The Blog Family Robinson

Summer in Oregon

2010-08-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

The kids and I spent several weeks this summer with my family in Oregon, while John finished up his dissertation. Here's a quick view of the things we did there:

Isaac's seventh birthday

Isaac and Jeremiah spinning Grandpa for pin the tail on the dragon. :)

Cuddling on grandpa's chair
Kids playing bubble tag in the back yard

Leora on Independence Day.

Isaac waiting (patiently?) for fireworks to begin.

Kids waiting for their swim lessons to begin.

Leora was THRILLED to be in swim lessons this year!

She is a super-duper floater.

Isaac is a great under-water swimmer...and therefore we didn't get a lot of pictures of him.

Jeremiah is a cute top-of-the-water swimmer.

And, he has a couple "grown-up teeth!"

Disneyland 2010

2010-08-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

I thought if I included "2010," maybe we'd go back sometime...

We had a ton of fun going to Disneyland together! We went 2 1/2 years ago, right around Christmastime, and honestly, Isaac had a blast! Jeremiah was terrified of ALL rides he went on (Dumbo, the carousel...that's about it) and Leora was barely a year old and didn't really care.

So, this time, we went on one of the last summer days that the ark closed at 8. It was a great choice. Hardly any lines, and we could do everything we wanted to! Yippee!

Mostly the next few posts will just have pictures. Because my favorite father mentioned that wehaven't posted here recently. And I don't really have the time/current desire to write a ton. Since we're moving currently. We'll be in Wisconsin in 6 days! Which means moving out of our apartment and having everything packed and shipped and cleaned within the next 4 days...

The boys on the teacups.

Leora and John on the teacups.

Isaac hanging out in jail in ToonTown.

Alison, Jeremiah and Leora sitting on a bench on the carousel.

Leora consulting the Disneyland map. :)

Our family! At Disneyland!

Jeremiah and Isaac with Disney souvenirs!

Leora with HER souvenir. We went into the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, and I fgured we'd get her a beautiful princess tiara or purse and gloves...but no. We found the best swords and shields ever!

Good-bye Disneyland!

General Conference

2010-04-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

This morning, I woke up early, which is to be expected when I go to bed at 8 with the kids. And I started making our traditional Conference breakfast: sour cream coffee cake (yes, I see the irony there, and we've had word of wisdom discussions with our kids because of it), sausages, and strawberries. Mmmm. Jeremiah woke up just a tad after me, and liked helping me stir all the batter for the coffee cake. He's a great helper. I had my recipe up on the laptop, and after mixing for a few minutes, Jeremiah was finished... and wanting to play a game on my open computer. But, he told me, he knew that we needed the recipe open, so could he "do the plus" to open a new tab? So cute. I love that kiddo.

I had the bright idea last night that if I took the kids swimming between sessions today, they'd be worn out and therefore at least quiet, if not actually paying attention, for the afternoon session. It worked. I think. I'm not sure because I only made it through the first half of the afternoon session. Oh well.

I'm just so glad that survived the last, oh, 5 years. I love my kids. They're great. It's taken a lot of work to get to this point. I'm so glad that I did it. I know I'll have more challenges and frustrations as these ones get older, but, it's just so satisfying to see how far we've come.

Books I've Read Recently

2010-02-16T05:14:00.000-08:00

Not in any particular order, and I'll likely mention if I really didn't like it. If you're looking for great books to read, here are my most recent selections.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, juvenile series.

Three Cups of Tea, non-fiction. There's a sequel I haven't yet read called Stones into Schools. Very powerful non-fiction.

The Actor and the Housewife, fiction.

The Color of Water, non-fiction.

The Blind Side, non-fiction. The first 2 chapters are straight football, and I almost didn't make it through, but it was an amazing book. We just saw the movie last night, and it was also very good--and followed the book pretty precisely. It was fun to see what was straight from the book, and what was changed and embellished in the film.

Evermore, juvenile series.

The Guinea Pig Diaries, non-fiction. Not appropriate for a Relief Society book group, but hilarious. And highly recommended, with a grain of salt. :)

Parenting with Love and Logic, non-fiction. (It's a parenting book.)

And a couple books I have on hold at our library and am anticipating picking up are The Happiness Project, non-fiction, and The Help, fiction.

Happy reading!

I always accept suggestions.

Princess Danielle

2010-01-21T07:15:00.000-08:00

Danielle opened 3 chests of princess dress-ups for Christmas. She is a very very happy princess these days.

Christmas 2009

2010-01-14T19:34:00.001-08:00

The most Christmas-y of pictures of 2009. :)

Danielle's 3rd Birthday!

2010-01-11T20:35:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday, Danielle! Three things I love about Danielle:

1. She's girly. I absolutely love that she wants her hair up, me to paint her toenails, and that we pick out "make-up" together.

2. She gives amazing 3-year-old hugs.

3. She's silly! This girl makes me crack up every day. She's hilarious. And delightful.

Jeremiah's Photo Shoot

2010-01-11T11:07:00.001-08:00

While we were in Florida, Jeremiah, my camera, and I went on a walk/photo-shoot. And, after manipulating some of the cutest pictures on my computer and some learning curve involvement, here's what we (Jeremiah, my camera, my computer, and I) came up with.

tidbits

2009-12-15T15:21:00.000-08:00

The boys had their Kindergarten Holiday Concert this afternoon. SO CUTE!!! Very enjoyable. I teared up: Isaac surprised us by singing a solo!

Today was a beautiful day for biking.

Danielle is all-the-way potty-trained. Except she can't turn the light on by herself. I'll take it!

Jeremiah can mostly sound out words. He was watching a word-less video John found him (on YouTube) and at the end of it, he said in his sweet little voice, "Clash of Fates." Yes, that is a little too random to be environmental print.

Isaac's imagination continues to amaze me. He loves lincoln logs. He builds the typical log houses of various sizes and shapes, as well as fences and catapults and cannons. Sometimes the lincoln logs become standing soldiers defending Danielle's princess castle. He barricaded the castle door closed with tall lincoln logs and told Jeremiah it was time to knock it down...which Jeremiah proceeded to do quite happily.

Jeremiah continues to destruct while the other children construct, in general.

Isaac's being assessed for a gifted program at school, and has individual reading time with the reading specialist rather than typical kindergarten s-a-t.

My children are very much not interested in the tasty, pretty scotcharoo wreath which my visiting teachee gave me this morning, and I'm happily consuming it.

Zero Christmas presents under the tree have been opened.

We have been doing our Christmas book tradition. Each night, one child chooses a book to unwrap from under our tree, and we read a Christmas related picture book together. We all love it. I love that John comes to see the pictures. :)

The kindergarten teacher sent home "copies" of letters the boys wrote yesterday to Santa, in case the parents wanted to know what their kids wrote and what Santa might be leaving when he visits Christmas Eve. I'll just say that they have both been looking forward to these presents for a long time (for a child). Now to find out what Danielle wants...

I'm certain there's more, but that's a little taste of what we have going on around here.

Oh yes! That!

John accepted a job at Viterbo, in La Crosse, Wisconsin! After one more hot summer, we're looking forward to a very long and cold winter!

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-11-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

The night Jeremiah wore his wolf suit, he found a blue river in the bathroom and laid it out on the floor in the living room. He dragged out a blue boat from his room, made himself a flag, and climbed in, ready to adventure down the river and to the island...where the wild things are! His brother and sister came along, in separate boats, of course, with flags of their own designs. They all sailed through the evening and into bedtime, before they fell over and ran into their beds, where they found bedtime stories and pumpkin cookies waiting for them...and they were still warm.

Since kids don't like hot food. Sorry Maurice, but it's true. They like to taste their food. Not have it burn their mouths.

Halloween!!!

2009-10-31T21:09:00.001-07:00

This week leading up to Halloween has been a blast! My mom came out to play with us, which added to the excitement. :) We made Jeremiah a wolf suit like Max, from Where the Wild Things Are, and created bat wings to go with Isaac's ninja costume (um, he decided he wanted to be a "bat-ninja"?--apparently they sneak up to people and pull down others' pants, but we vetoed that action), and decorated Danielle's turtle shell, for her "little bitty ninja turtle" costume. We carved pumpkins and turned them into jack-o-lanterns, for the first time! We've decorated pumpkins and painted them before, but not carved. The kids were ecstatic to look at their jack-o-lanterns at night, all lit up. The boys had a kindergarten Halloween party and costume parade on Friday, and we went trick-or-treating and had carnival games and dinner at our church tonight. We've had a lot of fun!

And now....for pictures!

Three sweet children looking longingly into the flames of their jack-o-lanterns...

Ninja-Bat with his creation.

Max, making a scary face like his SCARY jack-o-lantern. :)

And, a Little Bitty Ninja Turtle with her very happy pumpkin!

More, perhaps better, views of their cute costumes. (Have I mentioned that I LOVE that these kids like to play together??)

At our church's Halloween party, while waiting on Daddy to serve us dinner. (If you really think staying with three kids while the other parent is getting dinner is the better half of the deal, you might want to think again!)

Jeremiah with his Sunbeams teacher! She's so great!

Ooohh! A ScArY math test! Run away! (John has wanted to be a math test for Halloween for years. :) He finally got a chance!)

Supermom! Here to save the day!

Trip to Utah

2009-10-31T14:28:00.000-07:00

We went on a road trip to Utah earlier this month. We ended up leaving several hours later than we had intended on somehow. One of our rest stop stops had Jeremiah in heaven with the rocks and sand to play with. And Isaac was thrilled with the viewing scopes. We were stopped (resting?) for a good 15 minutes, and those boys seemed perfectly happy to be there all day long.

While we were in Utah, we celebrated Bill's wedding!, played with cousins and visited with family, and I took the kids to BYU. It was a great weekend!

On the way home, we camped just outside of Zion National Park. It was beautiful. Enjoying my children enjoying nature is right up with teaching them to love books, two of my absolute favorite parts of my life.

The Button Bag

2009-10-31T14:24:00.000-07:00

Jeremiah brought home the Button Bag. He sorted the buttons by color.

And then he took a picture of his buttons. :)

Jeremiah's Birthday!

2009-10-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

Here are Jeremiah's birthday pictures, just a couple of months late. Though he HAS been trying to convince us that his birthday is on Halloween. :)

It's always a bit tricky to get him to cheese it up for the camera...especially when there are infinitely more interesting things to be doing, like:

BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!!!

And, feeding Buzz the brown cake with brown frosting which was specifically requested and left uneaten by the birthday boy.

Opening his birthday presents! Very exciting. :)

And, lastly, blowing out his candles. Watch for the victory arms in the darkness.

Bed-Time

2009-10-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

I think things are going to be changing around here. I get really cranky around 7:25, which makes our hopeful 8 o'clock bedtime...well, not the happiest time.

But, for some reason, our kids absolutely adore reading in their beds, which I discovered last night. So, if they can stay in their beds, they can read for a few minutes. I was originally thinking maybe for 10 minutes, at 8.

Now, though. Since they seem to like reading in their beds so much. (No other reason, of course!)

Maybe, if they wanted to read for say, half an hour, why not? They can go to their beds at 7:30, and then read for 30 minutes. I'm okay with that.

A good, solid way to encourage avid readers would be to let them stay up later with a book. Which is pretty much the same as going to bed earlier with a book, right?

I melt when I listen to little voices reading. And hearing three little voices at the same time? Priceless.

Important-Urgent

2009-09-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

John was making and organizing his to-do list. I decided to use the old Covey method to help him. The 2x2 of important/not important, urgent/not urgent. 8 were in the important-urgent square, 1 was in the important-not urgent square. Hmm. Not so balanced here, I think.

He was so helpful, and just colored in the 2x2 for me. The things I do are either important-urgent, or not-important-not-urgent. :) Like decorating our blog...not-important-not-urgent. I'm not certain where cleaning, cooking, preparing, transporting, and such fall. Those are things that always can be done and should at some point, but dishes have more of a gray area between important and not, and urgent and not. I think my life sort of falls in a box around the intersection of the 2x2.

Yosemite!

2009-08-26T10:10:00.001-07:00

I took the kids to Yosemite for an extended family camping trip (it's annual, but I haven't been able to go for almost 10 years, so the kids have never gone), and while we were there we went on two beautiful hikes. The first was to see the Big Trees. And boy, were they big.

Isaac went ahead with the faster majority of our group, and Alecia and my mom stayed with me, Jeremiah and Danielle. Everything fascinated them. Here's Jeremiah loving slowly walking across a wooden bridge.

Me and Jeremiah in front of the Fallen Tree.

Danielle pointing to show us how big the trees are!
Alecia "hiking" with Danielle.

Two cute kiddos "fishing" in a small stream.

