Halloween

This year I spent some time working on the children's costumes.
Andrew went as Luke Skywalker. We borrowed a light saber for his costume.

Edward went as Tintin. I think his costume turned out great. I found the coat and sweather at D.I. and hemmed them up.

Lucy was a princess. She said she was Rapunzel, but she really was La Infanta Margarita at age 5.

Front view (yes, I made this dress).

Side/back view of the dress.

The original painting in the Art History Museum (Vienna) with Lucy.

Once again, Henry refused to wear a costume, and almost refused to go trick-or-treating.

This is the only photo we could get of him.

We also let the children play in leaves on Saturday. Today, Sunday, it started to snow.

Enjoying the leaves and warm weather.

End of summer and beginning of school

For a few months, we managed weekly posts or email letters, or both. Now it seems like we rarely communicate. It also didn't help that our iMac was in the shop for about a month or so. Yes, we are still here.
For those of you who saw Henry over the summer, he is now talking much, much more than he did. We started speech therapy with him, and he is doing amazingly well. He actually asks for things using words (some of the time) and says two- or three-word sentences (occasionally). He is to about 40% of his vocalizations being words. He says his name now!

Henry put himself to bed for nap the other day. 

Lucy started kindergarten. On the way to school one day, Edward said, "Why do I have to go to school? Why can't you home school me?" Then he turned to Lucy, "Don't you want to stay home with Mom and do home school?" She looked at him as if he were crazy, "No! At school I get to do recess!" She loves kindergarten. Since we have very reduced expectations of the schools here, we just let the children enjoy kindergarten and work with them on reading or other things at home.

Lucy's first day at school.

Edward is in 2nd grade and doesn't care for school, though this year is better than last year so far (20 students versus 35, just to start). He loves to read and play, though when forced to go outside, he often takes a book with him. He is also taking piano lessons and is almost to the reading-notes stage.

Edward at Big Springs park in South Fork Canyon (Provo Canyon).

Andrew started 4th grade at the Center for Accelerated Studies, a new school. He gets to ride the bus, which he doesn't like very much. He loves his school. They have required homework and challenge the children. He is still doing piano and Cub Scouts, though mostly he does the Cub Scouts stuff with me. He would do even better at everything if he could stop reading long enough. I bought new Sunday pants for the boys in September, and today I looked at Andrew and wondered why he put on Edward's pants. He hadn't. I guess he just grew another inch or so.

Andrew with a hummingbird fledgling that we rescued and helped care for until it flew away.

Kirk is busy with research and teaching and endless meetings. When he isn't working at those things, he is trying to complete our long list of home and yard projects.

Kirk has taken most of the photos for the past few months, so it was hard to find any of him. Here we are camping at Butterfly Lake in the Unitas.

As a family, we had a wonderful garden this year. We spent lots of time over the summer with Kirk's family and saw more of Boise than we ever expected. We also went camping once--with Mom and Dad Tanner in the Unitas.

Butterfly Lake.

Our garden, part of it. We have five large garden boxes and three small ones.

I spent time processing the bushels of tomatoes and using the other produce from the garden in our meals (roasted eggplant dip, chard "saag," fresh tomato everything, and so on). Since most of my time is spent taking care of the family, my news includes such stellar items as (1) our old blender broke, and we got a new fancy one that allows us to try all sorts of new food, including the funny "green smoothies" (pretty good, if you add a tablespoon or two of vanilla sugar); or (2) for several weeks now, I've got all the laundry done, including sheets and towels on only one day; and (3) I cleaned up the basement so I can walk over to the laundry machine without tripping on anything.

Some of our produce. We still have fresh tomatoes, and it is the middle of October.

We had enough strawberries from our yard to make a strawberry pie, even with Henry eating about two cups of them before I could get them in the pie shell.

Maybe in the next post we will show our 12 pumpkins from our one pumpkin vine!

Some random June and July events

We enjoyed Father's Day, Kirk's birthday and the 4th of July.

Andrew made a card and a treat for Kirk.

 Edward made a card for Kirk and drew things he liked inside it.

 Kirk celebrated his birthday.

I made a chocolate cake with white chocolate-cream cheese frosting, raspberry filling, and a chocolate glaze over it all. It tasted good.

Kirk liked his dinner so much, he took a photo of it: steak on a bed of kale with a baked potato.

