The McKays

Guess who's coming.....

2012-01-24T18:38:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's right, baby number four is expected this summer.

The ultrasound said Aug 2 is the due date, but I'm guessing the little munchkin will be late. Daniel's ultrasound said April 18 and he was born on the 26th, so whatever.

Dustin swears up and down that he's SURE the baby is a boy. But at 12 1/2 weeks you almost never can see, and it's not like the technician said anything.

However, I get the feeling the baby will be a boy too, but maybe that's just because that's all I've ever know.

Well, they didn't take the best of photos from the ultrasound, but here's the first glimpse....

Maxwell's quotes for age 6

2012-01-20T23:02:00.000-08:00

It's that time again. My "little" boy is now SEVEN! How did that happen? And we have kept up the tradition of writing down throughout the year the best quotes of Maxwell:

"Please bless my daddy will get rich so he won't have to work for money anymore."

"This is good that they are getting married cause now we'll see how a kiss works."

"Guess who told me that…myself."

"I love you as big as the whole earth. That's how much Jesus wants us to love."

(Hiding daddy's binoculars behind his back) "I'm just putting my hands behind my back for fun."

"I know why the ocean is green, because of all the fish's tinkle. Really... I know fish tinkle."

Me "Maxwell, did you eat all the cookies?" Maxwell "Yes, next time you should hide them higher."

(Daddy is holding the door open while the boys walk under his arm) "It's a good thing we have a short family"

"I know because I have a smart head."

"People wonder what they do. That's why they're called 'The Wonderpets.'"

Maxwell-"Are all the Dinosaurs going to be resurrected when Jesus comes again?"

Me-"Umm well, I guess they are. But they won't eat people, they'll eat grass like the lion will."

Maxwell-"Does that mean I could ride them?"

Me-"yep"

Maxwell-"AWESOME!"

"If you say no, then I'll continue crying, but if you say yes, I'll stop, so you'll want to say yes."

"I went raspberries picking, except I got strawberries."

"Did you know that when I was three I could fly? and I know it wasn't a dream because it was morning time and my mom saw me. I flew off my bed and out the window. I could fly cause I was so light. Wanna know how heavy I was? heavy as a bird."

Maxwell-"Can I have some of those hot dog breaded things on a stick?"
Dustin-"No, those are corn dogs, and they're bad for you. We'll make it at home so it will be healthy...ground up fish covered in oatmeal"
Maxwell-"But will it have a stick..."

"I think the twinnies and I have had enough separation."

"It smells yummy like skunk or bear."

"That's what the secret ingredient to prayer is; you need to really believe."

"Can I lick the chocolate off your fingers?"

"We should get overflow money….we get so much money that we have to give it away."

"I know magic isn't real. My mumma knows because it's not in the bible. But Hell is real."

"I'll give you a kiss if you give me a balloon…a hug I mean….well, I'll give you a hug AND a kiss if you promise to actually give me a balloon."

"Mumma Darling, I'm not trying to manipulate you, but I was wondering...can I have a cookie?"

"I'm so excited about the ice cream for my birthday so don't tell Daddy about it or he'll eat it all."

Stay tuned in June for Hyrum's best quotes of the year :)

A Homeschool Success Story

2012-01-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

I went to my niece's wedding this Christmas break. This is Rachael. I met her when she was about 11. She's a big part of the reason I homeschool.

I never thought I would homeschool my kids before moving to British Columbia as newlyweds even though I knew that all of Dustin's nieces and nephews were homeschooled. Dustin told me it was my choice how to educate our children.

Then I met Rachael and her family.

Rachael did go to kindergarten and I think she went to first and maybe even part of second grade. She was shy, and her mom was worried about her socially, and thought about homeschooling. Then when they moved to a tiny island in the west coast that was VERY liberal, it was clear to Rachael's mom that homeschooling was the right thing for their family.

Rachael was homeschooled on an island that didn't offer any support. Although her shyness disappeared, she only had about two close friends (one LDS and one not LDS) for most of her preteen years, because that's all that was on the island.

And yet, as she went through her teenage years, awkward was NOT a word anyone would have used to describe her. She is proof that most homeschool stereotypes are false.

Even though I'm over ten years older then her, I've always admired her.

Rachael could run her whole house hold complete with dishes, meals, diapers, laundry, and all other motherly/housework tasks by the time she was 12. She had FIVE younger siblings at the time. All without begrudging anyone.

Rachael had a love of learning like no one I had met before. If I was doing a project, she wanted to do it too. I made a home made scripture case, she made a home made scripture case. I wrote and illustrated a children's book, she wrote and illustrated a children's book.

The whole family's motto was "If someone else can do it, then we can do it too, and why not do it now for fun."

Her goals and values as a teenager were so inspiring. She knew who she was, who she wanted to be, and would not compromise. And all the guys for miles around knew where she stood too.

As a teenager she went with her family to a remote island in the south pacific, and she helped her dad be the only doctor on the entire island. She was a midwife and nurse, and loved the whole thing.

When she went off to school at BYU Hawaii, she was homesick for only a couple of days, although she called home almost daily, because her mom and her sister were still her best friends.

She got straight "A"s and didn't feel like it was a hard transition.

And now she just got married in the temple to the boy next door.

I know that not all homeschool stories are successful. I'm not that naive, but when I saw Rachael and her family, I hoped that my future family could be like them...and so I homeschool too.

All I Want for Christmas

2011-12-06T19:24:00.000-08:00

It was perfect timing when they all lost their teeth.

A "Three Wise Men" Christmas

2011-12-02T18:24:00.001-08:00

I'm really not into the commercialization of Christmas. I don't correct Maxwell when he tells his brothers about how Santa is real, but I certainly don't encourage Santa in our house. It really helps not to have a TV when it comes to Santa.

I've always told my boys that Christmas is Jesus' birthday (we even have balloons and sometimes cake and ice cream...sometimes we even sing happy birthday), and that since the wise men gave presents, we give presents too, but Christmas morning still hasn't had that meaning that I've wanted it to have.

Then I found out what my amazing sister, Heidi, has been doing with her family for the past few years, and I got inspired.

Christmas is ALL about the wise men and baby Jesus. Here's the plan. Each of the wise men represent different gifts, and with each gift represented you both get a gift, and GIVE a gift:

-Frankincense- The wise man who brought frankincense represents the gift of knowledge. The gift that you give is to write a LITTLE essay about what you've learned this year that can build up the kingdom of God. The gift you get is an educational toy/kit/instrument/etc. This is the first wise man so you can get the writing part done first thing.

-Myrrh-The wise man who brought myrrh represents the gift of clothing the needy. The gift that you give is going through all your cloths and finding slightly used clothes to give away to the needy. The gift you get is a gift of clothing/apparel.

-Gold-The wise man who brought gold represents the gift of joy. The gift you give is going through all your toys/stuff and finding things to give away to the needy. The gift you get is some fun toy or whatever.

What I like about this plan is that it's not about getting more STUFF. You clean out more then you get :) The kids know they are only getting three gifts (plus a very full stocking and presents from grandma and others) they know why they are only getting three, and we are starting at such a young age, that they are okay with it. It's not about Santa, it's about the wise men, and with each gift they are reminded of their blessings and how others are not quite so fortunate.

My sister has a script that goes along with this, but she is in the process of moving, so I'm not sure if we'll be able to have that this year, but we'll start the tradition none-the-less, and hopefully it will be a way of bringing Christ into Christmas.

Halloween!!!

2011-11-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

We had a blast this Halloween! My kids have been wearing costumes on a regular basis for weeks. My sister and her family are here to add to the fun.

We went to a few parties this season. We went to one party where the adults played "werewolf" while all the kids went down stairs and had a blast.

We also went to a Masquerade Ball. WOW! My sister-in-laws organized this....oh, I mean their kids organized it...and it was amazing! Everyone looked so incredible and the music was great, and you should have seen the refreshments!

My sister-in-law Becky and her family were the real force behind this marvellous night.

My Friends Kate and her husband.

My beautiful niece, Talia

Me and Dustin....not quite as elegant I know.

My niece Briana who is staying with us for a few weeks all ready for the ball.

We had so much fun carving pumpkins.

Hyrum was SOOO proud of his "happy pumpkin" he wanted to sleep with it.

Daniel didn't get into it as much...

Maxwell carved FOUR faces into his pumpkin! I took this photo without a flash, but Maxwell moved, making him look like a ghost! Very fitting, I think.

Even though we had a snow storm in the morning, Halloween day was perfect. We spent a while at the park.

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago. Hyrum LOVED being a knight at would put on his costume any chance he got. I asked him "Do you want to be the dragon or the knight?" He said "Maxwell can be the dragon and I want to be the knight. Then I can kill Maxwell."......yah....

We went trick or treating at the mall....much better then trunk or treating!

My sister's family minus iron man since he was out trick-or-treating with Maxwell already. Her daughter was kiss'n Kate Barlow from "Holes." I thought this was quite clever, especially since her name is actually Kaylee Barlow.

Of course not all of us got much trick-or-treating in.....

And I just have to share my embarrassing story...we had planned on passing out glow sticks for halloween, but when we got ready for the trick-or-teaters, none of them worked!!! We only let our kids have six candies total anyway, so we took their Mall candies to give out, and Dustin went out with the kids trick-or-treating to get more, (since the trick-or-treating is the fun part, and I don't actually want them to have the candy anyway) But before they got back, I was afraid I would run out of candy, so I was giving each kid like one dinky sucker each. They would stand there confused like "seriously?.....is that it?" Well, it's better then nothing!!!

Happy Halloween!

Missionaries in the Making

2011-10-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

When my parents left on their mission a couple of years ago I had a realization: There would be a cousin or grandparent out on their mission from now until my own boys go on their missions. I wanted to really point out these wonderful examples in my boy's lives. I am a visual person, and so I thought of a mission board. I made one awhile ago. Here is the result:

I got a map and embellished it in photoshop. I put photos of missionaries, scriptures, moroni, and of course Christ throughout the world. I also put "Now behold a marvellous work is about to come forth among the children of men..." on the map, and at the top it says "We'll bring the world His truth."

On one side, it says "Those serving in the field" and has photos of cousins that are serving as missionaries right now (currently Steven Smith and Reuben Leavitt.)

On the other side, it says "Missionaries in the Making" and has photos of when each of our boys were about 2 1/2 dressed up as missionaries. I just recently took Daniel's photo. Isn't he Cute?

And then on the bottom it says "behold a royal army" and under this are lots of photos of everyone of my boy's grandparents, aunties, uncles, or cousins that have served a mission with their name and where they served printed on the side.

I told one of my friends about my mission board, and she was a little worried about me forcing decisions onto my boys, but I don't see it that way. I feel that all children grow up to make their own decisions, but as parents it is our duty and purpose to teach and inspire our children to be smarter, wiser, and better then we are. That means we need to be diligent in everything we do.

I know I was changed for the better by my mission. It was an incredible experience that helped make me who I am today. Of course I want this coming-of-age experience for my children, to help them be the best versions of themselves.

And of course, service is part of our family motto. I recently found out that a family I taught and saw baptized on my mission is still active. "How sweet shall be joy within...." I literally started crying for joy. How I love those people in Virginia and North Carolina. I believe I was meant to serve them and besides, I was serving the Lord at least.

I think our Mission board has been effective so far. The boys often will mention Steven and Reuben in their prayers without any coaxing, and they know what being a missionary is about. So for the next 13 years, until the missionary life really effects our little family, the examples of those around us will be enough to inspire our boys to be missionaries in the making.

Planting Hope

2011-10-08T18:09:00.001-07:00

When I was in college, I went to an LDS institute women's conference where the "daffodil principle" was the main focus. The daffodil principle is this: when people are at their hardest points in life, and have just gone through their personal winter, you can be the first touch of colour, life and hope to that person through your service, example, and love.

I didn't get it as well as I do now. I didn't get it, because I didn't get how important daffodils and tulips are. Then I moved north and then more north. I now get it.

Tulips and daffodils are VITAL! In a world that is colourless for SIX STINKIN' MONTHS the sight of green pushing up through white and grey is everything. Flowers! when the world has been dead for so long is pure hope. Hope that you won't be shut in doors for the rest of your life. Hope that it will be warm again. Hope that flowers can actually survive again.

These wonderful hardy flowers survive the spring snow storms and tug at my heartstrings.

I NEED TULIPS AND DAFFODILS!!!

I just planted about 80. I hope they make it. I don't have the best soil.

While I was covering them up I wanted to shout "see you in the spring! Come and make us happy again!"

I'll post pictures if/when they bloom. In the mean time, may we all be tulips and daffodils to those that are in the winters of their lives.

Love Letters

2011-09-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

Dustin and my courtship was almost entirely long distance. This was both good and annoying. One of the good things about it, is that a vast portion of our relationship is archived for all time and eternity in letters and emails.

In fact for a long time our relationship was nothing but letters. We met in the Missionary Training Centre (I've decided to spell like a Canadian.) Of course, I had met a couple of his sisters and for years he had known my sister, who is 13 yrs older then me, and Dustin even has a memory of having me pointed out to him in the church hall, but the fact is that we met in the MTC. (I'm still a little embarrassed about this, as it is some what of a mormon culture no no.) And this being the case, after three weeks of meeting each other, we were sent to places a thousand miles apart. No visits, no phone calls, and no emails allowed between us. Thus letters. Only....okay so we sent a couple tapes with us recording ourselves talking, but other then that...letters.

When we were both home, there were phone calls. Long frequent phone calls (my roommates hated me for this. Well not hate, but annoyed.) and emails. This was before the days of google voice, facebook, and even skype....wow I sound old...and I just didn't do instant messenger. In fact it was before gmail. In other words, it was expensive to call (but we did anyway) and email was the only other form of communication.

