President Hinckley's Passing

“The time has come for us to stand a little taller, to lift our eyes and stretch our minds to a greater comprehension and understanding of the grand millennial mission of this, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

I was lucky to be there at that General Conference session where President Hinckley was sustained as the next president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was only 18.

Although I had never met him, the influence he had on my life over the past twelve years is immeasurable. His words have guided me through my darkest and finest hours, and although I am sad to see him gone, I am grateful to know that he has been welcomed and found solace in the arms of his sweet wife, our Heavenly Father, and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

My Nerdy, Happy Playlist

Like so many of you, I have been feeling out of sorts with the dreary FREEZING weather (it is currently -1 degrees out). I decided to make myself a new playlist on itunes and it has worked miracles for pulling me out of my slump! I only chose HAPPY songs that are nostalgic for me from the late 80's, when I was just beginning to discover the world of pop music! I listen to it in the car, in the kitchen, at the computer....and I make the boys dance with me! So, although I admit this is exposing a little part of my nerdy self, I had to share the list in the hopes of making some fellow nerds happy, too.

Venus - Bananarama
I Heard A Rumour - Bananarama
Mad About You - Belinda Carlisle
Heaven Is A Place On Earth - Belinda Carlisle
Every Little Step - Bobby Brown
Don't Worry Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
I Can Dream About You - Dan Hartman
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) - Dead or Alive
Only in My Dreams - Debbie Gibson
Chains of Love - Erasure
A Little Respect - Erasure
The Heat Is On - Glenn Frey
The King of Wishful Thinking - Go West
Everlasting Love - Howard Jones
Footloose - Kenny Loggins
The Heart Of Rock & Roll - Huey Lewis & the News
The Power Of Love - Huey Lewis & the News
Stuck With You - Huey Lewis & the News
What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy) - Information Society
Hurts So Good - John Mellencamp
Cherry Bomb - John Mellencamp
St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion) - John Parr
Danger Zone - Kenny Loggins
I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man ) - Kenny Loggins
Where's the Party - Madonna
Into The Groove - Madonna
Lucky Star - Madonna
More Than You Know - Martika
I Feel the Earth Move - Martika
Straight Up - Paula Abdul
Sussudio - Phil Collins
Don't Lose My Number - Phil Collins
Glamorous Life - Sheila E.
Nothing's Going To Stop Us Now - Starship
Higher Love - Steve Winwood
Tell It To My Heart - Taylor Dane
I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany
Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham!
Freedom - Wham!
The Promise - When In Rome
I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston
Owner Of A Lonely Heart - Yes

The Ladies Man

Following a tradition that started with the likes of Lydia & Mary in Kansas, Parker seems to have chosen girls for his best little friends here in Columbus. He probably has one or two boys that he gets along with, but the girls seem to really have the power to turn him into a great playmate. A couple of conversations I've overheard as he's played with girls lately:

With cousin, Lydia

Lydia: Parker, can we please play "let's get married?" PUH-LEEEEEZE???

P: Mmmmm, I only like to play boy stuff.

L: Okay, let's get married and THEN we can play boy stuff.

P: Ooooo-kay.

L: Can we kiss for real?

P: (giggle).


With friend, Sarah:

Sarah: Parker, let's play a game!

P: Okay!

S: My favorite game is "Mom & Dad."

P: My favorite game is Blokus!

S: If we play "Mom & Dad," I'll let you be the kid.

P: Ooooo-kay.

Attention, All fans of Jane...

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"

If you readily recognize this quote, then you may already be aware of (and most likely hooked on) The Complete Jane Austen series that is now playing on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre. It started on January 13th with a newly-done, excellent version of "Persuasion," and continued last Sunday with "Northanger Abbey." I DVR'd them and haven't seen Northanger yet, but I absolutely loved this new version of Persuasion. Over the next eight weeks they will show some new and some older versions of Mansfield Park, Miss Austen Regrets (a new biopic of her life), Pride & Prejudice (our favorite CF version), Emma, and Sense & Sensibility. They have trailers for each on the website. Since I look at Jane Austen's work like a breath of fresh air in the springtime, I think that watching the series is the perfect antidote to the bleak mid-winter blahs. Happy viewing!