We didn't do much for the 4th of July, though we did go to the park and set off some fireworks.

We also ate blueberry pie and ice cream,

This is a photo of my hydranga plant. I put the aluminum powder on it and the flowers started to turn back to the blue they are supposed to be.

Mission blessings

[While we were on vacation in Washington state, my father-in-law asked me to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting on serving a mission. Here's a copy of the talk. I usually don't post things like this, but I thought it was appropriate since it was about blessings from serving a mission. 

Sunday morning we discovered that we couldn't print the talk, so Kirk loaded it on his iPad, and I just took the iPad up to the pulpit with me. However, when I started, the talk kept vanishing even when I hadn't touched any keys. I kept trying to get it back. Finally I said something like, "I'm getting some interference up here!" Kirk's sister's husband suddenly stood up and said to Kirk (a few rows in front of him), "Kirk, your boy is playing with the keyboard!" I had left the iPad's keyboard with Edward since he had been using the whole contraption as a surface for his drawing. I had neglected to turn off the keyboard, though the thought crossed my mind. Edward was happily punching keys and playing with the whole thing, making the talk vanish and different apps open and shut. Note to self: listen to the Spirit at all times. At least my brother-in-law saved me that time.]

Blessings of serving a mission

9 June 2013

            When I was serving a mission in Santiago, Chile, one afternoon my companion and I went to visit an investigator, Tina. When we arrived at her house, she wasn’t home, but members of her family invited us to come inside and wait for her. While we waited, two men came into the room. I decided I didn’t like the situation and turned to my companion. Without a word, we both stood up and left the house. As we were walking down the street, my companion said, “The Spirit said to me very loudly, ‘Leave the house right now!’” I thought, “I didn’t hear the Spirit say any words. I just felt like we should leave.” This was the first of many experiences I had on my mission that taught me more about the Holy Ghost. Some people will hear a voice, like my companion did, while more often, we will have a feeling that will guide us in the right way.

            Many years later, when my boy Henry was about a year old, I was folding laundry while Henry was playing on the floor next to me. Suddenly I thought, “I should look down and see what he is doing.” When I looked, I noticed he had something in each of his hands, so I opened them out and saw there were tiny, round batteries. The toy had space for three batteries, and I only found two. He had swallowed one and the X-ray showed it sitting in his stomach. Thankfully, everything turned out OK after a day or two of worry. I knew that once again, the Spirit had directed my actions.

            I have received many blessings in my life that can be traced to my service as a full-time missionary. One great blessing was that I learned better how to recognize the quiet promptings of the Holy Ghost.

            As our leaders have reminded us in recent General Conferences, we are under the same mandate that Jesus gave to his apostles anciently: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt 28:19).

Last October, President Monson made the amazing announcement about the change in ages for missionaries. He said,

“As we have prayerfully pondered the age at which young men may begin their missionary service, we have also given consideration to the age at which a young woman might serve. Today I am pleased to announce that able, worthy young women who have the desire to serve may be recommended for missionary service beginning at age 19, instead of age 21.

“We affirm that missionary work is a priesthood duty—and we encourage all young men who are worthy and who are physically able and mentally capable to respond to the call to serve. Many young women also serve, but they are not under the same mandate to serve as are the young men. We assure the young sisters of the Church, however, that they make a valuable contribution as missionaries, and we welcome their service.”

Since we live near BYU and have contact with many young people, it has been gratifying to see the excitement among so many—especially the young women—for the opportunity to serve a mission in the near future. One young woman in our ward is leaving for her mission in a few weeks. She said she can’t wait to share the happiness she has found in the gospel with the people she will soon meet in Boston.

The preparation for a mission starts long before you are set apart as a missionary and put on your name tag.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do to prepare for a mission is to prepare to go to the temple. This is something every member of the church can do, whether or not the opportunity for a full-time mission comes.

In the Book of Mormon, Nephi explains why Christ was baptized. He then asks, “After ye have gotten into this strait and narrow path [of baptism], I would ask if all is done? Behold, I say unto you, Nay” (2 Nephi 31:19). He then explains some of the things that must be done after baptism. “Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:20).

