Happy, late, Thanksgiving!  Ours was a really low-key day, but it was great!  Since my sister moved back West, we don’t have family near and although we invited some friends, they already had plans- so it was just our family for Thanksgiving.  Nick, who is in the middle of a work project he is in charge of, spent a lot of the day ironing out kicks with work, so the kids and I worked on food and then played.  The weather was beautiful! and we weren’t tied to a schedule, so we had a very nice day.

Arwyn won an art contest for entering a picture of a “fat eagle” (her words) in the Veteran’s Day contest.  She won the GRAND prize, along with $150.  She was and is soo excited and has been plotting how she can spend her money.  It is amazing to me how her confidence in her artistic ability has taken off.  Once she saw that her art was appreciated (and had a fiscal reward) she hasn’t stopped drawing!  Her picture has been on display at the library.

Art isn’t the only talent my kids have.  I’ve recently discovered that Chase will listen to music on the radio and then can sing it back to you.  His memory is quite good for lyrics, although he doesn’t always understand what is being said and fills in gaps he doesn’t understand with his own words.  It makes for great entertainment, but has made me much more picky about what I listen to in the car.  Their most recent song is a pop song that has the refrain, “I’m going to break, break, break, break your heart” (repeated several times).  Chase (5) and Pierce (2) go around singing it all the time.  They thought it was really funny when I asked them to NOT break MY heart and it only egged them on to sing and say it to me more.  When Pierce is in a loving mood, he now tells me, “I not break your heart, Mom!”

I’ve already done a lot of Christmas shopping, here and there, and with the kids home from school, we got the tree up and have started putting presents under it.  I love Christmas.  I love seeing presents under the tree and I’m excited to see the kids open up their presents.  While I love these things, they also fill me with a sense of sadness and guilt!  Even as we strive to keep Christ at the center of this holiday, it seems like things and money so easily crowd out what is more important.  We are not rich, or even close, but we have so many blessings and while I’m filled with gratitude for all we have, I know I also take so much that I have for granted.  Seeing our Christmas bounty laid out, waiting for us, makes me feel a real need to look outside of our family to all those in the world who don’t enjoy all the blessings we do.

Nick and I were talking about this last night.  This last conference, three new Apostles were called to fill positions in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  One of these new Apostles, Elder Dale Renlund, told of an experience he had in the Democratic Republic on Congo.  Elder Renlund had asked the Saints at a meeting, what their challenges were.  He related that, “an older gentleman stood up and said, ‘Elder Renlund, how can we have challenges?  We have the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  Now, my faith isn’t as strong as that African brother’s, I have the gospel, but I KNOW I still have challenges.  At the same time, I do know (but need to constantly remind myself) that my challengers are nothing compared to the blessings I have been given, especially those that come from the Gospel.  Elder Renlund concluded that those African Saints “look like they have nothing, but they have everything.”

Life has felt crazy lately.  It is funny how my life frequently feels “more” crazy than usual, when in fact I think it is a rather constant stream of craziness that I should be used to.  I feel like I should acclimate to all the chaos, but maybe in the end it isn’t a good think to have crazy be normal.

Nick was out of town again last week.  He has had to travel a lot lately.  The night before he left, he got home early- even before the kids were home- so he could pack.  After the kids were home, I was unpacking  their backpacks, and I have always thrown the empty bags by the back door, until I am done and then I pick them up and hang them in the garage.  Well, the bags are nylon and I was in sock…. I was hurrying by them, doing something, when I caught the edge of one of the bags and slipped.  I’m not exactly sure how it all happened, the kids were sitting at the counter, but no one really noticed until I was already down.  Somehow I eded up laying in the opposite direction and my head, not my hands, met the hardwood floor first.  I sat up, whimpering a little, because it hurt, when my hands came away covered in blood!  I was happy Nick was home and the kids got him from outside and he got to look at the mess before me!

I have a good fish hook sized and shaped cut over my left eye, which quickly swelled up into a good sized egg.  The cut will scar, but luckily it wasn’t too deep and we super glued it together.  I also had a bruise along the middle of my forehead (I must have bounced!).  The egg has since gone down, but the blood has just drained down, giving me a pretty impressive black eye!  I’ve been thinking about taking it easy since then, I know it gave me a little of a concussion, but taking it easy is hard to do!