Recently we moved into a nice place that we plan to live in at least a year (HALLELUJAH!!!) and unpacked ALL our stuff. Dustin suggested that I have my very own room. He said it would be my craft room and my supply room, but that he was really hoping that by giving me this room, I would go through all our memento boxes and find just a little bit of stuff that we actually wanted and throw the rest away. We had three big mission boxes. I started with the letters.

I sifted through both of our letters and found all the letters we had sent to each other. I then put them in page protectors in a binder in chronological order. We both would wait for the other's letter to come in the mail and respond to that letter instead of just writing regularly, which now makes for good reading.

Fellow Mormons do not worry. We were very appropriate in our letters, and were not romantic at all. I have the proof. However, there was a gentle suggestion by both of us that we...well, we really got along and needed and valued each other's friendship.

Dustin apparently knew that he wanted to marry me before leaving the MTC. He wrote in his journal "who ever marries Sister Thulin will be a lucky man." And confesses to praying to know if I was the one he was going to marry in his first couple weeks out. He felt like he got a confirmation that he would, which relieved him, because he could now stop thinking about me since he now knew it would all work out like it should.

I didn't have these revelations....(this is me, who cut my hair VERY short before my mission because I thought to myself that it was the perfect time to experiment since I didn't have any guys to impress for the next one and a half years.) But I did feel like I had known Elder McKay forever, and that while in Virginia, he was the one person I could relate to and count on.

When we were both home, we of course sent emails. These were not so plutonic. In fact, admittedly, over time they became VERY sappy. I had printed all our emails out when we were newly weds....of course I did, I'm so sentimental...and so now I put these in the same binder with our mission letters.

Going through these letters was quite the wonderful experience. I did it while Dustin was away for a few days doing service for the church with his brother-in-laws. That was probably a flaw. It made me miss him terribly.

Those letters made me fall in love with Dustin all over again. Especially the plutonic mission letters. They were filled with the spirit, and showed how much we needed each other even in the beginning.

Dustin had sent me a pacage for Christmas with a few Veggie Tales stuffies in it while on our missions. I just love it that our third child is in love with these stuffies. It just shows how our love has evolved.

More then anything, I realized, that although our love now is so different then our love then, it is deeper and stronger then ever. We are truly in love. We even like each other too. :) He still makes me laugh, and I still reach for his hand. I am in full confidence that Dustin adores me. He has just recently started to say sometimes "look around; you are the most beautiful girl here." He's sentimental and sappy too, and I love that.

I'm glad that we don't need to write to each other to communicate now, but I will always treasure my binder of priceless love letters.

Mini Trip to N. Alberta

2011-09-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

We went on a little trip to Northern Alberta, and had a blast.

We went to Drumheller, which is the dinosaur capitol of the world. We went to the most amazing museum where they had at least two of every kind of dinosaur you can think of, including Tyrannosaurus Rex (which of course is Maxwell's favourite.)

It's also home to the largest statue of a dinosaur....kind of gimmicky but cool. It was awesome to go to this dinosaur Mecca now, since that's what we are studying in school.

And home to the Hoodoos which was like Goblin valley, but not as big or nifty.

We also went to the West Edmonton Mall, which for a long time was the biggest mall in the world.

It had a life-sized replica of the Santa Maria which was in the biggest indoor lake in the world...

And an aquarium complete with sharks and sea turtles...

And a Sea lion show that MAXWELL got picked as the helper to throw hoops for the sea lions to catch...

And the biggest indoor amusement park in the world...

With bumper cars, trow-uppy turny rides, trains, carousels....

and roller coasters. It also had an indoor skating rink with professional skaters who were amazing to watch, and the biggest indoor water park in the world. West Edmonton Mall is actually best known for this water park, but is costs way to much, and not premium to go to with little kids, so no pictures...sorry.

Our main reason for going to Edmonton was to see our good friends Dana and John. They are awesome people that I wished lived next door.

Dana, who is a wonderful photographer, quickly shot some photos for us randomly, and I thought they turned out nicely.

U.S. vs Canadian Health Care. A long winded perspective

2011-09-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

A friend on Facebook asked what I thought, and I couldn't resist sharing my perspective on the US and Canadian health care systems since I have thought a lot about it.

First of all, I would like to say that I am proud to be an American. My Husband is also proud to be a U.S. citizen. Although we have lived in Canada (and we love Canada too) in the past and happen to be living here now, we might very well end up in the U.S. for the rest of our lives. Then again we might live in Canada. We just aren't sure.

Okay, let me share my experiences.

Having A Baby...

In the U.S.

You have a huge recovery room with fake hard wood floors, impressionist paintings on the walls, fake flower arrangements, a decent sized flat screened TV, a hide-away-bed for your spouse, a stake and shrimp dinner complete with cheesecake and sparkling apple cider (I kid you not....I'm talking about a hospital in Idaho here, but I'm sure they're not the only ones) free deluxe milk shakes whenever you want, Jacuzzi bath, free breast pump, free blanket with the hospital's name embossed on the corner, free onesie, free lanolin, free diaper bag, free bottle, and some other stuff they throw in there.

I say "free" and I mean it...it was free for me. Tax dollars paid for every cent. I was on medicaid.

I had a bill over $70,000.00 dollars and I didn't pay one penny (emergency cesarian.)

As far as care and quality goes, I have found, that unless you are careful and are well educated, the U.S. system as a whole encourages you to have an induction, if you haven't had an induction and have gone to the hospital on your own but are moving along rather slowly, it is standard to encourage you to get some sort of "drip" to speed you along (kind of like a rude waiter at a busy restaurant.) And as far as cesarians go....congratulations USA, you are number one for frequency of cesarians! One out of three. Also, the United State's infancy mortality rates are higher then almost all of the other first world nations.

In Canada

You have a small recovery room with stark white walls THAT YOU SHARE with one other mother (delivery room is private though). The only decorations are faded posters warning you about post-pardem depression and shaken baby syndrome. There is no place for your husband to stay. The food is gross microwaved dinners. There are no freebees.

As far as care and quality goes, inductions are discouraged. Going on stimulates to help you go faster once you are at the hospital is discouraged. The cesarian ratio is lower (about 1 in 5) and Canada is below the United States in infancy mortality rates. Your health care covers midwives, even if you want to have a home birth.

Conclusion: Okay, maybe I'm weird, but I'm way against inductions and unnecessary cesarians, (or cesarians that were caused by hurrying things along) and so even though you get total comfort and deluxe treatment in the US, I'm going with Canada on this one.

Ultrasounds....

I'll tell you right now that U.S. wins BIG with this one.

I HATE CANADA'S ULTRASOUND PROCEDURES!!!

First of all, I guess because there are tons of East Indians and Asians here, there is a high percent of people aborting if they find out they're having a girl. Therefore it is often (but not always...what's up with that?) policy NOT to tell you the gender. Depending on the technician you have, you most likely will NOT even see the monitor screen!!!

The technician is most certainly Not your doctor and it will be up to who knows what whether or not they will write the gender in their report. They tell you nothing, and I mean nothing about anything. They send their info to the doctor, and only she/he can tell you anything. UGG!

The U.S. ultrasound system is a dream :)

This leads me to the subject of

Miscarriages....

Let me just share what I've been through.

In the US I went to the doctor. Right away we did an ultrasound and as the doctor was finding out it was a miscarriage, we found out as well. The doctor encouraged a D. and C. which I had.

I was in Canada on a small island on a holiday (I think it was Canada Day) with the next miscarriage. This island didn't have an ultrasound, and the doctor told me how I could get on the ferry, drive an hour and get an ultrasound, but that I could just wait and see, and a D. and C. was not necessary if it was indeed a miscarriage. I opted out of traveling to the ultrasound and I was very glad I did not have a D. and C.

That second experience, however, doesn't really show what Canadian vs US truly is.

The last Miscarriage, however, does a bit. I went into the doctor in Canada. He scheduled me for an ultrasound in one hour. Okay folks, I live in a tiny town an hour away from a REAL hospital with the REAL ultrasound capabilities. This doctor had just barely gotten this ultrasound that was meant for emergencies only and had used it about ten times in total. He couldn't see a heartbeat so he immediately sent me to the experts. I went right in, got seen immediately by their stinken ultrasound technician who of course didn't show me the screen and didn't say a word (but was rather nice and asked me about my family) and then...THEN I had to wait THREE hours while they tried to find someone with the right "authority" to tell me the news!!! But when that doctor did tell me he talked and talked about the pros and cons of a D. and C. (I chose not to have one.)

Conclusion: U.S. because of peace of mind with ultrasounds, but I didn't like how quick they are to do unnecessary surgeries.

Emergency Rooms....

I haven't found very many differences. Both places have about the same amount of wait times. The quality and comfort are about the same. How nice the doctors are etc. Just not that different.

Family Doctor care....

When I was in British Columbia, the family doctors had either no or very few nurses. I actually liked this. You didn't have to tell your whole story to the nurse just to tell it yet again to the doctor. The doctor was the one totally in charge. He personally got your weight, blood pressure etc, and I liked that. Here in Alberta they seem to have nurses. Whatever.

Second opinions, changing doctors, all of that kind of stuff is easily done in Canada.

So again, not much difference.

Labs....

In the States, we don't even think about labs. There is a lab in every doctor's office. Convenient but costly.

In Canada, only in the big cities do you get labs RIGHT NEXT TO the doctor's office (not in) and in small towns, you go to your local tiny hospital for the labs. This means blood work, and most other testing is inconvenient. I get why, but I've been spoiled.

Cancer....

My mother-in-law (in Canada) got diagnosed with breast cancer this year. She immediately got scheduled for a surgery to cut the cancer out. After surgery, she was unsure about whether or not she really wanted radiation. She got several different opinions from all over B.C. and then, I guess since she was visiting Alberta....(I'm not sure how this worked) she got opinions from Alberta as well. She ended up getting radiation in Alberta promptly and efficiently. She is now getting checkups done in B.C. but things look hopeful that she is on her way to remission already.

She has told me that friends of hers in the States did not have things go as quickly and efficiently as she did. I have no data to back that up...but as stated in the title; this is MY perspective.

When you have an issue that is not threatening in any way, and is not time dependent...

In the U.S....

They take care of it right away anyway.

In Canada....

You wait....and wait. Dustin has tons of warts (over a hundred I think)....(I'm sure that Dustin isn't pleased that I'm sharing this, but I have a feeling not very many people are actually reading this...maybe some of the Barlow clan is...I love you Carroll! Don't hate me after this blog!) They don't bother him at all, but after trying several things his whole life, he is ready to get serious about this problem. To get to a specialist who will help him get serious he got an appointment that was SIX MONTHS in the future.

Okay, after looking at the consumer portion, now let's look at the business and insurance portion.

Doctor's pay and treatment...

Contrary to what many Americans believe, Canadian doctors (especially Alberta doctors) are often paid MORE then U.S. doctors. I know this for a fact.

Canadian Family doctors are a bit more stressed. Perhaps. You see, an American doctor can have thousands of patients and hardly ever sees any of them. A Canadian doctor has WAY less patients, who come in tons more about every little thing. They both work the same amount of hours, but the U.S. doctors tend to deal with legitimate cases on strangers, while the Canadian doctors deal with pittley cases on patients they see over and over.

In the States, insurance companies hurt small business

"What!?" You might ask...well let me tell you why I believe this.

Unless you are a big enough business to afford and manage you and your employs getting an insurance "benefits" package deal, insurance will suck you dry and people might not want to work for someone who does not have benefits.

My friend Laura had a husband who needed her to get "full benefits" for his health issues. She felt stuck to a dead end job that was giving her carpal tunnel for the express purpose of getting benefits. She had no time for education and could not dream of entrepreneurship.

The insurance companies themselves seem to be just a monopoly. I called every insurance agent in the book, and they all seemed to be affiliated with blue shield and blue cross! What's up with that?! Where's the capitalism?

Insurance on it's own (without the connection of a job with benefits) costs outrageous amounts and will only cover you after you've already spent $5,000 dollars, but have all these exceptions and conditions like transplants and lifelong problems.

The States already has a Social Health Care system that is more "socialized" then Canada's

I was on Medicare for some time in the states, and let me tell you, it was socialized medicine. Like I said, $70,000 for a baby and a lot of that was unnecessary things, and taxes paid it all.

In my opinion, Medicare and Medicaid is more extravagant then Canada's whole system. But those who are paying for it, aren't getting anything from it.

Canada's system is locally driven

The province, not the national government, put together their own health care. Alberta happens to be a very rich province, so we have a great health care system (thus my previous statement that Alberta doctors get paid better.)

The entire population of Canada is less then that of California, so when you break it up into pieces, you actually really do get a say. I personally know our Southern Alberta MP (governor.) Because it's small government, we have more say in our health care issues.

Taxes in Canada are not worse

Okay so I don't have any data on this, but Dustin moved his business here because after talking to lots of accountants from both sides of the border, it seemed the best choice for tax purposes. So in my PERSONAL experience, taxes are actually nicer in Canada.

But Lastly
I DO NOT AGREE WITH OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE!!!

I think it is an EVIL system that seems to favour the pharmaceutical companies and hurt the doctors. Don't get me started on how corrupt I think the pharmaceutical companies are! This blog is too long already! It does not follow Canada's model at all.

In conclusion....wow this blog is long....over all, the U.S. system is comfy cozy but a little knife happy, but the insurance system behind it is broken.

