Anson's hat

Tiffany's mom bought this cute sock-monkey hat off of an Etsy site.  I think it is so cute!
(Anson is 2 weeks old in this picture.)

Pres. Monson in Gallup's Top Ten

President Thomas S. Monson one of Americans' 10 'Most Admired Men,' Gallup poll says

by Jason Swensen, Deseret News

"LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson is one of the 10 "Most Admired Men," according to an annual poll of Americans by Gallup...."

"It is common for the president of the Mormon Church to receive mentions, but (President) Monson is the first to make the top 10," wrote Gallup managing editor Jeffrey Jones in its blog."

"The results are based on a Dec. 15-18 USA Today/Gallup poll that asked Americans to name, without prompting, the person they most admire living in any part of the world."

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700210726/President-Thomas-S-Monson-one-of-Americans-10-Most-Admired-Men-Gallup-poll-says.html

Nativity Quilt

I went to Elizabeth's preschool program at Christ the King Lutheran Church last week, and they had this pretty quilt hanging on the wall inside the church.

I just love nativity scenes, and nativity quilts.

Random Thoughts by Thomas Sowell

Random Thoughts by Thomas Sowell, Dec. 27, 2011

From TownHall.com:


What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else's money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice.


When an organization has more of its decisions made by committees, that gives more influence to those who have more time available to attend committee meetings and to drag out each meeting longer. In other words, it reduces the influence of those who have work to do, and are doing it, while making those who are less productive more influential.


Anyone who studies the history of ideas should notice how much more often people on the political left, more so than others, denigrate and demonize those who disagree with them -- instead of answering their arguments.


The wisest and most knowledgeable human being on the planet is utterly incompetent to make even 10 percent of the consequential decisions that have to be made in a modern nation. Yet all sorts of people want to decide how much money other people can make or keep, and to micro-manage how other people live their lives.


The real egalitarians are not the people who want to redistribute wealth to the poor, but those who want to extend to the poor the ability to create their own wealth, to lift themselves up, instead of trying to tear others down. Earning respect, including self-respect, is better than being a parasite.

Debt Limit- great video

One of the actors from Ocean's Eleven is in this video.  3 minutes long.

China and Japan make a deal not to have to trade in dollars

Because the world currency is the U.S. Dollar, we have a lot of advantages that other countries don't have. I posted some predictions by Porter Stansberry about nine months ago, he said that when the world stops using the U.S. dollar as the world currency, we will have a collapse of our economic system.

Here is an article published by Bloomberg yesterday.  I think we should all pay attention.  Make a list and check off the countries one by one as they make these deals.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-25/china-japan-to-promote-direct-trading-of-currencies-to-cut-company-costs.html






(Just in case you don't remember, here are the stories I posted March 3,  2011.)

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/117991/20110302/china-yuan-trade-reserve-currency.htm

"China to allow all trades to settle in yuan, encourages use as reserve currency"

International Business Times,  March 2, 2011

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/02/china-economy-yuan-idUSBJA00246420110302

"China aims to settle nationwide trade in yuan by 2011"

Reuters, March 2, 2011

The following story happened Nov. 24, 2010:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-11/24/content_11599087.htm

"China, Russia quit dollar"  

China Daily, Nov. 24, 2010

My new little Christmas quilt

"Good Neighbors III: Christmas"

I designed this little quilt about 7 years ago, and have made four of them, in different colors.  This time I put snowy fabric on the ground and on the roofs, and decorated the houses for Christmas.

"Good Neighbors I"

"Good Neighbors II"

"Good Neighbors IV: Easter" is not finished yet.  It has some Easter eggs in the grass.

Nerf Gun made by Adam for Tara

Christmas morning:  Tara was so excited to receive the Nerf gun she had requested for Christmas from Adam.  She wanted him to make it look "steam punk".

Here is what the gun looked like originally.  He painted it and carved it.

He added embellishments, and wrapped the handle in leather.

We all think that it is awesome!

Dancing with the Wii

Here are Wayne and Isaac trying to follow the moves on the Wii.
As usual, I was too inhibited to try it.

Happy Birthday Wayne (for tomorrow)

Since no one will be looking at blogs on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, I decided to post Wayne's birthday today, one day early.

He is my main man, and has been since February, 1980.

