Here we go!

Since I won’t be writing much on my blog during the month of November, I thought I’d tell you a bit about what I will be doing. And the answer? Pretty much typing like mad, just not on the internet. Into a tiny, but quickly growing, little document on my computer. It will be full of typos and terrible grammar. It will not be edited at all. I hope it will make some sense, but that may not always be the case.

Now, I will occasionally make some forays into the world of the blog. Probably to post my word counts. Maybe to say hello if my brain is about to melt (although if my brain is about to melt from writing a novel, I probably won’t take a break to write a blog post).

My preferred goals for word count, btw, are as follows: 2500 words per day, six days per week, so I can finish early (or, more realistically, so that I can aim for that goal, not accomplish it, but still finish by the end of the month).

Along with all this writing, I will be cashing in every single good wifey point I have ever earned while Brice racks up endless good hubby points as he watches our kids so I can write. There will be great imbalance in the ranks of spousey-ness.

And now for the bigger question: What should you do during this terrible month in which you do not have my charming, scintillating, fascinating blog posts ever at your fingertips? Never fear, I have several solutions for you:

*Read the blog of someone else who is completely fabulous. My top suggestions are Shannon Hale (http://oinks.squeetus.com/), LDS birth stories (http://thegiftofgivinglife.com/), Women in the Scriptures (http://womeninthescriptures.blogspot.com/), and—if you’re from my old Taylorsville ward—Michelle Marchant, Sharon Seminario, Jana Jeppson, and Melissa Jones (did I miss anyone whose blog I don’t know about?). Or, if you’re in my foo, Marno’s blog (is there anyone else in our foo who regularly blogs that I don’t know about?).

*Spend all your hard-earned cash buying photographs from my writing buddy Meghan, who is also an awesome photographer: http://www.etsy.com/shop/mrosephotos. You should do this not only because then you will have gorgeous artwork but also because then she can support her writing habit.

*Write a book. Or a play. Or an epic poem. Or a limerick. Or, at the very least, a haiku. It’s good for the soul.

*While away countless hours simply staring at pictures of my family because they’re so stinking cute.

*And, of course, eat waaaaay too much turkey (or, if you’re my brother who finds turkey to be “slimy,” eat some other meaty goodness of your choice).

And I’ll see you again in December!

This picture reminds us of the monkey Steve in
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, when he's trying to grab
Flint's dad's mustache. ... Just believe me on this.

You'll never pay the rent on time!!!

Brice is even happier about our train set than our children are.

Postbath hair.

Have you noticed how many of Addra's pictures involve
food? We have a standard joke around our house:
Jeanna says: "Do you think Addra will eat it?"
And Brice says: "Is it a noun?"

Ferocious tiger.

Don't be fresh with me, young man!

Lovin' on the Opa.

More lovin' on the Opa.

My hero! (Please note the foot in the air as she kisses him.)

A test: Who are we?

If you can pass this recognition test,* then I will officially allow you onto my coveted geek list. If not, you can still enter the ranks of the list by various other actions, many of which involve simply holding a conversation with me (thus proving, by association with geekdom, that you too are a geek).

Enjoy!


*Including identifying Coriel, which means that you recognize the tv show, not just the movie.

The hardest to identify

Getting easier...

And easier...

If you don't recognize us by now, abandon hope!

He's the cool version, after he's mastered all the elements.

Go, Team Avatar! (Toph, Aang, Momo, and Katara)

You Are Not Forgotten

This Friday was the beginning of the end of a long week. For a variety of reasons, I have felt at a low ebb, sort of just slodging through my days, not really sure what I’m doing.

On this particular Friday morning, my daughters and I went down to the church building to a playgroup we have each week with a few other mothers and their children. Amid the chaos of children running around and playing with one another, the grown-ups talk and enjoy the association of adults for an hour or two.

Usually the children get along fairly well. There are, of course, squabbles and accidents and such, but rarely anything to write home about. This day, however, it felt like every time I took a breath, someone was pulling someone’s hair, not sharing, knocking someone over, or just plain complaining. Because my children accounted for approximately a third of the people there, they were involved in at least a third of the incidents.

