Halloween is Politically Correct

This morning when I dropped my kids off at school, it was so fun to see all the ballerinas, princesses, pirates, Jedi Knights, etc. hopping out of all the cars. Even the teacher on duty was all decked out as "Bat Girl." You see, in Utah I guess it is O.K. to celebrate Halloween. I felt like I had returned to my childhood--back in those days there was never even a hint that there was anything sinister or evil about Halloween. It was just plain fun. My kids have grown up in Arizona, where Halloween was politically incorrect. They didn't have Halloween parties at school, they had "Fall parties" and they certainly weren't allowed to dress up in their costumes at school. Here in Utah, there is just a festive feeling in the air and the kids get to celebrate all day. I went and helped with a Halloween party in Jet's classroom this afternoon. Every child was dressed up. It was fun to see the variety of costumes. (My hats go off to those teachers--I wouldn't want to deal with those hyper, excited, costumed kids all day.)

Now, the reason that Halloween parties were not allowed at school in Arizona is that it would violate some people's religious beliefs. And I can totally respect that. After all, being a devout Mormon, I am used to associating with people who think nothing of participating in some activities that are not in harmony with my personal religious beliefs. So it is strange to be on the permissive side of the aisle for a change. I hope there wasn't anyone at the school who was distressed by the celebration. I think Halloween is a lot of fun! I have a lot of happy memories of how exciting and fun it was to decide what to dress up as each year and of getting lots of candy.

For those of you that are wondering about the history behind the holiday this is it in a nutshell: Halloween: Oct. 31, the eve of All Saints' Day, observed with traditional games and customs. The word comes from medieval England's All Hallows' eve (Old Eng. hallow=“saint”). However, many of these customs predate Christianity, going back to Celtic practices associated with Nov. 1, which was Samhain, the beginning of winter and the Celtic new year. Witches and other evil spirits were believed to roam the earth on this evening, playing tricks on human beings to mark the season of diminishing sunlight. Bonfires were lit, offerings were made of dainty foods and sweets, and people would disguise themselves as one of the roaming spirits, to avoid demonic persecution. Survivals of these early practices can be found in countries of Celtic influence today, such as the United States where children go from door to door in costumes demanding “trick or treat.”

Doesn't sound sinister to me. We're just dressing up to avoid demonic persecution. So everyone have fun tonight and be safe! And take it easy on the candy so you don't get sick.

Family History Friday: Grandma's Quilts

This is another column that I will have every so often--mostly so my children will have some bits and pieces of their heritage mixed in here to read. The early snowstorm a few weeks ago motivated my husband to finish cleaning out the garage and to transfer the remainder of the moving boxes to the basement so that he can park his car in the garage, too. Now he won't have to scrape ice and snow off the car windows on winter mornings. One of the happy results of this project was that I located one of my linen closet boxes and dug out my Grandma's quilt. It is the perfect thing for my guest room bed, don't you think?

My Grandma Pew--Anna Jane Kleinman--was born on November 5, 1896 in Mesa, Arizona. She was the second of ten children born to her parents. She had an older sister named Blanch. She married my Grandpa--Walter Harvey Pew--on November 26, 1919. This was just a year after my Grandpa's first wife, Viola, died in the flu epidemic. His infant daughter died just two days earlier, on the same day she was born. My Grandpa had two other daughters at this time, the oldest daughter had died six months before her mother and baby sister. My Grandma was a friend of Viola and had helped in the home during this difficult time of sickness and death. My Grandma Pew had eight children--5 sons and 3 daughters. Her oldest child, Louise, died when she was just 8 months old. Her third son and fourth child, Ned, was an invalid his whole life and died in his late teens. Her other 6 children lived to adulthood. My dad was the fourth son and seventh child.

My Grandma Pew lived in Mesa for most of her life. She grew up in a time of horses and covered wagons, dirt roads, Indians, and no electricity or indoor plumbing. Times had certainly changed by the time she passed away in November of 1984! My grandpa was a farmer--a dairy farmer for much of his life--and my Grandma says that "she milked many a cow" in her day. She would cook chickens for Sunday dinner that had been strutting around in the yard just the day before. To live in such a time meant a whole lot of hard work--and in temperatures of 110 or more with no air conditioning. It was not a life for the faint-hearted. She was definitely a strong, capable, and talented woman.

