Hailey Shorts #2

back to updates soon, but here is a little bit about Hailey nowa-days.

Haiti has been bugging her.

She loves to watch the news with me while I make dinner (the two celebrities she can identify just by voice are Barack Obama and Brian Williams and hums the nightly news jingle regularly) but I always get a little uncomfortable when they show natural disasters.

The stories don't seem to scare her or trouble her at any other time during the day, but she gets perplexed and angry about there not being enough food, water, and doctors.

Those are hard questions to answer, and looking back, maybe that was my job as a parent to not let her wonder those things at such an early age. I probably should just turn off the TV, but I let her watch and try to answer those questions as best as I can.

I helped her do some jobs to earn a quick $10 and I let her text a donation on my phone, and I think that helped a little bit.

One of the many nights of Haiti coverage, I was making dinner with the TV on, and she was sitting at the table coloring. After the news was done she said, "I want to show you the picture I colored. And I wrote a poem too!"

Here they are:



The picture is of a soldier and a little Haitian boy. If you can't read Hailey-write, here's the translation:

Oh please, oh please
all the people help Haiti.
Do something.
I think we all should
help Haiti.

-----



For the record we really don't watch American Idol, and adult evening programming is almost never on in our house when the kids are awake. But for some reason, American Idol was on one night, and Hailey was drinking it up.

Later on, as I was driving with her to Activities Days, and she had a few questions for me.

"Mom, when you're on American Idol, do you have to choose a song that everyone knows, or can you make up your own?"

WAIT WAIT. A little more back-story here. Hailey thinks that I have been on American Idol, because she asked me one night if I had, and I teased her and and told her I was, and that everyone hated my singing, and she had big, wide eyes while I told her this, and then even after I told her that I was just joking and that it wasn't true, the only parts of that conversation that stuck in her brain was that 1) Simon was mean because he made fun of her mom, and 2) that I have inside knowledge of American Idol. Careless parenting.

So back to the story:

"Mom, when you're on American Idol, do you have to choose a song that everyone knows, or can you make up your own?"

"Um, I think you can sing whatever you want, but your chance seems to be best when you choose a song that everyone knows."

She nods her head and thinks about this.

"So you can sing a song you make up."

"Yes."

"And now, when they say 'You're going to Hollywood,' does that mean that they won a vacation to Hollywood, or that they have to do more singing when they get there?"

"They have to do more singing when they get there."

"Oh. . . . . Is Hollywood far away?"

"Very."

"Hmmm. I think when I'm on American Idol, I will take the yellow paper and just come home instead of going to Hollywood."

"Hailey, would you like to be on American Idol?"

"Yes mommy. When I'm seven I think I will go."

"Would you like some singing lessons, then?"

"Oh, I don't need singing lessons, mom. I already sing really well. I just don't like singing in front of people."

"Did you know that's what you do if you are the American Idol?"

"You do?"

"Yes."

long pause.

"Then maybe I will just sing at home. I will be the 'Home Idol.'"

And She Is.

-----



and she's growing up way WAY too fast.

John's Annual Birthday Slide Show

Happy Birthday John 2009 from Jenni G on Vimeo.

Every year one of John's birthday presents has been a slide show recap of our previous year. (You can see 2007 and 2008 here and here, respectively.)

So here's 2009. Not as polished as I am used to having time for, but a fun look back on our year.

Charlie's Room (If only he regularly slept here.)

So I had to make new crib bedding because we were having a boy. I was forbidden to spend a fortune on fabric, and since we live NOWHERE NEAR a nice fabric store, I made Charlie's quilt out of all my scrap fabrics from abandoned sewing projects. (It's a little embarrassing I have that many unfinished projects.)



Here's the quilt.



I also had a limited budget for wall art. So I printed out old maps I found on the internet. There is a map for each place we have lived since we were married. This is my favorite part of the room. It's fun to look at our long and winding road we've been on. We'll be needing to add one more soon. . .



And the Monkey is from Sam's Club.

Back when we had visitors. . .

October 2009 (!)

Just a few photos of visits from "Mikki" Grandma and Anna.



Grandma making pretzels with the girls. It was a "bread" week. Along with the pretzels, we made rye chips, homemade bread twice, and yes, I finally got over my phobia of making mashed potatoes. Great week.





