There's no place like home . . .

. . . for the holidays. This week, not surprisingly, has been pretty full of family events and holiday celebrations. The early part of the week was mostly spent getting ready for Thanksgiving (and going to Jacob's house, which is one of Andrew's new hobbies). Wednesday afternoon, we headed down to Cedar City for the long holiday weekend.

The weather, for the most part, was beautiful and clear--although it was a bit cold in Cedar City. We woke up Thursday morning to snow, which Dan and Robert shoveled off with (or in spite of) Andrew's help. Andrew was mostly just thrilled to be going outside, which was one of his most frequent (and frequently denied) requests all week.



Later that morning, we drove down to Saint George, to help Sarah in her Thanksgiving preparations, prior to our group trip to Sarah's inlaws home for our Thanksgiving feast. On the way, of course, we had to stop at a local Mexican dive (Dan would know the name, but he's not here for me to ask--a sneak peak at Bubby and Poppy's blog tells me it was Alvaro's), to get enough food to sustain us until the Big Meal. Sarah had preparations pretty well underway (despite the numerous children underfoot), so all Dan and I really had to do was child patrol (which was easier said than done, especially since Andrew and Lydia, in typical toddler fashion, were really only interested in the specific toy the other one had).

We were a little late heading over to the Wells' home for dinner--not because we weren't ready on time, but because we were waiting for Sarah's husband, Aaron, to get off his shift at the hospital. Dinner, in the grand tradition of Thanksgivings all over the world, was quite good and quite chaotic. Sarah's in-laws had three of their children there, with attendant children, in addition to Robert, Trisha, and our little brood. To add to the confusion, Sarah's mother-in-law had not apparently reckoned on the toddlers when she set the tables (which were beautifully laid), so there was an additional moment of disorientation while we sorted out where to put everyone. (I suppose she must have thought that the little kids could sit on their parents laps, but there was no way this would work with Andrew, who not only weighs too much, but would never sit still that long without restraints). Dan and I ended up at the kid's table with Andrew. I never knew that the conversation of a group of eight year olds could be so, well, odd. It was a fascinating ethnographic experience to follow the topics that seem to obsess them (Hannah Montana, scary movies, the longest book they've ever read . . .).

I'm not entirely sure what happened in the aftermath of dinner (though I'm told that Aaron ate a heroic amount of food, and I'm sure the others weren't far behind), since we took Andrew back to Sarah's house for a late nap, where he was shortly joined by his cousin Lydia, and I ended up on baby duty while everyone else went back for more food. I didn't mind so much--I did some reading, surfed the web a bit, and got to enjoy a little alone time (a scarce, but necessary, commodity for an introvert at a family gathering!)--at least, not until Lydia woke up screaming and wouldn't let me touch her, followed within a matter of minutes by a crying Andrew. Lydia finally let me pick her up, but then I had to hold her and Andrew, both sobbing heart-brokenly, until Sarah could come rescue me. I have seldom been so happy to see another person--and my relief was nothing compared to Lydia's! That evening, after Andrew went to bed, Dan and I played Crowns with Robert and Trisha, and Trisha, of course, won handily.

Friday was another big day--at least for the Rogers' family. Trisha's family regularly holds a family get-together called "Dutch Christmas" (so-called because Trisha's grandmother hailed from Holland). This year, Dutch Christmas was at a park in Ivins, just outside St. George, which was a perfect site, as it provided ample room for the kids to run around. Andrew, of course, divided his time and attention between the tallest slide on the playground and the sandbox (we'll spare you a description of how much sand we found in his diaper).


He also discovered a latent talent for soccer, as he gleefully ran around the field saying, "kick, kick" and knocking the ball around.



Of course, the real highlight of Dutch Christmas (besides the food, of course) is the gift exchange. Traditionally, every gift comes with a poem that gives clues to the contents of the gift as well as the giver's identity. Since Trisha gave Dan and I the assignment of writing her poem, this momentarily stumped the audience, who figured out what the gift was and who it was from, but couldn't quite figure out the poem, as it wasn't Trisha's style or Robert's. I had written a particularly flowery piece to describe the "tea-party-in-a-box" that Trisha put together, with a brief nod to T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (specifically, a nod to the oft-repeated refrain, "in the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo"), and was irrationally pleased when Dan's cousin and her father both asked, "who here knows T.S. Eliot?"