I am not a socialist, but maybe for healthcare I am because I've been satisfied with Canada and would much rather a socialist program that's working well then a "capitalist" program that has big time socialism in it that actually hurts small time entrepreneurs.

whew....done.

Life in a Little Boat

2011-09-11T21:41:00.000-07:00

You know how when you talk to some people about how they're doing they say "I can hardly keep my head above water." Well, I've felt like that at times, but I have to say that right now I feel more like I'm in a little boat.

My amazing sister-in-laws put together a huge party where we had a contest to see who could make the best cardboard boat that actually floated. It wasn't conclusive, but I think ours was the best, and that little boat kind of represents my life right now.

I've got it all together in many ways. I'm more organized then I've ever been in my life. I'm living in the perfect house for us in a great neighbourhood in an awesome ward where we already have callings we love. I don't see us moving very soon (VERY happy about that.) I have my kid's schooling theoretically planned out for the year. My husband is providing nicely for us. We are steadily getting out of debt. I feel good about the relationships I have in my life and my only stress is that there are too many people I want to invite over to get to know better. Hyrum is getting some outside help for his language skills, so I don't have the burden completely on me.

Basically, I feel like I'm floating, not sinking....However, I do have two mortgages and rent, winter is just around the corner, and other things that make me feel that although I'm in a boat, it's a little cardboard boat that I need to maintain and be aware of.

It may be a little topsy turvy, and some water might leak in occasionally, but as it is, I like my life in my little boat just fine.

Conquering Dinner

2011-08-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

I hate everything about food. I hate shopping for it. I hate deciding what to make. I hate making it. I hate dishing it up. I hate cleaning up after it. I hate dealing with left overs. I hate dealing with rotten food that got forgotten. I hate poopy diapers that are a result of food. I hate thinking about how ungrateful I am when thinking about all the hunger in the world. In fact, more often then not, I hate even EATING food because I am so picky and I am often just forcing things down me that I know are good for me. If I like it, it probably has MSGs or sugar, and then I hate the guilt.

I once heard that God made food for our enjoyment, and I have to say that principal was really hard for me to swallow.

HOWEVER, I am getting to the point of being able to say "I USED TO hate." Let's face it: Starvation is not an option. I feel like I'm finally learning how to be a happy home maker and help my hypoglycaemic husband be able to live happily.

For the past year I've started to learn how to have a cleaner house (cleaning up food) happily, and just recently, I've developed a dinner system that makes the shopping, choosing meals, and cooking meals very manageable.

So here's my system. I made some 4x6 cards with recipes on them. I have about 25 cards so far. I made them with recipes we have tried and enjoyed. I have all the ingredients that I would need to buy for that meal on the left hand side of the card, listed in order of rarest to common staples. I laminate the cards.

I then put these cards the middle slot of a three slot file folder that I put in my purse. I take out 6 cards at the grocery store and get all the ingredients off the six cards. I put these in the first slot now.

When I get home, I clip these 6 cards on my oven range hood with magnet clips. Thus if a recipe is on my range hood, then I know I have the ingredients for it. I have 6 to choose from at first, so I don't feel too stuck to a schedule.

After I've made a dinner from a card, I put it in the last slot in the file folder. Once all the cards have been used from the middle, I rotate the cards from the last slot to the middle slot, and we begin again.

Does this make sense?

Well, it's worked for me so far, and I feel freedom in my organization.

I'm beginning to NOT hate food.

A Good Day

2011-08-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

I felt like a good mom today. I had the boys do their jobs and then I did mine and the house ended up rather clean. I actually did school regardless of it being summer. However, it was mingled with jumping into our little kiddy pool and there was a lot of bare bottoms on wet boys. We had and astronaut dinner which consisted of quesadillas (apparently, astronauts eat a lot of tortillas) dried fruit, and juice made from juice crystals. We put everything in bags and velcroed it to our trays (so it wouldn't float away of course!) And then for Family Home Evening, we went out to some fields where we lit a huge flying lantern and chased it until it was too high and far to get....thankfully it started raining the second it started going down....

I needed this day.

Hold On

2011-08-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

"Mumma Darling"

2011-06-29T10:51:00.001-07:00

Some of my sister-in-laws have a funny parenting tactic that they do. When their kids come running to them wining or crying or pouty, my sister-in-laws insist that their child calms down before the child talks to them...so far so good. I think this is what every parent out there strives to do....

But then comes the kind of funny part. I guess to prove that they are calm, they must say "mother darling" when addressing them. My one sister-in-law sometimes requires her kids to really draw it out and say something like "mother darling dearest sweetness honeybunch...etc."

I've never really thought much about this, and just kind of laughed at these cute little kids calling their mom "mother darling."

But then something unexpected happened. With absolutely no coaching or asking on my part, Maxwell started calling me "Mumma Darling" when ever he wanted to ask me something. (We've been spending A LOT of time with cousins lately.)

I at first giggled to myself that he would pick up this habit on his own and laughed even more when Hyrum started to follow Maxwell's example.

But he kept on doing it. Maybe I'm immature, but it started to bug me. I felt like he was trying to butter me up to get his way. And so finally I told him "Maxwell, when you say "mumma Darling" I feel like you are trying to manipulate me into doing whatever you want me to do." (I'm not sure if he even knows what manipulate means...)

So the next day, Maxwell comes up to me and says "Mumma Darling, I'm not trying to manipulate you, but I was wondering...can I have a cookie?"

AHHHH! hahahahahaha......oh well.

Digi Scrapbook Addictions

2011-06-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'm done scrapping for the year. I am addicted, but don't worry, it's by nature a short lived addiction. Maxwell's year took me about two weeks to do (well maybe more, I only did it in the evenings so it took awhile), Hyrum's took one week, and Daniel's took two days. So you see...I'm just temporarily addicted.

Maxwell takes the longest because I have to make almost all new templates for him, while I haven't made a new template for Daniel yet. I just take the pages I did for his brothers and put in Daniel photos and journaling. Hyrum gets some new templates, but not much.

Here are some highlights of this year's Digi addiction.

Hyrum is FOUR!

2011-06-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

It was Hyrum's birthday! We had a SMALL birthday party for him. Even though there are about 40 cousins running everywhere (literally)...we hid from them and had a quiet party. Hyrum doesn't like a million kids around, and I needed something low key, so just us and the twinnies....ahhhhh.

And we ended the party with a dune buggy excursion :)

Grand vs Bryce Canyon and random stuff

2011-04-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

My mom looks at my blog, but is not on facebook, so sorry to those that are on facebook, this is a repeat.

First of all, while walking back from going to conference in Salt Lake City, we found this sign...I think it was providence. What's funny, is there was another guy there taking photos of this place because it was where he had bought his wife's wedding ring 20 years ago. The lady INSIDE the store was looking at us really oddly.

We went to Arizona so Dustin and my nephew could go to this business conference with my brother-in-law. It was a great experience, and my boys and I got to spend some quality time with my sister-in-law and cousins. I love it that Dustin takes me everywhere he goes...it's like he's still on his mission and I'm his companion seven years and counting.

On the way home from Arizona, we took a quick look at the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon. Okay peoples out there, who (besides those who lived in Utah) has heard about Bryce Canyon?

Here is the Grand Canyon:

Here is the Bryce Canyon:

Maybe you can't tell by these photos, but let me just tell you that Bryce canyon wins the Grand Canyon in the "coolest canyon to visit" contest. Why is it that EVERYONE's heard about the Grand Canyon but not the Bryce Canyon? Marketing I guess.

I had my photo taken in this exact spot by Bryce Canyon when I was my boy's age, so I had to take it of them. When they went through the tunnel they all yelled "McQueen!!!" They love Cars, what can I say.

The last snowfall….maybe

2011-03-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

While living in Idaho and Cardston, I would often think to myself "Why am I so soft? Why can't I handle the snow and winter? I grew up in Utah after all, and we had snow and winter." Then I moved back to Utah….Utah winters are NOTHING compared to Idaho and Cardston. Jan. and Feb. in Utah is the same as April and May up north, and I'm loving it here! We had what I think was the last snow fall, and we made the best of it…oh wait…I just checked the weather: snow on Tues…well, we didn't need coats TODAY anyway.

I have a confession…I like Tooele

2011-02-21T20:16:00.000-08:00

Dustin and I are nomadic still and have ended up in Tooele of all places. It is sort of a joke that Tooele has radioactive air and water and is off the end of the world, but I think it was a good choice to come here for a few months. We are actually close to MY family. We have seen my sister almost every week and my mom and dad have even been able to watch our kids overnight so Dustin and I could celebrate our anniversary. Maxwell has found a best friend in my nephew Morgan, and we have had my brother's family over too. It's great! Also, there's an awesome Gold's Gym, my sister-in-law's family is here, and I'm getting tons of advice from Nicholeen Peck……and…..it's not as cold as Cardston or Idaho. Yes, come and visit me! (just don't get too close to the chemical depot)

Maxwell turns 6 and his quotes

2011-01-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

Maxwell's birthday was a success! The best game, was a life size board game. We had dice that was as big as Daniel, and the squares on the "board" (masking tape in an empty room) were things like "walk the crab walk ahead three spaces."

Here are Maxwell's best/or worst quotes of the year:

When its my turn to pass the sacrament, I am going to give everyone strawberries

I can dream anything I want to dream

I'm painting a picture of a brain storm

I'm so glad you took me with you. You would have been lonely without me. No one should be lonely.

I love you up to outer space and back down to a big rock

Daddy, I love you up to the moon and back down to the earth, but only at night, because you can only go to the moon at night.

Mumma, since you didn't bug me today, you've earned this sicker

I took a bath, and now I'm handsome

does spiderman tell the truth?

we need to wear birthday hats so the candy from the pinata doesn't hit us on the head.

see that pink stuff where the sun's going down? That's the glory of God.

Daddy: Do you want me to get your breakfast?Maxwell: Nope, my tummy stopped rumbling, so I am not hungry

Pops, can you stop singing? "Maxwell, that was kind of rude" "But seriously, that was making my ears tired."

Can we do just a little bit of school on Sunday? It makes me rest, I promise.

I need to read my scriptures so I can learn how to be good and ritcheous.

Look mumma, when I wear my church suit the prophet will think I'm a thief because I'm wearing all black.

do you want me to blow bubbles in your milk for you?

"Maxwell, your fluffs really smell bad" "ya, I have daddy's fluffs"

when the calendar ends after christmas, and there's just a white page, is that when the world ends?

I've fallen in love

2011-01-02T14:12:00.001-08:00

Most of Hyrum's life, I wasn't quite sure who he was. I knew he was a ball of energy that had great athletic abilities and dexterity (crawling at 3 1/2 months for example). I knew he was a hypochondriac since birth. I knew that when he's angry, you can not help him or console him with what he wants (this was from day one when "helping or consoling" meant nursing…that was frustrating) I knew that he was a comic genius who looked at life very differently in order to make those around him smile so he himself didn't die of boredom. But he was riddled with tantrums and frustrations that I didn't quite know how to help fix.

Idaho was really good for Hyrum and me. I found that large groups and noise are Hyrum's main triggers (which abound with fervor in Cardston and were almost non-existent in Idaho) Also he made some breakthroughs in his communication skills. Hyrum has been way behind in speaking. Only in the last couple of months have I been able to understand full sentences from him. Not only that, he has not been able to understand me or anyone else very well until recently. It really hit me how behind Hyrum had been when I realized that Daniel, who is half Hyrum's age, was following instructions and understanding what I was saying just as good as Hyrum, and then speaking simple sentences in response. But now Hyrum has turned a bend and although he is progressing slowly still, he is not as frustrated as he was because he can communicate with others on some workable level.

Perhaps because he has been more of who he truly is these past few months, I have completely fallen in love with him. He is a snuggler, a tenderhearted boy with an amazing imagination. A boy who loves his brothers and is very loyal. A boy obsessed with trains, apples and Diego who loves learning and saying prayers. A little boy who needs me desperately and hugs me fiercely. Yes…I'm definitely in love.

The Newest US Citizen

2010-12-19T20:56:00.001-08:00

Dustin is now a US Citizen! It was a long time, a lot of paperwork, and a lot of money but he's finally American. I have to say I got a little teary eyed. There were over 50 people from 29 countries getting their citizenship at this ceremony. They called out all the countries and had the people stand up that were from each country. Yes there were about 15 from Mexico, but there were also people from Haiti, Sudan, Germany, Afghanistan, Brazil, China and so on. It made me emotional to think about all these people coming from all over the world to the United States all for different reasons but all because they had hope for goodness here. And then of course they played "God bless the usa" which always chokes me up...I was glad to hear that Dustin got a little emotional too.

Now it's off to Canada for Christmas..........

AZ

2010-12-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

We went to see Dustin's brother and his family in Arizona as part of our trip down south, and we had such a wonderful time. Dustin was able to help them a bit with their renovations of a house, and I was able to get some tips from Heather my sister-in-law on how to homeschool better. We had a wonderful thanksgiving and we felt very welcomed. My boys were in heaven at their house. In fact, I'm a bit sheepish to say that I hardly even saw Hyrum. He was playing non stop.

Two brothers in serious competition (or not)

The Mesa Temple had amazing Christmas lights up and had Christmas music programs on. It definitely set the mood for the Christmas season

We went to the science center in Phoenix, and it was really fun. Going with cousins is way better then without.

Leah, their two year old was enamoured with Daniel who was her baby. She was like a miniature mother to him. It was really cute.

Yes we swam outside in Dec. Even though they were having a cold front, to us it was warm. Now we are back to six inches of snow.

