JoAnne Gayle Nelson-Henderson

 

My grandmother passed away on Nov. 20 2009.
She had been diagnosed with terminal cancer a year or so ago.  Her death was expected. 

Last April my family took a trip to Colorado to see her knowing that it would most likely be the last time.  For most of my children this may be the only memory they have of her.
I suppose I should be feeling more remorse, but I am really not sad.  My grandfather passed away in 1996 and they had been married since she was 16.  Without him, I don't think she knew what to do.  Her kids and grand kids were all grown up and doing well... there just wasn't much that she had left to do and she missed him fiercely.  She couldn't really take care of herself and she was incredibly independent.  I know she is happier now and so incredibly excited to be with her companion.
It brings me such peace to know that they are now together.
Grandma was an accomplished painter and gave us many of her paintings.  She painted the Mesa Arizona temple where Matt and I were sealed, the mountain ridge we looked at from our home in Texas, and a spot in Germany among other things.
Sariah was given the middle name of JoAnne after my grandmother.
Three days after she passed away Matt met me at the Chiropractors office and said that something strange had happened that morning. He was snuggling in bed with Sariah as usual when she looked at the door and asked "Daddy, who is that lady".  Matt sat straight up at this question but did not see anything and couldn't figure out what she was referring to.  He told her he didn't know and she didn't mention it again.  When he told me, I thought it was odd, but didn't think too much of it.  Later that day he sent me a message asking if we had a picture of Grandma that I could show Sariah.  I found one and then he emailed me the one above.  When I showed it to her she was intrigued and asked "who is that lady?"  I told her that was her grandma-ma and she said, "well, Grandma said hello to me this morning".
Oh, to be that young again. To know without a doubt that your grandma had come to say hello to you and not feel the need to explain it away.

Michael has always loved to draw and recently Serenitie has started to do some incredible landscape scenes.  I am so thankful that both of my children have inherited this talent.

Grandma wasn't really that involved with the great grandkids and wasn't a typical grandma in many ways, but I know she shares a special connection with my children.

On a funny note, my Grandmothers maiden name was Nelson, Her married name was Henderson.  Guess she felt the need to maintain some of her identity when she got married.  Then I followed suite and went from a Henderson to an Olson!

  

We love you Grandma!

Mothers who know

This has definetly been one of those days, weeks, whatever you want to call it. I sit and wonder what I did wrong, how I can fix it and make sure I do it right by my children, contemplate whether I can just crawl under the covers and not come out until everything is made right again. Swear I will not have any more children because obviously I have troubles correctly raising the ones I have already been given.
I plead to Heavenly Father asking him where my "safe card" is. You know the one I am talking about. The card you get when you have checked everything on "the list" off, scripture reading, check. Family home evening every monday, check. Take your whole family to church and all other activiteis, check...... and so on and so forth. This card is then given to you as a result of completing the above tasks and then entitles you to have perfect children who will grow up and make perfect decisions, always..... Well, mine must have been sent to the wrong address and now I am ticked.
However, in the middle of this I am reminded of Heavenly fathers love for me through friends who call from thousands of miles away to see if we are ok and offer their help in a way that shows me that I am not alone. I am shown once again how precious I, as a mother, am to him through this talk that I have not read enough which just happened to be posted on a friends page.

"This is an excerpt from a talk given by Julie B. Beck two years ago. She is the President of the Relief Society for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Mothers Who Know

"When mothers know who they are and who God is and have made covenants with Him, they will have great power and influence for good on their children.

Mothers who know

Desire to Bear Children
Women who desire and work toward that blessing in this life are promised they will receive it for all eternity, and eternity is much, much longer than mortality.

Mothers who know

Honor Sacred Ordinances and Covenants
They know that if they are not pointing their children to the temple, they are not pointing them toward desired eternal goals.

Mothers who know

Are Nurturers
They create a climate for spiritual and temporal growth. Home is where women have the most power and influence. Nurturing requires organization, patience, love and work.

Mothers who know

Are Leaders
They lead a great and eternal organization; plan for the future of their organization; build children into future leaders; and maximize their influence where it matters most.

Mothers who know

Are Teachers
They are always teachers. They are never off duty.

Mothers who know

Do Less
They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally; are willing to live on less in order to spend more time with their children; choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world.

