A Few Thoughts

So, Joseph is back in the dating world, I guess. He told me today that his account on Match dot com is now active. I told him that I thought things were going quite well between the two of us.
Apparently he was born in 1956 and his screen name is "Big Daddy." Joseph does get a lot of funny things in his email.


My mom gave me these socks when she came to visit a couple of months ago. They were made in Japan and apparently they have chili fibers woven in to give them an extra kick in warming up your feet. I was a little skeptical, so I asked if this actually works. She looked at me seriously and said, "If you believe it will!" She's probably right. Isn't that the case with so many things?




Elinor is finally better from her five-month illness and we are so glad to have our happy little girl back! She really didn't let the coughing fits get her down, but it is so much better to have a healthy baby that is able to breathe while she's sleeping. Too bad her teeth decided to show up right now. Can't a girl get a break?


I have been reading and really enjoying Thomas S. Monson's new biography. My dad and step-mom got it for me for Christmas before I even knew it existed! That's what I get for living outside of Utah, I guess. I am always reading passages aloud to Joseph because they are so interesting or amazing or entertaining. You know President Monson. His life is full of good stories. Here's my latest read-aloud passage:

"Elder Monson's sense of humor was manifest during one particular visit to Australia in the midst of a severe drought, where he noted with some amusement the names of the stake presidents - President Percy Rivers and President William Waters. He called this to the attention of his traveling companions, one of whom reminded Elder Monson that his name was Harry Brooks. The missionaries who met them at the airport were Elder Rainey and his companion, and when he registered at the hotel, the clerk could not locate the reservation until, in searching the cards, he found Thomas S. Monsoon."

You know, I think most of us accumulate lots of good stories throughout our lives, we just don't have the memory of President Monson for individual people and names. Or maybe we don't care enough about individual people. It might be a combination of both, but it sure makes me want to start paying a little more attention to the people around me.

Enforced quality time

Nothing much going on in our little corner of the world. I am still working on getting the apartment in order, Joseph is still working on getting that dissertation written, and the kids are still working on playing as hard as they can every single day. It is beautiful weather for that and we are spending as much time as possible outside. Elinor is working on growing some teeth and maybe learning to roll over.

Here is a picture of Emily in her detention cell:
Just kidding. She really likes it in there.

And it's big enough to hold a grown man.

Plus his son.

And his daughter.

Ah, those three. Who knows what they'll get up to next.

Friends and Sisters

This morning two of Emily and Caleb's friends came over to play while their parents were busy. We love that this family is a perfect parallel of ours. The kids are slightly older, but they had a girl, then a boy, then another girl. The older girl loves princesses, the boy is a perfect partner in crime for Caleb (he was Caleb's jiggler buddy at the birthday party), and the baby has the coloring of the older sister while the boy in the middle is his own man.

I love this tower that the boys built together.
And I love the tutu that Caleb insisted on wearing all morning. Jonathan was also decked out in a tiara by the time his mother came back to pick him up.


After the friends left Emily and Caleb took a milk break. I came into the room to find them like this. These two are such funny little kids. Emily said that Caleb was patting her knee. I love that they're friends.


This morning I found Elinor's first tooth! I have been wondering when this would happen since Caleb's first came in around four months and Emily's was at six months. Looks like she's following in big sister's footsteps! Not with crawling, though. Em was crawling around seven months. Elinor has rolled over. Once. Ah, well.
Speaking of Miss Elinor, I was looking at the St. Patrick's picture I posted of her last time and was reminded of one that we had of Emily wearing the same bow. I looked it up and was amazed to see how different the two girls look. I always thought they looked quite a lot alike.




































The bottom two pictures are of Emily and Elinor again. They look a little more similar here, but I think Elinor's hair will give her away every time. :) We love both our girls.

Happy Green Patrick's

We told her Saint Patrick's day, but we didn't really go into snakes, druids, or zealous Catholicism when we explained it. To us, the day means that you wear green; so that's what Emily picked up on. She asked when we have Purple Patrick's day and Yellow Patrick's day. Maybe we'll hold those later in the year. She makes a pretty cute leprechaun.
Elinor was dressed up too, but someone had to take the picture.
By the time I got home from school, the kids had already been through a couple outfits. I'm not sure how they have so many green things to wear. Elinor loved the beaded socks.
After some quality floor time, we started working on our large family of slightly obese cookies.
We love the aprons that Grandma made for us. Family cooking time is great time. Unfortunately, by the time we had everything done, it was bed time. So we'll probably have cookie time, jello time, and pistachio pie time for breakfast time tomorrow.

HapPi Day

We didn't have much by way of pie filling, but we had half a box of puff pastry and some lemons. So we celebrated with lemon meringue pie and pasteis de nata.

Both were pretty experimental. The pie came out soupy but tasty. The pasteis aren't quite how I remember them from Portugal, but still pretty good. It may be irrational but there's something special about the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter... and pastries. There's definitely something special about pastry.

Thought you'd like to know...

All three kids have been napping for the last hour and a half!
I should go read a book or play piano or something.
Wahoo!!

