Happy Halloween!

It's 9:00 pm and we haven't seen a single trick-or-treater tonight.  Last night, we probably had about a dozen kids knock on our door.  Total.  I shouldn't have even bothered buying candy!

Some people say trick-or-treating isn't an appropriate activity for the Sabbath.  I think if it's a family affair (like trick-or-treating was for my family until I was, like, 10) it's totally appropriate.

When I was 12, Halloween was on a Sunday.  That was the first year I really had friends (haha) and I went trick-or-treating with my friends Katie and Sara.  We were members of Team Rocket (I can't believe they're STILL DOING POKEMON).  Everyone thought we were cheerleaders from the Archie comics, what with our white miniskirts and the big red letter "R" ... oh well.

When I was 4, I dressed up as a black cat and everyone thought I was such a cute little mouse.  I remember eventually pulling my headband and trying to make the ears pointier.  Come to think of it, those ears were awfully rounded ... I wonder if Mom could only find us mouse costumes and tried to pass them off as kitties?!  MY WORLD IS SHATTERED.

Anyway.  I didn't have to worry much about trick-or-treating on the Sabbath this year.  Carmen is 18 months old and doesn't notice or car.  Braxton, the 22-month-old down the street who is our best friend, came trick-or-treating with his parents.  Carmen freaked out when she saw him and wanted to go outside.  "Bwaboo!  Bwaboo!"  ("Braxton!")  We walked with Braxton's parents, Chris and Cat, to the last 5 houses in the neighborhood where people were home.  I think we got, like, 8 whole pieces of candy.  What a haul!

I've been trying to get Carmen to practice saying "trick or treat" for the past few weeks.  The best I've gotten from her is, "Twee!!!"  For the most part, she walked up to people's front porches and started panting and squealing "Ooh! Ooh!" when she saw people hand out candy.  It was kind of hilarious.

Here's Carmen's costume:

From now until the end of time, our kids will be Ewoks when it's Halloween and they're big enough to walk!  Yay for being geeks!

I loved Braxton's costume.  I was at DI last month and saw this really cute plastic Elmo Halloween candy basket.  Braxton *loves* Elmo and I thought it would be perfect for him.  He dressed up as Cookie Monster this year ... so we had this almost-two-year-old Cookie Monster running around carrying Elmo's head.  Yup!!

Luckily, I'm not going to have to worry much the whole Halloween-on-a-Sunday thing for another 11 years.  For now, I figure if the kids want to go trick-or-treating, I'll tell them it will be Sabbath appropriate if all the siblings go together and therefore turn it into a "family outing".  Carmen will be 12.

I vote we say Halloween falls on the last non-Sunday of October!  I mean, election day is "the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November" (which is just a complicated way of saying election day can't be November 1st) ... but then, what about the Jewish Sabbath?  I think Friday night is the BEST night for Halloween!  I guess Christians will just have to deal with this moral dilemma every so often.  Sigh!

Cost of success

During my sophomore year of college, I dropped out of the Computer Science major.  I love numbers, I love logic, I love programming, but it was really lonely spending 20+ hours a week per class in the lab.  I was the only girl.

Sometimes I feel like the business school was a step down.  The people were a bit more diverse, but they weren't really geeky like me.  And they all seemed convinced they were going to get rich easily.

But that is neither here nor there.

One thing I loved about the business school was the psychology.  I loved the Econ 101 concept of utility.  We read all sorts of interesting books and articles bout ethics and human relations and marketing and supply chain management ... I learned to LOVE the brains behind Toyota and McDonald's, although I still never visit McDonald's.  What I learned was really stinking cool.

Last week, my sister got a book in the mail from a friend she made while interning at Wal-Mart in Arkansas.  It was called "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely.  I highly recommend it if you're at all interested in stuff like that.

Areily is a Behavioral Economics professor at MIT.  'Nuff said!!  In the book, he does several studies and tests things like context (putting things in nice china vs. styrofoam cups) and anchoring (pick a random activity, like poetry reading, and ask one group how much they'd pay you for a poetry sitting and ask the other how much you'd have to pay them to listen to you read poetry) and does an interesting study on the psychological value of FREE!

I think we'll be buying copies of this and sending it around the family at Christmas time. ;)  It's totally our sort of thing!


This book also reminded me (okay, it reminded my friend Katie who reminded me) of another book that came out a while ago, called Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.  It talks about the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill (assuming you have natural talent, too.)  For example, you can compare a whole big group of people who have played the piano for the same number of years and divide them into groups based on their perceived skill level.  The highest level?  Practiced more.  Go figure!

And by practiced more, I mean significantly more.  You don't just fall into being a master of something.  YOU WORK AT IT.  There is also a bit of luck invovled, too, like when you start a business you have to be in the right place at the right time.  Bill Gates dedicated much of his life to computers.  Same thing with Steve Jobs.  They have the skill, the drive, the dedication, the vision, everything.  It's hard work to become that successful.

It kind of makes me think there is a snowball effect with wealth.  This is a really dorky analogy, but think of The Sims.  You start out really poor and get a job and spend FOREVER developing your skills so you can advance in your job to be able to buy all the cool things you want.  (Unless you cheat. HAHA.)  Then you reach a point where you've developed those skills, advanced in your career, and you're just rolling in dough and money is coming in and you're running out of things to do with your time and your money.  (Thank you, Bill Gates, for donating so much to education!)  At this point, you either start another game or find a way to make your Sim starve to death just for fun. @__@;

Anyway.  That was another tangent.  It's what I've been thinking about lately.


Last night, Mark was playing Starcraft with our friend, Stu.  Stu's roommate was studying for the GRE and was asking us our opinions on some of the practice problems he was doing.  They were those word/logic/comparison questions, like, "shoe is to running as ____ is to ____" and you have to choose the best answer.  I LOVE those sorts of tests!  It almost made me want to go take the GRE for the heck of it!  I MISS SCHOOL!

You want to know a way to turn off your geeky date?  Tell her she's smarter than you are (and you're 23 and she's 18).  Want to know a great way to compliment your geeky wife?  Tell her she might score better on the GRE than you did ... and you scored perfect on the math section.

My neighbor, Tammy, said she read a study about the kids who scored in the highest percentiles on the ACT and SAT.  What did they have in common?  All of them read or had their parents read to them for two hours a day growing up.  Let me repeat that: TWO HOURS. A DAY.  That is a LOT of reading.  It's no wonder these kids ended up bright - they worked for it!

