eShakti

I'm not really all that interested in fashion or trends or anything. I hate clothes shopping. I hate trying on clothes and deciding whether or not they look good. I hate having to buy my shoes in the children's section. I hate how tall, thin, and busty I am. I just can't ever find anything that fits.

However, today I found an online store called eShakti. Their tagline is "we design, you customize."

They will change the length to their shirts, dresses, skirts, and pants. They will make the sleeves any length you want. They will make a dress trimmer at the waist and bigger at the bust line. All for $7.50.

It's like the answer to the "if only this dress were two inches longer" dilemma. Or the solution to the "this would be really cute if only it had sleeves" problem.

One day when I have $54.95 (plus $7.50) to spend on a dress, I think this is what I will spend it on. Or perhaps this.

Ifta7 ya simsim

All the doors to the bedrooms upstairs have locks on them. I suppose this was a very good thing when this house was teeming with adolescents—who wrongly assumed that privacy is a right. It's not. In fact, privacy doesn't exist at all. We've know that now that we have children of our own. We also know that locks on bedroom doors are a very bad idea when you have small children.

A couple of hours after waking up this morning Miriam started acting grumpy so I decided that she might want a nap. I got her all ready for nap time and went into the girls' room to put her down. Rachel came in to "help" me by turning off the light. She also closed the door when we left the room.

Miriam cried for a minute and then quieted down.

Approximately 45 minutes later I went to check on her. I crept up to her door, stealthily pur my hand on the knob, silently twisted, and...nothing. I grasped the handle and twisted again, this time a little more forcibly. Again, nothing. I wiggled the handle in both directions. It was stuck tight.

Snow day

Let me say again how weird this weather has been. It's been weird. Very weird. 

It rained today. And it's Boxing Day. 

Not that I'm complaining. 

Andrew took Rachel outside on Wednesday to play with the snow we got on Monday/Tuesday. It was more like slush than snow when they got out in it but they played until they were soaking wet and chilled to the bone, even though it was warm enough to be melting the snow faster than you can say "Jack Robinson."

The snow was so heavy that when they were making their snowman they broke the board they were using as a ramp to get the second snowball onto the first. It just snapped right in two. They still managed to get a decent-sized snowman built, though the snow was so compact after they rolled it that Andrew had to hammer the carrot nose in with a baseball bat.

Christmas 2010

On Christmas Eve morning Rachel and I played with one of our nativity sets while Miriam was napping. I loved watching her arrange all the characters. At one point she had everybody crammed into the stable, at another she had only the animals in the stable while everyone else crowded around baby Jesus. She kept switching things up; it was cute to watch. We sang the carols from the primary songbook while we were playing.

Touch me not

School is out for Christmas break which means that we've been seeing a lot more of Phillip lately. Phillip lives a couple of houses down from us and he basically grew up between our house and his. Andrew and his older brother were best friends growing up. Truthfully, we've been missing Phillip because before school started he would stop by almost every day to see if he could play with the girls (both of them adore him and since he's the youngest child, by a large margin, and both of his parents work he preferred to play at our house rather than be at home alone all day).

One day this week he was over here for more than eight hours. He discovered Angry Birds on Andrew's iPod Touch and just disappeared. We'd find him in various locations around the house, quietly working on some ramdom Angry Birds level. Around bedtime I asked if Phillip was still here but no one could say for certain until I found him in our office, bouncing on my exercise ball in the corner, still playing Angry Birds. He (finally) went home but was over again the next day.

We had Josh and Carolee (our friends from Egypt) over for dinner and after we put the kids to bed we went downstairs to play MarioKart. While we were playing Phillip came downstairs.

"Touch me!" he said to Andrew.

Looking a little nervous, Andrew slowly raised his hand to touch Phillip's shoulder.

"Not like that!" shrieked Phillip, "iTouch me!"

Andrew dug the iPod out of his pocket and handed it to Phillip. Phillip flopped onto one of the couches and quickly dissolved into the world of Angry Birds. We hardly knew he was there.

The Story of the Christmas Orange

This is a story that will be told for years to come, I am sure, and I'm not a bit ashamed to admit that I was the mastermind behind it. It was a bold move but I was confident from my interactions with Morgan that he could take the joke.

Back in November before Emily and Morgan had gotten married they decided that they'd spend Christmas at our house—"our" mostly meaning "Grandma and Grandpa's house"—though with the condition that Morgan, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Idaho boy, receive a chocolate orange in his stocking since that is one of his family's traditions.

Emily timidly approached Karen with Morgan's request and Karen told her that such a simple thing wouldn't be a burden. I must have had chocolate on the brain from watching Karen make chocolates all month long—she made red chocolate hearts and white chocolate temples to set out at Emily and Morgan's wedding reception and it took her from the time Emily got engaged to just a couple days before Emily got married to do it.

"What we should do," I suggested, "Is dip an orange in chocolate and then pretend we had no idea what he meant when he asked for a chocolate orange."

There was a bit of debate about how, exactly, this was to be done (should the orange be peeled and then dipped, should we tie a string around it and dip it?) but everyone agreed that it should be.

She needs another hug (or "Farm boy, fetch me that pitcher.")

The night before Emily's wedding it started snowing. It snowed and it snowed and it snowed. It snowed all night long. When we got up in the morning it was still snowing. Power was out in parts of Provo and Springville. There was more than a foot of snow outside.

We started wedding preparations, anyway. Emily's friend Monica came over to do her hair and makeup.

Rachel watched with wondering awe the whole time so Monica offered to do Rachel's hair, too. Both girls ended up looking beautiful, though Emily was absolutely glowing. We were the last ones to leave the house—we were a little nervous about getting to the temple on time since the roads in Orem were so bad but once we were on the highway things cleared up nicely and we had no problem.

Christmas at the Riverwoods

Emily moved home on Friday and since she's getting married on Tuesday we figured this was our last opportunity to party it up with her before she becomes Mrs. Craner, so on Saturday we went out to pizza and stopped at the Riverwoods mall to see the Christmas lights. 

They were actually much cooler than expected. They had fire pits scattered throughout the plaza where you could stop to get warm, they had a live band in a gazebo playing Christmas songs, they had a little Santa's cabin to explore—Santa wasn't there but that didn't stop the kids from loving it.

Go away; I'm teething!

Pretty girl

Due to the influences of her older sister, Miriam has taken to imaginative play much sooner than I expected. One of her favourite things to do is to put on fancy clothes. Here she is wearing a hat and scarf that Aunt Katharine made. She got them out and put them on all by herself.

Frankinsmyrrh

Today is the last Sunday before Christmas. It was, by extension, also the day we taught our primary class the Christmas story. They already knew so much about it, naturally, so we made good on our Middle Eastern costumes and simply had them act it out while we narrated it.

