Primary Program

Today was the kid's Primary Program in Church. The Primary Program Sunday is when the whole first congregational hour is devoted to letting the children perform and speak about what they've learned all year. This year's church wide theme for the children was "My Family can be Together Forever." The speaking parts were cute and the songs were beautiful.

These are all the Idiart "men" that participated: Ashton, Josh, Marcus and Ben. It was Marcus's first year and he was the first speaker of the morning. He giggled at the mike and was so cute. I think he was very proud of himself. Ashton performed in all seriousness. Josh sang in a quartet. The other 3 performers sang soprano, so his tenor part stood out. I had no idea he had such a nice voice. I was very proud. He also wrote his own talk. He did great. Ben participated, but wouldn't look out at the audience. Cute. He sang sometimes and watched other kids/zoned out at other times. But he was reverent up in the choir seats, so I was glad.

Here are the Idiart Ladies that performed: Katrina, Annie, Rachel and Eliza. Emma is officially too old to be part of primary and she was so thrilled! All these girls did a great job with their parts. Eliza and Rachel gave talks they wrote. It was so fun.

This is Josh's talk:

I remember Jesus when I partake of the sacrament by reading scriptures about Jesus’ life.

Sometimes I read about his death, and sometimes I read about the atonement. Every time that there is sacrament, I read, Moroni 4:3, and Moroni 5:2. These scriptures are the sacrament prayers.

O God, the Eternal Father, we ask thee in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ, to bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake of it; that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him, and keep his commandments which he hath given them, that they may always have his Spirit to be with them. Amen

The prayer for the water is almost exactly the same. Even though it says to sanctify this water to the souls of all those who drink of it.

I’d like to bare my testimony, that I know Jesus Christ did die for us. He did shed his blood for us, and gave us the sacrement, so that we can renew our baptizimal covonent.

And I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

This is Rachel's talk:

Family history and temple work bless all the generations of my family. Joseph Smith taught, "The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead."

When I am 12 years I will go to the temple to be baptized for people who did not get a chance to listen to the missionaries and accept their own baptism. I know that I must live righteously now to be worthy of that important work. I hope that some of the people I will be baptized for will be members of my own family that have never heard the gospel.

Many years ago my mom went to the temple and performed the temple work of my great great grandmother Elizabet Etchart. My mom told me that when she was in the temple she felt the Holy Ghost, which was like a warm feeling that came over her, letting her know that the work she was doing was important. She felt very close to Elizabet and knew that she was accepting the baptism. My mom gave my younger sister Katrina Elizabet as her middle name in honor of that great woman.

I was able to go to the Oquirh Mountain Temple open house and see the beautiful baptismal font. It made me think of how fun it will be to go to the temple with all my friends and help other people. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

UNIBOOB?

I found this adorable picture Ben drew for Kindergarten. It's a picture of our family. I love the 3 fingered hands, and the 3 toed feet. Reminds me of our chickens. I also love the twiggy looking hair on the girls and the super large eyes.


As I realized which person was ME, I figured he'd drawn me anatomically correct, but with a uniboob. That made sense, since he doesn't see me without my clothes, it would seem I just have a big padded uniboob. I asked Damian for his opinion on the matter and he said, "No, that's probably your big HEART." When I asked Ben he said, "It's your TUMMY!" Apparently, I'm the only chubby one in the family. Dang it. I preferred the UNIBOOB!

Uncle John & Amy

My brother John and his sweetheart, Amy came to visit for almost a week. We were all so excited, making plans to take a day off school to see Crater Lake or go to the coast. They arrived late Tues. night and Wed. morning, Ben, Rachel and Katrina were all sick! The kids did take the rest of the week off of school, but mostly napped and laid around.

Luckily, Amy went to college in Ashland and she showed John around. I did get to see "Whip It!" with them and I loved it. I think I might take up RollerDerby in my next life. Fun stuff.

John and Amy went to Emma's Volleyball Game and John helped Em with her math homework. He tried to get the sick kids to drink local mineral water and made them all laugh. He played "Quip It!" and we all laughed together. It was so fun to meet Amy and see them both. Hopefully, next time we see them we'll get to visit them in Alaska!


And just so you know, John is preparing to be "Dwight" for Halloween (Amy will be "Angela.") John's glasses are perfect and now he's growing the chops & front part "bangs." We miss you already and the kids are finally starting to feel better! I sure how neither of you get it!

Cousin Birthdays

I have been such a blog slacker. I have quite a few nieces/nephews that I didn't honor on their birthdays.

These cute boys are my Ben and his cousin, Marcus (the Birthday Boy!) And in the bottom left corner is another nephew, Ashton. Ben's best friends, other than Josh are his 3 boy cousins.

Marcus and Ben are taking gymnastics together and Ben loves his little buddy. Marcus is a fun, loving, spunky guy. He's so handsome and smart. He's sweet to his baby sister and a good friend. I enjoy having him over. He says the cutest things. Happy 4th Birthday to Marcus!

This little Sprite is my neice, Lucienne. We call her LuLu or Luci. She's adorable. She just turned one and got her first haircut. I liked the mullet, but apparently, I'm the only "Mullet Lover" in the universe.

She is a tough kid that can take some rough play. She's fiesty and cute and I'm enjoying getting to know her little personality. Love you, Lu!

Chicken Update

We started our Chicken Farming Journey with 6 chicks. Re-read about them HERE (and notice their poultry pedicures) After a few months, we bought 4 laying hens to start getting eggs. To see the Hens in their $500 hen-house click HERE.

As our chicks aged, we discovered 5 were roosters. Of all the bad luck, I tell you! Damian killed one with his bare hands by slowly strangling it to death. It was creepy and weird to watch that, and not the most humane way to kill an animal. He plucked it and cooked Rooster Soup. It tasted fine, but none of the kids would eat it. And I couldn't bring myself to eat seconds.

We needed to get rid of the rest; they picked on and ate more than the hens and their crowing drove us bonkers. Whoever said roosters only crow when the sun comes up was wrong! Roosters crow BEFORE the sun comes up and all day/night long.

Damian didn't have the heart (guts) to kill more by strangle method. Apparently, the best way to kill a chicken is to chop off it's head or swing the bird by it's neck, using the weight of it's body to snap the neck. So we argued. I wanted the other 4 roosters gone, but Damian didn't think it was right to kill them if we weren't going to eat them. So one by one, he'd put them in a bag and let them out in the woods on his way to work. He figured if an animal ate them, at least they weren't going to waste. I thought that was cruel, but was thrilled they were gone. Eventually, after leaving 3 in the woods, he killed the last one with the neck snapping method.

Now we were down to 1 grown chick, Katrina's "Shelly" and 3 laying hens, because 1 of our 4 hens died from heat exhaustion or something!!?? After starting with 10 birds, we were down to 4.

Katrina's "Shelly" recently matured enough to lay eggs. Teeny Tiny Eggs. They are so cute. Katrina is holding a jumbo egg from an OLD hen, and "Shelly's" first egg on the right.


We get between 2-4 eggs a day. We have one hen that flies and each day she'd fly out of the coop and lay the light blue/grey egg in a bowl on our back porch. We got tired of all her poo everywhere, so we put a net over the coop yard, rather than clipping her wings. I just like looking at "Shelly's" little tiny eggs. Soon, she'll start laying one everyday and it'll be normal sized.