I know lots of people who are (sorry!) less bright.  There's nothing wrong with that.  There are some people who seem to expect that above-average success will simply fall into their laps.  Or they think that simply working hard will yield results.  They don't realize there's also a few elements of creativity, dedication, talent, skill, and luck involved.  And some skills are more lucrative than others because they are deemed more valuable to society.


Welcome to lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average ...


It's a lot easier to make money as a surgeon or an engineer than it is to make money as a photographer or a musician.  Just sayin'.  And money isn't everything, either.  Do what you love, manage what you have, and everything else will generally work out.

Carmen and Carter, sittin' in a tree ...

I am in totally in love with Carter, the kid next door.  He's 3 1/2 years old and in Nursery with us.  His older brother, Jefferson, used to come over to my house all the time to A) play on the bunk bed upstairs and B) borrow my stuffed animals.  I AM THE COOLEST NEIGHBOR YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT.  Jefferson still occasionally comes over to borrow stuffed animals or play Mario Kart with Sam, another neighbor kid.

Deep down, I might just be a really cool 8-year-old boy.  I have the maturity and sense of humor to prove it. @_@
Why do ducks have flat feet?  To put out forest fires.  Why do elephants have flat feet?  To put out flaming ducks!  HAHAHAHA! {{insert exasperated eyeroll here}}

Yesterday, Carter pulled out this little wagon and Carmen found out she could fit into it.  Carter really wanted to pull Carmen around outside, and his mom gave him permission to do it.  Carmen was thrilled and had a great time.  My camera was acting up yesterday so I wasn't able to get a picture of it.  Luckily, Carter came back today and I asked if he wanted to pull her around again.  I asked him to give me a smile and he actually gave me one!  If only I could convince him to be so nice for his Nursery directory photo ... every time I pulled out the camera he would hide and make ugly faces at me.  (Crazy children and their Jekyll-and-Hyde attitudes!)

He looks so huge compared to Carmen!  The camera angle doesn't help, either.  But she *is* about half his size.  You might notice a scar on his cheek - early this year he had a nickel-sized cyst removed from his face.  The scar totally freaked out the other Nursery workers and made them think Carter was a scary/tough kid.  Ha ha!  He *is* quite a confident kid who could probably make his big brother cry, but I think he's a total sweetheart!

Growing up, I didn't like being the oldest.  I always wanted an older brother ... you know, the kind who might pick on me and tease me all the time, but would beat the crap out of any other boy who made me cry.  Carter can be Carmen's fake big brother. :)

I also think it's cute that the kids alternate between calling me "Kamis" and "Sister Dewey".  Am I really old enough to be called "Sister"?!  The other day, I calculated that I'm exactly halfway between 16 (the age of my baby brother!) and 30 (the age of many of my friends!)  I'm not quite sure how I feel about that fact!

I'm the Reject Parent

I'm sure Carmen misses me when I leave, but since I'm around her all day, I'm convinced she's obsessed with Daddy.  She wakes up in the morning and he's the first person she asks about (after asking for milk, of course).  She mopes if he leaves while we're eating breakfast.  All day long she asks me if we can go for a walk and visit Daddy at work.  ("Walk?  Daddy?")  And if we're out in the car and we happen to drive near Mark's work (which happens all the time, since he works just off AF Main Street, which is also State Street) she jumps in her car seat and goes, "Daddy?  Daddy?!"

Last week, I dropped off some lunch for Mark at work.  He was in a meeting, so Carmen wouldn't have the opportunity to hang out with him.  We walked into Mark's work and I went into his office, then I left and passed Carmen, who was still standing by the snack table.  I took her out to the car and as soon as Carmen saw we were going in the wrong direction, she started to object.  "Daddy?  DADDY!  NO!  NOOOOOOO!!!"

I texted Mark after we got out to the car, and he texted me back.  "We're taking a 10-minute break now!  I'll come out if you're still here!"  I'd actually just left the parking lot, but I turned around and re-parked so Mark could have some snuggle time with Carmen.  She really enjoyed it until the 10 minutes was over and Mark had to go back to work.



Maybe she loves Daddy more because I make her go down for naps and I take her to the doctor and give her bajillions of shots.

Today she had her 18-month checkup and she had a TON of shots.  I had skipped the chicken pox shot at her 12-month appointment, then decided she should get it, then it turns out there WERE shots she was supposed to get at 15 months, but when I called and asked they said there weren't any immunizations scheduled for her 15-month checkup so I cancelled it.  Now she's all caught up on her shots 'till she's 2!  And I decided to give her the flu shot, too.  So I held her down on the table while the two nurses went nuts on her thighs with needles.  Poor sweetheart!!

Luckily, Carter (the 3-year-old two doors down) came over a few times and invited Carmen over to play.  It was probably a good distraction.  He's such a sweet kid!  And Carmen loves Owen, Carter's 3-month-old little brother.  She saw Owen and squealed, "BABY!!!" and gave him kisses. <3 <3  YAY BABIES.

Ready to Go!

After taking my shower this morning, I opened up the closet to figure out what I wanted to wear today.  I was still in my towel, and Carmen pulled one of my high-heeled sandals out of the closet.

"Shoes?"

I decided I'd like to figure out how to take up as much time as possible this morning, so I entertained her by sitting down on the bed and letting her put my right shoe on.  As soon as she got my shoe on, she took off running for the bedroom door.

"WALK!"

I sat there and laughed to myself.  I was still just wearing a towel, but obviously since I had my right shoe on I was allllllll ready to go for a walk.  Toddler world is awesome.

Selfish Love Songs

This past weekend, Carmen and I went up to Lava Hot Springs with Grandma June (Dad's mom) and my sister, Marissa.  Mark went to his friend's brother's wedding in Boise.  It was a lot of fun to have a girls' weekend out, playing games and reading books and watching game shows on TV ... it brought back lots of good memories.

For example, my grandma *loves* to watch The Price Is Right.  I started watching it in kindergarten, after Marissa introduced me to it.  I was a retarded kid - I think Marissa introduced me to everything cool (even Pokemon) and figured out everything first (you know how much it sucks when your sister runs up to you in the hall and proclaims "THE EASTER BUNNY ISN'T REAL!  AND DAD IS SANTA, TOO!" ??)  She was even the first to ask my parents about birth control.  What the heck!