One of the first activities we ever attended was a Young Adult outing to Greg P.'s cabin in the mountains of Kamas, Utah.  It was January, 1980, and the snow was very deep.  Our whole BYU Family Home Evening group had to snowshoe in to the cabin from the highway, carrying all our food and supplies.

It was a two-story cabin with lots of bedrooms, and of course the girls were in some and the boys were in some, so there was no hanky-panky.

The next morning Wayne and I and Jim W. snowshoed all around through the woods, but that is another story for another time.  (But, that adventure was important to our future, since Wayne gained the mistaken notion that I was the outdoorsy type, and fell for me.)

Late in the afternoon on Saturday, we all snowshoed back out to the road.

The guys saw how deep the snowbanks were, and dared each other to dive headfirst.
So I took these three photos:

L to R: Wayne, Greg P., Dave J., Andrew, Jim W.
Observe how much higher Wayne jumped and how much deeper his whole body and head is stuck into the snow.

The guys really griped at me afterwards because I was yelling at them not to get up out of the snow until I took that third picture.  So they had to wait for me.

National Defense Authorization Act

I just want to go down in blog history as expressing my complete horror that this bill was passed last week.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.1540:

H.R. 1540, “THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT”
IS THE GREATEST THREAT TO CIVIL LIBERTIES AMERICANS FACE!
“This is law passed by the Senate on 12/15/11 which places domestic terror investigations and interrogations into the hands of the military and which would open the door for trial-free, indefinite detention of anyone, including American citizens, so long as the government calls them terrorists.”

IT PASSED THE SENATE ON. 12/15/11 and now goes to to the President for a signature

J. Reuben Clark, Jr in 1937
....the end the revolutionists seek is fairly clear; it is the overturning of the whole existing order, political, financial, economic, social, religious, the complete destruction of our Constitution and the government established under it, and then the setting up of some sort of despotism that shall destroy, in all these fields, the free agency which the Lord gave to man... There seems no doubt that this is their conscious, deliberate, planned end.

in October 1939
Again I warn that there are amongst us evil influences plotting and conspiring to destroy all that we hold sacred in our Church and in the nation. If we shall fall asleep to these dangers, we shall someday awaken to find ourselves their slavish victims.

on June 15, 1940
I wish to say with all the earnestness I possess that when [you] see any curtailment of these liberties I have named, when you see government invading any of these realms of freedom which we have under our Constitution, you will know that they are putting shackles on your liberty, and that tyranny is creeping upon you, no matter who curtails these liberties or who invades these realms, and no matter what the reason and excuse therefore may be.

in October 1942: Conference Report, p. 58
You and I have heard all our lives that the time may come when the Constitution may hang by a thread. I do not know whether it is a thread, or a small rope by which it now hangs, but I do know that whether it shall live or die is now in the balance.

in April 1944
I say unto you with all the soberness I can, that we stand in danger of losing our liberties, and that once lost, only blood will bring them back; and we of this church will, in order to keep the Church going forward, have more sacrifices to make, and more persecutions to endure than we have yet known. If the conspiracy comes here it will probably come in its full vigor and there will be a lot of vacant places among those who guide and direct, not only this government, but also this Church of ours.

on September 25, 1949: America Faces Freedom-Slavery Issue, Church News
Reduced to its lowest terms, the great struggle which now rocks the whole earth more and more takes on the character of a struggle of the individual versus the state. . . . Do not think that all these usurpations, intimidations, and impositions are being done to us through inadvertency or mistake, the whole course is deliberately planned and carried out; its purpose is to destroy the Constitution and our Constitutional government....We have lost the conflict so far waged. But there is time to win the final victory, if we sense our danger, and fight.

on November 20, 1952:
I say to you that the price of liberty is and always has been blood, human blood, and if our liberties are lost, we shall never regain them except at the price of blood. They must not be lost!

Happy Birthday Isaac!

Isaac, Elizabeth, and Thomas just before Hannah's birth.

To my wonderful second son:

You are a great father and husband, a good provider, a hard worker, a valiant follower of Christ, and we love you!

And thank you for marrying a local girl, which somewhat guarantees that you will live in our vicinity for the rest of your lives---Hurray!

Stuff that is happening now.

I just read that David Archuleta announced he is going on a mission. He is such a good example, I really look up to him.

Bryce and Marianne flew in last night, they will be here until Jan. 1. So all of our children will be with us this week. Next week Adam's family will be going up to see Tiffany's family in Maryland.

