nice people are nice

One time, there were some rude people who left a bad taste in my mouth and generally dimmed my enthusiasm. You know that feeling where you are taken aback and just want to crawl in bed for a while? But then, there were some kind people who were welcoming and funny and nice and restored my love of humanity.

Nice people are nice. The end.

Christmas fry bread

We usually have cinnamon rolls (or their more decadent cousin, caramel sticky rolls) for breakfast Christmas morning. This morning, because Jonah has been asking for it all week, we had Navajo fry bread. Not only do we have a new Christmas breakfast tradition (more on that in a bit) but after months of testing, I think we finally have a perfected recipe. This made 4 more fry breads than we could eat this morning. Since we sometimes have it for dinner (Navajo tacos for dinner followed by honey/powdered sugar fry bread for dessert), I think this is a generous size for a family of four. Yes, Caroline is small, but we really pigged out this morning. Josh, Jonah, and I had no less than 4 each I think.

This recipe is adapted from two different recipes in the Casa Grande stake cookbook (one with very vague measurements--what is 1 bowl of flour exactly?--and one with even vaguer directions) and the Pioneer Woman fry bread recipe which has pictures, so that's helpful.

4 cups all purpose flour (I have not tried it with whole wheat. I might have a rebellion on my hands if I did.)
4 tsp. baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup milk (you can also double the water and add 2T. powdered milk, according to one recipe. We almost always have milk and rarely have powdered milk, so I've never tried it.)
approximately 1 cup warm water

Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Pour in the milk and stir with a fork. Slowly add the water while stirring until the dough is just combined. You do not want to add too much liquid and you do not want to overwork the dough. That said, I've had best success with a slightly sticky dough and mixing it around enough with my hands at the end that it forms a shaggy ball. Cover with a towel and let rest for at least 30 minutes. *This is why fry bread made such a great Christmas breakfast. I mixed it up before presents and it was ready to go when we were done.

After letting the dough rest, divide into balls about the size of a lime. (The Pioneer Woman says plum. Either we have really large plums here or she has a much bigger frying pan than I do.) Roll the balls into flat, thin circles (or alternately, pat out by hand). Dip the dough balls in flour first if it is too sticky to work with. Meanwhile, heat oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet until a piece of dough sizzles in the oil. Figure it will either be too hot or too cool and the first fry bread might be burnt or undercooked anyway and get to work frying!

I eat mine with honey and powdered sugar. Josh prefers butter and powdered sugar. The kids have converted to the powdered sugar thing, but for a long time they liked butter and cinnamon sugar or Nutella. Pretty much anything is delicious.

yesterday was the perfect day

Sure, we got lost. And then there was the time that I had to set an alarm (that doesn't happen often, folks). And my cinnamon roll pan was slightly overstuffed, so I had to toss the middle rolls because they never finished baking. But it really was the best day. It started with the house smelling of cinnamon rolls. Then we drove to Josh's cousin's house for a Christmas party with his mom's extended family. My family is too big and too spread out for the cousins and second cousins to get together at holidays. I have high hopes for 15 years from now. Maybe when my nieces and nephews all have young families of their own they will still want to celebrate together. I hope so.

After the Christmas party, we drove around the eastern part of the valley to check out potential camping locations. It was a cold and sunny day, so perfect. At one point, we encountered a gate (and had a sleeping child in the back), so I hopped out and jogged down to the camping site to check it out. It could barely even count as a run, really, but it was the most I've done in weeks and the creosote was smelling heavenly from rain the day before. Basically, it was beautiful.

Campsites successfully assessed, we drove home via slightly less eastern part of the valley and stopped at my very favorite orange stand/store thing. 20 lbs of oranges and a couple grapefruit later, we headed home after a long day away. Miraculously, the children were even happy on the car ride (after having been in the car much of the day).

These are little things, but these are little things that mean a lot to me.

All about Caroline

Not too long after writing the all about Jonah post, Caroline and I were home alone while Jonah and Josh were out together somewhere. Like every day, at some point it seemed like a shower might be possible, so I ran off to clean up. Usually Caroline invades the bathroom and goes through my makeup and nail polish and tries to cut off her hand with the nail clippers while I holler, "no, put that back! please don't paint the floor with black nail polish!" This particular day, though, the house was silent. After my shower, I felt a sinking dread. What would I find? I eventually found her coloring at the table with a dry eraser marker she'd found in the bathroom. (You know those things write and erase off mirrors, right? It's great for leaving notes.) When I felt tangible relief that she was coloring on a coloring book instead of herself, the wall, or the table, I celebrated with her and realized we needed a post all about Caroline. While Jonah is mostly steady and predictable (sometimes to a fault), Caroline is our wild card.

-She is talking quite a bit these days. There is no way to even keep track of her current word list anymore. The ones that come to mind, though, are towel, puzzle, brother (her name for Jonah), monkey (almost exclusively reserved for Curious George), stroller, milk (she rarely accepts any other liquid), and cookie. Other than the long list of recognizable words, she's also started telling stories. Usually when we see someone who has been gone (Josh after work, for example) she will talk for 3 minutes straight. Most of it is not coherent, but there is a ton of inflection and hand waving. If I happen to be in the room, I can usually interpret the main theme. For example, she fell at the park and bonked her head. The story she told Josh that night involved a lot of pointing to her head and saying "uh-oh."

More candy? (This immediately proceeded the sobbing face from a few posts ago.)

-One of the cutest stories she's told recently involved the song "If You're Happy and You Know It". A spoof of the song was on a news quiz on the radio a few days ago and she immediately started trying to sing along and clap. So I turned off the radio and sang for her. No matter what verse we sang, she only liked to clap. At the end of each round she would giggle hysterically and yell, "again!" Watching her reenact that for Josh was hilarious and adorable. (It also reminded me that when Jonah was this age, we couldn't drive anywhere without singing "Old MacDonald had a Farm." The only verse allowed, though, was grandpa's big white truck. For some reason, "If You're Happy and You Know It" also made him cry.)

-She loves babies and animals. She will chase down babies at the store or park. Dogs, too. I *think* she finally understands that we have to ask before petting a dog because she will look at me and wave her hands and say "puppy! dog!" until we go pet it. Speaking of the park, if the swings are all full, it's a crisis. She has been known to lay down in the middle of the sand/sidewalk/grass and sob until a swing opens up.

Speaking of flinging herself to the ground and sobbing, this time she was sad I would not let climb in the otter enclosure at the zoo. I can be so unreasonable sometimes, right?