I remember one time when we were visiting, and my sister Shellie had taken a class on tatting lace so she was working on a piece for her class. My Grandma saw what she was doing and exclaimed, "Are you tatting lace? I haven't seen anyone doing that in years and years!" I could tell she was delighted by it. Another thing that I remember about my Grandma is that she had a salt and pepper shaker collection. She had them all in a cupboard with glass doors in her dining room. I loved to stand in front of that cupboard and look at all the different sets of salt and pepper shakers. She used to tell us that when she got older, she would give each of us one of those sets to remember her by--which she did. I have a set that looks like two covered wagons. My sister Annette inherited the remainder of her collection and has added to it. I also remember that my Grandma had a hallmark of Mormon crafting on her coffee table--a bunch of resin grapes. She also had a set of frosted glasses with cacti on them--that is what I inherited from her--I loved those glasses. (My wonderful husband went searching in antique shops in downtown Glendale, AZ one year and surprised me at Christmas with a full set of the glasses to replace some of mine that had been broken.)

Another hobby of my Grandma's was to quilt. In her personal history she said she had made over 50 quilts in just the last few years (this was written in 1977--when she was about 80 years old.) She made a quilt for each of her grandchildren, to be saved for when they got married. So that is how this beautiful quilt came to be on my guest-room bed. I love to go in there and marvel at the thousands of tiny stitches and examine the beautiful flowers that she painted in the center with fabric paints and mostly just to think of all the little things I can remember about her. I am grateful for the heritage she left me of faith, devotion to family, hard work, and kindness. I look forward to meeting her again and getting to know her better.

Blog Speak

My blogger dashboard tells me that I have 2 "followers." Sounds like I'm starting my own church. Either that, or I'm being stalked.

I get a kick out of the unique phrases that develop in association with specialized areas of our society. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints definitely have a unique set of terminology that can be confusing to non-members. Then, each "mission" within the church has it's own language--as any returned missionary can tell you. Groups of returned missionaries have even had whole discussions comparing and contrasting the different phrases unique to each mission. Having graduated with a degree in accounting, I know that the accounting profession has it's own language. I have had times when my husband has explained something related to his urban planning work where he has spouted whole sentences that are unintelligible to me. I have to tell him to go back and explain in lay-man's terms what he is talking about. This was also often the case when speaking with my dad about anything to do with computers.

So it is with blogging. I remember the first time I ever heard the word blog. I was thinking, "What in the world is "a blog?" I am still not an expert by any means, but I do know that the dictionary now has a new definition to add to the word "post." I wonder what words I will be using in ten years that don't even exist now? Languages are an interesting and evolving thing.

At 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, October 26th, four buses made their way from the American Fork Main Street Exit off I-15 to American Fork High School escorted in honor by the City of American Fork Fire Department to an awaiting crowd of excited parents. The buses were carrying the American Fork High School Marching Band, home from their weekend tour to St. George and Las Vegas, where they competed in the UMEA Red Rocks Invitational on Friday night and the Bands of America Regional Championships on Saturday night. They took first place in their division at both competitions. Winning first place in Bands of America Regionals for the AAA division was a first for the American Fork Marching Band. All of the students were wearing their championship medals. On board one of those buses was our very own Jumble. We were not waiting with the excited crowd because we were at home waiting for a text message from Jumble letting us know that she was getting close to home. That text message never came because Jumble was asleep! Oh well. Niles and I went to St. George on Friday night to see them perform at the Red Rocks Invitational. (Thanks for babysitting, Rachelle and Sarah. And thanks for being willing to babysit, Michelle. We hope you are feeling better soon.) It was very exciting to be a part of that win. We saw some very good bands from California and Oklahoma perform as well as the usual Utah bands, who had all improved dramatically since the last competition at BYU. All the bands looked great so it was impossible for us to know who would win. It was thrilling to have American Fork win in all four categories and take first over all.