It was mass chaos.

Every girl wanted to be Mary so at one point we had two different scenes going on with two separate Marys and two separate Jesuses because we simply didn't have time to run through the story three times.

When I asked the kids to tell me what they had learned one of them responded, "In the real story there is only one Mary but we used two at a time. But there's only one. Just one Mary."

We also talked about the wise men—we brought in some beautiful boxes full of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The gold was mostly fake but the frankincense and myrrh were real. We bought some when we were in Turkey. The kids liked the smell of myrrh but weren't too fond of frankincense.

"What gifts did the wise men bring to baby Jesus?" I asked during our review.

"Gold!" the children answered.

"And what else?"

The room was silent until one brave boy ventured to answer.

"Frankinsmyrrh!" he blurted out.

The next five years

In the past five years we have:

• had two children
• lived in three different countries (USA, Jordan, Egypt) on three different continents (North America, Asia, and Africa)
• visited England, Italy, Austria, Turkey, UAE, Canada, Spain, Morocco, and Israel (and I went to Greece without Andrew)
• earned two bachelor's degrees and 1.25 master's degrees
• owned and sold one car
• been employed doing 10 or so odd "college" jobs

It's funny to think that five years ago (on October 18th) we were sitting in a little start-up shop eating liquid-nitrogen-blasted ice cream and toying with the words "we," "us," and "future." We joked about traveling to Italy together to climb the Scala Sancta on our knees and all sorts of other things and ended our conversation deciding that we wanted to be "exclusive." Neither one of us imagined where that exclusivity would take us.

Last night over dinner and dessert we conjectured about what the next five years will have in store for us. This (in no particular order) is the best five-year plan we could come up with:

• graduate
• find a job
• find Scott
• move...somewhere that is not our parents' house

Truthfully we had a hard time imagining anything beyond graduation (that's the light at the end of our current tunnel) because school is all we've ever known and breaking out of that realm is a little scary (due to the fact that it is completely foreign territory). Whatever happens, though, should be amazing, what with Andrew by my side.

Five years

Our anniversary was yesterday so hopefully after today I can stop talking about it. I feel like I've been talking about it all week. We've been married for five years now—that's 20% of my lifetime. Yesterday was also day five on Emily's wedding countdown as well as Sarah's five-month-versary. It was a cosmic day, though most of it was really quite ordinary.

I worked and watched children. Andrew worked on (and finally finished) his final—it only took him nine hours to write! After he sent it into the teacher we got ready to head out for the evening. Rachel went to my parents' house to play and Miriam stayed with Andrew's parents.

We had a whole list of things to do but didn't end up getting to everything on our list because we got hopelessly lost doing item #1—picking up Andrew's "present," a bunch of games I found listed on Freecycle.org. My great-uncle Clyde would have loved Freecycle. He was a penny-pincher to the very end—I even recall a story of him finding a box of cookware for Aunt Beulah at the dump that had never been used and giving it to her for Christmas. Of course, there's a chance that I am making all of this up since I haven't heard this story for a very long time. Still, if it was Uncle Clyde happened to have an affinity for junk then I'm sure he would have loved Freecycle (also, the internet).

Always good for a laugh

A few nights ago (Friday, maybe) during dinner Grandpa suggested that he watch a movie with Rachel and although he didn't specifically state it, he implied that this activity take place after dinner was over. Rachel didn't catch that though and quickly pushed her plate away.

"I'm full of it!" she declared.

A round of snickers went around the table. Even Miriam laughed, though I don't think she got the joke.

Rachel wasn't too pleased when we told her that she had to wait for dinner to actually be over before she could be excused to watch a movie with Grandpa but she finished what was on her plate.

A Christmas Carol Christmas

Last Sunday we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol at my parents' house. On Tuesday I went to A Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theater. This Sunday we met at my parents' house for a birthday dinner for the two of them (their birthdays fall on the twelfth and fourteenth) and I stayed after dinner with the girls—we watched Mickey's Christmas Carol. 

It's been a rather Christmas Carol Christmas so I thought it altogether fitting and proper that I read the tale personally. 

I don't think I have ever read the original version. My brother gave me the Great Illustrated Classics edition for Christmas several years ago but it has been edited down to a third grade reading level so it doesn't count as being the original version. Furthermore since it's a third grade reading level that tells you just how many years have passed since I read it last. 

So I popped on over and "borrowed" a copy from Project Gutenberg. I finished it yesterday and I'm quite glad I read it though I'm not sure I have much to say about it right now.

On Monday evening we went to the Orem Public Library with my mom and sister to participate in a singing of Handel's Messiah—well, selections from it, anyway—hosted by the Utah Lyric Opera. They had a little chamber orchestra and real opera singers so the accompaniment and vocal solos were stellar. It was fun to do some Christmas caroling.

It's a good thing I cancelled that play date.

We've had a few families move into our neighbourhood the past couple of weeks. In an effort to be socially outgoing I invited a little boy near Rachel's age over to play. Unfortunately when I picked her up from school she remarked that her head hurt. She grabbed my hand and we started walking home—her hands felt like ice—but after walking past a few houses she said she didn't feel good enough to walk anymore so I  hoisted her up—she's heavy—so that I could carry her. I kissed her forehead; it was burning up.

She wouldn't touch her lunch.

I called to cancel the play date.

Then Rachel asked if she could watch a movie. I told her she could but that I had to take care of lunch first. When I went to check on her I found that she had curled up on my bed and was fast asleep.

Considering the last time she took voluntarily took a nap was in the pre-mortal existence she must really not be feeling well.

And to think we just went through the rounds at our house.

*sigh*

Here we go again.

This day in history

Back in October I went to a Relief Society activity. Emily came, too, and announced her engagement to the ladies. One of the women at my table asked what day Emily would be getting married, so I told her.

"And what's significant about that date?" she asked.

I fumbled for an answer. It was not a question I was expecting to hear.

"It was, uh, just a convenient date," I started, "I mean, they were going to wait to get married in May on the day they met but that would make for a long engagement so instead they just picked a day in December."

"Well, there might not be anything significant abou it now but it will be her anniversary!" my friend Reenie observed with a smile.

Emily’s bridal shower

Dear, little Emily is getting married in 10 days.

When Andrew and I got married she wasn’t even old enough to date (the youth of our church are discouraged from dating until they are sixteen years old and Emily was only fifteen). Now, five years later, she’s in my shoes: Twenty (and a half) and counting down the days until her wedding day.

It’s a little odd that a) Emily is getting married and b) Andrew and I have been married for five years! Well, we will have been married for five years on our anniversary, which is on the sixteenth. Both of us have been so wrapped up in everything else (Emily’s wedding plans, the end-of-the-semester rush, etc.) that we both entirely forgot about our anniversary until Facebook reminded us.

