Playing Soccer

I asked John to get some pictures of Johnny playing soccer, and this is what he got:

 Does picking your nose count as playing soccer?

Kittens Gone

The third set of kittens from our cat Twix are all given away now. I had the add up for one day. It had 195 pageviews and we had a whole bunch of phone calls. I am glad that ksl.com classifieds makes it so easy to give away kittens. My kids really enjoy having the kittens around. I really like this method of always having kittens, but not too many cats.

The New Dish Washer

I didn't want to buy a new dish washer. I would rather have spent the money on the wood laminate for the floor I want, or a down payment for braces. But the old (actually only two year old) dishwasher broke down for the second time in two years.

Being rather frustrated when I went dishwasher shopping. I really didn't give any thought to the cheap models. The old/new dishwasher never washed well, and broke down yearly. I didn't expect to get a new dish washer that would wash well because the other new dishwasher didn't wash well ever! I had to rinse the dishes completely.

I went to the store, and basically decided on kitchen aid because of my amazing kitchen aid mixer that belonged to my Grandma. I came home and looked at reviews for about 3 different dish washers. The one I wanted, actually had decent reviews.

For a rather dumb family home evening, but to get the sale price, we took the family to Lowes that night for a dishwasher buying FHE. When we got there, we found out that the dishwasher, I had decided on was going to be at least two weeks coming. So we looked at the reviews of a few other models with the same features.

The kitchen aid rated the best by far, and not just for total percentage of stars. The one star ratings for the kitchen aid all said it didn't dry well enough, or they had to rinse the dishes before loading the dish washer. The one star ratings for the other two models we were considering said things like, "the motor quit working after six months," or "it leaks all over the floor". I decided to go with the dishwasher that had the least painful one star ratings.

As luck would have it, we got the new dish washer installed only 8 days after purchasing it!

Normally, I don't even say I like a new appliance until I have tried it out for a year. Appliances have a way of disappointing. But... I LOVE THIS DISHWASHER! (I hope it continues to love me back.)

It has a garbage disposal in the bottom, so all you have to do is scrape food off and load truly disgusting and dirty dishes. I was dubious about them coming out clean without even so much as a gentle rinse. But the dishes came out VERY CLEAN! And there was not a chunk of food in the bottom of the dish washer. You can put in cooked on casserole dishes and they come out clean.

I am so happy to get clean dishes without all of the fuss of rinsing and wiping before hand. One other wonderful thing is there is just a lot more space! I can fit in so  many more dishes including pots and pans and cookie sheets and all. I have only had to run the dishwasher off once a day and I have had less than half of the wash by hand dishes that I had before.

So, I LOVE MY NEW DISHWASHER!

I still would rather used the money for a down payment on braces, but since we had to get a new dishwasher, I am at least glad that it works well and is a whole lot better than what we had before. Here's hoping for a good 8 to 10 years of loading this dishwasher.

My Latest United Families International Article

Occasionally, I write an article for the United Families International that I feel like is either important or very interesting and I publish it here too. I find these facts, very interesting, and a little sad since it seems the law makers and law defenders aren't always on the same page as the people who elected them.

 

The Truth about the Same Sex Marriage Vote

In Homosexuality, Same-Sex Marriage on May 9, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Diane Robertson

On Tuesday, May 8th, North Carolinian voters came out in record numbers to a primary election in order to vote on the issue of gay marriage. Sixty one percent of the voters voted in favor of a state constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage and prevent law makers or judges from making it legal in the future.

The North Carolina amendment declares that “marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.”
This is not a new thing. North Carolina would be the 30th state to vote in a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and 12 other states prohibit same-sex marriage via statute.

There is an interesting phenomenon occurring with the same sex marriage question in the United States. All of the states where a same-sex marriage ban came up as a ballot measure, the people voted to make same-sex marriage illegal. In all of the states where gay marriage is legal, the people did not vote. In states where gay marriage has been made legal, it was either done through the courts or by a law passed through the state’s legislature.

