Volcanoes, are you kidding me!

As you know from my previous post I got to spend some time with my grandbabies last weekend. While I was driving them to my house Landon and I were playing the "I spy" game. I am sure that you all know about the game, where you describe a visible object to another person giving them clues until they guess what the object is. Well I was the person describing and Landon was guessing. He had guessed correctly a couple of times. Then all of the sudden he says, "Look Mimi there is some ballcaneos!", in his excited, loud and hoarse voice. I didn't really understand what he was saying and I couldn't turn around and look where he was pointing because I was driving. So I asked him to repeat what he had said. "Look at the ballcaneos!", he repeated. We came to a stoplight so I turned around to look at what he was pointing at. He was pointing to the mountains and I then I finally got it. He was saying volcanoes. I am thinking this kid is only 3 (will be 4 in June) how in the heck does he know about volcanoes. So I asked him to tell me what he knew about them. He proceeds to tells me how they have lava in them that spews out (yes, the kid said spews) and that it is hot. I am sitting in my seat in amazement, thinking my grandson is a genis. I asked him where did he learn about volcanoes. He said that he learned it from "Little Einsteins". As a matter of fact I am pretty sure that I bought him that version of "Little Einsteins". I had heard great things about those particular DVDs and I am glad to see they are instructional and are teaching interesting facts to my grandson. As a side note if you were wondering, I did explain to him that the mountains were not volcanoes.

I love those moments with these precious little people. It also reminded me of how much of a sponge their little minds are and that we really need to make sure that they see and hear good and uplifiting things.

I love, love, love them!

My sweet grandbabies came to visit this weekend. Grandpa and Mimi had alot of fun with them. Landon and Mimi had a lot of fun with the camera. Please forgive the nasal shots of moi, I look a little scarry.

LA means Louisiana

Last night at dinner I was having a conversation with one of my daughters and this is how it went.
Jess: Mardi Gras is going on now, right mom?
Me: Yes, I had't thought about it, but it is happening now.
Jess: Well Cara (another daughter) called me last night to make sure it was Mardi Gras time. I also heard that a guy got killed in L.A. during Mardi Gras.
Me: Yes, I am not surprised, it gets pretty crazy in New Orleans when Mardi Gras is happening. But wait did you say LA?
Jess: Yes, Los Angeles.
Me: No Jess, LA stands for LOUSIANA!
Jess: Oh?
ME: LOL

Thanks for the good laugh Jess, you continue to make life interesting!

Valentine's Weekend Getaway

My husband gets an A for effort this year. I don't know about you, but Valentine's day for us usually means a date with dinner. Which, if you go to a good resturant, usually means an hour plus wait, unless you go somewhere that is reservations only. So this year we thought we would try something different.

A few weeks ago my husband had heard about the Aspen Grove Family Camp and Conference Center and while he was browsing their website he noticed that they had Marriage Weekend Getaways and there just happened to be one on Valentine's Day. These getaways include educational lectures on marriage with dinner and accomodations Friday night, breakfast and lunch on Saturday and outside recreational activies of cross country skiing and snowshoeing. The outdoor activities really interested my husband, he loves to be outdoors and I try to keep up with him. Even though we are coming up on 28 years of marriage, there is always room for improvement, so we thought we would give the weekend a try.

The getaway was well worth it. We had a good time and learned alot. The food was fabulous! Dr. Jason Carroll gave 4 1-hour lectures (1 Friday night and 3 on Saturday morning) was very captivating while he instructed us on how to better communicate in our marriage. He gave us great advice and many things to practice and use. We wanted to snowshoe, but I had brought the wrong kind of shoes so I waited while my husband walked the trail. While we were up at Aspen Grove it snowed about 7 inches. While we were listening to the lectures, we were in a room that had big windows and we could see the snow falling amidst the evergreen trees and the mountains. It was a beautiful sight.

Overall, it was a good experience and we came away with many good suggestions that we are going to implement into our marriage. My husband's need to improve his life and his desire to stay active are some of the many ways that I love him. I look forward to many more happy years with him. I love you Mr. B and thank you for a great weekend!

Embrace Your Body!

Let me just preface this post by stating that I am not the greatest writer and I will probably have many gramatical and punctuation errors, so please forgive me. But I have to get this off my chest. My life has been changed forever and hopefully what I write will make a difference in your life.

