First Night

First Night is fast becoming a tradition in our family. This is our third year, at least. There was just so much to see and do so this is only a small portion.

We got to see Indian dancers. The kids were all fascinated.

James danced along.


We made awesome hats out of paper grocery sacks. Joseph used pirate stickers while Elena tended toward garden denizens.


There were Japanese drummers, too. James could barely take his eyes off them. We had the chance to try them out, but passed (though we did watch close up).


We also saw a fire-tornado, a house that blew smoke-filled bubbles, a clown dressed all in burnt orange and white, bagpipers, and part of the parade. We didn't stay as late as usual, though, because it was getting cold and the wind was blowing pretty hard. All in all, it was a good evening.

It's been a good year and the Lord has greatly blessed us. I hope you have felt His love, as well.

James' First Real Christmas

Since we spent last year in quarantine, this was James' first year having Christmas with cousins and Santa.

This was before we got the stockings hung on the banister, but all five (good gravy! there's five of us?!?) are there. Also, the lights are red and white, a la candy canes, and I really really like the effect--not as plain as just white, but not as busy as multi.


One of our nativity sets. We've also got a white ceramic set (still packed up) and a vinyl cling set (on the window to the immediate left).


Here we are at the ward party, hanging out with one of our favorite families. The pageant was very sweet, too.



Mike and Jeri hosted the extended family at their house again, though a week early, and it was so good to see everyone. Elena was sooooo excited at the very thought of seeing Bridget and Paige.


James is very into phones, right now, and everything he touches turns into one. This phone used to be a computer mouse.


Ha hasn't quite figured out wrapping paper, either.


Christmas morning was simple but cozy. We made a lot of the kids' gifts and I think they've come to appreciate the effort that goes into them. Certainly, they were excited to see them when they got unwrapped.




We spent the afternoon with Jonathan's dad and sister (his mom is in Georgia with our brand new baby niece) eating delicious catfish and watching movies.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

We found a yummy new cake recipe and whipped it up for Jonathan's birthday. 30 tasted good.

Catching Up

I realize that I've been, shall we say, lax at blogging, lately. That is all I have to say on that matter, but I hope you enjoy the new updates.

The boys like books. Joseph pretends to read by telling us the story while he turns the pages. James pretends by looking at the pictures.

I guess I told Jonathan about Joseph's last trip to UT's Children's Research Laboratory but didn't blog about it. He did a study about language absorption that Elena did a few years ago. The research student showed him a few toys and he happened to be in the group where she didn't apply labels to them so it was just "Look at that." Then she pulled out a stuffed dog and said "This is a gep," and Joseph was puzzled (as was intended), trying to figure out how that new word fit in with what he knew of the world and saying that "it shape lite a dod." She did the same thing with a ball, calling it a danew. Then we played a game. She put out three toys and asked him to find the gep. He went straight for the intended target, picking up the stuffed dog. Then it was the ball's turn. "Joseph, can you find me the danew?" He picked up the ball, stared at the other toys, set the ball down, and repeated about three or four times. He knew that the research student wanted the ball but refused to concede that it was called a danew. He even tried to rationalize this by discussing what the other toys were. "What that one? I thint it a bird. Maybe it a owl." In the end she had to end his session and admitted that she had no clue how to code it because he never made a real decision.

Elena also did one, right before school started, that was looking into children's perceptions of race and how parents address it with them. Apparently, this an offshoot/companion study to the one in this Newsweek article on the subject--in summary, children notice race at a very young age but have no words to describe what they see because their parents balk at discussing the topic. For ours, we read books where either the main character was a different race from us or the story was an allegory to race relations (an interesting book about what would happen if zebras lost their stripes) and they wanted to see what kind of questions the kids asked and what topics the parents brought up. I'm not sure if we passed, if the article is any judge. We did better a few weeks later at General Conference, though. Elder Sitati got up to speak and Joseph piped up with "He need to get his head white again!" We laughed and told him that Elder Sitati is from Africa so his skin is darker than ours, just like Daddy and Elena's is darker than mine and James'. Simple, direct and honest without going into a ton of needless details, right? I really hope so. It was a lot like when I had to explain to Elena why Joseph was built different, really.


(P.S. This article has some really good suggestions for talking to little kids.)

Up to Something

We have major trouble brewing, at our house. James, it seems, has all his sister's intelligence and problem-solving skills combined with his brother's athleticism and adventurous nature. He's the first of our children to figure out how to get out of the crib all by himself. He also circles the table, studying the chairs to decide which one will give him the best path upward. He figured out three different ways of getting up onto the computer desk so he could dance with the computer monitor at least four months ago. Figuring out the locks on the front door by the time he's in nursery is not entirely out of the question.

Walkin' Around the Christmas Tree

James has spent the last week and a half perfecting his walking skills. He started with a crouched over, lurching duck-walk before moving on to a twitchy, sideways sidle and had now settled into the traditional controlled stumble. Choice of mobility methods has also shifted, each day bringing more displays of his new abilities. I think he might have switched over, today. Anyway, here's a bit of video (it's kind of long) to tide you over until we see many of you for Christmas.

Sunshine and Clouds

It's been a long and really weird day, today. It started at 5:30, when I got up to get Elena ready for school, because I'd forgotten that James reset my alarm clock, yesterday. Going back to bed was no longer an option, once I'd realized what had happened, so we rolled with it. We hunted mittens (only found 1 of 4), ambled to school, waited a couple of minutes for the office staff to unlock the front door, then grabbed a hot breakfast. It was a great morning. Back at home, I watched the weather report and realized that if we were getting snow on Friday, I needed to get over to our storage unit to pull out the kids' serious winter gear. Out the door I went, then right back in for a bucket of water and a scrub brush because my car had been egged. Thank goodness it's winter, not summer, and it came right off. Once I got to the storage place, I realized I couldn't remember the code to get into our hallway (it's an inside unit on a secured hallway). I tried a ton of stuff but was just stumped. I went to the office and get the guy in there to come help me. Ah ha! I had the code backward! I ran inside, real quick, to see if they'd slapped an extra lock on since I'd had problems, earlier, getting it to lock right and management had asked us to fix it or they'd lock us out. Great! No new lock (and no follow-up letters, at home) so we must have secured it fine. The first thing I saw when I pulled up the door was an empty envelope from a letter I had sent Jonathan while he was in Spain--it was on the floor, partway under a box. "That's odd. Something must have shifted." I got the door all the way up and gasped in horror at the huge gaping hole in our stuff. Then I noticed that the rest of it was *not* in the same place (or condition) it had been, the last time I'd been in there. I slammed the lock back on, zipped back to the office, and called home in a panic. No, he hadn't taken anything out. The office guy and I went back out, I got Jonathan over, we took pictures and filed a police report. But a third of our stuff is gone. The kids' vintage-style pedal-car is gone, for sure. I'm not sure what else is missing but my flute was in there, as was my china, my porcelain dolls, a whole box of Jonathan's collectibles and my favorite leather boots. I need to go through everything and assess the damage. If anyone can watch my boys while I do this, tomorrow morning, that'd be awesome.