I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go!

So we all made guesses about where Bryce would be called on his mission and I've never posted the final list or announced the winner (who was closest) so here it is. (sorry the map picture is sideways, but I'm not going to try to fix it - i feel lucky it's even on here at all)

The guesses were: Dad - Russia

                                 Spencer - Russia (cuz it is orange on the map, his fav. color)

                                 Luke - Kiev, Ukraine 

                                 Danny - Taiwan

                                 Julie - New England States

                                 Lindsay - Ireland and Harlem, NY (2 guesses were allowed)

                                 Mom - Argentina and Florida

                                 Chad - Florida

                                 Christy - Chile

                                 Emily - Chile

                                 Katherine - New Zealand

                                 Clayton - Australia

                                 Conner - Brazil

                                 Lucy - Chicago

                                 Camille - Madagascar 

                                 

                                 

                                 

And the call is to - MEXICO, LEON MISSION! Bryce gets to be the first one to learn Spanish! So Romanian, German and Spanish in this family. Wow! (Dad and I have been saying we wanted to learn Spanish for years! Dad ordered a computer program - will we do it now?)

 

S0000 - the place picked that is closest to Leon Mexico is actually Florida! (Steve's mission field - cool!) Which means Chad is the winner ( Florida was my 2nd choice-can I share?) 

The BIG PRIZE will be awarded you at Fentons on Feb.16th. Excited? 

I Hope They Call Me . . .!

It's been far too long that a ? filled water bottle has been my lead blog. And so much has happened in our lives (my excuse for not blogging) that I'll never catch up - so i'll just skip to our most recent exciting news (hoping to catch up on other events later - ha ha!) 

We have a missionary son again!!  You'd think after having two other sons get mission calls that I'd be used to the nerves, the anticipation, the WAITING for the call to come in the mail. Ha! After the papers go in the butterflies in the stomach begin! And this is our youngest child (oh, no - I can't start with the "my baby" stuff - i'll make myself hurl!) From the time they are Sunbeams a little boy learns to sing "I hope they call me on a mission when I have grown a foot or two!", but not until you put in the papers does the reality set it! I hope they call me on a mission - but WHERE IN THE WORLD will they send me???

Here is that boy - no MAN - Bryce C. Leininger, age 18 3/4, - dressed in missionary garb for the mission paper photo. But taking this picture is the easy part. It's the medical exams, dental exam, wisdom teeth (or tooth in his case) extraction, forms and more forms, Bishop and Stake pres. interviews etc. etc.  When the final signature is signed and the final button is pushed (everything on internet now) the wait begins - and compared to when things were all done by snail mail - it's really very fast. (we're just spoiled these days)
Finally the day arrives (and my pics are in reverse order as usual) and the call is in his hand. Bryce loves to torment us if he can. He let us get the envelope out of the mailbox  because he was at work - but if we even thought about opening it - well I will not tell you the consequences he threatened us with (they could keep him from going on a mission!) So we waited - patiently? until he came home from work. (holding the envelope up to the light doesn't work by the way)
Yes, his father was at the mailbox when the post man drove up to deliver the mail. Here he is proving that it has arrived and he is following instructions to NOT OPEN IT (feel it, steam it open etc. etc.) (Hurry and get home Bryce!)
Bryce does arrive home and then, as planned and in following a tradition set by his older brothers, Bryce takes the envelope and drives away to open it in private somewhere. This is probably exactly what I would do if I was getting a call - so I could adjust for a minute before telling everyone else - but for us!! It's like payback for the hot-chocolate torture on Christmas morning!(drink all your hot cocoa before you get to see what Santa brought!) Arggg - we can't wait to know!!!!
WELL . . .  He comes in the door  - he is excited, jumping up and down (good signs!) and loves that he knows where he's going and we don't yet!! Finally he reads us the call which has at the bottom Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley's name - probably one of the last groups of mission calls to carry his signature. It's wonderful! 

Here is Steve and Lucy's reaction! Hooray, Bryce is going on a mission to. . . . oh I'll carry on the tradition and make you wait until my next blog to know. (which will be right away and be on top of this so it's no fun!) 

Found in the Bushes

My last blog was kinda sappy and made too many people sad so I'm moving on to the here and now. Today Bryce (our 18 year old son home from college and preparing for his mission. He just had his wisdom tooth out and is home recovering. Our idea of recovery is yard work. He can't wait to go to his city job on Monday!) was trimming the huge hedge out front and found this water bottle partially full of a dark yellow unidentified liquid hidden deep inside the bush. Ewwww. After using tongs to extract it I took a this picture. 

