Life's Lessons

Last night at dinner we were talking to the kids about going to baby Chloe's funeral. I have had a hard time deciding if Cannon would be okay with going because he has really had a hard time with the idea of a baby's death. He was okay when he thought people would live until they got really old and then died, but not a baby.
We have had talks about how everyone on earth has a different time to live and a time to die and that baby Chloe is now back with our Heavenly Father and that we will get to see her again. I think he will be okay with everything now because as we discussed seeing baby Chloe at the viewing he had questions about how we could see her. We talked about how the spirit leaves the body and how Chloe's little body is still here. He asked what she would look like and I said it would look like Chloe and that she was sleeping.
Then as I was tucking him in to bed last night he said, "mom, death is sad because we all miss Chloe, but it is happy too because she gets to be with Heavenly Father."
I am so grateful to be able to have the Gospel and the understanding of death and also the promises of resurrection and eternal life. I am so grateful too for wonderful family members that all seem to pull together and love one another during really difficult times.

Cabin Clean Up

So this weekend we started taking the bathroom apart and got the shower toilet and sink out and taken to the dump.

We got the water off the floor and all the tiles removed. We have a large industrial fan blowing in the house and we are going to have a dehumidifier starting tomorrow. We took the couch, dressers, bedding, mattress, tiles and kitchen cabinets to the dump. It seems so much better in there just getting that stuff torn out and taken to the dump. We will keep working on it, but it seems so much better after 3 days into the clean up.

I guess we used as much water in a few weeks as we normally would in a few years. Way to go green on a remodel. I think this whole thing would have been a ton more stressful if I wasn't married to mister fix-it.

Good News or Bad News

Well yesterday morning I spent hours on the phone talking to my sisters and parents about all the great things that have happened in the last few days. Things like, tenants in our house in Seattle deciding to stay for another year because the house they were going to move into fell through. Hooray!! Renting out a house in this market is not super fun. Other things like signing a lease with someone on the house in Tacoma and having a line up of people wanting to tour our last vacant house. All GREAT news. We love to have people in our houses and we love to have lots of interest in a vacant house because it normally takes lot of interest to find a qualified tenant. I was so happy!

Then after I had put all the kids down for quiet time. I got a knock on the door. It was a guy from the water company. He informed me that our meter was going crazy and that we had used over 14oo (whatever measurement they use for water consumption) and that we MUST have a leak somewhere. SWEET! He left saying, "no seriously you are going to have a gigantic water bill." OKAY got it, I will get right on that. So I think the only possible place is the guest house and we haven't been down there in about a week and only bad things can be happening when you have a leak with that much water coming out.

I grab Phil from downstairs and we head down to the guest house and find that we can't open the door. We peak in the windows and see a nice inch to 2 inches of water covering the floor. The door has sealed itself shut with all the water so I finally find a window I can get open and we climb our way in to check out all of this..

So yesterday during quiet time I:

1. Pulled all the tiles up and tossed them out

2. moved the furniture out of the house or at least out of my way

3. swept 1400 (whatever) out of the house.

Today we are trying to decide how much it will cost to fix all of this and weighing the pros and cons of contacting insurance about the fun our little sink in the bathroom caused. Thank you mister water meter guy for coming to our house to inform us that we were seriously wasting water so we could enjoy a valentine's weekend cleaning up a mess together!

Here is some video to enjoy.

Studies

So I often find myself thinking, "I want to do a study about ..., but how would I have a control group, and how could I only change one variable?" I seriously want to set up a study for everything. Any time I hear people talk about 1/2 day vs. all-day kindergarten I think about how to make a study so you could scientifically say which one was better. You can't, right! Because then you would have to tell every parent that their child is the same as every other child and that they couldn't teach them anything at home or that would become a variable in the study. Or you would have to be able to put the same child through both classes at the same time.
Well I start to think this way and then I think, "how in the world do they ever do a study and get accurate results?" No really, think about it. With humans, how do you have a control group and then only change one variable among the different groups. I don't do the same things everyday and I am not in the same place everyday and the environment is going to change and the stress level is going to change. Then I thought, "well I guess that is why the commercials for prescription drugs is 1/5 what the medicine is for and 4/5 what might happen if you take the drug."
Then the bigger question is why does my brain work this way? I really have about 10 of these studies in my head at any given time. Just two that I found myself thinking about while I was running this morning:
1. Private school vs. public school. Most of the kids that I know that are currently in private school have both parents working in order to afford school. How does that affect the child. The child's parents in general and their genetic make-up even make it so you can't pick.
2. screen time for children. I am all for limiting tv time for kids because I know how I feel after watching a ton of tv, but really how did they come up with that number. I only have three kids and each one had a different length of time that they can stand to sit and watch tv.
I don't really know why I am posting this, but I guess it is something that I feel is part of who I am. Phil and I have conversations all of the time about different studies I would like to do or with me picking apart a study I just read in a science journal. I know totally weird, but for some reason I can't stop myself from thinking about it.

memories

Miya and I had a conversation yesterday about college and it made me think about all the things I went through to finish school after moving here to Washington. I had finished two years at BYU when we moved here to Seattle to get married. I had to get my residency here in Washington so I worked for a year before I started school. I continued to work full-time while I finished school. Both Phil and I were doing it so it didn't seem like a crazy thing to do. I worked for a great law firm that allowed me to get in my 40 hours whenever my schedule allowed. I remember often being the only person left in the building and walking to the bus after most people were home (and sometimes in bed) from work.
Then after a few years we decided to have a baby because Phil had graduated from school. Miya came two weeks early and I hadn't finished finals yet. Those two weeks of new baby and studying for finals were pretty crazy. I still had two quarters to finish before I graduated. UW didn't except most credits from BYU. I don't know something about transferring from a conservative Mormon school to a liberal State school didn't always work out so well.
So after Miya turned one I had a really fantastic Sister in Law and friend that said they would take turns watching Miya while I finished school. Miya and Cora were so good with each other and became more like sisters. I think this is one of those debts that you never really pay back because both of these women loved Miya like their own and even took her when she was sick and I had to be at school or in the lab. We had a lot of stops at the 7-11 in Kent on the way home from Aunt Jenny's house on my short Thursday schedule we both loved slurpies on the warm spring days. Heather was so good at taking photos of the things Miya did during the day. Then I found out we were having baby #2 and I finished at UW looking just like this. There were lots of whispers on campus when I walked by looking like this. I am sure this is something people saw everyday walking around campus at BYU, but at UW this was not a common occurrence. I finished school the end of June and had Cannon July 2nd.
I know that Miya might not understand now about how much sacrifice was made by myself and many others in order for me to finish college, but I am sure someday she will read this and know that I feel it is important to go and to finish college.

Potty Training

I guess it is really that time again and after two attempts at potty training with Lyla I think we finally have it.
First attempt we had an interested child, determined mother, but little bladder control.
Second attempt we had determined mother, bladder control, but very UNINTERESTED child.
Third and final attempt we seem to have all three this time and Lyla has been doing a great job. She finally went poop in the potty on Friday and was dancing around singing, "I did it! I did it!" She didn't want me to flush because she wanted to go get daddy to show him. Potty training is one of those things that you dread and never know exactly what you are doing from one child to the next, but it is also so fun to watch them get excited about learning something new and feeling so big when they can finally do it.
Now we just need to teach her that she doesn't get a treat every time she goes potty.