After about a month of no success and work, Pierce seems to be officially potty trained.  One day, he just started using the toilet.  Trying to teach him was miserable, but when he decided he wanted to do it, he has done great!  About the same time he decided he was a big boy, and not a baby, he has started telling me: “I love you, Mom.”  As I wrote that line, he is sitting on my lap and turned around, almost like he could read what I was writing and said, “Mom,” long pause to get my attention, “I love you.” 

He is two and a half and I love to hear those words, but it has made me think a lot about love and how he even knows what love is.  Love is such an abstract concept, how can anyone so young, who’s vocabulary consists mostly of nouns, understand?  I think that he knows what love is because love can be felt.  It is in reality a very tangible, intangible substance.  I know when someone loves me.  Beyond knowing that someone loves me, there are those moments when those feelings of love seem to hang so heavy in the air you can see and touch them.  As I have held him and loved him up until this point, when I felt that overflowing feeling of love I have kissed him and told him I loved him and he has felt it and he now understands and returns that love.

It makes me think of 1 John 4:19: “We love him, because he first loved us.”  I don’t think I ever understood that before, but Pierce has taught me a little about what it means.  We love God and really can only understand the concept of Love itself, because of the love we have felt from our Heavenly Father.  Just as Pierce has felt my love for him and because of that has learned what it means to say, “I love you,”  I have felt God’s love- and compassion- for me and because of that I can begin to say that I love him and others.  

It feels like forever since I have sat down to write.  Part of that is that it has been a while, and part of that is that we have been so busy and doing so much that it has made it seem like it must have been a long time since I last wrote!  We got home about a week ago from the West.  We went to my moms family’s reunion in Wyoming and then we drove to Colorado for a few days for Nick’s family reunion.  Nick had to fly home for work in the middle of that, so we drove back to Wyoming and spent several more days with my family before the kids and I made the 24 hour drive back (not in a straight shot, but in two days!) to Ohio.

It was so much fun and so much work all rolled into one!  It is really important to me that my kids know and love their extended family, and since we live so far from them, it is so nice to be with them.  We canoed and zip lined and made our own water park.  We went off roading and camped and got really really dirty.  At one point, the kids and I even ended up stranded in a ditch.  The GPS took us a bad route to my in laws new house and I couldn’t get anyone on the phone.  We ended up on an ungroomed country road that had been washed out.  It was an adventure, and thankfully we weren’t stuck for long.  I have pictures to remember it by, although I’m positive that the kids won’t let me forget about it either.

As I was stuck, with the five kids, in a ditch, waiting for rescue, I realized that I’ve grown and have more life experience than I used to.  When I was younger the whole stressful experience would have precipitated some stress crying, but I made it through dry eyed- although there was still a little stress involved!

One of my favorite things is going to my moms family’s reunion.  My grandparents joined the church when they were young and they taught their family to love God and do good.  That tradition has continued.  My grandma has Alzheimer's now, and Grandpa wasn’t able to be there for a lot of the days, but I loved seeing all my aunts and uncles and cousins and their children and the strength that the gospel has brought to all of our lives and our families.  We all have struggles, and there are some that have chosen different spiritual paths, but the love we all feel for each other is so strong, and it is because of that shared heritage of love and faith.  I hope that my children and my children’s children will have that same heritage.  They are awfully big footsteps to fill!

In the last general conference, Elder Christofferson quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian that was executed in a concentration camp because of his criticism of Natzi Germany.  I love this quote about family, and felt it at out family reunion.  Bonhoeffer said in a letter to a newly engaged niece: “Marriage is more than your love for each other….  In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory….   In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind.  Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal- it is a status, and office.”  I felt that as I was with my family, I felt the links of our generations and it was a beautiful feeling.

School starts in two days.  We are very ready and at the exact same time not ready at all.  Just like so many other things in life!  Ready or not, it comes and we are excited for it.

It is another rainy day out today.  In some ways I’ve enjoyed the cooler weather and the rain.  The kids have played outside a lot more than they do when it is blistering hot.  The downside is that the pool has been closed a lot.  Even that has a bright side though- when we do make it to the pool on the rainy, cooler days, there is no one else there and we have the pool all to ourselves!  

