Hooray for the Hopi!

Last week, the boys and I went to the world cultures and peoples museum down at Byu to learn about the Hopi Indians and their Kachina dolls. Each Kachina had a specific purpose and personality traits. I had the boys pick out their favorite one, and I took their picture with it.

James liked the white bear Kachina. The bear Kachina is important because of his knowledge of plants and roots. Jesse loved the sheep herder Kachina. The Hopi believed that if they did sacred dances acting as the sheep herder they would have a good hunt. He looks pretty fierce to me.

I loved this Kachina...he is the Ogre Kachina. If he looks creepy to you, then he is doing his job. The intent of this Kachina is to scare all misbehaving Hopi children into listening to their parents. If there was a wide spread problem of naughty children in a village, he would actually appear in the spring time and scare them all straight. There was definitely a scary aura around this particular doll, because neither of my boys would stand in front of him for a picture! The museum also had on display an amazing amount of beautiful pottery found in four mile canyon. It was a fun day!

How Do Pirates Eat Dinner?

We always know we are in for some good entertainment when Jesse comes to the dinner table shirtless and wearing his skull cap...

Rainy Day

What can I say? I love the rain...and we have been getting plenty of it. This has been my first week out of work for the summer, and it has been nice being stuck indoors and finding things to appreciate inside the house. It has given me the opportunity to catch up on the deep cleaning stuff that I just could not find the time to do while I was working full time. So, the pantry has been cleaned out and sorted through and it looks amazing. The decorative nick-nacks up above my kitchen cabinets have all been washed and dusted. The cobwebs that clung to my lights and created cotton-like highways to my walls have all been destroyed and wiped away...so I'm feeling satisfied with myself at this moment. Today was a great day because the boys and I decided to stay in our "jamamas" (as Jesse calls them) all day long. We had waffles for breakfast with lots of butter and sticky syrup. We watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and played with our magic wands...we even played the Forbidden Forest game on Disc 2. We got Lizzy out and gave her a warm bath. Then she spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on top of us, climbing away from Jesse as fast as she could, and she even sat and looked out the window and watched the dark rain clouds roll in.

When Danny got home I changed from pj's to running clothes and we ran in the rain together. It smells so fresh and clean after the rain. The air is crisp and cool, and it seems to make breathing easier. When we got home there was a beautiful rainbow. Jesse started to sing the rainbow song that he learned at school. So, I ran and got my camera and took a picture of him with the rainbow in the background.

My yard has never looked so green. I feel like I'm living on the Olympic peninsula...not the dry great basin! The only trouble is, the slugs and snails are loving this dark, wet weather pattern, and they are having a celebration feast on my poor petunias. It's time to get out the cheap beer and pie tins...although I really don't relish in drowning little creatures. I'll just tell them that it's nothing personal...just business.

May Madness

Finally! I can sit down and update everyone on what has been going on at the Bergstrom house this month. It has been a crazy month. I feel like I haven't even had time to pee. The last month of school is always stressful and I was taking my work home with me, which left me very little time to check up on things in cyberland. However, a lot of fun things occurred in May, and I would like to share them with you:

Jesse turned "4"! We had a race car birthday party at our home and we enjoyed every minute. We had dinner with our family and the kids beat up the pinata. Jesse helped design his birthday cake; he wanted a monster truck "smooshing" a line of cars, 'just like at the monster jam'. Later that evening we watched the DVD of his first year, and I burst out in tears when I realized how big he is now. This was a bit of an emotional birthday for me!

Danny and I gave Jesse his first "two wheel" bike, and it was great watching him ride around on it. The best feature on the bike is the bell. Jesse is obsessed with ringing it. He can't ride without ringing the bell, but the great thing is that we can always hear where he is.

For Mother's Day, we visited our parents, but we made a special visit to my Grandma Cardwell's house. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful Grandmother. She has taught me what it means to be a loving, thoughtful, generous human being. I just love her...

