Water Fun

I found a slip 'n' slide on sale for $9. It seemed like a no-brainer to buy it, plus it paid for itself in one day...three hours of fun for the kids, three hours of quiet for me. Awesome.

Merritt makes the slide into home base...safe!

Grant would scoot to the end and then splash in the pool.

Grace never got into the whole "run and slide" thing. She too much of a cautious cat for that kind of craziness.

A good time was had by all!

And to continue with the water theme...pics from our trip to the lake!

At 65 degrees the water was way too cold for Chad and I...yes, we are wusses. We stood in water up to our knees and watched as the kids jumped in with abandon. Their fun wasn't stymied by a little cold water!

Grant, the cold water, and the beautiful mountain setting.

We could barely lure them out of the water...even for lunch!

We had big smiles at the end of the day...

and one tired 2-year old!

The Big 5

Grace is now five...I can hardly believe it. Where does the time go? She had some requests for her 5th birthday: she wanted to go to Merritt's school, have a cat, play soccer, get a Jasmine doll, eat chocolate cake, and (most importantly) go to the beach. The first will have to wait until September when kindergarten starts, but the rest were totally doable.

My first dilemma was how to make a chocolate cake into a girlie sort of affair. I mean, it's brown...what are you going to do? Luckily, I found some princess decorations (castles and tiaras and such) along with some fairy wand candles, so we were set. It was not the fanciest thing ever, but Grace declared it was "so beautiful" and gave me a big "Thank you Mom!" along with an even bigger hug. All was well.

Grace was also giddy about the birthday decor. She told Chad that she didn't want to play outside because it wasn't her birthday out there.


After "blowing out the candles - take two" (Grant totally ran up and blew out her candles the first time we brought the cake out...he was super excited about the whole thing) we tackled the presents.

The first was an apron that reads "Super Cute Assistant". Grace loves to help me out in the kitchen and is always handing me my apron. When I found an apron just her size, I knew I had to buy it. She loves it and sleeps in it.

Next, we got her a "cat". Grace named it Snowflake. She is wearing her "Fancy Nancy" sunglasses as well. They came with a purse and a book. :)


In a total stroke of luck (which was really a tender mercy) I found a Jasmine doll in Target. Was the doll back with the other dolls in the toy isle? No. It just so happened that the cashier (name of Jasmine) who checked me out collected Disney dolls. When I bemoaned to her the fact that I couldn't find a Jasmine doll anywhere, she promptly popped over to another isle and produced the very doll I was looking for. She said that they had only arrived the night before. Sweet!

And then, in the midst of all the foo-foo pink mess that is a little girl's birthday...a blue and white soccer ball. It seemed so out of place, but she loved it.

Finally, the beach. No matter how much Chad and I love Grace we just don't have the power to make the beach appear in our home. Plus, Utah is landlocked...it seemed like a thorny problem but we did some research and found a beach not too far away. We are going for a day trip this coming Saturday. It will be so fun! I feel like the birthday fairy...wishes granted!

No one can do this...

And by that I mean: make a $1 kite fly...it just doesn't work. I know that some people think the dollar store is the best thing on earth, but I don't share that sentiment. It is full of crap. I'd rather not receive a present than get something from the dollar store that breaks within five minutes of purchase. What a waste of time and money! I'd much rather save up and buy something worth owning. Case in point: the kids recieved some dollar store kites as a gift at Easter time. In the high winds today, we had the idea to pull them out and try to fly them. The kids were really excited, but their hopes of kite-flying fun were dashed within five minutes as the kites came crashing to earth and broke into many pieces.
While momentarily dismayed, the kids were not out of ideas yet. They took their kite strings and ran around and around the playground until they had wrapped it up good and tight. At least they were able to still have fun.

Are We Born Moral Beings?

I've had this post in my head for a while, but time and life and circumstances don't always permit one to sit down and type one's thoughts. School is now out, however, and that helps the whole time issue immeasurably, so here we go.

(Merritt- 3 months old)
I was cleaning Marie's house a few weeks ago and listening to NPR...I love NPR. Marie totally got me hooked on it so it's all her fault that I am now a public radio geek. The Friday News Round-up with Diane Rehm is really excellent and I love Radio West with Doug Fabrizio (a local show broadcast on-site at KUER in SLC!). So, on this particular day, Doug F. was interviewing a Yale psychologist named Dr. Paul Bloom who has been conducting experiements to determine whether or not we are born with an innate sense of morality. To that end he and his wife (also a psychologist) did a series of tests and experiments using babies as young as 6 months old and discovered that, "babies possess certain moral foundations — the capacity and willingness to judge the actions of others, some sense of justice, [and] gut responses to altruism and nastiness." This is direct contradiction to the long held notions of scientists and humanists that we come into this world as blank slates, and that our notions of morality are written in our hearts by our parents. While it is true that the home in which we are raised shapes, in large measure, our world view and notions of right and wrong, it is our Divine Parent who has given us a light to guide our lives right from the very start. It is the light of Christ, "the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (D&C 93:2).

(Grace - 1 month old)
Dr. Bloom examines some very interesting points in his article, one of which involves the idea of God's hand in our moral development. He quotes Alfred Russel Wallace, who worked with Charles Darwin in developing the theory of natural selection. Wallace felt "that certain human capacities — including 'the higher moral faculties' — are richer than what you could expect from a product of biological evolution. He concluded that some sort of godly force must intervene to create these capacities." Bloom also quoted Dinesh D'Souza, a social and cultural critic, who holds the same view expressed by Alfred Russell Wallace. "[D'Souza] conceded that evolution can explain our niceness in instances like kindness to kin, where the niceness has a clear genetic payoff, but he drew the line at 'high altruism,' acts of entirely disinterested kindness. For D’Souza, 'there is no Darwinian rationale' for why you would give up your seat for an old lady on a bus, an act of nice-guyness that does nothing for your genes. And what about those who donate blood to strangers or sacrifice their lives for a worthy cause? D’Souza reasoned that these stirrings of conscience are best explained not by evolution or psychology but by 'the voice of God within our souls'."

(Grant - 8 months old)
Though Dr. Bloom in the end states that "there is no need to posit divine intervention" and that what we should truly celebrate instead is cultural morality, or our ability to make the world a better place through our own learning and hard-won insight, I took away from this article something else: I saw the hand of God in our development as beings capable of deep goodness. Without the light of Christ we truly would be born the amoral animals Sigmund Freud believed us all to be at birth. Without the light of Christ we would not have that basic knowledge of right and wrong, nor be led to godly things. It is the influence of our Heavenly Father, our own divine natures, and the acceptance of the Holy Ghost that lead us to be better than evolutionary biology would ever expect us to be. Don't be too quick to pat humanity on the back for the development of a higher morality Dr. Bloom, for we surely don't deserve the credit. "Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever" (Alma 26:8).

To read Dr. Paul Bloom's article in full, click here.