Sophia's Self Portrait

Here is the self-portrait Sophia created recently at school:

And here is Sophia herself (after a recent haircut):


Hmm. What do you think?

What strikes me about her self-portrait is not just how well she has captured her likeness, but how much older she has drawn herself. She looks like a young woman in her twenties, when in fact she is just about to turn 10 years old. I think this is telling about how Sophia understands herself. And in fact, I think Sophia does have a very old, wise spirit. Like she was among the early generations of Father in Heaven's spirit children. Like she has had a little more time than many of us to gain some spiritual insights and maturity.

Good thing we named her Sophia.

One more look:

Aidan capers

Our boy has been at it.

Here's the mighty "Soup-Man!" Deann, do you remember sending these pajamas?


Here's a sheepish boy who has frosted himself with Eucerin and has just called upon me to rescue him from his predicament. Check out the expression on his face! He was sitting there, frozen, apparently fearing that any movement might worsen the situation. (Over 20 shampoos later, his hair is still grossly greasy.)

Mama, I caught another fish!

Oh, bliss. Our whole family took off for a fishing trip in the late afternoon today. Jacob and Noel (who is visiting us from Lawrence) fished from the dock:


Meanwhile, Doug took the girls and I--and Aidan, at times--on a tour of the lake:


Meredith and Aidan and I also spent some time at the lake playground. It was a warm afternoon, and dusk was approaching by the time we were wrapping up our trip, as you can see in the pics.

This was Jacob and Noel's third fishing trip in two days, and they were discouraged when the fish still weren't biting. Sophia threw in a line and caught two fish in a short time! Jacob was consoled, though, because Sophie froze up when the fish bit, so he got to reel in the catch. Aidan was ecstatic. Meredith was ambivalent, but just happy in general:



I must add this was Doug's fourth fishing expedition of the weekend. I think he's making the most of his holiday, don't you? He snuck off early this morning for some daybreak fishing when the rest of us were still sleeping and caught several croppie and a bass. He fried them up for us for dinner in a cornmeal batter and they were deeee-licious.



Here's the whole album, where you can see a few more shots:

Fall fishing

Fall Holiday

What a fine, fine Thanksgiving we had! It was just us Lamar Von Feldts this year, and we had a wonderful time cooking and eating. Meredith played "cooking show" with me to make the praline topping for the pecan pie, and Jacob made the rolls. Sophia and Meredith contributed to making the table look beautiful. We were so proud of our completely homecooked feast that we took pictures of each dish.

Here's our snaps: The top pic is of Aidan going at it with a utensil in each hand! Click for the complete web album.

Thanksgiving 2006

Since we're at it, we might as well belatedly throw in our photos from Halloween.

Meredith was Wife of Dracula (her own creation), Sophia was a veterinarian, and Jacob was a . . . ugly scary guy. We trick or treated with our new friends, the Boises. You can see Austin here with our kids in his hunting costume (I believe he actually uses these duds for real-life hunting) and Olivia in her witch costume. This is a new Web Album, so click below to see more--if Halloween isn't too long ago for you!

Halloween

For Doug, at last

Many of you know that when I met Doug, he was living on a boat. That 25-foot cabin cruiser was with us until we were about to have our first baby, which is when we sold it. Doug loves the water and has been patiently waiting for the kids to get a little bigger and our lives to change just enough to make a boat practical.

That time is here! Upon moving down here so near to the Ozarks, we acquired two boats--new to us. One is an old fishing boat that we got via Ebay, and the other is a ski boat from our good friends Kevin and Sandra Young.

Lamar Lake is just about 5 minutes from our home. The first time we put the fishing boat in as a family was in September. Doug, Jacob, Aidan, and I were aboard. The girls stayed home--they didn't yet get how fun a boat is. The boys enjoyed the fishing and I just enjoyed.

This is a web album. Click to see several more photos, including a snap of Aidan mesmerized by the fish Doug caught:

First boat trip

Our Lamar Branch

We have made ourselves quite at home in our little branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where we were welcomed very warmly. We have a nice church building just three minutes away. There are apple trees on the property out back, free to church members for the pickin'!


This is our Branch President, President Wilson, and his wife. They are the most extraordinary people:

And here's Brother and Sister Bird. Sister Bird was the Primary President when we moved in. She and the other primary workers helped our kids feel so welcome when we were new! She has since been released, and I wish I had a picture of the new President, Sis. Backerman. She is fabulous, too. Brother Bird was recently made the Recorder for the Oklahoma City temple. These are all people that we feel so blessed to know. Loving, hardworking, dedicated to the service of the Lord. They are a tremendous example to our family:


Hey, guess what? This is the new Young Women's president:

Finally!

I know that those of you dutifully checking our blog have been confronted by the lead article "Butt Chamber" for far longer than you would wish. This article has been disconcerting to those amongst us with gentler constitutions. Thank you for persisting and for the suffering that you endured when you had to revisit this article each day. And to the others who gave up, I say, "Come back! Come back!"

We have been here in Lamar over three months now. We still don't have any pictures hung on the wall, but we are feeling completely in the swing of things. I have a few photos I've been wanting to post to show you around the town just a bit more, but then we will close the "We're New Here" chapter in our lives.

Yesterday, Jacob marched with the middle school band in an evening parade that was the prelude to the lighting of the lights downtown. (That's the third parade our town has hosted since we moved here! Are we partiers?) The lights on our town square are really quite festive.

