Three things

Hatah!

Me: Utah.
M: Hatah!
Me: You.
M: You.
Me: Tah.
M: Tah.
Me: Utah.
M: Hatah!

Every time, without fail.

Picking out our (suprisingly still-fragrant) Christmas tree.  She thinks, for some reason I don't quite understand, that you can get drinks from trees.

Mandarin consolation

After I parked outside the building where I work on one of the snowy/icy days this last week, I gathered up my water bottle and two mandarin oranges and got out of the car.  As I navigated the icy parking lot trying not to slip, I suddenly thought, "Well, at least if I fall over, these two oranges will go flying and make anyone who sees it laugh."

That made me smile.  I didn't end up slipping.  How sad.

Nursery KO

Today was little M's second time going to nursery (she's been sick ever since the first time).  When we got home, she refused to nap, so we decided not to fight it and ate dinner.  By the end of dinner, she was struggling to stay awake so we put her to bed.  At 5:30!  Out like a light.

Here's hoping that it lasts through the night.

humidi fire!

1.

During the summer, we saw the hot air balloon launch for Independence Day.  We got right up close to the balloons -- enough that we could feel the heat every time they turned on the fire.  Ever since, Madeleine always makes the sound of fire whenever we talk about fire.  I don't know how to spell the sound... something like: "fffffhhhhhuhhuhhhh"

2.

A few months ago, we had a fire in our fire place.  Kimmy was over and taught Madeleine that the fire was dangerous by saying, "Danger!" and moving her hands back and forth as if to say stay away.  So Madeleine often says "danger!" when she's near the fire place.

3.

We've all been sick lately (colds, coughs and congestion) and so we've had the humidifier running in Madeleine's room at night to alleviate that a bit.  Since we narrate everything we do when Madeleine's around (We're not the only parents that do this, are we?  We're not crazy, right?) she knows that it's called a humidifier.

One morning, we went to turn off the humidifier and she said, "Fire!  ffffhhhhhhhhhh!  Danger!"  Because a humidifier is just a humid kind of fire to her :)

Kites

All three of us are sick with colds.  Madeleine has it the worst, but is improving.  Christy seems to be on the downhill.  Mine ebbs and flows.

But despite our noses and throats, we decided to fly a kite today in the great wind.  After not finding any kites in the stores we decided to try making our own.  We used some small wooden dowels, butcher paper, Scotch tape, some string and a leftover birthday streamer for the tail.  I was confident it wouldn't fly, but also sure it would still be a fun activity.  I was wrong about the former and right about the latter.

Our cheap little kite flew high!

It was fun flying a kite, and doubly fun that we made it with stuff around the house.

Nursery

Today was Madeleine's first week going to Nursery for the last two hours of church.  We walked to the door, and, interested, she went inside and paused.  After looking at all the activity and toys and kids she turned around briefly, but then got swept up in the flow of another mom bringing her daughter in.  She loved it!

Christy cheated and checked on her in the middle of Sunday School.  I stole a peek in between the two hours.  I saw my cute little girl seated at the table with all the other kids just finishing snack time.  I wonder if a lot of her life changes (school, high school, work, college, marriage and all the little ones in between) will happen the same way: she enters into a new adventure entirely unaware of her parents standing at the window, watching her with a lot of excitement and a little nervousness.

At the end, she didn't want to leave nursery -- the slide was too fun :)

She was Tiger Lily for Halloween

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Unrelated: I just noticed that one of our buckets of white flour is helpfully labeled "W Flour" on the side.  I'm trying to remember if that was from intentional silliness or not...

Bananagrams

This evening, Madeleine saw the Bananagrams bag perched on our corner shelf and insisted that I get it down.  I distractedly supervised her playing (just to make sure she didn't eat them) but was mostly talking with Christy about the day.  Madeleine happily picked them up and climbed on the couch and walked around the room jabbering.

Then dinner was ready.  I didn't want her to confuse the tiles with food, so I asked for them so I could put them away while we ate.  She gave me the six or so tiles in her hand, and I was astonished: all of them were the letter O!  She had sifted through the pile for all the Os she could find.  How did she learn that?

