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Showing posts from January, 2009

Fluffy Gets Mobile Technology

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It took a long time for this kid to get going, but last Friday, it all came together for him in a big way. I set him down in the step down living room and went to get something in the kitchen, and suddenly he was there at my heels, having crawled over, climbed the stair and slid around on the hardwood floor, like a dog on ice. Later, I was sitting downstairs with him, and when I looked up, he was nowhere to be seen. By that night, I'd set up road blocks to keep him from licking the electrical outlets. Time to refresh the kidproofing! The same day he started to pull up and tried to cruise. He's not going to be satisfied until he's careening around like everyone else.

I guess I deserved that . . .

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Last night Maddie made a sign and posted it on her door. She was really excited about it and kept asking me if I'd gone by her door and if I'd read it yet. After about five reminders, I did finally make it past her door and found a sign saying "Do Not Read This Sign!" which has been all the rage among her classmates at school. Then Sebi decided to follow suit, and put a post-it on the door: I read it and asked him what it said. "I don't know," he replied "I can't read!"

The Inauguration

On Tuesday, I was driving kids to school and I asked if anyone knew what day it was. It wasn't a tough question since Rob had put the Obama sign back up in the yard. Will piped up and said "It's immaculation day!" which it may have been, but I don't know what that is (sounds vaguely religious/sexual). I was pleasantly surprised that the kids got to watch at school, and he did get his terms straightened out. We also got a message from our friend, Heather, hoping that we [poor, TV-less freaks] could find a way to tune in, and wishing us: "May tomorrow be a perfect day/may you find love and laughter along the way!" May God keep you in his tender care/ 'til he brings us together again . . . GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!!!!

Ode to Louise

One of the writing exercises that Louise Plummer suggests, is making lists. Since most of my writing involves lists anyway, this is fairly painless for me. And since cleaning out the car yesterday, I was determined that some good ought to come out of my scooping up diaper wipes full of childhood's detritus from the seat wells. So here it is, a list of What I Found in My Minivan, January 8, 2009: Four library books: Dorothy Dunnett vols 1 & 4, What Presidents Are Made Of and Women in American History One grass skirt three lava lavas one conch shell one coconut hat shell necklace Trader Joe's hawaiian bag an inflatable swim ring, large neon yellow an inflatable swim ring, small purple/multi stripes three green plastic frogs one dark green plastic car two cards county tax assessment of our home two size three huggies diapers package kirkland diaper wipes booster seat baby carrier and base baby car activity center tennis ball water bottle from UTA lime green Lego car purple ca

Link to Make Your Day -- Where The Hell is Matt

This link comes to you through the graciousness of Linda and Rinda, a truly dynamic duo. It isn't new, but for anyone who needs a four minute pick-me-up, you should check out Matt's worldwide dancing . It is amazing, and the soundtrack "Praan" is also a favorite at our house for the treadmill, cleaning the kitchen, or imitating Matt. Rob is actually thinking of instituting a two minute boogie in th middle of the three hour film class this semester. This idea comes from friend Curtis's 4:00 Groove and also from Liz Lemon's One Minute Dance Party on 30 Rock. I don't know. Do you think the students will go for it? What will he play?

Buckets of Snow

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As the local readers are already too aware, we've had a few days with tons of snow. At the beginning of Christmas break, it was like this all day long on Monday. This week on Monday and Tuesday, it was deceptively light snow, but incredibly persistent. Shoveling three times a day didn't help. It just made for very large snowbanks on the side of your driveway. Which I stuck my van into on Tuesday while trying to avoid the truck parked directly behind my driveway. I managed to high center the back bumper on the garbage can at the same time. It was pretty spectacular. Sebastian said "What do we do now?!" and I told him that we get out of the car and go back inside, because that van wasn't going anywhere. My goodhearted neighbor rang the doorbell soon after, and he had a plan. It took three of us to dig out the wheels, push from behind and drive off the garbage can, but it worked and we did it without any plaintive phone calls to Rob or intervention from the car clu

