Rules of Crime

Criminal Rule #1:

 

If you're going to cause trouble, 

DON'T LEAVE A FOOTPRINT BEHIND!

My Kitchen Helpers

My kids LOVE to help me bake.  It would be so much easier to do things myself and get done faster, but I'd hate to deny them the fun of helping when I remember how much I loved to help my own mom as a kid.  These pictures were from back in June baking banana bread.  Lacey climbs right up on the chairs with the big kids and demands her turn to stir and pour ingredients just like them.    Honestly, I love our times baking together.  :)

 

Little Mammas

They sure love to play with their dolls together.  It's interesting to see how those mothering instincts come out so early. 

 

The Rope Swing

The rope swing at my grandparents' house is a favorite of everyone.  Burley, Idaho isn't exactly the most entertaining city, but during visits as kids we kept ourselves occupied for many hours with that swing and another one my grandpa crafted himself.  He was never too busy to pull us.  There would often be a line of cousins pulling together to see how high we could get each other.  Having my two oldest kids get to experience the rope swing after the funeral was a highlight for me.  I took many pictures of course, and though I am no poet, I quickly wrote a little something to go along with them in honor of my grandpa. 

The Rope Swing

by Koreena Taualii 

 Dedicated to Floyd Davis Larson

A rope crafted by loving hands 

Wrapped around a small log

Waiting for giggles and thrills to come.

You sit and wait for many hands to pull.

Higher and higher it's lifted

Til you beg to be let go.

A sudden release and 

You're flying,

Touching branches with your toes

and sky with your face.

Squeals of delight beg for another turn.

Callused hands respond to pull yet again,

Never to tire of the laughter of grandchildren.

Chocolate Chip Cookies, Roses, and Hard Goodbyes

I'm taking the time to write this post knowing full well that most people will skim it, if not completely skip over it.  And that's fine.  I guess it's more for my way of coping with the grief over my Grandma's passing.  Losing her has brought back so much pain from losing Grandpa 6 years ago, so it feels like I've lost them both at the same time.  It's taken me a few days to feel like I can even write this without completely losing it.

Matty, Jossy and I attended my Grandma Larson's funeral on Saturday in Burley, Idaho.  We came extremely close to getting in what would have been a horrible car accident just miles from our destination.  It would have involved 2 semis, a pickup truck, and our little sedan at 75 miles an hour.  I won't get into it, but I'll say spiritual promptings of Dan's back home let me know afterwards how bad it would've been.  We're very thankful to have made it there and back in one piece, and we're very thankful for the power of prayer and a Heavenly Father who answers them even when we don't understand why it's needed.

Grandma's funeral was hard of course, but I learned so much about her.  It's funny how much you can be around someone your whole life but not really understand the depth of who they are until listening to their life sketch.  Many stories were told about her and Grandpa that made me miss my childhood very badly.

Marva Fae Smith Larson (around age 16)

My grandparents with me on my blessing day

The last picture I have with her just after Lacey was born in April 2011

Many, many, MANY things were said about Grandma and her cookies.  She ALWAYS had cookies for everyone.  So as a tribute some of the granddaughters baked chocolate chip cookies, and they were passed out to each funeral guest.  It was a loving, beautiful gesture.

Her well-known cookie jar with more miles on it than any other in existence

Grandma was buried in the cemetery adjacent to her property.  We grew up climbing the fence from her yard to the cemetery to visit other ancestors, rake leaves for fun, and put roses on random tombstones.  It was hard being there since her plot is right next to the fence.  We literally had this view of her house when standing at her burial site.

It honestly felt like she was going to step out of the kitchen onto the back porch at any minute and yell for Grandpa to come help her with something.  It killed me inside to have so many memories right there as we said goodbye.

They gave all the grandchildren roses in honor of her rose garden, and since there were some leftovers my 2 kids wanted one each, too.

I'll probably be off a little bit here, but Grandma and Grandpa had 8 children, 39 grandchildren, 98(ish) great-granchildren, and about 10 great-great-grandchildren, plus one foster daughter and her family.  We packed that relief society room for family prayer prior to the funeral like no one had before. :)

After the funeral we enjoyed catching up with family at a luncheon at the church. Walking in that cultural hall, it suddenly hit me that this was the same room we celebrated Grandma and Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary 20-some years before and where we had held Grandma's 90th birthday party just a couple years ago.  It all made me sad to realize those things were just memories now.

My siblings and I don't have many opportunities to be all together any more since one lives on the West coast and one on the East, but we were all there this weekend.

After the luncheon, we went back to my grandparent's house for a bit.  There were pictures of my family still on Grandma's dresser from when she last was there a few years ago.  She's been in a care center in Bountiful since some strokes a while back and wasn't ever able to return home.

Everything was just the way it was when they both lived there, included Grandpa's hats still hung in the laundry room.

There was really one main reason we went back to the house, and that's so my kids could experience the thrill of Grandpa's rope swing.  But that demands it's own post another day.

First Day of School: Take 2

This is a little out of order since it happened before my birthday.  Oh well.

I already mentioned how Matty missed the first day of school this year.  That night he had me up SOOOO often because he said he couldn't sleep.  He was up probably 3 hours that night and finally fell asleep again close to 6 AM. Then he slept in til 9 so I figured he was still feeling sick.  But once he was actually up and had breakfast, I could tell he was much better.  Hanging upside down on our playset and chasing his sisters around were my first two clues.  So he got dressed and I sent him off for HIS first day of school, after taking obligatory pictures of course.

His sisters just can't stand being left out of anything.