In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa gay marriage was legalized through the courts. In Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Washington State, and Maryland gay marriage was legalized by passing a law through the state legislature.
A few states have some interesting history concerning gay marriage laws that supports what has occurred throughout the nation in other states– when the people are asked, the people vote for traditional marriage.

In California, after two laws to legalize gay marriage were vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger, the California Supreme Court legalized gay marriage on May 15, 2008. On November 5, 2008 the people of California voted in Proposition 8 making gay marriage illegal.

In Maine, on May 6, 2009, Governor Baldacci signed a marriage equality bill. On September 11, 2009 the marriage equality law was to take effect, but was halted by a referendum on the upcoming November ballot.  On November 3, 2009 same sex marriage was repealed by the voters with 53% in favor.

In Iowa on April 3, 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage. In the November 2010 election, the very next judicial retention election, three of the judges were voted out by the people. The rejected Iowa justices — Chief Justice Marsha K. Ternus, Michael J. Streit and David L. Baker — each got about 45 percent of the vote. While the people in Iowa did not get to decide on their law, they clearly made their voices heard.

The truth about the gay marriage vote is that the majority of Americans will vote to support traditional marriage and even overturn laws their judges and legislatures have made.

An Hour in a Day

This week for "An Hour in  Day", we are all writing ten things that take place in that hour.

My hour starts at about 6:30 last night.

1. At 6:30 I go and get Kate to help me wash the days dishes. Our dish washer broke down last week, and we are waiting for the new dish washer to arrive: hopefully today. But until then, every family member age 4 and up are helping with the dishes. Kate will get before dinner dishes and Johnny and Adam will get after dinner dishes. 
2. Does this make me think we are getting in lovely family work time togetherness, so we skip out on the new dish washer for family bonding--- NO WAY!!!!! I think one week is enough bonding.
3. At 7:00, because it takes that long to wash, dry, and put away the dishes. I tell Johnny to wake up my dear husband from his very late nap to start a fire in our fire bowl for a hotdog and s'mores roast family home evening.
4. At 7:05 I start making lots of commands to Ruth and Kate. "Bring the ketchup and ,mustard outside to the table.", "get me the small pan to put the chili in", "Put the paper plates outside", "here are the marshmallows. DON'T open them yet." And on it goes.
5. At 7:10, I heat a small pan of No- Bean chili for the hotdogs, and bring out the chili and some shredded cheese. The kids are bringing out pillows and blankets???????
6. At 7:15, my dear husband says it is too windy to start a fire. I command all of the little kids to go into the house and get scrap paper. 
7. At 7:20 scrap paper is flying around the yard, so we pick it all up and put it under a grilling crate. They set the wood up over the crate.
8. At 7:25 when the paper is all burned out and none of the wood is lit, I give up on the boyscouts, and go and get some real-woman power to get the fire started--lighter fluid.
9. We get rid of the grilling crate and set the wood up in the bowl with the paper tucked under the wood. I squeeze lighter fluid all over, and Johnny lights the paper.
10. By 7:30 we have a tall fire in a fire bowl and every one is scrambling to get their hot dogs on their sticks. The little kids, are afraid of the fire, but do not want any help.

A Walk to Take Some Pictures

I took the kids on a walk today to get some nice pictures of them. The kids were horrid, but I still got some good pictures. They were horrid because:

• They ran away and would not come back.
• They threw huge rocks at the metal painted bridge.
• They cried and threw screaming fits.
• One kid acted like I was going to hit him in front of the entire neighborhood as I got after him for running away and leaving me with his bike.

On the whole, the walk was very unpleasant. How I got so many good pictures is beyond me. So if you happened to hear a lot of raucous noise and yelling and bad children near your house today, they were mine.

Okay, so it is much harder to get them all to cooperate especially when the sun is in their eyes.

 One kid at a time, works much better.

Family Home Evening Picnic

About two weeks ago, we took the family to a park with a duck pond for a picnic. It was warm, and not windy and really nice. Joshua really wanted to get into the water, so we had to keep a close eye on him. But we had a lot of fun watching all of the ways he tried to get to the water. We had the picnic first thing. Fed the ducks next, and then played tag on the playground. It was a very nice spring celebration.