Family pictures

This week has been fairly quiet and uneventful for us: school, preschool, work. We did, however, pick up our family pictures (taken at M&R Gallery in SG) and I think they turned out pretty well--for our generally not-so photogenic family. (We even got a good picture of Dan!)

One year older, maybe not wiser

As most of my readers know, I had a birthday last week. It wasn't exactly the big celebration you might expect--it was on Wednesday, so it got buried in mid-week stuff. Besides, we played enough last weekend to make up for it. (And Dan reminds me that I'm getting some very expensive family portraits as my present). However, I did get to go to book club--always a highlight for me. What could be better than talking about books for hours? With some fun, smart ladies? (Except of course, I always talk too much. Imagine that. Me, talk too much about books? Impossible).

Thursday night I had writer's group, so it wasn't until Friday that Dan and I actually got to spend some time together after the kids went to bed. We watched Crazy, Stupid Love, which we both enjoyed up until the end when one of the teen characters did something hugely inappropriate. Bleh.

On Saturday, we played wii games with the kids, watched the weather turn from rain to blowing snow, and then we divided and conquered. I took Evelyn to see Beauty in the Beast in 3D. She wore her Belle dress. I'm not a huge fan of 3D (the glasses bother me--it doesn't help that I have to wear them over my glasses), but it was a fun nostalgic indulgence to see the movie in theatre. I still remember seeing it when it first came out. I loved it.

I think Evelyn's favorite part might have been the Tangled short that showed before the movie. Personally, I thought one of the coolest things was the 3D Hobbit preview--that, or maybe Pixar's new animated movie, Brave. What can I say? I'm a sucker for red-headed heroines. (I still remember back in high school when my freshman English teacher, Mr. Williams, taught us about archetypes and mentioned red-headed heroines as an extremely common archetype in fantasy. I felt so proud.)

Dan and Andrew went to the SUU basketball game, where I'm told the women (and later, the men) won their games.


Overall, a pretty good week. Although I have to admit I cried this morning when I heard that Joe Paterno had died. It was hard not to--I don't think you can live in State College without feeling his influence in the community. Even if he made a mistake (in regards to the whole child abuse scandal), he still did a lot of good for the community and the university. I think he'll be missed. Plus, we were neighbors, almost. He lived just on the other side of the park behind the duplex we lived in our last 3 years (how's that for a hard to follow sentence?)

Tooting our horn (well, Andrew's)

We found out today that Andrew's little story got second place in the district Reflections contest. Since his age category includes preschool through 2nd grade, that's not bad for a kindergartner!

Anyway, now his mom needs to work on keeping all her own writing ambitions in check so she doesn't foist them on her son . . .

A long weekend

I love long weekends.

I love that we don't have anywhere urgent to be.

I love that my husband gets to be home on Monday.

I also love that I'm finally feeling human again after what felt like the world's longest cold last week. (Said cold is also the reason I'm not going to write much about last week--I don't remember a whole lot of it, except that my voice gave out on Thursday and I had to cancel class. I can't remember the last time I did that. I'm sure my students didn't care, but I did.)

Our weekend so far has been lovely: we spent Friday and Saturday night at Bubby and Poppy's condo, enjoying the nicer weather to the south of us. Dan and I found a sitter (thanks to Sarah's connections) and went to the temple Saturday morning--after, of course, the breakfast at Golden Corral that Bubby and Poppy talked up. Dan really enjoyed their grits. Andrew and Evelyn liked that they could have whatever they wanted (including a flower-shaped donut). I liked that I didn't have to think about cooking early in the morning.

After our temple visit, we got lunch at Jimmy Johns and ate it outside at a park. Then we took the kids on an extended walk/scooter ride (again, thanks to Sarah for leaving her kids' scooters at the condo--Lydia's scooter is just the right side for Miss Priss). The weather was gorgeous--sunny, warmish (almost 60 degrees!) and the perfect antidote to the January blahs. It was almost enough to make me forget I have a birthday coming up. Almost.

Tomorrow we're hoping to take advantage of the free National Parks weekend and go hiking in Kolob--but we'll see. The kids and I stayed home from church today because Andrew's developing a hacking cough--hopefully he feels enough better tomorrow to brave the outdoors.

We hope all our readers have similarly lovely things planned for their long weekend!

At Segullah again

I'm posting over at Segullah today. If you follow this blog regularly, you'll recognize my opening lines from Sunday's post.

Also, somehow I failed to notice that my last post was also my 500th post. I think that's pretty impressive. Hard to believe I've been at this for over five years now.

January cruelties

I know T.S. Eliot famously claimed that "April is the cruelest month," but I think January has its moments.

It's definitely two-faced, like its Roman namesake, Janus. A time of endings and beginnings. A time of let-down after the holiday season--but also a return to routines (something I, personally, welcome after holiday madness).

This last week was also decidedly schizophrenic in its weather. We had some blissfully warm days (in the 50s, I think) where the kids played outside, we went on bike rides, and then . . . we got snow again. I know snow is right for January, but somehow it seems harder to endure the cold after that brief flirtation with warmth. Urgh.

Or maybe it's just that, after the anticipation of the holiday, our holiday is now over and we (Dan and I) start classes again tomorrow (the kids started last week). Or that January stretches out in front of me without much that's anticipation worthy. (And I don't count my birthday. I'm going to be 35. For some reason, that sounds old. Or at least, I can't pretend I'm young any more).

