Where trouble melts like lemon drops

Remember when Rachel drew me a picture of me getting her into trouble?

Well, she's since learned how to spell (kind of), so today I got a note instead. This time both Rachel (on the left) and Miriam (on the right) are crying. I'm in the middle—the one smiling brightly, that's me. 

Myself, a Mormonite

Tomorrow we'll be watching General Conference, where we'll listen to the prophet, President Monson, speak. Both Andrew and I come from a long tradition of Mormonism. In fact, his great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph Stacy Murdock, wrote the words to Come, Listen to a Prophet's Voice. 

Well, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Solomon Hancock, also wrote a song.

With apologies to Methodists everywhere, it goes like this:

Once I was a Methodist. Glory, hallelujah!
Then I thought that they were best. Glory, hallelujah!
But when I read the bible right, glory, hallelujah,
I found myself a Mormonite! Glory, hallelujah!*

Needless to say, this little ditty of his did not make it into the LDS hymnbook. I like to think that I may have inherited my sense of humour from him, though, because I have a feeling that this verse was penned entirely tongue-in-cheek. (Other songs and poems of his are much less silly.)

Heber Valley Ancestors

Today Grandma wanted to go on an adventure to Heber so that she could show the girls the graves of their ancestors. I've been doing quite a bit of family history work on my mom's mom's side of the family—I'm now in charge of the family newsletter—and have been finding out all kinds of interesting things. I was excited to get to tag along and learn interesting things about the ancestors on Andrew's side of the family.

On our way up to Heber we stopped by Sundance to go for a little walk and enjoy the beautiful autumn leaves.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Miriam has been dressed up as Dorothy for most of the day—aside from going jogging with me in the morning, eating lunch, and taking her nap. This afternoon as soon as she was up from her nap she wanted to get back into the Dorothy costume, turn some "guzik" on, and dance in the living room. Guzik is music. I suppose the same rule she applies to monkey (gunky) also applies to music (guzik)—it's some funky assimilation thing she's got going on. Anyway, Somewhere Over the Rainbow came on and Miriam ran off to the kitchen, scrounged around in a drawer and came back to the living room with a little whisk.

She held that whisk up to her mouth like a microphone and started singing along. It was so sweet, but by the time I got the camera the song was nearly over. I only caught a few seconds of her singing.

Potty training update

I haven't written about potty training for a long time, at least that I remember. Things have been going relatively smoothly around here—Miriam still has the odd accident (usually when she's too busy or too stubborn to go potty) but she's in underwear 100% of the time. I wake her up to go potty at about 11:00 PM and then she's good for the rest of the night. She'd probably be able to sleep through the night (and stay dry) if it wasn't for the ice water she insists on getting before bedtime.

Burrito Baby and Halloween excitement

Our neighbours have had Halloween decorations up since August. Thanks to them, Rachel has been begging to decorate for Halloween since—you guessed it—August. Grandma said we can decorate next week, but she brought home some special Halloween socks for the girls that she found while she was out shopping today. Miriam was so excited to try hers on when she woke up from her nap but she simply couldn't figure them out—they were stuck together in the packaging so she thought Grandma had only given her one sock. Silly Grandma.

Miriam toddled up to me clutching both pairs of socks.

"Mimi wear Mimi's sock. Mimi wear Rachey's sock, too!" she told me.

"You can only wear your socks," I told her. "The other socks are for Rachel."

Looking exasperated, Miriam explained, "Mimi's sock one foot. Rachey's sock won-an foot."

Won-an is how she says "another" or "other."

"Oh! Do you think you only have one sock?" I asked.

She nodded.

"Watch this!" I said, grabbing some scissors. "If we take a pair of scissors and cut this tag off then your socks multiply and you have..."

"Twos socks!" she squealed delightedly.

This momma knows how to work some magic! It's a pretty neat trick, if I do say so myself. Miriam happily tried on her pair of socks. They have little jack-o-lantern faces on them. She loves them.

Forget-me-not: Be patient with yourself

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the broadcast of the General Relief Society Meeting. The first few talks seemed a little dry—I could sense drowsy people all around me—but then President Uchtdorf got up to speak and he gave a magical talk. It was absolutely fantastic—one that will not soon be forgotten. If you haven't watched it yet I suggest you watch it now, whether you're a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or not. It's too beautiful to ignore.

(And just so my non-LDS friends know, President Uchtdorf was a pilot and he makes an aviation joke every single time he speaks, even if it's just to say, "I suppose you're all wondering what this has to do with flying a plane..." It's kind of his trademark, and it makes the first few minutes of his talk terribly funny—"Perhaps that's why I like it so much!" *laughter*—but only if you know that he does that. He's also German but he speaks English impeccably well, though with a slight accent.)

Anyway...watch it here or below:

Interruptions

There's a quote circulating around the vast, wide internets that is actually quite beautiful. It goes:

When you are exasperated by interruptions, try to remember that their very frequency may indicate the value of your life. Only people who are full of help and strength are burdened by other persons' needs. The interruptions which we chafe at are the credentials of our indispensability. The greatest condemnation that anybody could incur—and it is a danger to guard against—is to be so independent, so unhelpful, that nobody every interrupts us, and we are left comfortably alone.

A little hike in Dry Canyon

In eleven years here (give or take, but mostly take due to time spent living elsewhere) we've never gone hiking up Dry Canyon. First of all, I can hardly believe that my family has lived here for eleven years. Secondly, I can't believe it was ten years ago that Andrew took me to the homecoming dance at our high school, a fact I was reminded of on a friends Facebook page (because her husband took her to that very same dance ten years ago as well—apparently it was a good dance). Third of all, why have we never gone hiking up here?! It's, like, right up the street!

Last year we took the girls up Dry Canyon to take some pictures but we didn't quite get any hiking in so when my mom asked if we wanted to do anything with her tonight I suggested we visit the canyon. 

And so we did. But we didn't stay long because the sun was already starting to set by the time we left the house. Still, I think we managed to squeeze in just about the right amount of hiking for the girls (half an hour or so) and we got to watch the sunset, which was beautiful.

Dorothy I and Dorothy II

This morning the girls decided they'd play dress-ups. Rachel chose to dress up as a pioneer so I helped her into her bonnet and buttoned up her dress and she skipped off to the living room to begin playing. Miriam and I dug around in the dress-up box for a while until we found the Sleeping Beauty dress—she hadn't worn it before today but she let out a longing sigh when she pulled it out so I helped her into it and bunched it up in the back and tied it with a hair elastic so it wouldn't fall off.