Mulch Madness

March 11:  

Some people start talking about "March Madness" this time of year, but around here we start talking about "MULCH Madness."  What is Mulch Madness?  It's an annual fundraiser we do for our ward's youth group.    It's a HUGE undertaking where we deliver thousands and thousands (this year about 40,000) bags of mulch to local residents and it partially funds all of our youth activities for the summer.  

Usually I let Glen and the kids take the lion-share of our family's involvement with the fundraiser and I stay home with the younger kid(s).   This year, though, Glen was too busy and it was me or nothing, so I've spent the last two days toting vanfuls of youth around town and throwing around 50-lb bags of mulch like they were nothing.  

Here is my crew from yesterday.   

They may be cute and petite, but that doesn't mean they were wimpy!  I got to witness their amazing strength up close and personal!

They were AWESOME!!!!  

...and I slept VERY soundly last night.  

March 12: 
Today we woke up at the crack of dawn to go for day 2 of Mulch Madness.   This time Emma and friends went with another driver and  I ended up with Adam in my group.

He and his friends were bursting with energy and it was fun to watch their enthusiasm and positive attitude for a demanding job.  

I thought it especially funny that they just randomly decided to do a sit-up for every bag of mulch they delivered.  That meant nearly 900 just today and still they were smiling at the end of the day.   

My Saturday work crew!  

We delivered record numbers of mulch this year and still managed to finish in record time.   

We can definitely check this off as another successful MULCH MADNESS fundraiser! 

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A Little Brighter

March 10:     

We have a sibling group text going amongst most of us Crains. It's mostly a lot of political banter and trading cute stories about the kids, but since there are so many of us, it's not unusual that on any given day at least one of us is feeling a little grumpy or off.  

 It's become a tradition that when anyone says something negative about their day that we trade cute pictures of our kids.  My kids are cute-ish still, but really aren't likely to make anyone's day better.   It's Matt's kids that we really want to see pictures of.   Not only do they live across the Atlantic from us, which means we don't see them much anymore, but they're also the youngest of the Crain cousins, which clearly also makes them the cutest!   

 Seriously!  How could you keep from smiling with that sweet face beaming out from your text messages?  

Yesterday though, instead of sending pictures of his kids, Matt started sending out old pictures of US!  Here's a picture of me and my baby brother, Nate.   Actually we were both babies still.   I was only 13-months old when he was born and surely didn't really know what hit me, but it was fun to see that I liked little babies even then!  

I am grateful for Nate, Kristina, Peter, Heather, Matt, AnnaLisa, and Tim (and Mom and Dad)!

I'm blessed to call them family! 

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Awesome Night

March 9:  

The last couple of weeks have been one nonstop thing after another on our schedule.   So what better way to slow down and rejuvenate than a temple trip with the awesome young women and young men from our ward?   We only had about 50% of the youth there, but it was a fantastic night, made even more fantastic by the fact that so many of the youth brought their own family names to the temple...many of them for the first time.     In fact, they brought so many names with them that they didn't even get through a third of them (they finished about 100 out of the 319 names they brought).   

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Spring is Here

March 8:   

What's the best about homeschooling on a beautifully warm spring-like day?   

The opportunity to rearrange our schedules and spend time outside enjoying it!   

They still got some schoolwork done, but Ellie and Adam also ended up playing frisbee golf with their friend, Andrew, and Emma and I went for a walk at Gravelly Point with friends.  

Later Adam and his friend, Luke, spent time outside unwinding a baseball...

and eventually found out what the center looks like.  

Tonight we had one more youth family history night at our house and helped a few of them find 50+ more names to take to the temple tomorrow night!   

All in all, a beautiful and successful day! 

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Hi Laura!

March 7: 

Most people think that my parents were just creative spellers who decided to be cute and leave the "U" out of Laura when they named me.  But I'm here to tell the world that it just isn't so!    Not only is "Lara" its own name, with its own derivation (Russian) and meaning (citadel; shining one), but you won't even find "Lara" on the variant spelling list of "Laura", nor will you find "Laura" on the variant spelling list of "Lara".   

If my name was 10 letters long, I'd understand, but somehow the way those four letters comes together seems to confound everyone, even my good friends who have known me for years.   I try not to care when I get yet another email  addressed, "Hi Laura!"   But truth is, I do care.   I instantly feel a pang of worry that somehow that person doesn't care as much as I thought they did, especially when they don't correct themselves.  

  Please spread the word that it means a lot to people, especially to people with more unusually spelled names, that spelling matters!    

My name is  L-A-R-A, which is not interchangeable with Laura! 

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Laura: 

The name Laura is a Latin baby name. In Latin the meaning of the name Laura is: Laurel tree or sweet bay tree (symbols of honour and victory).  

Lara: 

The name Lara is a Russian baby name. In Russian the meaning of the name Lara is: Citadel (protection); Shining one.

A Delight

March 6: 

Glen and I have been talking a lot lately about making the Sabbath day more of a delight in our home.   The idea is based on the scripture, Isaiah 58:13, and it's been a thought provoking process for us.   For a long time, we've thought of  keeping the Sabbath day holy more of us keeping to a list of things we can't do, but now we're trying to be more deliberate about making it more of a day to bring us closer to God and help increase our faith.   

So what kinds of things are we doing to make the day more of a delight?   

Well, in addition to going to church, today we did boatloads of family history to get ready for our youth temple trip this week, 

we made and brought cupcakes to one of my young women whose birthday is today,

 we ate a simple break-the-fast meal of nachos, Glen and the girls went to their Savior of the World play practice, Emma got caught up on her seminary reading, I wrote a few letters and got some YW work done, Ellie did some artwork of a temple, and we listened to beautiful music on my favorite Sunday channel on Pandora.  

