Women friends can be one of the most valuable assets another woman can have because they help us cope with gravity, other relationships and our world when it seems to be falling apart at the seams. Women do lunch, the Macarena and the impossible. Women friends help women lower blood pressure, cholesterol and heart rates.

Women friends are like hitting all green lights on the way to work, being in the fastest line in the grocery store, or seeing an old rival who doesn't look half as good as you do and jeans that really fit. Because women friends are tailor made for our lives.

Women friends help us laugh at being dysfunctional, obsessive compulsive, and neurotic, because, basically, they are too.

Women friends being us joy, happiness and laughter. Friends soothe, calm and help us find peace. Friends help make us happy, strong, humble, human, glowing, growing and live a wonderful life.

Friends help make long days seem shorter, put a smile on our face in the most grave situations, and help us believe almost anything is possible. We get by with a little help from our friends. They are both silver and gold. Good friends are here today and here tomorrow.

There is nothing better than a good friend - unless it is a good friend with chocolate. There is wonder and jou in having and being a friend!

K. So I bawled and complained about having another PAYMENT, but our payment's only gonna be $300 and I LOVE THIS TRUCK! I'm not a dude, but I love this truck. Wow. . .

Its a Chevy Silverado 3/4 Ton Crew Cab Diesel. SPOTLESS!

Did I say wow?

Brady bought a truck today and I have serious issues with it that I can't even discuss with him. I thought I went to work for extra money, but with payments on this truck, we won't have two cents to rub together. He acts like it shouldn't affect me, but I don't see how it won't. Inflation is bringing the value of the American dollar down every minute I'm spending at work while my income stays the same. I'm already spread so thin I can't breathe, and he just went and bought a new truck. I can't even talk to him. I'll yell, and I don't wanna.

K. The "former homeowner" came to aerate my lawn yesterday. He needed to take the aerater through our garage and there was a ping pong table (folded up) in the way. He grabbed onto it to move it out of the way and it opened up ON HIS HAND! I didn't realize for like 8 seconds until he kinda mumbled uhhhhh . . . I turned and lifted the half of the table off his hand. He wasn't upset! He finished aerating and then asked if he could come in and clean up his hand. I'd already gotten out cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, Neosporin and band-aids. YIKES! DOUBLE YIKES!

BEWARE: THE FORMER HOMEOWNER

The strangest thing has now happened to me . . . TWICE! Friday this girl and her friend (WHAT WERE THEIR NAMES?!) came over while Brady and I were trying to leave for work and blew through the house to see how it had been remodeled. S - T - R - A - N - G - E . . . and then yesterday, this GUY shows up telling me my lawn needed to be aerated. He added (within the same breadth) that he used to live in our house and asked if he could come in to see how it looked. He stayed for like HALF AN HOUR talking to my kids, walking around and watching me cook apple cobbler. At church on Sunday, my neighbor said their mother died from a drug overdose years ago and - feeling sorry for him - I told him he could come today to aerate. Brady thought it was fine . . . an unusual reaction for my husband . . . and when I get home our lawn will be aerated with a bill on our door. Even more weird: this guy's name is Will who called my cell phone four days after we moved in the house asking WAY BACK THEN if he could walk through our house. He'd gotten my number from our dog run for sale in our front yard. I don't know how to feel about this other than CRAZED! I'm pretty sure "the sister" won't be back but Will acted like he was right at home. I hope he doesn't attempt to make his visits a habit. YIKES!

Grocery Shopping

Grocery Shopping is OUT OF CONTROL! I get home from shopping and instead of being hungry, I'm sick about how much money I've just spent! My grocery list helps me spend less, somewhat . . . But I still cringe when I go to the store to witness that prices have gone up, up, up yet again!

To Kill a Mockingbird

These are my favorite quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird - Currently My Favorite Book!

• I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. - Atticus to Jem
• Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change . . . - Atticus to Scout
• What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best. There are just some kind of men who-who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results. -Miss Maudie
• Atticus said to Jem, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever hear Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “You’re father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” - Scout
• The witnesses for the state.have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption-the evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber. Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted around women, black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. - Atticus
• They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. - Atticus
• As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it-whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash. - Atticus
• If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time. It’s because he wants to stay inside. - Jem to Scout
• When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em. - Atticus
• You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view–until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. -Atticus
• Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. - Scout
• You are too young to understand it … but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of–oh, of your father. - Miss Maudie

Kaleb

Kaleb is kinda' the "middle child." He doesn't seem to mind, but we can't help but notice how unfair this is for him. He gets all of Josh's hand-me-downs. He gets everything after Josh and Sandy like a cell phone and an ipod. He gets the Gameboy Advance instead of the Nintendo DS. He gets beat up on a lot by his older brother and doesn't feel like he's supposed to defend himself. He cries a lot because he's a sensitive boy and has quite a rebellious streak. He's loyal to his birth mother - I used to hate this because he lived with us for seven years, but now I think it's great!

