking about it . I have a sister that I happened to mention this to the other day , and she hadn 't heard about it , so this is for her ( and my family history , since I didn 't put pictures with what I wrote ) . I realize that many of you who read this blog have already heard the story . Anyways , here is an excerpt from my family journal , and I will include the pictures : " We worked really hard on the yard and garden for quite some time today and pretty soon the girls decided to make some Crystal Light and some snacks for the workers . They thought that they could set up the umbrella down on the patio we 've made , and make a sort of restaurant and be the waitresses . Shawn had gone for a load of dirt out at our land , and while he was gone a Kirby Vacuum salesman came walking into the back yard . Without looking up , Maddie excitedly said , " Do you want some , dad ? " She was mortified when she saw that it wasn 't Shawn and went running into the house . She spent some time crying from embarrassment , but was finally consoled when Caden offered to give her one of his water - expandable bugs . The salesman said that he would shampoo the front room for us while he demonstrated the vacuum cleaner . This was something that needed done , so I told him that we would watch his demonstration . He said that he 'd be back in half an hour . I went back to work in the garden . Pretty soon Maddie came out with a black wig on and a large Gerbera daisy in her hair . She wanted to know if Kami could draw black eyebrows on her . She said that if that salesman was coming back , she was going to be in disguise . After the eyebrows were on , Maddie noticed that she still didn 't look quite right . She came out wondering if she could wear some mascara . When she was finished , she looked hysterical ! I told her that if it were me , I 'd be more embarrassed to wear the wig ensemble than to have someone know that I had called them dad . She said , " Not me ! ! " She next insisted that we were all to call her Gertrude or Gertie while he was there . ( A fitting name for how she looked . ) I thought that perhaps she 'd be embarrassed to be seen in her outrageous disguise , but when three Kirby salesmen came back she stepped into the room and smiled confidently . Then the main salesman said , " Didn 't all of your kids have blond hair ? Weren 't you blond the last time I was here ? " Maddie looked at him with fake shocked - suprise and shook her head . The whole family got the giggles and we couldn 't stop laughing . The salesmen were looking like they were a little left out of a joke and I was trying to say something but was laughing too hard . Finally I was able to laugh out , " One of my kids called you dad last time you were here , so she 's not going to be here for the presentation . She 's too embarrassed . " We all started laughing harder . Turns out , we sat through a four hour presentation and he never did get to shampoo the whole carpet . Sigh . But we sure got a good laugh the whole time . At one point the salesman pulled me aside and asked if that was " Gertie 's " real hair color . O . K . He must have been pretty gullible - I thought that he had maybe caught on to the joke . Maybe she looked like a Chemo patient . At any rate , during his presentation , he tried to include the kids and let them try various things with the vacuum cleaner . At one point , he took the hose of the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed his own head just to show us how many dead skin cells it would suck up from his scalp . Kami slyly asked , " Gertrude , do you want to help him demonstrate that ? " " Gertie " vigorously shook her head in the negative . We all laughed hard again . I don 't know when we 've had such a good family laugh . " Zany and quirky are definitely two words to describe our Maddie , and we love it ! She keeps us guessing with the way she thinks , and laughing with the things she comes up with . Anyways , every time I use my new vacuum cleaner I can 't help but think of that experience . As I wrote this , Maddie came and looked over my shoulder and said , " Man ! I look so dorky ! ! " But , about five minutes ago , she asked me if she should go check on something that our neighbors asked us to check up on . I told her that would be a good idea . The next thing I knew , there she was all decked out with a sun bonnet on of all things ! I asked her what she was doing wearing a sun bonnet over to the neighbors and she said , " I haven 't done my hair yet and it 's kind - of frizzy . I don 't want anyone to see it . " ( She 's a little self - conscious about her naturally curly hair when it isn 't fixed ) I don 't think she quite catches on to the fact that sometimes she is actually drawing more attention to herself by donning these disguises ! What a fun and funny girl ! ! The last few years , my birthday has been on a weekend day and boy have we lived it up ! Three years ago , we spontaneously picked the kids up after school on a Friday and went up to Jackson Hole and went to a really fun swimming place there . The next year we also went to Jackson Hole and stayed in a really great hotel , were real tourists , and went swimming , but this time in the hotel 's pool . O . K . I guess last year 's birthday wasn 't as exciting for the kids come to think of it ; Abram was still a relatively new baby which always motivates me to stick closer to home , and my birthday fell on Sunday , so I don 't remember what we did for sure . At any rate , I was having fun inviting the kids to my birthday parties and having my birthday be a day that they anticipated . This year , I was wanting to make some really great plans once again , when I suddenly realized that the kids had school . What a kill - joy ! ! Shawn and I decided that we would take the kids bowling that evening for the party . Sunday evening , the car started making funny noises , so we took it to the mechanic the next morning , which left us with Shawn 's five - passenger commuter car . By evening we still didn 't have our car back , so our plans changed again and it ended up that Shawn made me two fabulous pies and then we watched Tangled - a movie that the kids got for me . We ended up having a nice evening , and later , for Spring break this weekend ( spring break here is pretty short - Thursday and Friday plus the weekend ) we will play out our original plans . And now for the car - pooling woes . Three weeks ago , a new woman moved into our ward who happened to have a kindergartner . I have been taking turns driving with one other woman , and so we asked this new woman if she would be interested in car - pooling . I drove the first week , and the mother was outside her garage waiting for us when we pulled up to the house , so I pulled into their driveway . As I backed up to turn and drive out , I heard my car hit something . The something was some short pipes ( for their well ) right on the edge of their driveway , that I would have had no way of seeing from my rear view mirror . This was horrible planning on the part of whoever built the house , and we are left with a nice little dent on the back of our suburban . That was the first woe . The second woe happened yesterday . My car - pooling partner and I had driven for the first two weeks and it was now this new woman 's turn to drive . I was happily enjoying my birthday and had been gone for most of the morning , then got home and was talking on the phone to my sister Ivy . It was high time that Isabelle should arrive home and so I was watching for her and talking when suddenly my cell phone started ringing again and again . So , I hung up from talking to Ivy and called whoever had been calling me , and it turns out that it was the school and that no one had picked up Isabelle or my car - pooling partner 's son . Luckily Shawn was home , having taken the day off , and he jumped in his car and went to get them . Meanwhile I noticed that I had a couple of messages on my phone . Well , to make a long story short , ( I know , I know , it 's too late ! ) this new woman had left me a message that she had decided that because of all of her " commitments " the car - pooling thing wasn 't going to work out for her so she wouldn 't be picking our kids up today ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ? ? ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Then she had left one more message during the time that I was talking to Ivy that said , " Well , I 'm at the school . Why aren 't you getting your kids ? " I will just tell you now that I was pretty steamed ! And incredulous , astounded and amazed ! Here she had happily let us drive for the last two weeks and then when it was her turn it suddenly wasn 't convenient , and never did she make personal contact about it . That is what bothers me the most - that she just assumed that I would get her message last - minute . So , she picked up her own daughter , and left ours kids there . I 'm trying to see from her perspective how that could be a friendly , reliable , responsible thing to do . I must admit that I 'm having a hard time . Who does something like that ? ! ? Have you ever noticed that it 's usually right after conference that something like this happens ? I guess because you watch and listen and think about how you 're going to try so hard to be more charitable , forgiving and the host of other things that the church leaders talk about , and then you have to have something happen to help you practice . I guess that 's why ?