I don’t have any fun April Fool’s Jokes to play this year. Sorry. With April 1st being on a Sunday and General Conference, it just kind of slipped my mind and we didn’t fool anyone. But you could try this new wireless system.
We had a wonderful weekend listening to conference. There were a lot of messages on forgiveness, repentance and being kind to one another. I’m not a big grudge holder, but I still have a few things I need to let go of. I especially liked Elder Holland’s talk on speaking kindly. That’s one I really need to work on. I’m thrilled about the Tabernacle Rededication and excited about the upcoming events to celebrate that event. This weekend is the Tabernacle Choir concert, and I will be involved in that a tiny bit, and the Bell Choir spring concert in the Tabernacle will be May 17 and 18th. If you are interested in tickets for that event, they go “on sale” Tuesday morning at 10:00.

On Saturday I got a little project done; one that had been hanging over my head for quite some time. I sewed a new cover for our little playground. I get to do this about every two years, since I’m just using regular fabric instead of cool specialized playground canopy fabrics. But then I can change the look every time I do it, too, and it doesn’t cost much to make one. Here’s Megan and Ryan putting it up.

So, here’s the finished project:

Another thing I finished and got up on the wall is a Family Home Evening chart. How many years have we been having FHE? About 13. Have I ever had a FHE thing? No. I guess I didn’t want one that didn’t have everyone on it, and the ones I saw only had 5 or maybe 6 spaces. Well, I finally found one that would work for me, ordered it, painted it, put the lettering on it, and got it done.

Everyone is excited about their assignments, and I think it will help us a lot to know who’s doing what. Then maybe it won’t all be Mom’s job. For John’s activity, we’re going to color eggs.

I didn’t make up this list, but maybe I should make one of the books I’ve read and care about.

Look at the list of books below:
*Bold the ones you’ve read
*Italicize the ones you want to read
*Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.

*Cross out the ones you are so not interested in that you would never read.
If you are reading this: tag; you’re it!
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell (Ok, haven’t read the whole thing, but seen the movie multiple times)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) I started this one, but didn’t finish it
21. the hobbit
22. the catcher in the rye(J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)

39. the red tent(Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) haven’t read it but seen the tv movie, does that count?
45. Bible – most, but not all
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) Started this one, but didn’t get too far.
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) does the movie count?
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams) got about 1/4 of the way through this one.
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Wow, according to this list, I’m not as well read as I would like to be. But it gives me ideas for the next time I am bookless.

One of my favorite bloggers, Carmen at Mom to the Screaming Masses told this sweet story on her blog today:
There were two boys who were the subject of an experiment. One was put into a room with every toy known to children. The other boy was put into a room full of horse manure. They were left alone for quite a while, and then the doctor conducting the experiment came to check on them. He found the boy who was in the room of toys, sitting on the side, looking dejected. When questioned, he said that the reason he was so upset was that there was no Nintendo DS in the room. That was his favorite toy. The doctor went to check on the second boy, and to his suprise, found him jumping around, dancing, singing, laughing and having a grand time. When questioned as to how he could possibly be so happy in a room filled with horse manure, he responded, “With this much horse manure, there MUST be a pony in here somewhere!”

That’s a nice way to look at things, isn’t it? Which reminds me of this . And while I was looking for that, I found this, which also made me laugh.

So, my message to you today is…have a wonderful day!

Well, it really did snow yesterday–finally.  I kept waiting around yesterday wondering where this nasty weather we were supposed to receive was.  It was dark and cloudy, but didn’t even rain until the afternoon.  Then last night it started to snow.  It is actually still snowing lightly here.  It’s the perfect kind of snow where it doesn’t stick to the sidewalk or road, but there’s a nice little layer (about 2 inches) on the grass.  I’m sure it will melt quickly, but I like it.  I know a lot of people could be complaining about snow after we’ve had such nice weather, but I am enjoying this little cold spell.  You don’t want it to get too warm too fast in the spring.  That’s one of the things I like about spring in Utah.  It could be wonderful and warm, and then it snows!  Diversity!

I guess I just like it cause I’m lazy.  I’ve got a lot of yard work to do out there.  I’ve already filled up two garbage cans with dead stuff I should have taken care of in the fall, and lots of little weeds.  On Monday I bought a huge bottle of round-up from Costco and sprayed all the little grasses and weeds invading my flower beds, and Ryan put the pre-emergent on the lawns, but we still have tons of work to do to get our yard ready for the warm weather.  So, if it’s snowy, we can’t work outside!  See, I’m really just lazy.

Oh, and here’s a picture of our two new little birdies.

They’ve been renamed Skyler and Sammy, and are really quite cute.  Megan is loving having them as pets.  One of them had an unfortunate incident where John caught him, pulled him out of the cage and proceeded to pull out all his tail feathers the other day, however.  Megan was a little bit more understanding when I reminded her that she did the same thing to Sundance when she was about his age (what is it with those tail feathers?).

Thirteen years ago I became a mother.  Wow.  My life has changed a lot since that day (mostly for the better).         

Cole has always been such a great kid, and he is growing into a young man we can be proud of.

He went on a campout this weekend to Goblin Valley, and although he got wet in a stream and tells us he had hypothermia, he had a great time.  I told him that even if he did have hypothermia, you don’t tell your mother those things, or she may not let you go camping with the scouts again.  We bought him a cool new frame backpack last Monday for the campout, but we’re not going to consider that a birthday present.  He did tell me yesterday that he had decided what he wanted for his birthday (the day before–thanks for the advance notice, kid)…a digital camera.  Well, thanks to Woot, we got one ordered.

No big party planned for him, since it’s not a party year for him, but he gets to choose where we go out to dinner tonight, and (the best part), he doesn’t have to go to piano lessons today.  So, I hope it’s a great day for you today, Cole.  We love you!

I finally found a saying I liked to put up on the wall over the kids’ pictures. I’ve been thinking about this for months, and was very excited to finally get it put up.

So my husband, who doesn’t care which couch I buy as long as he doesn’t have to haul it, has an opinion about my wall sayings.  He looks at it and says, “That’s kind of cheesy.”  What?  Doesn’t he know he isn’t  allowed to have an opinion!? Then, after he helped me get it up and level, he said, “It really should say something like: ‘All because One person fell in love, dragging the other person kicking and screaming into marriage and made her love him'”.  Whatever.

“When you look in the mirror in the days ahead, may you smile a hundred times more than you frown at what you see. Smile because you know that a loving, capable, sensible, strong, precious person is reflected there.” ~~Laurel Atherton