And then it hit me. This was what I was going to be doing the rest of the day—listening to squabbles, putting out emotional fires. And then Brice would come home from a hard day and we would both be stressed out of our minds and with little end in sight.

Have you ever wished you were a three-year-old again and you could lie on the floor, kick your legs, and cry? Yes, me too.

I could not imagine surviving the day, and so in desperation I started thinking about finding a babysitter for maybe just an hour or two. As I thought, I kept feeling like I should ask the moms there if they knew any babysitters who could watch kids on short notice. As in, tonight. And beautiful, sweet Leslie, an amazing woman with four children ranging from four years to five months, informed me that her family’s plans for the evening had changed and she was available. I wasn’t sure whether to cry with relief or just really fall at her feet in adoration.

So that evening, Brice and I had a couple of beautiful hours of eating together, interrupted only by our server (who never once requested that we give him a treat or take him to the potty), trying on hats, and just talking about the books we were reading. Nothing stressful, nothing terribly serious, just the pure enjoyment of date night.

Then on Saturday, other friends watched our daughters so that we could drive (safely) through the rain to attend the Washington, D.C., Temple and perform work for the dead there. I am always grateful for the opportunity to do this particular work because it reminds me of blessings and promises I have received. I am reminded that God means for us to be powerful and that He has great things in store for us—and has given us the tools we need to accomplish His plans.

Upon returning home, I started finishing up our Halloween costumes. This required that I head up to the attic, where I discovered that our roof has sprung a leak. A leak that had not been dropping on our multitudinous cardboard file boxes, but which instead had been dropping onto my huge plastic tubs of yarn, the few items in our attic that were fully protected from water. That also meant that the floor of the attic (and thus our ceiling) had not received much water at all. And now we know about the leak—if we hadn’t needed to go up on Saturday, there’s no telling exactly how long it would have been before we discovered it.

Also this week I was released from my previous calling as Primary secretary and sustained as the second counselor in the Primary presidency. Not a big change, and barely worth mentioning except for one thing: I miss Sunday School. I miss Relief Society. I miss adults. A tiny part of me was hoping that I’d get to go back. I couldn’t help wondering why I of all people—someone with very little skill in associating with children—was still being asked to serve in the Primary. And it occurred to me that I really needed to know that this calling came from God, not just from some misguided (though loving) individual in my ward. So I knelt, and I asked for a witness that this was what I was supposed to be doing. And a thought entered my mind: your witness will come as you do your work to the best of your ability. And knowing that was enough.

All of these moments bring me to the point:

On Friday, while writing notes to some women in my ward, I was guided to look up a statement that President Dieter F. Uchtdorf made in the Church’s most recent conference:

“Sisters, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, you are not forgotten. No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you with an infinite love….

God loves you because you are His child. He loves you even though at times you may feel lonely or make mistakes.

The love of God and the power of the restored gospel are redemptive and saving. If you will only allow His divine love into your life, it can dress any wound, heal any hurt, and soften any sorrow.

…You are closer to heaven than you suppose. You are destined for more than you can possibly imagine.”*

Each of these little moments of grace, these brief respites from struggle or tiny gifts of guidance over the past few days—they have borne witness to me of this truth. God knows me, He remembers me. There is power and strength in those words:

You are not forgotten.

I am not forgotten.

*http://lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/forget-me-not?lang=eng

Coriel is just sometimes funny.

So, I have to preface the second story by admitting that I’m a little bit (a lot) mortified by Coriel’s increasing tendency to quote from movies or shows we’ve seen. Especially when she doesn’t really understand what she’s quoting. I have a regular internal battle on the subject of how to learn from the shows we watch and also not watch too much. So don’t judge me too harshly. With that said, here we go…

Story #1: Sneaky

Last night at dinner, I was sitting next to Coriel, eating my salad (it should be noted here that Coriel doesn’t like salad unless all the pieces are separate, and then she’ll usually eat them). Suddenly Coriel pops up from her chair and starts mincing toward me, with her fingers up and her eyes squinted—the way you do when you’re being fake-sneaky. She came hoveringly close to me and my bowl of salad.

