Hallelujah

"In the case of us mortals, men and women are confronted with a world in which there are appealing arguments for God as a childish projection, for modern prophets as scheming or deluded imposters, and for modern scriptures as so much fabulous fiction. But there is also compelling evidence that a glorious divinity presides over the cosmos, that God calls and anoints prophets, and that His word and will are made manifest through a sacred canon that is never definitively closed. There is, as with the ass of Buridan, nothing to compel an individual’s preference for one over the other. But in the case of us mortals, there is something to tip the scale. There is something to predispose us to a life of faith or a life of unbelief. There is a heart that in these conditions of equilibrium and balance—and only in these conditions of equilibrium and balance, equally “enticed by the one or the other”—is truly free to choose belief or cynicism, faith or faithlessness.

Why, then, is there more merit—given this perfect balance—in believing in the Christ (and His gospel and prophets) than believing in a false deity or in nothing at all? Perhaps because there is nothing in the universe—or in any possible universe—more perfectly good, absolutely beautiful, and worthy of adoration and emulation than this Christ. A gesture of belief in that direction, a will manifesting itself as a desire to acknowledge His virtues as the paramount qualities of a divided universe, is a response to the best in us, the best and noblest of which the human soul is capable. For we do indeed create gods after our own image—or potential image. And that is an activity endowed with incalculable moral significance."

"Lightning Out of Heaven," Terryl L. Givens, BYU Speeches November 2005

#Hallelujah

girls' room redo

summer and afton recently (and without warning!) grew out of their playhouse room. 

(easily their mother's most favorite room in the house.)

they ended up leaving it a mess all time time because the setup just wasn't suiting their needs anymore.

new needs included: a bigger dresser for their bigger clothes, more floor space to set up their barbies and/or american girls and/or my little ponies and/or shopkins and/or whatever especially tiny toys they are in to on any given day, a space to spend hours drawing (doing homework would be nice, too), and a place to store their ever growing collection of art supplies.

here's what we came up with:

a couple of these projects were a wee bit DIY because i got this crazy, harebrained idea that i was some kind of ikea hacker. dear future emily, you are definitely NOT an ikea hacker (your blood pressure may never be the same), but it was worth a go.

after clearing out and selling most of their old stuff, i painted the room (and the ceiling -- curse whoever decided it was a good idea to put color on ceilings!)

then i spray painted almost every thing i could get my hands on with gold spray paint (the dresser knobs, the curtain finials, picture frames, the desk legs, a couple of my kids). 

i painted the ikea hemnes drawer fronts for a peachy ombre effect and mounted bookplates on the ikea alex drawers. 

bryan and i built the desk from an ikea linnmon top and four hairpin legs. 

i also found an awesome idea for a striped bulletin board at sarah m. dorsey designs, used liquid nails to adhere a few ikea corkboards together, and spray painted a copycat design. my piece de resistance.

now the girls are happy, and i'm tired (but the girls are happy).

this message proudly sponsored by our recent trip to ikea 

and the many, many (MANY) trips to the hardware store that followed (hi logan!)

hair today, gone tomorrow

about a month ago, caleb got a pretty sweet haircut:

he owned it, gelled it, and pretty much rocked the socks off that 'do until...

he found a pair of scissors.

as an added bonus, while bryan was shaving caleb's hair to even out the damage (shown above), the guard inadvertently fell off the razor, which resulted in a pretty sizeable bald spot that (for consistency's sake) had to become an incredibly large bald spot (shown below).

duh duh duh DUN (snap, snap)

some things i want to remember about this experience: 

--caleb keeps running to the mirror to see if his hair has grown back yet. 

--one of his first comments was how he now looks like opa d.

--he is telling everyone not to touch his hair because "it's pokey!"

dear preschool in the morning, please be kind :)