Jared's Birthday

No time to write this week, but I'll just say that Jared said, "Mom, you can wrap up a present for me. You can wrap up 'de-odor.' Aiden has de-odor, and then all the boys could have de-odor. " Ask and you shall receive! :)

He also has a love/hate relationship with both swords and stuffed animals. He loves to carry them around all day, but at night they seem scarey to him. He has scarey dreams.

In this picture he is enjoying a handful of oats.

Jared loves to sing, and often sings a mixture of the ABCs, O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E, I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N and G-O-D is L-O-V-E. He also recently sang, (a la the butterfly song), "If I were a car . . . I'd fank you Lord for giving me wheels."

For his birthday, Aiden & Taliah gave him presents they'd made and found at the AWANA store. We invited the Most family over for supper. Their son Lukan is one of Jared's friends.

Happy Birthday, little guy! We love you so much!

Our Week

Aiden got to "roast cookies." (Huh?)

Aiden's goldfish was dying in the fishbowl, but he loves his new home.

Anneke

(sorry; I'm still learning how do pictures)

Annie, Allie in a coop box

Coop order came in; nothing like raw rolled oats!

Jared "reads" to the twins during school time.

Look-alikes (Allie & Taliah)

Valentine's Day Tea with friends and

Great-Grandma Bennett's tea dishes

Another batch of snow (but he melted by suppertime.)

A Love/Hate Relationship

. . . with blogs, of course!
What's to love? A blog is like a scrapbook and a journal and a letter and a soapbox all in one! All 4 happen to have been some of my favorite things my whole life. Thanks to blogger, we get to be creative and spill our guts and preach and share pictures with faraway peeps. It's like writing our own little magazine.

What's to hate? Well, that was the previous article's subject. And the amount of time it takes. As a matter of fact, I have a love/hate relationship with computers in general! They're so useful and fun, even, but so plastic and glass and electric and flickering and technical and so demanding of my eyes and hands. Unlike the mythical mother with eyes in the back of her head, I need to actually give my face to my children and husband. :)

Last weekend I spent an evening perusing Other People's Blogs and had lots of fun and gathered a few ideas. Hope to put those ideas "up" soon.

Facebook Friends

Facebook friends aren't really friends! Or are they . . . ? This is a rant I've been building for a long time.

Blogs got me started, because I didn't understand why people would rather go look at virtual "pages" about each other than write each other real personal letters in handwriting. Or give each other a phone call and talk with their real voices. Or even . . . "go visiting" or have a maple syrup party like the Wilders/Ingalls did when they wanted to socialize.

So we went from physically visiting each other to phone calls to emails (which became too lengthy). So it was text messages or Twitter. Or MySpace or Facebook, or just driving around the internet visiting people's blogs, where you don't have to interact at all; just put up your stuff and read other people's stuff and somehow, you feel connected. Even instant messaging can be multitasked or ignored. Does anyone else feel the superficiality of some of this? I miss real people!

Real friendships are not made or kept by clicking "confirm."

Friday night Jason & Ben stayed home with our 9 children so that Julie & I could go out for supper. When she lived in town, she & the girls would drive over on their tractor mower for a visit. Now that she's moved, we call or email sometimes and visit a snatch at church, but we haven't just hashed things out for quite awhile. We went to Ruby Tuesday and ate our meals and drank many refills of water with lemon, and talked. Face to face in a tiny booth where we could hear each other's tones of voice and see each other's facial reactions and without even realizing it, we'd been there almost 4 hours!

Now, everybody's not as intense as I am (I don't like to shoot the breeze). But that evening just meant so much more to me than spending an afternoon "socially networking."

Here are the pros and cons of Facebook, etc. as I see it:

PROS:

• people will talk to me on Facebook that would never ever call or write
• it is easier to look up someone on FB than hunting their address or phone #
• people can catch up at each other's convenience without having to plan a time/place
• we can see photos of people we wouldn't be able to visit
• it's free, fun, and it's not just for teenagers

CONS

• friendship is reduced to click click (not even clique)
• all the fakeness is taken so seriously (fake pokes, fake food fights, fake gifts, fake top friends lists, fake games with fake prizes, fake groups, fake shouting matches . . . )
• i do not care that so-and-so just got up from a nap/hates work/is a fan of ___/went outside/came in/blah blah blah, and they don't really care that i did either
• it's just a new toy, and pretty soon something else will replace it

My nephew has over 400 "friends" on facebook. I hope that he has one or two real friends.

Finally Snow

Annie and Allie

Our neighbors brought the 4-wheeler and we brought the sled.

Taliah, Jared (where are you?), Aiden

Phinally Photos!

Anneke has the potty-training woes.
P.S. They're making progress!

Here is the Johnson Family Christmas dinner party sans Arnie.

The TWO two-year-olds on their birthday in Hot Springs, SD. We went up for Joe Charles's funeral. It was a special time of remembering his life. Then we went out for supper at the chinese restaurant and stayed overnight in a motel. AIDEN also turned 8 that day, but can I find any pictures of him?! This is terrible!

Here we just cut down the Christmas tree in Cottonwood Canyon. Dec.'08.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Just a few housekeeping things to document this time. First, Christmas. We are official Christmas celebrators and decorators and present givers in this family. We are not extravagant in any of those categories (because we're tightwads) but hopefully we're extravagant worshippers of our amazing God Who made heaven and earth and was born through a young woman's birth canal.

One one of our Christmas week fun evenings at Buffalo Bill Cody's house, I dropped the camera in the dark and we ran over it. It was used and old and we traded for it, but still. . . . My cousin Melanie understands. She gave me a hug for grief over it. :) But then, TWO WEEKS later, I got it out and messed around AND IT STILL WORKS!
Tomorrow we have an appointment for an internet antenna on our roof, so maybe we'll start adding pictures to our blog.

So we went to Montana in the winter again. The roads are always dangerous, but we keep on making the pilgrimage year after year. We even look at real estate while we're up there. It was snowy and mountainous and beautiful. Other than staying up too late every night and having too much coffee and sweets, a notable event was our first ever ski trip. Jason & Aiden & I each had a lesson and then were set free on the slopes. We had a blast! We have lots of first-timer stories to tell. Jason has a love for speed, Aiden has no fear, and I decided that the Miami Beach hill was most fun for me. We hope to go again!