It's a good thing they're cute!

HELP!!! I need some advice!
My precious, cute, darling, sweet children have a hard time being reverent during Sacrament Meeting (to put it mildly). With David's new stake calling, he will not be sitting with us much in church anymore, AND we will soon be joined by another precious, cute, darling, sweet child who will need to nurse during Sacrament Meeting.
Today was the first time David missed Sacrament Meeting to visit another ward. I have realized that I am not up to the challenge unless I get some inspiration on how to occupy them. They are good kids, but they both are very active and energetic. I spend lots of time pulling them out from under the benches and trying to keep them separated. They also crave one-on-one attention from me. They don't really like looking at books or coloring (unless this includes throwing crayons and coloring the benches and hymnbooks). I made some little "Jesus books" that help for about 2 minutes until they start ripping the pages out and I have to take them away. They also purposely make noise and disrupt for attention. I refuse to bring tons of toys and food. We have found that those things create more problems than they solve anyway. We have the kids "practice" reverence at home after church when they've been disruptive. (They have to sit on a chair being quiet for a certain number of minutes.) We have rewards for them after church when they do behave well. I try to help them get involved with what the speaker is saying, what the song is about, etc. I play soft church music as we're getting ready for church. Basically, Sacrament Meeting is an agonizing time for them and me.
Maybe I'm just being too idealistic. I see other moms sitting by themselves with young children, and they don't seem to be struggling. How do they do it? Do they have easier kids or are they superwomen or have they figured out something that I don't know? I don't want to spend the next five years of church out in the foyer. I'm not expecting perfection. They don't have to sit completely still and never open their mouths the entire time. I don't want them to dread or resent church.
So this is where you come in: What has worked for your kids? If you don't have kids, think back to what worked when you were a kid. This "mom" thing doesn't come naturally for me, and I am out of ideas. I would appreciate any words of wisdom you could offer.

Any day now...

Our kids have short legs and no hips. (They also have no say in which pictures I post!) Here is Clara, losing her pants while running gleefully down the street, away from Grandma Manwill. Luckily, Grandma always has a camera ready when grandkids are around. The pictures are blurry because Grandma was running behind Clara, shooting pictures as fast as she could.

Our camera was thoughtful enough to live until David's Africa trip was finished. It died last week. We hope to have a new camera before the baby comes. I'm technically due in 3 weeks, but it looks like baby is planning to arrive before that, possibly in the next week. (Of course, they told me that with Clara, but she stayed put until two days before her due date. Then again, Nathan surprised us 3 1/2 weeks early.) I feel like I'm in limbo. I can't really make any plans or commitments, but I don't want to sit around doing nothing for the next few weeks.

Africa Pictures

I split up my Africa and Spain pictures into two posts. If you want to see Spain pictures, go to the next post! Here's a tiny taste of Africa. It was fantastic!


I went to Africa to do research in the high schools. We interviewed teachers and principals about issues relating to school trust and school culture and climate. It was fascinating. Ugandans place a lot of emphasis on education and they really work hard with their limited resources to provide the best education possible. This pictures is typical of the classrooms we saw, with generally 50 - 80 students in each class. We have nothing to complain about when it comes to class size here.

We went on a short weekend safari. On the first day we went up the Nile River and looked at wildlife and then hiked up to Murchison Falls. There were hundreds of hippos, along with elephants, crocodiles, antelope (many varieties), cape buffalo, monkeys, and a million kinds of birds. Murchison Falls is amazing because the entire Nile River goes through a gorge that is as narrow as 7 meters wide in one spot. The next day we woke up early and drove through the savanna. We saw giraffes, elephants, antelope (all kinds), birds, wart hogs, baboons, and even lions. Apparently lions are not as common to see, but we found some almost right next to the road. They had just made a kill and would go to the carcass and have a snack and then go back to a tree near the road to rest in the shade. We watched them for several minutes. It was really amazing!