“What are you doing?” I asked in confusion.

“Sneaking up on your food!” she declared. Then she crept around me and tried to sneak up on my food from the other direction. It wasn’t that she wanted to eat it. She just apparently didn’t want it to see her coming.*

*Happily, later on when I was trying to convince her to try a meatball, some of her food just sneaked up on her and jumped in her mouth. It worked remarkably well and she ate a fair amount of sneaky food that way.

Story #2: Not Quite What I Intended

I was in the kitchen yesterday, putting groceries away in the fridge, when Coriel walked in and stood kind of strangely in front of me. One foot was raised onto her toes so that her hip was shifted upward.

She looked down and behind her and said, “Does this dress make my butt look fat?”

“Where did you get that from?” I asked, perhaps not as calmly as I could have. I was appalled that she could have picked this up at such a young age (and also… she wasn’t wearing a dress).

“Sokka said it,” she explained, and went on to describe where it had happened in a show that we like to watch. Sokka is a boy who was trying to disguise himself from the bad guys, and he’s the comic relief—hence disguising himself as a girl and worrying about his butt.

“Oh, okay,” I said. “No, that dress does not make your butt look fat.”

She left the room and I continued loading the fridge. A minute later I heard sobs emerging from the living room. I ran in to check on my daughter and found her sitting on the couch looking tragic and bereft.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You said something mean to me,” she said amid her tears.

“Oh, what did I say? I didn’t mean to say anything mean to you.” I hate when I make my tender daughter sad.

“You said my butt didn’t look fat!” she sobbed.

I just looked at her for a moment. My lips twitched. I tried to hide a smile. I tried to cover a titter. But I just couldn’t—in mere moments, I was in the midst of a full-fledged belly laugh. Fortunately, she delights in making me and her daddy laugh, so instead of being incensed that I would laugh at her after saying something so mean, she too joined in the laughter.

“Well, I’m sorry for saying something mean,” I told her. “And yes, that dress does make your butt look fat.”

Five (Very Short) Things for Friday

1. Panic has set in.

I only thought it had set in last week. This week it has really set in. I have 11 days left to finish planning my story and somehow gear up to write 50,000 words next month. Am I insane? (Don’t answer that.)

2. How to stop the alien invasion.

I’ve been reading and studying about faith lately in the scriptures. What power comes from it! What strength and ability to do all things that the Lord requires and what your life requires. And—no small thing—joy in your efforts and pains and frustrations (hello, parenting). Hebrews chapter 11 is particularly full of beautiful things to say about faith—how it overcomes fear, teaches prophesy, and… stops the alien invasion. Really. Verse 34: “[Through faith they] turned to flight the armies of the aliens.” See? Told you.*

3. I’m running out of ideas.

Yep, I’ve gotten up to two ideas this morning and already my brain is frazzled. And actually, technically, since I started composing this in my brain last night, I haven’t come up with any ideas this morning. It’s looking to be a long day.

4. Brains for breakfast!

Brice is Running for His Life tomorrow (http://runforyourlives.com/). I sure hope he doesn’t come back a zombie.

5. Addra’s birthday pics.

Adorable one-year-old, enthusiastic three-year-old, wonderful daddy, happy mommy.

*Don’t worry. I do know that “aliens” are foreign conquerors, not little green men.

Really excited about the presents.

Coriel helped me wrap the presents.

And then she helped Addra unwrap and play with them.

Fun bowl from our neighbors Jim and Jean.

A Coriel burrito!

A mommy burrito/trampoline all in one!

She looks like she's crying, but she's actually giggling.

Awesome hair!

She loves jumping off of things.

Note the awesome birthday plate--I made it when I was eightish.

Coriel's photography.

Five Things for Friday

Sooo… An amazing and beautiful blog I discovered* (EEK! I’ve started following way too many blogs!) does this random “five things for Friday” bit. And I thought, “Neato frito! This is a good way to get back to blogging again without committing to a single topic! Rah!” (Tragically, many of my thoughts sound suspiciously like cheerleaders and involve far too many exclamation points.) And without further ado…

1.