I have been at Center for Change for the last few weeks fulfilling nursing school clinical hours.
While I was at the center, I was introduced to one of the Clinical Directors, Nicole Hawkins. She has a PhD in Clinical/Counseling Psychology from USU and is a well respected and sought after speaker. I was able to attend one of her body image sessions with some of the patients at the center and I recently attended one of her lectures at UVU. Can I just tell you that I was very enlightened and with this enlightment I became outraged!

Nicoles's lecture was focused towards the media and how it has distorted our (women's) perceptions of how our bodies should look. Many of the photos that we see in fashion magazines and of celebrities are air brushed to enhance their appearance. By air brushing you can enhance any photograph. To see how this is done veiw this video made by Dove. Necks, eyes, waists, hips, any part of the body can be digitally manipulated to make the person look "perfect".

Nicole gave examples of celebrities who have had their photos manipulated to enhance their bodies. Apparently when Jennifer Aniston was working on the show "Friends", she worked out for 8 hours a day, to keep her body in what she thought was "top shape". After all of her work, it still wasn't good enough because Jennifer did a photo shoot for the cover of a popular magazine (I don't remember which one) and they ended up using her head but not her bodyand the same thing happened with Kate Winslet. They both tried to sue the responsible people, but couldn't because of some legal clause. Another example given, was when Katie Couric was introduced as the new anchor woman for the CBS Evening News. When Katie was shown the photo that was to be published, it was her photo alright, but it had been airbrushed to make her look thinner. She was upset about this and demanded that they use her original photo.

Nicole also shared some staggering figures. She said that our kids see 400-600 images per day from TV and magazines and that by the age of 12 will have seen 77, 546 commercials. All showing images of bodies, that have been manipulated, to instill in the minds of our children what the "perfect" body should look like.

This was news to me and I am outraged! If you could spend a day in a place like Center for Change and see what these patients struggle with and how their perceptions of themselves are so negative, you would be outraged too. So I share this with you, because as mothers we need to come together and make sure that we are not contributing to this distorted perception of what are bodies should look like. I hope by now we all realize that there is no such thing as the "perfect" body and that we are okay with that. Let's communicate this to our children. It is important for us to teach them to embrace their bodies and to be thankful for it no matter what. Their body is perfect for them and nobody has the right to tell them otherwise. The message to our children should be that they feel good, both physically and mentally. It is our responsibility to teach them how to properly take care of their bodies. We need to teach by example! It is important that we ourselves do not obsess over dieting or constantly point out what we think our body imperfections might me. We must teach them how to feed their minds and bodies properly. We need to serve healthy meals and snacks and fill their minds with good words. Teach them the importance of exercise by participating in it yourself. Through this process their self worth will be strong and they will be in the right frame of mind and in a good place to ward off any bad influences and situations that may suggest to them anything different. Life is to short and to magnificent for our children to be bogged down by all of this junk. It is our responsibilitiy as their mothers to teach them and to give them the power to avoid it. Let's do it!

To my 4 wonderful daughters I want to say I love you!

Happy 2nd Anniversay Jess and John

Two years ago today John and Jessica were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a beautiful and unseasonably warm day. We are so happy that John joined our family. I love you both!

Good Flick!

Saw this movie last weekend and I highly recommend it.

Jaw dropping news!

I am the Primary choritster in our ward. Quite often the children will say things that make me laugh or even make my jaw drop (in a good way). Yesterday, the children were being taught about the importance of families and were asked what things their mothers and fathers did for them. There were many expected replies like their mom's cooked for them and their dad's went to work. Well one of the little girls replied that her dad did the laundry at their house. As you can probably quess many of us women in the room raised our eyebrows and thought hmmmm. This little girls mother happen to be in the Primary substituting and didn't realize what her daughter had said. So one of the leaders told her what was said and this sister replied,"Oh yeah, he has done 99% of the laundry since we have been married". My jaw dropped to the floor. Let me just ask you this, how does that happen??

I've joined the blogging world!

My introduction of the blogging world was when Nie Nie and her husband were in a tragic airplane crash. Ever since, I have been basically blog stalking. So I think it is high time that I create my own blog. Not that I have any insightful or life changing advice, but more to share my adventures of life and how I am trying to enjoy my journey through life. So welcome to all my family, friends and others who may stumble upon my blog.