At the end of our safari, we had to wait at a ferry crossing. While waiting, several baboons came over for a visit. This one saw Rachel (a girl in our group) put some peanuts in her pocket. He ran up, pulled her pocket open and grabbed the bag of peanuts with the other hand. None of us had any problems with pick-pockets in Africa, except for Rachel with this baboon. He had mastered his craft.


Here I am with some of the kids that I lived with, and some of their friends. We lived with a very nice African family. I really enjoyed spending time with them in the evenings.


The chaos and energy in a Ugandan street market! Lots of great deals and bargaining!


We visited the source of the Nile River, which was fairly close to where we were staying. Behind us is Lake Victoria and that little cement island is the supposed source of the Nile. It was neat to be there. That is where Ghandi had his ashes spread after he was cremated.

Many Ugandans eat matoke almost every day. Matoke is made of a mashed up banana - type fruit, which is then wrapped in leaves and cooked. It is really filling and really heavy, but quite tasty. I thought it tasted a bit like mashed potatoes.

Spain & Paris Pictures

Here I am with Estanislao and Maria Clara. Estanislao is cousins with my grandfather, Samuel Boren. They are delightful people. I had a wonderful time getting to know them and their family.


I loved the food in Spain! Estanislao and Maria Clara took me to some amazing restaurants and Maria Clara is also an amazing cook! This is a meal we had at a really nice restaurant that overlooked Barcelona. The food was tasty and the company superb! I really like the goat cheese in my salad!

If you ever have the chance to visit Barcelona, do it. There are so many amazing cathedrals and other buildings! My dad (Nelson) is an architect and would have gone crazy in Barcelona.


This is a picture of Laguarres, Spain, where Mariano Borén was born and raised, along with his ten brothers and sisters. Mariano is my great grandfather, the father of Samuel Borén. We drove for about three or four hours from Barcelona to get here. I was surprised how remote it is. Back in the glory days (mid 1850's) there were over 500 people living in Laguarres. Now there are less than 100!

I had to get a picture by the town entrance!


This is the house where Mariano Borén was born and raised in Laguarres, along with his brothers and sisters. Everyone in town calls it "La Casa Betis". It looked like it is in pretty good shape. Mariano left Spain in the early 1900's to go to Argentina, along with two brothers and a sister. His three siblings eventually returned to Spain, but Mariano stayed in Argentina until he died in 1939 in Argentina. We think he stayed in Argentina because he married a girl from Argentina and she wanted to stay close to her family.


Between Spain and Africa I had a several hour layover in Paris. I jumped on the subway and saw Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. My ears are not accustomed to French, so it was good and confusing a few times. I didn't see much of Paris, but those two sites were really cool. The only thing that could have made it better was if Sherrie had been there.


I was at the Eiffel Tower at night, so they had it all lit up. It is enormous! I took this picture right underneath the middle of it.

giant anthills, fried fish, and stretchy cheese

YIKES! This picture gives me the shivers. Yes, that huge mound is an anthill. Nathan and Grandpa Boren took a hike in the woods behind the house and found 3 of these anthills. I'm glad I wasn't there.Nathan must have gotten the fishing gene. He kept Grandpa busy baiting hooks and casting while he reeled in fish after fish. I think he caught 15 within an hour or so. Then he got home and ATE three fish as fast as I could cook and debone them. I think he must be growing. He has been hungry ALL DAY for the past week. As soon as he finishes a meal, he starts asking when the next meal is.
Miss Clara, on the other hand, gets more food on her hands, on her face, on the floor, in her lap, and in her hair, than she gets in her stomach. Her dinner yesterday ended in dramatic fashion, as she hurled her bowl of food across the room in violent rage. (How dare you ask me to use my spoon, Mommy!) She was promptly dismissed from the table and did not get dessert.
When we grilled mozzarella sandwiches for lunch, we didn't realize that this particular kind of mozzarella is impossible to eat politely when melted. This is the stretchiest cheese I've ever seen. What fun!
The farm in Sandpoint is paradise. I imagine heaven to be a place like this. I can understand why David has a hard time being satisfied with other places we've considered living. He was spoiled growing up here. Every time we drive up here to visit, I feel like I'm coming home. I cried last summer when we left to go back to Utah. I love our home in Orem, but there is something about this place that is good for my soul.