-She is our lover. When she wakes up before Josh goes to work, he will often bring her to bed with me. The thing about me is that I don't like people touching me in my sleep. Well Caroline is usually so delighted to see me and be in bed (rather than stuck in her room still) that she will stroke and kiss my face all over. It is both adorable and annoying. When she sees Jonah every morning, she gives him an enthusiastic hug. Speaking of Jonah, she calls him brother (it sounds more like "bruh-vm"). It's cute.

I don't know what we'd do without this little sweetheart. She'll be having a birthday two weeks from today! As much as I miss her little baby self, her 2-year old self promises to be even more fun.

All about Jonah

At this precise moment, Jonah is teaching Caroline how to make a bed. Sometimes I think he is really too sweet to be allowed. So in honor of my child that is too big for the little boy section but too small for the big boy section (or so I tell myself), here are some things Jonah has been saying or doing recently:

-He loves the PBS show Wild Kratts. He's watched both seasons on Netflix at least three times through and still wants to watch it every afternoon when his chores are done. Probably because he's seen each episode multiple times, he's been known to spout some hilarious animal-related wisdom. For example, this morning he told me all about the migration habits of monarch butterflies. Earlier this week he told me, in great detail, all about the symbiotic relationship (yes, he used that term) between rhinoceroses (or rhinoceri..the dictionary tells me that I can use either.) and oxpeckers. For anyone who hasn't seen Wild Kratts every day for two months, those are the birds that sit on the rhinos' backs.

-He won't wear pants. I'm not really surprised, considering he's been wearing boots in the summer and sandals in the winter for a few years now, but I should have thought ahead and stocked up on the after-summer sales. I usually replenish his clothes at Christmas, but there's not much in the stores he'll wear. Luckily, the spring clothes will be out before too long and I can feed his addiction to flip flops and shorts.

What you can't tell from this picture is that it was cold and windy outside.

-As he gets older, he is starting to enjoy playing games with us. He will play an entire game of Ticket to Ride with us, much to Josh's annoyance. It's not playing with Jonah that annoys him, it's just that Josh almost always wins. And since Jonah can't be counted on to choose routes that are entirely logical, Josh has a harder time predicting his every move than the other players at the table. I think this is hilarious, of course, and invite Jonah to play with us often.

-He loves music. This is nothing new, but it is still very much part of who he is. At this point, he has expressed interest in learning to play the piano, guitar, drums, clarinet, oboe, trombone, trumpet, violin, cello, and saxophone. He is taking music classes through Let's Play Music (highly recommended), and it has been fun to watch his skill and enthusiasm grow. Unfortunately, he's also camera shy when it comes to music. All my sneaking and begging has not produced a single picture, let alone video, since this one (from when we first got the piano). I'm thinking some bribery might be in order.

We sure love this kid. And lest you think he's perfect all the time, I sat down to write this glowing post because he was patiently teaching his sister how to make a bed. During the course of writing this, however, he has regressed to baby talk (a current favorite of his and annoyance of mine), fought with Caroline about who gets to play with the blocks (which I gave to her after the fight over who got to play with the train), and cried because he didn't want it to be Sunday and then again because he didn't want Caroline to eat lunch until a certain time. If I didn't live here, I would think that meant it took me two hours to write this. But no, he crammed all of those activities and more in the 15 minutes I've been writing. In the process of writing that, though, he has cycled back to patient and kind and is now helping Caroline assemble her stuffed animals in carefully-crafted towel and pillow houses.

Christmasness

Have I mentioned that I don't have the energy or gene or whatever it is to make a huge deal out of holidays? (Other than the food, of course.) Case in point: Jonah loves to decorate for holidays. Every time he sees people's yards he says "we should get one of those (insert here: inflatable Santa Mickey, blinking string of snowflake lights, obnoxious roof reindeer) too!" So we made some snowflakes, which he loved. We hung them all over the house. Then two fell down. A week ago. Maybe tomorrow I will hang them back up. I'm sure he'll remind me in the morning like he has every morning since the falling occurred. Anyway. Do you know what I do love? Christmas music. I belt that stuff out all day long.

Another thing I love? The movie White Christmas. My favorite quote from this watching (there will be many more) was "Don't you know girls like that are a dime a dozen?" "Oh, don't quote me the price when I don't have the time." I don't know, it just made me laugh.

Another thing I love? Christmas cards. It seems so unlike me, what with the requiring of planning in advance and spending money and getting to the post office, but I just really love them. We got our first card in the mail yesterday (yay!) and if I keep up my current pace, we'll have ours in the mail this weekend. Every morning (after contemplating hanging up the fallen snowflakes) I say "today I'm going to finish them all!" But so far, it's been more like today-I-will-write-a-few-here-and-there-between-other-things-and-say-I'll-finish-the-rest-after-bedtime-but-instead-go-lay-down-and-watch-White-Christmas. Speaking of which, I'm about 30 minutes from the end, so I'm off to finish it!

P.S. Here's one of the pictures that did not make the card. You're welcome.

RTR

From Nick Saban, the coach of the University of Alabama football team: "We win and lose with class. Congratulations to Auburn for winning the Iron Bowl. Alabama lost as a team and the loss is not the fault of any single player. This is an opportunity for us to improve and refocus. Our season is not over and we will work hard to finish strong."

From Josh: I think I'm depressed. I need to stay in bed for a few days.

From me: I wore my houndstooth today as usual. Roll Tide Roll!

the sound that strikes fear in my heart

When Jonah was a baby, he loved his pacifier. His favorite pacifier was had a hard plastic back and a hard plastic ring that would make a little clinking sound when they met. Though it was a soft sound, Josh and I learned to fear the little clink because it meant the pacifier had either fallen or been spit out and soon would be followed by crying. We'd close our eyes and try to sleep just a little bit longer, but it was inevitable.

The sound that I fear most these days is a dining chair scooting across the tile. That means Caroline sees something on the counter she wants and shouldn't have. It's usually my computer or a pack of gum. Just now, it was a bag of flour and a measuring cup. Because I'd moved my computer and the gum, I didn't rush to the kitchen when I heard the dreaded scoot. Bad call, really, since now most of my flour has gone to its final resting place in the vacuum canister.

cloudy days make the best pictures

What's that? You'd like to see recent pictures of my children? Okay!

It was just yesterday, but I've already forgotten what she was excited about.

Getting a decent picture of them together is difficult, so I'll settle for together and eyes open.

 

Jonah has decided to be camera shy all of the sudden.