Danielle asked her aunt if she could pick up the big pinecone. And if she asks so sweetly, of course the answer is going to be "Yes." But when she picked it up, it was covered with sap!

Jeremiah hiding inside a tree.

The Grizzly Giant.

Standing with the kids in the Tunnel Tree.

The boys sitting quietly with their sticks while we took a water break. (Prior to sitting quietly with sticks, I'll just say that they weren't sitting quietly with sticks and there were threats involved.)

The other hike we went on was to Lower Yosemite Falls, just me, my kids and my parents.

Upper and Lower Falls.

Holding hands with Grandpa.

Isaac an Grandpa kept getting ahead of us slow pokes, so they missed out on the very close and personal deer sighting. She was timidly grazing in the forest, and then suddenly leaped across the path. Stunning.
An up-close view of the Lower Falls.
Grandpa making Jeremiah crack up: It's getting me! Aaah!

A half-hearted attempt at a family picture.
Touching a huge rock that the path went around.
And Grandma, always at the end, with her princess. :)

Summer Reading Program

2009-08-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

The three kids all participated in our library's summer reading program this past summer. We loved going to the library to choose new books and get new prizes every week. I wanted them to be finished with the program prior to leaving for Yosemite and Utah, and they did it! Isaac and I read the first Harry Potter book together, which I consented counted as 5 stars, but other than that, every star he earned was for a book that he read by himself. I read aloud to Jer and Danielle, so, I didn't enter any books for myself. There was a lot of reading going on!

We also had swim lessons for the boys. They pretty much lived in their swim trunks throughout May and June. In their library prizes pictures, you have permission to notice their cute suits and swim shoes. :)

Isaac's Birthday

2009-08-26T06:27:00.000-07:00

Was way back in June. He's 6! Has been for a couple months now, and it's treating him well. :) We had a few different birthday celebrations. John wasn't around for his actual birthday, so we had ice cream the morning before, right before John left, and made cute cupcakes (which Isaac helped to decorate) on his birthday (probably not for breakfast but I don't remember).

Telemarketers

2009-08-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

The absolute best way to get rid of car insurance telemarketing:

Oh, actually, we don't use a car.

The easiest way to get rid of satelite tv telemarketing:

Oh. We don't watch TV.

And the best part is, those are both completely true!

I think we might be cancelling our landline. We mostly use it to entertain telemarketers and a few collection agencies (not calling for us, but for S. Richardson and W. Robinson, neither related to us). A possible way to not have those telemarketers to get rid of. :)

Isaac-isms

2009-08-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

Isaac has been keeping us up with hilarious stories from school today. He was supposed to be going to sleep, but it's difficult to enforce when I can't even try to enforce. So, I'll share!

Isaac had a time-out today. Because he was picking his nose, and his booger hit a kid's eye. No, actually it went by their shoulder, but it was sillier this way. He was just teasing us about the eye part.

I biked the kids home from school today, and since Isaac hasn't been diligently eating his lunch (it takes time away from playing at Lunch Recess), I've been checking it as soon as I can to see if he wants to eat. Today he just had 6-8 grapes left. Me: Isaac, do you want to eat your grapes? Isaac: No, I'm saving them for daddy. Me: Isaac, Daddy's at his school, and he won't be home for a while. Isaac: I just like to save some of my lunch for daddy.*

Isaac and I have been doing piano lessons after school, and he also has to do his music homework, kindergarten homework, and reading time (I read to him, he reads to me), and then he gets to have his 20-30 minutes of computer time. This is incredibly motivating to him. Today he chose "The Dragon Who Lived Downstairs" as the book he wanted to read to me, and silly mom that I am, I warned him that it was really hard and had lots of small words. But no, he wanted to read that silly book. I had read it to him twice last week. He did struggle with some words, but he actually read it very well--smoothly and quickly. Here's an excerpt. (The words he struggled with were daughter, irritation, and slightest provocation.)

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there lived a king and a queen and their little daughter, Princess Mildred. As kingdoms go, theirs was a small and rather poor one, for although the king and queen were royal, they had very little money. This was a source of great irritation for the queen, who came from a long line of royalty. As a matter of fact, upon the slightest provocation, she would tell you how she was a second daughter of a second daughter of a king, who, in turn, was the second son of the second daughter of a king, and so on as far back as anyone could remember.

He's enjoying school. His favorite parts are recess and lunch recess.

*John's also been checking Isaac's lunch after school, and eating any leftovers. Since John enjoys eating Isaac's leftovers, Isaac now makes sure he saves some food for his daddy.

Time Flies

2009-08-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

...even with only one kid at home all day.

This morning, I woke up, got dressed, got the boys clothes together, made chocolate chip pancakes, made up two lunch boxes, biked the boys to school, came back, drank tons of water, internally moaned on the couch for 20 minutes, did some dishes, biked Danielle to the church so I could practice the hymns for Sunday on the organ and learn something for a special musical number, biked her from the church to our local grocery store and went grocery shopping, got her some lunch, read her two books, and put her down for a nap.

I'm supposed to have also accomplished cleaning the living room and finishing up the dishes and preparing dinner in the next 30 minutes when John will be back with the boys.

Here I go...

Biking, Day 2

2009-08-11T13:30:00.001-07:00

John and I thought that transporting the boys to their school, which is 3 miles away, would be a great idea. Save on gas (we really don't get good gas mileage), mandate some exercise, do our small part to help the environment, be healthier examples for our children. And so on.

This is Day 2. Last night we had Meet the Teacher Night, so we had a nice practice ride when we found out how long it takes to get there. About 35 minutes, including getting the kids out of the apartment and into the bike trailer. Driving would shave off about 15 minutes.

Ow. Biking hurts.

I have bruises. I have scratches. I drew blood. I know which shoes not to wear (that little metal clasp that's so cute hurts!). And I have very very sore muscles.

I like to think I'm a runner. Really, I'm not. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. I do try to run 2-3 miles a few times a week...which results in running 2-3 miles a few times a week once a month. Slowly.

We've ridden 14 miles in the last two days, I'm about to go pick up the boys alone. John's pulled the trailer until now, and I need to find out how long it takes me to ride the boys to Kindergarten solo so we can stop squishing 3 kids into a 2-kid trailer. I think it will be longer than 35 minutes.

I hope that day 20 doesn't hurt so much. :)

Helmets

2009-08-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

"Where's my bike??!" Jeremiah happily started looking. He had seen helmets in the kitchen. Four helmets, two matching, bright blue with red spiders. He didn't find his bike in the kitchen, or the living room, or the hallway, or the bathroom, or his bedroom. "Where's my bike?!"

Well... He doesn't have one. We have a new (Craigslist-ed) bike trailer, and are planning on biking the boys to Kindergarten, which is about 3 miles away. A little too far for a four year old to ride. Especially as he doesn't know how to ride a bike yet. But, we figured, as responsible parents, that the children should each wear a helmet as they ride in the trailer.

He also discovered his new, fancy, zippered Spiderman lunchbox. "It will go in your backpack, and at lunchtime you'll open it up and there will be a sandwich and an apple and a juice box in it! Won't that be fun?" So, of course, now he wants an apple.

I've been trying to implement the idea of going to school again in his cute blond head. Your teacher's name is Miss Wilson! No, my teacher is Miss Rachel. My teacher is Miss Erica. You are so big, you get to go to Kindergarten [next week, in two days]! No, I'm all done with school. I'm all done with school!! You get to go to a different school soon. Won't that be fun? I'm all done with school.

One of the hard things for me with Jeremiah is simply that he is so completely literal. His preschool had a graduation, his teachers told him he was all done with school. So, as noted above, he believes he is all done with school, never to return. I did take the kids around their new school, and the play equipment is definitely the winning factor. :)

Going Potty

2009-08-09T15:43:00.000-07:00

Note: This post contains potty language. If you are morally opposed to reading such, you have the power to not read this post.

Danielle is informally potty trained. Meaning, every few hours she hollers "Mommy! I have to go potty!" until I respond and take her to the bathroom. I only help her with pulling everything up again, she essentially goes potty by herself. I'm slowly backing away from helping her (we don't need to hold hands to enter the bathroom anymore), but for now, I'm quite content to let her call out to me that she needs to go, and only have dry pull-ups to throw away (they get wrinkly and funny shaped after 24 hours).

The boys start Kindergarten on Tuesday. Sometime after that, Danielle will learn to go potty all by herself.

Super-Mom!

2009-07-21T16:59:00.000-07:00

I am amazing! My entire apartment is clean! At the same time!

(Notable exceptions and disclaimers:
Legos are all over the floor in the boys' room.
Floors haven't been vacuumed or mopped in the last 3 days.
And, and, and ... That's it!)

It's astonishing how much can get done without kids around, needing a drink, stepping on each other, spilling their milk all over the table-floor-themselves-chairs-and-stuff-that-should-have-been-put-away-last-week, whining because they are tired and cranky, whining because they want a turn, needing me to have a birthday party with them and their toys, needing me to fix their computer games.

Danielle is having her second nap in the past week and a half since our vacation, and the boys are (still) playing at a friend's house (thank you Laurie!). Two hours in the middle of the day is a gift. Indescribable. Plenty of time to clean this little apartment that somehow rarely gets all the way there.

Other things that this Super-Mom is working on:

Reading lessons with Jeremiah.
Potty training with Danielle. (I'm not sure why she needed to go all the time on vacation, or why that seems to have ended.)
Piano lessons with Isaac.
Making sure Isaac reads aloud everyday. He's a really great reader!
Teaching Jeremiah to write his name before Kindergarten starts. (Just "Jer." I didn't think about how long "Jeremiah" is for a 4 year old when we named him. I wrote our Jer for him on our chalkboard, and asked him to trace it, so when I said "J..." he grinned and started at the end of the hook and went up and to the right and said "G!" Cute.)

Kid-isms

2009-06-20T11:23:00.001-07:00

A couple nights ago, Danielle really didn't want to go to bed. Also, lately she's been opposite-ing me to oppose my seniority or to have fun, depending on her mood. So, when she still wasn't staying in her room (which is unacceptable in our home), I changed tactics, and while taking her back, told her "I just love you so much, Danielle," as sweetly as I could given my rising frustration level. She looked at me with a determined face--determined to not go back into her bed--and yelled as loud and stubbornly as she could, "NO, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" Well, then.

We've had incredibly nice weather lately, considering it's June in Arizona. But it's (finally?) getting hotter. And more typical. We were headed into swimming lessons, and Isaac was dragging along, and moaning, "Why is it so hot?" Uh, it's June in Arizona, buddy. Sorry.

Danielle and I painted our toes together, though I didn't cave when she asked if she could paint mine after I did hers. I had received some nail polish that was a weird light pink color for Christmas, and hadn't used it. Then on Sunday when we were wearing church shoes that we could see our toes through, when we were outside, the polish turned to purple! It was amazing. We enjoyed watching it change from pink to purple and back again as we went inside and outside.

Our children pray independently. Given that they're 6, 4, and 2, we get some interesting "ask fors." One night, Danielle really wanted to read "the David book" again, but as it was bedtime and we were doing our bedtime routine and reading another book isn't part of it, the answer was a definite No. As she prayed, she included, "Please bless us read the David book," I think twice. We did read it after her prayer. Maybe my heart was softened. :) When Jeremiah was praying, he asked "Please bless us to go to Old McDonald's," something that is a Sometimes in our family. The next day, John had Jeremiah in the car for 30 minutes, and happened to buy him an ice cream at McDonald's. It wasn't until when he told me what they had done, that we recognized his prayer was answered.

One of the kids' favorite chores (they like to help clean and get things ready, for whatever reason, which I'm grateful for) is washing the door. They all like to be helpers.

John's currently teaching a ridiculously long night class two nights a week, so I have the privilege/opportunity to do bedtime solo. Maybe they think they can get away with more when there's only one of us...it's true. These three kids are wonderful siblings. They love each other so much. I am honored to be their mother.

For Bill

2009-05-29T21:11:00.001-07:00

It must be genetic?

I just looked over at my daughter a couple days ago, and lo and behold... this is what I saw. I had offered her string cheese a few minutes before, and she had denied it.

John's Birthday!

2009-05-23T04:15:00.000-07:00

We celebrated John's birthday (and, as he reminds us, the eruption of Mount St. Helens) this week. We had yummy chocolate pie, complete with 29 candles, and presents on Monday.

Isaac and I went to buy presents. From me, John received Toss Up! and Make-n-Break. From Isaac, John received a set of Pirate Legos. Isaac's first choice for a present for Daddy (that Daddy would really like) was a Nintendo Wii game, which I seriously considered. However, as we don't have a television or a Wii, I decided that would be a tad more money than I wanted to spend. It was a very very good thought.

