Mitch made these end-tables for a friend of ours as a gift, and they turned out beautifully! He was kind of out of his element with the style, but our friend was very excited.

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Well, I sat down to read a book yesterday and about ten minutes later this is what I saw. I jumped up and snapped this picture. Noah then looked up and said, "Mom, did you know that dolphins use echo-location just like bats?" Inside my jaw dropped, but I just said, "Why yes, I did know that!" Sometimes I think my kids are really little know-it-all aliens in disguise.

Hi, Everybody! I wanted to say to all of you who have signed the parental rights ammendment petition THANK YOU!!!! I am so pleased with the response of all my friends, family, and neighbors. I'm happy to report that all is going well with our family. The kids are keeping up on their studies and anxiously gearing up for a new unit on George Washington. We spent most of Monday making St. Patricks Day decorations for our kitchen. We now have a somewhat psychotic looking leprechaun on our pantry. The funniest thing that has happened is that Mitch was asked to speak at our temple chapel session tomorrow night. He's the only speaker, and he's terrified. Luckily, there is this huge school thing going on that night and the bishopric doesn't expect much of a turn-out.

Hey it's been awhile! I've been pretty busy with some volunteer work that I'm doing, and I'd love to share it with you. About a year or so back, I was doing some online research for homeschool and I came accross a website called parentalrights.org. Now some of you may have heard me talk about it, or you may have noticed the link to the site and blog in my sidebar. What you may not know, is that this is an organization whose purpose is to protect the traditional role of the family, specifically, from the UN treaty called the Convention on the rights of the Child (CRC). Many places in the media the CRC is trumpeted as protecting children, but it does this by putting children and the government in charge of raising children. In the CRC children are guaranteed rights such as freedom of association, freedom of information, and a right to leisure. What this means is that as a parent if your 12 year old daughter wants to stay out until midnight on a school night with a 20 year old boyfriend you can't stop her. It means you have to provide access to whatever information you child desires. You can't curtail their internet access or keep them from harmful influences. In Italy it has been used to pass legislation requiring parents to support their adult children until they find a job "to their liking." This treaty states that the government has the right to assess whether or not your decisions as a parent are in the "best interests" of the child, but gives absolutely no criteria for determining what the best interest may be. The real kicker is that we've already signed it. Madeline Albright signed it during the Clinton administration, but never sent it to congress to be ratified. Well, guess what! Just this week Barbara Boxer has started petitioning to not only bring it to a vote, but to fast track it in 60 days. She's not alone. Hillary Clinton has been an outspoken advocate for the CRC, after all, it takes a village remember? Also, President Obama has stated that he is dedicated to strengthening our ties with the UN and making sure all treaties are ratified. Now, constitutional law states that if we ratify a treaty that enumerates specific rights that are not mentioned in our constitution that treaty becomes the law of the land, so the only way to gaurantee that this doesn't become the law of the land if ratified is to pass a new constitutional ammendment that protects the rights of parents as the authority over children. I'm Helping to get signatures for the petition. I ask everyone who is over 18 who reads this to take a little time to check-out the website, and become informed about this assault on the family. You can sign it online, but even better talk to the people around you and keep informed. We have an obligation as believers in traditional family to be proactive in protecting it. I hope you feel the same way.

Well, we finally took a family snow machine trip today. We took the kids up to Mesa Falls. They all had a great time! Kaden helped us out by driving Mitchell around. No amount of coaxing could convince Steve to come with, but I will not give up!! Maybe next time! Grace was true to form. She refused to ride with anyone other than her Daddy because he goes the fastest! She tuckered out on the way back, and when we pulled into the parking lot she was asleep. There were so many people out! We saw hikers in snowshoes, dogsleds, and even a couple of guys riding motorbikes. All in all, it was a great trip, and we plan on repeating it.

This is what it's all about!! Mitch got the day off today, so I asked him to take over the boys lessons while I finally took down Christmas. About half-way through he decided that they all needed a break. This is what followed. I don't care who you are, some things in life are jsut too much fun!!