We're not perfect at it by any means, but as we've tried to be more deliberate about our Sabbath observance, I've definitely felt an increased peace and sense of renewal to begin our week.   

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8 Miles, A New Hobby, and Cami for the "W"

March 5:  

Adam and I went for an 8-mile hike today along the C&O towpath and  Billy Goat trail A.  Along the way we saw 11 great blue herons, 3 bald eagles, a bunch of beautiful scenery, and a raccoon.  

Tonight Cami and the women's lacrosse team played in a home game against U of U.   They beat the Utes 12-7 and Cami got  a little playing time, which was good since she had a pretty substantial cheering section there just for her.   

And on a completely random note, I skimmed this article this morning....

and couldn't stop laughing when I got to this part....

Apparently, some people have a wee bit too much time on their hands.

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Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Morning

March 4: 

These woods are ones I really know. 

I drive through them daily to and fro; 

I sometimes like to stop here 

To watch the woods fill up with snow. 

My little car must think it queer 

To drive with so many snowflakes near 

In the quiet woods near my house just starting to awake

The gray and sparkly morning:  likely the last of the year. 

I pause to soak it in and then a deep breath take  

And brace myself for another day to move and shake. 

My list of things to-do is long and deep 

Full of busy tasks and decisions to make. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep.

with apologies to Robert Frost

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A Very Difficult Riddle

March 3:   

What do you get when you cross a harried mom, a steepish driveway, and a carload of food from Costco?  

A big mess on my driveway that pretty accurately reflects the current state of my brain right now!  

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Flower for a Jerk?

March 2:
Lately I've been losing sleep over the actions of a toxic person in my life. Finally I put my finger on how to describe him:

*bully: verb
1. use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants.

I have all sorts of choice words I'd love to throw his way, but I've tried very hard to be patient and
disciplined in my responses to him. Hopefully, in time, I can help affect a change to happen, a change that will benefit many and eventually put the bully in his place.

In the meantime, I just read this book (The Language of Flowers: A Novel) for book group. I very much enjoyed reading and discussing it. It's about a young girl who grows up in the foster system feeling very unworthy of love. Somewhere along the way she has a foster parent who teaches her the meanings that different flowers can portray and she develops a love for flowers and their language. Eventually she ages out of the foster system and she is thrust into "real life" without any support or skills, other than her knowledge of flowers. It's a beautiful story of learning about who she is and what she can accomplish.

Now I just need to find a flower that means, "You're a *chauvinistic jerk-face bully," and give it to a certain someone.

*NOTE: Just to be clear, the aforementioned "chauvinistic jerk-face bully "is not related to me in any way.

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Super Electrified Tuesday

March 1: 

Today I voted and did my token effort to stem the craziness that seems to have overtaken our country.    It didn't work, but at least I did my small part. 

Luckily our science experiment was a little more successful and Adam and his friend figured out how to power a calculator with lemons.    

Nothing but Pictures

I'm in over my head with life right now and I've got nothing left for blogging.  Nothing bad is happening; it's just a lot of different things pulling me in different directions and it's left me with  absolutely nothing extra.   I can't do creative.  I can't do stories.  This post is basically just a picture a day from the last week.       


February 23: One of our favorite youth activities of the year is ice skating and my kids love it.

A noble try for a diet friendly lunch from California Tortilla, but alas, it was way better looking than tasting.

February 24: Rain, rain, rain.

February 25:  Beautiful sunrise on the way home from dropping Emma off at seminary.

February 26:   Despite the fact that we've had these crazy good looking cupcakes sitting around our house for the last few days, I've stayed strong and haven't had a single bite.  And if you knew how much I like frosting, you'd know that that's actually a pretty big deal for me!

February 27:  Glen went to Colorado for the weekend to see Cami play in a lacrosse tournament at CU in Boulder.    His mom and dad also came, which was extra fun for Cami and Glen.

 Glen misses the mountains.

Cami scored two goals.  

February 28:  We had a wonderful New Beginnings program tonight.

I absolutely love these girls!

February 29:  It was  a beautiful spring-like day, which called for reading a book while hanging out of the sunroof (in a parking lot) and going for a quick walk around the block.  

Apparently it's also time for Adam to get his hair cut.  

Awesome to Lame

February 20: 

We had another youth family history night at our house on Saturday.    Together the youth found about 100 names to take to the temple and the whole experience lit a fire in Ellie.  Now that she knows how to do it, she's gone and found another 25 or so more names for a total of 31 in two days' time.   

Ellie has a family history buddy (another 10-year-old), who also found several names to take to the temple. 

Emma and Elena together found over 50 names. 

February 21:

On Sunday we had an extra six kids sitting in our row at church and although I didn't get anywhere near as much out of the talks as I normally do, it was absolutely delightful to look down the row and see the row of cuties!   We had the kids' cousins, McKenzie, Bridgette, Lauren, and Davin with us, and two other friends whose baby brother just had surgery.   

February 22:

When all else fails....post pictures of your food.   In this case it's chicken breasts "breaded" with a cashew, coconut, chia seed concoction.   It actually was pretty tasty with some spinach and a little dressing.     

This week is looking to be C-R-A-Z-Y to the extreme with a lot on my plate (and I'm not talking about food anymore), so don't be surprised if my blogposts this week are a little on the lame side....you know to match my lame sense of fashion and my lame personality.      

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