So this about-to-hide-behind-the-tree shot will have to do.

sending mail

Our mail is delivered to one of those community mail boxes where we have a tiny slot and a key. It's just down the street and right next to a small park, so I've miraculously managed to check the mail every few days we've been here. (Which, frankly, is as often as I checked the mail at the end of our yard in Tuscaloosa). But here's the thing: there's no outgoing mail slot.

You might not think this is a big deal, but it is. Our mailbox in Alabama had no red flag to designate when we wanted mail picked up. I would just leave the outgoing mail there and eventually the mailman would notice and take it away. That was annoying with anything time-sensitive. So now here we are again without a consistent way to send mail quickly.

Tonight I left the house with a letter and it took me 25 minutes to find one of those blue mail boxes. (That includes driving past the post office, I think, and never finding it.) Clearly I need to find a better way to send this mail. Oh, and the mailbox I found? 5-7 minutes away, max. I actually found it when I was heading home dejected. The End.

wrong number

Someone named LeAnne (Lee-YEAH-n [don't hate, Vanessa. I don't know how to do the pronunciation things and then to try to do it in a Southern accent..well, shame on me for not doing a little research first.]) just called our house phone (which is an internet phone and still an Alabama number) looking for Shannon. When I told her it was a wrong number, she said, "Oh, I am SO sorry! Have a great day!"

I miss Alabama and its wonderful people.

oh yeah, we went camping

Jonah helping us look for squirrels. That orange vest used to belong to little Josh!

She did enjoy herself, even if this picture implies otherwise. That orange jacket used to belong to baby Jonah!

Any guesses what Josh and Byron are carrying in the boat?

Caroling! The fishing trip was just too much fun for her. All you can see here is the life vest and jeans, but she's asleep in the boat.

I draw the line at aerodynamics

On days when I've had a full night's sleep the night before (like today! Caroline slept all night last night! Good riddance, evil cold.) I am a pretty patient Mom. I like to answer Jonah's questions as completely as I can knowing the some day he'll be too cool to tell me everything that's on his mind. While we were running errands this morning, I fielded questions (and most impressively, I might add) about rainbows, the Egyptian pyramids, why leaves float on water, and explained why eye doesn't start with the letter "i". (It is kind of weird if you think about it.)

I had to stop and claim ignorance, though, when he asked how birds and airplanes fly. I even took a class in college where we practically built an airplane, but working that in to 5 year-old language was just too much for me. We'll let Josh field this one.

First I got sick. Then Caroline got sick. In between that were some nice cool days and fall break and for one reason or another, I couldn't get enough reading. Maybe I'm making up for the busy months of moving and packing when I read uncharacteristically little. All that to say I've read quite a bit this month and some was better than others.

The best:

The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta: Set among the characters of Saving Francesca (which I haven't read in years..perhaps rereading it would have enhanced this book), this is a story about family and sadness and mourning, but also a love story (of course). I've tried to read it before but for one reason or another didn't. This time, though, I was sucked in almost immediately and cried a few times and was touched many times. What can I say? Melina Marchetta just writes books I love.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson: Brandon Sanderson, on the other hand, writes books I really, really like. For some reason I can never dive quite as deeply into his books, even though his worlds and characters and plot lines are some of the most thorough of any books I've ever read. That said, I was entertained and surprised and interested all the way through. This is a split from Sanderson's usual fantasy and is a YA science fiction/dystopian novel, which works for him as well. In the words of Patrick Rothfuss: "Unfortunately for my ego, Steelheart is another win for Sanderson, proving that he’s not a brilliant writer of epic fantasy, he’s simply a brilliant writer. Period."

The okay:

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund: This was billed as a Persuasion rewrite in a science fiction world. I love Persuasion. Perhaps I should have been scared away by that very fact. The book was good, but I couldn't quite shake the feeling that it could have done even more justice to Persuasion with just a few simple adjustments. I am eager to read the next one, thinking it might be even better, but since it's a Scarlet Pimpernel rewrite (also one of my very favorites), I'm cautious. Not so cautious that I don't have it on my hold requests at the library, though.

The Ruby Red trilogy (books 1 & 2) by Kerstin Gier: If there was any question about Janssen's correctness in all book suggestions, this sealed the deal. #1 was almost painful to read. I read it knowing that she thought it that way, but really. I should have just skipped to #2 and figured out the rest with the internet. That said, the second one was really good (not though-provoking or anything, but downright enjoyable)! I'm looking forward to the third.

The not-as-great:

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling: Her characters are so perfectly drawn, but in the first 50 pages I could not find one to root for. I know people aren't perfect, but I have to have at least one character I like to even care what happens. Perhaps that character would appear (or we would learn more about an existing character) later, but there was some questionable language as well. It wasn't enough to ruin the book, but it was enough to not want to keep reading just to see if it got better.

Shadows by Robin McKinley: Robin McKinley has written some of my all-time favorite books. This book (like everything she's written in the last 5 years) can be summarized thusly: cool premise, but it took me 3/4 of the book to really care and for the plot to really move. Once it did, the end was rushed and the book ends right where the real story should begin. I enjoyed it, but I'd much rather fewer pages in the beginning and at least another 50-100 pages at the end. This can be said for Chalice and Pegasus (her previous 2 books) as well. Though Pegasus has a sequel coming out, so we'll see. I should just stick with The Blue Sword.

Dick McQueen bike ride

One of the first and longest disagreements Josh and I had was about how to park on the street. Do you park up on the sidewalk (so as to avoid getting hit by cars driving by or backing out across the street..which my family has terrible luck with, apparently) or do you park in the street (so as to leave room for anyone walking by with a walker)? We both felt passionately about our parking places, and both stemmed from family experiences.  The story goes that when Josh's grandparents were alive, they used to walk around the neighborhood together. Grandma (Caroline's namesake) used a walker towards the end, and they couldn't walk side by side when cars were parked on the curb. Bless Josh for standing up for his grandma's preferences even if it meant angering his new wife.

When I graduated from BYU and we moved back to Arizona, we lived in Tempe behind Josh's grandfather. His house was on a nice big lot and there was a house in the back ("The Back House," in case there's anyone wondering what we might have called it.) that we rented. Grandpa was in his 90s at this point. He was the sweetest, especially to me while I got used to having in-laws and all that. He had a quick wit and loved to tell stories. I wish I could go over and listen to some of his stories today. Isn't that always how it is? He would bring us our mail every day and sit and chat for a minute. He was a chatter, that one. Well because he'd lost his daily walk partner a few years before, he took to riding a three-wheeled cruiser bike around the neighborhood. It had a big orange flag on the back. I have fond memories of Grandpa on his bike. In fact, he was on his daily ride when we left for the hospital to have Jonah. We pulled over to tell Grandpa where we were going and his face split into the biggest smile I'd ever seen. That will probably always be my favorite memory of the man. He loved baby Jonah. His favorite thing to say about Jonah was, "he's so well-developed!"