Then on Friday, John and I went to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. We really enjoyed our visit! There is currently a "Seriously Funny" exhibit...which was seriously funny. The social porta-potties, the marker-on-drywall, the lumpy sculptures. The grocery family tree. It made a great visit. The photography simply was. We finished our date with a late lunch at Olive Garden.

John also received a trifold with adorable pictures of our kids to take to his office. He's one lucky daddy!

Random Update

2009-05-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

Danielle: I went swimming, but I got water in my eyes.

Notice that this is a 10-word sentence. Yesterday when we took the kids swimming, she decided to venture out by herself (yes, with a life jacket on), and was very surprised when she was submerged. She doesn't usually get her entire head wet at once.

Danielle: Do sharks have belly buttons?!?
Jeremiah: No. They have fins.

Well, he's right.

We have family swimming time each night for an hour at our apartment community pools. I prefer when there aren't other people around, but as it's getting hotter, that's happening less frequently. Isaac is like a fish. Literally. He pretends he's a fish going swimming. He just loves the water. He's fairly fearless, which we rein in by taking his swim vest off for a portion of the time we're at the pool. Last night he was jumping and diving in the deep end of the pool (we wouldn't allow the diving without a flotation device, but since he goes about a foot under the water surface before coming back up, we've decided to let him be for right now). I don't know if he's actually seen people dive before, or if he's trying out new ways of jumping in. The day before it was cannonballs...

I've registered the boys for swimming lessons, which will start in a couple more weeks. I'm hoping that Isaac will take to them...like a fish...and that Jeremiah will voluntarily dunk his head under the water.

I registered myself for a tennis class. :)

I just finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with Isaac, and he absolutely loved it. It helped that there were some pictures, but he loved the story and requested more. We're currently reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Prince Caspian, and Mummies in the Morning. I think we need to finish up the last of those today so we aren't reading so many books at the same time--it didn't happen quite on purpose.

Jeremiah had a fever last night, and came to find me. I laid him on our couch, and then he told me a story about a shark, and putting a worm on it's nose. It was very cute. He doesn't often just keep talking, and I adore it when he does.

Jeremiah's school had Water Day a few days ago, and he did not want to wear a shirt with his swim trunks. He was confused to have a shirt and swim trunks--he doesn't wear a shirt in the water, and he doesn't wear swim trunks to school. It was quite an issue. But seeing inflatable water slides made all the difference and he had fun. :)

Dragon Naturally Speaking

2009-04-28T16:02:00.001-07:00

dear intrepid readers,

So I got a new toy at work. It's pretty interesting, it's Dragon NaturallySpeaking, speech recognition software for the PC. So the idea is that if I'm sitting at my desk, and I'm trying to compose an e-mail, I can simply speak into my software and it types for me. Unfortunately the reason I need Dragon NaturallySpeaking to type is that my writing tends to be a little convoluted and not necessarily the easy to understand or straight forward ( and it takes me forever to write these things because I way over think it). So, these possible potential hopeful solution is that I can speak into the software and then my writing is easier to understand and makes more sense and ends up not being so dense. It definitely makes typing fun! I had to try Captains log start eight (i.e. StarDate) 286 -- three but unfortunately the software doesn't seem to recognize StarDate so it doesn't end up being as cool as I'd hoped.

the other cool thing you can do with it is a dictate keyboard keys to press and it will type for you, so for example alt tab or control F or things like that can be run with my voice. But I would really like to do is have it jump directly to a location on a webpage after I say text, right now they are are a few more steps than just that so all work on streamlining it. In any case, I definitely remember as a child seeing the captain of the Battlestar Galactica and Capt. Jean-Luc Picard speaking into their typing computers and thinking wow the future is going to be so cool. It's here and it kind of is.

Interpretive Seuss

2009-04-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

Per request of a certain grandmother, here are reading videos. First, Isaac. About halfway through the video, John comes home, and Isaac starts singing the book, for those who aren't incredibly interested in watching 10 minutes of interpretive Dr. Seuss. He does get very expressive in just about everything he does.

Danielle was jealous of Isaac being the center of attention, so here are a few videos of her. Reading a book, and singing "The Family is of God," the song we learned in Primary (and therefore was the most demanded song for our evening family scripture-song-and-prayer) in March. And of her and Isaac singing a song from one of our scripture movies--Isaac liked it a lot, so we had to learn it. (The following three videos are relatively short... 30 to 90 seconds, approximation. And Danielle's been dressing herself in her favorite clothes, and doesn't care what matches or coordinates.)

Jeremiah loves books. I find him reading to himself more than the other kids do. He's quite expressive. I know that a huge part of enjoying him reading is simply to listen to him keep talking, instead of just a few words as needed.

Earlier today (unrelated) Jeremiah found a can of soda and wanted me to open it for him. We don't usually have soda around, and I was pretending I didn't know what he wanted, so he used the words he knew the best he could, and ended up asking me something like "Pull... Go down... Drink soda! Yay!" with the biggest grin, so excited. If I could have gotten that on video... So sweet and pure.

Summer.

2009-04-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

I feel like summer is here already. Jeremiah has 4 more weeks of school, but it is now in the triple digits, and there isn't a time to open up the apartment and cool it off and air it out with a nice breeze. I was seriously tempted to meander through the sprinklers after we dropped Jeremiah off at school, but as I was on the brink of deciding to, they turned off. The A/C is on all day and all night. We'll be getting fans and a few years supply worth of popsicles. And our swimsuits on as soon as it's safe to. I'm not even tempted to bake goodies any more. Really, to use the oven at all. We'll be having crockpot baked potatoes tonight, to see how they compare to oven and microwave baked potatoes. Mostly, just...blech.

Family Roles

2009-04-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

So, I think it's pretty basic. I'm the mom, John's the dad, Isaac's the big brother and comic relief, Jeremiah's the younger brother with tons of hugs and cuddles, Danielle's the little miss the little sister.

Danielle likes to insist on role switching. I love you... No I love YOU. You're so cute...No, YOU'RE so cute. It's your bedtime...No, it's YOUR bedtime.

It's pretty fun, and actually very cute. I know she's figuring out her boundaries, so I'm happy to let her explore.

Today, she said, "I'm the mom." I took her role and said, "No, I'm the mom," which I suppose is true. She replied, "No, I'm the mom. You're the little princess." Ah, she does have her role pinned down.

Hockey Games

2009-04-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of the boys' hockey class. Jeremiah was on the ice for almost 40 minutes of the hour, which is the longest he's lasted, and which I think is a great personal best for him. He was pushing his chair around (they have the kids who are learning to skate--in full hockey gear--push plastic chairs to learn, which works quickly and marvelously), and the last 10 minutes he was really moving! It was fun to watch him succeed. Previously, he was making little marching steps and moving a few feet per minute. He loved his hockey gear. He just looked right at home all wrapped up in the uniform...it was huge on him.

Isaac. He LOVES hockey. He has so much fun. Every time I saw him, he had a huge grin. Whether it was falling or speeding away with his chair or trying to go fast without a chair, he just has a huge grin on his face. Most of the kids can at least adequately skate without a chair play games. Today when they were playing tag on the ice, a boy was getting closer to Isaac. So Isaac was trying to get away, but the other boy was faster. Isaac tried dodging him, tried turning and wiggling out of the way. It looked like the kid was going to get him... Isaac fell down on the ice and started rolling! It was hilarious. He did three complete rolls before the kid caught him. The whole parent-audience was cracking up and clapping. He just has so much fun. I think we'll be signing him up for more hockey. :)

Paintings

2009-04-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

Danielle has been drawing lately. She announces what she's drawing as she goes. "Mommy a number! A number! That number is white. It is a seven. Mommy, it's five. Mommy it's six, it's six, mommy!" She makes shapes, mostly circles but today she attempted a triangle that ended up a curvy trapezoid. She draws our family--small circles and lines of various sizes. Daddy is the biggest, she is the smallest. She adds ears and eyes and mouths and legs. I don't ask her to, she just does it by herself. I think it's pretty amazing. We've been painting with "real watercolors" lately. Danielle's paintings went from scribbles and dots one day to deliberate items on her paper the next.

Isaac is in a funny stage with his art. Sometimes he'll paint or draw insects or people, but mostly he likes to explore with the media. He likes to squish the brushes, twirl them on his paper, paint in all one color then another on top of it to see how it works and mixes. It's fascinating. And very good that I don't have a project or purpose in mind as he creates.

Jeremiah doesn't like to paint as much. He's more a sculpture kind of guy. His paintings tend to be monochrome and hasty. However, he identifies the paintings each of them have done over the past few weeks, always correctly. I can't always tell the difference and need to look at the names. But give him playdoh and he's set for the next ... week, perhaps.

When John comes back with our camera, I can post images of their artwork. Which may well be more fascinating to me than to others. :)

Poetry

2009-04-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

Off of Christine's suggestion, I wrote my dear husband a cheesily romantic poem, as he's off in China this week. I'm sure it will cheer him. She recommended choosing four words at random, and incorporating them into my poem... She also suggested using "quart" and "dispatch," which has several meanings to choose from. Here are four of my lines... I'm amused and pleased with my resulting poetry, but not willing to post the entire thing.

"Overflowing quarts of intangibility"

"The quest completed, the dispatch sent"

"Granulated by sweetness"

"Colored as the purest deepest paint"

My suggestion would be to take the same concept and play with it, frame your beautiful poetry for your beloved and hang it over the toilet.

Oh, gee. That would be really funny.

I need to buy a frame.

General Conference

2009-03-31T08:56:00.000-07:00

We've been brainwashing our kids the past few days, teaching them that General Conference is something that's really exciting and important. My mom always made a coffee cake for Sunday Conference (a tradition we've kept), we have a new small set of Legos for Isaac to open on Saturday (playing with Legos during Conference comes from John's family), and last night we had a General Conference theme for Family Home Evening. We played a matching game with the First Presidency and the Quorum of the 12 as our activity.

This morning, Isaac came to wake me up with "Is it General Conference TODAY?!"

I think our sneaky plans worked...

Cute sentences

2009-03-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

These are from Danielle.

We were watching a show which had a cow in it, and I asked her if it was a big or little cow. "Big... It's a bigger cow... It's as big as the CEILING!

When she was up for an hour in the middle of the night, needing a new pull-ups, a drink, and everything else, and I was showing her that the pull-ups I chose for her DID have Dora on them (she was quite insistent)... "Oh. [giggle, giggle] I CONFUSE!"

This morning, at the table eating her pancakes... "Mom! My shadow is BEHIND me! It's BE-HIND me!!"

Looking at a Triceratops book from the library, she spent about ten minutes using a new mantra. "Is this a Triceratops? YES! Is this a triceratops? Yes! This is a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Is this a Triceratops? Yes. Is this a triceratops? YES! This is a baby Triceratops. This is the mommy Triceratops. Is this a Triceratops? YES!"

Her vocabulary and expressions astound me. She so typically uses perfect grammar that I was surprised when she said "I confuse." She understands literally everything I say, unless I deliberately try to use uncommon words. She's a joy!

HOCKEY!!!

2009-03-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

Isaac had his first hockey practice today! He's never been ice skating before, but today he learned to skate! First he pushed a plastic chair around, and after about 15 minutes he skated the short way across the rink. He made it about halfway across, fell down a few times, then made it the rest of the way. Every time he fell, he got right back up and tried again, and again, and again. I'm so proud of him! He did a really good job! In the car on the way home, he said that his favorite part about hockey was... "the knee pads."

Jeremiah's in the class, too. He tried for about 10 minutes. He'll try again next week. If nothing else, he LOVES the uniform. :)

Here's a video of Isaac, telling about hockey.

Laundry Room Adventures

2009-03-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

Laundry is one of those things in life that's fairly inevitable. I can think of a few ways around it, but none of them are realistic for my lifestyle. Although it would be nice if we had a washer and dryer in our apartment, it's also nice that I can do multiple loads of laundry simultaneously, given that I have enough quarters.

I always have certain choices to make when I do laundry: Do I take all my kids with me? What's the best time to do it? If I don't take my kids with me, what do I do with them?

Which is almost silly, because it takes only about 3 minutes to start 2 loads of laundry.

Which isn't silly at all, because in those 3 minutes, many things can happen.

From today:

Choosing to sneak out to start just one more load, I looked up at our balcony, and there was Danielle, standing on a chair pushed over to the side, leaning over... Okay, not quite that dramatic, but within a couple reasonable actions, very dangerous. I had her come help me.

