all that and a bag of chips

I've decided that if I blog at least monthly, my blog is not dead. Aim high, right?

Last week for Earth Day the family and I headed over to the River Trail to pick up trash. It was a bit chilly, but the sun was shining and it was nice to get out and enjoy the trees in blossom and see just how crazy high and fast the river is flowing right now.

We had a nice time, picked up a garbage bag filled with garbage, including a number of soda cans for Spud's can recycling efforts (he and his Pop Pop make pretty good money...for a six year old, anyways). As we were finishing up by the new bridge over the river, the kids were exploring and Spud found an unopened medium sized bag of barbecue potato chips. It was probably somebody's stash or forgotten snack, but we claimed it as our own and enjoyed it as our reward for our good deed!

good times

It has been a rough couple of weeks, but some good points to mention:

We went to a friend of a friend's house for a dinner. This guy is a true foodie. The meal was amazing, and afterward he pulled out his "collection" of balsamic vinegars. I had no idea that there was such a wide variety of balsamic. We had a tasting of about 10 different vinegars, some of which ran up to $5-600/bottle, and these were NOT large bottles! We learned all about the aging process of the vinegar as well. I have to say I was not immediately enthused about the idea of a vinegar tasting, but the flavors really were delicious. It was fun to taste the different "notes" of the various types. (Look, I'm sounding like a foodie now.) Yum.

Seeing Hairspray with five awesome friends at the Hale Center Theater last week. I wish I could go a few more times. It was SO fun. I had seen the movie version (we own it, actually) and really enjoyed it. The cast was amazing! I really loved the person who played Tracy. The only downside was not being able to get up and dance along during a few of the numbers.

Field trip to the Provo Airport with the Boys Club (plus sisters). It was really neat. The kids got to sit in the airplanes (these were little 4 seaters), take a turn on the simulator, and learn a ton from what has to be one of the greatest tour guides. He is a UVU flight student, but he was so friendly and engaging. It was really fun and I could tell the kids were just eating it up.

Fabulous book club discussion today about the book Joan: The Mysterious Life of the Heretic who became a Saint. The book itself was very inspiring, but our discussion turned to how we can find our own path and mission and have the faith to step out into the unknown and trust that we will find something solid to step on. It was really what I needed this week.

Also, I am addicted to Sammy's battered fries. And we had an AMAZING peach cobbler shake. Soooooo good. Those are right up there now with The Cocoa Bean's Love Potion frappe. So much delicious goodness.

I am so grateful for good friends to share this life with. It really means a lot to have people who care and are willing to share their lives and help bear our burdens, and also those who enrich our lives just by making it so much more enjoyable.

are you a dummy?

(No, the picture isn't really correlated to the blog title. I was just playing around today while the kids were playing around and I liked Sprout's expression.)

I have a lot on my mind lately, but it doesn't feel like the stuff to share indiscriminately (with my handful of occasional readers) or like stuff I just want to have "out there," so I've not said much here lately. I also spend most of my online time working, so there's that, too. But one quote that keeps running through my mind is this exchange from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, the movie, as I haven't confirmed that the same passage is in the book.

Grandpa George: There's plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket-- There are only 5 of them in the whole world, and that's all there's ever going to be. Only a dummy would give this up for something as common as money. Are you a dummy?
Charlie: No, sir.
Grandpa George: Then get that mud off your pants. (gives 2 thumbs up) You've got a factory to go to!

A couple of weeks ago I listed to an episode of This American Life called The Invention of Money which was really interesting. I've also been thinking about how most (if not all) of what seems necessary and normal by our standards and expectations is completely fabricated. We are so shaped by our experiences that we really believe that life is the way we think it is, that to be a human means what it means to us. The human experience has changed drastically (I can't even think of a strong enough word) in the last 200 years. The abundance of information and communication is mind boggling. I don't really have anything profound to say about that, but there has to be something to figuring out the true "essentials" for your own life.

TWO!

Today was the little guy's second birthday. David made an Elmo cake for him (as he has become a HUGE Elmo fan over the past two months thanks to Youtube Sesame Street videos) and we had a low key party for him. He got some books from us and David's parents, a fun block train, a handmade beanbag from Spud, a handmade toy pillow and snake from Noodle, a card with five dollars from my parents, and a handmade super plush bunny from me, He really loves books and had to look at each of them as he unwrapped them.

