Meet the Author

Every now and then you read a book that is so well-written and wonderful, that you just can't help but share the recommendation with everyone you know.   "The Count of Monte Cristo," was one of those books for me.  I read an abridged version in high school and adored it.  Then I read the unabridged version as an adult and loved it even more (except for the ending, which was much better in the movie version).   "Atlas Shrugged," was the same.  It was long-winded and painful at times, but so thought provoking that I literally discussed it with anyone who would listen for months afterward. 

This past week I found a book that's even better than those two.  And lucky for me, it wasn't long-winded or painful in the slightest.   It's called, "The Day I Met My Friend." 

Let me introduce you to one of the authors: 

Her name is Ellie and although not even quite 8-years of age, she has outshone the more experienced authors, Rand and Dumas,   and teamed up with her friend Andie (seen below with Ellie) to create a literature masterpiece all about friendship, collaboration, and perseverance. 

Their collaborative writing and artwork proved too tempting for local book publisher, Mommy Inc., and they were immediately commissioned for a first run publishing of four books--one for Ellie's family, one for Andie's, one for the school library, and one for their teacher.  The book is bound using durable  metal staples. 

Let's take a peek inside, taking note of full color artwork which was done in Crayola markers, crayons, and #2 pencils.  You will find both authors' artwork  and writing on every single page layout as they painstakingly created their book one page at a time, taking turns with the writing and illustrating. 

About the Authors: 

Ellie:  "I love books and the beautiful paintings.  I just love all of it.  I met my friend in first grade." 
Andie:  "I love books.  I like to draw pictures.  I like to play with my BEST friend Ellie!" 

Publishers interested in commissioning their own full-color copies of, "How I Met My Friend" are welcome to negotiate with Ellie about renting her copy of the book (for just 10 cents a day) and taking it themselves to the  illustrious local publishing company (aka Staples).   I hear that they are very kind to new authors and will publish  books at the very low rate of 49 cents per page, staples not included.   

A few things I learned this week..

 1.  Meteorologists are insanely incompetent and seem only interested in trying to hype / scare everyone into watching their station.  Seriously.   We got a hugely hyped forecast that predicted an 8-10+ inch snowstorm that ended up barely covering the grass and was mostly melted by the end of the day?  Nice. 

On the bright side, the kids got a day off of school, which meant they got to go sledding for the brief amount of time there was snow on the ground and build a snowman that met a soggy demise in the rain within an hour of building it.    I am now officially ready for springtime.  

2.  Doing Mad Libs with a 10-year-old boy can be pretty hazardous to your good senses. 

3.  Emma is an awesome planner.  She spent about 12-hours planning, shopping for, and preparing the food for New Beginnings.  She's using it as a 10-hour value project  for Personal Progress.  Look at how cute those Lorax Cupcakes turned out!!!!

4.  Being out of routine wears me out!  With one snow day, a 2-hour delay, Glen out of town, and kids home sick for 2 days, we are  living life on the edge of insanity.   I need some sleep and my weekend night owl teenagers don't seem very intent on letting me get it! 

5. Glen has really gained traction with his Team in Training momentum and might actually reach his $10,000 fundraising goal.  I am sad to admit that I was skeptical at first that he could do it, but he's soooooo close.  His marathon is next week. 

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/rnrusa13/ggooldnsbx

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Random interesting tidbit:
Here's a link to a recent article written about Glen and Spencer.  As Glen's marathon nears, interest in Spence's story is starting to pick up.  They've got a couple more interviews this week. 


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A Snowquester of Randomness

School is cancelled and I've got three pajama-clad kids all in bed with me.  They've got a rousing game of Wheel of Fortune going on the iPad and I am capitalizing on the unrushed morning to write a blogpost.  Glen had some important meetings to attend at work, so he braved the elements and headed into work.  Being the worrier that I am, I sent him with food, water, and a sleeping bag just in case.   I don't expect to see Spence and Cami out of bed until closer to lunchtime. 

We haven't had much snow to speak of the last couple of years, so the kids are quite excited by the expected 8-10 inches that are supposed to fall today.   They have grand visions of building giant snowmen,  exciting sledding escapades, and some catching up on their movie watching.  Mostly I was just excited to sleep in past 5:00am and have a good excuse to not get in the car today!  

I also hope to make some yummy treats with the kids.  After not eating refined sugar for an entire month, I am taking a short break before starting it back up again.  I am happy to say that my body is much more sensitive to sugar now and I cannot eat much before getting sick to my stomach.   Now I just need to get off my lazy behind and get back to exercising too!

On a totally different topic, yesterday I got this photo emailed to me from one of the office workers at the kids' elementary school.  It was taken last week on Dr. Seuss twin day.  Ellie had called her friend that morning to coordinate what to wear, but I never saw them together.  She had come home from school that day very tired and grumpy, so seeing this picture of her smiling and happy with her friend, just made my day.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love their elementary school?   We've had kids there for 12 years and I couldn't be happier with the teachers and the overall environment there.  It's a community that we feel blessed to be a part of! 