I have several ideas about what this mysterious liquid might be but my mind tends to go right to the most morose scenario. And I'm way too grossed out to actually unscrew the lid and smell it or anything. It is obviously not just old bottled water. 

So maybe like Nancy Drew I'll try to gather information from the many suspects out there. I do have boys and know that often they hate to stop what they're doing to come inside to use the facilities when nature calls - but i doubt a water bottle would have been a necessary receptacle in that instance.  So if any of you have any theories, ideas - or confessions - please post them here. Thanks for your help in solving the Mystery of the hidden water bottle containing yellow liquid.

Babyhood

While I'm thinking about my babies and growing up and all that nostalgic stuff I might as well embarrass myself further and post this little thing I wrote (kind of a poem I guess) about my grandson, Conner. I was lying next to him, trying to help him fall asleep, on the night before his mommy (my daughter, Julie) was going to come home from the hospital with his new baby brother. Conner was innocently unaware of how much his life would change - all for the better - but nonetheless, he would not be the baby anymore. (Sorry Julie and you other young moms if this makes you sad. It's really not that bad. You never miss diapers.)

On the night before

the new baby comes home

your two-year-old fingers cling to mine

as if holding on to something you don't want to lose.

Sleep creeps up and lowers your two-year-old eyelids - you can't

keep it back! Like growing up, you can't stop it, can't keep

it wrapped tightly like two-year-old fingers

now relaxing around mine, and 

babyhood drifts away

like a dream.

Growing up or Growing Old Continued

Luke, 6 months.
Luke, 30 yrs. (i guess i won't be writing his age on the back of his portraits anymore) Here with his wife Emily (forever 19 looking), Spencer (3) and Camille (18mo.)

If you have read my blog in the last few minutes you would realize that I accidentally posted it before getting very far - twice! I am still really struggling with this being over 30 and trying to be techie.

So to continue .... The blogs of those young mothers bring back lots of memories of life when my five children were all shorter than I am and I was the center of the three-ring circus we called home. I loved it, even though I complained too much all the way through those wild years.

My oldest "baby" just turned 30 this month. (yikes!) I can't possibly be old enough to have a 30-year old child even if I was a mere child myself when he was born. His baby picture is a little fuzzy because in those days we had cameras that used film (if you have any, you better save it to show your kids - they will have no idea what you're talking about) and had to wait weeks for the prints to be developed. So I took a picture of his baby picture with my iphone to post on this blog - thus the fuzz.(I love my iphone almost as much as my family - and a lot more than blogger!!)

I think I loved having kids around so much because I could keep pretending I wasn't growing up. My favorite part of the week now is when I help in my friend's Kindergarten classroom. I can do all the things I most love to do with a bunch of friends - fingerpaint, cut things up, glue things on, listen to stories, sing silly songs, build with wooden blocks, wipe my nose on my sleeve and giggle.

Kindergarten reminds me of all the other things I loved about childhood too: pretending, dressing up, playing outside instead of "exercising", tasting something for the first time, building forts, having races (ok, skinned knees, but then someone to kiss it and make it better) climbing trees, swinging, tag, hiding in really small places, watching airplane tracks in the sky while lying in the grass, never worrying about time or schedules (someone will just tell me what to do next) and, of course, TOYS!

I know I have a double standard - I've sometimes told my children (and myself actually) to  "grow up" - be responsible, make decisions, think about others, take care of your stuff and lots of other things that I know are important and that we really must do. But my fear is I'll forget what it's like to be a kid and then that would be going too far! That would be growing OLD - my biggest fear of all time - the really big monster under my bed! I don't want to grow old more than I didn't want to eat tomatoes when I was six! 

Of course, there's really no preventing the birthday thing - even my 30-year-old son has to accept the fact that he will never again be able to blow out all the candles at once. But do we have to grow old? Thank heavens for grandchildren!!! And thank heavens for their parents who let me hang out with them now and then. With them I can keep pretending!

Growing Up or Growing Old

Most of the blogs I read are from young mothers. I love seeing the pictures of their babies and kids and reading about their fun/busy lives. I realize I've forgotten just how exhausting and crazy it can get, but I remember enough to be quite impressed that they still find time to blog.

Growing up or