I would have loved to have a photo of Jumble with her medal to begin this post but she wanted to wait to take a photo. So I'll have to post it later. Jumble celebrated yesterday by sleeping for 15 hours straight. She was asleep by 4:00 p.m. and never woke up until this morning! This afternoon all the news stations will be at their rehearsal where they will perform in uniform one more time in Utah before going to Bands of America Grand Nationals in Indianapolis in 3 weeks. We are really proud of how hard Jumble has worked and are so grateful that she has an opportunity to be in such an excellent band. We would be proud of how hard she has worked no matter what band she was in, but being in a winning band makes it even that much more fun and rewarding.

Minnie's last and Atom's first

Yesterday was our ward's Primary Program. Minnie is very glad that this was her last--by next year she will have graduated to Young Women. And it was Atom's first. Minnie and Jet both memorized their parts and did a great job. Atom said his part, but not loud enough for anyone to hear. This is especially funny since his only volume is usually LOUD--including during church. He just doesn't get the concept of whispering at all. However, Atom was probably the best-behaved Sunbeam up there. He was very reverent--sat with his arms folded and stood up and sat down for all the songs and even sang most of the songs. So he did a great job. I was very happy that they didn't have the kids go sit up front until after the Sacrament. That meant I only had to attempt to keep eight Sunbeams sitting quietly for 2 hours and 40 minutes instead of 3 solid hours!

We Believe...

Atom's latest passion is the Articles of Faith. It all started when we began having family night lessons to help Jet memorize (and review for Jumble and Minnie) the 13 Articles of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (These are 13 short statements written by Joseph Smith that explain some of our basic beliefs.) A few years ago we got these cards that serve as flashcards or a matching game that have the Articles of Faith on them. So we have used the cards and also the songs on the Children's Songbook CD during family night to help Jet and to make it fun. We didn't anticipate that Atom would fall in love with these cards and the songs. Now his favorite passtime is to put on the music and flip through the flashcards while singing the songs. Or he has me hold the flashcards up one by one while he waves his music baton and sings the songs. Or he spreads all the cards out on the floor and plays a matching game with them. He's good at it, too. Since Atom is only three-years-old, we didn't expect him to be able to learn the Articles of Faith yet, but we were wrong. He's going to have them memorized before Jet.

If you want to read the full text of the Articles of Faith, click here:

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/a_of_f/1

Cousins

I took this photo a few weeks ago when cousins Zane and Gwen were visiting for the day. This is the inside of part of our entertainment center. I didn't realize entertainment centers could be so entertaining. Who would think they would all fit in it like this?

Saturday with Sarah

Nile's sister, Sarah, came and spent the day with us on Saturday. She took the kids to the store for supplies and then made Halloween cookies with the kids. How fun! Aren't aunts great? And it's fun to have some of them living nearby so they can drop in like this. Since I have a terrible sweet tooth, I didn't mind helping myself to some of the results. Yum!

Fall Break

We just enjoyed a very nice fall break. The kids were out of school on Thursday and Friday of last week and Monday of this week. Niles was able to take Friday off from work and we went to the zoo. We slept in first, though, and got to the zoo just as my brother, Tim, and his family were leaving! We took their parking space, which was nice since the zoo was very crowded. But the weather was absolutely beautiful and we enjoyed our day.

Autumn Leaves Photos

Finally, here are some photos of the fall leaves that we are not used to seeing! The last one is supposed to show the red and orange colors on the mountain but you can't really see it that well. It's much more beautiful in person.

Photos of the Performance We Didn't Get on Tape

These are some photos of Jumble's band performing at the Rocky Mountain Invitational.

If you want to watch a you tube video of the performance you can click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tplGmKI7Cm8

It's pretty poor quality, but better than nothing.