Anyway.  The Price is Right.  We *always* watch it when we visit Grandma.  We used to record the episodes in the morning, then watch it again in the afternoon and yell at everyone and tell them what to bid.  "NO NO NO YOU'RE OVER!"

Why do we love watching game shows?  I have no idea.  Maybe it's because we like to think, "Hm, I wonder what it would be like to have that cool hot tub/car/Hawaiian vacation?"  Then we watch Deal or No Deal, and we're like, "$64,000?  I'll take it!" while they're like, "No freaking way - I want the $200,000!" and then they get it.

It makes me glad my TV's upstairs in our room and we never watch it.  Otherwise, I could easily turn into a ginormous couch potato who watches crappy daytime TV all the time.  Instead, I hang out downstairs and cross-stitch all day and dance to Billy Joel/Nickelback/whatever.

ANYWHO.  On the way home last night, Marissa and I were listening to the radio and some of our favorite girly songs came on, like Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA (you hate it but it's so addictive, you know? I'm noddin' my head like yeah, movin' my hips like yeah ...) and Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me.

It reminded us of a concept one of our friends introduced us to last year: the Selfish Love Song.  Basically, you take any old love song and switch around the I's and the you's to you's and I's.
I like what it does to Close To You by The Carpenters:
Why do birds suddenly appear every time I am near?
Could it be they want to be close to me?

We got a kick out of this when we applied it to You Belong With Me.  It makes the song sound so ridiculous.  Then the next song started playing on the radio and Marissa and I burst into hysterics.  It was Don't Wanna Miss A Thing by Aerosmith.  I think I reached a new level of Selfish Love Song Nirvana.  "Every moment spent with me is a moment you treasure!  You don't wanna close your eyes, you don't wanna fall asleep, 'cause you'll miss me, baby, and you don't wanna miss a thiiiiing!"

XKCD shares my sense of humor:

Oh yeah.  WE think we're clever!!!

I look at my daughter, and I believe

Mark's going to a wedding this weekend, and wanted to put some pictures and videos of Carmen on his iPod to show off to his friends.  It's kind of funny to see the videos we've taken of her just sitting there, hoping she'd get around to rolling over or crawling or walking or talking.  She took her sweet time to do those things.

Carmen was born in May.
Smiling - around 2 months, but never really laughed much until she was, like, almost 8 months old.  Everyone loves baby giggles - waiting was torture for me!
Rolling over to get around - January (about 8 months)
Crawling - end of March (10 months)
Walking - August (15 months)

She's always been on the late end of normal ... and I guess she's about the same for size.  Right now I think she's about 22 pounds, which is about the same size as your average 12-month-old ... and she's 17 months old.  I love how tiny she is, though!  She's adorable!  Squee! <3

I love this time of year.  The weather is still nice, and I love the smell of the leaves starting to fall off the trees, and I love the colors, and I love the feeling of newness associated with the beginning of a new school year.  Since I've graduated from school and Carmen is far from starting kindergarten, the "new school year" feeling for me lasts all autumn long.

The weather's still nice enough that Carmen and I can go for walks.  She loves walks.  If she could get me to go on 12 walks a day she would totally do it.  I think my legs are going to fall off.  My neighbors think I'm very studly.  I think my neighbor, Heather, is the stud.  She looks like she's the one in charge of her family outings. ;)

Sometimes, there are families I associate with and I look at their kids and the struggles they have and I start to worry, "What the heck have I gotten myself into?!  THIS COULD BE MISERABLE!"  I worry my kids are going to be nothing but obnoxious and defiant and frustrating to deal with all the time.  I'm afraid parenthood will drive me nuts and somehow I will end up cracking up and going crazy.

Then I go outside and see my neighbors and their children and realize, "Hey, wait, this is what my life is like!  I don't have to worry so much about these other peoples' issues, because I'm not these other people."

I see Gretel playing with her toys and pretending to be a princess and singing Happy Birthday to Peter Pan.  I see Jordan playing football and baseball with his dad and his cousin Kaden.  I see older sisters comforting younger brothers when they get frustrated with some failure or another (you know, like OH NO another kid took his ball or he tripped) and it gives me hope.

When we live righteously, our families can be happy.  We can be full of hope.  We can have joy together.  We can learn together.  We can grow together.  And it is awesome.

I was at the gym today and found the September edition of the Ensign and took the opportunity to read it.  Somehow we lost our copy right when we got it in the mail so I never read it.  It's basically my favorite thing to read every month ... it makes me feel good!  I found a section in it about the family and the Proclamation and what it teaches.  Lately, I've been thinking a lot about family and children and teaching and discipline (isn't repentance and forgiveness THE BEST?!  SERIOUSLY) so... just thought I'd share:

	What the Family Proclamation Teaches What the World Teaches “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” Gender doesn’t really matter, and it’s something you can choose. “The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave.” This life is it. There is no plan. Relationships end when we die. “The family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” The family is an outdated social construct resulting from the necessities of past generations.
	There was a time (very recently) when I was getting really caught up in what the world teaches.  I felt very insecure and depressed about everything ... because obviously, women are oppressed when they're required to "just" stay home and make babies, right?  We all need to have jobs and to be independent and everything to be fulfilled and we need to put off marriage.  Having gotten married at 19 and having had a kid a month before I turned 22, I spent a lot of time worrying that I had somehow shorted myself in life.  (I don't feel that way anymore.) I don't recommend that anyone try to get married and rush into having kids young (that's a sure recipe for disaster for some people!)  Do it on your own schedule.  But it's what was right for me.  If someone does put off getting married and having a family, that's fine, but there are a lot of other types of trials and struggles associated with that decision, too (it gets harder to meet single people, as you get more set in your ways it's harder to learn to adjust and compromise with your spouse, higher risks of infertility and birth defects, etc) but still ... it all usually works itself out in the end, and I think we would all do well to sit back, relax, be happy, still work, but also have faith and that calm, peaceful assurance that all will be well.  God knows our needs and if we are humble and faithful He will bless us.  He does bless us.  That knowledge brings me peace.

Sixth Sense

Carmen has a sixth sense - a chocolate sense.  I guess she's doomed, being the daughter of a chocoholic, but still!!  You can literally be on the other side of the house from her, and you'll open a candy bar ever so quietly, and she'll hear it and come running.