Mid month we had the pleasure of watching our good friends little boy Zach! He is so much fun to have around, and my boys adore him. He got to come along on our family hike to Bridalveil Falls, up Provo Canyon. It was a beautiful day for a nice walk. We watched Kayaks in the river, splashed in the water, and we played at Vivian park. It was a lovely afternoon.

Jesse's preschool program turned out great. He looked so cute up there. My favorite part was watching him sign to a song about the colors of the rainbow. It was too cute. We were happy that G&G Bergstrom and my mom and sister Carly could come and watch. My class performed after the preschoolers. I was so nervous for them, but they pulled it off beautifully. I accompanied them on my guitar....which, after a disastrous program 8 years ago, I promised myself that I would never play the guitar in a program again....however, luck was on my side that night, and it turned out awesome. And thank goodness for my husband who helped me with the technical aspects of my DVD that we showed at the end. Without him, there would have been no sound and the pictures would have been too big for the screen. I love that man, and I know he always has my back!




The last week of school at Bell Canyon Montessori was busy, but a ton of fun. I took the kids hiking. We went to Bells Canyon Reservoir and had a picnic. The kids did really well and it was fun spending time with them and the parent volunteers. We also had a read-a-thon and a water day at the park day. I am going to miss some of these kids. About half are moving on to new schools next year, and it was really hard to see them walk out the door. I just kept hugging everybody and told them that they better come and visit me. I hope they had fun this year and I hope that their experiences with me will make some sort of positive impact on their lives.



James has an obsession with "Jaws" right now. He breathes, eats, and sleeps sharks. He has gathered all the books he can find in our library on sharks and the other day he came down stairs with a lego shark that he built. James has always had a hunger to learn...and I love that about him. It's a special thing when you can sit together and learn about something that your child is passionate about.

To Celebrate the last day of school, the boys and I filled up 100 water balloons and had a good old fashioned water fight in our back yard with a run through the sprinklers for a finale. Jesse dubbed himself the "water master" and went around the yard beating his chest. Of course, everyone wants to get mom back for all the chores and momness she creates, so I was soaking wet. But, we had a good time together and laughed a lot. I am looking forward to this summer and to many fun outdoor activities! Happy Summer Everyone!

20 Ways to Maintain a Healthy Level of Insanity

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "in box".
5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
6. In the memo field of all your checks, write, "for smuggling diamonds".
7. Finish all your sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy."
8. Don't use any punctuation
9. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
10. Order diet water with a serious face, whenever you go out to eat.
11. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go".
12. Sing along at the opera.
13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
14. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.
15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
16. Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Bottom.
17. When the money comes out of the ATM, shout, "I won! I won!"
18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling, "run for your lives, they're loose!!"
19. Tell your children over dinner, "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."
20. And the final way to keep a healthy level of insanity....Share this with someone to make them smile....it's called therapy!

*I don't know who to credit this too, but it made me laugh...hope you enjoyed it too!

So Proud, So Proud

Tonight for family night, we played charades with the boys. The themes we chose to act out were animals, occupations and emotions. I pulled "singer" out of the bowl. I act as if I'm adjusting a microphone, and I pretend I'm running my fingers down the length of it, and James shouts out, "You're a pole dancer!" No, but you're so close!
A couple of turns go by, and I pull out the emotion happy. I stand in front of my darling children with my hands on my hips and a huge grin on my face, and Jesse yells, "bringing sexy back!"
I wish.
My kids make me laugh so hard. You never know what they are going to come up with!

The Day of the Book Nerds...

Today was a memorable day for James. His favorite author, Brandon Mull, of Fablehaven fame, was signing books at Costco today. So, he and I went over there this afternoon and waited in line to meet him. James kept telling me, "Mom, I'm really nervous. I don't know what I'll say to him." But when it was finally our turn to say hello, James did just fine. He told Mr. Mull, "I'm such a big fan of your books. You did a great job writing them!" It was so fun to see him meet someone he admires. James wants to be an author when he grows up. I told him that maybe one day, he'll be on the other side of the desk signing books for a little boy who is nervous to meet him....only the future can tell.....