good morning, grandmas!

Have a great day. We love you.

jonah's new friend

Jonah, talking to a fly on the window:

"What are you doing fly? Did you have a good day, fly? Good, fly. Are you walking fly? Oh, fun."
Lots of arm waving.
"Shoo, fly! I shooed him away, mama. Where'd the fly go? Come back, fly!"

the gift horse and his mouth

We woke up to a beautiful, cloudy 70 degree day. We've had a light drizzle on and off all day, but nothing heavy enough to make everything muddy. I threw open the windows and made a pot of soup.

None of the windows in the house have screens. Josh says I'm letting the whole state's worth of bugs in. I say the fresh air is worth it. Tonight, we'll count mosquito bites (all mine and Jonah's, of course, since Josh is mysteriously immune) and decide if it was worth it.

It's only going to be 80 tomorrow. Hurray!

matt and david cannot be trusted

We went out to breakfast this morning to a place that came highly recommended by Josh's fellow grad students.

It was so gross.

So since I will not let that count as our anniversary celebration, the question is: go to one of the few restaurants we know is good or try something new again? What I really want is to go to the temple and Mango's. What are the chances the Birmingham temple has a decent Mexican food place down the street? Either way, I will no longer believe anything Matt and David say about good food.

someone tell me why

Josh and I had a borderline ridiculous debate last night about why some authors, artists, and other famous people are known by their first name when most are known by their last name? And I'm not talking about anyone whose publicist is the reason they only have one name *cough Cher*.

Last namers (some of many):
Shakespeare
Cervantes
Picasso
Einstein
Machiavelli

The first namers that started the debate:
Dante
Galileo
Michelangelo

A few that always seem to be full name (yes, I think most people would know who you meant if you used the last name only, but how often really do you hear it alone?):
Jane Austen
Leonardo DaVinci
Mark Twain

We tried the age issue, but it did not really stand to much criticism. Yes, the three first namers I mentioned are old, but not really any older than some of the others. Calling Albert Einstein just "Albert" seems out of the question, but why isn't Leonardo DaVinci just "Leonardo" if this is the case? Josh's idea was that maybe it was people with really uncommon first names (or difficult to pronounce last names). I call shenanigans. So tell me, is there any method to the madness or is it just that every once and a while someone slides through on a first name alone?

a few more songs

Jo Anne requested a new song and of course Jonah would not cooperate. I will do my best to get a good video of him singing up in the next few days, but for now, these will have to do.

The companion joke to the one I posted on facebook:


Singing the mountain song (not his best performance but the only one on film so far):


Too much of me singing. Still, it's worth it for the last verse when he throws his whole body in to shouting "hurray!":


Tonight we had chips and salsa for dinner. Probably not my greatest moment as a mother, but in retrospect there are a few veggies in there. Josh made the salsa and then pulled a bit out for Jonah before adding the rest of the peppers. When Josh sat down with his completed batch, Jonah said, "is your calsa [salsa] spicy daddy?" to which Josh responded, "yep." Jonah's answer? "Yep, just like me!" Hm.

I miss

this sunset.

updates

A few of Jonah's recent funny phrases:

When he wants us to look at him: "What's me doing, mama?"
When we park the car: "Jonah comes with us?" Like we've ever made him wait in the car!
When he wants to pet something: "Jonah soft him!" or today, "Imma hold is tail!" (the squirrel did not approve of this plan, obviously).