"More?!  MORE?!" she'll demand.

"More" is Carmen's word for "give me some of that food" when she can't say the name of the food.  Her current other food words are: cheese, nani (banana), wawoo (water), kwakoo (cracker), cookie, juice, and mock (milk).

She really likes eating the freeze-dried strawberries out of my Special K cereal (waaah!) and she'll pull the bag off of the shelf and come up to me and say, "More?  More?"  IT'S SO CUTE I CAN'T RESIST.



Here's Carmen hanging out at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory yesterday.  I really wanted a candy apple and Mark got some chocolate, since he's allergic to apples (sad days!!)

PS. Did you know they can cut up candy apples?!  I feel stupid for not thinking about this before.  I was staring at my chocolate and pecan encrusted caramel apple, thinking, "Hm, how am I going to get into this without rubbing chocolate all over my nose and looking like a horse?" and the girl at the counter was like, "Want me to slice the apple for you?" and I thought, "YOU ARE A GENIUS.  MY PROBLEM IS SOLVED!" and there was much rejoicing.  She just stuck the apple down on the counter and cut it into sixths around the stick.  IT WAS AWESOME.

A Rose by Another Name Could Be Stupid

Carmen's been so fun lately that Mark and I are starting to look forward to future children.  (Wait until at least February, Kamis!  February!  2 1/2 years is a good gap!)  A few nights ago, we were talking about baby names.  We have 3 boy names we really like (Mace, Daniel, and Brad after my Dad) and one girl name we can agree on (Kimberly).  I like Rebecca and Jennifer, but he's not sold on either of those names until we come up with acceptable middle names for them. =p

Anywho, I asked him what other girl names he likes.  He paused for a minute, and said, "Enid."

Enid?!

Are you kidding me?!

I asked him where in the world he came up with that name, and he was all like, "Well, you see, there's this Barenaked Ladies song ..."

*facepalm*

(No offense to any Enids out there, or anyone who knows and loves an Enid.  My great-grandma's name is Ethel and I love the name, even though it makes other people laugh.)

I Love Gay Mormon Guy

I found this blog entry a few days after the backlash about President Packer's talk about overcoming temptation.  I loved this guy's perspective so much I immediately subscribed to his blog and have loved everything he's written.

Obviously there's a lot that can be said about President Packer's talk and I think most everyone has heard most everything there is to be said.  One thing I've been thinking about is how the Brethren tend to use the word "overcome".  People argue we teach that same-sex attraction can be "cured".  That may be the personal opinion of some of the Brethren and why they are so interested in researching "treatment" for homosexuals or whatever -- BUT I have NEVER heard ANY of them say in Conference that gay people can be made straight.  (Go ahead and find me a Conference talk and I'll take it back.  But I seriously cannot recall a single reference to "homosexual tendencies can be reversed.")

It reminds me of how people mistook who Christ was supposed to be.  The Jews were expecting a "Savior" who would deliver them from physical bondage.  When we hear the Prophets say things about "overcoming" temptation, especially same-sex attraction, we think "overcome" means "fix".  But you know what?  Even with pornography addicts, after they have repented, aren't going to suddenly NOT be turned on by porn.  They'll just be able to resist the temptation to open up an inappropriate magazine or website.  The feelings and urges and everything are still there, they just have the strength to not act on those temptations.

And that's all I'm going to say on that topic.

 I could talk forever about all the things I've been thinking about and studying since before and after Conference, but it would take too long and my fingers would get really cramped.  So I'm going to leave you with a scripture to ponder.  I read it while at the gym today.

Helaman 4:11-13
  11 Now this great loss of the Nephites, and the great slaughter which was among them, would not have happened had it not been for their wickedness and their abomination which was among them; yea, and it was among those also who professed to belong to the church of God.
  12 And it was because of the pride of their hearts, because of their exceeding riches, yea, it was because of their oppression to the poor, withholding their food from the hungry, withholding their clothing from the naked, and smiting their humble brethren upon the cheek, making a mock of that which was sacred, denying the spirit of prophecy and of revelation, murdering, plundering, lying, stealing, committing adultery, rising up in great contentions, and deserting away into the land of Nephi, among the Lamanites—
  13 And because of this their great wickedness, and their boastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper, but were afflicted and smitten, and driven before the Lamanites, until they had lost possession of almost all their lands.
  14 But behold, Moronihah did preach many things unto the people because of their iniquity, and also Nephi and Lehi, who were the sons of Helaman, did preach many things unto the people, yea, and did prophesy many things unto them concerning their iniquities, and what should come unto them if they did not repent of their sins.
  15 And it came to pass that they did repent, and inasmuch as they did repent they did begin to prosper.

It's all part of the pride cycle.  They were just like us.  Despite the fact that the Church has been around for nearly 200 years, we as members in each generation have to learn how to live the Gospel.  One generation may do it well, but who knows how the next will act?  Just look at 4 Nephi, after Christ visits the people.  They had it figured out ... and a few hundred years later they destroyed themselves.

I've been through the pride cycle in my own life - I have moments of humility where I feel like my heart is pure and I have no desire to do anything evil.  Then somehow I start to get complacent, and the next thing I know I've stopped reading my scriptures, I've stopped praying, and I'm trying to figure out why I'm depressed and overwhelmed.  HMM GEE I WONDER.


PS. The wedding is in Boston/Rhode Island because that's where Shauri grew up.  That makes a lot of sense.  I'll add "growing up in a far away place as foreign and cool to me as the moon" to my list of things that make me jealous of Shauri (in a good way.) ;)

Goin' to the chapel ...

I've been trying to think of something funny/clever/interesting to write about, and I keep having these ideas but I can never seem to get myself to sit down and actually write anything.

So today, I'm going to write about my husband's brother, James.  I love him.  He's recently gotten engaged to his girlfriend, Shauri.

(That is Shauri's hand, by the way ... as much as it looks like it could belong to James.)

Anyway.  They're going to have beautiful light-haired blue-eyed babies some day.  Can you see them (the babies)?  Maybe it's just me.