Tonight we are making gingerbread houses, I am looking forward to it.

I got to babysit Anson yesterday while Tiffany took a nap. What a beautiful little boy!

Wayne and I are singing in the choir on Sunday, one of the songs is "The First Noel/Pachelbel Canon" and it is really beautiful. (I probably spelled that title wrong, sorry, I don't know music history.)

My mother has been frantically working on her life story, and I am so happy to help her with it. Yesterday she sent me 17 attachments, all documents for about one year at a time. I hope to work with her on it while we are on our cruise.

I just went to make this text bigger, and the button on my edit bar for blogspot is gone! So I don't know how to make the text bigger. Janette or Rachel, help me out!

Wow! Interesting 4 min. video about ESM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l86oG4ID40&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ldsavow.com%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft%3D168664&feature=player_embedded

This is in the form of questions and answers about the European Stability Mechanism treaty.

Very interesting!

What He Threatened NOT to pay, and what he still pays

Did you notice who Obama threatened when he wasn't getting his way on raising the debt ceiling? He threatened to not pay: Social Security Retirees, Military Retirees, Social Security disability and Federal Retirees Now.. Let this sink in really good - He did not threaten to stop payments to illegal aliens He did not threaten to take frivolous benefits such as Internet access away from violent inmates He did not offer to fire some of the thousands of unnecessary federal employees that he hired He did not offer to cut down on his or his wife's frivolous gallivanting around  He did notthreaten to not pay the senators and representatives or any of their staff He did not threaten to take benefits away from welfare recipients He did not threaten the food stamp programs  He did not threaten to not pay foreign aid He did not threaten to cut back on anything that involves his base voters. He considers these to be 'economically critical entitlements.' The list could go on and on. He is in full political re-election mode! Why are we allowing this person to destroy this wonderful country with his selfishness and his lies? His type of change is killing our country. He needs to be stopped and only our votes can stop him. Do not forget about his tactics when it's election time. Vote Obama outof the Presidency in 2012.  2012 - THE END OF AN ERROR!

new "For the Strength of Youth" phamphlet

The Church just released a new edition of "For the Strength of Youth".

Here are a couple of the changes:

• A new standard entitled “Work and Self-Reliance” offering counsel on smart money management, frugality, industry, and becoming a contributor.
• The addition of emotional health to the section previously titled “Physical Health”—now called “Physical and Emotional Health”—encouraging youth to seek healthy solutions to problems. http://www.ldsavow.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168627

Why hasn't the media found out ANY of these things?