Safari!

Here's the latest from David in Uganda. By the way, he didn't take this picture. I got it off the web. He can't send me pictures from the internet cafes because the computers are too slow. I can't wait to see the pictures he took.

This last weekend was fantastic! I went with a few other students up to Murchison Falls National Park in northwestern Uganda and it was amazing. Soon after entering the park we started seeing animals. There were several baboons on the road or on the side of the road. They would scurry into the forest when we got too close. There were several amazing birds, as well as a bunch of warthogs and cape buffalo. Cape buffalo are huge and really ugly (kind of like our first steer Hal, only bigger, uglier, and meaner). After lunch at the Red Chilli (yes with two l’s), we went down to the Nile River to catch a boat up to Murchison Falls . The boat ride was incredible. I had no idea that there were so many hippos in the world. There were hundreds of them (no joke!). They were all along the side of the river. They are enormous. We also saw a small herd of elephants right along the edge of the river. The are even more enormous. During our ride we also saw a lot of exotic birds (my favorite was the fishing eagle), several crocodiles (the largest one was probably 7 – 8 meters long), antelope of all kinds, and several herds of cape buffalo. It was thrilling.

We were dropped off about a mile and half below the falls and proceeded to hike along the river to the base of the falls and up to the top of the falls. I don’t think I have experienced such extreme humidity with about 90 degree temperatures before. I know that there are much hotter places, but wow was I sweating. I felt like I was in some Indiana Jones movie with all of the sounds and animals around. The waterfall is about 45 – 50 meters tall with the entire Nile River fitting through a gorge that is as narrow as 7 meters in some places. The river is more than a mile wide above and below the falls, so there was a lot of water rushing down that gorge. It was absolutely roaring. We went back to where we were staying that evening, had a swim in their bug-infested pool, took a shower, and slept in some small, but very comfortable cabins. At that point I didn’t care about the bugs. I needed a way to cool down.

In the morning we had breakfast, crossed the Nile on a barge and went on a little safari. We saw all sorts of amazing animals, including giraffes, elephants, baboons, antelope (of all kinds), cape buffalo, warthogs (Pumba was there!), and some beautiful birds. We really wanted to see some lions and had seen a few from a very far distance, but some of the other vehicles scared them away. Later in the day we came upon three lions right next to the road. They had just made a kill and were resting under a tree, about thirty feet away from us. They would leave the shade every five minutes to go have a snack and would come back with blood on their mouths. They were beautiful.

All in all it was an amazing trip, and it testified so strongly of the beauty of God’s creations.

pictures, finally

Have you ever had started working on a crazy ambitious idea that, once begun, has to be completed? Last year, when we started talking about getting bunk beds for the kids, I realized that we didn't have much twin-sized bedding. So I had this "great" idea that I would MAKE all the bedding for them. It took me two General Conferences, six 12-hour car trips, and countless movies to finish Nathan's afghan. Then I started on a quilt for him. Of course, I neglected my kids for hours at a time while I worked on all this. I finally finished it last week, with the help of my mom. Now, I'm using the time when David is in Africa to start a quilt for Clara. I can only pray that I finish it before the baby comes. I could just go buy a bed-in-a-bag at Walmart (which would be way cuter than anything I could sew) and call it good. But of course, Clara has seen me working on all this for Nathan, so she is excited for me to do it for her too. Then, #3 will expect it too, and so on. Anyway, once the kids recover from the traumatic experience of having me make blankets for them, they'd better sleep well in their new bunk beds.
We visited Wheeler Farm in Salt Lake last week. The kids had a blast playing on this crazy tree with deformed trunks and branches growing out in every direction.
Nathan found some baseball bats at my parents' house this week. He used them to form alphabet letters. He used a string for the letters with curved lines. He is always doing things in ways that I would never think of.