ANYWHO.  They met because Shauri knows Mark and James' sister, Andrea.  They're in the same ward in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  All of the rest of us siblings live in Utah (Mark)/Idaho (Karen)/Washington (Nate)/Oregon (parents).  I'm under the impression lots of Shauri's family lives in or near Michigan.  She's also got two brothers who live near us here in Utah.  I was kind of expecting them to probably get married in Detroit or something at the farthest.

So of course, it totally makes sense that they've decided they're probably going to get married next spring/summer in the Boston temple.  Yup.  Not random at all.

But honestly ... I'm kind of excited about the idea of visiting the East cost.  I'm excited to add a few more items to my "States I've Been To" list.  :)

Canadian Thanksgiving

American Thanksgiving is held on the fourth Thursday in November.  Canadian Thanksgiving is held on the second Monday in October, which happens to be the same day as our American Columbus Day.

When Mark and I were first married, our friends the Shumates (oh man, am I going to spend my whole time writing in this blog about the good ol' days with the Shumates?!) introduced us to Canadian Thanksgiving because *he* was Canadian.  Mark and I like food (um, have you seen our waistlines?) and any excuse to get together with friends, so we try to celebrate it every year even though we're not really Canadian.  But sometimes I do wish I lived in British Columbia.  YES.

Our Thanksgiving plans this year are crazy, so we thought it would be a really fun idea to invite some friends over for Canadian Thanksgiving dinner.  Plus, Mark wanted to try his hand at baking his first turkey.  Want to know his dad's secret?  Get one of those turkey roasting bags, follow the directions in the box, and add 30-60 minutes to the baking time.  The extra time makes the turkey more tender, and the bag keeps everything moist.  NOM.

Our house isn't too big, so we just invited a few friends we couldn't hang out with during the summer because they went off and did things like internships.  Pshaw.  We invited the Fillerups and the Hurds.  I really need to be braver with my camera and take pictures!

Dinner was pretty simple - turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing.  At the last minute, I remembered I'd like to make rolls, too.  If you want a good rolls recipe, you can either click here or Google "quick easy rolls recipe" and do the first thing that pops up.  I'll also save you another Google search and tell you one package of yeast is 2 1/4 tsp. ;)

Mark decided that we should start a Canadian Thanksgiving tradition that we say something we're thankful for as it relates to Canada.  We all ended up saying things like, "I'm thankful for maple syrup." and "I'm thankful it's colder up there than it is down here." and "I'm thankful for ... uh ... free health care ..."

After we went around the table, we started telling Canadian jokes.
Q: How did they come up with the name for Canada?
A: They drew letters out of a hat.  "C, eh?" "N, eh?" "D, eh?"

There's also got to be some kind of "How many Canadians does it take to change a light bulb?" joke we can Google.

After dinner, we needed to kill time while waiting for the pumpkin cobbler to cook, so we decided to listen to some good ol' Canadian comedy: Radio Free Vestibule.  (A vestibule is that area between the outer door and the inner door at a building's entrance.)

If you actually clicked the link, I recommend listening to the Pete and Bob sketches, Repeat What I Say, and What Is In The Box.  They're radio shorts; you don't actually have to watch them.  We also went on YouTube and tracked down "Bulbous Bouffant" and "I Don't Want to go to Toronto".

I LOVE I Don't Want to go to Toronto but the audio is just about impossible to find.  I managed to find some kind of weird AMV on YouTube.  Don't watch it; just listen and read the lyrics:



I have no idea why I find this so funny ... little girls in suits holding black balloons, donuts made of edible oil, people having cigarette ads instead of faces and numbers instead of names ... maybe that's why I love The Far Side so much.  It's just about as random.

We ended the night playing cards  When our brains got too tired from playing Bridge (which I've mentioned before), we settled for a few rounds of a simpler game - Idiot.  I found it quite fitting, because once upon a time I found out there was another name for the game - Canada!

I love spending time with my friends.  We've decided to turn Canadian Thanksgiving into a new tradition we celebrate with our friends, since we often spend American Thanksgiving out of town with family.  HURRAH.


PS. Come over and play with us!  YES!

Vocabulary explosion

Carmen's vocabulary has been growing exponentially lately.  I used to be able to list all of the words she knew in the order she learned them, and now I just can't keep track of it.  She probably knows a whole bunch of words I haven't caught on to yet.

This morning, we were playing and I asked her if she wanted to play with the baby doll.  She's been figuring out body parts (I'm a bad mom ... I never quizzed her on body parts and now I'm all shocked that she actually knows what a "nose" is.  I'm sure Your Baby Can Read says she totally should've known all of this 5 months ago!) and I figured I'd rather have her poke out the doll's eyes than mine.  ANYWHO.  I handed her the doll and said, "Baby doll." and she squealed, "BABY!!!!" and hugged it and gave it kisses.  IT WAS SO STINKING CUTE.

She's also recently learned the word "hat".  We have this head massager thingy we bought from Bed Bath and Beyond last year.  Our guy friends love it, but Carmen's hated it for the longest time.  It tickles and it's uncomfortable!  But lately she's loved it.  She was sitting on the kitchen table and pointed to the head massager on the bookshelf and said, "Hat?  Hat?" and Mark pulled it out and poked her with it.

"She hates that thing!" I told him.  (Really, she screams angrily at me when I play with her with it!)

"No she doesn't, she loves it!"  And Mark was right ... she was laughing.

No fair.  Carmen also lets Mark brush her teeth without complaining.  Luckyyyy!

Here she is flirting with our friend, Stu.  Hoo boy.

And here's a random picture from Mark's work.  She's such a happy little hilarious doll.  I love toddlerhood.

friendship struggles

So ...

Last week, I got upset with a friend because I felt like she was being petty about something that had disappointed her in life.  I went over to her house to knock some sense into her, and all I had to do was say, "What's up?" and she told me everything that was going on, including all of the things I was going to say to her.  (Like, "It's not a surprise ANY of this happened!" and "Things ARE going to work out, you just have to wait a few more days!")  As her friend, I don't think it's my place to rub her flaws in her face.  She's already got her husband/mother/etc to do that for her. =p  So I just listened, because she needed room to vent, and didn't say anything more about the topic.  Now she's mad I got mad and didn't tell her about it.