Coming back up with her, Isaac came out to meet us... And Jeremiah locked us all out. (We have an inside-only deadbolt, which means that on key can let us in.) Again. Most times that the three of us are out of our apartment, Jeremiah tends to lock us out. Not the most fun, but we always get back in. Regretfully, I was wearing my slippery sandals--they're not very reliable for climbing up the railing to get in through the patio door. Eventually he opened the door to let us back in.

From other days:

Jeremiah's been known to close himself in the laundry room instead of going into the car when he doesn't want to go to school.

I've started a dryer with someone else's green crayon in it. It was a RoseArt, and we only buy Crayola. The top dryers are high enough that I can reach in, but I can't really see in very well. Only a few items were rendered completely unusable--we kept the green camouflage pajamas.

Laundry has great potential to be more exciting than it might at first seem.

Reading Together

2009-03-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

I love to read! And so, I'm happy that that's either nature or nurture, because either way, my kids love to read, too!

I do realize that these pictures are almost identical. I couldn't decide which I liked the best. And Danielle, stealing the limelight...

(It becomes a "no glasses day" when they have taken off their glasses and lost them two days in a row...two pairs of glasses, lost over two days, equals no more glasses to wear.)

Spring Break Fun!

2009-03-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

Last week was Spring Break for Jeremiah, and even though I intended to have us go play and be crazy, it was pretty relaxed.

We went to Cerreta's Candy Co, and did a tour, tried some samples, and picked out 2 candies each.

And, Great Grandma Erickson came for a few days for a wedding reception, so we got to spend time with her, too!

Custom gift from John

2009-03-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Here's the deal.

The first five people to respond to this post will receive something made by me! From me, to you. Here are the rules:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I give!
2. What I create or give will be just for you.
3. It will be done this year (sometime, I don't know when)
4. You will have no clue what it is going to be.
5. you can count on me doing something extremely strange.
6. No blog posting necessary; pure freebie!

Homemade Gift

2009-03-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

Here's the deal.

The first five people to respond to this post will receive something handmade by me! From me, to you. Here are the rules:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I give!
2. What I create or give will be just for you.
3. It will be done this year (sometime, I don't know when)
4. You will have no clue what it is going to be.
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
6. You must make the same offer on your blog, to make something for the first five people who respond!

Respond to this post after posting it on your blog (or facebook) , and anxiously await a unique handmade gift by yours truly!

Animals

2009-03-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

We were about to read Five Little Monkeys with Nothing to Do, but got distracted with the cover art, and then, well, this.

There's a bit of background noise, some monkeys or something... Listen for it at the end: "My favorite Primary song is...I lived in heaven a long time ago it is true!"

Jeremiah made this elephant mask at school! He was so excited to be an elephant today!

Book Group!

2009-02-24T20:01:00.000-08:00

I hosted our ward's first Relief Society book group tonight. Which means that my apartment is spotless, we have leftover banana bread, and everything is quiet--John took the kids to play at McDonald's and I'm not sure that they'll ever come back.

It also means that I know three people better than I knew them before and I met one new person in our ward. Which is really exciting, because I don't get out much. I play the organ every week during Sacrament meeting then rush over to teach Sunbeams for the rest of church, so I don't talk to anyone in our ward over four years old on Sundays, which makes meeting new people rather tricky.

Last Tuesday I went to a game night my visiting teacher hosted for me. I had mentioned feeling a bit isolated. Then Thursday I had Enrichment. And a full day on Saturday. So my Real Live People quota hours are filled through February! Yippee!

(We read The Scarlet Pimpernel this month and are reading To Kill a Mockingbird for March. For anyone that wants to follow along. :)

Seven Years Ago...

2009-02-19T15:20:00.000-08:00

Long ago, when I was roommates with Bekah, we were cleaning our apartment for our monthly cleaning check. I remember her telling me that at her house, her mom had the younger kids clean the walls when their whole family was cleaning.

I remember thinking WHAT?! Cleaning the walls?! That's crazy.

Today, I was cleaning the walls. Isaac joined me. Those walls are filthy! All of our walls are filthy. I'm not exactly sure how that's happened. It makes sense that the walls around the kids beds, the outline of the couch, door edges and frames, light switch plates, that those all get dirty. But the actual walls...

It amazes me.

Disgusting. Now clean, but, disgusting.

Children...

I'm sure it's all them...

Crazy Kids, Parts 1-3

2009-02-02T21:08:00.000-08:00

A few videos taken this evening. For those who miss our kids, to see the craziness in real-time.

The first two were taken by John as I was finishing up dinner, the last was the end of our FHE tonight. The beginning of the video is the end of our activity.

The first couple videos are each a couple minutes long; the third is around eight minutes. So, grab some popcorn and turn your sound up, and you're in for some quality entertainment!

The ZOO!!!!!

2009-01-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, we love the zoo. I usually take the kids on Fridays because Jeremiah doesn't have school, which makes the day less crazy, and because the weekends are packed with families having family time and educational experiences. :) The Phoenix Zoo is only about 15 minutes away (I have to estimate--I'm not sure how far away it is without kids in the car!), and it's huge, and was voted the best zoo for children in the United States. We love it. Here are some pictures from this morning!

I tend to let the kids out of the stroller just a couple times to look at animals (I do it until they don't want to climb back in), so mostly we see the elephants, tortoises, and birds. :) Two elephants were out today--very exciting!

I did try to get a picture with three kids smiling, but this was the best I got. And then, after many tries, I got a picture to them making "scary faces".... Aaahhh! Notice Jeremiah's claws and scary eyes, and Danielle's, um, scary smile? These pictures were taken in front of the Galapagos Tortoise exhibit. As we were leaving, Isaac told me he wanted to ask the Glap-ghost Tortoise a question. "Glap-host Tortoise, do you like to eat lettuce?"

Then we went to Discovery Farm, which, if you have toddlers, is a life-size version of Fisher Price's "Discovery Farm." Very fun! A big red barn to play in, Farmer Bob, Fisher-Price animals to climb on and pet, a kid-sized tractor to stand in and drive, and a slide! All appropriate for 1 1/2 to 5 year olds! Perfect.

On our way to the petting zoo (an entire 20 yards), we needed to stop and climb on and explore the tractors.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get pictures of the kids while we were IN the petting zoo. I was a little more occupied with keeping track of three kids and what they were doing to and with the goats. Isaac enjoyed using the brush to brush one little goat who was lying down for a minute, and touched them gently. Danielle was very cautious and perhaps a tiny bit terrified. Jeremiah absolutely loved playing with the goats! He'd just walk right up to them and look at them and pat them fairly gently, he came over to one who was lying down and laid on his tummy in front of the goat and just looked at him and talked to him. He was easily the most comfortable child there. He just loves animals. This is the goat we spent the most time with today (and a corner of Danielle's pink coat--it was cold when we left--about 60 degrees).

Next up was Harmony Farm, a mini-farm with a vegetable garden, farm animals, and lots of things for kids to do! The boys loved riding "horses." Danielle wasn't so sure--I think she was a tad small for these horses.

Everywhere we walked around in the children's area, there were little things for them to do to wiggle and be more involved with learning. Here we learned about bugs. Important for decomposition and fertilization, as we were next to the vegetable gardens.

As I was attempting to get us out of the zoo (hard with so many distractions), Isaac really really really really wanted to climb this tree stump. It's really big and very fun to climb! So of course, Jeremiah wanted to climb too. (I told Danielle NO. She's still too little.)

Have I mentioned...We LOVE the Zoo?!

Time Allotment to Various Kid-Focused Activities

2009-01-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

I've been wondering: How am I "supposed to" allot the several hours per day I spend with my children? I tried google-ing it, to no avail. Here's the approximation of what I do daily with the kids, followed by weekly activities.

Mornings:
15 minutes hygiene (get dressed, brush teeth)
30 minutes reading aloud
30 minutes gross motor development (ie, running games, races, soccer, playing at the park, yoga)
30 minutes fine motor development (ie, play-doh, building with blocks, art, drawing)
20 minutes music (involves shakers, rhythm sticks, bells, and a lot of noise)
10 minutes cleaning (they wash walls and windows and put toys away, mostly)

[Early afternoon is Danielle's nap and Jeremiah's preschool time, and I do reading and games with Isaac for about an hour of that, and we enjoy quiet time (cleaning for me, computer for him) for the remainder of the time.]

Afternoons/Evenings:
30 minutes reading aloud
30 minutes gross motor development
30 minutes fine motor development
30 minutes board/card games
45 minutes hygiene (baths, pajamas, brush teeth)
30 minutes scripture, songs and prayer

We spend an additional hour each day preparing and consuming food. I am actively involved in all above activities, with the sometimes-exception of fine motor skills. Play-Doh is usually a self-directed activity.

Weekly:
Visit the Phoenix Zoo.
Play at the Big Park.
Play at a friend's house.
Go to the YMCA 2-3 times.
Go on an errand.

For all who can add minutes into hours, I'm not spending every minute of every day with them. But blocks of time, yes. There are some specific goals we're working toward, such as following directions and taking turns (happily) and brushing our own teeth, among several others. The kids have free play for a couple hours in the mornings (some of which is spent at the Y) and a little in the evening and more hours on weekends.

Are there things I should be doing that I'm not? Do you think I should spend 3-4 hours instead of 1 reading aloud? letting the kids run around (remember, we're in an apartment, so we don't have a big backyard for our convenience)?

A mathematical model on the optimality of coupons

2009-01-28T05:43:00.000-08:00

So it's been too long since I posted a pedantic over-analysis of mundane topics like last names and lawnmowers. Several of the women in our ward have a hobby/skill/amazing talent. They coupon shop, but it's on a level I could not have imagined even existed. They subscribe to multiple copies of the Sunday paper and then they cross reference their arsenal against grocery forums that determine the optimal store location to spend manufacturers coupons. Some stores double coupons, sometimes only on certain days, and most stores have weekly sales. In essence the secret sauce is to take the universe of potential coupons, which is large, intersected with the universe of goods on sale at coupon doubling institutions which is also large, and you end up with a small but very price-potent set of groceries.

You can bug Alison if you want to know the secrets to doing this, I wasn't at that particular enrichment meeting. What I want to point out is that doing all this could, indirectly, still make producers and grocery stores rich. I think on instinct we might consider this intense kind of coupon shopping as almost amoral, taking them to the cleaners when this is not necessarily the case.

Suppose there exists a consumer which possess the qualities "rich" and "good taste" (alternatively "spendthrift" and "fickle"). Depending on the day and their personal preferences they will be willing to spend $3 on either item A or B. Luckily item A and B only cost the grocer $2.00 to buy and the farmer $1.00 to produce. It would appear there should be plenty of profit to spread around and make all three happy, the trouble is, the "good taste" consumer is not willing to go with whatever is there, they want the one they want or their not buying. If the grocer supplies both, this costs $4.00 so she would lose if she served Mr. choosy and so no deal.

Now introduce another consumer possessing "bargain shopper" and "flexible". This person is willing to pay $1.00 for either item. Notice that this does absolutely nothing. If the store prices the items at $1.00 it will lose money on both sales, so still no A or B for sale. Now, suppose that the firm lowers the price after "rich" buys A or B. At $1 + $3 the store is just breaking even on $2 + $2. So the strategy is to put on sale items for which you have excess inventory. Notice that "Bargain shopper" paid the grocery store less than they paid for the item, yet the fact that they were willing to buy made the $3 sale possible. So just because the store is losing money on each and every item you bought does not mean they are not making money from you indirectly. "Bargain shopper" has sold the ability to buy whatever, whenever and is stuck with whatever "rich" leaves.

We can even get coupons in here. Suppose the grocery, rather than lowering the price just delays purchasing more inventory. Now the producer is in trouble. Since they make $1.00 on every sale, they can afford to offer $1.00 off coupons and still survive. If the price is $3.00, $1.00 is not enough to get the "bargain shopper" to buy. However if the store does coupon doubling then $3.00 becomes $1.00 at the register, inducing "Bargain" to buy. The store turns in the coupon for $1.00 netting for both goods A and B $3 + $2 - $2 - $2 = $1. So thanks to coupon doubling the grocer makes money even though they sold the item to you at a loss.

So next time you thoroughly abuse your local grocer store, rest assured that your cheapskate business may still be worth every penny.

Exercise for the reader: Assume the grocery store cannot put goods on sale, but does double coupons. Determine the price and coupon that splits the profit on the not preferred item equally.

Prayers

2009-01-20T19:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight's bedtime prayers, completely unassisted.

Isaac:
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for this day.
Thank you for How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Thank you for soda.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Jeremiah:
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for batteries. (Batteries = Leapster2)
Thank you for cottage cheese.
Thank you for mountain goat.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Cute Things from Today

2009-01-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

Me: Danielle, what's your favorite vegetable?
Danielle: Green beans!
Me: Do you like the ones in the can?
Danielle: No! In my mouth!