One of the sad things we saw as missionaries in Chile was the large number of people who got baptized, but then did not continue on the path. Some of them would even attend church regularly, but never made the effort to prepare themselves to go to the temple. In Santiago, the people did not even have to travel far, since the temple was located right in that city. In contrast, I had missionary companions from various areas in Chile that made great sacrifices and traveled for almost 1,000 miles in order to attend the temple.

The preparation to attend the temple includes strengthening your testimony of the gospel; keeping the commandments; attending church meetings, seminary, and religion classes; readings the scriptures regularly; and praying daily.

A second important thing in preparing for a mission is your desire. In D&C 4: 3 the Lord says, “Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work.” Some of my friends who served missions had specific spiritual experiences that told them a mission was right; others, including myself, just had the desire to serve and were willing to arrange school and work so we could be a full-time missionary.

There are many other forms of practical preparation as well. In my life, I learned how to study and work hard; I went away to college and learned to live more independently; I served in many church callings; and I worked and saved money.

            As President Monson said, women are not under the same obligation as men to serve missions. Of the five girls in my family, two of us were able to serve missions and then later had the opportunity to get married. The other three sisters had the blessing of meeting wonderful returned missionary men and getting married in the temple before they were old enough to serve a mission. They look forward to serving missions with their husbands later in life. However, all of the siblings were prepared for missions—we were all prepared to go to the temple.

            Many female members of my family and friends had the opportunity to serve missions. Without exception, they point to many blessings they have received in their lives from their missionary service.

            One cousin wrote to me and said, “I believe I already had a strong testimony and understanding of the gospel through [Young Women], church and seminary prior to my mission—so I was prepared—however I truly believe my mission laid a foundation for the rest of my life—for the friends I would make, the decisions I would face and the husband I would find and hopefully how we, together as return missionaries, will raise our family. I love that I share that experience with my husband! It also is the foundation for how I do my callings and how I live my religion.”

            A friend said, “[A mission] has helped me to gain confidence in myself as someone who can stand up for what is right, as well be firm in what I believe. It has helped me to appreciate the miracle of conversion and recognize the importance of really teaching my children the gospel so that they can have the strength to stand for what they believe. It has helped me to think of others in a more Christ-like way and try to reach out to others.”

            Another cousin said, “I cannot count the blessings that I have seen in my life from serving a mission. I have witnessed the Lord’s hand in my life every day because I was willing to put myself in His service. One blessing that I continually notice is that I am more willing to listen to the still small voice of the Spirit because I know miracles happen daily. Another is the wonderful blessing of seeing people recognizing the light of Christ. Having been a missionary, it was a joy and a moment of awe when I saw others realizing truth and getting testimony through the Spirit and the light of Christ. There is something sacred to be said of witnessing that kind of spiritual growth. These two blessings go hand-in-hand many times. Now as a mother, I strive to heed the counsel of the Spirit and set the example so that my son can recognize the truth as well.”

            I know that my life has been dramatically shaped and blessed by my missionary service in Santiago, Chile. I would be impossible to list all of the blessings here. I know our Heavenly Father loves us. Jesus is the Savior of the world. The atonement is real and we can change and be forgiven. I have seen people change, and have changed myself. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. Every single time I told other people about the First Vision while on my mission, the Holy Ghost witnessed to me that it was true. I know The Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints is Jesus’ restored church on the earth, and that we have the priesthood authority and a prophet to guide us today. I know that we must continue in the path that we start with baptism, and that path leads us to the temple where we can receive incredible, eternal blessings and be sealed together as families. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Lucy's birthday

This past week was Lucy's birthday. She is a wonderful little girl.

 I made a princess doll cake for her. This one turned out nicely, but it took forever to decorate.

Lucy's main present was my old doll crib that Kirk put together for her. I made some new sheets and stuff for it so maybe she wouldn't mind having hand-me-downs for presents all the time.

Punctuality

Today Kirk was asked to talk in Sacrament Meeting. The topic: punctuality. It seemed a bit strange, but we assumed it was because a lot of people have been running late for church meetings. He did find a nice insight about how charity relates to punctuality, though.

This morning, Edward decided he wasn't going to get dressed for church. To get to church, we have to leave an hour early and take a street car/tram to the end of the line, and then take a bus to the church building. We have to leave early because if you miss a tram or a bus, you end up having to wait a while for the next one because it is the Sunday schedule and the public transportation doesn't run as often (every 10-15 minutes instead of every 5-7 minutes).