He is such a super fun little guy. I'd blather on more, but it's late and I'm sleepy. I just wanted to get this out while it was still officially his birthday. Happy birthday little guy!

The Key to a Happy Christmas*

*you could probably substitute Birthday, Valentine's Day, Anniversary, etc.

Low Expectations.

That might sound a bit like a Debbie Downer thing to say, but I don't mean it to be. This year I think was the first time that I really didn't have anything I wanted or hoped to get. I had zero expectations of gifts, and was really just grateful to have some money set aside to buy gifts for the kids. And I really enjoyed Christmas, and truly felt like everything I got was a "gift." (Though, I did get a particular item of clothing from my parents-in-law about which I couldn't help but feel a tiny bit put out. It's a sweater that doesn't look like anything I would ever wear and is totally the wrong style for me.)


But, overall it was a great holiday and lots of fun. We got some fun gifts for the family, including the game Qwirkle Cubes, SnapCircuits, a zOrv digital microscope, and two ukuleles! I sewed a new design of monsters for the kids this year and they have really loved those.

One new activity for this year was a get together with my brother and his family and my sister and her family who live in the area. We don't usually get together at Christmas, and it was a lot of fun to do so. We had a fun white elephant gift exchange and just socialized, played games, sang some songs and ate yummy food. I hope that they all enjoyed it enough to want to do it again next year. We usually just see David's family at Christmas, and I felt kind of left out.

One of these days, I'll pull the last couple of months of pictures off my camera and have a mega picture post.

whoa.

If I didn't post this post (that will barely count, really) and didn't post any more for the rest of the year, this year would TIE as my worst blogging year since I began. Especially sad, since back when I started (in 2005), I didn't even start until July. I barely posted half as much this year as I did last year. Hmmmm... Maybe that means I've been superly awesomely productive in the real world. ::snerk:: I can't even hold a straight face after that comment. Though I will have you know that last week I patched up four pairs of jeans! While jean patching is supremely tedious and often more fraught with difficulty than it should be (usually because I'm trying to rush), I do love "rescuing" a pair of jeans from the scrap heap.

And tonight, the reason I am up waaaay too late is due to a mad wrapping storm. I wrapped all of Spud's birthday presents (his birthday is Christmas Eve, and I vowed when he was born to never wrap his gifts in Christmas wrap) and all of the Christmas presents that were in the house still unwrapped. There are still some en route from Amazon.com that will need wrapping, but for now, I'm caught up. I love wrapping presents, and it truly gives me a modicum of pain that, due to the Minnie cat's penchant for ribbon eating, our gifts must be wrapped in only paper. Because we all know that the only thing better than a wrapped gift is a wrapped gift enhanced with CURLY RIBBON!

Yeah. It's late. I should be in bed. But it seemed like a worthwhile post 1 a.m. endeavor to rescue 2010 from the despair of "Tied for Worst Blogging Year."

I leave you with some Sesame Street funny.

Baby Spanx

Oh my, I couldn't stop laughing. The adorable chubby baby looks so much like one of my nieces did when she was a baby. So chubbily delicious!

more me, all the time

How odd is it that last night I was thinking that I could just take my facebook status updates and compile those and they'd give a pretty representative Annual Review for a Christmas letter, and then today I see that there is some facebook app that will compile a lot of your status updates into a "collage"? I thought that was pretty coincidental. But since I'm a sloth, once again, and not getting Christmas cards out, there's not even a letter to bother with. I really do want to send out some sort of card, though. Maybe I'll get ambitious and send out New Years or Valentines cards. (Do not hold your breath over this, though.)

Anyways, just because I think it is fun and what is a blog for if not for shameless self-promotion and navel-gazing...



(Click on it to see larger, then try "control +" or "command +" to make it large enough to read. This is all of course assuming you even bother looking at it.)

fun with kids

I think one thing I love about kids, particularly my kids, is how easy it is to have fun with them. Sprout loves balloons, so I blew one up for him this evening and then the older kids wanted to play balloon bop (where we try and keep the balloon up in the air in the vaulted entryway), so we did. We tried various ways of hitting it, and used certain parts of our bodies, and one time I said "Power punch!" as I fist-hit the balloon as high as I could, and that was immediately adopted as the preferred method, especially punctuated with loudly shouted "Power punch!"