Tidbits

• My friend Carolyn made an awesome discovery and solution to major January cabin fever - the Recreations Outlet. It is basically an indoor super-park outfitted with about five to six of the Rainbow play systems, three netted trampolines, kid-heighted basketball hoops and tons of Step 2 toys (think little tykes outdoor stuff). All of it in a huge, light-filled, CLEAN playspace that is HEATED! It is only four dollars for kids over two and two bucks for each additional kid! They also have yearly passes. We visited yesterday for the first time, stayed for over two hours and I can't stop raving about it. It is the perfect wintertime solution for my little boys' endless energy and need to move!
• I found out today that I need glasses! The weird thing is, I'm kind of excited about it!
• Peter is getting rave reviews from his supervisor at work! He just started his second rotation. His first was in the autism center, and now he is in the sleep center working with children who have weird sleep disorders! I told him to get our kids in there.
• Tyler is getting his eye teeth in! He's also coming down with another cold! But if you know Tyler, this is not slowing him down AT ALL! He almost ran right into the street today!
• Parker starts his pre-gymnastics class today! He's so excited about it and will be in the class with a few of his friends. The last time he was in gymnastics was about two years ago, and he was like a deer in the headlights when it came to getting on the equipment. I have a feeling that this time around will be a lot more successful!
• I have mountains of laundry & dishes that I need to be doing right now! So off I go!

Happy 29th to Peter!

On Saturday we celebrated Peter's last "good" birthday. The boys and I made him a special breakfast of homemade blueberry muffins and eggs, and we did a little shopping for gifts. It is so hard to know what to get him, having his birthday so close to Christmas! He ended up finding "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" on DVD and a CD of one of his favorite new groups, the Shins. Parker was also very excited to give Daddy his "Dr. Suess" birthday card. Later in the day we left the boys with our cousins, the Silvers, and went to see the new National Treasure movie. We recommend - it was a fun one. Then we hit a new Mexican restaurant, El Vaquero, that we have wanted to try for some time. We ended the night by celebrating with cake & ice cream with our cousins. It was a fun, relaxing day spent together. Thanks for being born, honey! We love you!

Brotherly Love

Lately we have been so happy to see Parker & Tyler forming a sweet little bond. Tyler absolutely adores his big brother. Whenever we drop Parker off at preschool, Tyler bawls. And when we pick him up, he is SO excited to see him. He yells "Karka!" and gives him a great big hug and a smile and rubs his head with his little hand. Parker loves the attention from his little bro and has become very appreciative of Tyler as a true playmate. He is definitely his brother's keeper and defends Tyler at every moment when other kids threaten his well-being! Yesterday I found them snuggling on the couch and took this shot. It was so cute - one of those moments that melt your mother heart!

Peanut Butter & Jelly Face

Druggies

We're still fighting the Beast. Since we've returned, we can add a sinus/ear infection (me) and an eardrum rupture (poor Parker) to the list! My time this week has been primarily spent administering the drugs/supplements above. I think I need a chart like my friend Rachel had to keep track of it all, since I figured out that I have to take 13 pills today! This picture actually represents a downscale in drug consumption from the earlier part of our week, since the boys are now off of tylenol, ibuprofen, sudafed and robitussin! Gotta love winter...

The Beauty & The Beast of Our Holidays

Happy New Year! It is great to back in the blogging world after a three week absence. I've loved catching up with all of you through your posts and loved even more all of your holiday greetings over the phone, email, cards, and in person! Here is a (lengthy) recap of our holiday hiatus:

The Beauty

Since Peter is connected by the golden handcuff, I took off early on December 18th with the boys to Washington. The flight was on time, NINE hours long and fairly non-eventful, aside from losing a booster seat (I got it back later). I was happy that the boys did so well on such a long journey, cooped up in a plane. Upon arrival we were happily greeted by my parents and whisked away to Rainforest Cafe, where we met up with my sister, Megan, her husband Jason, and their new baby girl, Kate. It was so fun to meet Kate in person after drooling over so many of her cute pictures. We also met with my sister Mollie and her two girls. It was a fun place to reunite, eat, and chat, although Tyler was deathly afraid of the gorillas.