Christmas at last

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A few days before Christmas we found out that my mom would be joining us, along with my sister. It meant that we had more adults, more jigsaw puzzling, less work, and more stockings. A very nice Christmas surprise. This was a very pretty table that I had nothing to do with. Rob made his tradtional New Mexican enchiladas from the Almagordo Fire Station breakfast where his mother's family first had them (albeit without the fried egg on top). He set the table and he always washes the china, crystal, and silver himself. Fantastic. After dinner, the kids were so excited (and adults were already so tired) that we dispensed with all the cruel traditions and let them open their presents before the Christmas Eve program. They got their jammies (as seen above), and they opened their presents to each other (which we used to do in my family growing up). This is really the first year they've had their own money to buy presents with, instead of just wrapping something I'd bought and p

Our Totally Rockin' Sunbeam Christmas Extravaganza

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Rob and I were asked to take over Sebi's class for the Christmas lesson. We were down with that since we've done Maddie and Will's classes both recently. We decided to take it from a wise person's point of view and so we made these awesome crowns and brought in our Fisher Price nativity set and taught them to sing "We Three Kings" and led them all over the chapel following the little gold foil stars we'd stuck up until we got to the nativity picture. We've decided that art projects and dress ups are the way to go. You can see the kids thought so too. The crowns say that they are "suitable for a princess party or purim". Oy vey, what would they say if they knew where we used them?

A Fluffy Christmas

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This was Joss's favorite pasttime during the holiday season. He would roll up next to the tree, pull the lights off and shake them up and down. Then he'd pull them out as far as he could and roll around more on the floor. He managed to get them around his neck a few times. We have thought that he might be allergic to something because he gets such red cheeks and forehead, but now we've about concluded that this is merely rug burn. You see, he rolls around and when he wants to go forward instead of side to side, he has to steer with his face. He is still just on the cusp of crawling, where he's been for a week or so. Doesn't quite have the arm strength, although he can do a lovely down dog. Here was Fluffy's first snowfall. His snowsuit has lost its mittens and booties, which I guess means that he's a poor fourth child. But he loved being out there with all of his siblings squealing and throwing snowballs and making snow angels. And here he is Christmas m

Traditions of the Season

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This post is just to remember some of what is going on at Christmas. This is our nativity set which Kathy bought for us our first or second Christmas. I love it, Rob loves it, it reminds me of the set I grew up with, and we both agree on it. "It's a Christmas MIRACLE!" as her husband would say. Here is Maddie's stocking as made by grandma. My mom started making these when she was a freshman at BYU, sewing one for each of her parents as their Christmas presents that year. She bought the supplies on Woolworth's on Center Street. Now she has made them for siblings and in-laws and nieces and nephews and children and grandchildren. They've gotten more complicated through the years, especially once Rob was around with his ideas. Have I mentioned that Rob is Idea Man? I've told him that if he were a superhero he'd be named Captain Brainstorm and his uniform would have a big BS on the chest with a lightning bolt in the middle. He's got grandma making mo

I Think I May Have Forgotten To Mention . . .

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that Sebastian broke his arm. He did it on December 1st, deciding I suppose, that getting a dead tree in one's Playmobil advent calendar wasn't enough excitement. It happened at recess at preschool when he (according to reports) slid down the slide and jumped off the side before he got to the bottom. They tried to reach me, but my cell phone wasn't nearly loud enough to hear over the din in the toy aisle at Target, so they called Rob just as he was finished teaching (his office is in the same building as the preschool). They'd had someone look at it who said it wasn't broken, so I stupidly believed them even though Sebi was really in pain. Then I called our neighbor who is an ER doctor, and he graciously and generously hopped on his bicycle and made a house call since we had two sleeping boys. He was so good with Sebi. But he said it needed an X-ray, which was the conclusion I was coming to as well. We packed a bag full of treats and iPods and blanket and went to t