I digress. Since Grandpa's passing three years ago, the neighborhood where he lived has hosted a memorial bike ride along his route. This is the first year we've been in attendance since we were in Alabama for the previous rides. Jonah and Josh participated and Caroline and I cheered them on. Next year maybe we'll all ride. They even had shirts made up with Grandpa's likeness on the back.

Jonah was one of three great grandchildren in attendance. Dick would have been so proud.

Here are the riders all lined up. They said this was the biggest turnout yet.

P.S.

I've already expressed my lack of enthusiasm for big holiday preparations. I love to see the kids excited, but they get just as excited to go to the zoo as to dress up for Halloween (and the first requires a lot less on my part). As such, the kids think Halloween was last Friday (the night we had our Trunk-or-Treat at church). The person who spoils this for me will...I don't know what a suitable punishment is. Just don't tell them, ok?

And on a completely contradictory note, I usually make the kids' costumes. Maybe this is why I'm filled with such stress each Halloween? Jonah takes such delight in planning his costume (this year, he had a whole family of super hero costumes drawn out in great detail before changing his mind a week before), and he does have a mom that knows how to sew (albeit too lazy to change the thread color), so there you have it. And since I'm sure there are a few curious people (Hi, grandmas!), I actually took three pictures of the costumes this time. That might be an all-time record.

Jedi Jonah using Force Lightning. I tried telling him only Sith do that, but he says Force Lightning is his favorite thing, so who am I to argue?

There was another Ewok at the Trunk-or-Treat, but I think Caroline was cuter.

Nice pink pumpkin, you say? You don't even want to know.

Happy Halloween! And seriously, don't tell my children they're supposed to get more candy tonight.

birthday week help needed

If you've been a semi-regular reader of this blog, you know that we take birthdays seriously around here. Considering I just lamented to my sister that I really don't love the prep and hullaballoo of holidays (except Thanksgiving, more on that later), this might seem like a contradiction. Just the opposite, however. The conversation ended with me saying, "Except for the food, of course. I love planning holiday food." This must be why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Cooking for three days does not stress me out in the slightest. And thus, the week of birthday meals is not at all difficult for me to enjoy.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, my birthday is a week from tomorrow. That means that sometime in the next seven days (I'm thinking we may start Wednesday or Thursday) my birthday week will begin. Unfortunately, I only have three things on my list!! I need some help! Since I pick the meals every week, my birthday week tends to be a little more normal than the other family members' (Josh chooses seafood almost exclusively). That said, I still love the chance to spend more time and money on dinner than I might normally or to choose things that not everyone in the family loves. So far, I have:

Potato soup (Mom's recipe, of course)
Pot roast (For some reason, the family doesn't love it. They eat it, but I never have to fight anyone for the leftovers, which is crazy to me because left over pot roast is soooo good!)
Little Sombrero's (only my very favorite restaurant in the entire world, other than maybe Flip, which is in Birmingham, so that won't be happening this year) or Cheesecake Factory (because who doesn't want a few different slices of cheesecake for her birthday?)

That's it! I have 4 more meals to come up with and I am seriously drawing a blank. I know I want to make Italian cream sodas one night, but that's hardly dinner. Ideas, anyone?

the sad state of refried beans around here

Perfecting a recipe for me is a bit of a challenge. First off, I don't love experimenting with recipes. If it's not great the first time, it's hard to want to go through the work and ingredients to make it again. Secondly, attention to detail is not my strong suit. Making something the same way 2 times in a row (let alone every time) is nigh near impossible. That said, I have slowly been working my way through things to where I have a few foods I don't even bother looking for new recipes.

Chocolate chip cookies, for example, are only ever made from a combination of Alton Brown's thin and chewy recipes. While they're not exactly the same every time, they are close to the same at least 85% of the time, and I'd rather make something else than try a new chocolate chip cookie recipe (mostly because I'd rather eat these cookies than the product of any other recipe most of the time). Pancakes are usually these (though I have been known to branch out every so often). Other that I have narrowed down are banana bread, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, and potato soup (Mom's, always). I have three or four bread recipes I like, but I pretty much only make those (but I do alternate because I get bored). I even figured out how to sort of make biscuits, which was a trick, let me tell you. They're not amazing, but they're good enough for us (and way better than my first attempts). The last few weeks have been spent on fry bread (which is more technique than recipe, but definitely nothing with yeast in it), courtesy of a trip through Sacaton and a chapter book (The Cats of Tanglewood Forest) that mentions it every few chapters and encourages Jonah to ask for some more.

I have a long list of things I still need the perfect recipe for: curry (one of each color and major ethnic variety), tomato soup (Josh and Kaitlyn got tired of trying my attempts. Jonah specifically asked for canned tomato soup this week. That should tell you how well the recipes were received.), and sugar cookies, to name a few. The thing I'd like to master next, though, is refried beans.

Most of the time, they're okay. Tonight they were undercooked, but that's only because I'm out of jarred beans and I decided I wanted beans after Caroline's nap. But even when they're nice and soft, they're just not as amazing as the restaurant variety. I am of the opinion that anything at home can be as good as (and usually better than) store bought (except Oreos). I've tried extra grease, but they just tasted greasy. I've tried different varieties of beans, but that's not what's missing. Whatever it is, I'm on a quest. All I want is a nice bowl of yummy beans and a tortilla. Is that too much to ask? (Oh, and I'd like to make better tortillas, but I can deal with the Costco kind for now).

Jonah is not wasting any time

This morning, Jonah asked me if mice are real. This afternoon, we saw a field mouse while on a walk. Tonight, Jonah declared he'd like to get a pet mouse. "We'll need lots of cheese. And bugs. And maybe grass and plants."

Josh's mini me

During an Alabama football game, Josh went to eat lunch on the couch. Jonah informed him that we don't eat on the couch, and when Daddy does it, it's confusing for the kids. So Josh set up his lunch on his lap. It wasn't more than a minute before Caroline put her food down, got off her chair, scooted her chair across the kitchen, went back for her plate, and then struggled to find a way to climb on the chair while holding a big plate of food.

We just love doing what Daddy does. (Sorry, Josh, about the picture of you chewing. It was just too cute not to put in here. Parenthood is nothing but sacrifice, or something like that.)

does this ad apply to you?