Prior to that, Noodle taped her thumbs to her index fingers for a half hour or so, just to see how difficult it was to do things with no thumbs, like draw, eat, open doorknobs, give a thumbs up (we called it "nubs up"), pick things up. I told her that she was doing pretty well, so we could cut off her thumbs and it would be no big deal. Then she could go around inspiring people with all she could do without thumbs. She opted not to pursuit that route, though.

Spud was doing some activities on the educational/reading website Starfall.com today, and one of his favorite things to do is get into the part where there are little songs playing, and he gets up and dances around. He's done this since he was about 3, I think, and it's ridiculously cute. So today when we heard the song playing, Noodle and I came and spied on him. He gets so self conscious about things sometimes it is especially fun to watch him when he doesn't know it.

The kids did an awesome job cleaning up the playroom today, so when I went up for the inspection, Spud wanted me to toss him into the giant beanbag. So I did, and then of course had to do it a couple times for each kid. It is such a simple little thing, but they always love it.

Before the ballon bop game, Noodle, Spud and I sat in a triangle with our legs spread out and feet touching, with Sprout in the middle and he took turns run-hopping to each person and giving them a big hug. He seemed to skip Noodle regularly, so it was a joke that he didn't really love her, and then the kids tried to entice Sprout to come to them by making ridiculously sad faces.

I once had a framed saying that said, "Stay close to the young and a little rubs off." It's cheesy, but true. I go through short-lived stages where I think it would be fun to get a Wii system for the family, but I know we would lose a lot of these activities that come up just because we are hanging around doing not much of anything. I don't want my kids to have a childhood where one of the primary pasttimes is video games or TV. I don't mind if it is part of their experience, but it shouldn't be a main focus. They don't miss not having them now, but I know if we introduced them, it would be something they wanted to do much more regularly than I'd want them to.

Elf Yourself - Surf Party

Elf Yourself - Hip Hop

Elf Yourself - Singing

Elf Yourself - Pets Only

Elf Yourself - 80s

Elf Yourself - Country

The kids & I are having lots of fun, so I'm going to share these here. :o)

thoughts...

David shared this blog post/article with me today. I really enjoyed it. I think it is an outlook on the Gospel and the church that would be beneficial for me to utilize. I especially like the part about the Lord not running a bed & breakfast. We have a vested interest in this whole deal.

And, while I'm waxing religiously philosophical (okay, not actually waxing because it's late and I'm tired), I have been meaning to share this link, The Two Trees. I have to say that this is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I feel like it meshes very well with my understanding of various gospel components, but it is put together in an entirely new way. It actually makes the Plan of Salvation more meaningful and relevant because EVERYONE, regardless of gender, has an important role. There is a lot of lip service about the importance of women in the church, but it is hard to buy the line when it comes from a (nearly) all male leadership. Anyways, I've been wanting to discuss this article with like-minded friends for the past month, but I don't know if anyone I've shared the link with has taken the time to read it. If you read it, tell me what you think.

This Is Halloween!

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday by far, but I do like seeing my kids look cute in their costumes. That is probably the reason we adults put up with all the hassle. (The extra kid is Noodle's best friend who slept over last night and enjoyed the festivities tonight.) Sprout dressed up yesterday for the Homeschoolers Halloween Skating Party, but didn't go out tonight.

Toddler GQ

Yeah, I think he's ready.

hmmmm....

I wonder if this would look good in my upstairs hallway. What do you think?

life divided

So, I have a hard time sometimes deciding what to post on this blog, and what is better off on my homeschooling blog. I would love to have a snazzy combined blog, with different tabs across the top, but I don't know how to do that. So, I have two blogs.

Anyways, yesterday we went on a bike ride again with some fellow neighborhood homeschoolers. We rode along the river trail again (last week we rode out to Utah Lake) and it was cloudy and a light rain fell occasionally. The colors along the trail are AMAZING, and the cloudy day made them all the more vibrant. I imagined I was on a vacation in the pacific northwest. It was perfect, you could wear a jacket or not and be comfortable. I love that type of weather.

I am presently quite content in my denial of winter. Last week was unseasonably warm (mid to high 80s), and I really felt it was just as it should be. I feel the need to come up with a survival strategy for winter, but that would require admitting that it really is just around the corner. I need to start my Christmas sewing projects, which is at least something that makes it bearable. Yeah, I'm a dork. Or nerd. Or geek, or whatever type of person it is who likes to sew things.