My other thought was: "She already likes to organize things.  Just like her mom.  And dad.  This could be bad for all sides."  :)

Goodbye Readers

Goodbye readers!  It's been fun blogging all these years.  I'm glad you've been reading along.

But on July 1, Google Reader is going away.  Too bad.  Alternatives can be found by searching for RSS reader, but I haven't found a more simple version than Google Reader.  Every other reader adds too many frills.

I'm not going anywhere, and neither is this blog (until Google retires Blogger).  But I might start publishing to Google+.  If you want to find me this might be a link to the right place.

Shade

A while ago, I was day-dreaming about the ideal house.  My ideal house would make use of geothermal energy, solar energy and probably wind.  As I was dreaming, I tried to work through the best way to shade the house in the summer, and expose the house to sunlight in the winter.  You could build a structure around the house that would be just the right shape, full of celestially-based angles to offer shade in the sun and sun in the winter.  As I was wondering, I found myself saying: "What would be perfect is something that was opaque during the summer and transparent during the winter.  I wonder if they make something like that.  I wonder how expensive it is."

And then I thought:

"Leaves."  Oh yeah.  What a great solution!

Best Birthday Present Ever

For my birthday my brother, Dan, got me the best present I've ever received.  At Sunday dinner, he disappeared for a bit then came back with a little puppy:

That's a real puppy.

Thankfully, it was just a joke.  Though it was a nice puppy.  Madeleine liked him. (her?)

KitchenAid

This lady loves her KitchenAid:

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how I came across this video.

Fact

I have a very cute daughter.  Here's proof:



I can't believe she's already a year old!  At this rate, she's gonna be two soon.  And then three, and then she's off to college.

Speaking of college.  I ran into this video while I was looking for the other one.  It's my former roommate playing a nice polka.  He's a talented guy.  Enjoy:

Priestcraft

...priestcrafts are that men preach and set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; (2 Nephi 26:29 in the Book of Mormon)

At work, I spend time reading about new developments in technology (especially in security and web-related things).  As with anything, people have differing opinions.  And there are several people with a lot of clout, whose opinions are widely accepted and defended by others just because of who they are.  Those with clout also tend to receive more coverage (their stuff is shared more).  As a result, they have the ability to shape public opinion to some degree.

This week, after reading an article written by one of these influentials about the novel idea of taking a break from work (I think it is referred to as vacation in some circles), and after reading the comments in support of this breakthrough, I realized something:

Priestcraft doesn't usually start because someone promotes themselves as a light.  Priestcraft grows from others promoting someone as a light.

Its beginnings are benign: a sincere compliment; a "you should see the great thing they did" to a friend; sharing and praise.  And it is then that the person being lifted up makes the choice to remain humble or become self-serving.

From this, I learn two things:

1. As an other I need to be careful how, who and what I praise.

2. As the lifted I need to choose to be humble despite praise.

Pistols and Prophets

Throughout most of one of last week's dreams, I was carrying a pistol around.  On the back of the pistol was a white switch that let me toggle between "Altoids" and "pistol."  Apparently, the pistol could either dispense Altoids or fire bullets.  It was a very frustrating weapon.  I never used the gun for shooting or for freshening breath because I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger while pointing at my hand (waiting for an Altoid), and I was embarrassed to fire at criminals (what if an Altoid came out instead?).

Very frustrating.

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Yesterday, I was skimming through the pictures in President Hinckley's biography when I happened upon a picture of Elder Neal A. Maxwell when he was called to be an Apostle.  I instantly missed him -- what an exceptional man!  And then, Elder Bednar spoke about him last night in the CES Fireside.  Here is the last talk Elder Maxwell gave in General Conference:

Our Garden

While we were visiting family in Florida for the Holidays, Alicia showed us her garden.  She had tomatoes, lettuce, blueberries, beans and a weed.  She asked, "How's your garden doing?" forgetting, I think that we live in Utah.

Our garden this year got a late start.  These little guys showed up in July:

It was a pretty hot summer, so (with the late start) I wasn't sure we'd get anything.  Thankfully, though, it has been bitter cold for the past little while and we are reaping a great harvest:

Yum

 Alicia, we'll send some of them back with your parents.