Am I the only person out there that seriously contemplates that question each time Hulu asks it of me? I get irritated with Josh when he says "yes" to something that clearly does not interest us. He thinks it's hilarious.* Well, let me tell you what. I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not when Hulu wondered if a Listerine commercial applied to me. Were they asking me if I have teeth? I most certainly do! Yes, this applies to me! Or was the question if I care about oral hygiene? Again, yes! But then I had the thought that the question might be if I have bad breath. No, not usually. No, this does not apply to me. Is Hulu insinuating that I have bad breath that no one has told me about? Well now I'm just offended.

Alas, before I could figure out which premise of the ad did or did not apply to me, the ad was over and had moved on to a commercial for some prescription sleep aid. And with that, it was obviously past time for bed.



*This is indicative of our respective roles in our relationship. I have been known to get disproportionately passionate about things of little to no importance (ask him about the bee on the windshield sometime if you want to have a good chuckle at my insanity), and he has been known to regularly test the boundary between charming and annoying. The kids are really lucky they have us both to balance each other out.

diy ant killer

I have a lot of things to say that I haven't had the time or interest to blog about yet. For starters, the library changed their book filing system. That is a two-part rant at the very least. Plus, Caroline says a few more words and there's Halloween preparation coming up and I have a few new recipes. None of those things filled me with enough passion to write a blog post now that the weather is finally cooling off. (There's enough passion about the library thing, I just haven't had the time to do it justice. The weather is cooling off, remember? That means lots of trips to the park and open windows and cooking.) But this? This ant killer? This I will shout about from the rooftops.

Let me start by explaining that the people who lived here before us left a pretty big mess. The rental company had the house cleaned, but either the cleaning company forgot about the top shelves in the kitchen or they saw the mess and were scared away. Every single top shelf in the kitchen had a random assortment of trash (a used hair dye kit and some plastic forks were above the stove, for example), but the bottom of the shelf was covered in what I can only describe as honey covered in graham cracker crumbs. I don't think that's what it really was, but maybe. I haven't thought too hard about what the substance actually is. What wasn't cleaned up by the ammonia is now covered by shelf liner.

Now, to the main point of this whole thing. There were a smattering of what I think were sugar ants in the pantry when we moved in. Every once and a while we'd see one in the bathroom or on the kitchen counter, but they kept to the pantry for the most part. They really liked our bottle of maple syrup, but since I never found any under the lid, I was fine to let a few ants nibble on residual syrup on the outside. Judge me if you will, but I've never been hyper vigilant about cleaning the outside of my syrup.

A month or so after the move, though, we noticed the ants getting worse. There would be more than one or two on the counter or a small pile of them munching on something I'd spilled while cooking dinner. Reading this, I'm sounding like a slob. But really, I wipe down the counters a few times a day, but I'd inevitably miss something. The ants bothered Josh a lot more than they bothered me, so I just ignored them. That is until I saw a whole line of them coming in through the window and across the counter. A line of ants was too much for me. I tried a few remedies I read about online (wiping the area with vinegar, wiping the area with alcohol, sprinkling baby powder on the window sill where they were coming in) and nothing worked. I even tried Borax dry. I'd heard it killed ants, but we never had much success with it on the fire ants in Alabama. Then, I tried this.

Amazing. I put a half batch or so on a folded up piece of aluminum foil and left it out overnight. By morning, the whole thing was covered in ants. I was worried that they were drowning in it, but I saw a few slowly moving away, so I decided to just wait and see. To my surprise, it was completely empty a few hours later. When no ants came back the rest of the day, I moved my foil plate to the pantry. Why not, right? The pantry ants followed the same pattern: a few hours in, the thing was covered in ants. A few hours after that, they were all gone. It has now been almost two weeks and we haven't seen a single ant in the house. I kind of wish they'd come back so I could try again.

And there you have it. Apparently killing ants is more exciting to me than documenting just about anything else. But seriously, you should try it. It was cool.

Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Mays

Today is our 8th anniversary. Happy anniversary to us! Josh's A&P classes had a test today, and Josh passed around a card for the kids to sign for me. It was sweet. But more than anything, it was enlightening. Here are some things the kids had to say:

"Happy Anniversary! Your husband's awesome! Best teacher eva!"
"Happy Anniversary! Mr. Mays is a thug. Congratulations!"
"Have a drink to many more :) Good luck with this goodball."
"Happy Anniversary! Make Mr. Mays take you someplace nice."
"Happy Anniversary! May your marriage flourish with a lot of love and happiness."
"Happy Anniversary! Keep Mr. Mays in check!"
Keep this relationship strong! Work that up-do!" (Um, what? Does he mean the pony tail?)
"Happy Anniversary, make better study guides."
"Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Mays! I hope you are having a blast. Your husband is like a little kid. You need to  train him!"
"Marry Anniversary! Get it? Marry sounds like merry...bad joke of the day complete."
"Happy Anniversary! I wish both of you the best. I also wish your husband (Mr. Mays) was a better teacher."(My favorite part of that one is that she clarified who my husband is.)
 "Happy Anniversary! Wish you both to have a great time together and Mrs. Mays, tell Mr. Mays to not make the tests so hard."

my mid-life crisis

Today has been a monumental day for the kids and a rough one for me. First, Caroline climbed out of her crib. The morning was spent dismantling her crib. The afternoon was spent convincing her to go to sleep now that she could have the option to run around her room instead. When she finally did go to sleep, I went shopping because Jonah needs some new underthings (because when he reads this blog post in 10 years, that will be less embarrassing to him than me telling the internet he needed new underwear, right?). Unfortunately, I couldn't find what I needed so I had to cross over to the boys section. I am so not ready to shop in that section.

We went to the zoo and the only picture I got of them together was from behind. Still, I think they're pretty cute. Not cute enough to grow up, though. That is definitely off limits.

observations, by Jonah

"Why do all the super heroes in the Justice League have sand colored skin except green lantern? Well, and John, but his skin is green. People don't have green skin."

(While playing the apparently hilarious game with Caroline of pushing on my stomach.) "It feels kind of like dough. It even looks like the color of dough, see Mom?"

You know how when you look into the sun there are green bubbles everywhere for a while afterward?

The Schwans man cometh

So my naptime quiet was interrupted by the Schwans man today. I tried to be polite but firm when I told him I definitely was not interested, but thanks anyway. When he asked why, I told him that we were on a limited budget and that his service had not made the cut. He then said, "Oh, don't worry if you're on food stamps. We take those!"