Highlights of San Diego

2010-12-02T19:54:00.000-08:00

I really couldn't narrow down the pictures, so you will get a lot. We finally went to San Diego. I have fond memories of San Diego as a tween, and so when my parents got called to the San Diego Mormon Battalion Visitor Center Mission, I knew I just had to visit them.

Foyer of the Mormon Battalion Visitor Center. This visitor center honestly is the coolest LDS visitor's center I've ever been to in my life, and I've been to my fair share. The missionaries there were pretty awesome too :)

My boys in a wagon

My dad showing my boys how to pan for "gold" which they did find.

Grandpa showing Hyrum how to make bricks.

We went to Sea World and we LOVED it. Can I just say that a 4 adults to 3 kids ratio is DEVINE. This was the first time I have seen dolphins in real life which Dustin couldn't believe since he had dolphins in his back yard growing up (literally since his home was a boat for two years in the south pacific.)

Everything is Sea World seemed so alive (unlike most zoos where everything is asleep) this sting ray was actually breaching the surface to have me touch him.

Dustin bought me a pearl from an oyster we got at sea world. That was a fun memory. I had them put it in a dolphin setting.

Starfish...yes I put my three year old on a leash....if you judge me then you have never had Hyrum as your three year old.

An acrobat from their dolphin show...I found that Hyrum never looked at the camera and smiled. He knew I was taking a picture, wanted me to take his picture, and wanted to see the picture after it was taken, but always wanted it to be "in the moment" I guess, because he would insist on continuing on doing what he was doing without looking at me. This is a good idea in theory, but in reality, you get a lot of photos of the back of Hyrum's head.

When I asked Maxwell his favorite part of San Diego he said "riding on Elmo.

I think Maxwell was a little nervous of this seal that was a little too friendly.

Hyrum "in the moment" again....but this time it looked really cool.

We went to the zoo as well which was fun too, but not so showy.

We went to a couple museums in the park. Isn't Maxwell cute? He poses for pictures all he can.

San Diego never rains, but it did while were there. But hey, it was a blizzard in Idaho for most of our visit.....I'll take the day and a half of rain.

I was able to do sealings with my parents in the San Diego temple. I've always dreamed of going inside this particular temple. I was not disappointed.

halloween and being a mom

2010-10-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

Today, while I am snuggling Maxwell I say "I'm so glad I can depend on you to help me. I'm so glad I can always trust you." Maxwell says with a smirk "But I don't know that you love me." Which is my cue to start tickling him "Do you know that I love you?!" I ask. In the midst of laughter "No" Again "Do you know that I love you?" Again "No" It continues like this until Maxwell has had enough tickling and finally says "Yes." ...a game we play quite often.... The first part is not part of our usual game though, and I really meant it. I started to think about how things I say like that can have a real effect on him. Maybe he won't ever remember me saying that to him, but the concept might very well become part of his psyche. He is mine and he is totally effected by everything that I do. It's a little overwhelming. The other day, he said something with an exasperated tone to his voice. I was about to tell him to calm down and be patient when I realized that he had perfectly copied my tone and facial expressions of earlier in the week. What do you do? I read books, listen and talk with other mothers, study, but really, nothing really makes you the perfect mom, and yet this complete individual is completely at my mercy. Well, maybe with God's mercy I'll help him become the greatest version of himself...who knows, perhaps in the process I'll become the greatest version of myself as well.

an appley day

2010-10-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. Full of farmers markets and goodness. My friend had an apple cider party where we went to their orchard, picked apples, helped churn them into cider, watch the electric press do it in 1/8 of the time, look at their new wind mill and enjoy cookies. It made me solidify my dreams for the future. Dustin has always wanted to be self sufficient on a few acres of fertile ground in a place where it's easy to grow things. I've never really cared about acreage. Give me a fence in my back yard, and I don't care if I'm in a subdivision, but lately I've changed. Give me a few chickens, a pig or two, a vegetable and herb garden, berry patches, a pond full of fish, and an orchard. definitely an orchard. But not with just apples. Apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, and maybe pears. Watching my boys run around climbing all those apple trees solidified these dreams. (of course I forgot my camera)

grief

2010-10-18T22:03:00.000-07:00

In many ways I have had the worst summer of my life. Yes this will be a whiny blog, so stop reading now if you don't want to hear it. This summer stank because of what happened to those that I love, not what happened to me. First my good friend lost her unborn baby while on her death bed (thankfully she did not actually die,) then my other good friend went through a divorce with an abusive husband and is now struggling with three confused children. Then my mission companion/friend and her daughter got abandoned by her husband because he was tired of hiding his porn addictions and affairs. Then someone I am extremely close to lost her house. Then the person who baptized me and whom I had spiritually leaned on my whole life announced he had sadly lost faith in god. And then my absolute best friend in the world whom I had once thought was the earth and sky abandoned his wife and child while wanting the world to empathize with him for having same-sex-attraction disorder when the cold hard fact is that his family were really the victims of him succumbing to the Internet Plague. As for what actually happened to ME directly, I moved from a stable lifestyle to roaming around in a motorhome with no real direction, to my house unselling, to living in that unsold house but not wanting to actually own any of my two houses in Idaho. And then to top it all off, the kitty that we saved died....

This weekend I visited most of the people mentioned in the above paragraph. There were a lot of tears and a lot of love and a lot of hours where I could not sleep. I have learned a lot from this summer. I have sadly learned that I am not as emotionally stable as I had always believed myself to be. While getting ready to move, my anxiety snapped and my good Cardston sister-in-laws suffered the brunt of it (Shaina, I publicly want to apologize for my craziness.) My good friend said "these things really do change you." That is certainly true. I have had the whole gamut of human emotion dealing with this summer; from frustration to weeping to bitterness to pessimism to internally screaming to grief and really trying to hold onto a mysterious thing called hope. I really am learning a lot about myself and trying to learn serenity.

Another thing I learned is how horrid the internet can be. If you do not have very thorough filters on your computer, you are crazy. If you think "not my husband" or "not my child" or "those problems would never happen to me" or "not with faithful church members" you are a naive ignoramus who is jeopardizing your entire eternal happiness on an assumption and neglect. Be afraid be very afraid. The computer ruins good men and in literally a blink of an eye the computer can reach out and figuratively shove cocaine up his nose. He's now addicted. Net Nanny is a really good filter if you don't already have something secure, and for heaven's sake, only the wife should have the passwords....

But the most important lesson I have learned is that of gratitude. I have a wonderful husband who has the same values, faith, goals, and love that I do and he is a wonderful provider and we are very much in love. I have three wonderful healthy intelligent boys whom I absolutely adore. I have a beautiful home that is warm and big. I have wonderful parents, family and friends, and I truly hope I can help those in need.

I am learning that we CHOOSE faith. we CHOOSE hope. we CHOOSE happiness. It can be the hardest choice we make in this life... mostly because we have to learn how to choose it, but it is by far the most important choice we will ever make.

A Kitty and his Hero

2010-10-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday Hyrum found three little kittens. We had seen these kitties before, but we had never seen their mother. We put them in the area where we thought Hyrum had found them, but the next day, only two little kittens came meowing at our door. A windy cold thunderstorm was coming, so Dustin made a shelter for the kitties...and we are talking LITTLE kitties that are needing mommy milk still most likely....but the next morning, one of the kitties was cold wet and dead, and the other one appeared to be cold wet and dead. Dustin took a second look, and saw the one kitty's mouth move. Dustin took him inside, ran him under warm water, warmed him up between his hands, gave him a heat pad, and after a couple of hours we had a kitty. We are not going to try and find the mother (that didn't work) we are not going to let him outside (that didn't work) we are just going to love this little spirit that my caring husband saved.

Homeschooling!

2010-09-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have a new blog about my homeschooling...you must check it out because it will reflect the bulk of my life.

Lindy's Homeschooling

By the way, I have a few new posts below this, so please check them out.

Victoria and my sister

2010-09-26T18:00:00.001-07:00

We went to Victoria after our trip to our family reunion and this time I stayed with my sister which I haven't done much in the past. It was wonderful to spend time with her. We really are a lot alike, and I sure love her. I have always had people tell me that I look like Danette (that's how Dustin recognized me when we first met) but I never really saw it until this visit and especially after seeing photos.

Ohhhh victoria....it sure is beautiful and full of life.....sigh....

The pictures with flowers are for my mom...I thought of her every time I saw them. I wanted to take photos of this gorgeous rose garden in Sydney for you mom....maybe we can go there together instead next summer. :)

Camp Cumorah

2010-09-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

Every year the McKay clan has a family reunion in which we focus on a standard work of the scriptures. This year it was the book of Mormon. We had a blast in Washington. We dressed up and did tons of simulations, workshops and had amazing experiences. I love this family.

Three Monkeys

2010-08-17T14:59:00.001-07:00

I have three adorable boys to love.

First is Maxwell who has spent all his time lately finding bugs in our garden with his cousin Mireyah.

Second is Hyrum who loves the water, especially his baths and especially after his baths when he cuddles in just a towel. We got a new painting of Jesus with a cloth draped over his head the other day, and Hyrum was so excited and said "Look! Jesus has a towel!"

Last but not least is Daniel who is just so darn cute. He tries to do everything his brothers do and thinks he is just as big as them.

We are off on our adventure! We are going to the States for at least six months. We bought a motor home and are going to travel down the coast and probably end up in our Idaho house or vacation more....where ever the wind blows. But with a 5, 3, and 1 year old, it will be slow and crazy wind.

My little hypochondriac

2010-07-09T10:17:00.001-07:00

From day one, Hyrum has been a hypochondriac. Not so much about sickness I guess, but about pain. Before he even turned one and he would have a tantrum, he would "bonk" his head on the ground. For awhile I assumed that this was not on purpose and felt bad that my poor baby was hurting himself when he was already so sad. After careful observation over a period of time, I realized that these "bonks" were deliberate. In his mind it was a guarantee of sympathy. As he got older, it became more and more apparent that he was hurting himself on purpose in an attempt to get his way in life. I worried that I was not giving him enough attention when he was not hurt, or that he needed more attention then I could give, and yet it seemed if I gave him more attention, the more the problems arose. When he was about one and a half, he decided it was too much work to bonk his head on the ground, and he started hitting himself with the toy car he was holding. This hurt a little too much, so he started just plain hitting himself. Somewhere along the way, he must have realized that I did not buy into this tactic, and things evolved. Now he pretends to trip, coughs, acts like he might throw up, screams "I hurt!," screams "my eye! something's in my eye!" and various other devious deceptions. His latest thing is pointing to any one of the many markings on his skin and screaming until I put on a band-aid. Granted, he is allergic to mosquitoes, and there are tons here, and he is such a busy boy that he gets tons of scrapes and bumps, but with this little hypochondriac, I don't know what to believe anymore. I do believe that I love him to bits...paranoias and all.

oh, and this is him terrorizing a bunny....just part of our everyday life.

Happy Father's Day

2010-06-21T17:41:00.000-07:00

I must say that I'm a pretty incredible wife. Breakfast in bed, a present he actually wanted and needed, a present from the kids that is actually useful, and a dinner that he wanted. Oh ya....

But seriously, this is a papa who deserves it. What a good man! He has read a parenting book and a marriage help book this month all on his own accord and has been implementing the things he has learned...I feel like a slacker.

After rains that have flooded most of Alberta, we had a beautiful sunny Father's day (for most of the day) and we took advantage of it and walked the loooong walk of a whole block :) to the temple. What a blessing to live so close to the house of the Lord.

Birthday boy and consequences

2010-06-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

Hyrum's birthday was yesterday. It was mostly a Thomas Tank Engine party even though Dustin and I think those Thomas stories are some of the lamest kids stories out there. Hyrum LOVES Thomas and chanted his name over and over yesterday. Hyrum still insists that he is two.

Hyrum is so funny. We've started this new parenting tactic. When ever our boys do something.....unpleasant, we look them in the eyes and say "right now you did _____, what you should have done was ______. When you do what you did, ______ happens in our home. As a consequence, you need to ________" It has really worked for Hyrum. It helps him calm down and he seems to get what we are trying to do. However, our consequences for Hyrum are small, and are almost always putting the shoes in the closet. Now he puts shoes in the closet whenever he thinks he's in trouble, and today, over at my sister-in-law's place, he put their shoes away......hmmm.

Bunny Farmer

2010-06-10T19:04:00.001-07:00

My Husband is pretty funny. He has always had the desire to be totally self-sufficiant and off the grid. He know tons about alternate sources of energy, food storage, and water/sewer systems, but meat and milk products were a quandary to him. He got his hunting licence, but couldn't find it in his heart to shoot a beautiful animal. He thought about cows and chickens...too stinky and loud. So then he studied bunnies. Then he bought a few New Zealand White bunnies which are bred for meat, and recently we've been breeding the bunnies. We now have....25 (more or less) but he still hasn't butchered any. Then my funny husband watched the documentary "Food Inc" and his meat consumption (which was never too big anyway) went way down. The tons of hormones and unnatural things fed and done to animals is quite unnerving, and of course the way they are raised and slaughtered is just disgusting. Now he doesn't want to send them to a slaughter house because he wants to make sure they are killed quickly and humanly. Furthermore, he decided that the bunnies have a right to "freedom" if that is their fate. And so, all of our bunnies will be for sale at a price that meat bunnies would go for, and if they don't sell then well....they had their chance.

Maxwell and Hyrum are quite in love with these bunnies, but are aware that they are meat bunnies and could be eaten. Maxwell, when ever he meets someone new, tells them as proudly as he can that he is a bunny farmer.

