It's A Wonderful Life

      Come Lord Jesus great Redeemer, Light of morning from the east. We will be thy children ever Dry our tears, all weeping cease. Come in glory to the earth Come to us to rule and reign. Ready us to kneel and greet thee, Come, Lord Jesus come.   Jesus, once of humble birth, Now in glory comes to earth. Once he suffered grief and pain; Now he comes on earth to reign. Now he comes on earth to reign.     Come Lord Jesus Come!     This is the finale in the show Savior of the World. All the actors gathered on stage and sang the above song. Some of the little children climbed onto a mountain and joined the apostles. The apostle Peter stands at the top of the mountain and Bria was held in his arms. Bria then raises her hand and points to heaven as we joined her in looking to heaven.  Tears ran down my face when I looked up and witnessed this sight...

Our family is going to be in the LDS Church's production of "Savior of the World" this year - from Dad all the way down to Bria.  This even includes Tyler and Jessica. (Our oldest son and daughter-in-law) This is a musical production the Church puts on every year between Thanksgiving and New Year's.  Yes, this is a musical production and yes, I am in it.  This is Doug, by the way...  Don't worry, there are plenty of strong voices and I can blend in... Deanne, Tyler, Sereen, Ressa, Pierce and Hannah have all been in it before and loved it, so this time we tried out as a family hoping to just be members of the ensemble, filling up space on the stage.  We'd be good at that. :)  I agreed to try out.   (This is Deanne. I was just reading this for the first time and had to put my two cents in. Doug is the one who suggested we all tryout as a family. I think he likes to forget that part. The man that will not sing in the ward cho...

All of us go through hard things in life. Some go through more difficult experiences than others and some are placed in situations and have emotions that we can't imagine. Several of our children fit into this last group of people. So many of their most vulnerable years were spent in situations that damaged them emotionally. Have given them burdens to bear and scars to heal. Today we witnessed a glimmer of the pain that comes with hard things. I only reveal these things so others may learn and become aware of our responsibility to love, nurture and heal as our Savior would. Scott and I were reading in his book when he said something about being slapped in the face. I asked him to explain what happened. His pent up hurt exploded out of his body. He raised his voice, tears flowed, body tensed and he became very animated as he began to tell me the story. When he was 8 one of the orphanage staff poured him a glass of hot water. It is customary in...

As the saying goes, "The third time is a charm."  This was especially true with our attempts at a successful zip-line in our back yard.  Our nephew Kurt made it happen...  1st attempt: On Labor day we cemented in a steel pole for our 90 foot zip line.  That bent enough to put slack in the cable as soon as Creed went down it.  We subsequently dug the pole and about 3 bags worth of cement out with it.  2nd attempt: We then went to a wood post, but the largest I found was a 4x6 at Home Depot.  I wanted an 8x8 or larger, but couldn't find one readily available. The lumber post was much better than the steel, but with the zip line attached 10 feet up the pole, there was still a lot of leverage and it still flexed too much. 3rd attempt: Master Builder, brother-in-law, David, suggested a dead man anchor to add tension in the opposite direction.  Nephew Kurt was here for a couple of days with Kayla and the gi...

  4   That's the number of geysers we have had in our back yard in the last 6 years. If you remember, it was just this spring that we had our last water pipe break. Olivia ran it over with the lawn mower. This time however was not our fault. Pierce, Hannah and cousin Jacob were preparing to do the Ice Bucket Challenge. They got out the 50 gallon cooler and Pierce turned the spigot on in the backyard. He turned the handle and noticed the water felt sluggish. He couldn't figure out what was wrong.  A very short moment later a gush of water shot up and sprayed him right in the face. Kids came running in the house where I was preparing for dinner and to have friends come over to watch a movie outside. The kids were screaming "There's another geyser!" My thought was, "Who did it this time?"  And "How embarrassing!" I knew the firemen came out to take care of situations like this after hours and I wasn'...

This is the first of 3 flooring projects.  The entry first, then the kitchen, then the family room.  We broke out the tile by the door and ripped out the carpet to all the doorways leading from the entry.  Now we can replace all the carpet separately in each room as needed instead of all at once.   Wonderboard first.... I had to do it right, or my brother-in-law the temple builder would have had me tear it all out and start over. Travertine with a marble inlay around the perimeter.  I think we saved about $2,000 doing this ourselves, but I won't count up the hours I spent doing it...it may not work out to be minumum wage.  At least, I didn't give up many hours from my day job, just a bit of sleep, and those hours are pretty inexpensive.  I only hit 4:00 AM once....  Deanne helped when she could, but most of it was a one-man job.  She felt guilty to go to bed without me so she either stayed up doing stuff or fel...

Q: What is better than sleeping out in the backyard?  A: Watching a movie, then falling asleep in the backyard.  This is the morning after a movie night. Most of the kids are still in their sleeping bags in this picture.  It's always tempting to turn on the sprinklers to wake them up...