I'm not really offended that he asked. I'm sure that's a good business move for them. I'm not so much bothered that they take EBT or whatever it's called either. Our local farmer's market does too, which I think is great. For some reason, though, when I closed the door I was left feeling weird. Maybe it was because I'd been counting on naptime to be the only quiet hour of my day and then I had to talk to someone. Communication is hard work, you know.

this just in: the temple has candy

Jonah: Do you know what my favorite temple is?
me: Which one?
Jonah: Salt Lake City
me: Yeah, that one is really pretty.
Jonah: And it has nice candy.

Ezekial 20:29

There's been a bit of a dispute in our house tonight about who is God's football team*. I'm arguing for BYU, of course. Did you see the way the QB ran tonight? Clearly it was a "run and not be weary" moment. The conversation went something like this:

Josh: Well, it's hard to play on the road.
me: ...and against God's football team.
Josh: True, but Bama didn't play today.

I was reminded of a conversation we had in Tuscaloosa. Bishop Wyatt told us that the Lord favored Alabama and here is how he knew:

(Ezekiel 20:29) Then I said unto them, What is the high place whereunto ye go? And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.

*Though if "Angels in the Outfield" is any indication, God might be more of a baseball fan anyway.

how is it that I can't feed my children lunch?

When Jonah first starting eating table food, I sent a desperate email to Stephanie. It said something along the lines of, "Help! The only thing I can feed him is sliced ham and canned pineapple! He can't eat apples, he can't eat grapes, he can't eat carrots...What do I feed him?" She was nice enough not to laugh at me (or to remind me of this conversation when we rolled our eyes at parenting articles about what to feed kids for lunch. "Just feed them food," we said.) and suggested I try pb&j, mac and cheese, or banana slices. Oh yeah, food.

Well here we are again, four and a half years later and Jonah will not longer eat sandwiches. Ever. Of any kind. This is a big deal because although I love trying new things for dinner (like the family wishes we'd have spaghetti more often but I'm too busy branching out), my lunch repertoire consists of pb&j (or honey!), grilled cheese, and ham sandwiches. So the fact that he won't eat anything on bread (other than Nutella toast, he was quick to remind me) is a bit of a crisis. It started by only wanting grilled cheese. He still says he likes grilled cheese, but I've thrown out more uneaten grilled cheese sandwiches in the last two weeks than I'll admit. So Monday we (really, it was Josh. I was too annoyed) had a heart-to-heart and came up with a few non-sandwich ideas for lunch. He has agreed to eat mini bagel pizzas and tacquitos. I guess it's a start. I snuck some grated carrot in the tacquitos so I guess that's one point me. I'm wondering, though, what else will he eat when he gets tired of these things? I guess I can start checking out the pinterest lunch boards after all (but I am drawing the line at banana tattoos).

Roll Tide

Jonah dresses himself every day. It is a fact he is very proud of and something that is really great about having a 5-year-old. Today (like many days) he came out wearing a fairly ridiculous outfit. Normally I don't even bat an eye (you're only 5 once, right?) but yesterday's outfit was not only not matching but the shirt was way too small and so he tucked it in. He tucked his tight shirt into his not matching plaid pants and then wore argyle socks up to his knees! My poor child! Anyway. So today, I tried to trick him into changing clothes by pointing out that he would want to wear his Alabama shirt (the shirt he's currently wearing) tomorrow for the first game.

me: Daddy and I will both be wearing Alabama shirts tomorrow. Maybe you want to wear that tomorrow.
Jonah: No, it's okay. I'll just sleep in it and wear it tomorrow too.
me (holding up a perfectly good and also matching blue shirt): What about this one?
Jonah (having already left the room): No, thanks. Let's just do my idea.

Roll Tide!

the library

So we have these friends who recently moved. I've been checking their blog compulsively waiting for updates on the move and their son and the new house and ward. It does strike me as hypocritical as I haven't posted a single picture of the move or house here either. Sorry about that. It's much more interesting (to me) to write about the public library.

Today was not our first trip to the library here. This was our third trip since moving here a month ago, thank you very much. At story time (which was decent), there was a child with an Alabama hat on! Then, when we went to browse books, we discovered that our library is now shelving fiction books by topic instead of author's last name. I'm having a really hard time with this. It's hurting my head. It is nice to say "I liked this book so I'd also like..." but it makes it really hard to find things. Some books fall into more than one category. Besides the fact that popular series are shelved in a separate section as well. Ugh.

Jonah picked out a "Become a Star Ward Expert: What Are the Sith?" book that's long enough to be a novel. I expect I will be learning more about the Sith than I ever knew a person could know.

a completely predictable first sentence

I'm not very surprised that Caroline, the girl whose first word was "dog", would have a first sentence of "Hi, Dixie!"

our newest pride and joy (the choose your own adventure)

When Josh found me a piano in Tuscaloosa (our last year and a half there or so), I was excited. I'd been trying to learn some hymns whenever we made it to church early, and I thought it would be nice to have a piano at home. What I didn't expect was how much we would all love the piano. We really felt it's lack when we moved here without it.

Despite having drained more of our savings than we hoped on the move, it was almost an itch to get a piano as soon as we found a decent one at a reasonable price. And here she is! This piano sounded infinitely better than the other ones this size we tried. I know we were spoiled with our giant upright, but I didn't want it to sound too tinny either.

When Josh and Brandon (thanks, Brandon!) brought it in, Jonah and I both rushed to sit and try it out. I bit my tongue and let him go first. Sometimes I'm the most amazingly selfless mother. (That was said in jest. Sort of.) And now, both kids spend a good chunk of each day tickling (okay, it's more like slapping sometimes) the ivories.

For anyone who noticed the title of the post and is feeling ripped off, here's where the choice comes in. Is the piano our newest pride and joy? Or is it this baby?

Josh's brand new (made before he could get his driver's license) truck! This is the first time in our marriage we have owned two vehicles. What made us take the plunge? School starts at 7:00 am and Josh leaves an hour before that. Out of pity for his wife who would have to deal with children ripped from their warm beds, he bought a truck. Honestly, though, I drive it any chance I get. Stick shift is fun!

the tale of three ovens

Either ovens are fragile appliances, or I have incredible luck. When our oven stopped working a few days ago (and frankly, never worked well), I remembered that this is the third oven I've had break on me in a new (to us) rental. The first oven that gave us problems had no dial for temperature. I remember throwing myself on the couch and sobbing "Now how am I going to make cookies?!"

