| TITLES | ||
| Witches (The) | VHS | |
| 101 Dalmations | VHS | |
| A Bug's Life | VHS | |
| A Little Princess | DVD | |
| A Little Princess/ The Secret Garden | DVD | |
| Aladdin | VHS | |
| Anne of Avonlea | VHS | |
| Anne of Green Gables | VHS | |
| Babar | DVD | |
| Babe | VHS | |
| Back to School with Franklin | DVD | |
| Beauty and the Beast | VHS | |
| Because of Winn Dixey | DVD | |
| Believe in Me | DVD | |
| Bellflower Bunnies (The) | DVD | |
| Black Stallion (The) | DVD | |
| Cinderella | VHS | |
| How I Saved the President | DVD | |
| Hunchback of Notre Dame (The) | VHS | |
| Lady and the Tramp | VHS | |
| Lion King (The) | VHS | |
| Little Mermaid (The) | VHS | |
| Matilda | DVD | |
| Mulan | VHS | |
| Muppet Christmas (The) | VHS | |
| My Dog Skip | VHS | |
| Newsies | VHS | |
| Paulie | VHS | |
| Peter Pan | VHS | |
| Pete's Dragon | VHS | |
| Prince and the Princess and the Bee (The) | DVD | |
| Prince of Egypt (The) | VHS | |
| Rescuers (The) | VHS | |
| Rescuers Down Under (The) | VHS | |
| Secret Garden | DVD | |
| Secret of Nimh | DVD | |
| Shrek | DVD | |
| Sleeping Beauty | VHS | |
| Slow Moe (baseball movie) | DVD | |
| Stuart Little | VHS | |
| Stuart Little 2 | DVD | |
| Thomas and the Special Letter (Thomas the Tank) | DVD | |
| Thumbelina | DVD | |
| Velveteen Rabbit (The) | DVD | |
| Witches (The) | VHS | |
| World of Peter Rabbit (The) | DVD | |
| Great Courses: Books that Changed History; That Can Change Your Life | DVD | |
| Great Courses: The History of the United States, part 1 | DVD | |
| Great Courses: The History of the United States, part 2 | DVD | |
| Great Courses: The Human Body: How We Fail, How We Heal | DVD | |
| Great Courses: The Joy of Mathematics | DVD | |
| Great Courses: Understanding the Human Body | DVD |
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Mom's Movies
Friday, November 2, 2012
Sydney Lauren Christensen
Jake
Monday, August 27, 2012
First Day of Kindergarten
Today is Wyatt's first day of kindergarten. Even though he's had two years of
preschool, this morning was a little rough on him. OK, a little rough on both
of us (being pregnant didn't help). Even though we had plenty of time this
morning to get ready, Wyatt was reluctant to get going and we ended up running
very late. I thought "no problem, I'll just drive him over really quick", but being
the first day of school, traffic was crazy and there was nowhere to park! I
ended up driving back to the house and we walked to school anyway (the school is
pretty close). I was flustered because we were 10 minutes late and then Wyatt
did not want me to leave. He was holding on to me so tightly and saying "no,
no". This, of course, made me lose whatever composure I had left and I started
crying. I realized that I had to get out of the classroom before I freaked him
out, so I gave him a quick hug and a kiss and pried myself away with a goodbye
and a wave. I'm sure he was fine right away, but I cried the whole way home.
Ah, parenthood!
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
This article was in the Deseret News on Monday and I think it has some good ideas. Hope you do too.
BACK TO SCHOOL by Michelle Garrett
Corey Moore, of Cedar Hills, says that for some reason her son, Kyle, likes to wear the same outfit every day. Sometimes these clothes end up with stains and tears. With the new school year approaching, Moore wondered how she could get her son to dress presentably every day without a fight.
This is among the manu challenges parents face when school starts every fall. Parents suggest varying methods of dealing with the summer-to-school transition and getting their children ready for a school year of success.
Moore solved her son's clothes-repeating problem by taking the advice of an experienced schoolteacher in her neighborhood-she uses contracts. These contracts set a standard of behavior for her children to follow and rewards for them when they meet that standard.