The Celebration

I was talking to my mom on the phone the other day and she was surprised to learn that I have never organized a birthday party for a family member before. I figured Emily was too young to care and I guess I just never thought about it for Joseph. But with the new apartment and the playground so close, I decided to give it a try this time around, especially since it was a double birthday. I sent out an email the night before to some families living nearby, prepared a bunch of treats, and waited to see what would happen. We had a great turnout and a lot of fun.
Caleb has been really into basketball lately for some reason, so we made him a basketball cake. Good thing we saved that Halloween food coloring we bought so long ago!

Caleb was so excited to see all the food and people around. He was cute to watch. Here he is blowing out the candles right after the happy birthday song.

My friend Reianna convinced all the kids to gather for a picture while the adults were trying to sort out serving the food.

Cute Hannah, Jarom, and Ben (and half of Seth) enjoying one another's company.

The playground just outside our back door:

Caleb and his friend Jonathan were jiggler buddies. Together they consumed at least four bowls full of Jello jigglers. These two are kindred spirits. I'm pretty sure they have matching eyebrow scars.

Caleb was very, very concerned about the state of his cupcake.

Here's the other birthday boy, enjoying some rock-free food.

And yes, we did have adults for all those kids.
It was a fun time and I was so glad I could do this for Joseph. We are so lucky to live in a neighborhood with so many friends nearby!

Cowboy Breakfast

Every year student housing holds a Cowboy Breakfast at the end of February or beginning of March. This was the first year we dressed up our kids, thanks to some gifts from Grandma Cooper. She made Caleb and Emily matching cowboy shirts and gave them hats and bandannas as well.
We usually walk since it is held about half a mile down the street.


Eating our breakfast burritos. I was surprised that Emily ate all of hers - she must be going through a growth spurt. Caleb just wanted to collect them. He ended up carrying four or five of them around for a while.


This is the first year Emily has been brave enough to enjoy the jumping castle at all. Caleb stayed by the window I was watching them through and wanted out after about two minutes.


The whole family! Yeah, Elinor's not looking at the camera and neither of the older kids is smiling, but that's what family pictures are like at this point. Waiting in line here for pony rides. I was sort of a spoilsport and didn't dress up. I've got to add some cowboy garb to my wardrobe! Joseph works with what he has. I thought he looked like an outlaw.


This is the first year Emily has been brave enough to ride the ponies. I think Caleb did it because she did, but also maybe because he is used to falling from great heights and the pony was little. He looks sort of grumpy and he was a little nervous at first, but he did great and ended up really having fun.


Joseph volunteered to lead a pony around in circles for about an hour (despite his allergies) to help the line move a little more quickly. He led Emily's pony/horse. This one was probably twice as tall as the other two.


Joseph loves all his kids, but he and Emily seem to have an especially good connection. They really have fun with each other and I love seeing them participate in activities like this together.

My Birthday Boys

Happy birthday to my boys! Here are some things about them that make me smile.

Caleb
Falls over a lot.
Always has his hands open as wide as they can go. He can spread his fingers further apart than anyone else in the family.
Has a really big head and really tiny legs.
Has bright blue eyes.
Says thank you a lot.
Likes fruits and vegetables a lot. Prefers peas and corn to pasta.
Sings really really well - since before he could talk. Well enough that the vocal performance grad student in our ward was impressed when he got up before sacrament meeting and gave an impromptu performance of "I Am a Child of God" and "I Love to See the Temple."

Joseph
Really likes the Muppets.
Is an enthusiastic choir director.
Drinks two gallons of milk in about three days (on average).
Has worked - and scrubbed - hard so that I have never had to clean the bathtub since we got married.
Loves to cook.
Is creative and likes to improvise (musically and in life).
Has created a virtual racquetball game in his lab at school.
Gets up more often than I do to help the kids and baby at night.
Set the standard for awesome garnishes in our cooking class at BYU.
Managed to eventually cause the garnish competition to be canceled due to overly elaborate garnishing.
On his first birthday during our time dating, he came to campus with a paper bag full of cupcakes to hand out to friends.
On his first birthday after our wedding, he walked in the door with a huge box and said, "happy birthday!" to me and had me open a new KitchenAid. He had asked his mother for that for his birthday because he knew I like KitchenAid (even though they like Bosch) and told me that making me happy meant a happy birthday for him.

Happy birthday, Daddy and Caleb! We love you!
love,
Amanda,
Emily,
and Elinor.

Yardwork

Although our backyard features a fantastic playground for the kids, the front yard leaves something to be desired. The neighbors' seemingly countless clotheslines look pretty ghetto, but we can deal with that. Unacceptable, however, was the "grass" surrounding our doorstep. It looked like a little tornado-torn mobile community with fallen trees and bits of trailer trash.

Of course we've got the broken bicycle pedal and taxidermied rodent.

Then we have the Pièce de résistance, that quintessential piece of detritus, the broken, rusty razor blade. Seriously nasty. It was hinted that someone would be around to clean up the mess, but I could only wait a day before I threw on some leather gloves and tossed the mess myself. Emily was sad to see her playthings gone.
Once, when my brother came to visit, he said that he was pretty sure he'd seen our place on the TV show "Cops". While I was ferrying all of our inherited filth to the dumpster, I had "Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?" echoing through my thoughts.