Truthfully, I can't imagine Dustin actually killing his bunnies. He loves them. He cares for them everyday, and thinks of new ways to help them be more comfortable. He's never killed anything except with his car. I'm a little worried that he might actually do it and get a horcrux (for those of you who have read/seen Harry Potter...basically scare his soul) but I've decided to just go along for the ride with this one. I've never eaten anything I've seen alive before, but I really do love meat, so I don't know how I'll react. We'll see............

Mosquitoes

2010-05-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

Do you know how obnoxious it is to have your active two (almost 3) year old allergic to mosquitoes? Especially when living in Cardston? No evening walks and no lake side picnics, that's for sure.

Daniel Walking

2010-05-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Daniel scrapbook year 0

2010-05-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

He's walking now too! Isn't he cute?

Daniel's ONE

2010-04-28T09:17:00.001-07:00

So I just had to share these really cute photos of my darling one year old. One! boy time flies. He's standing on his own and says "No no no" but still nurses, and I'm ready for that to end as soon as he's a bit more ready.

Also, I went to this great Relief Society thing the other day, and I thought I would share what I got from it. One of the speakers was talking about our self worth. She said "We did not come to this earth to get self worth...We brought it with us" She then asked us to pair up with another sister and answer this question: "What makes you feel like you need to earn your worth" I paired up with this beautiful older lady named Hazel Smith. She had salt and pepper hair and wrinkles, but was very elegant and full of light. I told her "I guess I compare myself with others a lot and if I don't measure up to them, then I don't feel like I have as much worth" On Hazel's face we shocked bewilderment. "Why would you feel like that?" uummm...I don't know...I guess that's really silly....uuummm "I've never felt like that" she said "I've never thought I was better then others though, I've just never thought that way. I've looked in my past and thought, boy that was stupid, but that's about it." Wow. What a lesson. Of course you have worth and shouldn't compare it to anyone else's. Anyway, the speaker shared five steps to remember your worth.

1. Study the concept of your eternal identity

2. Pray for this purpose

3. Watch for and stop negative talk

4. Identify and make a list of people who truly know you

5. Be aware of tendencies of earning you worth and teaching that to others.

PS Hyrum clucks his tongue whenever he accomplishes something and it's really cute.

Our Log Home Adventure.m4v

2010-04-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

This you tube video represents the last 2 years (well...we took a 7 month break towards the end) of my life. Please watch and be amazed. And here's a list of thank yous. THANK YOU:

To Norm for financial backing, to Jen for babysitting and keeping me sane and laughing at myself, to John Barlow for the roof, to John Gilmore for the lending of tools and the engineer advice, to Pat, Phil, and Brent McKay for their manual labor, to Dad McKay for his standing by and saying "I'm glad you're young," to my mom and dad for their various projects they helped us with, to the Pedersens for staining, and to the Salas who helped us see our insanity and helped us to get out of our predicament. And anyone else that helped. THANK YOU, but why didn't you tell us we were insane BEFORE we bought it?

Getting things done

2010-03-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

I'm here in Idaho finishing our houses and HOPEFULLY getting rid of them. I'm so proud of Dustin. He made a beautiful home from a horrid disaster of nastiness with no money. Then he became successful enough at his own business that finishing this house is possible. What a handy man...I'll make a you tube video about our adventure when we're done.

Until then we are under construction.

Does this post work?

2010-02-27T07:36:00.000-08:00

Apparently my last post was unreadable, so I tried it again. Is it working now?

There were a few things I knew I wanted in a husband long before I got married. In no particular order, here's a few things that were on my list:

He needed to be energetic

He needed to have ambition

He needed to be humble/not the guy who ALWAYS thought he was right

Had his own opinion but respected mine

Him and his family needed to love and live the gospel

And he definitely had to ADORE me.

As I've been Married for six years now, I've thought about these few things, and reflected on how Dustin has measured up, and here are my conclusions.

Energetic....I knew I needed someone who would not let me atrophy my life away, and I know I never will with Dustin...perhaps too much so. Dustin ALWAYs has to have a project, and his motto is, if you can make it then you should. Even if it might cost more then if you buy it. We've reupholstering furniture, done tons of art projects, made a scooter from scratch, renovated at least four houses, moved 12 times (not something that either of us consider a plus...just comes with being energetic I guess) and Dustin is always urging me to develop my talents. And we don't even own a TV.

Ambitious...I knew I wouldn't marry a guy already rich and settled, but I figured if he was smart and had ambition, then I didn't need to worry too much about being provided for. I wasn't really thinking I'ld get an entrepreneur though...a career a little more ambitious then I could handle if I were the main provider. When we were engaged, Dustin said he wanted to be a lawyer. But all's well that ends well, and Dustin's ambition is starting to pay off and he is building his little kingdom. And he still says at least once a day "I just had the greatest idea!"

Humble...I did NOT want a guy who never admitted he was wrong. I knew plenty of guys who never even NOTICE that they are wrong....ugg. Dustin is a genius. I know I might be bias, but he really is a modern renaissance man. He knows quite a bit about every useful thing there is to know, but he is really humble. He not only admits when he's wrong, he listens to everyone. No matter how low on the social totem pole of life you are, Dustin looks at everyone the same: "this guy has something he can teach me" which also makes everyone like him.

Opinions...here Dustin is my perfect fit, and I had no idea that it would matter so much, but it does. Whenever I'm not confident in a decision that I've made, I ask someone else their opinion and hope they chose the decision I've already made so that it can be validated. If they don't chose what I've already chosen then I hum and hah forever and well, ask someone else until I feel good about the decision I've already made. This doesn't bother Dustin....well, hardly ever. Sometimes however, I'm very adamant about something and very stubborn, and Dustin usually lets me have my way. (thus regretfully we have a pink bathtub in our idaho house) but Dustin has his own opinions which allows me to lean on him when I am not sure or unaware of something myself.

Love/live the gospel...Dustin seems to be in better tune with the spirit then me and lives his life with eternal perspective in his mind and heart. I know it seems like an unfair thing to have wanted my future husband to have a family that was strong in the gospel, because a guy can't control what his family is like, but I knew it would be a be a definite advantage to our future. Boy did I hit the jackpot of spiritual families...I didn't know Dustin's family at all when we got engaged. I just knew they were all married in the temple and active members of the church. That's it. I had no idea that my father-in-law would be one of the most prominent scriptorians I've ever met, or that my six sister-in-laws would all have the highest gospel standards of anyone I've ever known. True...sometimes there's a little bit of extremist stuff going on, but hey, it's in the right direction, and judging and hypocrisy are not options in this family.

Last but not least, he needed to ADORE me. (My mom would remind me of this one too while growing up) Because Dustin is soo good at fulfilling this requirement, I'm convinced I would not be happy with anyone else. I don't have the greatest self esteem and I'm ultra sensitive and pessimistic and well, I think it would bevery exhausting to adore me, but I have absolutely no doubt and I never have that Dustin completely adores me.

Anyway....I love my hubby, and that's the point.

The Perfect Guy for Me

2010-02-25T21:23:00.000-08:00

There were a few things I knew I wanted in a husband long before I got married. In no particular order, here's a few things that were on my list:

He needed to be energetic

He needed to have ambition

He needed to be humble/not the guy who ALWAYS thought he was right

Had his own opinion but respected mine

Him and his family needed to love and live the gospel

And he definitely had to ADORE me.

As I've been Married for six years now, I've thought about these few things, and reflected on how Dustin has measured up, and here are my conclusions.

Ambitious...I knew I wouldn't marry a guy already rich and settled, but I figured if he was smart and had

ambition, then I didn't need to worry too much about being provided for. I wasn't really thinking I'ld get an

entrepreneur though...a career a little more ambitious then I could handle if I were the main provider.

When we were engaged, Dustin said he wanted to be a lawyer. But all's well that ends well, and Dustin's

ambition is starting to pay off and he is building his little kingdom. And he still says at least once a day "I

just had the greatest idea!"

Humble...I did NOT want a guy who never admitted he was wrong. I knew plenty of guys who never

even NOTICE that they are wrong....ugg. Dustin is a genius. I know I might be bias, but he really is a

modern renaissance man. He knows quite a bit about every useful thing there is to know, but he is really

humble. He not only admits when he's wrong, he listens to everyone. No matter how low on the social

totem pole of life you are, Dustin looks at everyone the same: "this guy has something he can teach me"

which also makes everyone like him.

Opinions...here Dustin is my perfect fit, and I had no idea that it would matter so much, but it does.

Whenever I'm not confident in a decision that I've made, I ask someone else their opinion and hope they

chose the decision I've already made so that it can be validated. If they don't chose what I've already chosen

then I hum and hah forever and well, ask someone else until I feel good about the decision I've already

made. This doesn't bother Dustin....well, hardly ever. Sometimes however, I'm very adamant about

something and very stubborn, and Dustin usually lets me have my way. (thus regretfully we have a pink

bathtub in our idaho house) but Dustin has his own opinions which allows me to lean on him when I am not

sure or unaware of something myself.

Love/live the gospel...Dustin seems to be in better tune with the spirit then me and lives his life with eternal

perspective in his mind and heart. I know it seems like an unfair thing to have wanted my future husband to

have a family that was strong in the gospel, because a guy can't control what his family is like, but I knew it

would be a be a definite advantage to our future. Boy did I hit the jackpot of spiritual families...I didn't

know Dustin's family at all when we got engaged. I just knew they were all married in the temple and

active members of the church. That's it. I had no idea that my father-in-law would be one of the most

prominent scriptorians I've ever met, or that my six sister-in-laws would all have the highest gospel standards

of anyone I've ever known. True...sometimes there's a little bit of extremist stuff going on, but hey, it's in the

right direction, and judging and hypocrisy are not options in this family.

Last but not least, he needed to ADORE me. (My mom would remind me of this one too while growing up)

Because Dustin is soo good at fulfilling this requirement, I'm convinced I would not be happy with anyone

else. I don't have the greatest self esteem and I'm ultra sensitive and pessimistic and well, I think it would be

very exhausting to adore me, but I have absolutely no doubt and I never have that Dustin completely adores

me.

Anyway....I love my hubby, and that's the point.

Give me my apples or else!

2010-02-08T15:25:00.000-08:00

One of Hyrum's first words was "apple." He LOVES fruit, and in landlocked-frozen Cardston, apples are about the only affordable fruit. He wakes up in the morning and eats about two before I even wake up and then throughout the day I find half eaten apples EVERYWHERE. If I run out of apples, then I suffer the wrath of Hyrum. I wake up to all the butter smearing the inside and outside of the fridge, or a dozen eggs cracked and oozing, or to the sight of a little boy on the counter eating all the crackers he can shove into his mouth, or to jello packets (many of them) sprinkled all over the play room and then mixed with sippy cup water and jello artwork on the walls, or pudding and sippy water on his bedroom rug. I could go on, but the one that beat them all, was a few days ago. We moved (AGAIN) a couple blocks from our last place, and this house (we're renovating it as you can see) had drawers that has compartments built into them that held tons of flour and sugar. We woke up to Hyrum peacefully taking a scooper and flying clouds of flour into the air. Needless to say we emptied those drawers out. Last night he fell asleep early without eating dinner, and I knew what that might mean, so I laid out a little feast for him on the table and at two o'clock in the morning he runs up to my side of the bed with the smell of crackers on his breath, carrots in one hand, and an apple in the other.

Maxwell's quotes for the year

2010-01-21T18:57:00.000-08:00

Maxwell's five!!! His birthday was...chaotic. I thought I could handle it with no other adults....I was wrong. I couldn't even get them to pose for a photo. All I can say is, if you are doing a party for a bunch of kids and don't want them to cry, give them all the exact same prizes. Anyway, I have been writing down anything cute that Maxwell has said for the last few months, and this is the result:

Why did god make mosquitoes?

Do cows really jump over the moon?

…please bless Brayden that the monsters won't get him...

No body knows that I'm a big boy except you and the twinnies.

Where does jesus live?

Get your cell phone and call away from this earth to Jesus and tell him you want a baby and he'll put one in your tummy.

Will you let me make playdough if I give you a kiss?

Bess (guess) what?….say "what" mumma…. I love you forever.

Is it snugly time?

Maxwell-"I'm hungry." -mom-"You just ate…see your big tummy?"-Maxwell-"it's not as big as your tummy."

Daddy-"Do you want an English muffin?"-Maxwell-"Wow, it speaks english?"-

It's a lovey day mumma

We got ice-cream to get fat

The chicken dies and turns into meat and then we eat it…right?

Daddy"Maxwell, that was wrong" Maxwell" Sorry daddy…I forgive you"

Mumma say "Oh my heck" I learned that from my cousins.

(directed to Becky concerning her food) -Maxwell-"I don't like that" Auntie Becky.-"we just made that for people who like it."-Maxwell-"Do people like to eat that mud?"

I just had a good idea…… watch the movie first and THEN do my job, that would be way easier.

You're wrong and I'm right

Daniel does not look like a monkey Daddy!

What? Do I drive you nuts?

Daddy, Say holy moly or something like that!

Mumma, Be quite so you don't wake up the spiders.

Don't dance to that song mumma….it's immodest.

I growed up last night.

look at me waiting so patiently.

Mom-"you can't have anymore sugar today"-Maxwell- "but I want to get more sick."

I wish hyrum had a CTR ring too, then he would be right.

When I turn five, I'm going to get bigger, so will you go to the store tomorrow and buy me new big clothes?

Every night Kamilah eats food to get bigger and it's no fair 'cause now she's stronger.

is that totally awesome?

I wrote this "wyeyeysgawt." You can't read it. It's Spanish.

When I grow up I want to be an ice-cream man

Hey Mumma, you have a mustache

Mom-"What's this water on the ground?"-Maxwell--"Hyrum and I made a flood."