(At the grocery store)
Me: Isaac! Calm down! You're being crazy!
Isaac (doing a crazy dance): I'm CRRRR-AAA-ZY because then I won't be so bored!

(Watching a movie with Daddy)
Danielle grabs John's jowls: What's happening Daddy? What's happening?
John says what's happening.
Eight seconds later, Danielle grabs John's jowls: What's happening? What's happening Daddy?
John says what's happening.
Repeat.

(About to start driving to see friends)
Jeremiah: Can the car fly to go to Lindy's house?
Me, repeating for clarification: You want the car to fly?
Jeremiah: O-kay.

Pictures

2009-01-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

Cheese!
At ZooLights with Uncle Rob.
Making crazy music at the Children's Museum.
Jeremiah digging at the Children's Museum.
Cute pose.
Silly girl. She loved playing the piano! She'd turn pages every 10-15 seconds.
With a new baby doll.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thrilled about her new baby!
Tearing off little pieces of wrapping paper and handing them to Isaac or Marc.
Her Cinderella cake (well, it's chocolate, but the topper is Cinderella) t her Cinderella party.
Isaac taking a picture.
Isaac smiling for the "Smile Finder!"

2009-01-15T15:17:00.000-08:00

"Lizard's Home" by Isaac

2008-12-11T13:32:00.000-08:00

Lizard was a kid. He had a lizard family and they were poor. Lizard had a lizard brother, and his brother said, "Can we always do the way we want to play?"to lizard's mom. Then they played and played and played, until they found an old lizard, and he was dark as a cloud, and he was gray. And he was dirty and dirty and dirty. Until he stopped and stopped and stopped. Until he found their home. And he knocked and knocked on the door. And then the door opened and he went into their home and he was all clean. And then he wanted to find somebody who loved him best of all. He found lizard and he was dark as a blue cloud. He wasn't old.

"Well, what an old lizard. You are dark as a cloud, and I love you and I like you, and you're all clean now."

The house was sticked together with wood and it was made out of wood, and it had nails to keep it all together. And the door was made out of gold. Clothes were made out of cloth. They were little and they were their size, and lizard had his clothes, but his brother wants to wear his clothes sometimes. Then they found a swimming pool. They all were there, and they decided to eat the honey.

The honey was on a tree with lots and lots of hives. It was by their home, with lots and lots of honey bees in the hives. And the honey was made from honey bees. They got in the honey bees home, and the bees were sleeping and sleeping and sleeping. But there were three bees that were awake in their apartment. There was a kid bee and a mother bee and a father bee, and their names were Sneegy, Neegy, and Fordy. Those were the honey bees that were awake in their apartment and they didn't sting until the lizards stole their honey and then the lizards runned and runned to their home and lizard had the biggest honey pot of all and he had enough strength for one hand to carry it.

But the other queen bees were always always do play-play and go home and play in our backyard and they'll never never see us again, and they'll never never sting us, and they'll always always drink their drink. They drink grape juice. And they drink, drink, drink. And one of them got a blue cup and that was lizard, and he wasn't sick. Lizard had a body stretch attack. He could stretch his neck to make his throat smaller and smaller and smaller. And that was the end. And they lived happily ever after. And The End.

Jeremiah's Thankful List

2008-11-27T20:53:00.000-08:00

Apples.

Dragon kites.

Squishing. (as in, Play-Doh)

Jumping.

John's thankful list

2008-11-27T02:44:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful for:

Bacon on scout camp-outs

The Envelope Theorem (it really makes things so much easier)

Laffy Taffy

A wonderful wife who writes flattering blog posts

The economy (really, it's pretty amazing to me what you can get in exchange for the amount of work that we do. We went to IKEA today so this was on my mind)

The Book of Mormon (we've been doing really quick scripture time in the morning and I enjoy Isaac's answers)

Inventors

Science Fiction novelists

Watermelon (the word, not the fruit)

the expression "the bottom of the barrel"

Danielle's Thankful List

2008-11-26T12:05:00.000-08:00

Shoes.

My brothers.

Oranges.

Isaac's Thankful List

2008-11-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

I'm very thankful for scriptures.

I'm thankful for lizard.

I'm thankful for our family.

And I'm thankful for my robot friend.

And I'm very very thankful for our table. (When asked to come up with one more thing to be thankful for.)

Alison's Thankful List

2008-11-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

This week, in conjunction with Thanksgiving, our family has been remembering things we are thankful for. In family morning prayers, we have been saying only "thank-you prayers" for this week preceding Thanksgiving, in response to Elder Bednar's counsel to "periodically...offer a prayer in which we only give thanks and express gratitude. Ask for nothing; simply let our souls rejoice and strive to communicate appreciation with all the energy of our hearts."I thought I would post each person's list separately.

My Thankful List:

Opportunities to create music.

Prayer.

That I unknowingly married an incredibly forgiving man; that I knowingly married a loving, kind, compassionate, incredibly brilliant, outgoing, entertaining, respectful, encouraging, slightly clueless, righteous man, who loves me and helps me to become a better person, on my personal time-frame.

For Isaac's laughter, his desire to help others be happy, his honesty and imagination, that each bring a sparkle to my life.

For Jeremiah's sweetness, his capacity to learn, his need for physical affection, "kissing fights," the bedtime stories that he tells to me, the Primary songs that he sings to me.

For Danielle's willingness to obey, to be happy, to be a helper, to be my shadow and my friend, that she's a child I can love and not worry about (so far).

Good food. Fresh fruit, homemade breads in many varieties, good tasting water.

Chocolate.

That clean, well-fitting clothes are a normal part of life.

That I have so many simple ways to communicate with my friends and family over long distances.

For my testimony of Christ, His life, His Gospel, and His love for me.

Grocery Shopping...with Children

2008-11-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

I went grocery shopping with three kids this morning, something I typically try not to do. But John needed to get to school, and our refrigerator is in a state that makes it very easy to clean (ie, empty other than condiments and eggs and leftover pasta salad), so I took the kids to the grocery store.

Danielle was buckled in the front, Jeremiah was sprawled out in the back with his Leapster2, and I convinced Isaac that it was advantageous to walk because then he could help me choose what to put in the cart. He helped pick out apples, we found out that 5 apples weighs twice as much as a bag of baby carrots, voted on whether to get red potatoes or yellow potatoes to make mashed potatoes with in a couple days but got both because we had a tie, and decided that since the bag of mini Oreo's weighed a lot less than the package of regular sized off-brand creme-filled cookies we should get the bigger of the two.

An interesting event from the store: While we were in the beginning of our excursion, choosing our apples, a lady stopped us and said, "I need to tell you: You're a wonderful mother." Hmm, interesting.

A fun conversation from the end of our trip: We had a cute (old, very old) gentleman bagging our groceries, and he asked, "Where'd you pick up those things in your cart?" "Well, this boy came from the produce, this one from the meat. But the little girl definitely came from the chocolates." They didn't have any bars to scan, though, which is good because I'm sure sure if I'd be able to afford them. They're priceless.

Maybe I'll take my kids with me more often. :)

Indulging

2008-11-19T12:22:00.001-08:00

I've decided that instead of trying to achieve balance in my life, I should instead indulge.

I haven't been able to figure out how to do everything "completely" all the time, so I'm going to do the minimum most of the time, and then splurge every month or so.

Like getting dressed. Sure, in high school and college I would shower daily, dry and curl my hair, put on make-up, wear cute clothes that didn't have kid-stains on them...but now that is a ridiculous thing to attempt. Well, and have any sort of a life. So, I take a quick shower at the YMCA, dry off, put on some clothes that fit, run a brush through my hair and scrunch it with some mousse, and call it good. Fancy days I put on mascara and lip-gloss. Much more reasonable, and then I can "really get dressed" every couple months (maybe for a date-night or a wedding) and be pleased with myself.

So, I decided taht I should do the same things with cleaning our apartment and reading books. Instead of thinking I should be able to do it all, I am instead going to indulge. Every month, I can "indulge" in a clean house--get it all clean and make it stay that way for at least a day, and truly enjoy it, knowing it won't last for long, but also knowing it's possible on an irregular basis.

And, every month, I'm going to stay up way too late reading some book I just don't want to put down, and probably eat an entire bag of chocolate candy while doing so...and not feel guilty because I only do it once a month...and then truly enjoy it.

I think it's a good plan. :)

Personal Revelation

2008-11-19T12:05:00.000-08:00

John spoke in Sacrament meeting a couple months ago, but I just spoke on Sunday. My topic was Personal Revelation, and I shared a few personal stories. I'd like to share them here, too, because the people who read this blog know me more than the people in our new ward, and I feel a little awkward with these other people whose names I don't know yet knowing more about my personal life (well, just a few stories) than my friends and family. Here are some fun stories, straight excerpts from my talk:

When John spoke, I told him that he could introduce our family however he wanted, and that I'd correct anything that needed correcting when it was my turn. While the things he said were all true, I'd like to expand on how we met. I believe he said that we met at a ward prayer, the Sunday our sophomore year began. He was right off his mission, as were his friends. I was nervous about meeting new people, and one o my friends and I got up the nerve to go talk to some very awkward-looking guys who looked worse off than we felt. These two students were right off their missions, and were also John's roommates, who he always declares I was flirting with. John and his roommates, and my friends and I, became good friends, and started going out on dates in different combinations. Pretty quickly, John decided that he liked me, and tried to pursue me. I wasn't so sure. After a couple months of this, one of my friends pulled me aside one night, and we talked and talked...and then she decided it was time to tell me all the wonderful things about John and why we were so obviously perfect for each other, how we were alike in these ways and complemented each other in these other ways. It went on for about two hours. Me trying to leave, her coming up with impossible amounts of ways we were perfect for each other. (She was a national-level debater in high school, and went on to graduate at the top of her class in the BYU Law School, so I was way out of league.) When I finally got free, I went to my room and knelt to pray before I climbed in my bed, and in the middle of my prayer, when it was clear I definitely wasn't going to pray about John, I heard the words, 'You should date John," in my mind. Instead of being humble or polite and agreeing to the task or sentiment, I thought back, "But I don't like John!" And again I heard the words, "You should date John." Still not humble, I made a deal. I thought, "If I like him when I wake up in the morning, I'll date him." I thought it wouldn't happen, but I was curious if it could. When I woke up, I liked John. I flirted with him extremely well, got invited to go shopping and to lunch with him and his grandparents, and we were dating the next day.

Just a year ago, I was struggling with my son Jeremiah. He has autism, and I don't remember exactly what he was doing or needing, but I was having a very difficult time trying to figure out what he truly needed. I knelt in prayer, because I knew that even if I didn't know what he needed, I knew that my Heavenly father did and could let me know what it was I could do to help him. As I was pleading, I heard the words, "Talk to Avis." Our branch had just combined with a ward, and I sort of knew Avis by sight but not personally since she was in the ward, and I had no clue why I should talk to her. I tried coming up to her in hall at church, but she was always busy talking to someone, or getting things ready for Primary...and I didn't talk to her. A couple weeks passed, and I was praying about Jeremiah again, and I heard this "Ahem. Talk to Avis." I felt slightly reprimanded, a little ashamed. And I made it a point to approach her the very next time I saw her. We made a plan to talk in a few days, she wasn't sure what about, but she got sick, and it fell through. When I finally caught up with her again, in passing on the way to Relief Society, I told her "You probably are wondering why I wanted to talk to you. My son has autism, and I've been having a hard time knowing what to do, and I was praying, and I felt I should talk to you." And she said, "Oh, I have some information for you." It took me a year, but I'm fairly certain that my answer, to talk to Avis, wasn't because she could tell me exactly what I needed to do with Jeremiah, which was what I wanted to know, but because my Heavenly Father knew what I truly needed was someone who understood from experience that sometimes having a son with autism is just hard.

When I was finishing my junior year in high school, my best friend peer-pressured me into taking the ACT and SAT. There was a place to write in colleges to send my scores to, so I chose a few from the list, including BYU because that's where many of my friends wanted to go. A few weeks later, I went to get the mail, and there was an envelope with "BYU" in the corner. And I simply knew that I needed to go there. It was just a simple feeling of "yes." I only applied to BYU, and I went there, and I learned many things, made wonderful friends, and met John. BYU was a wonderful experience for me.