The next few days were spent preparing for my entire family of origin and their families to arrive for the much-anticipated Christmas excursion to Bend, Oregon. Megan and I shopped & baked up a storm (buckeyes, magic cookie bars, lemon bars) while the boys got along marvelously with their Uncles Jason & Mark. They had a great time playing with all of our old school toys that my Mom has saved (the cars, of course, being the favorite). We also attended the home ward's Christmas party and I had fun running into old friends, while the boys had a blast with the pinata (yes, a pinata at a Christmas party).

Peter, my brother Matt, his wife Lisa and their two girls arrived on Saturday and the real party began. We watched BYU win their bowl game and had a great time catching up. Sunday we attended church and made gingerbread houses to deliver to friends in the ward. It must have been quite a sight to see all of us caroling down the street, in the rain, with syrupy gingerbread houses in hand. I loved it.

On Christmas Eve day we made the 7.5 hour trek to Bend, taking the long route to avoid a predicted snow storm. For 18 of us to do this, we took two trucks, one minivan, one car, a U-Haul trailer, and a partridge in a pear tree. We got to the gorgeous vacation house just in time to set up the tree and decorate it with all of our ornaments from childhood, which was especially fun for the kiddos. Of course there were Christmas pj's to be unwrapped and put on, cookies put out for Santa, and "Twas the Night Before Christmas" was read. We were shooting for the kids to put on a live nativity, but we would've had some pretty whiney little shepherds so we passed on the idea.

Christmas morning came and Parker was happy to see that he had been a good boy after all - he was stunned to find a coveted race track near his stocking. T-bone got a vintage Little People airplane to indulge his obsession with them. Peter and I were only to exchange stockings this year, but I surprised him by filling his with dollar store beach paraphenalia and a trip to Florida for us in May. Gotta love Skybus!

The rest of our stay was spent enjoying time with my family. We talked, hot tubbed, watched a lot of He-Man, ate great meals, played Catch Phrase, took online quizzes, went sledding, and took family pictures. It ended all too soon and on Thursday, Peter & I's sixth wedding anniversary, we headed out to Lake Oswego to visit Peter's side of the family.

The drive there deserves a mention; we drove through Mt. Hood in an effort to take less time than it took getting there. What do you know? We hit a snowstorm. It was HUGE and beautiful all at once. The evergreens looked so majestic and peaceful covered in snow and yet the roads were very treachorous and we had to put chains on the tires. At one point, there was almost no visibility. Peter's knuckles were as white as the blasted snow from gripping the steering wheel! We made it out safely and enjoyed having the Stewarts host most of my family for dinner that night before we bid adieu to the Browns.

We were so lucky to now spend time with Peter's whole family and their kids, who came in from Utah, Wisconsin and Arkansas. Debra planned a very fun girls' day out with lunch at Zeppo's and mani/pedi's for all of us. We also window shopped and popped into a french bakery for a tasty treat. That night, we left the kiddies home with sitters and all of the adults escaped to Harborside restaurant in downtown Portland. It was a very nice treat for all of us and we enjoyed having time, uninterrupted, to chat and catch up.

The rest of our time all together was spent playing board games, playing with Grandpa's electric train set (the boys' very favorite), playing kickball, making terra cotta pot nativity sets, taking family pictures, exchanging gifts and of course, eating orange rolls and cream cheese brownies. Yum. Daniel & Katie had to leave early on Sunday morning, and Jared & Heidi left later that same day. Peter gave a wonderful talk in his home ward and had a nice time running into old friends.

On New Year's Eve we were spoiled on a shopping trip with John & Debra at Bridgeport and caught a little bit of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve before the clock struck twelve. Peter left very early the next morning to head back here to work and I spent a few remaining days being nursed back to health with the Stewarts (see The Beast). Parker had a fun outing with Grandma to the park and bookstore and also enjoyed playing marble works with Uncle Brian.

Since I was flying back out of Seattle, I headed back for one last night with my parents and the boys had a fabulous time playing with Grandma's new bath toys and roughhousing with Grandpa. I flew back home yesterday with the two boys, feeling a little strung out (lost the booster seat & the stroller this time!) but happy to have had such a fun break with family and to be headed back to normal life. Phew!

The Beast

Between the 27 people we stayed with over the holidays, we experienced the following illnesses:

10 Pink Eyes
8 Runny noses
5 Sore throats
4 Coughs
2 Rashes
2 Ear infections
2 cases of Stomach flu
1 fever
1 case of Pinworms

I promise we are a sanitary people.