And the rest of these photos were all stolen from Anna's blog.



Anna got to come visit in November and we went to Kirtland again. (No prophet this time, but still a great trip.) The girls are now Kirtland EXPERTS.





Also, if you are wondering what there is to do in Canton:



THERE'S THE FIRST LADIES' NATIONAL LIBRARY!!!!! EXCITING!!!!



AND THE FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME GIFT SHOP!!!!! IMPRESSIVE!!!!!



IT WAS THE BEST TRIP ANNA'S EVER BEEN ON!!!!!!

and we love having visitors.

The Post that has held me up: Trip to Kirtland #1 (Worth Reading)

October 2009

Since we live just one hour away from Kirtland, it has been a nice day trip for our visitors to see while they are here.

The first trip was with my mom, when Charlie was ten days old. I had been out of the hospital less than a week, but was feeling pretty good that day.

We started out that morning and followed our google maps directions until we reached our destination. . .but found no visitor center, no Newel K. Whitney store, just a busy intersection. After some driving around, stopping to ask for directions (you'd be surprised how many people who live in Kirtland don't even know who Mormons are) we finally realized that we had put in the wrong address. Quick recalculation, fifteen minutes of driving and we finally made it to the visitors center.

It was a beautiful day for the beginning of October, and we had packed a lunch to eat. We brought our food out and sat at a picnic table on the lawn right next to the river.

As we were eating, we noticed that there were no folks touring around the buildings, and there were several suited older men with earpieces standing guard by the bridge that leads from the visitors center to the restored buildings, turning away people wanting to go to the other side. Hmm. strange. We continued eat our peanut butter sandwiches.

Halfway through our lunch suited earpiece guy comes up to our table and asks us if we know who is visiting Kirtland today. A member of the quorum of the seventy? Maybe even an apostle? wrong.

President Monson was visiting and was taking a tour of all the buildings, and if we waited around, earpiece guy said, then maybe we'd be able to see him as he passed by in his golf cart.

!!

We quickly finish our lunch, and try to get our peanutbuttery girls looking semi-presentable, and finally we can see his cart coming down the hill and over the bridge. We stood by the walkway with one other family to catch a glimpse. His cart drives up. and stops. And he gets out to greet all of us.

!!

He went around, asked our names, shook each of our hands, and gave Hailey a high five! He then went in to the visitor center auditorium to address the missionaries there. Earpiece guy asks us if we would like to sneak in the back and listen to him talk to them.

!!!

Of course we do. We quickly quickly cleaned up our lunch stuff and snuck in the door right behind President Monson. As he entered the room of forty or so missionaries, he comfortably small-talked with a few of them. As everyone was settling in, he went over to the piano and began playings a few snippets of a song.

We sat in the back of the auditorium, trying so hard to simultaneously listen to him speak and keep our kids silent. And it was so neat and so stressful! He talked about his experiences as a Bishop. He talked about being put in specific places in our lives for a reason. He remarked that it doesn't matter where you serve, but how you serve. He talked about the amazing privilege it was to be in Kirtland. He called it the "Heart of History." (Sounds like him, yes?) I am afraid to say that between taking care of kids while he was speaking and the large amount of time that has gone by since this happened has erased most of my memory of what he said. (Lesson: WRITE THINGS DOWN!!) but it was an amazing experience to be in such limited company to hear him speak.

At the end of his informal address, he asked if anyone had any questions to ask him. Now here is an interesting thing to ponder: what would you ask President Monson if you had five seconds to think of a question. No one immediately raised their hand, so his daughter, Ann M. Dibb, who was with him on this trip, asked him to tell us what his favorite scripture was.

You would think the Prophet would need to have a prepared answer for that kind of question, but he didn't. He said, "Oh, I don't know. . . Third Nephi. . . all of it. I like Doctrine and Covenants section four. . .and you know. . .'angels round about you to bear you up' [D&C 84:88]. . .'trust in the Lord with all thy heart'[prov 3:5]. . .all that is great stuff."