A friend sent this to me today. No source was listed, but this was interesting. SIMPLY AMAZING WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT Isn't it amazing that, within only one week of Tiger Woods crashing his Escalade, the pressfound every woman with whom Tiger has had an affair during the last few years? And, they even uncovered photos, text messages, recorded phone calls, etc.! Furthermore, they not only know the cause of the family fight, but they even know it was a wedge from his golf bag that his wife used to break out the windows in the Escalade. Not only that, they know which wedge! And, each & every day, they were able to continue to provide America with updates on Tiger's sex rehab stay, his wife's plans for divorce, as well as the dates & tournaments in which he will play. Now, Barack Hussein Obama has been in office for two years, yet this very same press: · Cannot find any of his childhood friends or neighbors; · Or find any of Obama's high school or college classmates;· Or locate any of his college papers or grades; · Or determine how he paid for both a Columbia & a Harvard education; · Or discover which country issued his visa to travel to Pakistan in the 1980's; · Or even find Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis on racism. They just can't seem to uncover any of this. Yet, the public still trusts that same press to give them the whole truth! I find that totally amazing, don't you? Are you curious about our president's background? Or is it insignificant, in your judgement? FYI Some of these have been answered. WHERE ARE THE GIRLFRIENDS of OBAMA? I hadn't thought about this - but where are O's past girlfriends - surely he had at least one? No past girl friends popping up anywhere? Strange - strange to the point of being downright weird! OK, this is just plain old common sense, no political agendas for either side. Just common knowledge for citizens of a country, especially American citizens, who know every little tidbit about every other president (and their wives) that even know that Andrew Jackson's wife smoked a corn cob pipe and was accused of adultery, or that Lincoln never went to school or Kennedy wore a back brace or Truman played the piano. We are Americans! Our Media vets these things out! We are known for our humanitarian interests and caring for our 'fellow man.' We care, but none of us knows one single humanizing fact about the history of our own president. Honestly, and this is a personal thing ... but it's bugged me for years that no one who ever dated him ever showed up. Taken his charisma, which caused the women to be drawn to him so obviously during his campaign, looks like some lady would not have missed the opportunity.... We all know about JFK's magnetism, McCain was no monk, Palin's courtship and even her athletic prowess were probed. Biden's aneurisms are no secret. Look at Cheney and Clinton - we all know about their heart problems. How could I have left out Wild Bill before or during the White House? Nope... not one lady has stepped up and said, "He was soooo shy," or "What a great dancer!" Now look at the rest of what we know... no classmates, not even the recorder for the Columbia class notes ever heard of him. Who was the best man at his wedding? Start there. Check for groomsmen. Then get the footage of the graduation ceremony. Has anyone talked to the professors? Isn't it odd that no one is bragging that they knew him or taught him or lived with him. When did he meet Michele and how? Are there photos? Every president provides the public with all their photos, etc. for their library. What has he released? Nada - other than what was in this so-called biography! And experts who study writing styles, etc. claim it was not O's own words or typical of his speech patterns, etc. Does this make any of you wonder? Ever wonder why no one ever came forward from Obama's past, saying they knew him, attended school with him, was his friend, etc. ? Not one person has ever come forward from his past. This should really be a cause for great concern. Did you see the movie titled, The Manchurian Candidate? Let's face it. As insignificant as we all are... someone whom we went to school with remembers our name or face... someone remembers we were the clown or the dork or the brain or the quiet one or the bully or something about us. George Stephanopoulos, ABC News, said the same thing during the 2008 campaign. Even George questions why no one has acknowledged that the president was in their classroom or ate in the same cafeteria or made impromptu speeches on campus. Stephanopoulos was a classmate of Obama at Columbia - class of 1984. He says he never had a single class with him. Since he is such a great orator, why doesn't anyone in Obama's college class remember him? And, why won't he allow Columbia to release his records? Do you, like millions of others, simply assume all this is explainable - even though no one can? NOBODY REMEMBERS OBAMA AT COLUMBIA Looking for evidence of Obama's past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there, but not one remembers him. For example, Wayne Allyn Root was (like Obama) a political science major at Columbia , who graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, "I don't know a single person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me. I don't have a single classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia ... EVER! Nobody recalls him. Root adds that he was, "Class of '83 political science, pre-law" and says, "You don't get more exact or closer than that. Never met him in my life, don't know anyone who ever met him." At our 20th class reunion five years ago, who was asked to be the speaker of the class? Me. No one ever heard of Barack! And five years ago, nobody even knew who he was. The guy who writes the class notes, who's kind of the, as we say in New York, 'the macha' who knows everybody, has yet to find a person, a human who ever met him." Obama's photograph does not appear in the school's yearbook, and Obama consistently declines requests to talk about his years at Columbia, provide school records, or provide the name of any former classmates or friends while at Columbia. How can this be? NOTE: Wayne Allyn Root can easily be verified. He graduated valedictorian from his high school, Thornton-Donovan School , then graduated from Columbia University in 1983 as a Political Science major in the same '83 class in which Barack Hussein Obama states he was. Some other interesting questions. Why was Obama's law license inactivated in 2002? Why was Michelle's law license inactivated by court order? According to the U.S. Census, there is only one Barack Obama - but 27 Social Security numbers and over 80 aliases. WHAT!? The Social Security number he uses now originated in Connecticut , where he is never reported to have lived. No wonder all his records are sealed! Please continue sending this out to everyone. Somewhere, someone had to know him in school... before he "reorganized" Chicago and burst upon the scene at the 2004 Democratic Convention and made us swoon with his charm, poise, and speaking pizzazz. One of the biggest CONS this country has ever seen, and getting away with it. Go watch the movie The Manchurian Candidate, with Lawrence Harvey ! Good movie! FUNNY HOW HE GETS BY WITH ANYTHING--- AMERICA DOESN'T CHALLENGE HIM!! SO SAD!! >From now thru November 2012 this should be required weekly or at least monthly, reading – BY ALL WHO VOTE!!!

Christmas box

This is one of my keepsakes.  This is the little box Wayne gave me the first Christmas we were married, when we were poor students at BYU.  I think I gave him our homemade Christmas stockings, because his family had the tradition of filling stockings (my family never did that).