(Can you tell that the cold weather brought a cold with it? Maybe I should have made Dan write this one!)

Anyway, this reads more like a rant than a recap, sorry. We really didn't do much that was noteworthy, unless you want accounts of laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, writing/revising syllabi, etc. Andrew had his last Jr. Jazz basketball session yesterday (he's decided he likes it) and Evelyn went to a Tangled birthday part. Andrew was decidedly jealous, although if he'd really had to go through the princess stuff, he might not be. I'm in the grips of revising a project for my former advisor's book (yesterday I revised 5 different syllabi for this!).

In any case, life marches on. Hopefully next week we'll have something interesting to report! Then again, looking at that last line, interesting can sometimes be overrated (esp. when it's something bad).

Maybe I should stop while I'm ahead!

Holiday Recap

Since I took last week off for Christmas, I suppose I owe our two faithful readers some kind of a recap. We had a genuinely lovely Christmas--not too busy, but we had enough things to do that the kids (generally) didn't get bored.

Here are some highlights:

*Dan and I got our grades submitted. And yes--this is a highlight. There's something so satisfying about being done!

*Andrew turned six. As a Christmas Eve baby, his birthday often gets a little overlooked in the festivities, but he still enjoyed opening presents from cousins and Bubby and Poppy.

 

 *The annual nativity re-enactment. We had a hard time getting everyone posed for the picture (as you  might tell from these shots). Andrew was pouting because he didn't want to be Joseph if Katie wasn't going to be Mary, but it was decided by the powers that be (i.e., Bubby) that it was someone else's turn.

Maggie made a cute angel, but her halo only lasted about ten seconds and she never did stay put.

I'm not sure what Evelyn thought about the whole thing. Her expression in all of the pictures is a bit puzzling.

I guess she really just wanted to dance.

Sarah made really cute matching pajamas for all the kids (the little girls even got pajamas for their dolls). It didn't take Jake very long to figure out that he could spell his name with these letters, so right after this picture he had Andrew, Katie and Evelyn lining up.

The kids got pillow pets to go with their pajamas (luckily, Sarah had mentioned this to me earlier, so my kids got some too). I wasn't sure what to think, but the kids have really enjoyed them. The dolphin hasn't quite ousted Dolly, but maybe there's still hope.

 

 *Christmas morning. We did the stockings at our house before dressing up for 9 o'clock church with Bubby and Poppy (they were singing in their ward choir). Then we went back to Bubby and  Poppy's for a nice brunch and more presents.

Santa conveniently brought Evelyn a doll and a matching doll dress. (Lydia got a similar princess doll--only hers was Ariel. You'd think Santa  compared notes about what the cousins might want.)

Andrew had a new bike, now that he finally knows how to ride one, but he wasn't as excited about it as I'd expected he'd be. I mean, isn't a new bike like the quintessential Christmas present? Maybe he'd be more excited if there wasn't snow outside--or if we'd let him ride it in the house.

Andrew and Evelyn in their Christmas clothes. They weren't really cooperative--this was the best shot I got.

 We opened lots of presents. Mine included a new camera--which is why I don't have very many good pictures from Christmas. I was still trying to figure out how the camera worked. (Seriously. It took me a full day to figure out that you have to lift up the flash for it to work. I couldn't figure out why all the pictures were blurry!)

 

*Visiting with my family.

Monday  morning, we drove up north to spend a few days with my family. We arrived just in time for hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls (our family tradition) and more presents.

Evelyn managed to get injured by a present (I think she stood too close behind Enoch as he enthusiastically showed everyone what he'd gotten). She sported an awesome bandage for a couple of days (she wouldn't let us take it off).

In addition to the usual assortment of presents, my mom decided it would be a good idea to give *all* the grandkids these lazer guns that make noise and have spinning lights. It didn't take long to devolve into a free-for-all and then the guns were forthwith banished to the basement.

 Other highlights of our trip north:

 *My sister introduced me to this crazy Korean drama called Boys over Flowers. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I actually want to know what happens next--subtitles and all.

*I got to have lunch with one of my good friends, Cristie (who was also very pregnant). I also got to see another good friend Emily M. and we had a delightful chat. I feel lucky to know such amazing women.

 *We got to hang out with Jared and his family and consume more pizza than was good for us--and Joshua beat Andrew at Wii bowling, which Andrew found demoralizing but his less sympathetic parents thought was good for him. Plus, Joshua's pretty  much been bowling since he could walk (I wouldn't be surprised if he goes pro some day), so it wasn't like Andrew was going to win anyway.

* We went to the zoo with Sarah and kids. The kids had fun running around and riding the carousel (none of my pictures of that turned out, sadly) and we had fun chatting. Everything was peachy until we went to dinner at Chuck-a-Rama (Sarah was craving bread pudding and Jake loves the all-you-can-eat approach) and it literally turned into "Up-chuck-a-rama", as Maggie threw up all over her mom just as we were about to sit down.

Sarah took Maggie and the girls home, but Jake stayed with us (he refused to move). Needless to say, Dan and I didn't enjoy dinner as much as we would have if Sarah had stayed. Jake and Andrew didn't seem affected--between the two of them, I think they put away five plates of macaroni and cheese.

 

Now we're home and ready to be getting back to our regularly scheduled life. We hope you all had a fabulous--and refreshing--holiday season!