Since it was time to go and Edward was still in his pajamas, I told Kirk to take Andrew, Lucy, and Henry and just go. It wouldn't be very good for the speaker on punctuality to be late for church. Then I waited for Edward to get dressed. He suddenly started to move a bit after he saw everyone left. Later he said, "I didn't hear you tell me to get dressed," as his reason for not getting ready for church. Maybe someone else has a better insight into a 7-year-old boy's mind than I do.

We have two tram stops near our apartment, so when Edward was ready, we hurried out of the house and went to the closer one (well, both are about the same distance from us, but one seems closer) at the Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof. As we got near the street, I saw the tram we needed pulling up, so we started to hurry. I dashed across the street with Edward and the driver opened the door for me and let us on.

At the next stop, there were Kirk and the kids! They had decided to wait for the handicapped-accesible tram (the one we were on) instead of trying to carry the stroller up the three steps on the older trams (it is sort of tricky and I can do it with Andrew since we have some practice, but it is easier if you have two adults to manage the stroller and the steps). At first Kirk was a bit miffed that Edward wasn't going to have a consequence for his tardiness, but Edward apologized and everything was OK.

A bit later into the tram ride, a woman tapped me on my shoulder and said something in German, so I looked and Henry had thrown up all over himself and the stroller.

During the night, Kirk had felt a bit sick like he had eaten something bad, but he was doing better this morning. I was up for an hour or so in the night checking on everyone, but no one else seemed to be sick. Henry had seemed sort of tired and listless this morning and I was starting to wonder if he was OK because he is usually full of energy.

So, it turned out to be a blessing that we ended up on the same tram. When we got to the next stop, which thankfully was the final stop, we all got off and Kirk took the other children and caught the bus to church. I started to wipe off Henry. A man with an open beer can in his hand (at 9 in the morning?) handed me a stack of napkins so I could wipe off the stroller and Henry. He seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of napkins. Then he helped me clean out the stroller. I kept saying "danke schön!"--one of my few German phrases. I pulled off Henry's clothes and put them in one of the plastic bags I have learned to always take with me. Then I put Henry back in the stroller, sitting on yet another useful plastic bag, and got back on the tram to the apartment.

Henry perked up, drank some water, and is now taking a nap.

Henry when he is not sick.

Running around on the grass at the Hofburg on Saturday.

I've washed clothes and the stroller. It was nice the stroller is small enough to sort of fit in the bathtub.

A dose of gratitude

We've been having a hard time today with almost non-stop squabbling. But, in the evening Andrew gave me a hug and said that giving Mom a hug was better than giving Dad a hug. It was nicer. Then Edward said that he always feels alone unless he is with me, even when Dad is there (sorry Kirk). Even at school he feels alone, and he doesn't like it. They all agreed that being with Mom is the best.

All of them within a few feet of me.

Accounting

I'm finally getting caught up on my accounting for the end of March and first of April. It is a mess, with money in dollars, euros, and forints. I don't think I'll be able to sort it out completely until May. But, as part of the accounting, I looked at how much I spent on groceries in March (and this is not ever "eating out" as a family, though we did buy Easter candy and ice cream cones once and Kirk buys cheap meals at the university café in Budapest when he is there working): $1,700.
I think I will pretend that figure doesn't exist.
People weren't kidding when they said that food is expensive here. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when we pay $4 for 10 (smaller-than-medium) eggs. The other clue was that the U.S. State Department per diem (food) allowance for one person in Vienna was about $1,300/month.
The other day we had to pay for something and I handed Kirk a 100 Euro note. He sort of gasped and said something about my not blinking at handing over that much money. I thought for a minute and said, well, this is just about what I hand the clerk at Billa grocery store every time I go shopping.
It is sort of like the exit fee at Costco, except instead of having enough food for several weeks piled in your cart, you have enough to get you through two, maybe three, days, if you are lucky. And 4-year-old Lucy  and I can wheel it back to the apartment in a small hand trolley, with a few extra bags for strawberries (so they don't get smashed) and toilet paper.
Budapest was cheaper. But, after a week there, Kirk and I realized there was a reason the Spirit told us to stay in Vienna as a family. Vienna is much easier for a family with young children, though ironically, the health care is worse.