A few weeks after I left for BYU, my sister left for a mission in Brazil. I think I was very homesick, but having so much fun that I didn't realize it. I think that my homesickness took the form of writing my sister letters at least weekly. Long letters. When my parents dropped me off at school, though, my dad bought my sister and I matching CTR rings, and I treasured mine. Because it was from my dad and reminded me of my sister...it meant so much. After the first real snow, my friends and I had a huge snowball fight. at some point my gloves had come off, and when I put them back on, my CTR ring didn't make it, which I didn't discover until I was getting ready for bed. We had been all over in the snow. I looked for my CTR ring the next day. I couldn't find it. I got some of my friends to help me. And as I was looking with them, I prayed that I'd be able to find it, that it was important to me. I felt that I should look by the sidewalk, far enough away from our snowball fight that it was very unlikely, and kept looking where I was for a few minutes, thinking that it was more likely to be where I was looking than where I was prompted to look. A few minutes later my friend went directly to the spot that I felt I should look, and picked up my ring. I didn't receive an answer to my prayer to find my ring because it was valuable or important or life-changing or critical to my testimony. It was a very little thing.

Candlelight Carol

2008-11-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

Our ward choir will be singing Candlelight Carol by John Rutter. I hadn't heard it before, and I wanted to get an idea of what it sounded like as I learn to play it on the piano. This is the best video I could find, and it's in Welsh, so I don't understand much other than the "Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo!" part. But it's gorgeous. And reminds me that Christmas isn't far off, when we can remember the birth of our Savior and rejoice in Him.

Family Update

2008-11-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

From an email to a friend back in Wisconsin, asking how we're doing.

Things are hard here. John's working/studying/dissertating (we made it a verb) a lot, which means I'm a single mom most of the time. I'm usually fine with that, but some moments, hours, days, and weeks are much harder than others. I know the saying "If Momma ain't happy, then nobody's happy," but here it seems to work the other way.

I took Isaac out of kindergarten because he was thoroughly unhappy when he was home and I couldn't deal with it. It's full-day kindergarten, and it was just too long doing exactly what his teachers told him to do--seven hours every day...I would get so upset at him for being crabby, which wasn't what either of us needed to be feeling or doing. Now he's a happy boy again. We'll either homeschool for a couple years or start him in kindergarten next year, I'm not sure which yet.

Danielle's starting her "terrible two's" and has very stubborn (wrong) opinions about many things. Usually she's angelic, so the twos-ness always comes as a surprise...usually I can redirect her from her opinions, so it's not a big deal.

But, Jeremiah. Oh, my little angel boy. So sweet sometimes, so loving. And then he'll completely out of the blue start physically beating himself up. He gets upset, and I usually can't figure out why or fix it if I can, then beat himself up--slapping his face and throat, punching his body. And that's when I get completely overwhelmed and lost and confused and sad. I can't help it--it makes me so sad to see himself hurt himself, and I don't think he's in control of himself at that point, and I can't fix it. I don't like feeling helpless, even for a few minutes.

I can't figure out how to balance attempting to have a reasonably clean home, teaching children to be kind and happy, preparing food for them to hopefully consume (quietly, if it isn't asking too much), and time for myself. If I could get Jeremiah to stop shredding toilet paper all over our apartment it would drastically help this place look a lot cleaner. :) But not being able to come up with a plan has been really hard for me. If I hada well-thought-out plan and didn't follow by choice, it would be a lot easier. But I just feel stuck.

Our bishop took me aside after he set me apart a couple months ago, and he told me that I have much more to do than is possible right now. So at least I know it's true. I know I just need to choose wisely..but I don't know how. If we had thousands of dollars to spend on food every month, I'd just have everything prepared for me by somebody else--but we don't.

Though, I am learning a lot. I learned a few nights ago that even if a green crayon destroys a load of laundry (from someone else's laundry, left in the dryer), it's still more fun to fold if I watch a TV show while I fold it. Very good to finally learn. Laundry has been so boring and time consuming for the past eight years, and now I can almost look forward to it.

I'm learning how to distract my kids into doing what I want them to do, which has been very useful, and sparks creativity. I'm learning that I can get my kids to walk into stores, home from the playground, down to the car...creatively...mostly races and bribes of food. I'm learning to give Isaac more responsibility and trusting him to obey, which has been hard and good.

Just little tricks to make things easier. And I'm teaching Danielle things now that will make my life so much easier in a couple years, and I wish I knew how to teach Jer the same things. She's so easy to teach, I understand how to teach her...But I can't figure out how to get Jeremiah to sleep without an adult right next to him. I keep hoping that when Isaac's a little bigger, he can get Jeremiah to sleep, but I think that's more hope than actual possibility there.

That's the longer version of "I think we're doing pretty good, with exceptions, of course."

The weather here is perfect. Isaac, Danielle and I walk Jeremiah to school, and a sweatshirt is optional. Pants are preferred but not absolutely necessary. I can open up our windows in the afternoon and there's a nice, chilly 60 degree breeze to cool things down a bit. I love the winters here. It finally isn't summer anymore. :)

Fantastic Contraption

2008-10-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

So John and I have a new hobby: We make physics devices from two to five in the morning while our kids are sleeping, for a date. I like triangles and cars, which I used exclusively until level 13, so this is just a different kind of car than I'm used to making. We couldn't embed the game, but here's a link (push continue then the start button):

My Cute Tank!

Post any cool designs in the comments!

Isaac

2008-09-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

Some things about Isaac...

Isaac's responsibility this month (I kept forgetting at the week-marks to change responsibilities) is Keys. He is in charge of locking and unlocking the door. He does a very good job.

Isaac was struggling to pay attention in his class for the first couple weeks, but now he's doing great! One of the first days of school he brought home 8 mostly blank worksheets; yesterday he brought home 8 completed (and completely correct) worksheets. He is great at math, and really good at reading...but writing letters is harder for him.

He still has the cutest inflections when I have something special for him (and anything slightly out of the ordinary is special). "You made me applesauce bread? And you brought me a slice? Really? Thank you!" It reminds of Hannah. :)

We had dinner with some friends (who had the big screen TV with football on it mentioned below), and the little 12 month old boy had woken up after we arrived, an was fairly (sleepy) sad. Isaac kept trying to help him be happy. He tried playing peek-a-boo around furniture, bringing him different toys, and was sweetly talking to him.

Isaac and Jeremiah (and sometimes Danielle) play crazy running-around-the-house games together...they climb up beanstalks, they hide from each other, they stay away from the lava... Isaac tried to teach Jeremiah how to play freeze-tag, but Jeremiah didn't really understand. (Danielle followed the instructions reasonably well, though.)

One of Isaac's favorite phrases is "MOM, we have an EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!" I'll suffice to say MANY things apparently are considered emergencies.

Jeremiah

2008-09-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Sweet things Jeremiah has been doing lately, other than locking me out of the apartment (see below):

Singing most of the words to "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" in Primary on Sunday. Well, not just singing...more like...belting it out. He used the right words bout 85% of the time, and the other 15% was "panda mommy panda mommy." (He sang in tune, too.)

Holding the top of his head with a huge grin, while we were in the monkey exhibit at the Zoo. A monkey was running along the rope that keeps the people out of the monkey area and in the people area, which Jeremiah was holding onto, and when it came to Jeremiah the monkey simply jumped over him and landed on the rope on the other side of him! It was crazy, and very surprising! Jeremiah wasn't quite sure what to think about that monkey jumping over his head--he took a stunned step back and grinned and held his head to keep safe.

Waiting patiently for his turn and following verbal instructions. (Thank you.)

Saying "I'm sorry" and meaning it (most times) when someone is hurt or tips over or is sad.

Saying good-bye to specific kids in his preschool class when he leaves school.

Holding Danielle's hand when we walk somewhere (I hold her other hand).

Singing Isaac's alphabet chant from kindergarten and getting the letters mixed up: D, D Zebra, dih, dih, Zebra!

Watching football on a big screen TV (muted) and standing in front, punching, saying, "Fight! Fight!"

Psychotic

2008-09-22T14:08:00.000-07:00

That, or manic-depressive. I can't decide which.

Me, actually. Not my kids, not the weather (thought it could very well be described as such).

I seem to be having highs and lows, with the lows coming unpredictably. Well, the last one came unpredictably. I'm self-medicating (large doses or books, usually daily), and so far it's been working, and it's been about 9 days. (I need book recommendations, please.)

For example, today would have made most people a little crazy, but not me. I took Danielle and Jeremiah to the YMCA (I exercised...lightly...and shortly) while they played in the childcare (today was the first time I took them, so I didn't want to be gone for too long). And when we were ready to leave (well, after the 3.5 minute tantrum about leaving the Spiderman action figure there), it turns out the car wouldn't start. I walked the kids home--just 3 miles, 95 degrees, and pushing a 90-pound stroller (but I was very happy that I had the stroller). After we relaxed at home for 30 minutes, it was time to get the stroller down the flight of stairs (up wasn't fun, either) and walk Jeremiah to school. I decided to take the stroller first, before the kids (any other way is ridiculous, for those who don't have kids). Danielle followed me, down the stairs and back up. Jeremiah locked us out. Of course, I didn't have key, phone, purse, anything. Not even a bribe. (It's rather tricky carrying the stroller down the stairs while carrying anything else, in my defense.) He sang songs at the top of his lungs...so at least I knew he was okay. When I'd knock and ask/yell at him to open the door (I wanted to make sure he could hear me), he'd say, "No! Never! Not today!" (knock, knock) "Not today!" I tried bribing him with fruit snacks ("not today!") and apples and juice and other things that were inside, but to no avail. Then, I tried bribing him with kisses. And it worked! He definitely got kisses for opening the door. (He was on time. I'd allotted extra "just-in-case" time, thinking we wouldn't need it.)

Yep. It's almost time to go pick up the kids. Life is good. Right now. Check back in a couple hours for my evil half to be dominating.

(Again, with the book recommendations. I know there's some good stuff coming out soon. Quantity and quality both count here, though.)

Danielle

2008-09-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Danielle has truly been a joy to me these past few weeks. She is so happy, so joyful, so incredibly cute and genuine.

I finally figured out how to get her to sit still so I can put her hair up: I sit her on the countertop of the bathroom sink, she puts her feet in the sink and brushes her teeth, and she's in one place long enough that I can get a few elastics in her hair so it mostly stays out of her face for a reasonable amount of time each day. Then she looks in the mirror afterward and exclaims "So CUTE!!!," which of course, is so cute.

She answers questions... How old are you? "None," holding up one finger. What's your name? "Duh-nell" She makes many requests to go on walks in the stroller. Two of her favorite new words this week are Cinderella and robot. She loves to read books, and is constantly asking me what things are while I'm driving. She always wants to know what color, and likes to tell me everything is "eeen!" (green, but sometimes pink. Yes, they sound the same.)

She still loves to have two fingers in her mouth, especially in new situations. She wants to do everything that her brothers do, including go potty (standing, of course). She is still my best eater and my best listener, and the easiest to get to sleep.

Danielle absolutely loves Cinderella (and princesses in general). I bought her a Cinderella doll; Jeremiah loves Cinderella and her "ooh, pretty princess dress" as much as Danielle (I'll chalk it up to princesses being a novelty here). So, Danielle's Christmas wish-list consists of baby dolls and princesses. :)

Arizona

2008-09-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

So, we made it. We had a crazy month in August with two weddings in two states we weren't living in and the craziness of packing and cleaning up our house in La Crosse and then moving into our apartment here.

We're doing well. My boys all enjoy their schools, and John has the fewest hours in class. :) I'm starting to have a nice schedule and figuring out when to do what with the most productivity and happiness. I got pulled over (first time ever) because I still had temporary plates on the car and it had expired the day before (we had gone to the dealer to pick up our plates and he didn't have them ready and told us to come back Monday, so it's totally not my fault and I thanked the officer for pulling me over--that's his job, right?). Isaac's having a hard time adjusting, but Danielle and Jeremiah are happy little clams. It should be a good, different, interesting two years.

Today John was sustained and set apart as the Assistant Scoutmaster (is anyone really surprised? He's been in Scouts since we've been in family wards...He brought his Scout shirt, and we packed really lightly), and I am the ward organist and a Primary worker. I tried to not accept the organist calling, and our bishop looked at me and recommended thinking about it and giving him a call within the next few days--I left him a message a few hours later accepting it. :) And I'm Jeremiah's Sunbeam teacher. He's the only one. At least I know exactly how many kids will be in class each week. :)

WALL-E<==>Satan

2008-07-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, over at the Millennial Star, there's an opinion piece about WALL-E. The basic premise is that the film is environmental propaganda, and that the environmental movement is a tool of the devil to take away our freedom, therefore WALL-E is chief wrench in Satan's toolbox.

Poet's Inc. was first to "break the story" as it were, and my comment got big enough to be worth posting here.