Mothers who know

Stand Strong and Immovable
They do not give up during difficult and discouraging times.

There is eternal influence and power in motherhood."


And so, after a large piece of humble pie and time spent on my knees I will rise up and take the hand of my eternal companion. With him, I will re-evaluate our activities and our time. I will rededicate myself to raising up children that know the Lord and seek his eternal blessings. Got to go, I have a lot of work to do!

Fall, the best time of the year-or the worst……

I love fall!!!!!  I usually adore everything about it.  The crisp air the colors, the leaves and trees, a comfortable pair of jeans and a warm, baggy sweater to hide in.  The fireplace going, pumpkin patches, the excitement of  Halloween, the smells of pumpkin….. the list goes on and on.

This year however the Haunted Forest literally took over our lives for a month.  Last year it was mainly just Matt and Seri with Michael thrown in on occasion, this year you add mom to the mix and the family is literally in chaos for an entire month.

We love it, we hate it, we look forward to it, we look forward to it ending.

We expanded it to two trails this year which turned out to be quit a bit of work.  Guess it goes without saying that if you double the size, you double the work.

The Hollow was more of your traditional trail with Mummy's, Vampires, Clowns and Werewolves. ( I was even convinced to act as the mummy on Halloween because we ran short on actors).

The trail we added was the Deadlands, sort of a zombie/ experimental lab sort of trail.

 

Mike was either a clown or a pirate depending on the night and his mood.

Seri was a bush for the first week and then a pirate for the other two weeks.

Matt was…… hmmm.. I don’t know what he was. He wore this and a black cape and roamed around making sure things were going smoothly and scaring the crud out of people.  Yes, he was in his element.

we were at a corn maze/pumpkin farm three times.  Once with Seri’s teen church/homeschooled group LYTTS, once with the Rainbow girls and then this time when we went with the co-op.

Sariah was in a bad mood and seri is now too old to go to the pumpkin patch with a bunch of “little kids”.  Those are my three boys on the end.

Yes, Tristan has gotten big.

Then again, I guess they all have…..

An old fashioned hay ride.  (by the way, we have discovered that Mike is probably allergic to hay).

 

The best part of Maris farms is playing in the corn pit with Nana!!!

Not sure why both of my children picked the only two cows that were decapitated…….

There’s something about a sleeping child….

With my two older children this happened often, everything would be quiet and when you went to ascertain why you would find them crashed in a strange location.  With this child it NEVER happens.  She doesn’t stop long enough for the sand man to do his work.  So, a few days ago I was astonished to find this and had to document it.

Too dang cute.  The thing is, with the other children there would always be toys under them or books covering their face as proof that they were incredibly focused on doing something.  I can’t figure out what she was doing when he came to visit, there was nothing even near her, maybe Mr. Sandman just knocked her upside the head.

I think I have posted about this before but it is worthy of another post.  For a year or so we tried to separate the children into their own beds.  It never did work out very well.  They would always migrate to someone else’s bed.  Seri finally broke free of having visitors when she moved to a room downstairs (guess they didn’t want to travel that far).  The other three however continued to cram into the same single size bed.  So, after a good while of this I finally said to heck with it and got them a queen size bed.  Now they are all happy and sleep soundly.  Although I am not convinced they are comfortable.

I read a quote recently in a magazine that I find so true.  They asked readers “what is the one thing you can’t live without”.  One of the responses was “a king size bed.  When everyone fits, everyone sleeps”.  Amen!!!!!

Someone to run with

It has been brewing as an idea for quit some time but then I started running and found I was getting bored with running by myself.  Everyone else had a nice canine companion to enjoy the run with.  That was when I decided that I needed a dog, or rather, my family needed a dog.

We had one when Seri was little a loveable lab named Jake.  He was perfect in every way.  When we got orders from Germany he ended up staying with my in-laws and there he has remained as dad’s faithful companion.

So, I started putting the pressure on Matt and finally one day he cracked.  We started our search at the local shelter but they did not have any kinds of dogs that we were looking for and if they did the description usually said no children under the age of 8.

So, I proceeded to find an add on craigslist (love that site by the way) for a year and a half old black lab.  It seemed like a perfect fit and it is.  Her name was Mariah but with us having a Sariah we knew it wouldn’t work well so the kids named her Emily.

