Lucy

Lucy's been practicing her writing at preschool recently and she is doing such a great job! I've been blown away by her art skills and now writing skills. She's a bit of a perfectionist (like a certain parent of hers I know) and screams and tears up her papers if its not just the way she likes. I'm not quite sure how to handle her explosions sometimes, but I keep telling her its ok to start again or try to fix it. We go through so much paper everyday and I have a hard time throwing away some of her art, but I can't keep everything she does either.

Lucy knows she is talented and is a fun, great smart girl. I hate to see how she has so much doubt in herself already. She is learning some beginning reading and I think picking it up well, but she freaks out "I can't do it, I don't know how!" if I put her on the spot, so to speak, by asking her what sounds and words she knows and its a struggle like that everyday. This morning, my sis Tiffany posted this quote on Facebook and it really made me think:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson

My little book report :)

I've been sick all week and reading a lot more in bed especially when not being able to sleep, but anyway last night I finished the book Les Miserables. It was one of the longest books I've read, but I really enjoyed it. I think next time I will try the abridged version just because I hated just getting to a really exciting part of the main story and then going into 200 pages in between of philosophy on war, history, religion, morality, politics, etc. Although Victor Hugo was a total genius and had amazing insight into all of these subjects, that is more of a one time read for me. But I loved the storyline following Jean Valjean, Javert, Cozette, and all the people and surrounding events relating to them. Such a good read and very thought provoking. I thought it was along the same lines as the Count of Monte Cristo because of the same time period of the French Revolution and also discussion of justice and mercy.

This book, however had more insight into the internal struggles of Jean Valjean's changing character into the ultimate moral conscience even through such injustice of crappy life circumstances. The first one being  his parents died and he was left to care for his older sister and her 7 kids while he himself was just a kid and going to prison for stealing bread for them. It turned into 19 years of prison (5 for the stealing and 14 more for attempting to escape). Once he finally got out, he was branded for life (so to speak) with his identification as a criminal and he couldn't get a job, stay anywhere, buy anything and forced to live in the street until a good bishop showed him mercy. Even though Jean Valjean stole silverware from him, the bishop gave him his candlesticks also with the promise of doing good with them. And he does amazing things for a whole town and becomes successful, very charitable, moral, honest and merciful to everyone. (You can stop here if you already know the story or don't know it and care to). Javert (the police inspector) is the model citizen, never breaking a single rule ever, never told a lie, the example of complete justice. The very idea of a criminal being let go and ever redeeming himself is abhorrent (the law at that time was a convict with a repeat offense goes back to prison for life) and he hunts Jean Valjean for years because of the strict law. That's only like the first 1/4 of the book and there are more examples of people with equal opposites like the Threnardier guy who is a true villian, con man, thief who raises Cosette for a short time just to swindle money and the life out of her mother and then tries that on Jean Valjean for the rest of his life and Threnardier never gets the justice he deserves.

Anyway... I'll stop right there because it is getting too long. Long story short... good book, everyone should read it.

Challenge #4?

I totally lost track of the blog challenge, but one of them was "most treasured item." It made me think of the question "if your house was on fire, what thing would you grab?" I say my kids, duh! But I guess that's not an item, but if I had time to grab a few things after that, I would say our computer if it wasn't too complicated to get out in time. But, seriously all of our pictures are on there and I think we have them backed up on cd's, but Ken would have to locate them for me.

Also, I would grab my scrapbooks, wedding photo album, and my journal. I don't keep a journal now, since I do the whole blog thing. Anyway, the journal I have was started by my mom when I was a baby. I have 1 paragraph written by her that says when I was born (2 weeks late, poor mom), how she loved my thick brown hair, how much my family loved me, and my first word was "Daddy." After that I wrote in it on and off starting at age 6.

My Family

I just scanned the pages from my scrapbook I made a long time ago. The little one in pink is me (somewhere between age 1 and 2).
I have almost no pictures of me when I was little. I guess that just happens being the 6th kid. My Dad Floris Henry Copier, mom Muriel, siblings Chad, Jed, Kristy, Kelly, Cody and Cami.
I was born Dec 15, 1981 in Salt Lake City, UT and I lived in Highland with my family.

This is my mom Muriel Kay Barrus Copier- I think it is a high school picture. Pretty lady, huh? I think so. On Dec 13, 1989 she passed away from cancer. I was just about to turn 7 years old (the age my son is now).

My dad married Victoria and I gained some new family members Brady Bunch style. Heidi and Jim were her adult kids already married, and Tiffany and Tianna lived with us. Chad went on his mission, so we had 7 of us kids for a while until they all grew up and moved on. 
Some years later that marriage didn't work out and they split. For about 2 years I lived with Heidi and her family (sorry no picture). I was about 14 at the time.

 Picture from 1998
My dad married Cynthia - she had 5 children Rachel, Michael, Clinton, Tyler and Rebecca. For my last 2 years of high school I lived with them (minus Rachel, she was in college). They split up in 2000 and unfortunately I lost most contact.

In 2001, my dad married JoAnne. I never lived with them because I was at BYU at the time.

The next year I was married to my sweetheart and now we have our cute little family (you know the rest).