Doomed to not get it on Tape

Jumble had her last marching band competition last night--besides the St. George/Las Vegas trip and the Indianapolis Grand Nationals trip. It was the biggest one in the state--held at LaVelle Edwards Stadium on BYU campus. As you may recall, our video camera broke last week. Jumble really wanted a recording of this competition since they have improved since the one we taped in Payson (and it was pouring rain then so the lighting wasn't that good and they couldn't do some of their stuff). We really wanted it on tape, too! The budget isn't allowing us to run out and buy a replacement camera, so we called around to family to see if they had one we could borrow. Tim and Rachelle were happy to lend us theirs and I managed to squeeze picking it up from their house into my busy schedule yesterday. But despite my efforts, somehow we didn't manage to get any of Jumble's band performance on tape! Niles got the entire show of the band that performed right before them (their top competition--Davis High School) and also got Jumble's band marching onto the field but that was it. Then I tried to tape the awards ceremony but also failed. I guess the button you push to "record" has to be pushed "just right" and we didn't realize it wasn't recording until it was too late. So I wanted to post some of Jumble's band performance but reporting that they took 1st over-all in their division and also got the award for outstanding in all four categories (music, visual, percussion, and color guard) will have to do. Their director, Mr. Miller, told them it was the best performance he has ever seen from any of his bands in all of the years he has been teaching! Way to go, Jumble! Those kids (and directors) certainly deserve it. They have put in countless hours of practice. Niles and I are glad we got to see the performance in person, even if we didn't succeed in recording it for Jumble. Thanks goes to Minnie for babysitting!

In other news, soccer season ended two weeks ago. The last games were cancelled because they were supposed to be held on the Saturday that it rained all day. Minnie's team managed to schedule a make-up game the following Wednesday evening. Her team has really struggled all season since most of them are rookies. It seemed like that evening they were finally starting to look like they were getting the hang of it! Emily (cousin) scored a goal with a little help from Minnie. Minnie was standing by the goal and gave the ball the final tap after Emily's excellent kick to ensure it went in before the goalie got to it. All the girls were so happy that their team got a goal!

Jet had his first clean-out weekend and it went well. We weren't sure exactly what to expect. Thankfully it wasn't anything like a colonoscopy clean-out or anything. He didn't seem to be bothered, upset, or stressed by the few extra trips to the bathroom. I wasn't sure he would be able to attend church on Sunday but he was fine. We started the Primary Program practice. Two long hours with the Sunbeams. Two of them were actually asleep by the time church ended! That is way too long for 3 and 4-year-olds to sit. Atom thought watching the chorister to know when to stand up and sit down was a great game. That kept him entertained for the first hour, at least. Niles had signed Jet up to run in the kid's BYU Homecoming Race on Saturday morning but since we were just starting the cleanout on Friday night, we didn't dare let him go. Turns out he could have gone, he would have been fine. Niles ran in the adult race. Go Niles! He and Minnie attended the game later that day and they didn't get too cold, thankfully. And BYU won so all is good.

School Portraits

Jumble--9th grade

Minnie--6th grade

Jet--2nd grade

Here are the most recent school photos. Not the best shots of them, but not the worst ever, either. Jumble's is actually pretty good. Minnie and Jet look like they could have used a hair brush. But that is pretty typical of the "assembly line" style of school photos--no mom there to fuss over details, and of course they never take them BEFORE lunch and P.E. but AFTER. I might remember to give hard copies to grandparents eventually. But for now, here they are.

Retro Wednesday: Night Owl

Retro Wednesday is another "column" that I will be posting on my blog every so often. Since I am doing this blog as a kind of journal or scrapbook for my kids, I thought it would be fun for them to have some record of things that happened before the days of blogging. So occasionally I will post a photo from the past for them.

This is Atom all ready to go home from the hospital when he was a day old. It is one of the rare moments that he slept as an infant (or any time in his life so far!) The cute whale blanket and burp cloth were made by my friend Carmen. The little sleeper he has on was a gift from my friend Barb. If you look closely, you can see that the sleeper has little owls and moons on it. Under the owls are words too little for you to see so I'll tell you what they say. They say: "Night Owl." When my friend gave me this sleeper I thought it was adorable. Hence, the reason it was chosen as Atom's all-important "going home" outfit. I remember thinking how cute it was, as newborn babies tend to be up in the night. I also remember having a premonition that this little one would keep me up a lot at night. "I really hope he doesn't turn out to be a night owl," I thought uneasily. (I already had one of those and didn't really want TWO of my little offspring keeping me up at night.) "I hope this one is a good sleeper." But I had a sinking feeling that he wouldn't be. Mother's intuition was right about that!