I think it's normal to feel frustrated when some of my friends have been laid off TWICE in a month, other friends can't find a job, other friends have crappy jobs with crappy hours that strain their relationship with their spouse ... and then I've got another friend whining that her parents just gave her several thousand dollars in an inconvenient way.  Her problem seemed a liiiiiiiiiiitle teensy weensy bit short-term, obnoxious, ungrateful, selfish, and whiny in comparison to these other friends who aren't sure where there will be dinner on the table next month.

But it's funny how trying to walk in another person's shoes changes things.

When I got there to beat her with the Stick of Sense, it was obvious that she felt every bit as powerless as my other friends felt.  This struggle had been dragging on for weeks, one issue/crisis after another, and there was very little she could do to control the outcome.  She had to do a lot of waiting, depending on the actions of others.  She did everything she could to make things go smoothly, but things outside of her control prevented things from working out the way she wanted them to.  This was her trial, and it was every bit as challenging for her to deal with as the challenges my other friends were facing.  I'm her friend.  She needed emotional support.  As her friend, it's my responsibility to help her and support her through whatever frustrations she has.  No need for sticks.

There are challenges I've had that others would be able to handle with ease - that's why they are MY challenges.  When I'm struggling, the last thing I need is someone to come up to me and tell me I need to grow up, or that they could handle the same challenge better than I could, or that it's not really much of a challenge, or that I just need to endure and the end is in sight - I already KNOW that!!!

Anywho.  She doesn't want to talk to me right now and says she needs a break.  (Imagine - you're having the crappiest month of your life and you find out a friend got frustrated with you on top of everything.)  It doesn't change that I still love her and want to be her friend.  We all have our quirks.  It's one of those things that makes friends endearing to us, as obnoxious as we can be to each other.  ("There goes Kamis again, getting all depressed because she has nothing to do ... She really needs to learn how to relax!")

I guess all I can do is wait for her to let me apologize.  Any advice?

What's the speed limit?

I don't know ... you tell me!

I think this is the reason why people forget the speed limit is 15, not 25, in our neighborhood.  It's like an episode of Matlock, where Matlock gets ticketed for blowing a stop sign.  He says, "What stop sign?  I didn't see one!" and the police officer points back to this "obvious" stop sign that is completely obscured by trees and vines growing all over it.  XD

Technically, you can see the speed limit sign right as you pass it.

Luckily, our HOA has put up these little greenish yellowish ... uh ... people ... remind drivers to slow down.

(Hey, Chad, when are your landscaping people going to prune that tree?!)

Learning from the Jehovah's Witnesses

I'm more of a "big picture" person than a "specific details" person when it comes to certain things.  Maybe it's because the big picture can apply to everyone, whereas the specific details that are important differ from person to person and situation to situation.

Last week, a Jehovah's Witness showed up at my door and asked if she could share their beliefs with me.  Actually, I've *never* talked to a JW before and have had secret fantasies of meeting one for YEARS.  I was disappointed a few years back when we missed their visit and only had a copy of their Watchtower magazine thingy to read from.

I love learning about others' beliefs.  Mark and I were involved for a few years in an interfaith dialogue thing, primarily between Mormons and Evangelicals.  We made a few friends there and still stalk them on Facebook. ;)  (Hello, Billy and Adam!  I doubt you'll read this, but I love you guys and still think of you often!)

The thing about this interfaith dialogue is that it strengthens the faith of both sides involved.  We don't prove each other wrong - we can't! - but we explore and better understand the reasons why we believe what we believe and why we disagree on certain points.  It gives us a greater respect for the other view, too, because we then understand that people don't just blindly follow their faith as we sometimes wish to believe.

If you compare scriptures and which references we choose to focus on and how we choose to interpret them, we can understand how so many people can come up with so many different reasons to believe differently on even basic octrines.  And how is God going to judge that, when so much of the Bible seems to be so ambiguous?  It doesn't seem fair that he would exalt one and damn another because they happened to focus on "this verse in Corinthians says X" instead of "this other verse in Isaiah goes along with this other verse in Romans that actually says Y."  Or whatever.  I gave up on Bible bashing in high school.




I will go back and re-find the references later, but I want to share the experience I had with the JW's about their beliefs about the identity of "Jehovah".  Some believe Jehovah refers to God, as in the Father, and others believe Jehovah refers to Jesus Christ.  Others believe in the Trinity, so they're the same person anyway. ;)

This Jehovah's Witness showed me a few things in the Bible (you know, like how "THE LORD" replaces "Jehovah" a gajillion times) and showed some scripture in the New Testament that made it look like Jehovah has to refer to God because Jehovah refers to his son.  Hm.  Interesting.  I never put much thought into it after the New Testament seminary lesson we had that showed some scripture that made it sound like JESUS declared himself to be Jehovah.

Right now, I'm reading the beginning of 1 Samuel, so the scriptural whatnot surrounding "Jehovah" isn't at the front of my mind.  I wasn't about to argue with this Jehovah's Witness about what she gleans from the scriptures.

Mark, on the other hand, served a mission and probably spent a lot of time discussing this very issue with people.  I asked him if he could show me some references in the Bible about why we believe Jesus Christ, not God the Father, is Jehovah.

He opened up his scriptures and showed me something in Isaiah about Jehovah being the judge, then showed me something in the New Testament about how Christ is the judge and His Father turned over that responsibility (of judge, to judge) to him.  Interesting.  So that makes Christ Jehovah, and his own

father, and now there's a lot of support for the Trinity, in whom a lot of Christians DON'T believe, and then there's the whole "When Christ was baptized, the Father spoke and the Holy Ghost was in the form of a dove, so clearly they are separate and this whole egg-Trinity thing doesn't work."

So who is right?  At this point, an atheist throws the Bible out and says it's a load of crap and clearly this is one of the MANY straws that finally broke his previously faithful back.

And my other question is ... who cares about these nitpicky details?  Does God?  If he cared, wouldn't he ... uh ... make it more clear so EVERYONE would be forced to come to the same conclusion?  I'm more concerned about trying to follow Christ and have charity and bear one another's burdens and remembering the beam in my own eye and everything.  Worrying excessively about things like this makes me think of counting my steps on the Sabbath.

That's why I'm Mormon.  I'm thankful we have personal revelation that confirms truth to us.  I'm thankful we have modern prophets, seers, and revelators that can tell us the word of God as it applies to our lives, just as God provided His people with prophets, seers, and revelators in Biblical times.  I think a just God would hold people accountable for their knowledge and their understanding.  I could go on.



