Some linkies

Here are some links in random order.

1.  This is a virtual knee surgery game for kids.  Jethro found it one day and he and Hazel had fun performing an operation.

2. Did you National Geographic has a million gazillion videos?  Jethro could spend ALL DAY watching them.  They’re broken into different categories, and there’s a category for kids too.

3.  Our whole family played this game where you hear the animal sound and have to choose which animal it belongs to.  Very fun.  The panther is SCARy.

4.  On Tuesday I made the best tasting dinner I’ve had in a long time.  It was tremendous.  Here’s the recipe, and how to cook the chicken, and the bacon (I did them how she suggested in the oven, on the same pan), and the alfredo sauce (which is, of course, already linked to in the recipe).

5.  And have I told you that my sister has a new homeschooling blog?  It is very cool.  Even if you don’t homeschool, just read it for all the fantastic book recommendations for kids of varying ages.

6.  Last night I felt like I made a pretty fabulous dinner, mainly because of how many parts it had.  I’m usually a one-pot meal kinda person, with the occasional carrot sticks or apple slices thrown in.  But last night, I made potato pancakes, fruit salad (just apples, bananas, and orange cut up, but the fact that all of them were cut and in a bowl together makes it cooler than just any one by itself you know), scrambled eggs, and cinnamon toast that I decided to make last minute.  I had skimmed over this post earlier and it really was as amazing as she said.  Tasty tasty tasty.

7.  So somehow I came across these interviews with different members of the Quorum of the Twelve, and sometimes their wives, and though I’ve only listened to one so far (they’re pretty long), I found it highly interesting, because like it says on the site “These discussions are done in a style which allows the listener to become acquainted with those being interviewed in an informal way.  This is particularly interesting with the featured general authorities, who are known to most only in formal settings.”  I listened to the one with Elder Oaks and his wife and found out that Elder Oaks is a fanatical BOTTOM of the toothpaste tube squeezer, so his wife and he are happier when they have their own tubes, and other fascinating tidbits like that.  Here are the links for the first eight interviews, and here is the link for two more.

And that’s all I’ve got for today.

Things

This is a word cloud made from this past General Conference –so the more times the word was used, the bigger it appears (minus words such as a, the, it).  I’m sure you’ll notice ‘children.’  It seemed like family and children was a huge theme this conference.  Very cool.  (I saw this on somebody else’s blog and pretty much had to share the exact thoughts she had.  The website it is from is here.)

When I saw this room in the Gruyeres Schloss-

I thought that more people should paint flowers on their walls because it’s so pretty (prettier in real life than the pictures).  And guess what, now Hazel and Ethne’s room does have flowers on its wall!

Jethro found some books on the side of the road that were to be recycled, and he picked them up and brought them home.  One of them was a book about flowers and inside were very lovely pictures of flowers on pieces of paper that were just glued in on one side, and on many of them the glue was already old and un-glued.  So I ripped a whole bunch out and taped them up to the wall of Hazel and Ethne’s room.  I really really LOVE how it looks.  It’s really big and covers a big part of the wall, and is so bright and beautiful.

One close-up. The desk that’s under the flowers came from the side of the road too.  

And to end, here is a video of my cute cute cute CUTE little boy growling at Brett.  Brett is a little red-faced and sweaty because he had just ridden his bike home from work.  I love those boys soooo much!

Talmage growling from Kayli Bell on Vimeo.

Weekend.

This is what happens when your daughter learns how to write.  Suddenly your grocery list includes three dogs.  :)So on Thursday I decided to try to drive somewhere that required going through the city.  I got lost several times on the way there (the first time I had to call Brett so he could get me back on course), almost got run over by a tram (okay not really), and had four million and three panic attacks (really).  Finally we did arrive at the store.  We walked to the door only to see that it was closed for lunch from 12-2.  It was 12:10.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  Oh, and I also somehow got lost going home as well, and accidentally drove right through the old town where there are no normal roads, just cobblestone without lines or anything, and a million trams and buses and bicyclists and people.  But we managed to get home eventually.

The next day I took the kids to a friend’s house to play with their kids.  This time before I left, I printed out the directions and prayed hard.  And though I didn’t follow the directions, I seemingly magically got there without a glitch.  It was amazing.