No, really:

Lights at Temple Square

Last Saturday we went up to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square. They’re beautiful and rather worth the drive. They might even be worth enduring the cold for (though it hasn’t been too cold lately; it’s been raining instead of snowing).

DST—Part II

Just now we were sitting in our office (yes, this late at night...I know...I'm already tired tomorrow but Andrew and I have this pact-thing and...anyway...) and Andrew was working on a paper. Even though the semester ended yesterday. He still has papers due and finals to write and...blech.

So we're sitting here and Andrew goes, "Oh, no! What's that? What the?! Did you...? No, way!"

"What?" I asked.

"There's a sock in my pants! Someone had to have planted it there! You did this!"

"Are you serious? There's a sock in your pants again? It wasn't me. For real. It wasn't."

He pulled out one of his own dirty, white socks—identical to the one he found yesterday.

"Well," he guffawed, "I found the other one!"

What am I going to do with this boy? He's so silly.

What am I going to do with our room? It's a mess.

What am I going to do with myself tomorrow when I can't drag myself out of bed?

DST

This semester has comprised of many early mornings and even more late nights. I can probably count on one hand the number of times Andrew has gone to bed before midnight. I can also probably count on one hand the number of times Andrew has slept in past 8:00. Or 6:00 for that matter. In short it has been mass chaos and this past week has been the worst.

He sheds his suit right before going to bed and leaves it crumpled up on the floor so he can step right back into it the following morning. He's had presentation after presentation, paper after paper, project after project and everything culminates today in what shall hence and forever be called "mega-presentation/paper/project day."

What is mega-presentation/paper/project day? I'll tell you.

It's a twenty-five minute powerpoint presentation followed by an open Q&A session explaining the five "phases" of a project with an accompanying 10-20 page paper per phase. That's what mega-presentation/paper/project day is—a whole lot of work.

When Andrew rushed through the kitchen yesterday, pecking me on the lips on his way to the office, and exclaiming, "Man, I'm so busy!" his sister asked if he had procrastinated. No, no procrastination here. Just business. Andrew put the girls to bed last night shortly after I left for the theater and he didn't even notice when I came home (at 10:45 PM). Seriously. He was working that diligently. It's like he's not even here. I am so happy for the end of the semester. No, really.

Anyway, we went to bed late last night after he had finished with everything he could finish and this morning...he slept in. Big time. He woke up when he should have been gone. So he jumped out of bed, into his suit, and out the door before I could even say "Good Morning!"  

After he was gone I got the girls up for the day, rushed Rachel to school, took out the garbage, ate breakfast, and then checked my email. There was a short message from Andrew:

So during one of our practice presentations just now, I was presenting and suddenly felt something crawling down my leg. It was freaky. I rushed through and finished my part to discover that it was a dirty white sock.

That email alone proves the chaos that reigns in our household but even funnier was the subject of his message: DST.

DST is a family joke—it stands for "dirty sock treatment." Andrew's dad has long-standing tradition of threatening to rub his dirty socks on his children's faces. And sometimes he does rub his day-old socks on his children's faces. And sometimes when they come home to do laundry he puts his socks in with their clothes so that they have to come back home again to give them back to him.

So Andrew just gave himself the DST. I wonder whose sock it was...

Free ticket to that thing you love

Tuesdays are like Mondays in our house. You might get a bad case of the Mondays but we...we get a bad case of the Tuesdays. This is because Rachel doesn't have school on Monday so it's just a Sunday-recovery day. Tuesdays, though, are bad.

Rachel has advanced enough in her school-going career that she no longer wakes up at 4:00 in the morning  all eager-beaver. She still loves school but has come to understand that no one wants her waking up the whole house at 0'dark-thirty. This morning we slept in until 8:30 which is bad because we must be out the door by 8:50 if she's going to get to school on time.

By some miracle (aka: Grandma) we made it and had a relatively blissful morning until I picked Rachel up from school. Then things got ugly.

Nativity at the Bean Museum

For Family Home Evening we went to the Bean Museum with my parents and siblings. My mom knew that Auntie Josie wanted to come because she "hasn't been there for years!" Uncle Patrick coming, though? That was a surprise. Uncle David even showed up in the middle of the reptile show. It was a nice surprise to get to spend the evening with them as well.

The main reason we wanted to go was to see the nativity that is apparently an annual tradition, though I don't think it could be too annual since I don't remember it being a tradition when I worked in the Integrative Biology department—we even held our department Christmas dinner in the museum and there wasn't anything quite this festive in the museum. I think it's a wonderful tradition, though. 

When we're helping we're happy

This morning Rachel and Meme teamed up to empty the dishwasher. Miriam was taking the silverware out one piece at a time and handing them to Rachel, who would put them in the drawer. It was so cute to watch them working together so nicely.

 

I'm not sure what Miriam's main motive was, though, because she seemed rather intent on closing the bottom rack. Rachel kept having to pull it back out and demand that Miriam hand her more silverware. Miriam would then obediently hand Rachel another piece or two of silverware before trying to close the bottom rack again.

It might be because on Friday she discovered that the door of the dishwasher makes a mighty fine platform. *sigh* This girl will climb on anything. 

But at least she's helping with the housework...

Have a holly, technological Christmas!

We've been enjoying getting into the Christmas season in spite of our colds. On Saturday we went up to Temple Square to view the lights, which I will post about after I get the pictures off of Andrew's computer. He's currently working on his final project—it's due on Wednesday—and then he will be free, at least relatively free. He has two finals to take after he turns his project in but those shouldn't be too intensive. I can hardly wait!

Anyway, he had loaded up his iPod with "rockin' music," and said we were going to be the party car. Unfortunately for him, none of the songs he put on his iPod were Christmas songs so we held a vote and quickly ruled him out. Luckily Auntie Sarah was in the car with us and she knew exactly which radio station had Christmas carols playing. We never listen to the radio anymore.

On the way home we turned the Christmas carols back on.

"Daddy," Rachel requested, "Do you have Frosty the Snowman?"

Mechanical Turks

I stayed up late last night finishing up a project and I actually finished it. This is a very good thing because for the last few days my to-do list has been exactly the same. Everyday. I hadn't finished any of the projects that I started but last night that changed, which made me very happy.

Andrew stayed up late finishing a project, too.

When we finally went to bed I said, "Oh, man! Tomorrow is Monday. That means I have to work. I don't know that I have any motivation to work."

"You're working to send me to Ghana! There's some motivation!"

"Oh, goody. I get to work my tail-end off so you can go to Ghana. See how motivated I am about that?"

I showed him my best that-doesn't-motivate-me face.

"You're working to take our whole family to Washington, DC, for an internship this summer!"

Hopefully. But have I mentioned we've been passing a cold around our family? It's my turn with it.