We truly love her and she is a perfect fit in every way.  Except for the fact that her idea of a running pace and mine drastically differ, but as my friend says “it’s nice to have someone to drag you sometimes”.

Apparently it has been decided that the dog cage (which she never uses) is big enough to fit my mom and half the children.

Nuggets of wisdom

Wipes.

Where there are diapers to be found, there are wipes.  we do cloth wipes also, only makes sense to me to match the cloth diapers and throw them all in the laundry.  Plus, they are so much nicer!!!  It’s like giving the kids a mini sponge bath.

The flannel was free from my mom, found in her stash of boxes nobody knows whats in.  I cut them the size of our travel wipe boxes and sewed them back to back along the edge, flipped them right side out and then sewed a cross over the middle so they wouldn’t bunch or ward in the laundry.

We use to do the paper towel ones when seri was a baby but I like the cloth ones a lot more and they are reusable.  On the net you will find a ton of recipes for baby wipes, but this is my favorite.

Mix one cup of water with two tablespoons of soap, two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and four drops of either tea tree oil of Melalueca oil.  Place wipes in large container and pour mixture on top.  I then pull out four wipes to fill each of the travel containers we have in the car and in our room.

The other plus is for messy hands and faces.  Love how these babies clean up!!!!

Bowling! (in formals)

 

So the girls wanted to go bowling, Ok…. Not a problem.  But Mrs. O. we want to go in our formals! Interesting you say, yes, it was.

I love this pic for some reason.

And take notice of my boys…..They totally love hanging out with the girls, and who wouldn’t?

Thanks for a great time girls!!!!!

Princess Sariah

Such a spit fire of a child.  Part tree climber, part princess, but she always has a mind of her own!  She reminds me so much of her sister, but with a tad more of a feminine twist.

Yes, her entire upper legs are purple. cute, eh?

and her arms…..

But the face looks better in blue.

So, now the little miss is 3.  She is talking non stop and actually we have some pretty intelligent conversations.  She just got rid of the Paci.  She got rid of it right before TJ was born but then after his birth she was addicted once again.  We are still not potty trained, but I don’t imagine it will be long.  It has to be on her terms as she will let anyone know.  when I asked her the other day if she wanted diapers or panties she told me that she was to tired to deal with panties today so she wanted a diaper.

She is a great big sister for Tristan and they are really good friends.  In Costco when they are in the cart next to each other I often get asked if they are twins.  They are wearing the same size in clothing and have very similar features.

I love her smile and giggle, even when I am frustrated because she has to find the certain outfit before leaving.

Yesterday Seri had on her suit and was on her way to swimming.  Sariah looked over at her and said “sissy, you have big boobies!” .  We all laughed so hard.

It is going to be so much fun to watch you grow and conquer the world princess.  Happy Birthday!!!!

Nuggets of wisdom

Laundry soap

It is a staple of life.  About a year ago a friend of mine turned me onto making our own.  We save a ton of money this way and I haven’t noticed a huge difference in the cleanliness of the clothes as opposed to when we used store bought detergent.

There are recipes online for both dry and liquid soaps, I prefer liquid.  Here is the recipe I use.

1/3 a bar of Fels Naptha soap – You can find this in any grocery store in the laundry section.

6 cups of water

1/2 cup washing soda (also found in the laundry section)

1/2 cup of Borax (once again, you know where)

This isn’t in the original recipe, but I usually add about five drops of Tea Tree oil or Melaluca oil for the extra benefit and to make it smell a little more like the soap I am use to buying.

Heat the water, Fels Naptha and Borax until dissolved. I find the easiest way to make the Fels Naptha bar melt is to grate it with an old fashioned cheese grater.

Stir in the washing soda and mix and heat until it is dissolved. You will have to stir continuously as it will boil over quickly if you don’t.

Remove from heat.  In a 3-5 gallon bucket ( I use a large old soap bottle) pour one quart hot water then add the soap mix.  Add enough cold water to make 2 gallons. Mix. Let sit 24 hours. use 1/2 cup per load.  I usually stir and shake mine each time as it can get pretty thick.

When washing this soap will not bubble and foam like store bought brand, but rest assured it is doing it’s job!

The rest of the fels naptha bar can be used as a stain lifter by rubbing directly on stains.