Why-bin

I felt just fine when I left to go running tonight and I felt just fine while I was running but as soon as finished running, left the track, and stepped outside I felt the beginning of a sneeze coming on. My nose has since taken up running, too, and I don't think I've stopped sneezing since. And here I thought for sure I wasn't going to catch this cold.

Rachel has been sick since Friday. She woke up coughing in the middle of the night and begged for some medicine because her "cough is stuck and can't come out."

"Does your throat hurt?" I asked her.

"Yeah. Because my cough is stuck," she said, and then coughed some more.

Musicality

Last week Grandpa came home from a long day at church with some black mark on his shirt. His Sundays are long days—he leaves early in the morning and usually doesn't come home until around 9:00 PM. He's a bishop for a BYU single's ward, so he's busy. This was our conversation about the shirt:

Karen: What did you do—lean up on something?

Reid: I dunno...but you can lean on me.

Andrew: When you're not strong.

Me: I'll be your friend.

Karen: I'll just spray it and see if it comes out.

Reid, Andrew and I burst out laughing. We had all been expecting her to say "I'll help you carry on" but she hadn't even realized that we were all singing. She was just concerned about getting that white shirt clean. Maybe that doesn't sound too funny when you read it, but if you were there you would know that she said "I'll..." right on pitch so we were sure she was going to sing the next line of the song.

Today Grandpa came home from church and told us that when he had typed up the bulletin he typed the name of one of the hymns wrong. Instead of typing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" he had typed "Hark, the Herald Angels Sin."

I'm just jealous that their ward sang Christmas carols because ours didn't. And I feel a little gypped because there are only a few weeks left until Christmas. I love Christmas carols but since so many people feel they can't be sung until after Thanksgiving it leaves very little time to get them sung.

It's after Thanksgiving now—we've just lost a whole week of valid Christmas caroling.

Miriam at 13 months

Rachel was too sick to go to church today so she stayed home with Grandma and we took Miriam thinking we'd have a nice, relaxing Sunday without having to worry about children squabbling over crayons and toys or hitting, pinching, hair-pulling, and fights over who gets to sit in mom's lap. And we were right about that part, really, because we didn't have any of that this week. But it wasn't a nice, relaxing Sunday at church because today was the day Miriam decided to start walking.

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2010

Writing the Christmas newsletter is one of the highlights of my year; it's a beautiful tradition. I love looking back at what we've accomplished—the trials we've overcome, the adventures we've had, how much our children have grown, that kind of thing. It's amazing how much can happen in just one year.

Sometimes I feel like I'm writing it more for us (me) than for you (because I love doing it so much) but I hope you also enjoy the annual synopsis of our lives.

Here's this year's letter, bright and early...before December, even. That kind of makes up for how late we sent it out last year, right?

Like Rabbits

We had a small gathering of our high school friends over today: just me, Andrew, Marquita, and Joy. Back in the day this really would have been a small gathering. Today? It was a little wild. 

Joy brought along Joe (her husband) and their girls: Karen (4), Rachel (2), and Alice (6 mos).

Marquita brought along Daniel (her husband) and their girls: Maya (5) and Vivian (2).

Andrew and I, of course, contributed to the pool of estrogen with Rachel (3) and Miriam (1).

Between us all there are seven little girls. SEVEN!

The house was full of all the fun and energy seven girls ages six and under offer. 

Who would ever have dreamed this up in high school?

We've been as far as Nebraska/North Carolina, Korea, and Cairo but we still keep in touch and when we manage to be on the same continent, in the same country, state, and town...well, we like to get together.

Thanksgiving toes

Apparently we didn't feed Miriam enough of our Thanksgiving feast.



In truth, she is always putting her feet up at the dinner table and will chew on them if you mention anything about it. We had to help her a bit for the video because she had stopped doing it by the time we grabbed the camera...but the second time, when she's kicking herself in the face and gets her foot into her mouth without using her hands? That's just classic.

