The Flu

Today I stayed home with ALL of our kids sick with the flu.  Ben got out of bed and told me his brain was controlling him.  "You're brain is controlling you?" I asked.  "Yes," said Ben with a pained expression.  "If I go the wrong way it hurts me."

Last night, Ben lost his tooth.  He left a thank-you note with his tooth for the tooth-fairy.  Impressed by his gratitude, the tooth fairy left him a full $5.  (Perhaps a dangerous precedent...but, oh well.)  He was ecstatic!  By mid-afternoon, however, the money was lost and Ben was in tears.  Rebecca asked me if she could give him $5 from her allowance and tell him that she found his money.  He was so excited!  I was impressed that she didn't want him to know the truth about where it came from.  What a great big sister!

Organ

LaMonte plays the organ at church on Sundays.  Recently, Billy Cartwright became the newest member of our bishopbric.   He is the nicest guy, always one of the first to help someone in need.  He is also the picture of his name...a country boy through and through.  LaMonte was playing some postlude hymns after sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago.  All of the sudden he felt something in his ear.  "It must be one of the kids," he thought.  Nope.  It was Billy Cartwright...grinning like a school boy.  He had just stuck his finger in LaMonte's ear.  "I just wanted to see what would happen," he said.

Sarah and Jason

Yesterday LaMonte and I asked the older kids if they would keep an eye on Sarah so we could take a  nap.  We bribed them with popsicles.  Jason got out his art set and made puppets with her.  A little while later I heard her squealing outside.  I looked out the window, and there was Jason pulling her across the properrt on a sled.  Both of them were just glowing.  When I got up, they put on a puppet show.  The feeling that filled our home was priceless!  Everyone was happy.  I was so overwhelmingly grateful for the good example set by our oldest son and the impact it had on our whole family.

The other day I took one of our dogs into the vet.  They had some sheep who had recently had lambs.  As we were leaving, Sarah declared, "Mom, I KNOW those babies didn't hatch out of eggs!  Do you want to know how I know that?"  "Yes, How did you know that?" I replied.  "They are WAY too big to fit in an egg!" she concluded.

Biography

They finally convinced me to write a short biography/spotlight for the Relief Society newsletter.  I don't like writing about myself, so this is how I did it:

I am writing out of concern for my dear neighbor, Emily Yorke, and her family. They moved into the old farmhouse next door a year and a half ago with their large family of nine. She was all aglow and rambling about living the country life. Her husband seemed more than a little concerned with trying to fit beds for 9 into a 2-bedroom house. Within a couple of months there were horses, cats, goats, a donkey, a dog, and chickens running all over the place and she was pregnant, again! I saw with my own eyes a goat coming out of their house and chickens in their van. Last summer they remodled their home...both bathrooms at once! Now kids and animals were relieving themselves outdoors. I don't know what they were thinking taking that all on just before having a baby! One day, I saw her-eight months pregnant-walking determinedly from the barn to the house sledgehammer in hand. I dared not ask what she was up to. I stopped in to make a neighborly call after they finished. After recovering from the shock of the piles of laudry being folded right on the kitchen table, I observed that the remodling had turned out very nice. Only a couple of months later she was back out running around the perimeter of the property with her whole string of kids, a dog, and a pig in the rear...I think she was a runner in school. Last Novemer, she told me she needed a way to help her kids earn money for college and missions. I humbly suggested she should have thought through the incredible financial burden of having such a large family before now. Then, I subtley emphasized my point by telling her that even in the country we get our over-productive animals fixed. She simply smiled and told me she was thinking about raising dogs. I do not exaggerate in the least when I say that before the month was out there were 22 dogs and puppies at that place. I pressed her mother for details about her upbringing, hoping to find some logic behind the chaos. She grew up in Pennsylvania and Indiana-the oldest of 8 kids. She went to BYU after graduating and married her husband, LaMonte, after her freshman year. They moved to Dallas after having their first baby. They transferred here with his company which has a plant in Neosho. Now, I am not one to judge others. I stick to my own, mind my own business. But, I could hardly consider myself Christian to keep these shocking observations to myself. I do have to say, however, that I am slightly amused as I consider what she will come up with next.