Happy Friday the 13th that falls on a 14th! As long as the date is close, I strongly recommend approximations and rounding when it comes to celebrating random events. (For example, why only celebrate one Ides of March when you could celebrate a week? Or did you know that every month has an ides (and it’s not always the 15th)? You could celebrate them all.)

2.

I am sort of freaking out for my NaNoWriMo coming up. I have my general story idea, some characters and such, but I am stuck. And I only have 17 days left to figure it out. The panic is beginning to mount. I’m glad that my friend Meghan is doing NaNoWriMo with me, because then I at least know that someone else is probably somewhat freaking out too. Despite the craziness, though, I am also very excited. I have been meaning to write for years, but I never manage to get around to it. And it really is important to me. Blogging has helped with that a bit, but it’s not enough. So, deep breath, and back to more planning (and attempting to get past the writer’s block that looks more like the Great Wall of China).

3.

The haircut. I sort of have an entire blog post in my brain devoted to this subject. But for now, I’ll be brief. Let us sum it up in one word: short. I’d post pictures, but my sister has them, and I’m too lazy to take more.

4.

Last week was our “annual” (more like triennial) sisters’ trip. We couldn’t get very many of us together this year, and we missed all of the beautiful women in the foo who couldn’t come, but it was still sheer delight (all except for the parts that were sheer torture—it was three sisters all together, after all). What did we do? We shopped, ate, watched movies, made jewelry, shopped some more, ate some more, watched some more movies, went to the temple, ate some more, and went on a “hike.” Did I mention movies? Oh, and we worked on completing unfinished projects (some of us were more successful than others at the “completing” part). And what, you ask, were my daughters doing the whole time? Hanging out with the most awesome husband ever. That’s right, while I was playing with my sisters, Brice was taking time off from work and taking care of the kiddos. Did I mention that he’s awesome? Awesome.

5. 

The daughters continue to be adorable.

Addra’s favorite activities lately are putting toys back in their boxes (WIN!), pulling down books from the bookshelves (less WIN), and eating pretty much everything. Last night we had taco soup, with beans, ground beef, corn, tomato, and onion in it. Our one-year-old ate significantly more of it than our three-year-old. She just loves to eat. She also has this smile that involves her whole face (including all eight teeth); her nose crinkles and her eyes squint and you just have to smile back. At this very moment she is nibbling a carrot from our garden and looking up at me smiling. *Happy sigh.* She isn’t walking yet, but she’s starting to stand a bit without support.

Coriel’s favorite activities lately are writing and typing letters and words. There are letters all over every paper surface these days. She especially loves asking how to type all of our names (she just needs me to spell them out, and she can find most of them on the keyboard). She still hasn’t learned some of the less common letters, but she’s learning more every day. Coriel also loves playing with just about anything. I know many kids get devoted to just one thing, but she has never been that way for very long. She likes just about everything (well, except for food).

Well, that concludes my five things. Thanks for tuning in.

*Thanks, Michelle! http://womeninthescriptures.blogspot.com/

Vacuum Adoration

Trying to vacuum around a one-year-old should be considered an extreme sport. For some reason, this little Addra of ours absolutely adores the vacuum. Perhaps it’s the novelty (what’s this new toy that I only see at most once a month?). Perhaps it’s the noise (it’s louder than I am!). Perhaps she thinks we’ve finally gotten her a pet.

For whatever reason, as soon as the vacuum goes on, Addra goes into this wild craze where she chases after it with great exuberance. It is quite a feat to vacuum around her. At one moment, I must keep from sucking up or squishing her little fingers. Another moment, I must not trip over her when I back up. And then, when I have to move the vacuum cord, I have to keep from choking her with it. 

I believe this picture says it all:

LOVE!

The Countdown

Today is 4 October, T minus 28 days until… NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/)!

If I ever want to achieve that lofty aspiration of being a published novelist, I have to someday actually finish a novel. And judging from the pile of partial blog entries on my compy, finishing is not something at which I excel.

So this year, I’m really serious. I am going to finish a novel in November. Really really. It will only be the first draft, of course, and then that draft may sit on my virtual shelf, gathering virtual dust bunnies, until the end of world. But at least it’s a start.