With her son Kyle, Moore made a contract that he can't wear the same clothes more than once a week. If he keeps the contract, he gets a reward, and if he breaks the contract, the reward is withheld.
"Now the parent isn't the bad person, it's the contract," Moore said.
Moore plans to make a new contract before school with three of her four boys who are in school. She said she will do her best to include everything she can foresee being a problem, including getting up on time and doing their homework.
Every time her children accomplish one of the items in their contracts, they earn points.
Moore keeps track of the points on a paper on her fridge and once a month her family holds an auction. She buys candy and toys from the dollar store and her children can "buy" them with the points they've earned by their good behavior.
Moore says the biggest advantage she's seen from making these contracts with her children is it makes them responsible for their own behavior.
They know if they don't do them (the things on the contract) they won't get the reward. So now I'm not constantly nagging all the kids to get things done."
Moore also supplies her children with planners-even in elementary school-so they can write down what they have to do each day...
...She also has recognized the importance of allowing her children to mess up sometimes. If they forget their lunch one day, they will suffer the consequences of that and be less likely to do it again. She also recognizes that it's better for them to make mistakes now when they're younger and the consequences are smaller...
...Social worker Janet Lehman posted some tips on the website empoweringparents.com on how parents can help their children succeed in the new school year, especially if they've had problems in the past.
Lehman recommends calling a family meeting sand formally deciding as a group what things need to change for the better for the new school year.
She advises parents to be realistic, specific and set the expectation for improvement. Once the school year starts, Lehman tells parents to find help among those who work at their children's school and to remember that it's never too late to change and implement structure into your child's life...
I left out parts, but put the things I liked bests. Happy new school year to all! Mom
BACK TO SCHOOL by Michelle Garrett
Corey Moore, of Cedar Hills, says that for some reason her son, Kyle, likes to wear the same outfit every day. Sometimes these clothes end up with stains and tears. With the new school year approaching, Moore wondered how she could get her son to dress presentably every day without a fight.
This is among the manu challenges parents face when school starts every fall. Parents suggest varying methods of dealing with the summer-to-school transition and getting their children ready for a school year of success.
Moore solved her son's clothes-repeating problem by taking the advice of an experienced schoolteacher in her neighborhood-she uses contracts. These contracts set a standard of behavior for her children to follow and rewards for them when they meet that standard.
With her son Kyle, Moore made a contract that he can't wear the same clothes more than once a week. If he keeps the contract, he gets a reward, and if he breaks the contract, the reward is withheld.
"Now the parent isn't the bad person, it's the contract," Moore said.
Moore plans to make a new contract before school with three of her four boys who are in school. She said she will do her best to include everything she can foresee being a problem, including getting up on time and doing their homework.
Every time her children accomplish one of the items in their contracts, they earn points.
Moore keeps track of the points on a paper on her fridge and once a month her family holds an auction. She buys candy and toys from the dollar store and her children can "buy" them with the points they've earned by their good behavior.
Moore says the biggest advantage she's seen from making these contracts with her children is it makes them responsible for their own behavior.
They know if they don't do them (the things on the contract) they won't get the reward. So now I'm not constantly nagging all the kids to get things done."
Moore also supplies her children with planners-even in elementary school-so they can write down what they have to do each day...
...She also has recognized the importance of allowing her children to mess up sometimes. If they forget their lunch one day, they will suffer the consequences of that and be less likely to do it again. She also recognizes that it's better for them to make mistakes now when they're younger and the consequences are smaller...
...Social worker Janet Lehman posted some tips on the website empoweringparents.com on how parents can help their children succeed in the new school year, especially if they've had problems in the past.
Lehman recommends calling a family meeting sand formally deciding as a group what things need to change for the better for the new school year.
She advises parents to be realistic, specific and set the expectation for improvement. Once the school year starts, Lehman tells parents to find help among those who work at their children's school and to remember that it's never too late to change and implement structure into your child's life...
