Dear Mom, I am, I can, I ought, I will.

week of  October 14 - 20

First of all, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving, having an elder serving in our ward who is from northern Alberta. We enjoyed the excuse to feast, and the elders were very appreciative.

For some strange reason, I seem to fall even farther behind with this blogging things (actually lots of things) when I am homeschooling. (hmmm). Good thing Fluffy and I are having a blast! He is really fun to teach and discuss with. He says his favorite subject right now is Plutarch. (Who knew I would ever get to study Plutarch? :o)

More homeschool highlights. . . .

installing hooks to hang our bikes in the garage

.

knitting for a service project

.

practicing trombone in the great outdoors (his idea)

Rosebud is not quite so enthralled with ancient Greek biographers, and so this week we began “Letter-of-the-Week” activities. It has been super fun.

A is for apples

and applesauce!

I feel like I pour all my energies into the teaching and feeding of these amazing people who live in my home. And sometimes when the day is over and the house is a wreck (more or less) I catch myself wondering for a moment if I do too much of that and not enough of making our home an orderly, beautiful place. But then the next day I do the same thing again, usually with a fair amount of peace in my heart.

(I promise that no geese were harmed in the production of this post. :)

Yep, I’m pretty convinced that my focus is in the right place for maximum joy. It really is the best job ever! I love being stretched mentally to help Fluffy through Shakespeare one minute and the next returning to my own charmed childhood as I color with Rosebud. I love it when Hummer gets in the car beaming and happy to see me and then hearing about the latest in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or having him offer to teach me the Greek alphabet. I love late night conversations with my logical, deep-thinking Exacto and seeing his goodness expressed so clearly now that he is approaching adulthood. It is amazingly rewarding and really difficult at the same time. (notice I am focusing on the positive and certainly not mentioning the frustrations over dirty socks on the floor, heart-wrenching problems with a couple of aspects in our current situation, homework like crazy, impressive tantrums, running out of milk, etc.)

nature walk on Wednesday

this is when they discovered the “corndogs”

Exacto always has too much homework.

this is when the corndogs exploded

don’t try this at home

snow on Friday!

(no, school was not cancelled. it melted pretty fast. plus, there were no rainbows – why should they cancel school? haha)

.

I would never have dreamed how fulfilling this work could be. I can hardly believe I was reluctant for a while to embrace it. So grateful I went for it! Thank you for teaching and encouraging me to make this my life’s work!

And yet, a weekend trip to Denver for Time Out for Women was very welcome. I loved getting to spend time with my church sisters and especially Suzie Q, who lives near Denver now. (sorry no pictures!) I came back refreshed and with new strength and perspective.

A huge thank you to DC for so calmly and sweetly letting me go, even though he is drowning in papers to write! He is so awesome!

Love,

Michelle

Dear Mom, I am madly in love with autumn.

Week of October 7 - 13

It is so darn pretty here in Fort Collins! One morning after it had frosted and the sun was starting to hit the trees, leaves just began falling and falling. It was like an animated screensaver, but in real life! We loved driving under the leaf-shower and later on, walking under it.

Now there are entire yards literally covered with leaves. I am enchanted. (It makes me want to make treats all the time, though, and that is not always the best, especially when I have peer pressure from my bottomless-pit boys. :)

We went for a lovely drive into Poudre Canyon and stopped at a picnic area for the boys to explore. They ended up throwing rocks into/over the river while I took pictures (they had some elaborate game they devised), and it was a pleasant occasion for all.

(I’m using my old camera with the scratched lens, due to the cracked lens filter stuck to my new camera. grrr)

.

Can’t believe this is only 12 miles from our house! So awesome.

.

Other highlights of the week included a band concert for Exacto:

Doesn’t he look dapper?

.

Some autumn craftiness with Rosebud. . . .

(idea from the Friend magazine. thank you for paying no attention whatever to the dirty clothes on the floor. :o)

(and this was completely her idea.)

.

Best of all, a visit from family! DC’s sister Vauna was in Denver visiting her daughter Marie, and they both came up for dinner, bringing a slew of much-missed cousins!

So awesome. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – there’s just nothing like being with family! I’m so glad they came!

One more scene of autumn loveliness. . . .here’s our church meetinghouse. Every time I drive by it, I can hardly breathe it’s so gorgeous.

It’s probably not super safe for me to drive past there right now. :0)

Love,

Michelle

Day 62 – { breaking ground for a temple of God }

The evening before the groundbreaking (8/24) DC and I went to the temple site as part of our date. It had been announced over the pulpit that once ground had been broken, the public would not be allowed on the site until the Open House.

I have fond memories of visiting “Pinhead Hill” in Snowflake just after the temple was announced for that site in 2000, and I still have a rock I picked up from there that is special to me. I really, really wanted to go and see if I could find a rock at the temple site here and to walk on the ground there one last time before I would only be able to watch from a distance.

Everything was set up and ready, and a few members were there making sure everything was still okay what with the rainish weather.

I couldn’t find a single rock. :) But I did take some dirt from the mound you can see in that picture. One of the people there said he heard that that spot is where the Celestial Room will be.

**************************

We were so excited the next morning! We had to be very early because DC was serving as an usher and they were having a meeting beforehand. I planned for us to watch the groundbreaking broadcast at the nearby church.

When DC’s usher-meeting was over he came to us with extremely welcome news: we were invited to watch the groundbreaking from the temple site, if we didn’t mind standing at the back. Of course we didn’t! We agreed to take turns holding Rosebud.