I think the modern environmental movement (I'm talking lobbyists here not lovers of songbirds and blue skies like Tim and Alison) invites some of this hysteria on itself. In a more perfect world people watching WALL-E would realize rather quickly that trash overwhelming the earth is not a practical way to destroy the planet. It is literally impossible to run out of places to bury things; it's just not reasonable. So, the film's message must not be "throw away less stuff" but something more abstract, and picking an unrealistic doomsday scenario would be smart to do purposefully so the audience is not distracted from the real theme.

The problem is, the EPA issued a pamphlet saying exactly that (we are going to run out of landfill space) in the 70's. And consequently we have a bunch of legal requirements to recycle things from the ensuing panic. The scientific basis for running out of landfill space? The guy typing up the pamphlet at the EPA felt like putting it in.

So there are a lot of people who don't really appreciate being jerked around by environmental policy of dubious benefit and consequently become a little hypersensitive about it. And so the logic goes "obviously this is not about saving the environment because this makes no sense, therefore it is about having power to make me do stuff, i.e. Satan"

Now while the link between "don't throw away plastic bottles" and "don't have any babies at all" is obviously VERY tenuous, I felt it deserved a better shake than what Bryce gave it.

Now for a real world example! Global warming; look kids, it's real. The temperature of the Earth had been going up until 10 years ago and may still be; it's a wiggly graph. There are good reasons to think we might be causing it; computer models of climate with elevated CO2 levels have higher temperatures, it's a greenhouse gas, etc.

One possible solution is to reduce CO2 by using a cap and trade system where the total carbon emissions allowed in the US are converted into certificates and bought and sold. This has the advantage of allowing the carbon gains to be made in the easiest locations through the market mechanism. So the free markets work their magic and we save the planet.

At the same time, however, we just chose to let someone else (or at least a regulating body appointed by elected representatives one of which may have been voted for by us) decide how much we get to breathe .

So we have a balancing act, combining the strength of our conviction that human CO2 warming is real, the size of the danger if the problem is ignored, and the cost in lost liberty if it is not.

I think the problem with "Wall-E: the religion of environmentalism" that has touched a nerve is the same problem the climate lobby has; rigid intolerance.

It is possible to disagree that WALL-E is propaganda and still be a good Mormon. It is possible to believe we need more nuclear power plants and be a good environmentalist. When Bryce Hammond or the Sierra Club publicly suggest otherwise, I think it becomes reasonable to start worrying about what image these self-appointed spokesman have created.

Spore

2008-07-12T19:20:00.000-07:00

So, Spore is the newest computer game that we've invested in. We bought the Creature Creator for Isaac's birthday. All three of my boys love to make creatures. Here's John's latest invention [it took some sort-of-clever trickery to make it appear to fly -John]

Another Speech Delay?

2008-07-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

Like her brothers, I'm suspicious that Danielle has a language delay. At her 18-month check-up, I talked to her nurse about it. We concluded that because she's about 6 months ahead of where she should be in all other areas, we'd give her 3 months to start talking some more. I think the minimum standard for an 18-month old is in the 10-12 words range, and mostly Danielle would just say "mom mom mom mom mom" pretty incessantly. She did point at things and say "this" and "that" a few months ago, but then stopped.

This week her language has really picked up. She started saying "daddy" after John came home from Scout camp, then added "eyes" and "hi" and "bye" earlier this week. Today she brought me the book "Little Red Riding Hood" and asked "big bad wolf?" Then later she was carrying "Little Red Riding Hood" under one arm and an (empty) ice cream bucket over her elbow like a basket...the book has a picture of Little Red Riding Hood carrying a basket over her elbow. She's very cute, and constantly surprises us with how smart she is.

Stamping Pancakes

2008-07-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

I made pancakes for breakfast. They weren't very good. I used the leftover pancake mix from our ward picnic for the Fourth of July. (I'm a pancake snob.)

Well. Breakfast was a few hours ago, and apparently there were a few pancakes left on the table.

Isaac says, from the table, "I'm stamping pancakes!"

"WHAT are you doing?!" John and I were a little confused.

"I'm stamping the pancakes! To make them taste good!" Isaac happily explains.

John goes over there and then pokes his head in the living room, and tells me, "Um, he's stamping pancakes? Does that mean we need to throw them away?"

Laughing at John, I tell Isaac, "We don't stamp on our food. The ink isn't good for our bodies. Ink from the stamps isn't food, and we only eat food. Food is good for our bodies, not stamps."

Isaac is sad, a little disappointed. "I wanted them to taste good." I guess he knows better than to think Krusteaz tastes good, and so I feel pride as a mother.

We all return to our respective projects, on our respective rooms. After the bathroom sink is running for a complete minute, I realize that maybe there's a new project going on that I didn't know about. So I go to check it out.

Oh. It's Isaac. Washing the stamps off his pancakes. And then bringing soggy pancakes (still stamped) to the table.

"Isaac, we don't wash pancakes." I try to say it gently. I don't want him to feel reprimanded...

"Why?"

"Well, when we wash pancakes, they get soggy, and then they don't taste good anymore."

"I was just trying to make them taste good and get the stamps off."

"Oh. We don't wash pancakes."

I guess the pancakes didn't taste good today.

Arizona

2008-07-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

We're moving to Tempe, Arizona. All of us. In, oh, about 5 weeks. Just to let you know.

We were going to send just John for 2 semesters. We changed our minds and all of us will stay for 2 years.

So along with the regular packing and cleaning, I need to get the boys registered for school and do a ton of paperwork and find renters to pay us to live in our house and finish arranging transportation needs. Fun? :)

Isaac's Update

2008-07-09T07:25:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's been way too long since I wrote Danielle's and Jeremiah's updates.

Here's what Isaac has to say: Hmmm...go to grandma's house or...do something!

That was brief. Isaac turned 5 a few weeks ago, and we had a clown party for him. When his preschool class did the "Jobs" unit, he drew a picture of being a clown when he grows up. Personally I thought it was a better choice than being the president of the United States. So we had clown ice cream cones and a game of pin the nose on the clown and things to dress up as a clown like face paint and big bow ties...and I didn't take into account that these are Isaac's friends who are very shy. One of his friends participated in the games...nobody wanted to dress up like a clown...only one of his friends didn't want ice cream (how is this possible!?!). It was a fun party and Isaac enjoyed having all his friends and family there. When I asked him which of his friends he wanted to invite, he started naming them: "My friend Hannah, and my friend Mary, and my friend Daniel and my other friend James," until he named all of his aunts and uncles nearby and a few friends from school (with prompting). So that's who he invited. (His aunts and uncles participated in the clown games, just not his friends from school. In case I needed to clarify.)

Isaac currently likes to sing. He carries a melody pretty well. Sometimes he'll sing the real words to a song. When he gets to choose a "bedtime song," he's invariably chosen "Thomas the tank engine loves his friends," which the makers of Thomas the Tank Engine certainly don't know, and the words change periodically, with the same theme line of "Thomas the Tank Engine loves his friends" and then some hard thing that Thoms has to do because of his friends... I guess it may be genetic... One of his grandpas always sings wonderfully made up songs as well. :)

Isaac likes to read, and reads himself books. He memorizes them, and recites them to himself, with wonderful inflection and voices for characters. He also likes to play the piano (sort of like he sings "Thomas the Tank Engine loves his Friends") and write letters to people. He continues to amaze and frustrate us with his computer literacy, and often shows me how to play complicated video games at grandma's house. He laughs and laughs and laughs, and everyone around him must laugh when he does. It really isn't optional--his laugh is so infectious! He has a wonderful imagination and is extremely creative. We signed him up for art classes this summer, and last time he was given three long strips of paper...he pasted them together and scrounged for some strips of cardboard and made a dragon, complete with a whale in it's stomach.

John took Isaac to see WALL-E last week, and since they went, almost every day Isaac's wanted to see a movie at 4. We haven't gone back yet. Isaac's almost finished with his 20 hours of summer reading, and I'm trying to figure out if we can do it again. He has had so much fun with the reading and with the prizes--we went bowling (he was sad because he didn't win--Mary did, and she really used the bumpers to figure out the best angle to throw the ball down...literally...seriously...not by accident), had a scoop of ice cream, a personal size pizza, a lunch buffet. Isaac is always very sad when he doesn't win or get his way (we're working on that one). He's very sweet. His teachers in Primary and preschool just say that he's the sweetest boy and always kind to the other children, and chooses the "good kids" for his friends.

Jeremiah's Update

2008-05-31T06:26:00.000-07:00

This post is the second of three, in the attempt to give my kids equal attention, and is centered on Jeremiah.

Jeremiah. We're working on potty training with him right now, and sometimes it goes pretty well. Yesterday he didn't have any accidents! I made a chart for us to make a green dot when he goes potty and a red X when he has an accident, which helps remind me to take him potty. The tricky part with him is I don't think he registers that he needs to go, which means we need to remember for him.

A week or so ago he and I were exiting a store and one of his friends from school saw him and excitedly was telling his parents "That's Jeremiah! He's in my school at Southern Bluffs! Hi Jeremiah!" After a minute of prompting, Jeremiah said "Markos!" Sometimes I think that everything inside of him just doesn't know how to get out. And he probably had a hard time connecting someone from school with someone at the store (I know I have a hard time with that, at least).

In his special book for Primary, I filled in the following:

One of my favorite things to do with my family is "family tickle time." It's pretty fun...and he has such a great cracking up laugh!

My least favorite thing to eat is grapefruit. He won't touch the stuff. Everything else he'll eat. Just not grapefruit.

My favorite Primary song is "Whenever I hear the song of a bird" and he sings all the words. :)

When I grow up I think I want to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or Spiderman. He's been practicing. He has some pretty refined moves.

If I could visit any temple in the world it would be Hong Kong China. The Primary president brought in 20 pictures of temples around the world and let each child choose one.

If I could meet anyone in the scriptures it would be Jesus.

One way I try to follow my Savior is by saying prayers. Jeremiah says the sweetest prayers. Granted, all the phrases are taken from prayers that we say with him. Maybe it's just his little voice. But it is very sweet.

School ends next week. Jeremiah has grown so much this past year. He speaks in small full sentences at least some of the time, and communicates what he wants very clearly. He does have a bunch of obsessions, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Spiderman, and some "stims," including spinning toys on a surface and spinning toys in the air and (hopefully) catching them to do it again (not such a great idea during Sacrament meeting). He loves to cuddle for a good 20 minutes when he wakes up and 20 before he goes to sleep again at night. He loves to go to Grandpa's house and to eat "brown" (usually brownies). He knows his colors and some letters and most of the words to songs from Primary and school. He's a very sweet little boy.

Gardens

2008-05-30T15:46:00.001-07:00

This year we bought wood and made two 4x4 gardens in our backyard. We combined strategies from square foot gardening and lasagna gardens, and up until yesterday it seemed to be going very well.

We made our garden boxes and filled them with layers of compost, manure, dried grass and leaves, and peat moss--not necessarily in that order--and covered them to "cook" which wasn't necessary, but speeds up the decomposing process and it was a mite too early to plant over here.

Yesterday I (finally) planted our tomato plants that have been so good on our kitchen sill. One of the stems broke as I was planting it--I'm not exactly sure how.

And then last night there was a thunderstorm. And looking at my sad plants, it appears that a rabbit came by and had a snack. I wanted to get a fence around the garden beds, but needed to plant the tomato plants before I got the fence up.

I was just looking at the garden with Danielle. She broke one of the plants in half.

From our gardening experience so far this year, we have beautiful soil and one tiny tomato plant left. Maybe one of the other plants will miraculously survive, but with so little left of them it's hard to imagine.

Danielle's Update

2008-05-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to give my kids equal attention, this post is the first of three, centered on Danielle.

Danielle is such a sweet little girl! She's 17 months old now. She's all girl. From her hair (which apparently always needs a couple more butterfly clips) to her shoes (which are typically changed at least three times a day to keep her happy).

She just started dancing--she'll push a button on a toy guitar to play a song, take 2-3 steps backward, and start marching her feet or spinning in circles. Usually spinning in circles. After the 10-second song is over, she repeats the process.

She loves to read. I've been trying to read to her off and on (like all good parents should), but up until the past month she's always pushed the books away and tried to squirm away. Now, however, she finds the books she wants, thrusts it to me (or John is I'm not around), sits on the floor, adamantly pats the ground next to her indicating that I need to sit as well, and refuses to be content until we read that particular book. Her favorites this week are "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?," Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?," "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear?," (are you noticing a theme here?) and "Go Away, Big Green Monster!" (which I recommend to all children between the ages of 1 and 6--it's a paper book, not a board book, or I might recommend it to the younger set as well).

Danielle also has a genetic predisposition to electronics and communicative devices. I don't know what else to chalk that up to. She's obsessed with the computer and has figured out the mouse-pad on the laptop.