At any rate, the party seemed to be a success--at least, until a cold north wind broke up the festivities (well, they were relocated to the nearby home of one of the family members). We were among the first to leave, a mere four hours or so after the party started. On our way home, we stopped at yet another Mexican restaurant (this time, Albertos), where Dan and I enjoyed burritos of various flavors, and Andrew had his first experience of carne asada fries (french fries covered with meat, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and some kind of salsa)--actually, I think most of the fries were eaten by his parents and his cousin Lydia. Andrew was too tired by then to enjoy much. Andrew had a wonderful time running around with hordes of cousins and second cousins, but as a result of all this spent energy and no nap, he was asleep before we hit the freeway shortly after five p.m., and only woke up for a little while when we reached home before zonking out for the night. We played cards again that night, a pretty competitive game of hand and foot--competitive, that is, until Robert and Trisha completely shut us out in the last hand, thereby effectively trouncing us.

Trisha organized a family tea party for Saturday morning. (And by "organized," I mean that she gave Dan and I the assignment of making the scones that constituted most of the repast!). I woke up to the smell of bacon frying and realized I was being remiss in my duties--I went upstairs to help Dan make the scones, one batch savory (bacon and cheddar scones), and one sweet (sour cream scones with a lemon glaze). The scones, especially the sweet ones, were a big hit. We also had some nice peach tea in Trisha's beautiful china tea set--even Andrew is slowly learning how to treat Trisha's tea cups gently. After breakfast, we took Andrew over to Discovery park--which is an absolutely amazing park for little kids, with a big fortress, lots of slides and swings, and creatively themed decorations. Andrew had fun sliding on the slides (in the snow, which meant he was soaked by the time we were done), but as the morning was brisk and cold (and Andrew was due for lunch and a nap), we didn't stay as long as Andrew would have liked.

Saturday afternoon, Sarah brought her kids up to Cedar City. While the men stayed home to hang up Christmas lights, we took Jake, Katie, and Andrew to the Cedar City Children's Christmas festival. (Lydia stayed home to nap, and I don't think any of the husbands were particularly disappointed at being left home). I wasn't sure quite what to expect from a small town festival, but I was pleasantly surprised by the intricate arrangements of Christmas trees that were set up. As you can see from the pictures below, they had trees for almost any child's (and some not-so-young children's) fancy.

For Trisha, of course, there was a miniature tea party, courtesy of Alice in Wonderland.



For all the little girls, there was an enchanted collection, with trees devoted to each of the Disney princesses (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Ariel--there was even a Tinkerbell tree).



And of course, Jake's favorite part was the pirate cove.

I also had to include a few pictures for some of Andrew's absent cousins--the care bear, tree, of course, is for Emi.

The festival also had an elaborate "North Pole" set-up, with stuffed bears, penguins, wolves, etc. arranged artistically in a room that could only be entered via an igloo. Plastic snow-flakes and icicles dangled from the ceiling, testimony not only to someone's creativity, but to hundreds of volunteer hours putting everything together. Of course, since we arrived at the festival during the local Christmas parade, Santa was "out to lunch," but the kids still enjoyed looking at the decorations. Andrew, in particular, surprised me by pointing to one of the reindeer (they had all 9: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph) and announcing delightedly: "caribou!" That he knew this word is no doubt testimony to the fact that he's watched the "Baby Noah" video (of the Baby Einstein group) way too many times--but it does also suggest that *some* learning happens when watching those videos, contrary to recent published reports.




Downstairs, they also had a few activities for children and some booths selling Christmas crafts. While Sarah and Trisha browsed, Andrew and Katie decorated sugar cookies. (For Andrew, this consisted of dumping as much of every kind of sprinkle as possible on his cookie. And, for a first in his cookie eating career, he actually ate the entire cookie, instead of just licking off the frosting. Of course, he also made a huge mess in the process . . .)



We came back to find that the boys had been successful in stringing their Christmas lights, and celebrated our mutually successful excursions by going to Bruno's, a local place that serves primarily Italian type food. While the grown-ups had some very tasty pizza, the kids worked on spaghetti and meatballs. Andrew split a children's portion with Katie--and if he could have licked his plate, I think he would have. He not only polished off all of his pasta, but he also finished off Lydia's leftovers. We returned home happy and well-fed, and while we attempted to play cards (hand and foot again) after the little kids had gone to bed, our efforts were aborted by Lydia's stubborn refusal to follow the plan and actually go to sleep. After Lydia had screamed in her crib for twenty or thirty minutes, Sarah gave up and packed her kids up for home. After they left, Dan and I played a couple rounds of pincochle with his parents (they won both times--I'm noticing that our track record for games wasn't very good this weekend!) before calling it quits.