Here's a couple of pics from the square taken in warm weather. First, the courthouse:

And this is what Sophie calls the "pink post office:"


I have mailed letters from that post office! Now, in case you didn't already know, our town is quite famous:


Most notably, it's the birthplace of President Harry S. Truman. Here's the home where he was born:


This is Nicole. She'll give you a tour of President Truman's birthplace if you're of the mind:


For some of our family and friends, you will appreciate Lamar less for its historical significance and more for this, the very hippest joint in town:

This is the Java Mule. It's located just off the square. Check out www. javamule.com. It really brews the finest espresso around, or so I'm told, all while celebrating the heritage of the Missouri mule. The smoothies are terrific and we'll be giving the hot chocolate a try soon. Uncle Rick, this is your kinda place!

Being Negative

According to my mom I'm often negative. Well mom says according to my actions I'm negative. I think people consider the answer to the following saying as being optimistic or negative, but they forget the question, so which answer is it. So as I have found myself very interested in quote-type thingamaabobers lately, I thought it would be intresting to . . . debate or find and answer to the proceding statement. This is a question with a right answer and a wrong answer. Mom,


Is the Glass half full or half empty?

. I looked up the definitions of full and empty. . . Now so that nobody can cheat and say, well how much stuff is in the glass . . . the glass is exactly fempty (full/empty).
Empty: Containing Nothing, being uninhabited
Full :1. containing as much as possible or normal 2.being at the highest or greatest degree.
Not much help, is it.
Well I think about it a certain way thats quite simple. If the substance was put in the glass until it was fempty it is full. Because the substance was becoming full and with out being interferred would of been full. If the stubstance was just taking out of the container, or was just dranken out of it is half empty. The substance would have been empty without interference, and was going in the direction of empty.

That is my opinion, I guess both answers are right.

That was dumb and random article by Jacob, Jake the Great King of Cyberspace

" There are no questions as dumb as the one your younger siblings ask, so be curious, ask questions and thank your younger sibling because without them, your questions would be dumb" JAKE THE GREAT KING OF CYBERSPACE

Butt Chamber

Tonight me and my sisters were... hyperactive..... running around, hitting, screaming, chasing, tickling, scaring and while we were doing this we were laughing. I came up with a new tickling move, a good move, gets everyone (Meredith laughed, seconds before she was hissing, kicking, gnarling, biting, screamin, wiggling, and so forth) Heres how you do the move...

1. Corner somebody (prefferely somebody less aggressive and smaller than you) in a open area.
2. Grab there arms and force them to cross them on their stomach
3. Shove them onto the floor, they now can not use their arms to wiggle away
4. Lie on one side of them, perferrely on the arm
5. Pull down their pants, not underwear just pants (this move can be done with all clothes on, just alot less effective)
6. Very lightly rub your fingers across their rear.
7. In about 10 seconds to 1 minute the person will break down laughing, at about 45 seconds turn your finger so the fingernails are rubbing. Wallah!

Don't ask how I came up with, yes its rude and disturbing, but hey I'm 12 its my job.

Jake the Great Returns

After spending T H R E E L O N G miserable weeks in my tomb, after my horrible death, I have been Ressurected!!!!!! Here is my story..................

Notice that a great ruler never survives to die of old age, but I mean a great ruler, and we all know that cyberspace the fastest growing empire is the biggest thing to rule! Well as king of cyberspace, I jake the Great was killed for three weeks then ressurected. There was a wise and ancient (mom just go with the story, we all know your only ~> years old) lady, she was sometimes called the Moummy. She knew all threw her expierence and knowledge, this lady had special contact with the cyberspace gods, Interneto, Wirelessina, and the great and powerful Imail. She was in contact with Televisionet, and X-cube the wise and wonderful. She even knw soccaroma.2Well one day, I, king of cyberspace, had a hard decision to make. It was called Amendment 2,(the actual amendment and decision has nothing to do with the story) and all the world was talking about it. Men and Women were debating and all houses had signs that said... VOTE NO ON AMENDMENT TO VISIT NOCLONING.ORG... Well through all the chaos I disobeyed the wonderful Moummy. Instantly the wonderful and holy Televisionet was out of my reach. As Moummy still began to talk I did not listen, that cost me much, and when she found out bam, I was shunned from X-cube the wise and wonderful. I refused to follow her advise and found Imail and Interneto leaving me. Yet I continued, the pressure of a new age, the information age, was paining me, but I continued to refuse. Sadly with this Soccaramo left my sight. I made the wrong decision, twice. I voted for Side of Hashbrowns not Relish, then second of I did not listen to the wise Moummy. The gods shunned me so much it was like they tied me to a wall and asked the entire empire to come to a contest, who could get closest to my heart with a poisen dart from 4 feet away, within 8 minutes of disobeying Moummy, I died. But know I have been ressurected.


I hope you liked my story, there are several things I need to point out to make a few things more clear, I'd also like to add a special thanks to Grandma, who was the best doctor in heaven, she healed my wounds and dilluted the poisen, THANK YOU Grandma.

Next thing, Amendment 2 is the big thing in Missouri right now. Stem cell research is the thing, and there are half a million big red signs in Lamar (home of th 2-4 middle school team) that said vote no on amendment 2 and tell you to go to www.nocloning.com

Second thing, we have this thing at school called channel 1. At the beggining of everyday (in homeroom) we get to watch this tv channeld for about 10 minutes. It talks about national things and a lot about the war in Iraq. There are these commercial that have a random item, side of hashbrowns, relish, pile of leaves, other random stuff, running for congress. The commericial have quotes why you should vote for them and other stuff, at the end of the commerical the screen turns black and says Pay attention .org (or com can't remember)


Jake the Great King of Cyberspace (I still have to murder the current king thought)