One more random thought.... I think it's hilarious that snowstorms are such a big deal around here that they've taken to naming them like they're hurricanes or something.  This one has been coined, "Snowquester," a name which cracks me up and makes me annoyed at the same time.  Much as I wonder what is wrong with politics these days that both sides just can't compromise a little and start making a real difference, I wonder why it is that we finally get our first real taste of winter right when I'm good and ready for spring to start?  And now it's raining and I'm annoyed that just like our broken political system, even our "Snowquester" is fizzling out without delivering the promised goods. 

In a Nutshell

I was dutifully typing up a rather detailed recap of this past month when I thought, "Oh nuts!  This is the most boring blogpost this side of the coconut tree."  

Then out of the blue I sneezed loudly, "CASHEW!"

Nearby,  Ellie was quick to exclaim, "Bless you, my hazelnutted eyed mother!"  

She then continued, "Did you know that pecan turn the snow yellow?" 

The exclamation and coconutty question from my little peanut gave me the perfectly marvelous idea to nutcracker the whole boring blogpost  and instead roast our entire month into a walnut shell. 

My little pistachios didn't think it could be done, but I believe that it's an idea that is nuttin' but macademical! 

Perhaps this blogpost about nuttin' much may yet put you to sleep, but at least you'll sleep tonight with a surer vision of how nutty your friend Lara really is.  :)  

Roadshow Fun

So I've been talking a lot about the stress the roadshow has caused me lately, but not really so much about the fun of it.  Now that it's over I figured that it's only fitting that I write a more detailed blogpost all about it, so you can see (and I can remember) that it was well worth the effort to see the end results. 

A roadshow is a  conglomeration of several short performances each about 10-15 minutes long, where the 12-18-year-old youth from the individual wards (church congregations) within our stake put on a show.  The shows were all based on the theme from the Dr. Seuss book, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"  We were encouraged  to use the thirteenth article of faith as a guide and make them wholesome (but not necessarily spiritual), praiseworthy, and fun! 

A roadshow director was in charge of each individual performance, but the youth were meant to do all of the performing and assist with the prep work, including helping to write the script, choreograph the dances, and paint the scenery. Although the youth were involved in the prep, there was still a significant amount for the adults to do as well.  Other adults helped the youth with costumes, choreography, constructing a set, planning the cast party, and gathering props.    My job was mostly to help corral the youth at the practices each week, to help the director (Sister M) with some of the details (printing individualized scripts for everyone, etc), and creating the paper program for the night.  I love paper projects like making programs, but I was a little intimidated by how to fit all the information, including the hundreds of performers' names all onto one sheet of paper and still have it look nice.   In the end I feel like it came together well in a tri-fold form that strongly resembled the sacrament meeting programs I made for several years. 

Never being much of a performer myself, I was a little surprised at how wrapped up I got in trying to help the individual youth take pride in their participation in the roadshow.  There was a good number of the youth (mostly boys) who would take any opportunity they could to bolt out of practice to the nearest basketball, but even still, somehow it all came together in the end. 

Here is the video our final performance.  It was the culmination of about 5-weeks of practice.  See Spencer as the Old Spice Guy at :45-1:35.  Emma whistles right at the end of that same scene and is in the front row (looking everywhere but at the audience) in some of the dances.  Cami is Miss Piggy right at the very end.  Ellie, who is obviously not quite old enough to be an official participant, but is always at practice with me, was so excited when the roadshow director said that she could participate.  You can see her as one of the animals in Spencer's scene and glimpses of her in each of the dances.  At the end of the performance she came bounding backstage to me (literally bounding) and shrieking about how excited she was that she'd been able to perform in "every single song!"  I sense a possible future thespian in the family!  :)

Although I am relieved that it is over, I love that it ended up being a fun experience for the whole family and hopefully for each of the youth as well.  To wrap up, I'll throw in a bunch of pictures and a list of the top ten things I enjoyed about participating in the roadshow! 

Top Ten Things about Participating in a Roadshow

10--Watching new friendships blossom between the youth.
9--Seeing fun new glimpses of their personalities.
8--Watching them help and encourage one another.
7--Watching a shy girl open up and give a performance her all.
6--Seeing how awesomely talented they all are in their own ways.
5--Getting a tiny glimpse at all the hard work it takes to perform on stage
4--Seeing how they embraced the new kid, including him in the production and in process helping him to feel part of the group
3--Hearing other people compliment your youth and their performance
2--Working hard towards a common goal and getting to enjoy the fruits of it at the end.
1--Getting to have fun together! 

