Me the bad Mormon!

Last night we had the missionaries over for dinner. I like to do this occasionally because I remember what it was like being a missionary and how nice it was to go to a members house even for an hour to relax. I remember sharing a message of the gospel with the families and encouraging them to look for opportunities in their lives to share the gospel. Over the years we have had some good experiences with missionaries in our home and we have had some bad experiences with missionaries in our home. And again I remember what it was like to be so focused on the gospel in my life and not understanding why everyone else was not. And then I came home from my mission and began the grind of day to day life.

Anyway like I said we like to have the missionaries over occasionally and again we've had some good experiences and some bad. When we lived in Las Vegas and the missionaries lived in our same apartment complex we had them over once or twice a week it seemed until one transfer the new elder was such a pain in the behind we stopped for quite a while.

I really like supporting the missionaries as much as possible again because I remember what it was like to be out there and I really like having them come over for dinner and having them interact with the boys.

In my day to day life I try very hard to live my religion. I attend my church meetings, I go to the Temple, I pray, I teach my children about the love of their Heavenly Father and to treat others with respect and compassion. And when the opportunity presents itself I share the gospel with the people that I come in contact with. Everyone I work with knows I am a "Mormon". It is sometimes made fun of because I don't drink alcohol or coffee and though I do swear occasionally definitely not to the level my coworkers do. But I have also had the opportunity to share one on one with my coworkers what I believe and why and I have given out a couple of Book of Mormons. I let them know I am open to discussing my religion and would be more than happy to share more if they are interested. But most of the people I work with are very Catholic and happy with their religion, have no desire for any religion in their life or are people I don't interact with enough to share my most personal beliefs.

Anyway I digress. Yesterday after our meal with the missionaries it was time for them to give their spiritual message and head on their way. They start talking about sharing the gospel with our friends and asked what opportunities we have had to do this recently. We shared our experiences with coworkers and our neighbors and they start in on following up with these people. All well and good, more than the spiritual message I wanted, but I understand they are asked to do certain things by their mission president and trying to be good missionaries they are doing them. They then ask us to "role play" with them about following up with the people we have talked to about the gospel. Now this is me 14 years after my mission, sitting in my home, I am now 37 years old and the last thing I want to do is role play. So when they asked me if I would role play, I told them no. I think they were a little taken back by my refusal and repeated the question in a "Will you" format all missionaries are famous for and familiar with. And again I said no. They expressed how they understood it was uncomfortable but by practicing it would make it easier. And again I told them no. I explained I didn't have a problem following up with the people I shared the gospel with, but role playing was not something I wanted to do and not something I was going to do. I think they were a bit miffed at me.

So am I a bad Mormon for not wanting to role play with the missionaries in my own home? I don't think so, I'm just someone who is taking control of her own life and doing the best she can. And when I don't want to do something I am strong enough to say no!

Pioneer Day Weekend!

Just because we live in Missouri doesn't mean we can't celebrate Pioneer Day. Okay had it not been a Saturday and the ward not had a breakfast it might have just been another day. But lucky for us it was a Saturday and the ward did have a breakfast. Now our ward has had a pretty rough history (at least with our family) and ward breakfasts. But I must give it to our current activities committee. The breakfast last year and this year were really good. Additionally they had some handcarts on hand and the kids got to play in them and even got taken on a ride by the bishop.

The picnic this year was held at Klondike Park. I'd never been before and didn't even realize such a beautiful secluded place was so close to our house. Dave took Hayden out to try their luck at a little fishing. The fish were biting really well, but they weren't ever able to actually pull any in.

We also had the special opportunity to have Dave's mom and her husband Ivan come for a quick visit. It was nice to see the boys getting to know their grandparents.

What's in a name! Really!

Okay with a last name like Growcock you pretty much hear all the jokes. Over the last thirteen years I’ve just learned to role my eyes and move on. I could go on an on about the things people have said, but suffice it to say I won’t. There is really only one story I have that I feel is worth repeating about our last name, and that’s because it involves two of my favorite people. Hayden and my mom.

Several years ago, okay not that long ago really as Hayden is only going to be five soon, but about the time he was really grasping language and using his words my parents came out for a visit. Hayden had picked up on calling my dad grandpa right away, but seemed to be struggling with calling my mom grandma. My mom just loved Hayden and loved to interact with him all the time. While we were in the car Hayden would sit in his car seat between my mom and I. During a particular drive my mom would shake Hayden’s hand and say to him “Hello, Mr. Growcock.” This she did repeatedly through out the day.

Hayden just loves having my parents come to visit and the first thing he does in the morning is try to head downstairs to see grandma and grandpa. The following morning after the rendition of the “Hello, Mr. Growcock" Hayden got out of bed and headed for the stairs. When I asked him what he was doing his response to me was “Go down and see grandpa and cock.” I about fell over laughing, he couldn’t quite work out calling my mom grandma but he sure picked up on the “cock” from the day before.

Through out the whole visit Hayden continued to refer to my mom as cock and even for several months after they had left. Luckily he forgot and now calls her grandma.

Cock, oh my!

Hayden, Who did you call?!