We had a leisurely morning this morning--I even got to sleep until almost eight o' clock! (Andrew, of course, was up at quarter to six, but since he promptly went upstairs to have a "tea party" with his Bubby, I wasn't much fazed by that). We went to sacrament meeting with Robert and Trisha (where Andrew transformed into his evil twin Andy and had to be taken out in the hall for almost half of the meeting) before heading back up to Provo. It's been a nice weekend--nice to be "home" in Cedar City with Dan's family, and nice to be home again facing the prospects of our own beds.

various and sundry

Like most of the weeks we chronicle, this week was distinctive mostly for being fairly undistinguished (with one or two minor exceptions, to be noted below). On Monday Andrew and I spent some time with Jeni and her kids (an expedition to Target, followed by lunch). On Tuesday, my friend Karin dropped her son Ezra off for a play date of sorts with Andrew while she went to the dentist (I say "of sorts" because it was a last minute arrangement, and Andrew was still napping when Ezra arrived). Tuesday was a red-letter day for me: I sent electronic copies of my full dissertation to my committee. That means, basically, that I don't have to do any more dissertation writing until after my defense (exactly one month from today). I'm pretty excited to actually be able to see the end of my degree!


(This is a picture of Andrew's ideal place setting--the one he put together for himself for breakfast the other day. We're not sure what all the spoons are for.)

Wednesday, besides being the midpoint of the week, was also easily the lowest point of the week. I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach pains, followed by other inevitable symptoms of the flu (a diagnosis confirmed by a doctor later that day). This meant that I was too miserable to do much that day--my poor mom had to be Andrew's de facto mom, since I wasn't up to much. Luckily, it was only a 24 hour bug, and even more luckily, no one else caught it (at least, not as of this writing). As a result of all this, however, Thursday and Friday were pretty quiet, as I was still recuperating and I didn't want to take Andrew anywhere that he could infect other kids (especially since we weren't sure if he was going to get sick or not).

We entertained ourselves Friday morning by making a couple batches of scone recipes (in pursuit of the task Bubby set for us, to find some good recipes for scones). We made two more batches on Saturday. I have to say, Andrew loves "helping" his mom, but I could generally do things much faster without his "help"! Saturday we had a big family celebration--since Dan and I are going to Southern Utah for Thanksgiving, this was in lieu of our family Thanksgiving celebration. Jeni orchestrated our brunch--we had biscuits and gravy, crepes, sausage, and hashbrowns. The scones weren't initially part of the menu, but I thought it was a good opportunity to find lots of taste testers for our scones. Unfortunately, the several dozen scones we ended up with were way too much, on top of all the other food (which was quite good, if a little short on fruits or vegetables. I don't count the peach pie filling that went with the crepes). So if anyone in our neighborhood would like to try a scone . . . The winner seemed to be the lemon blueberry scone, but as this was by far the most frustrating recipe (my original attempt ended in the garbage) and the main attraction seemed to be the lemon glaze, Dan and I decided that next time we'll opt for a simpler recipe and just put the glaze on top of it.


(Andrew holding Brielle, his new favorite baby. He's finally getting over his habit of saying her name several dozen times a day, but when I asked him what the name of one of his baby dolls was the other day, he said, "Brielle.")




(You'll notice that Andrew is looking at Brielle, not the camera. He wasn't very happy that Jared had taken Brielle away--he thought it was still his turn to hold her!)

After lunch, we put Andrew down for his nap and his Tolley cousins went home for theirs (although I understand not altogether successfully). Mitcee was resting upstairs, so while she and Andrew slept, Jared and Dan went over to the Tolleys to play games on their Wii (especially since Jared and Mitcee brought their controllers with them, so they could play four players at a time). After Andrew woke up, Mitcee and I joined them. This was my first time on a Wii, but I have to admit I enjoyed it--we played Mario and Sonic Olympics (or something like that), which actually required you to do some of the motions for the various sporting events. I was horrible, Dan marginally better, but all of us had fun. (I'm a little embarrassed to confess that my arms are a little sore today--I think from the rowing competition!)


