A Test and an Assignment

Audra had her audiology appointment today. She is being tested to see if there are any problems hindering her speech. She passed with almost flying colors- she has a little "water on the ear" or something, but they are pretty sure it is because of this cold she is just now getting over. So, apparently she just has no interest in talking- but she goes in again in February for a full evaluation. I am actually really impressed with all that they do- it is all through the school district, and they are fantastic!

Then, I got an assignment that I am struggling with a little bit. I have been asked to talk to the youth at church about my divine purpose in womanhood at this stage of my life- i.e., being a young mom. I am having trouble with knowing which direction to take this, so I thought I would ask you all for advice. Whether you are religious or not, whether you work or stay at home, most of you who read my blog are young mothers, and so I ask: What joys are you finding at this point of your life? What do you feel your purpose/divine destiny is as a young mom?

I am hoping by reading your answers I might be guided to know which direction to take with this! And, for you men out there who read my blog, I think it would be really neat to hear what you have to say about your wives who are mothers- what do you think about their divine role as mothers at this stage?

To Alarm or not to Alarm

Ben and I are thinking of getting a security system for our house. We have been contemplating it, and finally started doing some research and we found that it is a little expensive, but not too bad. The installation is the really expensive part, because we don't have a phone line so they would have to install a special cell-phone thing to our house to use our cells for the alarm. We want the alarm for two main reasons:

1. Ben is going to start traveling within the next year, so I will be alone with two small children for weeks at a time (yeah, not looking forward to that...)

2. The worse the economy gets, the more desperate people are going to get, which we believe will increase robberies and overall crime rates

I also saw a third reason on the news the other day:

3. There are 2 robbers in our neighboring county (Jefferson) who knock on people's doors during the day. If nobody answers the door, they go in and rob the house. Of course, I am home during the day- usually. But, when I take a shower, I put Audra in her bedroom to play (with the monitor on so I hear everything that is going on and I make sure her room is completely safe). What if those robbers came to our house while I was in the shower and Audra was in her bedroom by herself??? That thought scares me more then anything.

So, we started looking more into an alarm system. We are currently looking at ADT and Brink- I believe the two biggest home alarm companies in the country, and I need some advice:

Do any of you have an alarm system or know somebody who does? Do you/they like it? Is it worth the money? I haven't looked up statistics to see if people with alarms are less likely to get robbed, but has anybody heard anything about that? Is anybody else considering getting one (that one is more of a curiosity question)? Any information would be most helpful!

NOT a Debate!!!!!

OK, so there are two pressing issues out there that I think are worthy of providing information on. This is absolutely, 100%, NOT A DEBATE! If you want to debate, go to the Political Moms Unite site (a little more liberal) or the Moms Into Politics (a little more conservative) site and you can debate there. I DON'T WANT THIS TO BE A DEBATE- I am merely posting information on two things that I think are of great concern- and, I think you will all be pleasantly surprised because one is a conservative issue and one is a progressive issue. Once again, this is just GIVING INFORMATION and NOT A DEBATE!!! Either you will agree or disagree, and it doesn't matter to me- I just think everybody should be informed.

The first one is a bill called FOCA- The Freedom of Choice Act. I had not heard of it, but it basically takes away any and all limitations on abortions- including making it so if a 14-year-old wants an abortion, they don't have to tell their parents. This concerns me, and I am sure many of you as well, so I am posting a web link with a petition to stop the FOCA from continuing:

http://www.fightfoca.com/

The best thing to do, however, is to e-mail your representatives. You can locate them at
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
If anybody has better information on how to contact your representatives, feel free to post- but again, this IS NOT A DEBATE- either you want to do this or you don't, that is up to you.


The second issue is a certain man who I have mentioned before who happens to get paid millions to spread what I consider to be hate and lies. Well, his newest thing is that he hopes Obama and the economy fails. Now, any logical thinking person would say, "wait- if the economy fails, that could really hurt me." Today, over 70,000 people lost their job- TODAY! They are calling today "Bloody Monday" because of all the job losses- SEVENTY THOUSAND!!! How on earth can anybody be happy about that? It makes me sick!!! Again, this is NOT A DEBATE- either you like Rush and agree with him, or you don't, but I can't stand the fact that anybody out there is pushing for the economy to get worse and is actually getting air-time to promote what I consider to be un-patriotic views. So, I am pushing to e-mail companies that support him and tell them you think supporting the likes of him is wrong and that you will no longer patron their business. This is a site that lists his sponsors as well as their e-mails and such:

http://www.topplebush.com/boycott_rush.shtml

It is a slightly outdated list, but apparently many of the companies do still support him. Also, General Motors now supports him (which surprises me because he wants them to fail as well, so go figure!)

I don't care if you like Rush or not- THIS IS NOT A DEBATE- but, if you are as upset about this as I am, then you may want to send out e-mails, so I am MERELY PROVIDING INFORMATION SO THAT IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING YOU CAN, AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING YOU DON'T NEED TO! I have both liberal and conservative friends, and I am not trying to tick anybody off by either of these issues, I am just trying to give people an opportunity to take action on either issue if they so choose.