"That's a little more motivation. But I just don't feel good."

"But you're a Mechanical Turk! You have to go to work!"

"You probably should just give up trying to compliment me," I told him, "Ever."

A visit with Santa

The ward Christmas party was last night. The main event was  a talent show in which I led the primary children in singing Christmas Bells and Away in a Manger because the primary chorister wasn't able to come. Rachel came up to sing, too, though she won't technically be in primary until January. She even got to shake some bells during Christmas Bells—she was so excited!

Later I told her she did a good job and she said, "I know. That's why I'm a big kid now."

The highlight of the evening for many children—but not for my children–was a visit from Old Saint Nick, himself. A throng of children enveloped him when he walked through the door ringing his sleigh bells but Rachel wasn't among them. She froze on her chair, a look of panic frozen on her face. 

Somehow or another we convinced her to get in line to visit him. Her past visits with Santa haven't gone well but she decided she would be brave enough to stand beside him—sitting on his lap, however, was entirely out of the question. We told her that would be fine but she was still a little nervous so when we got to the front of the line Miriam went first.

Grammar

On Monday, Andrew chatted to me over IM to let me know he'd be later than usual. He tried to use his code-word but since he was typing with auto-correct on it came out all wrong.

3:45 PM

Andrew: Eel.

Me: Eel? Now, that is a new one. I wonder if it means anything like "eek" or if it means something entirely different.

Andrew: That should have been eek.

O Christmas Tree

The Christmas tree went up on Saturday. Rachel got to put up a lot of ornaments—mostly the boxes of red Christmas balls (and certainly not the heirloom ornaments even though she wanted to touch them so badly). When the tree was "finished" it was saturated with red balls on the bottom half. Grandma artistically moved them around after Rachel went to bed and now the tree looks much more symmetrical.

Rachel had so much fun helping, though. She'd put an ornament on the tree and then jump up and down, clap her hands, and squeal, "That looks perfect!"

Since most the the ornaments on the tree are glass (and because some are heirlooms) we have baby gates closing off both doorways to the front room. This way, we thought, we'd keep "Christmas" safe.

We're going to Antarctica

Last Tuesday it was -27°F (or about -33°C) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, making it the second coldest place on earth, next to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Antarctica. It even made it to the news.

I used to live there and I don't really understand how I ever survived because when I went outside today here it was 27°F above zero (-3°C) and I was freezing. I bundled up my girls (and myself) with sweaters under their winter coats, snow boots, hats, and mittens. And we were only walking around the corner.

Today the coldest place on earth is Chandlar Lake, Alaska, where it's -42°F (-41°C). I'm very glad I don't live there today, though I have been in the negative forties. It's just no fun.

I really dislike winter.

In Egypt we would pass off everything and anything awful that happened with a little sigh, exclaiming, "Oh...Egypt." Today I'm feeling out of sorts with America. So many things have happened recently that are absolutely nettling and about which I don't share a common opinion with my "neighbours" and so I'm feeling glum. "Oh...America."

*sigh*

Sometimes I wonder why I'm here.

But then I remember that the only other "home" I have is akin to living on Antarctica—a place I swore I'd never go but now that I know that sometimes it's on par with places I've lived like (Russia and Canada) I may as well go. Hear that, Andrew, you win: we can go to Antarctica.

During Antarctica's summer, naturally.

Because I'm not setting foot anywhere near Antarctica during the winter.

Ever.

I don't think I could sigh, "Oh...Antarctica," effectively enough to communicate my feelings about Antarctic winters. Not that I know anything about Antarctic winters. But I can imagine.

Why-bin

I felt just fine when I left to go running tonight and I felt just fine while I was running but as soon as finished running, left the track, and stepped outside I felt the beginning of a sneeze coming on. My nose has since taken up running, too, and I don't think I've stopped sneezing since. And here I thought for sure I wasn't going to catch this cold.

Rachel has been sick since Friday. She woke up coughing in the middle of the night and begged for some medicine because her "cough is stuck and can't come out."

"Does your throat hurt?" I asked her.

"Yeah. Because my cough is stuck," she said, and then coughed some more.

Musicality

Last week Grandpa came home from a long day at church with some black mark on his shirt. His Sundays are long days—he leaves early in the morning and usually doesn't come home until around 9:00 PM. He's a bishop for a BYU single's ward, so he's busy. This was our conversation about the shirt:

Karen: What did you do—lean up on something?

Reid: I dunno...but you can lean on me.

Andrew: When you're not strong.

Me: I'll be your friend.

Karen: I'll just spray it and see if it comes out.

Reid, Andrew and I burst out laughing. We had all been expecting her to say "I'll help you carry on" but she hadn't even realized that we were all singing. She was just concerned about getting that white shirt clean. Maybe that doesn't sound too funny when you read it, but if you were there you would know that she said "I'll..." right on pitch so we were sure she was going to sing the next line of the song.

Today Grandpa came home from church and told us that when he had typed up the bulletin he typed the name of one of the hymns wrong. Instead of typing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" he had typed "Hark, the Herald Angels Sin."

I'm just jealous that their ward sang Christmas carols because ours didn't. And I feel a little gypped because there are only a few weeks left until Christmas. I love Christmas carols but since so many people feel they can't be sung until after Thanksgiving it leaves very little time to get them sung.

It's after Thanksgiving now—we've just lost a whole week of valid Christmas caroling.

Miriam at 13 months

Rachel was too sick to go to church today so she stayed home with Grandma and we took Miriam thinking we'd have a nice, relaxing Sunday without having to worry about children squabbling over crayons and toys or hitting, pinching, hair-pulling, and fights over who gets to sit in mom's lap. And we were right about that part, really, because we didn't have any of that this week. But it wasn't a nice, relaxing Sunday at church because today was the day Miriam decided to start walking.

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2010

Writing the Christmas newsletter is one of the highlights of my year; it's a beautiful tradition. I love looking back at what we've accomplished—the trials we've overcome, the adventures we've had, how much our children have grown, that kind of thing. It's amazing how much can happen in just one year.

Sometimes I feel like I'm writing it more for us (me) than for you (because I love doing it so much) but I hope you also enjoy the annual synopsis of our lives.

Here's this year's letter, bright and early...before December, even. That kind of makes up for how late we sent it out last year, right?

Like Rabbits

We had a small gathering of our high school friends over today: just me, Andrew, Marquita, and Joy. Back in the day this really would have been a small gathering. Today? It was a little wild. 

Joy brought along Joe (her husband) and their girls: Karen (4), Rachel (2), and Alice (6 mos).

Marquita brought along Daniel (her husband) and their girls: Maya (5) and Vivian (2).

Andrew and I, of course, contributed to the pool of estrogen with Rachel (3) and Miriam (1).

Between us all there are seven little girls. SEVEN!