Budapest Blessing

It was hard to be in Budapest for a week, for a number of reasons, none of which I'm going to detail right now. However, one of the blessings we had was that every day, two or three older Hungarian women would talk to me (in Hungarian, or sometimes the few words they knew of German/French/English) about my children and help me with them. One woman carried Lucy down the escalator in the metro since Lucy was scared and I was balancing the Henry's stroller on the escalator. Several helped get children on and off of public transport. One made all the other people on the tram move so we could sit down. Others just told me how beautiful and wonderful the children were. It was sort of interesting how much we could communicate without knowing the language. When the children were being especially nasty, it was good to be reminded what a blessing it is to have them in our family.
You can see more of what we did at the other blog.

A bit calmer

Thanks for the supportive thoughts on my last stress comment. Every Sunday we spend several hours helping the children write in their journals, and then transcribing the writings onto the blog with photos. We have some posts on the main page, but we also have Andrew and Edward's pages (tabs at the top of the blog page), where they just update the page with their information. Andrew and Edward's pages don't show up in a reader (like the soon-to-disappear Google reader) when they are updated. It takes a while, but we want to make sure the children are recording things that they will enjoy at a later time. You can see this at hawkinswien.blogspot.com or hawkinswien.blogspot.co.at if you want German stuff.

Henry and Kirk. Henry is cute and is saying more words.

Stress

We had been warned before we got to Vienna that the woman who lives below the apartment where we are runs a massage/relaxation clinic in her apartment. However, the family here last year said they held classes in the apartment and had four kids and never heard any complaints from her. Four days after we got here, the woman came up and--very nicely--told us that our children were shattering the nerves of her patients. Great. How in the world do I keep my four children quiet? They aren't quiet.

We set some guidelines: no screaming, no slamming doors and knocking plaster off the walls, and no leaping off furniture. They get rewards for following the guidelines. Every day I've been trying to take them outside to see something and play in one of the many parks. We went to a robot museum in the morning, but this afternoon we were at home and it started to get rough. We have a winter storm blowing through Vienna right now and it is below freezing with strong winds and snow. It is cold and we would rather stay where it is warm. I guess I'll try snowsuits on them tomorrow and hope it warms up quickly.

My next apartment is going to be a stand-alone house with about an acre of land around it.

First week in Vienna

Here are two of my best friends from the plane trips: Ziploc bags and lollipops. I stuffed Henry with lollipops to get him through take-offs and landings. I used a Ziploc bag to hold Lucy's clothes after she threw up on the landing in Paris.

Note to self: Never, ever take a sick two-year-old on a long trip that involves an 8-hour or more time change unless you don't want to sleep for a week.
For more of our trip, you can see the travel blog.

More adventures

We will be going to Austria and Hungary this week, and we will return by May 1. Kirk will be doing research at Central European University in Budapest. Since he doesn't have to be there every day, or even every week in March, we will be living in Vienna in the BYU faculty apartment there.

As part of the children's schoolwork for the two months we will be gone, I set up a family blog. We will post occasional entries, and the children will be writing a bit as well. Here is the link: http://hawkinswien.blogspot.com/. I doubt you will be overwhelmed with posts in your reader since the last time I wrote here was in January.

Cold and colder

Don't you wish you were here?

This is a bit hard to see, but we took a picture of the temperature reading (from within our car) when it went below zero on our trip back from Arizona. We didn't get a photo of the lowest reading on that trip, which was -12.
Today it feels positively balmy outside since it is above freezing. We even noticed the difference on the days when it was 15 degrees instead of 5.
The children have been having "indoor recess" all week. They are excited for outdoor recess today.

December

We had a nice December.
Edward turned 7 and had a Komodo Dragon cake.

 Henry is getting bigger and climbing all over. He also learned how to open doors.

Christmas, as always, was fun with the family.

 Lucy got a "new" doll. (This is another of my Madame Alexander dolls from Granny that I sent to the doll hospital to get repaired.) She hasn't stopped holding it.

 We had a nice trip to Arizona (despite illnesses and some car problems). Andrew is pointing at a tarantula we saw on our hike at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum outside Superior, Arizona.

 Because of the nasty weather, we drove through St. George on our way to Arizona. We stopped and saw the temple there, which none of the children had ever seen. We told them about their relatives helping to build it (with help from Amy on the phone).

 We loved the nice weather and took several walks and hikes in Arizona.