I still think the sleeper in adorable, but it is also prophetic. When he was an infant, I would finally get the child to settle down and fall asleep for the night at 2:00 a.m. and would gratefully hop in the shower, only to hear him screaming from his bassinet 5 minutes later. This past Saturday night (well, technically Sunday morning) at 1:00 a.m. I heard Atom get out of bed AGAIN and found him wandering around the house with a sheet of stickers he had found, carefully placing selected stickers on his sibling's sleeping foreheads and chattering at the top of his lungs about how they would be "so happy" when they woke up in the morning because he had given them a sticker. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. (Hint: I was closer to crying.) I have often wondered at times such as this if the sleeper was cursed. And if so, when, if ever, is the curse going to wear off?! Thanks, Barb. It must be all your fault! J/K

Alphabet Soup

Yesterday was definitely a soup and corn bread day. Now that my food storage is no longer in a storage unit in Arizona, I can use it again! The church used to make this great soup mix (I hear they no longer do--sadness!) and I purchased some a few years ago. The fun thing about it is, the pasta in it is in alphabet and number shapes. Atom doesn't remember the last time I made this soup (over a year ago.) He is so obsessed with the alphabet that I anticipated that he would like it. I severely underestimated his excitement. He was pulling letters out of his bowl one by one and having me guess which letter he had in his hand. He chattered excitedly about the letters throughout the entire meal. His current favorite letter is W (who knows why?) so he would get especially excited when he'd find another W. We were all getting such a kick out of watching him. Guess what he wanted for breakfast this morning? Thankfully, there were left-overs so I got him to pose with his breakfast this morning. In his favorite green bowl, of course!

I looked out the window and what did I see...

This is the sight that greeted us Sunday morning when we woke up! I am not ready for winter yet. (But then, I never will be.) I went to a Primary Board Meeting before Atom woke up and Niles reported that he was running around looking out all the windows when he discovered the snow. Then he informed his dad "Need coat and boots!" His dad complied and Atom happily went out (still in pajamas) to play. Jet was already out playing before I left for my meeting. Thankfully, the snow melted by the time church got out so we are back to green grass. It's pretty to look at, but too cold and much too early.

When I got home from my meeting, I went out to snap a photo of Atom and Jet but Jet had already been hauled inside to get dressed for church and Atom had escaped to the front yard (I had picked my way through the snow in the backyard in my dress shoes, thinking Atom was in the backyard.) I didn't have time to go around to the front yard to get a photo so I only got one with the chain link in between us. Then Niles wisked him inside to also get dressed for church.

Mormon Standard Time

Those of you that are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are no doubt familiar with the term "Mormon Standard Time." For those of you who aren't, Mormon Standard Time is related to terms like Eastern Standard Time or Mountain Standard Time. What it means is that no matter what time zone you happen to live in, whatever time you establish for a church meeting or activity to start, it will start at least ten minutes late because no one will arrive until 10 minutes after the appointed time. Mormons just tend to be at least ten minutes late to everything. I'm sure if we studied it we could come up with some complicated algorithm to describe the relationship between how many children a family has to how many minutes late that family is. So it's kind of a joke among members of the church.

Now that I've moved to Utah, I've discovered that it's not a joke--it's reality. And it really should be called "Utah Mormon Standard Time" because none of our church meetings started 10 minutes late in Arizona. We had to leave at least half and hour before church started there if we wanted to have even a prayer of getting a seat on one of the soft padded pews in the chapel--and church was only a five-minute drive there. Even when we left so early, Niles would drop me off by the front doors and send me in to safe a spot while he parked, unloaded, and herded the slow kids from the car into the church. Now we can leave our house ten minutes early and walk to church and have no worries about getting a soft seat. (This is important to me because I can't hear in the back, not to mention that I don't enjoy the hard folding chairs.) Once we arrived ten minutes early for church here in Utah and the chapel was deserted.

The hilarious thing about living in Utah County, where the population is approximately 90% Mormon, is that Mormon Standard Time is in effect for more than just church functions. I have observed it in action while taking my children to school as well. If I arrive at the drop-off ten minutes before the late bell rings, there is no one in sight. It appears that school is not in session that day. If I am running a little late, and arrive five minutes before the late bell rings, there will be a few people around. But if I am running really late that morning and arrive two minutes after the late bell rings, I am stuck in a line of cars. But no worries, my kids aren't going to be marked tardy. The school sent home a note at the beginning of the year encouraging parents to get their children to school on time. They stated that tardies were a bit of a problem at the school. Then they said that if your child was more than ten minutes late they would be marked tardy. More than ten minutes? There you go--Mormon Standard Time! In the Peoria Arizona Unified School District children are marked tardy if they are one millisecond late. I am not kidding--as in ALL parts of your body must be completely inside the school building before the late bells BEGINS to ring or you are tardy. And once you are tardy five times you start to face disciplinary action. In Arizona you got stuck in the line of cars at 20 minutes before the bell rang. If you came at 5 minutes before, you didn't have much trouble since 99% of the kids had arrived 15 minutes earlier. So it's a different world here--but I don't mind the more relaxed attitude toward tardiness. We all need a little bit less stress in the mornings.