Rosebud picked that flower for me. She also caught several grasshoppers as we sat there! :)

When we got to the back and were waiting for it to start, we were told to go sit in the chairs – there was room for us. I could hardly believe it! I never dreamed that as newbies in Fort Collins we would get a chance to be at the groundbreaking of the temple. I almost felt guilty because I knew there were probably hundreds of people more deserving of the privilege of attending in person.
But I had the feeling that this was a tender mercy from a loving Father to me.

Notice the architectural rendering of the temple in a frame to the left of the canopy.

Elder and Sister Rasband were there, as well as Elder William R. Walker and his wife. I loved their talks, especially Sis. Rasband, who shared some very tender feelings about their grandson who recently passed away, and the comfort she has felt through the blessings of the temple.
I was so relieved that Rosebud fell asleep on my lap during the talks – she had been a little restless and I didn’t know where I would take her if she started to be disruptive. Then, right during the prayer dedicating the ground, she started jiggling, then woke up and said she needed to go to the bathroom. Arg! I was thinking to myself, “Really? Right now? I am so glad that she will be two years older by the time the temple is dedicated!” And trying to convince her to hold it till the prayer was over. Then Elder Rasband started praying for the children in the temple district and I was struck with guilt. ;-) I stood up and took her to the nearby port-a-potty, missing the rest of the prayer. Talk about the sublime combining with the mundane. :)
Thankfully we got back in time to see the actual groundbreaking with the special fancy shovels. He invited all the community leaders to join in the symbolic turning over of the dirt, then the stake presidents, then the full-time missionaries, and Rosebud was fussing the whole time saying, “I want to dig with the shovels! Can I go dig with the shovels?” And just as I was explaining to her that it was not for the kids to do, Elder Rasband invited all the children to come up and have a turn!  Yippee!

Again, feeling a bit like we weren’t actually supposed to be there, like maybe we are not really Coloradoans yet, we took our turn. There was a sweet young man there that shared his turn since Rosebud was having a hard time and Hummer hadn’t made it up.


Then there was a closing hymn and prayer, and to our delight, Elder Rasband invited whatever families would like to come up and have a go with the shovels and take pictures. yay!

It was a beautiful morning. Such a sense of joy and anticipation and gratitude was there among all the people who had gathered. I felt -- and I hope so much that our children felt -- what a unique opportunity this was. It was the first time in my life ever to attend the groundbreaking of a temple, and possibly it will never happen again.

I love so much that we got to be here as this temple began its existence, and that we will get to see every stage of its construction. Hopefully by the time it’s dedicated and we can worship inside we will feel like we have served well here and that it really is “our” temple.


As I write this post I am struck again with amazement and deep gratitude at the special blessing it was to have been at this event. I can hardly believe sometimes how much Heavenly Father loves me!

Praise be to Him!

For the official writeup on the Church’s news website about this, go here. (I’m in one of the pictures, for better or for worse! Wish it could have been Rosebud. :0)

decision made–thank you for your help!

I took each of the boys to the new school to let them see for themselves, and ended up with a tricky situation.

Exacto dug in his heels saying that he absolutely did not want to change schools.

Fluffy said that it looked wonderful and he looked forward to going there next year, but really wanted to finish this year of homeschooling.

Hummer insisted that he also didn’t want to change, but I could see that he would benefit immediately by the switch.

But the openings were for the older boys, which brought in Hummer only with “sibling preference.” Without siblings attending, he would go into the lottery pool.

Lots of prayers went up from this heart during those couple of days we had to decide. And I was SO GRATEFUL for all of you who emailed or commented. I was amazed at the general consensus! That really helped me have the courage to decide and do what we did. . . .

Even though it caused me the grief of giving up my dream of having all my school kids at the same school, and totally went against my inclination to try to control—especially when it comes to influences on my children—, I yielded to the quiet heavenly prompting that Exacto should be allowed to choose for himself.

I am still sad about it, but feel that it was/is right. (Although I do hope that he may change his mind yet. . . :o).

With Fluffy, I agreed that he should get to finish his year with Mommy. We have already spent hundreds of $s on books and are having a wonderful time.

And for Hummer, I felt that if it was meant to be, he would get in through the lottery.

Rather sheepishly but with that undercurrent of peace that always signifies a right path for me, I informed the school of our decision.

Three days later – while we were on our way home from a weekend in Utah – they called to say that Hummer’s name had come up in the lottery. (Two were called before him but declined).

It was a difficult week. Hummer really had made a connection with his teacher at the first school and there were lots of tears and even some anger. I started to second-guess the decision and even shed some tears myself when we went to say goodbye to his teacher. Thank goodness I’ve learned to lean on an answer even when the initial peace is no longer present.

I was torn between sharing his pain and jealousy that I didn’t get to go to this school. I’ve told him several times that I wish I could come with him every day and learn what he is learning. He smiles and says he wishes that, too. :o)

We’ve had to scramble to get him clothes that meet their dress code and he’s had to learn to write in cursive flying by the seat of his pants (I wonder how Captain Literally would handle that? :). Latin is great but he’s nervous about the first day of karate tomorrow. Anyway, like I said, I’m jealous.

And, amazingly enough, he seems really happy now! I hope the worst is already over. He is being wooed by books and stories like Mary Poppins and Rip van Winkle and I’ve heard him humming Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in the bathroom. There are other children of our faith who attend there, who introduced themselves after seeing his CTR ring. “I’m a Mormon, too!” :)

Next year Fluffy will join him there, and the year after, Rosebud. But for now I think our little trailblazer is going to be just fine.