I left out parts, but put the things I liked bests. Happy new school year to all! Mom
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Fantasy Olympics 2012 Final Results
Neves 272
Q.Baran 270
Sampsel 243
R.Baran 227
Christensen 205
Johnson 164
Q.Baran 270
Sampsel 243
R.Baran 227
Christensen 205
Johnson 164
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Fantasy Olympics 2012
Here are the teams for this year. We drew countries at random from three groups this time around. I made a "correction" to Team Johnson as they somehow had three picks from group B instead of two. Anyway, keep track of your medal count and points just in case I mess it up, lol. I'll try to post every other day or so. Good luck!
TEAM CHRISTENSEN: S. Korea, Spain, Poland, Turkey, Georgia, Indonesia
TEAM JOHNSON: Ukraine, Switzerland, Brazil, Romania, Uzbekistan, Croatia
TEAM NEVES: Australia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Norway, Ethiopia, Armenia
TEAM Q.BARAN: Italy, Cuba, Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark, Czech Republic
TEAM R.BARAN: France, Canada, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Argentina, Slovakia
TEAM SAMPSEL: Germany, Belarus, Jamaica, N. Korea, Sweden, Bulgaria
Gold=5pts. Silver=3pts. Bronze=1pt.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Restoration is Difficult to Counter
Quint and I were talking about how many people seem to be leaving the church and I thought of this article from the Deseret News tonight. It is written by Daniel Peterson. I think it is very interesting.
"As I see it, the single most persuasive secular argument for the authenticity of the founding events of the Restoration isn't actually a single argument or line of evidence at all. It's the fact that no counterexplanation yet proposed for those events accounts for all the relevant data nearly as well as Joseph Smith's own story does.
If his claims aren't true, the fundamental question to be asked regarding Joseph is whether he thought they were or knew they weren't. In other words, was he in some sense 'crazy' or was he consciously deceptive?
Let's take those two options in that order.
Joseph Smith might have been hallucinating. That's conceivable. However, raving lunacy scarcely seems to explain the lengthy, coherent and complex Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, the ordinances of the temple and creation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
More to the point here, though, is that many others - e.g., the three Witnesses, the Eight Witnesses, Sidney Rigdon, Mary Whitmer, Emma Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, his siblings William and Katharine, etc. - shared revelatory experiences with him, saw and 'hefted' the mysterious objects he possessed, and the like. Were all of them mad too? Or were they just lying?
Already, the notion that Mormonism can be explained simply as Joseph Smith's hallucination desperately needs one or more major supplements.
Moreover, abundant data about those other co-witnesses demonstrates them to have been sane, sincere, respected, and respectable, and though at considerable personal cost, faithful to their testimonies. And there is no evidence - apart from his claimed revelatory encounters themselves - to indicate that Joseph Smith was prone to hallucination. But to assume in advance that his revelations were hallucinatory is to smuggle into the evidence the very conclusion under dispute, which is a manifest case of what logicians call 'circular reasoning'
Suppose instead, that Joseph Smith was consciously lying. How can this be squared with his surviving personal writings not intended for publication, including journal entries and letters to his wife and children, which breathe sincerity on every page? How does it account for his willingness to suffer greatly (in Liberty Jail, for instance, and during Zion's Camp) and ultimately to die for his claims?
And again, how would Joseph's supposed dishonesty account for all of those co-witnesses? How, exactly would it explain their experiences?
Let's suppose that he created bogus plates to fool the eight witnesses. (There's not a shred of evidence for this.) How would fake plates account for the other exotic objects seen by the Three Witnesses, let alone explain their vision of an angel and their hearing the confirming voice of God?
So let's assume, instead, that Joseph somehow induces hallucinations in the Three Witnesses. How would their alleged visions account for mulch more matter-of-fact-mid-day experiences of the Eight Witnesses?
At least two very different explanations have to be invoked in order to explain the witness testimonies. Joseph requires the skills of a cunning metalworker (his own, or those of a co-conspirator) and, at the same
time, he must be capable either of creating remarkable special effects 150 years before George Lucas or of unerringly selecting people from his small rural community crazy enough to obediently see precisely the visions he needed them to see.