The three older ones swim really well and usually play well together, so they have a good time at the pool.  Chase wants to swim really, really badly, but he is afraid to give up his floaties and do it on his own.  I know he could take off, but he is hanging on to his mismatched (half girly) floaties for dear life!  Ari wants to learn to dive.  When I can, I’ve spent some time with her working on her form and timing.  I love to swim and dive, but I never took a lot of lessons- my form is my own and what I know is mostly self taught.  Ari doesn’t know any of that, and to her I know everything there is to know about diving and swimming.  It feels great to have her have such confidence in me, but it is also a little frightening.  I barely know what I’m doing!

This summer is flying by too quickly!  We have a family reunion in Wyoming and then one in Colorado the first week of August.  We are all really excited to go and see family and play.  I’m the only one that is also a little overwhelmed with the logistics of getting our family there and back!

Pierce has officially entered his terrible twos.  He is almost two and a half- does this mean that I have only a year of this, or does it mean because it started late it will go late?  He is still unbelievably cute and sweet 85% of the time.  The other 15% he is pure stubbornness.  All of the sudden he is a picky eater and eats TONS of what he likes and will not eat anything that he doesn’t like or that he doesn’t recognize.  You would think that with him being my fifth I would have this figured out, right?  Really, I just think that I am worn down and I have to try really hard to not just avoid all battles by only eating Pierce friendly foods.

Brynli’s birthday is in two weeks.  She will be 11.  She is pretty excited and keeps asking if we have gotten all of her presents.  More than the presents, I think that she is excited about her cake.  Brynli loves to cook and she loves to watch all kinds of baking and cooking shows.  Lets just say that her expectations for her cake are far beyond her or my abilities!  Hopefully she will be content to help me make an average looking birthday cake.

I find that the line from A Tale of Two Cities seems to apply to my life this summer.  This really seems like the best and worst of times all rolled up into one.  With everyone home and so much outdoor and family time, life is good and happy.  At the same time, with everyone home and running around and fighting and all the chaos that comes with that, I have very little time to myself and sometimes it feels like the worst of times.  I try to remember a quote by Elder Uchtdorf: “Heavenly Father is constantly raining blessings upon us.  It is our fear, doubt, and sin that, like an umbrella, block these blessings from reaching us.”  I know that is true in my life and in all our lives.  The thing that makes a difference in making my days, hours and minutes good and bad is not what happens, but my attitude.  When I am willing to see this chaotic summer as a blessing, I am happy.  When I try to ward the chaos off with the space provided by an umbrella I find myself stressed and unhappy.  Unfortunately, having the right perspective is easier to talk about than to have!

I hope this letter finds you without an umbrella, happy and enjoying the rain.

Spring is here! And I am so happy it is.  I’ve always thought that I loved all the seasons equally, but this year I’m loving Spring a lot more than Winter.  We have been outside taking walks and the kids have been asking to go outside and play.  The only down side is that their school has been holding their annual cookie sale and the kids have wanted to see if our neighbors would buy cookies.  With good weather, I had no excuse to not walk around the neighborhood with them.  I hate asking neighbors to pay for things they probably don’t want, but may feel obligated to buy.  At the same time, I think it is really good for the kids to learn to talk to people and be brave.

With the weather getting nice, Pierce has discovered how much he loves being outside and a monster has been born.  He is already always telling me “ierce, side,” which means “Pierce, outside.”  I love being outside and it is fun to watch him, but I still have too much I have to do inside and I don’t want to have to fight a two year old when we can’t go outside.

Chance turns 8 tomorrow.  He has been so excited for his birthday!  Sadly, for me, 8 year old boys are very hard to get presents for!  He is too young for a lot of gifts, but too old for “baby” gifts!  Chance isn’t picky, he will take what he gets and be very grateful, but he is very... particular about his things.  I usually decorate a cake for the kids on their birthday.  I’m not very good, but they like picking out what kind of cake they want and I enjoy trying to make it into something.  The school also lets parents send in cupcakes for their child’s birthday, so Chance reminded me, yesterday, that he wanted cupcakes for his class on Monday.

Cupcakes don’t take long, and my older girls have really gotten into baking, so I hardly have to do anything to get them ready, but finding out HOW Chance wanted his cupcakes decorated was impossible!  He wanted superhero cupcakes, which were all far beyond my meager decorating abilities, and all the cute ideas I found online were too “baby” for him.  So on Monday Chance is taking 24 vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting (boring, but that is what he wanted) decorated with a piece of cheese.  Chance really love reading the Dairy of a Wimpey Kid books and in the first one there was a piece of stinky cheese outside of the school that would give kids the “cheese touch.”  The cheese on the cupcakes looks real, it just looks out of place on a cupcake.  Chance is happy.  He’s also really excited about his baptism.  