I'm getting decent at baking with the broiler, but I'm ready for a functioning oven. Baking bread at 185 leaves quite a bit to be desired.

old pictures to cheer up the day

I've been reminded recently how lucky I am to have these kids. I'm home with them full-time by choice. The fact that I even have the choice and a husband who not only agrees with but respects that decision is a blessing. Remembering those things and taking the time to slow down and do the best parts of mommyhood (reading books, making cookies, dancing like crazy people in the kitchen) have helped this be the best week we've had in a long time. Cut to today, which has not been so rosy. As I was repeating to myself for the umpteenth time today, "I love these creatures," Caroline decided to take apart her sandwich and finger paint with jelly. All over the table, herself, and the chair cushions.

So in honor of naptime, here are two pictures of the kids from a trip to the fountain park right before we left Alabama. Looking at these pictures, you'd never believe that Jonah loves the water park and Caroline was never too sure about it.

first day of school!

If sappy affection is not your thing, you might just want to skip to the video at the end. It's The Cosby Show, so you know you won't regret it.

Now that you've been warned, I can start. So today is Josh's first day of school with students. He's been in meetings for over a week, but there's something about having kids in the class that make it all sink in. I'm married to a high school teacher. Someone is letting Josh mold young minds! Ha! Actually, though, he's going to be great. I might be biased, but I can see him being a pretty awesome teacher.

As we got ready for bed last night and he worked on his slide show of pictures to introduce himself, I had a proud little moment. Josh's long-term plan is to end up at a community college or as an instructor for his old program at ASU. That will be wonderful, and I'll be very happy for him to reach his professional goals. That said, I think he'll be good at this too. The kids are lucky to have someone who knows his stuff, cares about them, but also has a realistic idea of how much they may or may not care about biology. He wrote up a getting to know you questionnaire last night that was intentionally open-ended to allow the students to get creative. After I read through it, I said in my nicest voice, "now, you realize you may have some students who give you one-word answers, right?" He laughed and answered all the questions as he imagined he would have in high school. The one that comes to mind is "In 10 years I hope to ... not have to fill this out again."

Want a sample of the sort of picture he's going to show the kids? His words about this picture were, "Wow, I look goofy in that one. Oh well, they'll probably like it."

We all got up early this morning, even the kids. I intended to get up and make breakfast for him (which happens twice a year on his birthday and Father's Day if he's lucky..I really don't enjoy making breakfast until after 9:00 or so). The kids getting up was not the plan. Still, I'm glad they got to see him off. All day I've been thinking about this episode of the Cosby Show. I love school. I've always loved the first day, and I'm frankly a bit jealous that he gets to be going to school today without me! I'm not sure which end of the spectrum really covers Josh's feelings about today, but we're excited for him. Happy first day of school!

I must have watched this a lot as a kid. Either that, or it was very meaningful because I think of the scene in Theo's room frequently:

mommy knows best

First off, we are here! No intermet until next week, though, so updates will be spotty...like right now when we are at Chick-fil-A So we could send an important email. Rather than post about the move or the house or Josh's job I offer this anecdote:

When my mom helped us pack and clean the house before the move, she asked where my ammonia was. "Oh, we dont use ammonia," I said, all proud of myself. I do 90% of my cleaning with vonegar and the like because heavy cleaners give me a headache. Well, my mom walked herself to the store for aome ammonia to clean a particularly tricky grease spot. Fast forward to yesterday, when it was apparent that whatever the previous tenants had cooked, spilled, and then not cleaned off the stove was too much for my abilities. I sent Josh for some ammonia and conquered the stove. I do have a headache and I will still mop with my trusty vinegar, but mommy was right. The ammonia did cut the grease.

our version of packing

I found this really helpful video on how to fold a suit to avoid wrinkles. I hope it works because I didn't bother with wardrobe boxes. I guess I'll let you know if it works. If it doesn't work, I probably won't have time to tell you because I'll be ironing suits. It seemed to work pretty well. My little suit and shirt packets were a little narrower than the video's, but maybe my original suit is too. I also notice that the original suit folder did not have to contend with two children who think it's hilarious to lay on said suit like a blanket and pull said suit back out of the suitcase to watch you do it again. So what's the point? I'm even more awesome at folding suits than that guy, I guess.

Either that, or I'm about to be really good at ironing them.

more muffins!

I get so disappointed when my favorite blogs aren't updated (especially the private ones since I go through the effort of actually remembering to check the blog as opposed to letting a feed reader do it for me) that it fills me with guilt when this one languishes. Just trust me that all extra time and energy is being spent preparing for the move and saying goodbye to the places and people we love.

As I was making muffins this afternoon (tomorrow is Sunday, after all), I realized I haven't added our new favorite recipe to the muffin recipe list. But first, some back story (Because isn't that why I love blogs and haven't really embraced twitter yet? I'm verbose.): I don't love banana bread. It's often oily and I don't love overly ripe bananas to begin with, so the flavor is often too much for me. Add to the propensity toward greasiness the fact that it's often dry as well (yeah, that sounds like it wouldn't happen, but it does) and I'd much rather have a cookie. When I discovered this recipe for banana nut bread, I was hooked. We love this. I love that it uses a ton of bananas. Somehow it's moist without being oily. We love it with tons of walnuts mixed in. I should say that the reducing of banana juice (you'll have to read the recipe to know what I'm talking about) is a step I've only done once or twice. It's a nice thought, but most of the time I just strain the bananas (or more often let them defrost in a strainer since I'm always making it with frozen bananas) in a sieve and add a little more milk to the batter if it seems thick.

The moral of the story? It's amazing. Now return to your blogs and write! I need something to read when I'm avoiding packing.

Dear Post Office,

Dear Post Office,

It would be nice if at least one of your three entrances had doors I could push open. Pulling open double doors with arms full of boxes is difficult. I'd much rather pull them open when I leave empty-handed.

one more word!

Caroline is definitely saying HI! It's pretty cute. She's also figured out how to nod and thinks she's pretty amazing. She still sometimes forgets and shakes her head when she means yes, but when she remembers to nod she smiles and laughs. Nodding is so much fun.

my doomed career as a furniture salesman, part 2

We had a garage sale yesterday. I don't really care for garage sales, but it seemed like a good way to get a lot of our furniture sold in one go. Turns out, it worked out pretty well. Another week of Craigslist and another garage sale next Saturday (if needed) and we should be set. That said, it wasn't a perfectly smooth event.

Josh and I were awake, showered, and set up for the garage sale at 5:30am. We had our first customer at 6:30 and our first sale (a whole dollar!) around 7:30. I was really dragging by 10:00. Most of the morning, Jonah spent wandering around asking why no one wanted to buy our stuff. Most of the people who came by in the morning didn't buy a single thing. A lot of women asked if I was selling any jewelery. Since we were only selling the big stuff we can't move (and a handful of unwanteds), they were disappointed. Jonah had a minor melt down around lunch time when someone bought a stuffed animal. He then went through the pile of animals that he helped me set out of his least favorites and "saved" 5 or 6.