A few things I've noticed about Alabama in the last few days:
-Instead of low riders, the gangster sedans are lifted. It is ridiculous. This was the closest I could find with a quick image search, but the cars are in much better condition and usually bright colors and the wheels have fancy rims, of course.
-Football is a pretty big deal. Obviously. Still, it catches me off guard. Last night I went to a home in our ward for bookgroup and above the fireplace was a huge photograph of a football tackle. I asked a friend if someone in the family played for the University at one point (after all, maybe it was a picture of the man of the house?). Nope. Oh, and the giant (and I mean GIANT) photograph of an elephant? It was certainly striking. I didn't realize it was in homage to the Alabama elephant. Hmmm. Did I mention the other elephant knick knacks and framed photograph of the stadium? Obviously, my living room decor of family pictures is old news.
-Popular belief holds that "Crimson Tide" has to do with the stadium awash in crimson shirted fans. The clay around here is red, too, so maybe that has something to do with it? Also, the mascot is an elephant because in the 30's an announcer and/or sports writer (depending on who you ask) compared the team to a herd of elephants as they took the field.
-Every place we've lived has its own brand of bad driver. In Provo, for example, a red traffic light either means stop or speed-up-to-the-car-in-front-of-you-so-you're-close-enough-that-it-doesnt-matter-if-you-go-too. Here, we have noticed very few people pull over for emergency vehicles. It's giving Josh an ulcer.
-In happy news, the only real difference I've noticed in the general populace here (other than accents, of course) is that they are much more patient with children as a whole. Yesterday at the store, Jonah was "helping" and knocked over a bunch of cereal. The lady behind me wasn't annoyed or even just ambivalent. She told me all about how cute he was and not to scold him, etc. I've heard this more than once when Jonah did something that I consider poor behavior. I still expect him to behave in public, but it's nice to not worry so much about if he is bothering anyone else.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Title: Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
Rating: 4 stars

Since I stayed up way too late last night to finish Mockingjay all in one sitting (I've really got to deal with the issue of being unable to let a book lie unfinished) I'm too tired to write anything witty. Instead, a few thoughts. I will try to keep in spoiler-free, but proceed with caution if you haven't read it yet.

I was pleasantly surprised:
-that I liked it more than I feared I would. Of course, I didn't care for Catching Fire as much as many of my friends, so maybe I was prepared for the worst.
-that the love triangle was resolved in a pleasing manner. She did not choose the man I was hoping for but she did sort of choose. There has been some complaint about how it all played out, but it was defintiely more satisfying than having one of the guys die or turn out to be her brother. (Can I complain one more time about Stephenie Meyer ruining a perfectly good bittersweet situation with all the imprinting crap in the last book? It was better when it was a hard decision. Bleh.)
-by how much I loved a few of the supporting characters.

I was disappointed:
-by how little we really got to know the supporting characters.
-that Gale and Peeta both seemed a little off. I understand extenuating circumstances but the beauty of The Hunger Games is that we love them both so much. Peeta's situation is different than Gale's obviously, but even when Peeta returns to himself, we don't see it because it all happens off stage.
-by Katniss's mental state through most of the book. While it was probably pretty close to what would actually happen, it makes for a tough read. We are expected to be satisfied with quick summaries of a lot of important things because she was hiding in the closet or in a drug-induced sleep at the hospital.
-by the pacing. It was too much too fast and then over. Towards the end I found myself skimming because I was anxious to see what happened but there wasn't any relief between bombings and deaths to pace the action. Of course, it was also late into the night so that might have had something to do with it.

All in all, it was a great book but I doubt I'll read it again before I take it back to the library.

it's about time

Finally, someone who gets it! At my mom's suggestion, I listened to the Coversations interview with Julie B. Beck and she said that one of her family's favorite traditions was "Breakfast with Books" where they would read books during breakfast (probably not library books for obvious reasons) on most Saturdays.

For Susan, Eric, me, and anyone else who has been scolded for bringing a book to the table, this is a tradition we need to propagate.

cleaning off the video card

A few of Jonah's musical performances. First, in the bathtub in Phoenix. This one is especially for Grandma Jo Jo who taught him the song (or at least taught him to pop bubbles while he sings it):



I found him yesterday accompanying himself on the ukulele. The video didn't turn out too well, but I will try to catch another one soon. Here he is a month ago or so accompanying himself on the piano. He is already a more skilled pianist than I am:



Finally, the reason I wanted to get these videos on the computer in the first place, a message for Uncle Quindi:

but it's 6:30 in the morning!

Jonah, at 6:30 this morning: "How about chips and calsa [salsa]?"

Ew.

tidbits

I'm trying to post semi-regularly on here for the lovely grandparents' sake but I feel like it's sucking the fun out of my posts. As much as I love my own child, I don't like to see just pictures and little snippets of our day ALL the time. So here are a few things that made me think or chuckle today:

I like Glee a lot, but Finn's voice bugs me. Learning he can't really sing very well is further reason to give him fewer solos.

Seriously so Blessed: Always funny, but I think the JJWT posts are some of the funniest.

PhD: The pie chart is my favorite.

I was telling Anna-Lisa about Indexed. I didn't want to spend the time to find my favorite, but this one is good (if not so funny as just true).