On Blessings

"... and prove me now, herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

I now present to you proof that God wasn't kidding when he said that.
Today I sent ten big garbage bags
stuffed full of children's clothes to D.I.
Ten!
"So," you're thinking, "You got sick of doing laundry, and now your kids are going naked all summer?"
Oh no. No fear of that. Their drawers and closets are still stuffed with clothes.
Not to mention the laundry pile that's taller than Cannon. (You think I'm kidding, don't you?)

But, just in case some child decides to grow in the night and suddenly doesn't fit into any of those clothes, we're still covered.
Because I still have TWENTY-ONE boxes full of clothes in every size and season filling up every little bit of storage space in my entire house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never in my life questioned the principle of tithing.

Until now.

I just don't have any more room!

Where Have All the Good Books Gone?

So I was looking at my little bookshelf, here, that shows the last 20 books I've read.
There is not a single five-star book among them.
It feels like forever since I've read a solid five-star book.
So I'm wondering if maybe I'm just getting a little hardened and harder to please. I do read a lot of books, after all.
But really it just feels like I've already read all the fantastic books that are out there, and there's none left. They're all so mediocre lately. Good books, yes. Interesting, entertaining, worth reading. Even some that I would have given five stars the first time, but only got four the second time around. (This is why I don't usually re-read books. But I was desperate!) I even took a whole week off, just to see if it was a case of overdose. (An entire week of only scriptures, church magazines, and cereal boxes!) But it didn't help because the next book I read was fun, interesting, fairly well-written, but just.... Well, just not five stars. *sigh*
So I ordered myself seven new books for Mother's Day, and if one of them doesn't do it, well.
I may have to take up knitting instead.

Emily's Baptism

Emily was baptized on Saturday!
Jef baptized her, and he did a great job. She only had to go down once!
She really really wanted me to take a picture of her under the water, and was very disappointed when I told her I couldn't. So we took lots of before and after pictures.

Thanks to Mom, Dad, Tom and Wil;

Stacy, Judy, and Stacia;

and LaPrele, Delia and Chris for coming!

I'm not sure where her shoes went for this picture.
We all came back to the house for a yummy sundae bar after the confirmation.

Hooray for Emily!
We're so proud of you.

Poor Baby

All during Emily's baptism, and while we were trying to get ready, Lydia was acting really weird. She would scream bloody murder if I wasn't holding her, but then when I picked her up, she would just lay her head on my shoulder and hold really still. She did the same thing whenever anyone else picked her up. Scream like crazy for a minute, and then just hold really still. I offered her some Motrin because it seemed like there had to be something wrong with her, but she just screamed at me. Not until after the excitement died down, and my mom was holding her did we notice that she wasn't using her left arm. In fact, if anyone touched it or moved it she would scream. Hmmm. So we started reviewing the day and what could have happened to her arm, and it came out that she had fallen off a chair earlier, before the baptism. She was obviously in pain, so we took her to the Emergency Room. The doctor messed with her arm a little, but she would scream so loud that he decided to take some X-rays before he did anything else. When the x-rays looked fine, he came back to talk to us. We were all just sitting calmly talking when he suddenly reached over, grabbed Lydia's arm, gave it a vicious yank and a twist, and Click! Her elbow was back where it should be. Really the doctor ought to have been punched in the face for doing that to a poor baby, but it worked, and she was all better. She still didn't dare use the arm all day, but it was fine, and today she's been using it lots without any pain. And they all lived happily ever after. :) So that's what this picture is for. To show how sad she was while everyone ran around being crazy all day without anyone noticing how much pain she was in. Poor baby.

Capitol Reef