No evidence supports either idea.
While the Book of Mormon was still only a rumor, critics mocked what was sure to be a silly and obvious fraud produced by 'that spindle shanked ignoramus Joe Smith.' But when the book actually came from the press and proved to be long, complex and remarkably dense, most soon shifted to confident assertions that its source manuscript had been stolen from the classically educated Solomon Spalding, a lapsed Congregationalist minister who had died in 1816.
A tortured historical narrative was fashioned, purported to explain how Sidney Rigdon, for whatever reason, stole the Spalding manuscript and used it to make Joseph Smith a 'prophet.' Little or no evidence supports the story, quite a bit of evidence supports the story, quite a bit of evidence (including very sophisticated recent statistical analysis) renders it deeply improbable and only desperate necessity would ever have given rise to it in the first place. But the Spalding theory nevertheless limps on in certain circles.
Even so, it doesn't even begin to explain the Witnesses, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and a host of other matters."
"As I see it, the single most persuasive secular argument for the authenticity of the founding events of the Restoration isn't actually a single argument or line of evidence at all. It's the fact that no counterexplanation yet proposed for those events accounts for all the relevant data nearly as well as Joseph Smith's own story does.
If his claims aren't true, the fundamental question to be asked regarding Joseph is whether he thought they were or knew they weren't. In other words, was he in some sense 'crazy' or was he consciously deceptive?
Let's take those two options in that order.
Joseph Smith might have been hallucinating. That's conceivable. However, raving lunacy scarcely seems to explain the lengthy, coherent and complex Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, the ordinances of the temple and creation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
More to the point here, though, is that many others - e.g., the three Witnesses, the Eight Witnesses, Sidney Rigdon, Mary Whitmer, Emma Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, his siblings William and Katharine, etc. - shared revelatory experiences with him, saw and 'hefted' the mysterious objects he possessed, and the like. Were all of them mad too? Or were they just lying?
Already, the notion that Mormonism can be explained simply as Joseph Smith's hallucination desperately needs one or more major supplements.
Moreover, abundant data about those other co-witnesses demonstrates them to have been sane, sincere, respected, and respectable, and though at considerable personal cost, faithful to their testimonies. And there is no evidence - apart from his claimed revelatory encounters themselves - to indicate that Joseph Smith was prone to hallucination. But to assume in advance that his revelations were hallucinatory is to smuggle into the evidence the very conclusion under dispute, which is a manifest case of what logicians call 'circular reasoning'
Suppose instead, that Joseph Smith was consciously lying. How can this be squared with his surviving personal writings not intended for publication, including journal entries and letters to his wife and children, which breathe sincerity on every page? How does it account for his willingness to suffer greatly (in Liberty Jail, for instance, and during Zion's Camp) and ultimately to die for his claims?
And again, how would Joseph's supposed dishonesty account for all of those co-witnesses? How, exactly would it explain their experiences?
Let's suppose that he created bogus plates to fool the eight witnesses. (There's not a shred of evidence for this.) How would fake plates account for the other exotic objects seen by the Three Witnesses, let alone explain their vision of an angel and their hearing the confirming voice of God?
So let's assume, instead, that Joseph somehow induces hallucinations in the Three Witnesses. How would their alleged visions account for mulch more matter-of-fact-mid-day experiences of the Eight Witnesses?
At least two very different explanations have to be invoked in order to explain the witness testimonies. Joseph requires the skills of a cunning metalworker (his own, or those of a co-conspirator) and, at the same
time, he must be capable either of creating remarkable special effects 150 years before George Lucas or of unerringly selecting people from his small rural community crazy enough to obediently see precisely the visions he needed them to see.
No evidence supports either idea.
While the Book of Mormon was still only a rumor, critics mocked what was sure to be a silly and obvious fraud produced by 'that spindle shanked ignoramus Joe Smith.' But when the book actually came from the press and proved to be long, complex and remarkably dense, most soon shifted to confident assertions that its source manuscript had been stolen from the classically educated Solomon Spalding, a lapsed Congregationalist minister who had died in 1816.