Dear heavenly father, please bless Jesus.

Maxwell and Marshmallows

2010-01-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

Joachim de Posada says, Don't eat the marshmallow yet | Video on TED.com

Maxwell passed the test!!! I left him alone in his room for 15 min with a marshmallow. He did NOT eat it, although it was pinched and squished by the end of the 15 min. and he did come out for a second after about nine minutes and announce that he did not like fifteen minutes. You really should watch this video.

A black eye and a beached sea lion

2010-01-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

A typical day in the McKay household...they are quite the handful, but honestly, aren't they cute?

Our Daniel is starting to get around. I'm not used to it, and Maxwell and Hyrum do paper crafts all day long everyday, so there's confetti everywhere, and I need to train them to not get anything on the floor anymore. Doesn't Daniel move like a beached sea lion or walrus? I especially love the constant kicking legs. He's been kicking his legs incessantly his entire existence.

A Real Canuck

2010-01-13T08:29:00.000-08:00

We are having a chinook, so Auntie Becky invited us over for sledding. Tossing aside the runners, we fetched the tuques and wellingtons and got some petrol. It was a loonie or toonie more then I expected, but oh well. We went about ten klicks over to her house. She had Nanaimo bars and homo milk waiting for us. Maxwell went to the washroom, but then my first nation brother-in-law pulled the sledding kids out to the coulees. I looked up to see a sunset full of colour and wonder. I felt honour in my heart for our Saviour who created all this and is truly the centre of my life. I also thought that I'm getting to be quite the Canuck, eh?

Translation

We are having a blast of warm weather, so Aunt Becky invited us over for sledding. Tossing aside the sneakers, we fetched the beanie hats and rubber boots and got some gas. It was a dollar or two more then I expected, but oh well. We went about six miles over to her house. She had chocolate pudding bars and whole milk waiting for us. Maxwell went to the bathroom, but then my native american brother-in-law pulled the sledding kids out to the ravines. I looked up to see a sunset full of color and wonder. I felt honor in my heart for our Savior who created all this and is truly the center of my life. I also thought that I'm getting to be quite the Canadian, hu?

Those were all Canadian words that I really do use All the time. How many did you get right before you read the translation?

quarantined fun

2009-12-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

My poor family seemed to have caught a cold from Victoria, and for a week we have quarantined ourselves to our house. Hyrum got it really bad. It was a fever and coughing, nothing too serious, but what worried me was the personality change he went through. My energetic, off the walls, entertaining comedian had disappeared. In his place was a shell of a tired boy. the first day was nice since he actually let me snuggle him, which he usually doesn't have time for, but then I really missed my Hyrum. The only silly face he would make was blowing raspberries which meant "No" or "don't bother me" Yesterday when he went running around making faces to amuse himself and us, I was very happy and relieved, however, on that same day a blizzard came to stay in Cardston. It went from two inches to two feet of snow in about two hours. Interesting thing about Cardston....the snow falls vertically instead of just plain down thanks to the amazing wind. They cancelled church even though we are all close enough to walk, and I really don't see how we are going to get our van out since we don't have a snow plough. So on the onset of health we are still quarantined by the weather. We have had fun finding ways to entertain ourselves....ginger bread houses were a big hit as you can tell. Dustin did his of the Cardston temple, and I think it turned out quite well.

trip to Victoria

2009-11-22T16:41:00.000-08:00

I'm at my sister-in-law's in washington right now just back from Victoria BC. Yes, Victoria. This is where Dustin grew up (when he wasn't on an island on the other side of the world.) This is where my sister moved when I was nine. This is where I lived as a newly wed and had Maxwell. Dustin's parent have water front property and they have a sea lion living in their bay. Looking out over their lawn complete with palm trees and fountains, it inspires everything good. We have such good friends and awesome family there, and even through the fog and misty rain, it's gorgeous. The aroma of moss, mushrooms, and wild berries feels you with the sensation of life and growth. Ahhhhhh......oh well........back to the wind swept snowy treeless prairie. But, don't get me wrong. I don't want to be a dissatisfied snob. I love Cardston. I love my friends and family there. I'm happy staying there. You have to be happy with every stage of your life at every location of your life, or what's the point of life? I'm not pining for Victoria, but this trip has certainly renewed my love for it.

Until further notice...

2009-11-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

Well, I am giving up my desktop computer for a month or two...or three. I will have our ipod touch and that's it, so this may be goodbye for now. Dustin sold his laptop to his dad and Dustin needs a computer for work, so "my" computer is now his work computer. We are saving up for the new 27" imac, but we won't be able to afford it for a while, and until we do, I'll just have to sacrifice. Remember, I have no TV or radio etc. I do have my movie projector, and my ipod, but I think I'll get out of the house more. I'll probably see even more of my Cardston friends who are in this photo, and that's better then emails and cyber/digital forms of entertainment anyway...right?

Halloween

2009-11-02T09:16:00.001-08:00

Halloween was interesting this year. Cardston is under attack with the Swine Flu. Many people didn't go trick or treating or to parties or out at all so that the flu wouldn't spread more. Dustin's cousins put caution tape up all over with a sign that said "Swine flu in here...keep out!" as a welcome to trick or treaters. We had a small party anyway which the kids loved, and we couldn't resist going just around the block, but at the last house they said "we have the flu, so we're not giving candy" WHY DID YOU OPEN THE DOOR? But we did have a fun surprise: Dustin was gone on business, and said he wouldn't be home until wednesday but he showed up with his dad on Halloween and pretended to be trick or treating. I totally fell for it and thought it was kind of creepy that two grown ups would be trick or treating so late at night. Ha ha

Six Months

2009-10-26T10:08:00.001-07:00

I borrowed my sister-in-law's camera because Daniel is just so incredibly cute, he deserves to be photographed with a good camera. He's my little buddy. He's my happiest baby yet. I don't know if it's because I know now that he will grow up fast like my other two, but I feel like he's my favourite baby ever. Isn't he just so loveable?

missionary

2009-10-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

My parents are going on a mission soon, and I realized that this is the first of a never ending stream of missionaries. Before they come home, my nephew Steven will go, and before he comes home, my nephew Ruben will go, and before he comes home Alex then Ammon then Aaron then Jaeden etc. until it's time for my boys! I'm quite excited about the fact and it will be wonderful for my boys to have so many fantastic examples. I'm going to make a missionary board with pictures of missionaries who are out and have my boys write them.

Make your house clean by magic

2009-10-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever looked around at your house and thought that cleaning it was an insurmountable task? Did you look at the dishes and toys and junk and have absolutely no motivation to make your house sparkling once more? Then have no fear, I have the answer for you! You simply call up one of your friends. Someone you don't see too often. Invite them over to your house for dessert in two hours...or three depending on how messy your house is. (Note: do NOT invite them for dinner as this will just make you totally stressed out...) and Voila!!! You will magically become Mary Poppins. You will start frantically cleaning every mess in sight. Your speed and energy levels will be astoundingly high. Your children will also magically change into cleaning machines. Simply tell them of your plan for visitors and dessert, and they will jump up and start following your directions without wining! Yes, you too can have a clean house. What about the promised dessert you ask? A brownie mix in the back of your pantry (fair trade of course), some simple vanilla icecream....and POOF a really yummy and nice looking dessert without using very many dishes or mess. Feel free to actually eat this dessert, since you have ALREADY burned off all the calories that this morsel might create by cleaning your house. After your guests have eaten their dessert, start cleaning up the dishes right then...your guests will not be offended, but impressed at your cleanliness, and most will offer to help! Do not encourage them to stay too long, as this might create a mess, but after they leave, look around you...Your house is sparkly clean!!! Yes life can be grand.

spelling bee

2009-10-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

I organized a spelling bee for our homeschool group here. It was pretty successful but busy. I am a big advocate of trying to make other people spell correctly, because I can't spell worth beans, and I feel stupid because of it. Spelling is also something you need to focus on with homeschoolers since it doesn't just come to you the way a lot of things do when you love to learn. When one kid recited a word, they got one piece of their bee costume until, after a few rounds, they all looked like bonafide bees. (Sort of) Too bad I don't have my camera anymore...these are just a portion of my bee kids.

tsunami

2009-10-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Please pray for the people of American Samoa. Dustin grew up there, and to see the effects of the tsunami is heartbreaking.

Me and little people

2009-09-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

So Dustin is gone for who knows how long to Idaho to fix our log house for our renters and to fix our van so it can be imported, and to fix his laptop so he can still work. Thankfully the van and laptop are under warranty...I just wish our house was. I don't do good alone. I don't think I could handle a husband who always had to leave. Thankfully, my parents are coming up here in the next few days. They are going on a mission again and wanted to visit their amazing wonderful daughter (me) before they go. Until then I have plenty of four-year-olds to keep me company. I'm doing a small preschool, and this photo is of them all learning the letter 'E." Aren't they cute?

I love/hate technology

2009-09-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

So I'm pretty sure that most LDS people got a lesson last week in church about the dangers of being addicted to or waisting your time with technology. Hallelujah Dustin and I are not gamers AT ALL. We are not into cyber chatting or texting either. However, we do like our computer. We always justify what we are doing, but it's undeniable that we waist our time . Photoshop is my good friend. Obviously I like the occasional blog. A check on facebook and emails, a starfall.com passtime for my boys....and since I lost my camera photobooth has been fun (the source of these cut Daniel photos). We could actually interact with each other instead. A phone call instead of an email. A visit instead of a cyber chat. A jaunt to the park instead of starfall.com. Dustin and I have decided that when he gets home from work, the computer gets turned off. Weekends are different, but we tend to get out of the house on weekends anyway. The ipod is fair game so we can look up recipes, addresses, weather (we've really gotten dependent on the internet) But the point is, if you get an email, facebook comment, blog etc from me on weekdays between 5pm and midnight please feel free to rebuke me.

Family Photos

2009-09-09T17:19:00.001-07:00

Family photos are always a bit of a pain. I want to be the one taking the photos, and I can't. Also, with three little boys, it's always a challenge. My very smiley baby didn't smile, and my four year old BIT my two year old leaving a mark...oh well, some turned out anyway.

The three little pigs

2009-09-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

What you do when you don't have a TV

Lost Camera

2009-08-31T12:22:00.000-07:00

So last week I lost my camera. Remember, I made a little photography business, so it was a really nice SLR camera. I also lost a long distance zoom lens, a really nice flash, my battery chargers, and even a shark tooth I gave Maxwell from our trip to San francisco. It was all in that camera bag (that I lost as well....obviously.) But what REALLY gets me riled up is that I just realized the dictation I wrote of Daniel's blessing was in that bag as well! I know where I left it (on the bank of a river we were swimming and cliff diving in) and it's not there, but I still haven't checked the police, so there's still hope.

yellowstone

2009-08-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

On our way up to Cardston, we visited Yellowstone with Dustin's sister's family. I loved it, but Dustin has been working none stop for weeks on our log house to get ready to leave and might have broke his foot and got heat exhaustion etc. and didn't find the joy that this touristy non-relaxing park has to offer...poor guy.

Rigby Idaho vs Cardston Alberta

2009-08-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

I've moved!!! Yes, here I am in Cardston Alberta. I'm bunking with family until we find a place to rent....Yes I own two houses that I am renting to other people so I can rent a place someone else owns....I know it doesn't make sense, but we won't even be allowed to do renovations, and I'm really excited about putting an end to that stage of my life for now. I've changed zip codes, area codes, and even countries, but I have to say the similarities between the two cities I've swapped are vast.

Similarities...

Both populations are around 3,000- 3,500
Both economies are farming based
Both have the same vastly mormon ratio and were founded by mormons
Both don't have trees
Both are windy (almost always it seems) but sunny
Both have very long very horrible winters that have two months of below zero

Differences

Family in Cardston, none in Rigby
My friends in Rigby that aren't in Cardston
Rigby is 15 min from civilization
Cardston is 45 min from civilization

Oh, and the water in Rigby is very good, and Cardston's water tastes like moldy dirt. Family and a promising job is enough of a reason to move, we'll see where my life goes from here.

Hair Cut Time

2009-07-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

So this is about the 4th or 5th time I've given my hair to Locks for love or Beautiful lengths (both are cancer charities who take your hair and make wigs), and I'm done for awhile. I got really sick of my long hair, so I let Dustin choose my hair cut style. This is what he chose. I went to a beauty college for the cut, so it took FOREVER to do, but I think I like it. It's the shortest I've ever had it in my life.

Chocolate Slavery

2009-07-16T20:57:00.001-07:00

So about two months ago I found out that the vast majority of all chocolate is made from slaves. Mainly child slaves sold by their parents. In 2002 it's estimated that there were 284,000 child laborers working on cocoa farms. According to the U.S. Department of State, more than 109,000 children in Cote d’Ivoire work in the cocoa industry under “the worst forms of child labor.” As many as 10,000 are victims of human trafficking or enslavement. M&M/Mars, Hershey’s, Nestle, and Cadbury...they all use slave labor. At first I didn't want to believe it, saying that most of our goods are products of slave labor and there's nothing we can do about it, but that's not good reasoning, so the guilt over came me and I've made a resolution to only buy fair trade chocolate. I do have my exceptions though...

If me or my children are given chocolate (i'm not into being too preachy and it was already bought)
At a restaurant (I'm not going to ask the waiter if it's fair triad, but I hardly ever eat out anyway)
Ice cream (yes Dustin and I are just too week. But most of Ben and Jerry's is slave free, so maybe more ice cream is...)