So, there is my complicated family in a nutshell. I guess I'm hoping that one day my great-great-great grandchildren will wonder who I was and there's some little interesting history.

Day 3- and more

I've got a sister who is doing a different blog challenge with other questions and I thought of doing some of those, and I still might steal a few. One of them was "About your Parents" and " About your Siblings" and I thought it was too hard. I know, how silly of me, but I think I will get to it because I think my history is important, or at least will be to someone someday, right? Anyway...


My favorite show is "Who Do You Think You Are?" It is a different celebrity finding family history... I really don't necessarily care about the celebrity, but I love the stories and information they find. It is so interesting and awesome to see people doing genealogy and how they are so moved and affected by the experiences. I highly recommend it to everyone (you can watch it online at Hulu.com I don't know when it comes on tv).

My newest project

This is the fabric I picked out for Lucy and Daisy's bed quilts. It kind of hard to see, but the floral print one is ruffled. Super cute, huh? I think I'm getting the hang of this sewing thing... at least this particular thing is easy enough for me and I really like how it's turning out. I've just got a couple more strips, then this one I need a border, then binding, and then the same thing over again :)

Bonk!

A couple of naughty children were being crazy with the huge Mag Light last night and poor Daisy got it in the face! She's a pretty tough girl, she didn't cry very much and told us "I got a bonk!"  Luckily the cut wasn't very deep, so no stitches. Now we've got 2 out of 3 kids with big scars around their eyes. That doesn't look very well for us.

Last night Jenna asked Daisy what a puppy says. Daisy answered, "A puppy says NO!" Today I asked her what a pony says and she said "A pony says I love me! Ha haa!" Daisy's a funny girl who talks so much now!

Day 2

Post a picture of you and someone you have been closest to the longest.

This one is kind of hard for me, its a close call. I thought of my family or siblings I grew up with because I've known them the longest, but not necessarily been closest to (not diminishing their role in any way). So, yup I'm going to be cheesy and say its my super husband Ken (I'll try not to be too mushy).

Ken and I have known each other for almost 10 years now (WOW! That's so weird!) and this year is our 9th anniversary. Hooray!

This is us when we were dating in Dec 2001, I had just turned 20, Ken was still 21. We were both working at Brick Oven full time and going to BYU. I lived in a crappy apartment 5 blocks away with my cousin Melissa and roommate Amanda. I paid $250 a month in rent (a deal!) and saved the rest for my tuition. I lived on cereal and pizza during the week and usually went to Ken's family's house for Sunday dinner. We did manage to get a lot of dates in, even though we worked so much and had school, it was often after work (Applebees was open until 1 or 2am). One thing I liked about Ken (and still do, of course) was how easy it was to just get along with each other, we can do normal work and things contently with out any drama. We still like each other after 10 years and still manage to be thoughtful and have a good friendship (that's what I think anyway... you'll have to ask Ken if he agrees).

Blog Challenge

Day 1: A picture of yourself and ten facts
I probably won't end up doing all of them, but I'll do some for fun.

1. The picture is from almost 2 years ago taken by Jenna, its my facebook pic and probably the best picture of me ever.
2. I have a fake front tooth I got hit in the face when I was 7, knocked out my new adult tooth and broke my nose. I didn't get my tooth fixed until I was 16 (super lame) and then I got another one about 4 years ago.
3. I was valedictorian of my high school.
4. I have 20 siblings including all step family
5. I was on my high school's drill team for 2 years. We had super dorky outfits, but we won some competitions and were really pretty good.
6. My first job was working at Old Navy.
7. I didn't know I had any artistic ability until I was 18. On my last semester of high school I took a beginning art class and sculpted a horse out of clay- I was transferred to advanced ceramics the same week. I did some jobs painting murals with Jenna for a couple of years and that was really fun.
8. I am so painfully shy and I hate it! It takes a lot of self pep talk to get me to do little things like call someone on the phone (even people I know) or meet new people, having to start a conversation,etc. It terrifies me to call in a take-out order, ask someone to do something, and the worst thing EVER is to straighten out an issue/ misunderstanding.
9. I love ribbons and bows (especially tiny bows) and other tiny things like little dishes, doll accessories, and pretty much anything miniature (my sister gave me a small craft iron and I giggled about it for a long time) makes me happy.
10. My not so secret hero is Martha Stewart. I so wish I could cook, sew, be super organized, and just have a ton of cute matching craft tools and things. 

March thoughts

I'm so happy that spring is just a little closer! Yesterday we played outside and took a nice walk. Boyd and Daisy had fun making snowballs and throwing them in the street with me. It was still a little cold, but once in a while the sun would warm you up just right it felt like spring. I love it!

I'm excited for some much needed spring cleaning coming up soon (probably Ken is even more excited for me to do that). We'll have to wait a little longer to open up the windows- that's one of my favorite things to do in nice weather. I'm working on exercising again... sorta had a bad week or two on that and gained back all the weight I lost in Jan. Super lame and I even was asked if I was "expecting." Ugghh! On Sunday we took our weight and measurements and I'm really motivated to getting rid of that stupid belly. Maybe I need to just toss all the candy and treats out of the house now- that might help a little :)
I guess that's it... sometimes I think I have something else to say, but I got nothing.