When Hayden was little and started eating solid foods there really wasn't anything he wouldn't eat. If you put it in front of him he pretty much ate it. As he has gotten older he has gotten pickier about what he will and will not eat. And lately it seems unless it is a hot dog or macaroni and cheese he automatically doesn't like whatever it is. There was a period of time when you asked him what he wanted to eat he would look at you and say, "Can we just go out," as if he was the one who actually had to make the meal.

With our busy lives, I have tried to make a point of sitting down to dinner every night as a family at the dinner table. Many times Hayden will say, "I'm not hungry" because he wants to keep playing or watching TV or something, and I explain to him that not only is dinner a time to eat, but it is time for the family to sit down together and talk.

I myself am not a very good cook. I make a few passable things. Dave on the other hand is a very good cook. He makes incredible meals and sometimes spends lots of time putting them together. In our nearly thirteen years of marriage I can count on one hand the number of meals he has made that were a dud. So there really isn't anything for Hayden to be whining about regarding the food he is being fed on a regular basis.

So needless to say getting him to eat at dinner time has not been a real treat. He would rather not eat at dinner and than eat crap like fruit snacks, popcorn or ice cream later. Even threats of no treats has really not detered him. Once when we had BBQ chicken (which Dave made and was excellent by the way) after everyone was done except Hayden, I cut two small pieces and told him unless he ate them he would get nothing else the rest of the night. Talk about dramatic, he took the most minuscule bite of one of the pieces and proceeded to chew and gag and chew and gag. It took him ten minutes to eat these two pieces of chicken bitching and moaning the whole time.

Well last night it came to a head. We had a chicken and pasta dish (which was very good) and Hayden refused to eat any of the chicken or the carrots in the dish. He really didn't eat anything. So we told him if he didn't eat there would be no popcorn later. He proceeded to bitch and moan and complain that if he ate his dinner his tummy would hurt. We explained that if his tummy would hurt by eating dinner it would really hurt eating crap later so he wouldn't get anything later. He then went into his I'm sick mode. I told him to got lay down in his bedroom. He wanted to lay down in the family room and watch his movie. Not wanting to reward bad behavior I said he could lay down in the family room, but I was not going to turn his movie on. He proceeded to whine and cry but went into the family room anyway. Dave, Turner and I continued with our meal and when we were done we began to clean up. I really wasn't paying attention to Hayden when all of a sudden he brings the telephone into the kitchen to me and says,"It's the emergency people." Now I hadn't heard the phone ring so I figured it was someone Hayden had called by accident. Nope, he had actually called "911" to complain that we were making him eat his dinner and not allowing him to have popcorn.

After I apologized profusely to the "911" operator and explained the situation, she informed me I needed to make my child more aware of what "911" was for and what a real emergency was. So much for that stupid little "911" book we've been reading.

So not only did we get a lesson for family home evening about what a real emergency is, we got a lesson on good and bad choices and good and bad consequences. And because of the bad choice of calling "911" Hayden had to go to be early without any popcorn.

What a bunch of crap!

As we are planning more for our move to San Antonio we have been going through the house and taking a serious look at what we have and what we really need. We found a lot of stuff we really didn't want to keep around any more and decided we needed to either give it to goodwill or sell it. A family in our ward must have had the same idea because they annouced they were having a yard sale and invited other families to join in, what a stroke of luck.

So we took a long and hard look at our house one more time and the shear amount of crap we had laying around was mind boggling. I could not believe all of the superfolous stuff we had.

So we are having a yard sale tomorrow. All of the stuff is loaded and ready to go, it is all cleaned and priced. I hope we make a little money from the sale, but even if we don't and it all ends up at goodwill just the fact it is out of our house is liberating!

Eclipse Experience . . .What was I thinking!

I didn’t even hear about Twilight until after the first movie came out. And when Wendy at church told me about these Vampire books she just couldn’t put down, I thought it was a little strange. So when I saw the book on sale at Costco for like six bucks I had Dave buy it for me and put it in my stocking for Christmas. The book sat on my nightstand for a couple of months, I had so much other stuff to read before that silly vampire book. I just know I would not be one of these people who gets sucked into this silly (and totally improbable) story line. Finally I got around to reading it and not only was I sucked in, but I was swallowed whole. I loved the books and before I had finished reading the first one I had ordered the other three. I read them all as fast as I could and then reread them. It was sad.

That being said I don’t own a t-shirt, I haven’t taken up a camp for either Edward or Jacob and I never dreamed of naming Turner after one of the characters. I was quite proud of my restraint in waiting to see the first movie until it came out on DVD. I even waited for the second movie to come out on DVD before seeing it.

That all came to an end the other night. A friend from church wanted to get a Twilight group together for the “Experience”. Who was I to say no. It sounded like to much fun. We both tried, but couldn’t talk anybody else into going with us. So we said what the heck and went just the two of us.

Now the “Experience” isn’t just watching the movie, it is watching all three movies in a row back to back with the new movie Eclipse starting at midnight. What fun, thanks Lacy!

The next morning totally sucked but it was so worth it and I really had a great time. Probably won't be doing it for Breaking Dawn next year, but who knows.