I overcame my first temptation today as I was at the hair salon for way too long today and I hadn't had lunch and all they had was a vending machine, and although I really wanted a candy bar, I refrained...yippee for me!!!

Daniel's Blessing

2009-07-16T20:52:00.001-07:00

Daniel was blessed last weekend. Sorry to all those who wanted to be there and couldn't. My sister was having her little girl baptized and her baby blessed, but I didn't find out until about wednesday of last week, and then I decided to join the party at the last minute. It was a beautiful experience, and I'm so grateful for my wonderful worthy husband.

It's Out!!! It's Out!!!

2009-07-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

My app for the iphone and ipod touch is out. I illustrated the bible for the iphone, but we decided to test the waters first. Good thing we did. Our free app, Noah's Ark, had a couple glitches that we had to fix, and now there's a bad rating for our first version, we fixed everything, so now leave a GOOD rating for our second version PLEASE! It's free, so download it and be amazed. The bible will be out shortly and cost $2.99. It's interactive and cute (humbly speaking of course) and my boys love playing with it over and over again. So go to the app store and type in Noah, and download today :)

Amazing In-Laws

2009-06-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

I've always been amazed at my in-laws. I've told Dustin that it's a good thing I didn't know them before we were engaged, because I might have wondered if I married him for his family. For instance, one of his sisters just got back from a remote south pacific island where her husband was a volunteer doctor (the only doctor on the entire island) for over 6 months. They ended up adopting one of the islanders. Here's some other siblings of his:

This is his sister Becky's husband. He is a musician and motivational speaker who has performed for the United Nations and audiences all around the world trying to stop human trafficking. His latest campaign against human trafficking is explained in this video. (don't I have cute nieces and nephews?)

This is Dustin's sister Kirsten, who is going across Canada and the upper U.S. to promote travel and tourism in local communities to help boost the economy (and promote their travel company www.cheapticketscanada.com) They've promised to visit us on the way home and we'll go to Yellowstone together.

Trip to Utah/Father's Day

2009-06-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went down to Utah for father's day. It was quite eventful for just one weekend. We went to the Oquirrh Temple open house. Maxwell loved the oxen under the baptismal font and the mirrors that went on forever, and I thought that it was one of the brightest and open temples I've ever been to. Such detail and workmanship in everything. It reminds me of a talk an apostle gave about how he was in a part of the temple that no one usually goes to one day, and marveled at the beauty in that remote corner, and realized how much the temple really is made for God, not just us.

I spent Fri. with my old best friends Carl and Laura Barlow where I ate a lot of excellent food. Dustin always says that he really wants to keep in touch with all his old friends because then it shows that his relationships mattered. I feel guilty when he says that because I only see the Barlows about once a year and yet they mattered more to me then anything else all through my teenage years. It was good to see them, it was especially fun to see Carl as a new father. His little Jude was so cute and pudgy.

I spent the rest of the weekend with my mom and her brother, Barry. The only relative (besides her mom 40 yrs ago) to visit America. They had just been to Las Vegas and Bryce Canyon, and were enjoying all the family filing in and out of my mom's house.

For father's day, Maxwell made some pop up books for papa and grandpa, and I made a few pies. Fun fun.

Create

2009-06-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

During the women's conference last year, this talk really effected me. I really needed the message here which helped my faith, and helped me with all my projects that I was stuck with. Guys didn't have a chance to see it, so here's a sampling.

A dinner party starting with stitches

2009-06-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

I thought our home was finally ready for guests. We have had close friends and family over, but now it was done enough for real guests....so I thought. We just had ten kids at our house (if you included Daniel) with no problem and I thought I could invite a family from church over. "You know we have four kids, right?" ha ha ha, of course we can handle that. Within five minutes of their arrival...literally... their eight year old daughter has a cut on her arm so deep you can see fat poking through. The whole family leaves headed to the hospital where she received three stitches. Oops. She wanted to explore our unfinished basement, tripped on our stairs, and scraped along a carpet tack strip that you can see in the picture provided (the red strips on the side of the first three steps). They kept apologizing to US that she was accident prone, and the next day brought by cookies apologizing again! Well, we won't invite anyone else for a while (at least until we get carpet on the stairs down to the basement) but our house really does look like a home now. I can see light at the end of our log home adventure. I have to give a big thanks to the Salas, Brent, Phil and Pat, My father-in-law, Jen, John Barlow, John Gilmore, my parents, and everyone else whose helped on this crazy but very involved project...we couldn't have done it without you guys!!!

4-2-0

2009-06-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

My kids are now officially 4, 2, and 0 just like I've always thought my kids would be. (Hyrum just had his second birthday.) My family growing up was spaced kind of far apart, and I've always thought that if kids are closer together in age, they can be better friends growing up, so two years between each has been my plan. Plans change though, and I think three years for the next would be just fine. The change from 2 to 3 kids really is an adjustment, especially when your two year old is Hyrum and he runs as fast as he can from one adventure to the next while refusing to hold your hand.

2009-06-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

On sunday afternoons lately we go to the temple grounds. My kids are so cute...and unique. Maxwell the other day said "Mumma, sit down, we need to have a talk" and which point he says "about the time" (that's how he starts all his stories) and tells me a story about Jesus, monsters, and escapes. Hyrum is growing up and being as silly as ever. He's always hurt himself on purpose when having a tantrum to get attention, but now instead of dropping down and hitting his head on the ground, he just hits himself with the car he's holding or just his hand..the little pill.

Mutton Bustin'...insanity...yes

2009-06-17T08:51:00.000-07:00

No this is not Maxwell....thank goodness. I have never been to a rodeo. Even though I have lived in South Jordan, Pleasant Grove and Lehi (all proud of rodeos) I have been deprived of that glorious opportunity. Here in the country little town of Rigby, it was stampede days and my friend was telling me all about how to get involved and have fun. Part of this was mutton busting. "Your kids go to the rodeo and ride sheep." Was all she told me. For some reason I naively thought of little bo peep's version of a pony ride. I asked Maxwell if he would like to ride a sheep, and he got really excited....count me in, I thought. We're doing mutton busting. Dustin had never been to a rodeo either. My first clue should have been the instructions to bring a helmet and the requirement to sign a injury waiver. But I was still uneducated. We get there and I see the corral of sheep. "they look huge and dirty!" I thought. Then I see all these true cowboys and their kids obviously taking this thing very seriously. We looked very out of place. Maxwell was stressed out that he didn't have a cowboy hat. Dustin was getting nervous about what this really was. Then they forced the sheep into the gates...I didn't know sheep could make those noises or be so stubborn. Then the first kid had his turn. WHAT THE HECK!!! Mutton Busting, for all those who don't know, is when little children...4 year olds!...ride on top of a bucking, running, furious, huge, muddy sheep until they are flung off into the mud at which point they are often trampled by that sheep who weighs three times as much as them. Then they are scored as to how well they rode, and if they really tamed that sheep and win they get a saddle....THIS IS NOT FOR ME! When this cute little four year old girl ahead of us was on the sheep before they opened the gate looked up into her father's eyes and pleaded in a frightened whisper "please daddy, please don't make me, I don't want to" was let go and flung off only to come hiding her tears back to her father, I decided Maxwell was NOT going to ride a sheep. We passed the row of cowgirls with their cameras ready for their darling cowboys, and realized if we never went to a rodeo, we would be just fine.

Squeeze your cheeks

2009-06-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

We have had my sister--in-laws family staying with us for a week or so, and Maxwell has loved it and has gone everywhere with them. One time when he was traveling with them, my sister-in-law emailed me this from her iphone. She said "He keeps telling me he has to go potty I told him to squeeze his cheeks really hard together till we get there. this is what he did sooo cute!"

Jeans

2009-05-10T16:49:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I put on my normal jeans, and I was so proud of myself. Only a week and a half after Daniel's birth, and I was in my jeans. Of course, I wasn't doing anything to deserve it. I've been relaxing and eating tons of cookies and brownies courtesy of the relief society, but some how I was still losing baby fat. Then half way through the day I had a most disappointing recollection. When wearing those particular pants I always had to wear a BELT! Arrg...I have a long way to go, but I have a cute boy in the mean time, and two other boys who are cute as well. Hyrum loves all the baby gear around the house...more toys.

Daniel Dustin Kostyniuk McKay

2009-04-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, his name is Daniel. It's official. It's really hard not to call him Isaiah and Maxwell is having a REALLY hard time not calling him Isaiah. He got frustrated at first and didn't want us to change it, but then I reminded him about the Daniel and the Lions story, and he softened up a bit. Dustin begged me to have Dustin be his first name, but I just do not do the whole jr. thing and I'm not quite sure if he was serious or teasing. He says he's going to call him Dusty as a nickname regardless. Last night we almost called the hospital to ask them to not mail off the birth certificate so we could change it back to Isaiah, but we didn't.

Anyway, the sad news is that Hyrum has had a slight cold for a few days, and so I have not encouraged brotherly love as much as I want to, and Hyrum is the one I really worry about in this whole transition. He's interested in the baby, but more excited about the fact that his mommy's back.

He's Here!!!

2009-04-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

A successful VBAC!!! YIPEE!!!!

Yes, our little boy is here. 8 lbs. 7 ozs 20 inches long and absolutely perfect. Born at 10:52 pm on April 26, 2009.
Here's the story...for a couple of days I've said that to go to the hospital right after church would be perfect, so when that looked like that might be the reality, I was a little in denial that things were progressing. I wasn't in any pain really, but that was how it was with Hyrum. I got there, and the baby wasn't in the canal, but they told me to stay anyway. A couple hours later when nothing happened they started me on pitocin. A couple hours later when nothing happened, I got an epidural in case a cesarean would be needed and increased the pitocin at which point the water broke. A couple hours later when nothing happened they called in the doctor who would give me the cesarean and said "we'll give her one more hour." I could still feel the baby through the epidural and felt him pressing down and helped him out a bit and at the end of the hour the midwife came back in and he had finally come down the canal! Hallelujah!!! No cesarean!!! Many many hospitals would not have let me try this VBAC, so I'm very blessed. Well, we found out why he wasn't coming down when he came out, since he was on his side! His head came out first, and then his shoulders were totally turned the wrong way, but I had an epidural, so no pain and a good midwife so not one stitch was needed. Anyway, he looks like Hyrum to me and seems content and perfect.

No name set in stone yet. We were sure about Isaiah until we saw him...now Daniel? we're just not sure yet.

Late late late

2009-04-24T13:18:00.001-07:00

Tick tock tick tock and I'm still big and pregnant. My first was on his due date, my second was four days late, and this one...well, he's late anyway. Walking walking going up and down stairs walking walking. My neighbor offered a good long horse ride...no thank you. I know about caster oil and know it works, but no thank you. I have friends with trampolines...no thank you, well maybe that one actually. We'll see how desperate I get. In a week they'll do tests to see if I need to be induced. In a week and a half they'll induce no matter what. So I guess this baby is coming. Inducing is really bad for VBACs though, it almost always ends in another cesarean. Well, tick tock tick tock.

Easter

2009-04-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

My boys loved easter. I had been reading books to Maxwell about easter, and when we did a little home Easter egg hunt with a couple friends a week before Easter he excitedly announced to Dustin "Easter is here already Daddy!" and we had an Easter egg hunt practically every day after that. Hyrum loved eating eggs more then coloring or finding them. The best part of easter for me, though, was when we went to a grocery store Easter egg hunt (weird I know) and Maxwell was first in line and found tons of eggs on his own. As we were leaving, I noticed that lots of kids didn't get any eggs, so I told Maxwell just once that he should give this one kid an egg. Maxwell immediately started looking in everyone's basket and gave them an egg if they didn't have one until he only had two left himself and I told him to stop.

Blogging vs E-mail

2009-04-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

To those of you who read my blog, I would like you to see my list of contacts. Not one family member is listed. Not one person related to me. You may think my family is small, NO! Dustin has 10 siblings...10! and two parents with a lot to say. All of them I love and am on good terms with. I have 6 siblings..6! and two parents with a lot to say. We have together over 50 nieces and nephews some of whom are teenagers and a few who are even going to college next year. And yet with all this family, none of them blog....none. I know some of them if not the majority facebook, something I'm sure to breakdown and do one of these days, but I guess they think blogging's a waist of time or they don't know how easy it is or whatever, but it puts me in a dilemma. I like blogging better then e-mailing. It's more like a little journal where I can show off pictures easily and see other's lives, but when anything happens to me, I think "should I e-mail this so family can read it, or should I blog it and have no family read it." and then I usually do neither. How do I get them to join the blogging world?

how to add a blogger template using a mac

2009-03-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

I love macs. I'm very biased and think they are the best, but in web design I guess they are just a bit different, and I run into little bumps every so often, like when I try and use a blooger template from www.thecutestblogontheblock.com. Their instructions were not relative AT ALL! There's no 'Add and Arrange Page Elements' screen or an 'Add a Gadget' button that even exists. I then looked around thinking others had the same problem as me, and finally just figured it out myself. Now for future mac users with my problem, I hope you find this blog and can follow the steps I did to change your background.

1. Go to your customize page.
2. Click on "Pick New" and choose Minima ***Warning*** this will get rid of all your links!!! Try finding your links under "Template"-"Edit HTML" and then copy and paste them somewhere while you change it to Minima but if you can't, be sure you know all your links.
3. Click Edit HTML
4. Go back to the site where you are getting the background from and highlight the HTML script they have given you.
5. Copy and Paste it at the very bottom of the HTML after all the code
6. To add your links back in, Scroll down through the code until you see something like this in the sidebar section:

news.google.com/">Google News
http://EDITME">Edit-Me
http://EDITME">Edit-Me

You can see there are a few links already in there to get you started. You can delete or edit these as you like. You can also add as many more links as you want.