The "doo-doo-doo" is in the movie because she was snacking on Bugles and that's the noise that we make when we eat Bugles. What other noise could you make?

We only recently started giving them to her whole but Grandpa didn't know that so he broke them up into little pieces for her. She was not impressed and held up a crumb to him and ask, "Doo-doo-doo?"

Roughly translated that means, "Why'd you break my Bugles, Grandpa?"

She looked so crest-fallen that he gave her a handful of whole Bugles so that she could hold them up to her lips one at a time and sing out "Doo-doo-doo-doo!" before eating them.

Lend me your ears

It's a good thing November, and thus NaBloPoMo, is almost over because sometimes our life is so mundane and humdrum that I am not sure I have anything left to say. Today was unique, though, because Daddy was home all day long and that hasn't happened in a long time. He watched the girls this morning while I worked which was a real treat. Then he worked while I watched the girls. Then we cleaned the house together while Karen made something like seven or eight pies. I'm not even kidding. Thanksgiving is going to rock!

Andrew was recently accepted for a field study trip to Ghana this spring. We're both really excited about it because it will be a wonderful opportunity for him to apply what he's learned, make some great contacts, and be of service to the people of Ghana. There are a few drawbacks, though, which include two weeks of separation since he'll be going alone and the fact that after we pay for next semester's tuition we will be morally, ethically...positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably broke. And I mean not only merely broke, but really most sincerely broke. It's really actually a miracle that we managed to earn enough money this semester to cover next semester's tuition.

So we're currently brainstorming fundraiser ideas—both large and small scale. We mostly need ideas that take very little capital since we have very little of that (and the 16 other people planning on going to Ghana are in the same boat). I suppose I'll just list what we've come up with and then beg you all for suggestions.

Idahoax

Due to the blizzard warning (that shut down basically the whole state plus a few neighbouring states as well) we had an Emily pity-party this evening. She had been planning on going up to Morgan's for Thanksgiving but because of the storm she wasn't able to leave today. She was devastated.

And I totally know how she feels. At least, I think I do.

It's kind of like how I feel when I'm planning on Andrew coming home at 5:30 but he doesn't end up coming home until 6:00 and ends up walking through the door just as I'm screaming, "Wait until your father gets home!" because staying patient sane that extra half hour is just too much to handle.

I think that's probably how she felt when the weatherman said "Do not go outside or you will die!" (or something along those lines—it really was a severe blizzard warning; they closed the highways and everything; we ended up getting very little snow here but it did get windy and really cold).

Anyway, we ended the evening by playing Hand and Foot. Naturally, Idaho, Morgan's homestate, figured into the conversation and we started wondering about how it got the nickname of Gem State.

Miriam is "reading"

We were just in the girls' room reading books and playing library and Beauty and the Beast (because you can't really do one without the other, can you?) when Miriam thrust the book Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy in my face. I told her that she'd have to wait for a minute so she started to read to herself.

Now, I don't want to say that she can read or anything, but...

When she got to the page that says, "Smoooooth!" she said, "Moooooooooo!"

So she can basically read.

Just thought you might want to know.

You shall neither smile nor laugh

My friends and I used to play a party game called "Darling, if you love me." I haven't played it for years and can't really remember when I stopped playing it but it must have been when I moved down to the States because I can only seem to find a sprinkling of references to the game online—perhaps this will be my foray to writing Wikipedia articles—most of them British or Canadian.

Basically, the game runs like this:

One person is selected to be "it" and stands in the middle of the room. All other participants sit in a circle. The person who is "it" has to try to make someone laugh by saying, "Darling, if you love me, won't you please, please smile," in the silliest manner possible. Anyone in the circle can laugh except for the person being addressed. That person must answer, "Darling, you know I love you, but I just can't smile," in the most solemn manner possible, without smiling or laughing. If the victim laughs, they become "it." If they don't, then the person being "it" will choose another person to approach.

The game gets quite silly, as illustrated in this video of school children in Victoria, BC, playing the game in class.