In the end, we had a few people buy multiple items and a couple people come back later in the evening. The hardest part of the day for me was watching someone ride away on Josh's bike. Josh and Jonah love to ride bikes together, but there's just not room in the trailer for Cherry. The person in question walks probably two or three miles from work to home every day, so I think she will love the bike. When someone bought my washer and dryer, it was a bit of a crisis for me. You see, Josh had panicked and decided he couldn't part with the microwave two whole weeks in advance. If I'd had more than 10 minutes to think about it, I might have done the same with the washer and dryer. We do a lot of laundry around here!

I have no future career in selling furniture

Josh is a better salesperson than I am. Two different times he has sold someone on extra furniture when they have arranged to buy just a single piece. The living room is looking pretty bare these days with only a piano and coffee table left.

And to the person who texted me about the dining room table after midnight last night? I wanted really desperately to text back when the kids woke up at the crack of dawn, but I resisted. You're welcome.

America the Beautiful

This song made me cry in church today. I especially love the third verse. Happy birthday (more or less), America!

more words from the littlest

It's hard to know exactly when Caroline says a new word. Sometime babble sounds just like a word (like this morning, when Jonah and Josh swore they heard her say, "whatcha got?"). Or sometimes I'm pretty sure she's said one, but I can't get her to repeat it in the same context. That said, I think we've got a few more down, so here is her (not quite) definitive list:

The old ones:
dog (Not only was this her first word, but this is her most consistent word. We have a coloring book with a dog on the front, and she is sure to point out that dog at least 7 times a day.)
mama
dada

The new(ish) ones:
book
rawr! (Ok, it's an animal noise, but I'm going to count it. It always accompanies chasing someone around the house with a plastic dinosaur, so it has a consistent context.)
truck
done
doll

The ones I'm still not sure about:
Jonah (more like "donah"..the common tendency of his name to turn into "donah" is, incidentally, how Jonah got called "Baby Doughnuts" by a friend for years.)
more

surprise!

Apparently, Josh and I haven't been very good at updating folks with our plans. Sorry about that. It's a combination of plans changing, stress, and a reluctance to talk about moving because although we're excited, we're really going to miss this place. But all that said, we're still moving. So here's the plan:

Josh will be submitting his paperwork and thesis (though he tells me he's a non-thesis option, but he's writing a publishable manuscript, so I'm calling it his thesis anyway) for his Masters in Biology next week. He's accepted a job teaching dual credit Anatomy & Physiology (meaning the kids get both high school and college credit) at Dysart high school. He has to be at work at the end of July, so we're heading out of here in just a few weeks. We don't know where we'll be living yet, but most likely Surprise. My friends here really get a kick out of the name of the town. Surprise!

Considering we'll have a new niece in Las Vegas any day now, we're looking forward to living on the west side of the valley. We're also happy to moving next to some great friends who live there already. On the other hand, it's not any closer to Mom & Dad than North Phoenix was, but it's a whole lot closer than Alabama. Jonah has already decided he is really going to miss Tuscaloosa. We will too. But then I reminded him we could go visit the grandmas and grandpas any time he wants, and he decided this was a good idea after all.

the difficulties of having a baby sister and other wisdom

After a discussion about how to appropriately respond when Caroline ruins something Jonah is coloring (including a few stories about mean sister antics I got into as a kid), I said, "So let's not hit our sister when she makes us mad." Jonah said, "That's just how I tell her to stop." I was musing about how puppies teach each other by play fighting, but I opted not to tell that story at this particular moment. Instead, I said, "Well we'll have to figure out another way to tell her." Jonah burst into tears and said, "But she doesn't speak my language!"

Later tonight, while reading a book, we came to a part that said, "If you put your mind to it, you can be anything." Jonah said, "No, you can't be anything you want." I really wanted to convince him that he really could be anything! Before I could, he elaborated with, "You can't make yourself a monster OR a super hero." Poor kid. He's so young to have his hopes of being a monster (?!) dashed already.

little girl, eating

Caroline has decided she needs to eat at the table. She won't eat anything anymore from the high chair tray. As you can see, she's pretty proud of herself.

a few more Father's Day pictures

THE picture. Aren't they cute?

Still one of my favorite pictures of Josh's dad. He was so excited to have a baby to take fishing.

My dad graciously let me take a million pictures of him tying his tie. I love him.

Oh yeah, this guy's a pretty good dad too.

Happy Father's Day!

Until I can be sure that we've spoiled Josh rotten and that he's seen his pictures of the kids (remember how I stole the idea of taking their pictures in the shirts he wore when they were born?), all I can share is an outtake.

 Man, this would have been a cute picture.

This one too.

If I hadn't cut Caroline's face in half, you would see that she was crying. So I guess it's a happier picture as it is.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads, especially my own, my honey, and my brother (who will be a daddy sometime in the next few weeks!!).

dry heat and a few more comparisons

I had a chat with the clerk at the grocery store today about dry heat. As I drove home and crossed the river, I saw the beauty of Alabama spread out over the river (or in other words, it was so green and full of trees), and I knew I will miss this place. But then again, last night we watched a movie filmed in Arizona, and that sunset! I have missed that sunset. So I've decided (once again) to consider what I'll be missing and what I'm looking forward to.

I will miss the grass. I appreciate the beauty of desert landscaping more now that I've seen it done well (as a kid, I thought grass was the only way to go), but a lot of the "desert landscaping" we see looking for rentals is either just dirt or a whole yard of pink rocks. I'd like a tree of some kind, folks, even if it's just a palo verde. That said, Rosalyn met someone from Alabama the other day who told her that Arizona was beautiful. This lady loved the way the state decorates the freeways. That is lovely. It's also probably to make up for the fact that nothing grows there voluntarily. We love the grass and trees on the roadside here, but it does make me giggle when I see the mowers out or the tree trimmers cutting branches off that stretch towards the road.

I am not looking forward to dust. I am looking forward to less mold.

I will miss the rain. The humidity is a double-edged sword. I prefer a dry heat (while Josh has completely converted to humidity), but my hands and hair and lips are going to miss the humidity.

We have soft water here. We'll move to hard water city. I don't really know what the difference is, but people talk about it a lot. So I guess I'll have to figure it out. I can barely get the laundry clean as it is, so maybe this will make it better (but please no worse?).

They call it Alabama the Beautiful for a reason, but my blood speaks the language of the desert. Roll Tide and all that.