He's absolutely the spitting image of his mom. Put a wig on him and he's almost there.

He likes skateboarding and playing basketball. He plays Gameboy Advance and is an artist following in his daddy's footsteps.

Josh

This is our 12-year old boy, Josh! He turned 12 in March and he received the Aaronic Priesthood shortly after his birthday. He's passed the sacrament a few times and is nervous every time, but keeps his composure like a champion. Who can't remember being nervous about doing something as a child?

He's in 7th grade this year - junior high! He went to a school dance a few weeks ago and stood in the boys section, as 7th grade boys do, and ignored the girls. He is wearing deodorant and has his daddy's long legs and skinny waist . . . a nightmare for buying jeans.

He spent Sunday afternoon at our new ward in Orem collecting tithes and offerings and had a fun time. He'll be going out on a fall camp out this Friday night (for Scouts), and our family is going to the Lagoon Fun Park on Saturday on a bounce pass. He went two weeks ago with his little brother and Dad while I tool Sandy and Ellie to Bear Lake sailing and skiing. Now we all get to go to Lagoon together! I'll post pictures after our trip.

Sandy Girl

Here's my Sandy. She's grown so fast it's amazed me. . . She's a whopping 5 feet 3 inches - towering above all other children in 5th grade except for one boy. She's wearing women's size 1 jeans - only one size smaller than me! She's wearing a women's size small top and size 8 shoes - 1 to 1/2 size bigger than me!


I bought Sandy the second book in the City of Ember Series - The People of Sparks (released in 2004) by Jeanne DuPrau. The Prophet of Yonwood (released in 2006) is next. And I don't want to overwhelm her, but the fourth book - The Diamond of Darkhold was released August 26, 2008! She breezed through book one: The City of Ember in one week. I'm so happy she's found a series she's enjoying.

Her parent-teacher conference was last Thursday. Her teacher is thrilled with Sandy. She said she was pleased with Sandy's choices for friends and was impressed with her ability to help people. She was worried Sandy and Tyler's break-up (Tyler is a girl) would be dramatic, but she said Sandy handled it seamlessly as she made friends with other girls who were "better choices." Her grades were:

Language Arts Composition: 97% (A)
Math: 90% (A-)
Reading: 99% (A)
Social Studies: 111% (A+)
Art: 100% (A+)
Music: 100% (A+)
PE: 100% (A+)
Educational Technology: 96% (A)

Her average is 99% (A)

I'm thrilled! My mother could never have even HOPED for a good report from a school teacher of mine . . . Sandy is a joy! :)

Ellie Ann

Here's our little beautiful girl, our grand finale, the cherry on top!





I could share all of the wonderful phases of her life with excitement and pleasure. She has brightened our lives in ways we never could have anticipated. It's as though all of our hopes and dreams were tied up in this tiny little child, and she has fulfilled everything we could want - and more!

She's in preschool right now with a small group of six. She adores her "teacher" and gives everyone a sweet hug every day I pick her up. She climbs into the car and reminds me to ask her, "Sooooo, how was your day?" She then shares with me that she:

• "had an eat-over,"
• "played,"
• and loves Robyn.

It's almost the same exact recital every day, but I love it . . . and I look forward to her asking me to ask her how her day was. But at the same time it makes me so happy, it's painful to hear my baby growing up and moving beyond infancy and into full blown childhood. She'll be in kindergarten in a year!

We feel guilty ALL THE TIME for going on and on about how much we love her because we know our older kids never received that level of affection. We attribute this to the fact that we're older now (Brady's 33 and I'm 30) and we appreciate our roles so much more than we ever understood before!

My aunt Debbie has been out of town for the past week and she's had me going to her house to pick tomatoes and raspberries. My kids are in heaven! Ellie loves the raspberries and Sandy loves the tomatoes. I feel like I'm suffocating under the rising cost of food. I spent $700.00 on groceries last week! That's 2 1/2 times what I used to spend - and it seems like we used to eat better!