(Not to be outdone, Emi also insisted on holding Brielle).



For a week that had some inauspicious moments, the week ended well. Dan and I both taught lessons today (I had the Relief Society lesson, and Dan was substituting in Elder's Quorum), which was kind of fun because it meant we got to discuss the lesson during the week, which otherwise almost never happens. Andrew continues to entertain us--lately, he's started singing with us while we sing him songs before bed. And although he hasn't got a clue what a tune is, nor does he know all the words, he's pretty persistent. (He's almost got all the letters done in "ABC" though he doesn't always get them in the right order). And it's pretty entertaining to hear him burst out at random moments with phrases from songs: "Temple, house of God." "Chapel doors." "Mommies shush" (from the "wheels on the bus"), etc.

We hope that, heading into the holiday season, you and all of yours are well and happy.

Veteran's Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.--John McCrae (1872-1918)

***

After the excitement of the past couple weeks, we don't have as much to report, so I thought I'd demonstrate a little of my literary background by introducing a poem relevant to veteran's day. (Dan says I'm trying to keep up with the Justin's . . . I mean Jones's).

Some highlights from the week: (Justin will, I'm sure, accuse us again of devoting too much time to the excretory functions of our son, but this one is merited.) Andrew went to the bathroom on the potty for the first time! We were quite excited, although less excited about the prospect of potty training that now seems to loom in his future. (Although probably not for some time, as subsequent attempts to repeat this feat produced absolutely nothing).

On Wednesday, desperate to amuse ourselves and our kids (and also trying to fulfill Bubby's request that I find a scone recipe for Thanksgiving), Jeni and I hosted a tea-party for the kids. Bubby would be so proud of us--we had scones, hot chocolate (in little mugs and saucers), "fairy bread" (bread and butter with sprinkles), cucumber sandwiches, and little carrot-cake cupcakes. I'm not sure that the kids enjoyed it quite as much as Jeni and I did, but we all had a good time. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so pictures will be forthcoming once I get them from Jeni.

We've been enjoying a beautiful late "Indian Summer," with mild daytime temperatures and sunshine, and we've tried to take full advantage of that. Andrew has been to the park almost every day this week, and we've been twice to feed the ducks. On Saturday, Dan and I took him to the park and Dan snapped photos while Andrew fed the ducks goldfish (well, and alternated with sitting on the rocks and feeding himself said goldfish). It really was a beautiful day, and we noticed for the first time the brightly colored fish in the pond. (You can see the red shapes in the second photo here).







This morning, Dan and I both gave talks in Sacrament meeting on the Proclamation on the Family. The youth speaker, who was supposed to take twelve minutes (the other youth speaker apparently did a bunk), only spoke for about five, so when I got up to speak there were a full forty minutes left in the meeting. Luckily for me and Dan (although perhaps not so fortunately for the audience), I had plenty of material (read: I can be long-winded), so I was able to take up a fair amount of time, leaving Dan just enough time for his talk. The only real hitch was when Andrew escaped from the watchful eye of his father and ran up to the front of the chapel, mounted the steps to the podium, and came to stand directly behind me, from which position he was quickly rescued by his father. Mine, of course, was the wordy, theoretical talk; Dan actually made people laugh several times. And we know his talk was a big hit with the younger crowd, because an eleven-year-old boy in the ward told us as we were leaving church that he liked Dan's talk (and even repeated part of it to demonstrate that he'd listened to it), and then proceeded to tell Dan all about him as he walked most of the way home with us.

Other than this, the week has been pretty quiet and uneventful. I workshopped my last chapter with my dissertation group on Friday, and am just waiting for word from my advisor before making the final changes and sending the whole thing to my committee (for me, this is good news! The end is actually in sight). Andrew and I played, Dan worked, and the week passed.


(Andrew, modeling a pair of his mother's pants. Obviously, he still has a little room to grow).

tales of the road weary

We have officially decided that we're tired of being in the car (seeing as how we have logged anywhere from 2-5 hours every day since Thursday! But we're getting ahead of our story). This week has been an eventful one--so much so that I can't remember what we did on Monday. (I have a vague recollection of taking the kids to Toys R Us and getting Andrew his Christmas present, but such is my current state of mind that I can't remember if that was this week or last week).