Merry Christmas!!!

I love getting other people’s Christmas letters and catching up on friends and family that are far away, but I am not on the ball enough (or I’m just too lazy) to do it myself.  This year, I decided on a compromise, I will write a letter and post it online.  Compiling addresses and mailing letters is most of the work!

We are still in Zanesville, OH.  We have been here for two plus years now and enjoy it.  Yes, we miss the mountains and the Western snow, but we love the people and our life here.  Nick works for Kelloggs and just changed from working in the Quality Assurance department to the Production department.  He is working crazy hours, but he is enjoying the challenge and it is keeping him out of trouble!  Between work and serving as a counselor in our bishopric, Nick doesn’t have time for any hobbies other than getting his wife’s honey-do list done.  He does a good job of that.

I’m teaching the 14-15 year old Sunday school class.  Those of you that knew me as a youth, probably feel like it is fair payback!  I enjoy it; although, most Sundays, I doubt the youth do.  The two youngest boys aren’t in school yet, so they keep me busy, laughing and yelling.  I keep really busy with projects around the house and keeping up with the laundry and lives of my family.  Not very glamorous, but I am constantly surprised at how happy I am to stay home and do laundry!

Brynli is in fifth grade.  She is our girly girl and she is a huge help to me with everything.  She does a lot of the baking for the family now and helps out with her younger brothers and sisters.  She and Arwyn played on different basketball teams this year.  Brynli informed me that she doesn’t want to do it again next year!  The oldest three are also taking piano lessons from Nick and Brynli is the best at consistently practicing!

Arwyn is in fourth grade, but doesn’t mind helping with fifth or second grade homework!  Ari is our most competitive child and she is loving being able to play basketball.  She has spent some of that competitive spirit on the basketball court, even though her team hasn’t won a game yet.  Ari loves to read and is finishing up the Harry Potter books and starting on the Hobbit.  She is our most energetic pianist in the family!

Chance has just started piano and isn’t so sure about the whole thing.  He is in second grade and tells us every night that he didn’t learn anything in school.  Luckily, despite not learning anything, he is getting good grades.  He is a great reader!  Chance will be baptized this coming March and we are all excited for that.  I took him out for putt-putt and dinner the other night because he memorized the 13 Articles of Faith.

Chase is 4 and I try to stay on my toes with him!  He is too bright for his own good!  He is allergic to milk, eggs and wheat.  He is great about being careful and not eating a lot of things, but he always asks to smell them.  I will put them up to his nose, let him take a big whiff and he will tell me how good it smells and then run off!  He loves to dance and has started rocking out to Christmas carols and to hymns (during church).

Pierce is almost two and is growing up!  He isn’t a baby anymore, instead he loves babies and yells “baby” at the top of his lungs when he sees one.  He has just really started to talk- like crazy and put words together.  Yesterday, Chase taught him “elbow.”  He loves to give hugs and kisses and is always running over to hug my legs, before taking off to play.  He also loves to pray.  When I went to put him down for his nap today, he knelt down by the bed, folded his arms and said, “pray.”  We had to pray twice before he would go to sleep.

Merry Christmas.  We know it is because of Christ’s birth and life, and even his death, that we are able to be happy.  We hope that you feel that happiness too.

Love,

The Rowleys

All Hallow Eve

So, we decided to go as a family of superheros this year.  Brynli went as Black Canary- a little know superhero with amazing screeching abilities.  Very few people knew who she was, it weeded out who was and was not die hard comic book fans!  Ari went as Wonder Woman, Chance as Cpt. America.  Chase went to the ward Trunk or Treat as Superman and trick or treating as batman.  Pierce was Robin.  Nick went as Mr. Incredible and I pretended that I was Pepper Potts.

Chase got sooooo much attention as a superhero that he has taken to wearing his costume to the doctors and to casual church activities.  The boy loves attention!  It was raining the night of Halloween and there weren't many out in our neighborhood, so our neighbors were emptying their bowls into the kid's bags!  What a haul!