I also see why others believe as they do and have no interest in arguing with them because I believe there are grains of truth in just about every belief system that has a wide following and has stood the test of time.  People generally don't believe crap.  I just believe I have more, if you want it, if you're interested. ;)

Balloons Are Awesome

Last night, we went to the new Chick-fil-A in American Fork to use up some of our free stuff coupons (they expire October 16th.)  When we got there, there was nobody in line but the restaurant was full and they had balloons everywhere.  Carmen got a balloon and thought it was the greatest thing in the world!!

The cats loved the balloon, too.  Carmen played with them for a while, then demanded more ice cream.  I love how polite but direct she is about it!







Of course, this morning we woke up and the balloon had sunk to the floor.  I'm glad we caught this on camera. :)

An epic game of Hen

There's a game our old friends, the Shumates, introduced us to when we lived in Provo.  It's called Hen, pronounced with an "h" like "Achmed" or "loch".  (So should it be Chen?  Hjen?  I don't know!)

The game is pretty simple (to us crazy gamers):

The goal is to end up with the least number of points in your hand.
Each card is worth its face value (aces are 1, eights are 8, face cards are 10, jokers are zero and are wild cards)
Every player starts out with 5 cards.

Play:
On your turn, you switch out the cards in your hand by discarding, then drawing either the top card from the discard pile or the top card of the deck.
You can discard a single card, sets of cards with the same face value (like a bunch of 4's), or runs of 3 or more cards of the same suit (5, 6, 7 of hearts).  Discarding multiple cards is what helps you get a smaller hand.
When you pick up "the top card" from the discard pile, if the person before you discarded a set, you can pick up any of the discarded cards.  If it's a run, you can only pick up a card from the end (like in the case above, you could pick up the 5 or the 7, but not the 6.  So if someone threw out a run and there was a joker in the middle of the run, you couldn't pick up the joker.  LAME.)  You can't pick up a card discarded by the person before the person before you.
When you have 11 or fewer points and you think you have fewer points than all of the other players, you knock.  Everyone else has one more turn (and HAS to take it, even if THEY wanted to knock) except for you (because you know you want to keep your cards!) and then we see who has the least number of points in their hand.

Scoring:
After the person knocks and everyone takes their last turn, everyone counts up the number of points in their hands.  Whoever has the least number of points in their hand gets 0 points.  Everyone else gets the number of points they have in their hand (so if you have an ace, a 6, and a Queen left in your hand at the end of the game, you get 17 points.)  If you were the person who knocked and someone else either ties you OR has fewer points in their hand, then the knocker gets 30 points plus whatever they have in their hand.  (Say I knock with 3 points in my hand and you end up with 2 points and have the least number of points.  You get 0 points and I get 33.  Ouch!)
Whenever someone gets more than 200 points, whoever has the least number of points wins.

Random variation to make the game longer and more entertaining:
If you happen to get exactly 200 points, your score goes down to 150 and the game keeps going.  We like to see how many points we'd have to have in our hand to add up to 170 points and then lose, so we knock and get the 30 some-odd points to try to go back down to 150 points. ;)  (Cheap, huh?)  It's a lot harder to happen to have exactly enough points in your hand after discarding and possibly drawing a random card at the end of your last turn to add up to 200 points.


(If you think this game is complicated ... well ... we like to play Bridge.  If you play Bridge, too, give us a call and we can become friends!  We don't know many people who can play!)

But it happened to Mark!

Mark was having a tough game and kept drawing these crappy cards.  Jorgen knocked, and Mark discarded a card and drew ANOTHER 10-point card.  He was really disappointed until he did the math ... he needed 36 points to get to 200 and happened to get exactly that!  Rotten luck turned to gold!

But it didn't end there.  We like being close to 170 points because then it's easy to figure out how many points you need to have (and then lose when you knock).  We were all pretty close to each others scores at this point in the game and Jorgen needed to knock on 2 points and LOSE (hah! good luck with that one!) to get his score down to 150 again.  And he did it.  We ALL happened to have 2 points in our hands at the end of that round.

The cards kept doing nice things for Jorgen.  He ended up winning the game.  I'll blame it on beginner's luck. ;)

Smelly cats, smelly cats, what are we feeding you?

Sometimes, our cats fart.  And they are quite stinky.  Food can be the culprit, so we've gone to the store and have tried several kinds of kitten food.  We've done the whole "mix it in a little at a time so their guts get used to the new food" thing, but it seems that they are stinky no matter what kind of food we buy them.  Now we've given up and have gone back to buying them the cheapest food that doesn't make them too stinky, because if they're going to fart anyway, why buy a small $15 bag of cat food?

At least they're cute!

We've got to figure out how to get them to stop trying to eat our food.  Carmen will accidentally drop a piece of cheese, and Tiber (the gray one) will dart in and grab the food while running because he knows he's not supposed to make off with our food.  Or they'll stick their heads in our bowls the second we sit them aside and start trying to lick them out.  Yeesh.  We can't find the spray bottles fast enough!

It's like the cow talk from Conference the other day.  "You stupid cow!  You killed yourself!  We're trying to keep you safe!"

Sometimes, people say weird things

We have great stories about the people we're close to.  I think it's because we spend so much time together that we're BOUND to reach a point where something weird happens.  It's like the statistic that most auto accidents happen within 5 miles of your home.  Well, of course you're likely to get into an accident close to home - you do most of your driving there!!

I love spending time with Mark's aunt Fay.  She's a very positive person and has very insightful things to say.  But sometimes, I don't think I quite get it.

Last April, we were over at her house for lunch over Conference weekend.  She has some boxes of toys and things for her grandchildren to play with and has done a very good job of keeping her house baby-friendly.  I was in the main room playing with Carmen and she came upstairs and struck up a conversation with me.

"You know one thing you will not find in a house with a baby?" she asked.

I had a few ideas, but thought it best not to answer because she probably had something neat/cute/insightful to say.  "Um, no, what?"

She looked at me very seriously and said, "An open safety pin."

...

I wasn't quite sure how to react to that, so I nodded politely and let her go about her business.

How should I have responded?
You know what else you won't find in a house with a baby?  Arsenic.

I can do it, too!!

(I think we're doing pretty well, considering this is the only weird moment story I remember in all the 4 1/2 years I've known her.  LOL.  I love my family!)