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I thought our roadshows were pretty awesome, but imagine my surprise when I saw this headline on the front page of the Washington Post today...

Seriously?  How rude of them to be so judgmental against a bunch of teenagers.

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*  The video and pictures of Spencer were taken by the Nielson family.  :)

What a Difference a Year Makes

Flash back to this week last year and you will find Spencer recently readmitted to the hospital for his 2nd round of chemo.  All seemed to be going well when suddenly he was doubled over in extreme abdominal pain.  After a series of tests, it was determined that he needed to have his appendix removed via emergency surgery.  It was a scary time for us and a miserable time for Spencer as he battled the pain from the surgery and the side effects from chemo at the same time. 

Fast forward  a year later and you will find a much different picture. 

You will see a picture of a healthy lacrosse player that just made his high school varsity team and has recovered (physically and academically) from missing the entire second half of his junior year and was just accepted into BYU for this fall! 

Between all this exciting news and the roadshows being officially done (blogpost coming soon), I have a HUGE weight off of my shoulders.  I was on the verge of a complete meltdown on Friday night.  It was dress rehearsal night for the roadshows, I still hadn't quite finished the program for the next day,  and I could hear snippets of conversations of people talking about who was getting into BYU.  Spencer hadn't heard yet and I was getting more out-of-sorts by the minute.  At one point someone said they couldn't find their costume and it was the straw that broke open the floodgates of my stress and I just sat down in a dark corner and cried for a minute (not a normal behavior for me).  Shortly after pulling myself back together, we learned that Spencer had been accepted and the costume had been found.  The show went on and I spent the rest of the night much less stressed. 

I was surprised when a few hours later we arrived home and I found myself tearful again.  Instead of tears of stress this time, they were tears of relief and gratitude for how far we've come in a year.   It's been a long road and we are so grateful to be on this end of things.  We are proud of Spence and can't wait to see the bright future that awaits him! 

Finding Joy

When life gets crazy and I am feeling overwhelmed,
sometimes all it takes to get my mind back on track
is a quick glimpse of one of my kids. 

Today it was Ellie. 
She was getting ready for school
and just couldn't help but
stop to admire her reflection in the mirror. 

When I look in the mirror,
I see all of the things I wish I could improve--
the wrinkles, freckles, gray hair, the extra pudge around my middle. 

But for Ellie, the glimpse in the mirror was pure joy. 
Joy to see the color combination of her chosen outfit,
joy to see the way her homemade headband looked in her hair,
and joy that she was about to go off to school for the day.

I can't make the mirror make me look as young and cute as Ellie,
but I can look in the mirror and instead of seeing the faults,
look for the joys in my life. 

The joy of having a body that is healthy.
The joy of being busy and engaged.
The joy of having a kind and wonderful husband who cares for me.
The joy of watching our five children grow and learn and develop into pretty awesome people.
The joy of living in a free and beautiful land. 
The joy of being right here where I am today.


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"While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about."
~Angela Schwindt

What's on my mind...

In case you ever wondered why I am so scatterbrained...

Key to Lara's brain:
Roadshows:  I am assisting in trying to rally 50 teenagers in our church congregation to put on a  roadshow this weekend. I am also creating the paper program for the night.  The whole thing has been a fun, but challenging task to say the least.  Let me know if you're interested in joining us for some quality free family entertainment on Saturday night. 

New Beginnings:  Right after roadshows are done, it's time to buckle down and finish planning for New Beginnings (a once-a-year program for the Young Women in our ward).  I've been creating invitations, planning, and researching ideas like crazy.

Food:  Cami, Emma, and I are trying to cut out refined sugar out of our diets.  It's been a mostly good adjustment, but we keep trying to find ways to make sugar-free treats.  So far we've tried using honey, coconut sugar, and dates.  Let me know if you have any good recipes. 

Glen and the rest of the kids:  Life is busy, hectic, and good.   Spence and Cami are getting ready for lacrosse try-outs this week.  I love seeing Spencer healthy and strong!   For the most part Glen is enjoying his new job and the more positive work environment.  Emma gave her first talk in sacrament meeting today.  The topic was temples and she did a fabulous job!  I was especially impressed with how she wrote it completely herself several days ago and presented it confidently and with even a bit of humor.  Adam is Adam and is constantly finding ways to work his hobbies (like building Legos) into his school projects. 

Ellie:  Between Ellie's upcoming 8th birthday (for which she has grand visions for) and an increase in the frequency of her seizures, she is on my brain a lot lately.   I am especially sad that the seizures are beginning to affect her schoolwork and her interactions with her classmates.  We're in process of trying to get her some accommodations for her educational needs, but in the meantime I find myself worrying about her an awful lot (even more than Spencer lately). 

Everything else:  Email, blogging, laundry, etc. are getting only a tiny sliver of my brainpower right now.