A tortured historical narrative was fashioned, purported to explain how Sidney Rigdon, for whatever reason, stole the Spalding manuscript and used it to make Joseph Smith a 'prophet.' Little or no evidence supports the story, quite a bit of evidence supports the story, quite a bit of evidence (including very sophisticated recent statistical analysis) renders it deeply improbable and only desperate necessity would ever have given rise to it in the first place. But the Spalding theory nevertheless limps on in certain circles.
Even so, it doesn't even begin to explain the Witnesses, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and a host of other matters."
Monday, March 19, 2012
The big 0-5
We didn't have a party for Wyatt this year, so I wanted to make a special cake for our family celebration. I came up with this idea for robot cupcakes based on something I saw online. They're not perfect, but I think they came out pretty cute.
Wyatt liked them!
Wyatt did really well opening his gifts. I only wrapped one, and after he tore right into it, I wished I hadn't put the others in bags! He enjoyed opening sidewalk chalk, a couple of books and a bubble blower.
The weather was so nice, he got to take his bubble blower outside and play with it until it ran out of juice.
He also got a remote-controlled toy train which he loves to play with. Wyatt did really well with everything until it came time to blow out the candles. I thought he would blow them out himself this year, but he wanted some help.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Too much excitement this week
There has been a bit too much "excitement" going on at our house this week. First, I was eating a piece of roast and got some wedged between two of my teeth. When I used dental floss to get it out, my tooth also cracked. I went to see Dr. Theurer to get it fixed, and he had to do a fair amount of drilling to repair it. It still doesn't feel quite right, but it doesn't actually hurt anymore, and he said that he will re-check it next month when I go in for my regular check-up.
Then, today (Thursday the 16th), the twins were supposed to have a short day which means that they go to preschool an hour earlier than normal. I completely forgot, so they were an hour late to class. Turned out that while I was there dropping them off, Liam had an accident on the playground and fell from the slide and hurt his arm. The office called home and Scott told them that I was dropping off the twins, so the secretary came and found me. If you didn't know, Liam has quite a high pain threshold. So, for him to still be crying loudly when I got to the office close to 10 minutes after he fell told me that there was more to it than just a bump. I signed him out and took him to the Insta-Care. We had to wait a while to go back, and by then he had calmed down and was moving his arm without showing much pain. I began to wonder if I had over-reacted, but the doctor wanted to do x-rays anyway. Good thing, since it turns out that he had broken BOTH bones in his arm, about 1 1/2 inches from his wrist. They put him in a "soft" cast (essentially a splint) and told me to make him an appointment with an orthopedic specialist for consultation and casting. Hopefully, there won't have been any serious damage to the growth plates and 6 weeks in a cast will take care of the problem. We find out on Wednesday. I was annoyed that we have to wait nearly a full week, but apparently it needs to be long enough for some healing to have begun for them to tell if the growth plate was affected.
Then, today (Thursday the 16th), the twins were supposed to have a short day which means that they go to preschool an hour earlier than normal. I completely forgot, so they were an hour late to class. Turned out that while I was there dropping them off, Liam had an accident on the playground and fell from the slide and hurt his arm. The office called home and Scott told them that I was dropping off the twins, so the secretary came and found me. If you didn't know, Liam has quite a high pain threshold. So, for him to still be crying loudly when I got to the office close to 10 minutes after he fell told me that there was more to it than just a bump. I signed him out and took him to the Insta-Care. We had to wait a while to go back, and by then he had calmed down and was moving his arm without showing much pain. I began to wonder if I had over-reacted, but the doctor wanted to do x-rays anyway. Good thing, since it turns out that he had broken BOTH bones in his arm, about 1 1/2 inches from his wrist. They put him in a "soft" cast (essentially a splint) and told me to make him an appointment with an orthopedic specialist for consultation and casting. Hopefully, there won't have been any serious damage to the growth plates and 6 weeks in a cast will take care of the problem. We find out on Wednesday. I was annoyed that we have to wait nearly a full week, but apparently it needs to be long enough for some healing to have begun for them to tell if the growth plate was affected.
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