Hope this helped

St. Patty's Day!

2009-03-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

I decided to have a little fun this year with St. Patrick's day. I love it that Maxwell is at the age when any extra effort you give as a parent is appreciated and magical. I made a letter from a leprechaun, telling my boys that he had lost his gold coins and needed them to find them. They went on a treasure hunt marked by little green foot prints and magic shamrocks. Along the way, coins where hidden, but at the end was a rainbow with a pot of gold. Chocolate gold coins to be precise. Of course since this was a magical journey, they had to make special hats for the occasion. I had not told Maxwell about St. Patrick's day before today, so he was totally caught off guard, and totally dismissed that a weird thing called a leprechaun had anything to do with the festivities, and insisted that uncle Patrick had come over and done it all for them, and that he was going to see uncle Patrick any moment, and how much he loved uncle Patrick for being so wonderful and amazing. Ha ha, well, they sure had fun anyway,

An Example of Faith in Harvard

2009-03-11T21:44:00.000-07:00

I watched this video of Rachel, a student at Harvard University, and was very impressed and relieved. I also watched the rest of the clips of that conference. It made me think of my mission, which was among 99% Protestants. Mostly baptists, but also people who just claimed "Christian" not wanting to really admit to any certain doctrine. I, being a Utah Mormon, learned a lot, for which I am eternally grateful. I learned what doctrines were unique to the LDS faith. (the fact that we are the only ones who believe in a pre-mortal existence absolutely astonished me.) I learned that people who are not LDS can be huge examples to me in many ways, including faith, parenting, and friendship. I learned what others actually thought of Mormons, and I learned where I stood in the midst of it all. Before I learned all this, I think I really would have made a huge flop of an interview like the one presented to Rachel. Even now, I thought of what my personal answers would have been, and I think I'm still too defensive. When Rachel, with out hesitation, stated that Jesus was her older brother, and later on that temples were meant to help us become like God, I flinched, knowing the possible harsh responses to these mormon views. Shame on me! I realized how far I have to go, and how grateful I am that there are people with such eloquence and faith as Rachel. The media is such a huge part of our culture, and Google has become the end-all-and-be-all at the pinnacle of society. I know that good will come into media, and out shine the dark, but it sometimes doesn't feel that way, and to see things like this help me remember hope. Anyway, watch it here http://hillel.harvard.edu/media/videos/550
(my "add link" button must not be working or I'm just not very with it right now.)

My Google Defined needs

2009-02-27T20:06:00.000-08:00

I thought this tag was hilarious, thanks Katey!

Instructions: Google the phrase (including the quotes) "[your first name] needs" and write down the first 10 results.

1.Now what Lindy needs to work on is her "quick fix with the sticks."
2.Lindy Needs To Go, He Has Lost This Team.
3.Lindy needs a forever home
4.Lindy needs to learn about making realistic plans .....(that one was my favorite)
5.They have been developed as a direct response to Lindy's needs when designing her cakes
6.Lindy updated Lindy's needs 3 days ago
7.Yes, Lindy needs to get Lalime in the game at Detroit.
8.i really think that lindy needs to get rid of 2 fam apts
9.Lindy needs to shoulder a lot of the blame.
10.Lindy needs control

The cat lady

2009-02-02T21:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if you know this, but I'm NOT a pet person. I had a cat on my mission for a couple months until we got found out by the elders and had to give it away, but I didn't really have pets growing up. I think my dad was burnt out by the time I came along. My older siblings had horses, goats, pigeons, chickens, dogs, cats etc... I had a hamster. When we got our house, we got a dog. I was pregnant with Hyrum and quickly decided that I did not need another baby at the moment, and we got rid of it within about 48 hours. Then we got a cat (I think I blogged about it.) It was not fun sharing a bathroom with a cat and having my boys torture it, so after a month we got rid of the cat. Then we (Dustin) tried the dog thing again. A cute wiener/chocolate lab mix. Not house trained, and having to get after it and our children, I just couldn't handle another stress in our already very stressful life at the moment, and after almost two months we got rid of it. Dustin still mopes about that one. Then we move into our log home in the middle of the country. Mice=we got cats. We got two cats that have been spayed neutered, and have shots. They are very good and haven't hurt our kids yet amid all the torture. But the best of all is that they have their own room (the cupboard under the stairs-no we have not named one of them Harry) where they can hide and the litter and food can hide from our kids. Interestingly enough, cats sort of came with the house...outside cats, and after we realized we had mice in the beginning, I started to feed them to keep them around. The word spread, and now we have between 3 and 8 cats on our porch or relative vicinity at any given time. Ya, so now I'm the kooky lady with ten cats...but no mice, so I'm not too insane, right? But it's still not perrrfect. Tonight when it came up about what cats say and we said Meow, Maxwell said "No, they say Kkksssssssstt...like that" ya, tells you how my boys treat these cats. Oh, and we have four horses and a donkey, but they're not ours, we are just letting our neighbor keep them on our land...fun fun

Maxwell's Birthday

2009-01-24T20:43:00.001-08:00

Maxwell's 4!!! Time sure flies. He absolutely loved his party. We actually had it at our house even though (as you can see) it's not really ready for guests yet. Soon ahhh soon I will make a youtube or something about our log house adventure. Maxwell had an elmo pinata, and balloon games and pin the tail on the donkey (that's Hyrum in the picture) and a lighting McQueen cake decorated by my charming husband. Four always seemed like a landmark age to me because it's when you really start to remember things. It's when you can't mess up as a parent either.

Birthday Surprise

2009-01-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

I've spent my Christmas vacation in Victoria Canada. We had to drive through a blizzard with white knuckles to get here. Then we got stuck here, but at least we were at our destination. Dustin hasn't been able to do the work he thought he would be able to here, so we really needed to get back to Idaho, and it looked like my birthday was the perfect weather break. Last night we went over on the ferry and almost got to Seattle when we had to turn back because we realized that all the freeways were blocked due to avalanches, floods, and mudslides! These photos are of the actual highways we needed to go on. Three feet of water!! Crazy. We had to turn around to stay at my sisterin-laws who was already hosting Dustin's brother's family. But hey, now I'm spending my birthday in a nice house with family instead of a flooded highway.

7 random facts tag

2009-01-04T21:44:00.000-08:00

This is for Claire, who tagged me, and I pass it on to who ever feels like they want to write about 7 random facts

1. I have 54 nieces and nephews...yes I'm sure I'm telling the truth... and one on the way too.

2. I am an adamant believer in homeschooling...I've seen way too many successes and examples with these 54 nieces and nephews (41 of whom are home-schooled) to deny how incredible and beneficial it is.

3. I was not that impressed by the book "Twilight" [I know, a Mormon young mom not into Twilight?!....please don't banish me] I got the first two books for Christmas, and so I'll give the second one a chance.

4. I read the book "The Tale of Despereaux" today and absolutely loved every word.

5. When my youngest child is about 5 years old, I want to travel (or sort of move) for at least a year straight, most likely in the south pacific. (My husband's youth was just too amazing and memorable not to duplicate in a small way....but I'm afraid of sailing on our own since I get sick and nothing but ocean for weeks just scares me.)

6. I really want a baby girl, so I'm bound for at least 4 kids since the first two and soon to be three are the cutest BOYS ever.

7. I don't really like Idaho.

San Francisco

2008-12-07T19:44:00.000-08:00

Dustin Surprised me by taking me with him on his business trip to San Francisco. We went from Mon to Fri (yes we missed thanksgiving, but Dustin's Canadian and thought it was on Sat. which was also his birthday) It was really fun to get away. Dustin got this amazing package deal that had our flights, hotel and car in one. We found out cars are useless in San Francisco, so we even got a better deal by canceling that. However, Dustin didn't realize that when a hotel says "shared bathroom" it means that you share that bathroom with the hotel floor. When we went to check in, Dustin was dumbfounded. Only $30 more for our own bathroom, but since we paid about $20 for the room, it just didn't seem all that worth it. Well, at least it had a sink, and I had experienced this type of thing before in Europe, so all was good, especially since this really small hotel was very clean, updated, and in an awesome location.

We went to meet this guy that is going to trademark Dustin's application and has the manufacturing details all worked out, and of course he lives in the Bistro, the "gayest neighborhood in the world" and makes the comment "ya, you'll know you're near the restaurant when you hear screaming protesters...but they're not as bad as the mormons." Of course we had to go just when things were hottest between gays and mormons and of course this guy that can really effect us is most probably (99% sure) gay. Dustin of course doesn't care that he's gay as long as politics aren't brought up, but I was worried he'ld hate us or something. There were no protestors, and gaydom and mormondom were not brought up and nothing was awkward and we really liked the guy and he seemed really impressed by Dustin and all's good.

As far as sightseeing goes, we went to the temple (no protestors there either anymore) and to pier 39. The aquarium was awesome and now Dustin has his mind turning about how to do creative aquariums for Saltspring. Our favorite art was China town which we went to on Thanksgiving and had a traditional...Chinese thanksgiving lunch. We rode all over in trolleys and cable cars, and realized that we really enjoyed being alone together. Of course we love our kids, but alone time is something we found out that is a must. We've been a bit stressed lately, and this is what we needed.

I would never want to live San Francisco. I'm not sure if it's on my list of "need to go there again" places. I guess the economy has made it this way, but I've never seen so many dirty homeless people, and I've been to a lot of big cities. It was worse then NY, London, Paris, Rome, and where ever else I've been. Rome had a lot of homeless, but they would just pit-pocket you instead of beg from you. I would be homeless myself if I gave to all of them and it was just so heart breaking. I guess California's weather is better for them. Anyway, the fog makes it seem dirty, and it seems like it's just not a flowery happy city. We loved the vacation anyway and enjoyed what we did do immensely.

Halloween a bit late

2008-11-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

I finally downloaded my pictures from my camera, and I had to show off my cute pictures. My boys were so cute. They were little dragons. Maxwell was so proud of his tail. When ever he ran, he was flying. He kept reminding people he was a flying dragon. Hyrum was different, however. He HATED his costume. It was so cute, but the head was too big and it really bothered him. Oh well. He really liked painting the pumpkins though.

A calmer more patriotic me

2008-11-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've had some time to calm down, and I should assure everyone I'm proud to be an American. I love the USA. I realize it's not the ONLY great country, but I feel extremely blessed to be born and raised in this promised land. I feel so proud of it's citizens to have chosen proposition 8 in California, and to have voted against non-marriage adoptions, and voted for illegal prostitution, and illegal abortion and others. WE STILL HAVE MORALS YIPEE!!! We still have a lot of hope, and I'm soooo grateful for check and balances! Let's write our senators :)

By the way, when I changed my background, I lost my list of contacts and had to search them all out again, if you are not on my list and want to be, tell me!

My thoughts on the election

2008-11-04T22:03:00.000-08:00

AHHHHH! Oh Canada, my home and native land, true patriot love to all her sons command, with glowing hearts we see thee rise our true north strong and FREE OF OBAMA!!! Canada here I come!! Seriously, As soon as things are wrapped up here (with the house and money situations that will take at least 6 months to two years, but hey we're now really motivated) we are out of here. Of course this was our plan all along, but now there is fear driving us. I've never trusted or been impressed with presidential candidates, but I've never been scared of one either...until now, and guess who that could be? I know all the hoopla about him being a muslim jehad in disguise getting ready to hand over the USA on a platter is a little over the top, but the one fact alone that all our enemies seem happy to have him get into power makes me queezy. I swear so many people looked at the color of his skin instead of what was underneath it. A smooth talking, inexperienced, patriotism questioned, white-hating-church goer has dooped our country because he was fresh different and black. I remember the first time I had ever hear of him a couple years ago when a cnn reporter was making fun of his name and asking all these people what they thought of him, and all of them thought he was a terrorist, not a candidate. Ha ha...whimper whimper. yes change will come america, will it be good or bad?

Digi Scrapbooking...oh ya

2008-10-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

So when I e-mailed everyone saying I was pregnant, some people responded saying they thought I should actually update my blog...ya sorry about that. I read all of my friends blogs, and I get annoyed if they don't update frequently....Holly....so I guess I'm a hypocrite. I have been so busy building this sticken house and just living, that I haven't given blogging it's due time. In fact, I have a dirty little secret...when ever I do have free time, and sometimes when I don't and just want a break anyway, I do digital scrapbooking. It is so much fun! I guess it's only fun if you know photoshop because I tryed to show my one sister-in-law who had never used photoshop, and she thought I was crazy for thinking it was better then normal scrapbooking, but it is! Nice organization, no mess, takes way less time, it's all FREE!!!, and when you need to walk away from it, just push "save." Yes much better then boxes and boxes of scrapbook junk, printing off your photos, cutting them and realizing that you cut them wrong, spending tons of money on little scraps that really aren't worth the money, and having a gigantic mess you don't want your kids touching. Let me tell you, I am sold. I go to http://www.shabbyprincess.com/downloads.asp for all my layouts, and to my local copy center, where they print out photo quality 12x18s for just $1.50 (one trim and it's ready for my book :)

cheeky graduate

2008-08-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

False alarm, there was a mix up in at the advisor's office, and he really did graduate and he really is getting his diploma in a couple of days, Dustin just put the letter (that he knew was wrong since he had already called the school) on the fridge and left, when I got home from the library and park, I saw it right away and started freaking out and my father in law who knew what was going on was just egging me on and encouraging me to go to the university personally and chew them out and cry which I was going to do. Thankfully I called my cheeky husband first who laughed and laughed and thought it was the greatest joke ever...yah, what a pill