Danielle has been practicing nodding and shaking her head "no." Naturally, she gives her opinion quite frequently. "Do you want a drink?" Emphatically nods. "Do you want to eat breakfast in your high chair?" Seriously nods, then walks to her high chair and attempts to climb in by herself. "Are you ready for bedtime?" Slowly shakes her head "no." "Should we read a book?" Her eyes light up and she nods as she walks to get a book. All very cute and deliberate. The cute-ness might be deliberate cuteness, as well.

She plays crawl-across-the-crib with me when I come to get her from her nap. I ask, from the hallway, if she's awake (she probably nods, but I don't really know), and then come to get her out...and she crawls to the other side of her crib! So I peek at her over there, and she giggles and crawls super-fast to the other side of her crib. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. (I usually just take her out after that. This could go on for many many minutes.)

Danielle will officially be old enough for nursery in four weeks. I did leave her there last for the third hour of church because I taught in Relief Society. We've been going to nursery during Sunday school for a couple weeks now. We'll continue to do that until she can go by herself. She likes to play with the toys, and she likes the little colored chairs that are just a tiny bit to big for her. She loves singing time.

She's a happy and cute little girl! And we ALL love her dearly.

Choose Your Own Adventure

2008-05-27T14:56:00.001-07:00

Top 4 ingredients in Marshmallow Mateys

2008-05-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not currently a health nut. But the top 4 ingredients are...

1. Whole grain oat flour.

2. Marshmallows.

3. Sugar.

4. Corn syrup.

Um, the sugars content is 13 grams...of a 30 gram serving. Breakfast cereal? High-sugar snack/dessert? Does anyone really want their kids eating this "food"?

(Yes, I do think that the whole grain oat flour is wonderful for our bodies, and corn syrup is better without the "high-fructose" part.)

Birthday Cake

2008-05-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

Today was John's birthday! Happy birthday, honey! (I thought I'd mention that even though the rest of this isn't about him.)

Danielle was so sad in her crib tonight. I guess she'd been crying for a while before I came home, so about ten minutes after I'd been home I retrieved her from her crib (standing with tears streaming down her cheeks) and started walking around our house to figure out if there was something specific she wanted. When she saw John she gave him the evil eye and didn't want to be within a few feet of him. Then I wandered into our kitchen. And the reaching and grunting/whining started.

There was a frosted cake on the counter and Danielle wanted some. She helped me make it this afternoon. I think she was extremely upset that she was put to bed without getting any cake! She was also thirsty and some family was over watching the last songs of American Idol, but I really think it was the cake.

Is anyone surprised my son would say this?

2008-05-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

Speaking of show-and-tell at pre-school Isaac said "The planet Earth doesn't love it when Romello brings shooting robots"

Naturally anthropomorphizing his home planet to facilitate a mecha discussion. That's my boy!

Math Comic

2008-05-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Faraway Child

2008-05-02T06:01:00.001-07:00

I read "Faraway Child" yesterday. It's been on my to-read list for a few months now. It's a fictionalized story of a mom who has an autistic daughter (PC would be "daughter with autism"), from an LDS perspective. (The author is an LDS woman who has an autistic daughter, and bases the story off of her experiences with her daughter.) I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to know what it's like to raise an autistic child: the hopes, fears, struggles, griefs, joys, peace.

My experiences with Jeremiah are much different. But so much closer to what she describes than how anyone would describe a typical child. But her feelings, inadequacies, joy and appreciation and comfort when something finally goes right...those are all the same.

John looked over at me a few times as I was reading, and saw me sobbing at least three times. He kept asking if I was certain I wanted to keep reading this book. I don't know that it was necessarily heart-wrenching, just incredibly close to home.

Computer Time

2008-04-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

We've had a little disagreement with Isaac on how much time he can spend on the computer. As soon as we walked inside Grandma's house yesterday he went over to the computer to play "the nice shooting game." I convinced him to come over and eat (or at least drink) with us, and he kept telling me he wanted to be excused to go play on the computer. After dinner, he (prompted by me) opened a meeting in which all the adults submitted a vote on how much time he spent on the computer. After he had all voted (Isaac voted for 62 minutes) we gave him the option of choosing the mean, median, or mode. He chose the mode--perhaps because it sounds like the most?--which was 30 minutes. I didn't vote, but I used the Mom Card to outlaw computer time on Sundays. Isaac was happy to be the center of attention and to hear everyone in the room say that they wanted to play with him when he comes over, rather than have him on the computer all day. Happily for me, everyone in the room gave appropriate time allotments and was willing to participate in our discussion. :) Now I don't need to worry about Isaac having too much computer time at Grandma's house: He helped to make the rule.

Pictures!

2008-04-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

I went into the backyard tonight and saw this! The boys were just swinging and giggling together. It was lovely. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jeremiah had a spontaneous photo shoot tonight. He was so happy to be swinging gently back and forth, back and forth. Content. He's never liked to swing, so these are his first "swinging pictures." His occupational therapist at school has worked with him on swinging this year, and now he loves loves loves to swing. (He didn't want to come inside, just "sit" on the swing, very sweetly.)

Danielle likes to "take pictures." This is her being sad that it's against the rules. Also, this is why we don't frequently post pictures of Danielle (unless she's eating, restrained in her high chair and distracted).
This is actually Danielle waking up Isaac to get him ready for church. I tried to get pictures, but none of them turned out. Just imagine. She was a very good Sunday morning monster.

Isaac has aspirations to be a photographer. All credit for the following go to him.

A picture when she thinks she's going to get the camera...
...and a mostly happy one that I took of the two of us right after.
(Restrained...and getting ready for a walk.)

Notice the brotherly love. The sisterly lean. The thinner rims on the glasses.

Our kids are growing. They are sweet and good, sometimes attempt politeness, sometimes share of their own free will. We love them. And we're so glad that it's spring and we can play outside and go on walks again!

Irrational panic leads to misallocation of resources: an example

2008-04-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

Slate.com has an interesting article about the what really causes most cancers in the United States. I'm guessing that many of the things you've heard of that cause cancer wouldn't make a list of quantitatively significant causes.

The article has a thesis for why this happens, and it talks about the consequences. In general irrational fear of small probability events leads to a mis allocation of resources to prevent these small probability events.

This is a theme I've noticed a lot in modern society; we get all worked up over something and then we expend lots of costly effort doing our best to prevent a rare occurrence, while meanwhile the more likely but less dramatic cause gets short shrift. What's worse, typically the cost is paid in dollars and freedom.

The Book of Mormon describes a secret combination (think conspiracy theory) that would exist in the latter days (today) Ether 8:22-25:

22 And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground for vengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not.
23 Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning. (emphasis added)

I can't help but wonder, if we're constantly panicking about borderline irrelevant things, that maybe there's some kind of more nefarious purpose at work. There are lots of irrelevant things to panic about, who gets to decide what is deemed panic worthy? It's hard for me to believe that there's some shadow organization pulling the strings on each and every alarmist story, but perhaps fostering conditions such that this kind of behavior is encouraged could be easily and subtlety done.

In any case I'm glad someone pointed out that eating a folic-acid free muffin while chatting on a hands-free so your cellphone can be 5 feet from you while sunbathing is just a little silly.

Feed the Head

2008-04-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

Okay. I know it sounds a bit creepy. But, really... It's not! A little strange, maybe, but fun. Give it a whirl! Feedthehead.net
(John found it first, not me!)

Addition

2008-04-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

I'm working with Isaac on adding. We went on two walks today and tried to find 5 robins and 3 dogs. We found 9 robins and 2 dogs on the first walk, the last dog on the second walk, and then Isaac said, "We're on level two now! Now we need to find 6 robins and 5 dogs. If we find a cat we win!" When we were looking for 5 robins and had found one, Isaac said we had to find four more. (Et cetera.) We had a lot of fun walking around the block with Danielle.

Isaac (and Horse, his invisible horse) were eating carrots and milk in the kitchen (because that's obviously what horses like best), and Isaac was explaining to Horse about how he "went on a walk at Grandma's house and fell down on the street and got an ow on his leg and that the bad alligator scratched his leg and that too much and a lot make too much and too much and too much and too much and too much." (I suppose that would make 4 * "too much" = "a lot.")

Who's Who?

2008-04-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

Blonde hair, brown eyes, about 40 pounds and a little over three feet tall with glasses...A perfect description of Jeremiah!

And now, a good description of Isaac, too!

He likes the black plastic frames more than the nice metal ones that hopefully won't look quite as nerdy in pictures. :) He's been good at keeping his glasses on today; he told Grandpa, "My eyes don't work so good, so I need to wear glasses and now they're perfect!"

The boys are very sweet rambunctious loving brothers.

Now we just need to come up with a simple descriptor to throw out when people say, "I just can't tell your boys apart"...

Boys just wanna have FUN

2008-04-03T09:23:00.002-07:00

I'm keeping the boys home from school today because they are coughing and Isaac says his throat is scratchy so he "can only breathe like chugga chugga chugga chooooo." So, of course, they're playing horses outside. Isaac's been trying to train Jeremiah to be a horse, or to be his own horse and rider, rather than being Isaac's horse. It's mostly working. The past few days they've been playing together more than egging each other on, and it's been great. I think being able to play outside has a lot to do with that. Playing tag inside gets a lot of tears, but playing tag outside gets a lot of laughing. They've both figured out that if one is crying, the other had better start too, or else will get into trouble. So Jeremiah starts crying because Isaac "helped him fall over somehow" and after a few seconds, Isaac starts crying and comes up with "I have an ow on my hand!" Funny boys.

I love Google!

2008-03-31T20:37:00.001-07:00

Just one more reason.

Cute Kids

2008-03-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago i had hiccups. Isaac said, "Mom. Stop hiccing-up!"

Danielle likes to throw away her own diapers--she picks up the dirty one and crawls it over to the garbage can, stands up, and tosses it in.

Danielle can walk!!! She's decided that she prefers walking most of the time now.

Jeremiah always wants to hold Danielle. He says, "Hold you baby? Hold you?" And she usually lets him a for a few short seconds...

Jeremiah gets lions and tigers confused. So lately he's been requesting to watch "Tiger King" and refers to Danielle's cute pink lion as "the pink tiger."

Danielle likes to make animal noises. She loves to "aaa-aaH" like a sheep, in particular. She and I were playing with her pink lion and she wanted it to make elephant noises, and made wonderful elephant noises herself. She takes after her mom!

Isaac and Jeremiah both like to sing songs all day long. They both have most words memorized, and Isaac will make up his own words for melodies he knows. It's very sweet.

Jeremiah was making a racket last night while he was supposed to be falling asleep, so Isaac said, "Jeremiah keeps waking me up, mom. Tell him to be quiet!" (It was actually very sweet. :)

Time and Weather

2008-03-13T05:51:00.000-07:00

So...sometimes I think that the whole Daylight savings time is ridiculous. I'm always okay with the "fall back" part, it's the "spring forward" part that is so terrible. But this year with Jeremiah's bus suddenly arriving an hour earlier...oh boy. We're still adjusting our bodies to a new time. (And next year I'll remember to start changing the time--bedtime and waking up time--by ten minutes a day a few days before the clocks change!)

I took Jeremiah out to the bus, and I thought, "Wow, I didn't need to put my coat on! This is a lovely lovely day!" It's about 37 right now. Just for some perspective. 37 is SO WARM! A good 60 degrees warmer than than January and February. I love March!

Contentment

2008-03-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

Right now I am perfectly content. Life is simple, life is routine. Our house becomes messy and clean again quickly (this goes both ways, which is important!). We eat and clean up many times a day. I get kids dressed and ready for each day, and eventually into pajamas before bed...only to do it all over again. We read books, we have naps, we exercise at times... We have family home evening and family scripture study and family prayer. I have some time for just me (I repeat, SOME, not an incredible amount, but enough).

So, how long until something happens to throw us out of our routine...? In the plans are:
1. The boys are out of school come June.
2. We're (planning on) sending John back to ASU in September.
3. Someone will probably get sick...

I'm definitely enjoying this blessed though temporary state! And my kids are cute, too. And my husband is wonderful. And I just am feeling incredibly lucky right now.

2008-03-04T08:43:00.001-08:00

Isaac's leaning against his bed "reading" a Winnie the Pooh book, following the words with his fingers, singing,

"Follow the piglet! Follow the piglet!
Follow the piglet, Don't go astray.
Follow the piglet, Follow the piglet,
Follow the piglet, He knows the way!"

Over and over and over again.

(This is apparently a rendition of "Follow the Prophet," a favorite Primary song of his. Replace "piglet" with "prophet," and there's the chorus. :)