The house was full of all the fun and energy seven girls ages six and under offer. 

Who would ever have dreamed this up in high school?

We've been as far as Nebraska/North Carolina, Korea, and Cairo but we still keep in touch and when we manage to be on the same continent, in the same country, state, and town...well, we like to get together.

Thanksgiving toes

Apparently we didn't feed Miriam enough of our Thanksgiving feast.



In truth, she is always putting her feet up at the dinner table and will chew on them if you mention anything about it. We had to help her a bit for the video because she had stopped doing it by the time we grabbed the camera...but the second time, when she's kicking herself in the face and gets her foot into her mouth without using her hands? That's just classic.

The "doo-doo-doo" is in the movie because she was snacking on Bugles and that's the noise that we make when we eat Bugles. What other noise could you make?

We only recently started giving them to her whole but Grandpa didn't know that so he broke them up into little pieces for her. She was not impressed and held up a crumb to him and ask, "Doo-doo-doo?"

Roughly translated that means, "Why'd you break my Bugles, Grandpa?"

She looked so crest-fallen that he gave her a handful of whole Bugles so that she could hold them up to her lips one at a time and sing out "Doo-doo-doo-doo!" before eating them.

Lend me your ears

It's a good thing November, and thus NaBloPoMo, is almost over because sometimes our life is so mundane and humdrum that I am not sure I have anything left to say. Today was unique, though, because Daddy was home all day long and that hasn't happened in a long time. He watched the girls this morning while I worked which was a real treat. Then he worked while I watched the girls. Then we cleaned the house together while Karen made something like seven or eight pies. I'm not even kidding. Thanksgiving is going to rock!

Andrew was recently accepted for a field study trip to Ghana this spring. We're both really excited about it because it will be a wonderful opportunity for him to apply what he's learned, make some great contacts, and be of service to the people of Ghana. There are a few drawbacks, though, which include two weeks of separation since he'll be going alone and the fact that after we pay for next semester's tuition we will be morally, ethically...positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably broke. And I mean not only merely broke, but really most sincerely broke. It's really actually a miracle that we managed to earn enough money this semester to cover next semester's tuition.

So we're currently brainstorming fundraiser ideas—both large and small scale. We mostly need ideas that take very little capital since we have very little of that (and the 16 other people planning on going to Ghana are in the same boat). I suppose I'll just list what we've come up with and then beg you all for suggestions.

Idahoax

Due to the blizzard warning (that shut down basically the whole state plus a few neighbouring states as well) we had an Emily pity-party this evening. She had been planning on going up to Morgan's for Thanksgiving but because of the storm she wasn't able to leave today. She was devastated.

And I totally know how she feels. At least, I think I do.

It's kind of like how I feel when I'm planning on Andrew coming home at 5:30 but he doesn't end up coming home until 6:00 and ends up walking through the door just as I'm screaming, "Wait until your father gets home!" because staying patient sane that extra half hour is just too much to handle.

I think that's probably how she felt when the weatherman said "Do not go outside or you will die!" (or something along those lines—it really was a severe blizzard warning; they closed the highways and everything; we ended up getting very little snow here but it did get windy and really cold).

Anyway, we ended the evening by playing Hand and Foot. Naturally, Idaho, Morgan's homestate, figured into the conversation and we started wondering about how it got the nickname of Gem State.

Miriam is "reading"

We were just in the girls' room reading books and playing library and Beauty and the Beast (because you can't really do one without the other, can you?) when Miriam thrust the book Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy in my face. I told her that she'd have to wait for a minute so she started to read to herself.

Now, I don't want to say that she can read or anything, but...

When she got to the page that says, "Smoooooth!" she said, "Moooooooooo!"

So she can basically read.

Just thought you might want to know.

You shall neither smile nor laugh

My friends and I used to play a party game called "Darling, if you love me." I haven't played it for years and can't really remember when I stopped playing it but it must have been when I moved down to the States because I can only seem to find a sprinkling of references to the game online—perhaps this will be my foray to writing Wikipedia articles—most of them British or Canadian.

Basically, the game runs like this:

One person is selected to be "it" and stands in the middle of the room. All other participants sit in a circle. The person who is "it" has to try to make someone laugh by saying, "Darling, if you love me, won't you please, please smile," in the silliest manner possible. Anyone in the circle can laugh except for the person being addressed. That person must answer, "Darling, you know I love you, but I just can't smile," in the most solemn manner possible, without smiling or laughing. If the victim laughs, they become "it." If they don't, then the person being "it" will choose another person to approach.

The game gets quite silly, as illustrated in this video of school children in Victoria, BC, playing the game in class.

First snowman of the year

This morning Rachel woke up before anyone else. Except for Grandpa who was already gone for the day, and Grandma, who was just getting read to head out the door to join Grandpa at church. Grandma got Rachel some breakfast and then left. A while later Rachel came to wake me and Andrew up. We played around on the bed for a while and then asked her if she wanted breakfast.

"Oh, I already had breakfast," she informed us, and then told us that she wanted to get dressed because it had snowed. 

I convinced her yesterday to wear one of her red dresses (that has been hanging in her closet, neglected, for months now) because it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and because red and pink are basically the same colour. So this morning she chose one of her red dresses, pulled on some red socks to match, threw on her Sunday shoes and was out in the backyard before Andrew or I had even gotten dressed. We hurried to catch up with her and eventually coaxed her inside to put some more adequate clothing on—unfortunately the most adequate we could muster were some boots and mittens...not that we don't have coats or pants or hats...she just wouldn't put any on.

Yikes!

Like my friend Lauren I almost went to bed without blogging tonight. Luckily for me my husband is home (yippee!) and he reminded me that I hadn't blogged yet today. And since it's November, and NaBloPoMo, I got out of bed to blog. So following in Lauren's blog-zample I will just list a couple of things today. Probably things that I'm grateful for because I'm not original enough to come up with a question other than the one she used (which was: will I ever sleep through the night again?).

I am grateful...

...that Andrew is home.
...that I got to spend the day with my mom.
...that my in-law took such good care of me while Andrew was gone.
...for the clothing exchange I went to today.
...for my bed.

And that's where I'm going right now.

At dinner tonight

At dinner I asked Rachel to bless the food. First she tried to make Toto say it by repeating each phrase she said in a doggy voice. I interrupted and asked her to say the prayer by herself.

"But Toto wants a turn," she insisted.

"But it isn't very respectful to Heavenly Father to have a stuffed dog praying to him at the dinner table. Will you please do it? Just you?"

Somehow I finally convinced her to say the prayer solo—she's a tricky person to convince to do anything so I'm pretty proud of myself for succeeding without having her morph into a superhuman fit-throwing machine. Once she started, though, she wouldn't stop. She just kept praying and praying and praying.