That means that in one month, there will be radio … er, blog … silence. Except I might try to post my numbers (the goal is 50,000 words in one month) just as a little impetus to keep up. A new friend from my ward is going joining me in this crazy endeavor, and that will be good too. Everyone needs a running partner, you know.

If any of you out there are also aspiring novelists, you should join NaNoWriMo too! Comment here, and I’ll make sure to pester you all through the rest of October and November to keep you going on preparing and then actually writing your novel.

Now imagine me doing some sort of ridiculous cheerleading bit, complete with rhymes and spelling out “NaNoWriMo” with my arms and legs. Hooray!

Miracle

Addra is not much of a sleeper. Lots of reasons, confluence of factors, blah blah blah, la-di-da. The point is that it is very unusual for her to sleep even three or four hours straight without a little help.

Which is why last night was such a miracle. Brice set her down asleep in her bed around 8:45. Usually we say to ourselves, “Okay, great. Now we’ve got thirty minutes before she wakes up again.” But last night, instead, we prayed for a little help. And also for a little more faith.

We didn’t hear from her again until 6:30 in the morning, when Brice accidentally made some loud noise that probably woke her. She slept almost ten hours. Ten hours! Amazing!

I’m so grateful for those moments when we reach out in our imperfect faith and God reaches back, creating experiences so far beyond our comprehension and imagination. What is in store for Addra’s sleeping habits I do not know. But I do know that last night was a miracle.

Crepes and General Conference

This week, Coriel has been fascinated with pancakes. She’s been requesting them, usually at massively inconvenient moments. Like when I’m nursing Addra, or in the bathroom, or getting us ready to leave on errands. So I’ve been putting her off. “Maybe we can make some later tonight or tomorrow,” I’d say. And then I’d plan on her forgetting about it.

So today I decided it was about time I actually made her some pancakes. Only… I don’t like pancakes. So we made “thin pancakes” (crepes) instead. Pink, green, blue, and yellow ones.

It was a lovely way to get ready for the rest of our day, which involved watching general conference. General conference is a time when all the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints join together (virtually) in listening to what our Heavenly Father wants us to learn through our prophets and other leaders. It is an outpouring of counsel and wisdom, and I’m always grateful when I listen because it brings so much power and motivation into my life.

Of course, it’s not always easy to listen. Small children, big meals that make you tired, so many things keep us from really hearing everything. Which means it’s awesome to also get to watch the talks again and read them at lds.org and then also read them in a published magazine in about a month.

I like it best, though, when I get to actually listen the first time around. So this year we prepared. We printed out coloring sheets and paper activities for Coriel. We gave her new markers. We got out her tent, which she hasn’t played in for a long time. We brought out each thing one at a time, only after she got bored by the previous item. It hasn’t been perfect, but it has certainly helped us to see a bit more than usual. Of course, now Addra is old enough to be a bit of a dilemma too, but that’s just one of the delightful complexities of life.

So much of this conference has felt directed at me. I have been struck again and again by what it means to be a mother, to be an influence for good, and to have charity—starting with charity for my children. As Coriel gets older, I have really struggled with how to interact with her. She is getting independent in some ways but still needs so much. Sometimes I’m a bit overwhelmed by all she needs. But listening to these wonderful counsels in conference I feel a greater desire to have charity toward her—not just love, but love that acts.

I’m also not much good at conversing even with adults, and sometimes talking to a three-year-old is just beyond me. By nature I’m sort of a cave troll, hiding out and staring around in a vacant sort of way. She’s much more of a monkey, chittering and jabbering and always on the move. I am often tired just at the thought. Here again, conference had something for me. Brice mentioned a statement from one of the talks he heard last night. It was that in pushing through our tiredness we find greater strength and power.

So today we made pancakes, just like she’d been asking for. A small thing, but something she needed. Tomorrow, who knows?

Yum!

Also yum! (And the crepes are pretty good too.)

As I was working on a crochet project, Coriel wanted to learn how to sew.
So here is her purse that she sewed mostly all by herself!