Technological Breakdown

I'm not entirely sure that I'll ever get this posted. #1 I logged on to my blog to add a post about all the technologies that have been failing me lately, and it told me I couldn't log in for some reason to do with cookies and Java script. How ironic, I thought! But I decided to try again and it is working for now.

#2 Yesterday I had no internet connection all day. Niles managed to work that out with a little help from customer support. We'll see if it lasts! I am amazed at how dependent I am on something that didn't even exist until my college years and that I didn't ever use until after I had a few children of my own. Minnie needed it for a school project, I needed to check balances and pay bills, then I needed to send an e-mail to a school teacher. Not to mention needing to read the next installment of the Utah Department of Public Safety Driver License Handbook which I am perusing since they insult you in Utah by making you take a written test to get a driver license here. As if I forgot how to drive when I crossed the state line. I know, I know, some of the laws may be different here but I doubt they are that drastically different. Besides, my original driver license was issued by the state of Utah--shouldn't that count for something? I wouldn't bother but I need a photo I.D. with my current address on it if I am going to be allowed the privilege of casting a vote in the upcoming election. So I'm being forced to trade in my driver license and be a true Utahn in every way.

Jumble had a band competition in Payson last Saturday. It rained all day. I went to the store in between conference sessions and Minnie came along. My sweet Arizona native kept me entertained. Eyes as big as saucers, "This is UNBELIEVABLE! It's POURING!" Well, actually Minnie, this is a typical, average rainstorm with fairly steady rain falling. It's really not pouring and it really isn't that unbelievable even though you have never seen anything like it before. Niles and I went to see Jumble's competition that evening and they did great considering it was raining pretty good and the field was very muddy and slippery. AF band took first in everything in their division. #3 I managed to get it on video--which I would post a portion of if our video camera hadn't given up the ghost the next day. This is our second video camera to die at way too young of an age. We don't even use it that much--what's the deal?! The camera was acting sick at the competition so I was lucky to get it on tape at all, I guess.

Side note: Jumble also had a competition on Tuesday night--the Davis Cup in Kayesville. We didn't get to go to that one but they took first overall in that one and also won music and percussion. They are trying to figure out why they didn't win visual. All they heard last Saturday from the judges was, "Your visual is AMAZING!" The judging for these things seems quite subjective. Jumble has another competition tomorrow at Mt. View High School in Orem. It is supposed to be cold tomorrow and rainy--possibly snow! That should be a fun one.

#4 I took a cute photo of some of my kids with their cousins when they were over here that I was going to post with this but the USB cable that allows me to transfer photos from camera to computer is missing in action. I guess that doesn't count as a technological breakdown--that is human error--but it still means I am being frustrated by technology that I can't use. Something weird definitely happened with the camera bag recently. All of the cables and cords that were in it have disappeared and I have found most of them in various places, but not that one yet. It seems the bag fell into little curious hands at some time that I was not aware of. Maybe the video camera dying is also associated with that encounter.

#5 My computer refuses to print things from certain files. At least it isn't universal--that would be highly inconvenient. The sound on the computer was also malfunctioning recently. It was intermittent and fixed itself so hopefully that problem won't come back. I'm just hoping that the computer doing weird things doesn't mean it is preparing to crash altogether. It's pretty old for a computer.

#6 My van is continuing to be temperamental about starting. It's a bad quality in a car. It is annoying that it only starts when it feels like it. I had kinda gotten accustomed to it starting whenever I wanted it to. It is a bit unsettling to not be able to predict when it will be in a cooperative mood. It is quite a bit more than unsettling to pay the hefty repair bill when obviously nothing was repaired.

I am entirely too dependent on technology!