Lego Nativity scene

At our stake Nativity Celebration this year, we had over 800 nativities on display.  Here is one of my very favorites. 

A boy made this out of regular Legos in two hours. (It wasn't a Nativity set you could buy.)

He made four separate scenes.
Left:  a city scene with Roman soldiers and a marketplace, complete with a Ninja climbing up the side of the building.
Center Front:  sheep and shepherd in the field, and a completely white angel.
Center Rear:  Stable, star, Holy Family, animals.
Right Rear: camels and wise men.

The Holy Family.
To the right, you can see the camel from the Wise Men scene.

Rocket Ship quilt for Anson

The bottom border doesn't show in this photo but you get the idea.

Adam and Tiffany requested that I make their baby's quilt using a rocket ship picture that Adam drew, and they said I could add any borders that I wanted.  I think it turned out really cute.

The diagonal border was easy to do, I think I will use that on a future quilt as well.

Before I put the name "Anson" on it, I made doubly sure that they weren't going to change their minds at the last minute.  But they said they were 100% positive they were naming their baby Anson, so I did that applique about a month ago.

Christmas cookies!

Elizabeth and Thomas helped me decorate all these cookies at their house on Monday.  I had all the colored frostings already in the bags with the decorating tips on and everything, before I got there.  It went really smoothly!
Elizabeth decorated a bunch, and ate two.
Thomas decorated about two, and ate three.

Hannah spent most of her time jumping up and down.  She really loves this contraption! 

Food donations from the Nativity Celebration

Our stake had their annual Nativity Celebration last weekend, and food donations were taken at the door.  At the end, we offered our 15-passenger van to transport the food to the Western Wake Crisis Ministry.  On Monday night the Despain family and our family unloaded food from their minivan, our big van, and the scout trailer into the tiny facilities of the WWCM.

Our van and scout trailer.

Here is the main pile of food.

That pile of food extended down the hallway a little bit.

And we also stacked the food on the floor in between these shelves of food.

Congratulations, Apex Stake and visitors to the Nativity Celebration!  That was a lot of food you donated!


Change of subject:

A story on the Blaze talking about the alleged LDS Food storage facility raid:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/did-federal-agents-really-raid-a-mormon-food-storage-facility/

Excellent article about Mormons by Ford Motor Company

Thanks, Ford Motor Company!  I really liked this article.

http://thefamily.com/?p=18949

Photos of Anson

When he makes a certain expression, some dents occur in his forehead which look like additional eyebrows.

Just looking around, about 18 hours old.

With Pappy.

The cute little family.

Hoax alert

Looks like that story I posted yesterday about the food storage facility was a hoax.  Sorry for posting it.


P.S. posted Monday Dec. 12, 2011.  Here is a great explanation by Kellene Bishop.

http://preparednesspro.com/everything-you-wanted-to-know-on-the-federal-agents-raid-on-the-lds-cannery-story/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PreparednessProBlog+%28Preparedness+Pro+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

I wish I knew what they can't say

Boyd K. Packer said:

http://lds.org/ensign/2005/09/the-twelve-apostles?lang=eng

"There is a power of discernment granted “unto such as God shall appoint … to watch over [His] church.” ¹⁸ To discern means “to see.”

President Harold B. Lee told me once of a conversation he had with Elder Charles A. Callis of the Quorum of the Twelve. Brother Callis had remarked that the gift of discernment was an awesome burden to carry. To see clearly what is ahead and yet find members slow to respond or resistant to counsel or even rejecting the witness of the apostles and prophets brings deep sorrow.

(Later in the talk)

These men are true servants of the Lord; give heed to their counsel. So, too, with the Seventy, who as especial witnesses carry an apostolic responsibility, and the Bishopric, worthy men of God. So, too, with the brethren and sisters across the world who are called to lead, who have earned that knowledge precious above all else.

There are limits to what the Spirit permits us to say. ³⁴ And so I close with my witness, my special witness, that Jesus is the Christ, that through a prophet-president He presides over this, “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.” ³⁵ In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

(Reference 34 is Alma 12:9)

President Boyd K. Packer, "The Twelve Apostles", Sept. 2005

From Amy:

Here is the scripture he referenced in the last paragraph:  

Alma 12:9 And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying: It is given unto many to ^aknow the ^bmysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart ^conly according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.