Nothing like a baseball game under the lights!  I took 10 kids to the minor league Salt Lake Bees game a few weeks ago and a few things made it memorable, besides the score...our team got slaughtered 13-2.  First of all, we had my Niece Chloe with us and it was her first baseball game ever.  It was also the first time she found out that I played baseball in my younger days.  I was already her favorite uncle, but that sealed the deal. Another memorable moment came when I bought $17 worth of cotton candy and passed it down the row for everyone to share.  The lady in back of me said to her husband, loud enough for me to hear, "That is such a nice man in front of us to buy a treat for everyone in his row."  I didn't spoil her "moment" and let her believe what she wanted. Besides, it would have sounded awkward to turn around and say, "They are all mine and it was my parental responsibility to overpay for colored sugar so my...

Tonight Clayson had Cub Scout Pack Meeting. Each month they discuss the theme for the month and have an activity that applies to the theme. This month's theme is honesty. They had a game where the boys would make paper airplanes and fly them into a grouping of bowls. Each bowl was worth different points. The boys were to keep track of their points on their own as a way to practice being honest. The leader stood up and explained the game. He instructed the boys to make an airplane and line up to start the game. The boys took their pieces of paper and some preceded to ask a parent to make their planes for them. It was great to hear the parents support their children in making their own planes and not doing it for them. I saw this as a way to  practice being honest as the instructions were for the boys to make the planes. Instructions were given and planes began to take shape. A few of the older boys decided to take a short cut and crumpled their paper into balls claiming that was ...

I know, all of you on Facebook have seen so many people pouring ice water on their heads you'll be relieved when it dies down. Me too!! It's taken over news feeds everywhere. I think I will be pondering on a way to create a phenomenon like this for adoption fund raising. I'll give it a year and make it something fresh and new. Any ideas? Well, we were nominated as a family for the ALS ice bucket challenge by the Harmon family. I couldn't just let this be the normal bucket of water on all of our heads. The video would have been 15 minutes long. No one would watch it, not even me. If we are going to suffer than it has to be fun. Hopefully you will get a smile out of this. We did!

We have had an eventful week. Some great things and some challenging but all were good for one reason or another. We reflect on how fragile life is and what a gift we have in it. A few months ago Scott got an MRI to get a better handle on his Cerebral Palsy.  A week or so later we got a call from the doctor informing us that Scott had been misdiagnosed and did not have CP. We were shocked. The doctor had two guesses, Muscular Dystrophy or Dystonia. Neither one was a good thing but if there was a choice Dystonia was better. Our new neurologist is pretty convinced we are dealing with dystonia. Last Tuesday Scott went in for a lumbar puncture to test the Serotonin level in his brain. From my very limited understanding dystonia is caused from low serotonin in the brain. It is a degenerative disease so over time it gets worse. There are several types of dystonia and the purpose of the lumbar puncture was to help discover the type and decide on a course of action. To make...

Yesterday was Costco day. I think our shopping alone keeps at least one employee in a job every month. About a year ago I had a goal to keep the Costco bill under $400 each week. That would include the extras that I may buy, like a pair of pants, movie or anything not a consumable. Over this last year I have noticed our needs increase and so has the Costco bill. I am now very happy to see the receipt total less than $500. This is not because I buy more extras but because my kids are eating so much more. I have cut back on foods that cost more and they are now treats. Food like Mango Salsa, cheeses, Chocolate Chips, real maple syrup, etc. I was very happy to see I was able to get done with my shopping and be at a grand total of $435 including two pair of jeans. Pretty good. When I got home from shopping I was in a hurry to get to Sereen's to take the kids swimming so we quickly put everything away and left. This morning we organized the fruit that sits on the counter. When the jo...

I have talked about a little boy that we were trying to get medical care for. Branson is the name he was given by the Non profit organization, Love Without Boundaries, that was taking care of him while in China. Branson was diagnosed with heterotaxy just like Gideon. Both boys came from the same area of China and were cared for in the same home. Heterotaxy is pretty rare so to have two boys from the same area have it is not common. While helping get help for Branson we fell in love with him. At one point I began to pray that I would be allowed to be Branson's mother. I hurt for him and prayed for his safety and health. I knew his heart was bad and his prognosis was not good but that didn't stop me from loving him. I had an impression that he would not make it home. His heart would give out before that time. Part of me was grateful and part of me was sad to feel this. Doug and I discussed bringing Branson home. We knew it would be hard on the family. Having just lost Gideon...

  This is a long picture post. It should have come in installments but our days were so full that there was no time to blog. Sorry about that. We spent a lot of time site seeing and enjoying the spirit of Nauvoo. This is our fourth time as a family, however, the first time for four of our children. We have never gone to Nauvoo in  July for two reasons. First, we have been afraid of the heat and humidity. The weather proved to be very nice. Second, July is pageant month. We don't like crowds much and as our family has grown we like them even less. This year three of our kids tried out to be in the pageant. Sadly, none of them made it in the core cast so as a consolation we took the family to Nauvoo for our vacation. It was either that or San Diego. I'm still itching to go to San Diego!      We did a 2 mile handcart pull early in the morning. It was supposed to be fairly easy. It actually was until we go to a point in the tra...