On Tuesday we began gearing up for our Halloween festivities. Andrew, Dan, my mom and I went to the ward Halloween party. (My dad--perhaps wisely--opted to stay home). The ward was having a chili cookoff, which sounded promising, but there were several factors that suggested that it might not be such a great idea for a toddler who needs an early bedtime (the ward party began at six). First of all, there were no tables set up in the gym where we were going to eat. While this is fine for grownups, it's pretty difficult for people with children under five. (I realize that they were trying to leave space free for all the Halloween games they had planned, but couldn't they have done the games--or the food--somewhere else? Maybe not.) Then, when they actually started the meal, they had the grownups go through the line first, while the primary children were getting armbands of some sort (presumably for the games later). While this seemed a little backward to me, matters were further compounded when, after most of the adults had already been through the line, an announcement was made stating that the hotdogs were for the children, and the chili was for the adults--so could the adults please not take the hotdogs. (Of course, by this point, almost every adult who had been through the line had taken a hotdog--after all, that was the first real food item encountered in the buffet line). Anyway, it was pretty chaotic, hard--if not impossible--to keep Andrew close enough to us to feed him (not to mention the difficulty of feeding him a hotdog with ketchup and not getting any food on any of our costumes . . . ). After about forty minutes of this, Dan--ever the party animal--suggested rather imperatively that we should probably go home and put the boy to bed. So we did.



Wednesday, of course, the celebrations of All Hallows Eve continued. I took Andrew to the library in the morning for story hour (wearing his tiger costume, because he insisted on putting it on that morning). Of course, since nearly every other child there was dressed up, this wasn't an issue. I'm not quite sure I bother with story hour, except perhaps out of some mistaken idea that Andrew would like it. Sometimes he does like the singing--for about two minutes. After that, he would rather wander around the bookshelves and play with the drinking fountain. And because it was Halloween, there were a lot more people there than would normally have been there during story time. However, one good thing did come of it--I ran into an old friend of ours from State College, Alicia (sp?) Gee, and her two youngest. (For those of you who know the Gee family, you might be interested to know that they are expecting their fourth baby in the next couple of weeks).

That evening, Jeni and Samuel brought their kids over to go trick-or-treating with Andrew and Grandma, while they took advantage of the child-free time to go to the temple. I'd forgotten how much fun Halloween can be with small children around--it didn't take Andrew very long to figure out that if he rang the doorbell someone would appear with candy, although he never did quite master the "trick-or-treat" at the appropriate moment. (Funny story: I'd spent some time earlier in the week trying to explain the concept of trick or treat and trying to get Andrew to say it. At one point, I asked him: "What does a tiger say?" Andrew responded promptly: "roar." When I asked, "What does Andrew say?" Andrew responded, "trick-or-treat."). Things went pretty smoothly until we got to the neighboring street, where a couple of the neighbors had gotten way into the halloween spirit. One yard had giant spiders festooning the trees, witches at a cauldron, skeletal pirates beneath a pirate flag climbing down the roof, and pirate gold half buried near the front door (along with assorted graves and skeletons). At any rate, Emi and Jacob, who were both old enough to know that this stuff was "scary" refused to go up to the door (until we explained that everything there was fake--it wasn't real--and even then they weren't really keen on the idea). Andrew did just fine until we got across the street, where the neighbors had set up some kind of softball match between skeleton figures. This wasn't too bad--what broke Andrew was the cheerleader in a coffin who sat up right when we were standing next to her. Andrew immediately turned around, clutched me, started crying, and refused to move. After that, he started repeating the new phrase he'd learned from his cousins: "I scared!" It took a great deal of persuasion to actually get him to the door (where the three-year-old who was currently manning the door wouldn't actually open the door, having been wisely instructed by her dad not to open the door to strangers. Her dad, who was out in the street talking to some other neighbors, had to come open the door for us and talk her into giving us the candy.) Despite the trauma, I think the pleasures of the candy hunt overcame any lingering effects of the scary houses.



Thursday afternoon, after Andrew woke up from his nap, we loaded up the car, picked Dan up early from work, and drove down to Cedar City where we were planning on spending the weekend). Andrew, of course, was thrilled to be going to see his Bubby and Poppy. And Jake and Katie and Wee-wee. (The picture below has nothing to do with the narrative--Andrew just became fascinated with a pair of particularly shiny--and correspondingly frivolous--shoes of mine and wore them around for a good twenty minutes).



