Painting the Stairs

I appologize to all my fans for not posting for some time.
Rachel and the kids spent a week in Utah while I was back in Georgia working. This proved to be a great time to get things done around the house.
One of the things I wanted to do is paint the stairs. A few months ago, we ripped the carpet off the stairs and painted them white. This makes them much easier to clean given the fact that dispite the prohibition from having food on the stairs, food often gets spilled on the stairs.
We painted them with regular latex paint. This was a bad idea. After a few weeks, the paint started wearing, and staining, and looking shabby.
I thought that it would be great to paint the stairs while the family is gone because once you paint them, you need to let them dry before you walk on them.
I went and purchased some great oil-based paint designed for stairs and other high traffic areas. I painted the stairs, and not really thinking, I tried to clean up with soap and water. This was not an effective method. In a few minutes, I had completely white hands, and all the soap and water seemed to do very little about it. Unfortunately, I was not aware of the paint thinner we had in the shed. I stood there for a few minutes, thinking, "Wow, Matt you are really in a pickle." Short of waiting for my hands to dry, and then driving to home depot and getting paint thinner, I had no idea what to do.

After a few minutes, I thought of the olive oil in the cupboard. (Extra virgin). I pored some on my hands and it they cleaned right up. I was amazed. Not only did they clean right up, but they also smelled faintly like a pizza. It was a win win situation.

So to help Rachel feel better when she reads this, the next time I painted, I used the corn oil to clean my hands, not the olive oil.

So why do we get beds for our children?

For the first 5 years of having children we did not have any beds for our children. The kids had a mattress on the floor. For the most part it was a new matress, but there was no bed frame. (just in case you think we are depriving our kids, know that the adults do not have a bed frame either.)
However, about a year ago, a nieghbor asked us if we wanted some bunk-beds for the kids. We said yes, and Calvin was very excited for the top bunk. It worked well for about 6 months, at which time Calvin wanted to move back to the floor. This made the arrangement Calvin on the floor (again), and caleb on the bottom bunk. About a week ago, Caleb wanted to move to the top bunk. Calvin and Caleb argued about it for 20 minutes, eventually the deal was Caleb could sleep there for one night, and then it would be come Calvin's. On the second night, Caleb moved down to Calvin's old spot on the floor. 4 nights into it Calvin wants his spot on the floor back. Caleb will not budge. Now, Calvin and Caleb have two different spots on the floor, and no one in in the bunk bed. However, it is a great place for storing toys.

Shenandoah

Yesterday was perhaps the first time we had a member of the Seventy attend ward conference. The fact that he lives in the ward and did not have any other assignments could be the reason. He spoke for about 10 minutes. He quoted the parable of the Lost Sheep. One concern about this parable is that the 90 and 9 have been left behind. What if THEY wander? What happens if you come back and only find 85 sheep left? All of these question and answered by knowing we are called to find the one. The Lord's job is to take care of the 99, and it is our job to find the one, and when ever we find the one, and minister to him, it will bless us.

President Monson quotes the movie Shenandoah, and say, "'If we don't try, then we don't do; and if we don't do, then why are we here?"

It is a powerful line, and since I have heard him say it about 10 times, I decieded to add the movie to my netflix queue.

I watched the movie and to be honest was perplexed by the the context of the quote. (Spoiler alert). So in the movie the main character, James Steward, tries to avoid the Civil War, but his youngest son gets imprisoned mistakingly as a confederate soilder. He leaves his oldest son to take care of the farm, and takes the rest of his family to go look for his youngest son.

While they are looking for the youngest son, is when that quote is mentioned. He must go look for his son, and they must try.

It is very similiar to Luke and the parables of leaving the 99, to go look for the one.

The sad part of the movie is when they get back to the farm, they find the oldest son and his family have been killed by wandering soldiers. That has really bothered me. Is it worth looking for the one, when the 99 in are obviously at risk? In this case, knowing the math, that by finding his youngest son, he would lose his oldest son, would he do it again? I have often thought it is not worth it.

Now I am not so sure, I wonder if perhaps you always need to find the one, because the only danger in this world is not temporal, there is also spirtual danger, and by leaving the 99 you must always save the one from the spiritual dangers.

The perils of being an only child

So Sadie had a little friend over yesterday. Their is a neigbor girl who lives about 4 houses down from us. (it is actually the house next to the house across the street, from the house next to us, which is actually not directly across the street from us.) There are not that many chidlren in the neighborhood so it it nice that there is one for Sadie to be a friend with. This little girl is about 1 year older than Sadie, and is an only child. Rachel has met the mother, but I have not met the parents. I am not sure exactly how it happens in the house, but I assume that it is very quiet. About three times yesterday, she said, "You are really Loud." I think that happens when you have two other siblings each looking for attention. The other funny thing was having her over for dinner. She was very nice, ate her vegetables, and sat at the table for the whole time sitting down. I said, "Look Sadie, you can sit down for dinner."

All in all, I am glad that we have three very active kids. They have fun together, and enjoy laughing.

With costs rising is it even worth it?

So we just finished taking everyone to the dentist, and it makes me wonder is it more trouble that it is worth? I mean there should be some way to eat other than teeth. Teeth are incredibly difficult to deal with. Right after breakfast, and we should be getting the kids off to school, teeth get in the way, and need to be brushed. We avoid candy, (among other reasons), so that our teeth do not rot out. At night, when the kids are crazy, we need to brush our teeth. Today was the final indignity. Over the past decade that rachel and I have been married, we have spent $3.50 a day on dentist bills. Each! Think about that! Now to be accurate, that includes the amount that insurance has paid, but still. $3.50 a day. My teeth have cost me a nickel in the time it took you to read this posting.

The Groundhog was wrong

So, unfortunately I need to put my foot in my mouth. I published in the Hammond hotline, that we were going to have to 6 months of spring. All last night it was raining. This morning around 10:00am, the rain turned to snow, and it started snowing. It snowed for about 9 hours, and now at 7:00pm it finially is slowing down. We had one hour of church, and then all went home. As it turns out this was great for the kids because they ended up having a great time playing in the snow.

So I am in doing blogging catchup.

Last sunday Caleb came home from Primary with a cookie.

He had won the Super Star Singer 2009 award. This kids sang I lived in heaven for sacrament meeting. Caleb loves to sing out, and has a great time singing. He was very proud that he was the first one in the whole primary to win this award.