Merry Christmas from the Beckwith Clan! We are so grateful for you who have influenced and enriched our lives so much! Thank you for the ways you have inspired us, and helped us raise our children to be the great kids that they are. We pray that you will feel the spirit of the Christ Child and His matchless life this holiday season.

A year ago we decided to discontinue our annual family Christmas card in an attempt to simplify. We hope that this blog, that I’ve been keeping on and off for the past six years will be a way for those we love to keep in touch. For many of you this may be a first visit to our little world. Why do we call it “Living Full on Life”? Because we are trying to live and love life to the fullest. This blog is a place where I collect and record some of the things that make life so rich. Winter is the time when I add the most content, especially recipes, as summer is the season to be outdoors and not in front of a computer! So stay tuned!

Anna’s words:
“I think old sunken ships are so interesting. That’s why I want to be a mermaid.”

I realized I have a lot of quotations from Anna these days and not so many from other kids. I think that is simply because I spend a lot more time with her. I love that I still get her half of each day before she goes to kindergarten at noon. This morning she was drawing and I was trying to motivate her to clean up her room. A task that she despises. So, I wrote: “Clean Anna’s room” and then under the words I drew a picture of sad dolls and stuffed animals. (They were sad because her room was so messy.) My picture was so pathetic it made her cry. Who knew the power of a sad stick figure doll?

Last Saturday we were doing a little clothes shopping as a family. Anna (who LOVES clothes) and I happened to be looking at some girls dresses when we had this conversation:
Anna: I need a new church dress.
Me: Yes you do. So lets look for one.
Anna: I really do need one? I just said that so you would buy me a dress!

Anna had a stomach flu today. Around noon, after throwing up a few times she was feeling a little better. I asked her if she wanted something to eat. I offered her oatmeal and she said, “Oh! Not oatmeal! That looks like throw-up even before I eat it!” She’s right, you know.

We were discussing how we can improve as a family and how to reduce contention in some of the critical times of day and had the following conversation:

Grant: Morning and evening are the most difficult times of day. Do any of you know why?
Lizzie: Because those are the only times we are all together?

Sigh…

Anna was talking about how much she wanted to be an actress (again) and how good at it she is. Awhile ago I told her if she wanted to be an actress she couldn’t be shy. So she totally eradicated shyness from her personality. In this particular discussion I told her that if she wanted to be an actress she needed to know how to make herself cry. She looked down for a few minutes then looked up with her best sad face: frowning mouth and smiling eyes. I told her her eyes were still smiling and that if she really wanted to look sad, or even cry she had to think of something REALLY sad.  So, she looked down again and after about five minutes looked up at me with real sorrow and said in the most anguished voice, “God died.”  I love that that is the saddest thing she could think of.

Awhile back we went into an old-fashioned apothecary shop in a pioneer village. In the shop were a bunch of jars with different herbs in them. I saw hemlock and said to my family, in my best teacher voice, “That is called Hemlock and it can kill you. In fact, that is what killed Socrates.” William in total shock asked, “That’s what kills soccer teams?!?”

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I have been dying to blog lately but the idea of siting down to catch up on the last few months seems so overwhelming.  We leave on a long trip next week that is still unplanned (I haven’t even made all of our reservations yet – Gasp!), which is so atypical for me, the person who LOVES to plan vacations. We will be going to Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin and South Dakota for an American History/ LDS History tour. I am wondering how to make it meaningful for the children and not boring. Maybe the key will come to me once I feel a little more prepared.

Now for an update: We have had a great beginning of school with a few ups and downs.

Sam is trying to not feel overwhelmed by his first year of high school, and is enjoying his friends more than ever. He is disappointed by an injury that has him in a boot for three weeks (Severs diesease that affects his achillis tendon and growth plate), and out of cross country running for the season. Sam is still sticking with his viola training but is not so thrilled with his Monday morning at seven lesson. (Purposefully planned at that time as to not interfere with after school sports!)

Lizzie is enjoying her first male teacher, Mr. Crossley and is doing very well in seventh grade. She is a steady student.  She is also enjoying several more hours a week of dance this year as she is now on the Shelley Irish Dance company team (SIDC) and also preparing for team competitions at regionals in November.  She has a new cello teacher (she had to drop orchestra because of her more intense dance schedule and her old teacher only teaches students who participate in orchestra) whom we are both trying to get used to and trying not to mourn the loss of her other teacher.

William is LOVING soccer. He is doing well and getting very confident on the field. His hours of practice at home are really helping! He has a killer shot. He also loves his class at school where he has the teacher he wanted, Mrs. McIntyre, and almost all of his buddies. He is also doing very well in his music education. He loves his violin teacher, Mrs. Shippen and is thrilled with his new piano teacher who is kind enough to teach him at 7 am on Tuesdays.

Anna is thriving in kindergarten. She just started Irish dance too and is happy there with her pal, Kate. She is the most competent and  the most social child on the planet. I have loved seeing her adjust so happily and well in school.

That’s the update for now. Maybe another day I will write about turning 40. Or what it’s like to buy your dream car (a jacked up 15 passenger off-roading van) only to find out that your dream was not very practical or comfortable. Or I’ll write about our amazing trip to Lake Powell where our tent was flattened by a couple of microbursts. For now I will just end with one story:

Yesterday morning we were kneeling to have our family prayer and Grant turned to Anna and said, “Lizzie, will you say the prayer?” Anna, who is getting pretty fed up by now by being called the wrong name all the time (we do it to all of our kids) said, “My name is ANNA!” Then agreed to say it. As she was saying the prayer I leaned over to give her the prompt, “And please help daddy to remember my name.” Expecting her to repeat it verbatim.  Instead she said, “And please help daddy to remember mommy’s name.” We all lost it, never to recover reverence again. At least not for that morning.

Sam shaved for the first time today…

I thought summer would be so relaxing! It has been very nice, but not very relaxing. We started off with Lizzie’s preschooler’s day camp the first week of summer, then William’s baptism (more on that later) and a mini Beckwith family reunion. Then Lizzie had her cello recital here at our house (more cooking). Now, I am working on getting ready for our administrator dinner  here at our house in nine days (cooking for 45), a backpacking trip with the young women that I am helping to plan for next weekend, a camping trip in three weeks to Bear Lake and planning and preparing for girls camp which is in 1 month! YIKES! I haven’t even started to plan our fall trip to Wisconsin and Illinois. So, please be patient. I long for some quiet time to blog, but it hasn’t happened for awhile. Soon, I hope. Soon. In the meantime, HAPPY SUMMER!