(I hope I am making my point that I am not trying to debate anybody, I am merely providing information, and either you can do something or not- but the information is there!!!!)

Cloth Diapering?

I had this debate on my friend's blog about whether cloth diapering is worth it or not, so this is NOT a debate, but my friends' who had the 1-year-old with the accident (for more information visit their blog at http://colofisch.blogspot.com/ because they are absolutely inspirational!) have been given a great gift from the Denver Diaper Company.

If you are interested in trying out cloth diapers and order through them, they will give customers 5% off all purchases, and give back 5% of the proceeds to the Fischer's to help with their new expenses in having a special needs child. Jenny explains it better on her blog (website above), but if you want to check out the Denver Diaper Company, here is their address:

http://www.denverdiaperco.com/

You can also donate directly to the family on Jenny's blog- even a couple of dollars helps. But, even if you can't donate- you should definitely read Jenny's blog because you will come away feeling so inspired and grateful for all that you have! She is such a beautiful and inspiring woman! I love you, Jenny!!!

Silly Girl

It's hard to see (if you enlarge the picture it is easier to see), but if you look closely at Audra- does there seem to be something wrong with this picture?

My (shared) BYU Legacy

Before I got married and had Audra, I actually did some pretty cool things (not that changing diapers isn't cool...). One of those things of which I am rather proud was organizing Community Outreach Day at BYU. I know most of you are asking, what on earth is that?

Well, Bill Clinton declared Martin Luther King Day as a national day of service, and while I was attending BYU I decided that BYU should have some sort of service day to honor that. They already did a candlelight vigil, but nothing in relation to service. I went to the student union (BYUSA) and pitched my idea: On the Monday holiday of MLK Day, instead of staying at home and doing homework, we would encourage students to come and give a few hours of their time doing service. We would provide breakfast, the service projects, and the transportation and all the students would have to do was show up. I happen to be a very good organizer, and I presented my ideas pretty well, but they said, "we love this idea, but don't get too excited. The most people we ever get to attend service projects are about 50." In my head I was like, "we're going to get 10 times that!" and I got to work.

I have to say this is a shared legacy, because by default my roommates and sisters became very involved in the project as well (by the time I graduated my roommates got very scared when I said the phrase, "I have an idea"- Ben is almost to that point, but not quite yet). I also had a wonderful committee, and we put in a lot of hours and got everything ready- not sure what to expect. Coming up with a name was one of the hardest parts- we considered "Neighborhood Awareness Day" and several others before finally settling on "Community Outreach Day." That first year, we had over FOUR HUNDRED people show up! BYUSA was totally shocked- they had never had such great success before, especially for a project that was in it's first year. I won an award for all of BYU for the best new program of the year. It was all over the news- it was such an awesome thing to be able to come up with the idea, plan the whole thing (with aforementioned help), and have it be such a huge success. And, I am proud to say, the tradition still continues. Here is a news article about yesterday's festivities:

http://newnewsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/70752

I hope this legacy that I started continues and that someday if Audra decides to go to BYU, she can be put in charge of planning the program her mother started for one of the years she is there! It really is cool to think that something I started is still continuing to this day- even if my name has been forgotten, at least my program has not!

(I apologize if I sound a little prideful in this post- but I am a little proud of this. I think I have been able to do a lot of great things, and sometimes it is really easy to forget that when you're a stay-at-home-mom. I do miss the recognition of accomplishing goals and being rewarded for your work- and I truly envy you mothers out there who have been able to find the perfect work/mom balance so you can get that recognition that so many of us crave, but still be the best moms to your kids as well. And, I will just throw in, that on the flipside of that coin, I have the utmost respect for all of you working mothers- I think you guys have the toughest job in the world because you go out in the workforce and face the stresses and deadlines that come from that, and still have to come home and put food on the table! So, while I envy you that little freedom you enjoy, I also am in awe and have such respect for you because of the hard work you do!!!!)

(And, I know some of you thought I would post about the wonderfulness of today- but I think the events transpiring around the country today speak for themselves- though I look forward to reading about anybody else who is posting about today. I am sure virtually all of you, even if you do not like Obama, at least appreciate the historical nature of the day and the excitement in the air across the country. Happy Inauguration Day!)

Death For Dinner

To celebrate our anniversary, we went to one of our favorite things in the whole world: a murder mystery dinner. Ben's parents and sister watched Audra overnight (THANK YOU- apparently she had a blast with them- we aren't surprised, she sure loves them!!!) so we could go enjoy ourselves and not worry about getting home early. We had such a great time- at one point I was laughing so hard I cried! The theme this time was of Molly Brown and the Mysterious Murder. We would highly recommend this to anybody- it is an absolute blast! The website if you are interested in going is www.deathfordinner.com- it really is a great time, they do such a fantastic job!

Sorry the pictures are so small.

Ben also surprised me with these beautiful flowers:

It was really funny when we brought Audra home and she saw them. She started pointing at them and going "oohhh!" Apparently, she has very good taste in flowers- watch out future boyfriends!