There are two things that I learned about Prophets that day:

1. They are human. They have personalities. They are their own selves.

2. They are truly inspired and bring the spirit of the Lord with them.

As we were leaving, the Kirtland Mission President shook our hands and we commented how amazing it was we happened to be in Kirtland the exact same time as the Prophet. He called after us, "Remember, there are no accidents."

I will spend a great deal longer thinking on that and why we were so blessed to be able to be there that day.

Nora Shorts #2

She is a food thief. She sneaks into the fridge and pillages the cabinets. She's not very sly about it, so usually I catch her.

Lately we've had a supply clementines in our house at all times. These I let her steal; I turn a blind eye to the oranges. Also the carrots which I find occasionally in her bed. But back to the clementines.

She tiptoes to the fridge and takes out a clementine and then runs to the opposite side of the house to peel and eat it. She's gotten pretty fast and skilled at the peeling. Sometimes she is nice enough to throw the peels away, and sometimes I find small orange piles of peels in a corner days later.

Some days she steals up to four, and this is how I know: she is very careful to put the clementine sticker on her shirt, so all I had to do is glance at her clothes and count them up. If she changes her shirt in the middle of the day, she will carefully transfer all those stickers onto her new shirt.

speaking of oranges. . .

----



Nora has been getting into some trouble lately. Always at around 11:00am, she searches out Hailey to hit or kick her, or finds a marker to color on the walls with, or some other disruptive, destructive exercise. And always while I'm making lunch.

She gets put on the naughty stool in the kitchen while I finish up lunch, and because of the aformentioned knack and interest in peeling oranges, I always ask her, "Hey, while you're down there and you have nothing else to do, will you peel this for me?"

And she sits on her naughty stool and peels an orange, which calms her down quite a bit. I'm sad to admit it took me a couple weeks of this practice to understand this correlation of misbehavior before lunch was due to the fact that Nora
was
just
hungry.

So now I give her a cracker half an hour before lunch and things run much more smoothly. Except I have no one to peel my oranges any more.



----

Nora is now a sunbeam in primary. The transition from nursery to primary was something we were all nervous about because Nora
just
loved
nursery
so
much.

Everything was just right down her aisle of interests. Pounding playdough. Eating snacks. The occasional song. Lots of independent play. Perfect. So we thought there might be church rebellion when she had to sit still for sharing time and listen to a longer lesson.

BUT NO! She has a great teacher who spoils those little sunbeams and does so well in keeping them engaged in their lessons, and Nora HEARTS PRIMARY.

So much in fact, that last Tuesday before I was even awake, she put on her Sunday dress and shoes and came in and asked me if we could go to church. I explained, no, church only happens on Sundays, and took care of the meltdown that followed.

She now understands that church only happens on Sunday, but even so, sets out her church clothes on Sunday night for the following week.

Also, this is a lesson to me that we really need to get out of the house more.

----

Nora is our resident translator for Charlie. I'll rhetorically ask Charlie if he's hungry or if he needs a diaper change, and Nora will always answer for him: "Charlie says 'yes'" or "Charlie says, 'not really, mom.'"

She always follows her commentary with, "Also, Charlie says Nora is very pretty."



more to come. . .

The Benefit of the Doubt.

New Elliptical Machine: unused.

Blog: Left back in October of '09.

Little friends' birthday parties: forgotten. (sorry Hailey.)

Book Club Book: unread.

Body: unshowered.

Fridge: empty.

Christmas Tree: still up with no current plans to take down.

Dinner Menu: nonexistent.


So my question is, when is a baby no longer a newborn? It's been three months, and I still feel like I'm just barely making it. How much longer do I have before I no longer get The Benefit of the Doubt? When do I have to stop giving the excuse "but I just had a baby"?

Laundry getting a little out of control? It's okay, I just had a baby.

Forgot that Hailey had homework? Forgot that Hailey HAD SCHOOL? It's okay, I just had a baby.

Kind of look like I fell out of the dumpster in the morning? It's okay, I just had a baby.

When does that end? Because I'm not ready for that.

Two more stats though-

Hungry Hungry Hippos: played for 2 hours yesterday with Nora yesterday while bouncing Charlie up and down on my lap. (one of those hours we played with just our feet.)

Three kids in this house: loved.


More updates coming soon. hopefully.