My favourite part was when she said, and I quote, "...and I'm thankful for Toto and for my Dorothy dress. And please bless that my mom will do the laundry so I can wear it again..."

I took that as a hint and am doing laundry right now.

The Land of Oz

Rachel did not end up going to school this morning. She was all geared up to go to school but things fell apart completely when I asked her to get out of her jammies and into her school clothes.

"Where's my Dorothy dress?" she asked.

"It's dirty, sweetie."

"I'll just get it out of the laundry basket," she said and took off down the hall.

"Uh...veto!" I called out after her, "You've worn it two days in a row already. It needs to be washed."

"Then wash it!"

"Even if I put it in the wash right now it wouldn't be clean and dry in time for you to make it to school. You have to be there in twenty minutes."

"But I want to wear it!"

"You need to choose something different."

"Okay, fine. My other Dorothy dress."

"Also dirty."

Ramblings

Does having Andrew post on the blog count as me posting for NaBloPoMo? No? Bummer.

I'm not sure which one of us is more exhausted. Last night I got four hours of sleep—the girls (yes, both of them) have been on a bit of a sleep strike—but tonight I'm aiming for more like eight. Or six. Or even five. The first few nights that Andrew was gone I think I got like two hours of sleep. I feel like a zombie of sorts.

Right now I'm definitely glad we live around family. They sure are taking good care of me!

Rachel didn't want to go to bed on Sunday night because it snowed. While we were getting ready for bed. And she wanted to get ready to go play in the snow instead. So I said no. And she acted like I had grounded her for life.

DC Career Trip, Day 2 (November 17)

Today was incredible! One of my main reasons for coming on this trip was to visit and become acquainted with some of the major federal agencies. Two of our four visits on Monday were to federal locations, but both CRS and the Department of Labor are relatively small compared to the heavy hitters like the State Department. On Tuesday morning we went to the biggest hitter: the Department of Defense.

        

DC Career Trip, Day 1 (November 16)

We started the day relatively early—our first visit was scheduled for 8:30 at the Library of Congress, and since our hotel is over by the White House at McPherson Square, we figured we would have to leave at 8 to get there on time. The hotel breakfast was amazing and included a waffle bar, bacon, sausage, potatoes, cereal, fruit, English muffins, cereal, and everything else your breakfast-loving mind could imagine. Glorious stuff.

Tonight we're going to party like it's 1989

My friend Kevin (who (long story short) got hold of my older sister's long-lost (as in 20 years long-lost) photo album from a friend of a friend) just sent me some photos of myself. From 1989.

The first is from my fourth birthday when we lived in Burnaby, British Columbia.

I got a tricycle that year, along with a couple of My Little Ponies. The ponies went unnamed but I named the tricycle after my cousin Elizabeth. I loved that tricycle. I learned to braid by playing with the tassels on the handlebars and put just about anything I could into that little basket on the front. The only sore point about it was that I wanted a pink tricycle. 

But as Rachel is currently so fond of pointing out, "You can't have everything you want..."

This next picture is of me holding my little brother, Patrick. It most likely is also from 1989 though it could be from early 1990. 

I believe we're sitting in front of my mom's old turntable. I used to love to put on records and dance around the living room, much like a little girl I know now.

Here's Rachel haf-way dressed up as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and half-way dressed up to go play out in the snow. She had been dancing in the living room to the soundtrack of the aforementioned movie when she noticed that it had begun to snow, so we threw on her winter boots and a jacket so she could rush outside to twirl in the snow.

I think she kind of looks like me. (She's cute).

Anderson Reunion, Day 3 (Saturday, Oct. 16)

Finally, right? It’s only a month late…what fun, warm memories, though. Even in the morning when we got up it was warm, or at least warmer than it had been the day before. It was less windy and I think that helped.

When we walked past the camping area I couldn’t help but snap a picture of the matching tents. There were a bunch of Germans staying in the campground—they rented equipment so all of it matched. It was just so quaint.

Gingerbread Festival 2010

This afternoon we headed out to the Gingerbread Festival with Grandma to do some more strictly non-Christmas things. Like looking at gingerbread houses while being surrounded by Christmas trees and listening to Christmas music. This year’s festival was at the Boy Scouts of America/Utah National Parks Council building.

(For future reference: standing beside the statue was her idea so I don’t know why she flipped out—perhaps her idea turned out to be too big for her to carry through with).

The girls

Before going to bed Rachel likes to show off some tricks, which she calls "fwicks." The other night she was bounding around her room, trying to get Andrew's attention.

"Look, Daddy! Watch my fwick! Ready, okay?"

She did a trick of sorts and apparently messed up because she. I can never tell when she messes up her tricks because, truthfully, they look the same as when she doesn't mess up.

"That wasn't a really trick. I'm having issues doing my tricks."

And today Miriam took six steps to get at a duck that was sitting on Rachel's desk. Usually she only does three steps: R-L-R. If she does more it's usually because she goes R-L-R-R-R-R-R until she falls over. For some reason she just can't get that left left moving. Today, though, she took six fairly steady steps before she reached the desk. And the duck.

Miriam also took a few steps in the kitchen. I had just put her into some flannel pyjamas without those little tread stickies on the bottom (Rachel thinks they are derived from peanut butter fish; this may or may not be because she asked about it one day and so I told her that, yes, indeed, peanut butter fish are harvested and then stuck to the bottom of our socks for traction). It was like watching someone get on an ice rink for the first time. She was slipping and sliding all over the place but was determined to get her six steps in again.

Right, left, slip, right.

*pause*

Right, left, right...right...

*plop!*

Welcome to Washington, D.C.

I’m in American history nerd heaven right now. For the next week I’m going to be gallivanting around Washington, D.C., visiting over a dozen different government agencies, lobbying firms, and international organizations (and maybe even NPR!) with a group of 11 other MPA students. It’s going to be an awesome week!

I didn't do anything related to Christmas today (psyche!)

This morning after the girls and I had woken up, showered, and dressed, I pulled out one of the MoTab's Christmas albums. And then I played it. And no one complained. Why?

Because Andrew left this morning for Washington, DC, and will be gone all week.

So we reverently rocked out to Christmas music during breakfast. Reverently because, you know, it's MoTab, which doesn't actually lend itself well to rocking out. But there was a bit of ballet.

We were still working on breakfast when people started showing up for choir practice—we're a little sluggish in the morning—so it was a good thing that someone finished arranging the basement for me (thank you, Someone) because I'm pretty sure all I did last night was move the couch. Choir went well, although I was singing solo as the lone, and rather distracted, soprano. My kids were crawling all over the place, pulling on sheet music, and fighting over toys. Choir ended a little late so we had to rush to get through all the finishing touches of getting ready for church (hair, potty, socks and shoes, diaper bag, etc). Mirim chose to scream her head off during the whole pre-church rush. She was ready for a nap but it was too late for that. It was too late for a lot of things. Take lunch for example: the girls shared baggie full of a variety of cracker-type-things.

