This And That

We've been sick and sick again, but in between bouts of sickness. We have had some fun with feeding the ducks.  As soon as I saw the pond I knew Josh would somehow end up in it.  And I was right.  He "accidently"kicked his boot into the pond and had to go get it.

We also have lots of fun shooting baskets.  I am quite impressed with Josh's determination he will shoot baskets for a half hour at a time - his Dad gets a little teary thinking about it.

A sick picture....

Justin got to cash in his christmas present from my parents and got to go to a Jazz game with my siblings.

Anna and Josh decided to "save all their toys from the beast" while I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom.  I heard them yelling and running, but they were happy so I didn't go downstairs....

oh and check out my cool new picture above my couch.  I love it!

Anna and Josh have been darling friends lately (oh they still fight a lot, but they have been having more friendly moments -- and anna suddenly calls him Joshy which melts me)  They love to make beds in random places and sleep in them...

And we scored some sweet potato heads from our neighbors that have proved entertaining for at least a day.

I love these two pictures.  I definitely have a GIRL and a BOY.

We attempted to fly Josh's new kite with no wind.  It was actually quite effective, especially at wearing out my kids.  (run faster, don't slow down....)

Anna discovered a new way to reach the top shelf.  She cried when I told her no.  She was proud of herself and quite offended that I was not as impressed.

And we have been doing quite a few science experiments.  I had a science book that I bought at a thrift store we had been using, but even with my limited science background I knew that most of what it said was incorrect.  For instance,  a blown up balloon is not heavier than an empty one because air has weight - in fact when we did the experiment it wasn't noticeably heavier at all. So we gave up on the 30 year old thrift store book and headed to the trusty library.  It's been something fun to do with both of my kids who are at such different developmental stages....not relaxing by any means.  I was running around during this whole experiment, but fun.

Why I Married Him....

Now whenever Anna realizes that her nail polish is chipping and gets the appalled look on her face she pats my cheeks and says, "Daddy will do it..."

We had a small snow day here, not only did Justin not make me help with the snow man.... (we'd just gotten back from lots of snow in ID don't think I'm a total Scrooge)

 He danced with the kids in public singing "Frosty the Snowman" and got told to be quiet by our neighbor because their baby was sleeping.

They love their Daddy.

World Events

I love learning about world events.  In college I subscribed to different news magazines and loved getting the LA Times when we lived in California - despite it's liberalness.   However, when we moved here I hit a bit of a dry spell.  We tried subscribing to the Deseret News, but it never got here until 9 am or later and it honestly wasn't that great.  So we canceled it.  And I am definitely not a watching the news type of person, especially since I have little kids.  I don't like having the TV on too much and you never know what image will flash across the screen to permanently scar your children.  So I was out of the loop in a big way, for the first time since I turned 18 I didn't vote.  I'm still waiting to be struck by lightening for that one.....

Then... I read Atlas Shrugged.  I don't agree with a lot of the author's hypothesis, but I loved reading about IDEAS again, and thinking about how they applied to my own philosophy (don't worry I won't bore anyone with my detailed thoughts on this book:)) - so after that I started listening to NPR off and on on my computer when I got a chance.  And then joy of joys around my birthday Justin subscribed to the Wall Street Journal ( I know Natalie is thinking "nerd alert" in her head:)), which started coming right before the Middle East started to erupt.  I am addicted, I forgot how nice it is to think about things and really try and analyze situations, and have fun conversations with my husband beyond kids, and what we will do with our future.

However, I have a problem.  How do you ever know what is accurate?  There is so much misleading information and I don't honestly have time to read something from more than one source.  Most of the time I can only skim the front page.  - An example of media inaccuracy: I recently started a book about Columbine written by a reporter who covered the event.  He admits they got almost everything wrong in the initial coverage and never corrected it.  For example, the boys that committed the crime - not loners who liked to play video games all day, they were fairly popular and smart....

I have been following the Egypt crisis as much as I can.  From all the reports it seems like there is no one leading the revolts, just a bunch of factions without a central leader.  However, today I read an article online stating that the same thing happened in the Iranian revolution - protests with no apparent central leader.  The liberal Iranians who wanted democracy were the only ones that spoke English and therefore were the ones speaking to the press, when the fundamentalist Islamists stepped in, it took everyone by surprise - at least in the West....

As you can see I really like international politics, but I struggle with more local and national ones.  I just find it so frustrating to try and get accurate information, but I do believe it's my responsibility to be educated and make a difference where I can.  I feel blessed to have so much information at my finger tips, but also find it difficult to sort through.  Does anyone have any opinions on this?  Where to you get your news?