Friday morning, bright and early, we left Andrew with his Bubby and drove down to Las Vegas, where I planned to spend the morning at the UNLV library (whoever goes to Vegas to go to the library?), looking at some microfilm of an old Nevada newspaper for one of my dissertation chapters. I wish I could say that my search was incredibly fruitful, that I uncovered something transformational, but actually I didn't find a whole lot that I didn't already know, although at least I can have the virtuous satisfaction of having tried (and I got some good material for a few more footnotes--the hundred or so I already have in the chapter clearly not being enough!!). We stopped at In-N-Out Burgers on our way out of Vegas. After consuming our own repast, Dan went through the line again to get some for Dan's sister Sarah and her husband Aaron.

Upon our return to Cedar City, we discovered that the party had started without us--Sarah and Aaron and their brood, as well as Dan's brother Matt and his wife Laurie, were hanging out at the house and entertaining our son. (So successfully, apparently, that he had time only for a nodding glance at his mother, as unfazed by her reappearance as he was by her disappearance earlier in the day. He was more interested in trying to play "light-sabers" with his older cousins.) We had a yummy dinner of pizza from Bruno's and hung out for a while before Sarah had to head back to St. George to put the kids to bed. (Oh, and before I had to spend a Herculean hour and a half trying to get my over-tired, over-excited little boy to sleep. Of course, it wasn't until our last night in Cedar City that I actually figured out the trick of getting him to sleep in a new place).

Saturday was also a busy day--it was Aaron's graduation from the radiology program he's been attending the last couple of years. (And the whole reason we were in Southern Utah in the first place). Although Dan and I weren't able to attend the graduation itself (there weren't enough tickets for us, and besides, Andrew was napping), we were able to help Sarah prepare for the graduation party afterward. Sarah had a magnificent Hawaiian themed party all planned out--she is clearly the consummate party-planner (I wish I had a fraction of her creativity in this regard!). Of course, having brought the camera with us to St. George for the express purpose of taking pictures with it, we failed to take a single picture. So, either you'll have to use your imagination, or you can check out Dan's parents' blog. Andrew and I unfortunately had to leave the party early in order to get an acceptable bedtime, but I'm told we didn't actually miss much but the clean up. (Of course, they're probably just saying this to make me feel better . . .)

This morning, the last of our stay, we were all treated to a fritatta breakfast (courtesy of Robert) and tea in real tea cups (courtesy of Trisha). Andrew was even allowed a mini-tea cup of his own (although he wasn't allowed anything more than water, having seriously compromised his standing with his Bubby Saturday morning by threatening to spill his hot chocolate and generally act the part of a "bull in a china shop" as Trisha put it). Probably Andrew's major accomplishment of the weekend was learning all the parts and pieces of the toy tea set that Trisha keeps for the grandkids--by Sunday, he knew exactly where the "sugar" was kept, which piece was the creamer, and how to prepare "tea" by mixing sugar and cream into the cups (and then foisting the imaginary tea on whomever was in the vicinity!)





Of course, our weekly adventure wasn't yet over; after breakfast, we loaded up the car again, drove the three hours back to Provo, where we ate, changed into our church clothes, and headed to Springville, where Jeni and Samuel were blessing their baby, Enoch. Although the blessing itself was sweet, and it was wonderful to see so many family members (Jared and Mitcee came with their kids, and even my aunt Dahnelle showed up), it was a bit of a struggle to keep the kids under control for the whole of sacrament meeting, especially since they (read: Jacob, Joshua, and Andrew) were feeding off each other's energy, not to mention their sugar infusion (both Mitcee and Dahnelle provided candy). After church we tried, unsuccessfully, to get Andrew (and his parents) to nap before heading south once more (this time to Mapleton) for a family dinner. The party was hosted by Samuel's parents and was both a celebration of Enoch's blessing and a Guy Fawkes' day party ("remember, remember, the fifth of November . . ."). Although why we celebrate a day when some guy (incidentally, Guy Fawkes is supposedly the origin of the use of the word "guy" to refer to people) failed to blow up Parliament, I'm not actually sure. But the food--especially the bread pudding (Bubby would be jealous)--was quite good. Andrew didn't eat much of the dinner, but he probably ate about half of my pudding. And, thankfully, fell quickly asleep after arriving home.