Just like a big girl!

Miriam has been standardizing her vocabulary. She recently figured out how to say "quack" so the word "duck" has been, for the most part, repressed. If you catch her off-guard she'll still say duck. For example, I just showed her a rubber duck and said, "Meme, what is this?"

"Duh....k!" she said. "Qak, qak, qak, qak, qak, qak!"

But now that "qak-ing" has taken over and she won't say "duh...k" until she forgets about how fun quaking is. It's her new word so, trust me, she thinks it is a lot of fun.

Last night Andrew and I went out on a date and Grandpa was playing with the girls. Meme started quacking her little "qak-qak," which sent Rachel into a proud sort of tizzy. She just had to bring Grandpa's attention to Meme's new skill.

"Listen, everybody, listen! Meme can say 'fwack' just like a big girl! 'Fwack-fwack,' Meme, say, 'fwack, fwack!' She can talk! She can say 'fwack, fwack, fwack' just like a big girl!"

Oh, the irony...

That was...weird

Recently I applied for a job at BYU and I got called in to interview for it. I was excited about this because I applied for this same job a couple of years ago and got a dismissive email almost immediately. It's a fairly competitive position—the pay isn't great but it comes with free room & board and a benefits package. so that kind of makes up for that, plus a large chunk of the "working hours" are "on call."

Everybody wants this job.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to get an interview. It kind of made up for being rejected so quickly the first time I applied—and I was also excited to actually have a shot at getting the job. After the interview, though, I wasn't so sure I wanted the job so when they called last night and said, "We made up the list for second interviews and you aren't on it, but thanks for coming in to interview," I answered rather enthusiastically, "No, no, thank you."

Andrew was like, "What's up?"

And I was like, "I didn't get the job, isn't that awesome?"

The interview was, to put it politely, the most peculiar interview I have ever had. Ever. And I've had several.

5 o'clock shadow...on your head

On Tuesday night Andrew whimpered and whined about his long hair until I gave in and agreed to cut it. We got out the clippers and I set to work. Everything was fine until I decided to make the sides a bit shorter than the top. Then...

"Ooops...okay, ummm...that's, like, really short."

Andrew felt his head with his hands.

"Just make it all that length," he suggested.

"Are you sure? It's like really, really short."

"What other options do we have?"

"Good point."

Miriam and her utensils

Since her introduction to utensils, Miriam has become quite fixated with forks. She won't eat anything unless she's holding one (or more). In the morning I usually just plop her in her high chair and give her handful of dry Cheerios and some raisins to pacify her while I get breakfast for Rachel and myself. She used to be happy with this routine but recently has taken to squawking after I walk away. 

"What's wrong, Meme?" I'll ask.

She'll urgently grunt and open and clench her fist repeatedly. Roughly translated, this means, "But what about my fork, Mom?" 

Cheerios and rasins have been staple finger foods for her since she sprouted teeth and yet she will no longer eat them, or anything else, unless she has her trusty fork. She's really pretty good at stabbing food and getting it into her mouth, considering she's one, but even when she's not successful with the fork she still insists on holding it with one hand while she shovels food into her mouth with the other. 

After mealtime is over she still won't relinquish her fork. Instead she carries it with her away from the table. We took her out (somewhere, I can't remember where) a few days ago and she held the fork the whole way in the car, the whole time we were there (wherever we were), and the whole way home. She finds them quite entertaining...

 

Chore Day

Today Karen thanked me for cleaning the microwave. It had been a while since anyone had cleaned it, aside from doing damage control by haphazardly smearing wiping up epic explosions of refried beans or popcorn butter but the other day I went to warm something up and decided enough was enough. So I gave it a good cleaning.

Or at least a decent cleaning.

My whole theory of housekeeping can be summed up by one of two phrases: "It's better than it was," or "Good enough." If you look around my house it will be plain just how low my standard of "good enough" is and your mind will be sure to run rampant with terrible imaginations of what my house looked like before it became "better than it was."

Everyday the sun comes up

Last night Andrew and I watched Thirteen Days—it was part leisure, part homework. I think it's kind of funny that it was homework because the last movie Andrew was assigned to watch, for the same class, was Twelve Angry Men. If this pattern holds, the next movie we will watch for this class will be Fourteen Hours.

Thirteen Days is about the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis and it was a fascinating watch. I don't want to give anything away or anything but in the end everything works out fine and the USSR doesn't use Cuba as a missile launch to blast the United States. Still, it was a rather intense movie. Our world leaders are under so much pressure. I've heard a lot of griping in the news about the president "taking a vacation" here and there. After watching this film all I have to say about that is "more power to him." I wanted to tell all those men to take their families and relax somewhere for a long time.

I was stressed out just watching the movie. Politics is hard.

The perfect storm

Miriam is sick with something. She had a high fever a few days ago and now has a rash. I discovered it at church while giving her a diaper change. She didn't have it this morning so I don't know when it started. She's already had roseola and I'm not sure that you can get roseola twice since the going theory is that contracting it in childhood offers life-long immunity. So perhaps chicken pox?

I don't know. I've circled some of the bumps on her tummy with a pen so we will see how they look in the coming days.

When she got roseola she had a lacy rash; this time it's just bumps and it definitely started on her torso.

Poor baby hasn't been sleeping well and has been so, so miserable. Usually when we lie her down she takes, at the most, fifteen minutes to fall asleep. Lately she's been taking hours. She stayed up until nearly midnight a couple of days in a row, just fussing. It's clear she's uncomfortable.

Tonight she was asleep within half an hour of going down so hopefully this means she is on the mend.

I could sure use a full eight hours, if you know what I mean.

But, I suppose I should still be grateful today. Today I'm thankful that Karen came home from church and made apple crisp. Our block of church gets out at 4:00 and it was fast Sunday and daylight savings reversal and the rehearsal for the primary presentation and my baby is sick so it was a pretty much the perfect storm. I was sitting in the back of the primary room with Reenie, juggling Miriam and watching the kids struggle through the last twenty minutes of primary.

"What is this—the full moon?" she asked, "No, wait! It's 5:00 for them. They're tired and ready to be home with yummy food in their tummies! Poor things!"

Not that many of them were fasting, anyway, since children don't usually fast until they're older. But still. Being at church until 4:00 is hard enough without your biological clock thinking it's 5:00.

Thank goodness for mother-in-laws and their apple crisp! It was hot and ready right when we walked in the door!

Dry Canyon Photo Shoot

Today we packed up the kids, camera, and tripod and drove out to Dry Canyon to take some family pictures. I’ve never been to Dry Canyon before which is really kind of a shame since it is right up the street. Literally.

