One item off the list

I've been feeling a bit down on myself lately, because I have such a long list of things that I want to do, and not nearly enough time or energy to do them. I often feel as though I would be a truly amazing person if I just had another hour to sleep at night and another hour to cross things off of this list.

One of the list items is to maintain a regular blog in lieu of having to make scrapbooks. I've tried time and again to psyche myself up to make adorable books for my kids filled with pictures adorned with fancy borders, witty captions by each picture and stickers a plenty. But let's be honest. I'm a boring accountant with little-to-no creative abilities, so it's never happened. I still don't even have so much as a photo album of anything I have done since my mom stopped making books for me when I was 8. All I've got is a few shoe boxes of pictures from college, summers in Alaska, and my mission in Holland. And worst of all, the vast majority of the pictures I've taken of Savannah and Viv are still living in files on my computer. Ah...the guilt.

In our Beehives class on Sunday, we talked about Family History and why it is so important to keep records for yourself. (I wasn't planning to be there, because someone needed to stay home and wipe the runny noses that Viv and Savannah inherited from the neighbor kids. Hyrum offered to stay so I could enjoy a full 3 hours of church without having to deal with a single melt down. What a gem!)

During the lesson, at first I could only feel guilt that I had not been more perfect at keeping records. I kept having flash-forwards (is that a word?) of Viv and Savannah whining, because they were the only kids who didn't have thick scrapbooks with every one of their precious quotes in calligraphy. But the teacher, Debbie, whipped out the most amazing book that she had published herself using her blog entries. She also had photo albums with just pictures - no witty captions or stickers -- and simple writing on the back listing the date, place and who was in the picture.

I had a Forrest Gump moment!! (From the scene in the movie when he is a child running away from bullies and his leg braces fall off. His face is priceless.) I thought, "I can do this! It can be simple. I don't have to compete with all my Utah relatives and their entire rooms dedicated to mountains of scrap-book stickers and tiny bits of paper cutouts."

So, here I am. Adding to the family blog. And I am going to do my best to update it at least once every week.

This week, we got to battle Viv's wild orphan hairdo. Savannah thinks it's just hilarious.

Wow. Better go find the comb. She's starting to look a bit feral.

Much better.

Hyrum's sister, Sage, is on her high school water polo team, and we got to see her play against Mercer Island. The game was rather exciting to watch, and I have a whole new appreciation for the sport. Did you know that the players are not allowed to put their feet on the bottom of the pool during the entire 45 minutes of play? I was exhausted just from watching their warm ups.


Sage did amazingly well against the aggressive girls of Mercer Island. We enjoyed cheering for her, and we are very proud of her for taking on such a challenging sport.



See ya next week!