Random thoughts

Things I want to write about:
~How kind of creepy it was listening to Conference because every talk was related to something I've specifically thought about/written about/wanted to write about in the past two months.  THE BRETHREN ARE SPYING ON ME.

~The book I'm reading: Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps
- and how I love personality tests but still think it's strange I test "introvert" (could an introvert talk this much?)

~Did I mention I'm working on the Celtic Spring cross stitch again?  That's the one that disappeared when my laptop almost got stolen a few years ago.

~I'm only 23, but suddenly I FEEL OLD because I'm like, "Oh, yeah, X thing that happened 10 years ago feels like yesterday!" and "We've been married 4 years?  Seriously?" and "Whaaaat?  We've lived in this house here in American Fork LONGER THAN I LIVED IN COLORADO SPRINGS?!"

~And then I guess I kind of feel like a loser that I've been here so long and spent a long time being anti-social.  I'll blame the fact that pregnancy and new parenthood really sucks it out of you.  Next time I become a first-time mother, I won't have a baby a year after moving into a new place.  I need that first year to actually get to know people. ;)

Schedules

One thing I've learned in the past 17 months is the importance of a predictable routine (or schedule) for kids.  It wasn't that big of a deal at first, because newborns sleep all the time and can sleep through anything.  They just wake up every few hours to eat.  After a while, though, they start spending more time awake and start needing to figure out how to get themselves down and stay down for longer periods of time.

Someone told me that the "magical hour" to put kids down for bed seems to be around 8:00.  When Carmen was younger (4 or 5 months?) she seemed to be able and willing to stay up until 10:00 watching Castle with us.  We couldn't convince her to go down any earlier than that, which was fine with me.  I figured that was the reason why she was able to sleep until 8:00 in the morning before wanting to get out of bed and play.

By the way, she still got up a few times in the night to eat.  She didn't really start sleeping through the night regularly until she was almost a year old ... but I was glad that she never wanted to *stay up* and *play* in the middle of the night!  That was good enough for me!  Plus, I never really slept well anyway so I was always waking up a few times in the middle of the night ANYWAY.  Blargh!

Sure enough, as Carmen settled into a more human-like schedule, she naturally started getting tired and going to bed around 8:00 on the dot.


I had a hard time figuring out her nap schedule, though.  Younger babies usually take about two naps during the day, then around a year they usually drop one of the naps.  It seemed like most of my friends' kids took their naps in the afternoons, and I was SO JEALOUS because it seemed like every morning, Carmen would wake up with us (not too early, thank goodness!) and then be ready to go back to bed an hour or two later.  We barely had time to eat breakfast and I couldn't go ANYWHERE because she would get so amazingly cranky.

Now that I'm watching my neighbor's kindergartner in the mornings, I've finally convinced Carmen to take a nap AFTER lunch.  It's wonderful.  By that time, I'm tired enough that I sometimes take a nap, too. :D  I think she can stay up so long because she's entertained by more people than just me.  Mom alone?  I'm boring!  Mom + 5-year-old?  Entertainment galore!

So here's how our schedule generally works during the week:
Some time between 6 and 7:30 - wake up, family snuggle time, one parent plays with Carmen while the other showers, then we all have breakfast

7:30-8:00 - Mark leaves for work.  He works 1.1 miles from our house, so he can walk or bike or I can give him a ride if he's running late.  That's why we chose to live here.  Carmen hates it if he doesn't say goodbye, and lately I've started going to work with him.  Sometimes I can visit for a while, other times I have to be back in time for the kindergartner to get here.

8:30-8:45 - Sadie, the kindergartner, arrives.  We leave for school around 12:15, so I try to think of what we can do for the next 3.5 hours or so.

Usually, it goes something like this:
~Run errands or do chores around the house until 11:00.  Sadie unintentionally keeps Carmen distracted and plays with the cats.  (Those cats are probably the best thing that's happened lately.  Kids think they are so stinkin' funny.)

I also use this time to get ready for the day and put my makeup on.  Carmen comes upstairs and either sits on the counter next to me and brushes her teeth or chases the cats around our room.

11:00 - lunch time.  Carmen likes to feed herself so she's busy for a good 30 or 45 minutes.  I get her food started before Sadie's because Sadie eats faster.  After lunch, sometimes I give Sadie a Popsicle and let her play outside until I can get Carmen cleaned up and we can come outside too.  We have a little playground and pavilion behind our townhome.  It's awesome - another reason we chose this place.

12:05ish - let the kids know it's about time to pack up and leave.  This gives me enough time to check Carmen's diaper before we take Sadie to school.

12:38 - Sadie's school starts (Mondays it starts at 12:13).  I shoot to get there 5 or 10 minutes early in case traffic is backed up at the stop signs or something.  The school she goes to is 5 miles away, up past the Mount Timpanogos temple.

After we get home, I put Carmen down for a nap.  She's so exhausted by then; sometimes she falls asleep in the car.  I take this opportunity to do whatever I want/need to do - read, clean, nap, play video games, cross-stitch ...

Mark's work schedule is pretty flexible, so he comes home anywhere between 4 and 5:30, depending on our moods.  We have dinner at 5:30 (because Carmen is STAAAARRRVVVVIIINNGGGG even though she's been snacking on saltines and bananas and cheese all day.)

Dinner is usually done around 6, Carmen is usually done eating by 6:30 (gotta love kids who want to feed themselves!) and we have about an hour to play around and do whatever before it's bath time.

7:30 - bath time.  I sit in the bathroom and read a book or play games while Carmen splashes around.  She still fits in a little baby tub.  I'm planning on using that tub and conserving water as long as I can. ;)

After bath time, I dress Carmen in her pajamas and we brush teeth and stuff.  Sometimes we try to read books, other times we skip straight to prayers and nursing and then she's out.  I take advantage of some snuggle time, then lay her in her crib and give her her blanket and a sippy cup of water.

It's a pretty good routine for us.  On the weekends, we start shifting her nap a little earlier because we have church at 1:00 on Sundays.  On those days, we wake her up around noon so we have enough time to eat lunch and get ready to go to church.



Wow, that was long.  The only reason I'm writing this is because the batteries in my camera are dead so I couldn't take pictures of Carmen's funny faces at work this morning.  Or the fact that there's a tree growing right in front of the speed limit sign in our neighborhood so you can't see it.