One of these days—when the days are getting warmer instead of cooler—we need to head back up there and hike to Mt. Baldy. We meant to do that this summer/fall but somehow we never got around to it.

This fall has been so long and lovely. It’s November and the girls (mainly Rachel) refused to put sweaters on—the high today was over 70°F. That’s amazing for November. The best part, though, is that the trees are still sporting their autumn leaves in dazzling hues of red, orange, yellow, and brown.

It’s so beautiful I can hardly stand it.

Acronyms

Last night Andrew and I were talking about The Future. He has this hierarchy of choices, some of which may prevent other options from becoming available if we don't plan carefully. Most specifically we were talking about when to take the Foreign Service Officer Test, or FSOT. If we take it too early, we might not be able to do this other thing that Andrew wants to do.

"What about the AFO?" I asked Andrew.

He answered me with a blank stare.

"Or whatever it is. I don't know—I'm just throwing out acronyms here."

The Lizard of Oz

Yesterday I spent much of the day fostering Wizard of Oz play. Rachel is obsessed. She has a blue dress that she insists on wearing very often—because Dorothy has a blue dress—except for when we dance to the soundtrack of The Wizard of Oz because then she has to wear her ballet clothes. I think she probably danced to that soundtrack at least once, if not twice, a day. Or more. 

I think it's a great alternative to watching movies, which is also something she asks to do everyday. I always (usually) say yes to ballet. I try to say no to movies as often as possible which isn't very often because Rachel is very persuasive when she wants to be (read: she throws an awesome temper tantrum). But ballet is a creative, physical outlet, and is something she'll usually do by herself so I encourage it. A lot.

We played with play-dough yesterday and Rachel requested the yellow play-dough. I found this a bit surprising because she had gotten pink play-dough while we were out trick-or-treating. She rolled the play-dough around for a bit and then started smashing it all over the table. I asked her what she was making and she informed me that it was The Yellow Brick Road. We also worked together to fashion a ruby-red slipper.

My elephant

So, we're kind of honorary members of Reid and Karen's BYU single's ward. We fit right in...only we're not single... Most of the "big kids," as they are known in our household, know this (now) but a few rather awkward conversations took place. Like this one time a girl asked me if she could sit next to me on the couch so I said yes and so she did but she missed and kind of sat on me. At first I wasn't sure if she noticed or not because she didn't move over and she just kept on talking.

"What apartment are you in?" she asked.

"Actually, I live here. I'm the bishop's daughter-in-law."

"Oh," she said, and finally moved over.

I don't know if she was just looking for an appropriate moment or if I intimidated her so much she felt like I had to give back my personal space. Either way it was kind of awkward.

Anyway, there's this kid in their ward who is really cool—he speaks Russian and everything. We once considered setting him up with Emily but then she returned home from her mission practically engaged and now is engaged so that didn't ever happen. Still, he's cool, and his name is Paul.

The funny thing about Paul is that I see him nearly every time I am on BYU campus. It's bizarre, really. I mean, I'm not on campus very often and the times I go are very sporadic yet every time I go, I run into Paul.

Today was better

8:15-8:24 AM Work while nursing Baby

Break to take baby potty, shower with girls, feed and clothe self and children, sweep kitchen floor, scrub a pan, make some phone calls, dress Oldest in ballet clothes, turn on music and dance in living room.

10:10-10:22 AM Work while nursing Baby

Break to put Baby down for a nap, dance in living room with oldest, fix paper crown.

10:27-11:07 AM Work while Baby is sleeping, spend last two minutes of work trying to work while repeatedly explaining to Oldest that I really, seriously only have two minutes left to work so if they could just wait for two minutes I'd be all done for the day and completely at her disposal.

A league of their own

This evening Andrew and I went to a "mingle and mentor" session-conference-convention thing that the Marriott school hosted. In years past it was specifically for MBA students but this year they also encouraged the MPA students to attend. It was so fancy and so not-us.

We had been warned that the MPA and MBA students at the Marriott School were a bit like the Sharks and the Jets--today I got my first taste of that. We didn't seem to fit in well at all.

Do you or I or anyone know how oats, peas, beans and barley grow?

A few days ago Andrew and I were talking about noses. Andrew once told me that if you pinch a baby's nose closed that they would automatically open up their mouth to breathe. The funny thing is is that Miriam doesn't do this. Instead she throws her head backward hoping you lose the grip on her nose. It's really kind of funny. This led to a discussion about noses and my teasing Andrew that his nose would only get larger as he gets older.

"No, it won't!" he said, slightly offended.

"Sure it will. Have you ever seen a picture of a young apostle and compared it to an older picture? Their noses always grow to be huge. It's just what happens."

"What? No way!" Andrew said, incredulously, "Noses are like eyes, aren't they? They stay the same size your whole life...Wait, that's obviously not the case because I don't have a baby nose. Never mind."

We laughed and laughed about that one. And I just learned that at birth babies' eyes are usually about 75% of the size of an adults' eye, so they actually do grow, just not much. Noses, on the other hand, grow a whole lot. Obviously.

Today I'm grateful for my nose since it helps hold up my glasses. My new glasses just came in today and I can see so much better now! My prescription hadn't actually changed that much in the past two years (which means I can still read the top letter, and only the top letter, on the chart...go me!) but my glasses were so scratched up (thanks, Egyptian sand) that a new pair was duly warranted. I suppose I'm also thankful for my eyes today, as well as for corrective lenses.

Also, in case you're wondering, today's title comes from the chorus of a traditional British and American song that popped into my head while I was wondering what to title this post. I suppose thinking of "growing noses" made me think of "know" and "grow" and then this song just flooded into my mind.

Andrew and I are going to go chillax now by watching our noses grow while eating some odd dessert he's concocted using cake mix, cherry pie filling, canned pineapple, and a can of cherry 7-Up. Wish us luck!

Vote early and vote often

I voted in person for the first time in my life today--I voted two years ago but from overseas with an absentee ballot--it wasn't even that scary. My own family isn't very politically active, but Andrew's family is. Andrew's dad enjoys propagating the phrase "Vote early, vote often." He (and Karen and Andrew) even did vote early this year, though only once. I went to vote today after picking Rachel up from school.

When I told her that we wouldn't be going straight home but that we'd be going to vote first she clapped her hands together and declared, "That's perfect, Mom, because we didn't go on a field trip today and so going to vote can be our field trip."

Right foot forward

Miriam took her first steps today! We were dancing in the living room and she scooted her right foot forward a couple of times and got such a rise out of everybody that now if she’s standing up you can get her to move her right foot forward pretty consistently. But only the right foot.

I guess we’ll work on the left foot later.

It’s a step in the right direction, though. She’s almost walking…