Puppy Love

For those of you who know Todd, you know:
1. He loves board games.

2. He's not a big fan of animals.

Over Thanksgiving, Todd's sister babysat 11 puppies. In the evenings, Lynnie and Cassie would hold the dogs and play with them to tire them out before they went to sleep. One evening Todd wanted to play a game. Lynnie and Cassie said that it would speed things up if he helped them play with the puppies and get them ready for bed. So, being anxious to play a game, Todd agreed to help hold and play with the puppies. When I saw this, I couldn't resist taking pictures and making a slide show to this song. Hope the game was worth it Todd. Enjoy!

Cool

I saw the following post on Dr. Laura's blog and thought I would share it.

Blessings in Disguise

I have always been impressed with the mentality of the Mormons with respect to the issue of charity. I had a tour of their main charity facilities, and was amazed at what I saw and learned. There are absolutely no handouts – they barter!

Here’s how it works: if you could lose your home, or if you need food, clothing, medicine or toys for your children, the Church takes financial care of your needs. In exchange, you provide services to the very mechanism that rescued you. This means that folks in the bakeries are people who have benefited from the charitable services; those helping in the stores that sell thrift clothing, housewares and food are those who have benefited from the charitable services, and so on.

The basic concept is to preserve a sense of dignity and pride in those who have temporary need by giving them an opportunity to use their skills in the service of others. Walking around the premises, I felt the uplifted attitude of all who were there: smiles, waves, and straight backs.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints provides for people all over the world – not only with goods and goodwill, but with the opportunity to not lose a sense of self when “things” are lost.

I probably sound like an advertisement for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I am not a member of their religion, but I am impressed with their charitable philosophy, because I believe it teaches our children their real value, while motivating and uplifting them at the same time.

Their young people who graduate high school are expected to go on two-year “missions,” reminiscent of the Peace Corps. These young people come back much more mature, as they’ve experienced the pain and need of others, and have sacrificed two years of their own comfort to be of service to others.
Other youngsters just don’t want to skip a beat in their acquisition of iPods, cell phones, and other “Internet in your hand” gadgets.

I believe that the economic disaster our country is in right now is a kind of blessing in disguise with respect to values. Without values, life just provides us with “things,” but not necessarily with any profound meaning.

Thanksgiving Plus

     Well, it's been a while since I posted something here, although I did get sick (see previous post by LynMarie). Spencer and I are both doing well and we all had a good Thanksgiving. We went to Muffin's grandmother's house for dinner, then visited my parents for a couple of days over the weekend. It was great to see Alysha, who was home visiting from BYU. Not so great was the fact that Cassie was watching some puppies for some friends.... eleven puppies. Somehow I ended up helping out.



     I also got to play Die Macher, one of my favorite games. Although I really enjoy it, the four-hour play time means it doesn't hit the table very often. However, Cassie made a deal with me – she'd play the game if I went to see Twilight with her. The movie did have some entertainment value, though probably not in the places that were intended. Unless you're a big fan of the books and feel like you have to see the movie, I'd say… don't.

      But hey, I got a great game out of the deal. Die Macher is a game where each player represents a German political party, trying to win seats in a series of seven German state elections. You get points for each seat you win, for party membership, for media control, and for how well you match national opinion on the issues. I won the last state by one vote, giving me some last-second points, and after we totaled everything up, Cassie and I both had 366 points. There's no tiebreaker in the rules, but we'd agreed to play with a series of tiebreakers, the first of which is seats won, where I had a seven-seat edge. Four hours and it came down to the very end!

     Ok, on to what everyone really wants to see. Here's a picture of Spencer on his nine-month "birthday". He is pulling himself up on everything now, and starting to be a little more confident when he is cruising. He seems to have another gear when crawling, too. For example, he can be pretty fast when trying to make it through the office door before Daddy can get there and close it. One of his latest accomplishments is that he crawled all the way from the family room to our bedroom, which includes a full flight of stairs.



     He now helps out with the laundry, usually by spreading the clothes hangers all over the family room.



     He's still a really happy little boy most of the time, although having four teeth come in at once hasn't been very much fun. All four center ones on the top are poking through now, and it took several tries to get a picture that shows them all. You can click on it to get a closer view... just don't look too closely at his nose.