My friend Sarah took us on a walk to a really neat place on the river where the kids threw rocks in and built sand cakes.  It was a beautiful spot and we had a lovely time.  Jethro and his friend were dropping big rocks onto other rocks, and I looked over just as they dropped one and it broke and flipped up and hit Jethro in the head.  He didn’t cry or anything, but I watched, and he kept his hand on his head, and then he started crying a bit and I saw some blood.  I went over and put my hand on his forehead and actually felt a rush of warm blood, so I pulled his shirt off and held it on for awhile.  It was actually a small cut, but just bled a lot as head wounds will do.  Sarah had band-aids in her stroller so we bandaged him up, and decided it was time to go home.  Jethro got to feel awesome wearing his very blood-soaked shirt all the way home.  :)

On Saturday we drove to Morges, a town in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and went to a tulip festival.  There were lots of tulips, although to be perfectly honest, Brett and I both kinda said to each other –I expected it to be bigger.  :)      But we had fun and ate our lunch overlooking the lake.

    We walked around the Old Town for awhile and Talmage konked out.  Here’s Hazel playing in the water of the naked boy and girl fountain.Then we drove to another spot and walked on a trail to a little waterfall.  The light shining through the new green leaves was very perty. And on Saturday night Hazel decided her very first loose tooth (only discovered a couple days before) was ready to come out, as she couldn’t eat her bread (crusty European bread IS pretty hard to bite into), so Daddy yanked it out.  Ahhhhhhhh—my little girl is getting so old!!! This picture from today is just to show that I actually had a genius idea for once.  Brett was going to whip some cream, and he said, “This is going to make a huge mess,” because the bowl wasn’t very high.  So I just grabbed a paper towel, and put the beaters through and voila—a magical spray catcher.  Worked like a charm.  (See the cut on Jethro’s head—pretty tiny actually.)We made a little scenic drive today to Lauterbrunen.  For some odd reason, Jethro decided to wear Ethne’s jacket.  He looks fabulous in pink, wouldn’t you agree?  Ha ha—so funny! Switzerland is lovely. The end.

Random pictures and info.

So guess where I was last night?  I was in Bern in my German class.  Yes, I am taking a German class.  No, I did not want to.  My husband made me.  He did not twist my arm behind my back until I screamed ‘yes I will take German classes!’ (because he is not my brother) but he made me nonetheless.  There are so many reasons I did not want to take them, the money being the main factor, but also because I think they will be pretty useless-as in, I don’t think I’ll be able to speak it well enough by the end for it to be of use.  And I can come up with a defense against every argument Brett made except when he said something along the lines of ‘You should want to better yourself.’  Because it just doesn’t sound very good to say ‘I don’t want to better myself.  I just to stagnate.’  Ya know. 

Anyhow, I went, and turns out I had a great time.  Last night, anyway, when there were no expectations for us to know anything, and we were all new-student-giddy.  There were people from all over the place!  Just at my end of the table was a guy from New Zealand, France, Italy, Dominican Republic, and Spain.  And it was really weird walking down the middle of Bern with everybody around, all by myself, with somewhere to go.  I was thinking, this isn’t me, is it?  And I thought that I should get some more stylish clothes.  But who am I kidding?  I wear the same hoodie every day because I love comfort.

Brett’s birthday was Sunday, and I did nothing.  I did not cook any meal that day (luckily we were invited over to a couple’s house in our ward), I did not get Brett any presents, and yeah.  Nothing.  But hey, I’m taking German lessons.

Jethro and Hazel have been on a school break for the past 2 1/2 weeks.  I’m really ready for them to go back to school.  They only go half days anyway (which I LOVE), but it’s nice to have structure.  When school starts again on Monday, Jethro will be going to the regular school, instead of his special German school.  We’re really excited for that, so he can meet kids his own age from his own neighborhood, and do more fun things in class, as well as get more every-day, conversational German.  (He understands so much already.  It’s really amazing.)

So anyway.  I should go, do my homework or prepare my lesson for Sunday.  Yes, I also got a calling to teach Sunday School to YSA in English.  So that’s cool, but also intimidating.  I’d rather play the organ.  Oh wait, I’ll be doing that every few weeks too.  That’s good.  Much easier than preparing a lesson.

So.  That’s all.  Here are some random pictures of my crazy hooligans.

 

Oh how I laugh at this smile.  HA AH AHAAA!

So cute! 

 

Ummm, where does she come from?

 

 

 

Beautiful.  Yes, I’m aware.  Very, very beautiful. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

The end.