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our brother

 

awhile back we had our friends, the jenkins, over to play. later that night, levi asked me,
"why does landon have 2 brothers and i only have 1 brother?"
"well, actually, you only have 1 sister...."
"nooooo, i have 1 sister named piper, and 1 brother named jesus"
and then he just looked at me, waiting for my response.  which took a minute. because when you get schooled by a 4-year old, it's sorta throws you off balance. me, anyway.
"you're right sweetie. that's a very good point." and then i hugged him for a long time.

and honestly, i felt a bit intimidated after that. i thought, 'oh great. he's on a whole different plane than me.' i thought about putting "teach FHE" on his chore chart. 

but then, just in the nick of time, he came home from primary with this drawing. his teacher asked them to draw joseph smith in the sacred grove, and he drew "a bad dragon eating a good knight". we walked down the hall of the church, him telling me all the details about the dragon & the knight's personalities, me grinning like a fool from ear to ear....

cause our universe just tilted back in place. he's still 4. and i can still relate.

workin man

11:08pm - architect by nite

 
who lets their 4 year old stay up till midnite? i know, i know. it's just that he's SO good. (that one's for you megan, ;) ) but seriously, when he is quietly & methodically involved in desigining buildings...in his suitcoat....who am i to disrupt the creative process?

 

7:02am - stay @ home dad by day

 

some unknown time at daybreak, his face in my face, "mommy? can you help me put my tie on?"  ... "no.", "but momm--", "my hands are still sleeping levi. don't wake piper up." once i did decide to wake up finish on the treadmill i found them like this. he had gotten both his babies some...."breakfast".

 

8:22 am - make that frazzled stay @ home dad

 
 
 you're part of good club buddy!

#2 - whoopie pies with rasberry jam

i bought the MOST awesome whoopie pie cook book.  it has 20+ different kinds of whoopies you can make, and 20+ different fillings.  that way you can mix-n-match them up.  while perusing the recipes, i saw one for a rasberry jam filling....lightbulb! 

my awesome aunt jane had given me some homemade rasberry jam. and it was just sittin in my fridge WAITING to get smooshed between two whoopies.

i, clearly, overfilled my whoopie tin. cause those were some BIG cookies. but....no one complained....

sisters weekend

the always-belov-ed sisters weekend.

rules of sisters weekend:
1. no boys
2. no husbands
3. no kids
4. no cleaning house (me)
5. no leaving for meetings, or family stuff (them)
6. no errands (anyone)
7. bring treat(s)
8. make 1 meal each
9. have to spend the night (mom got vote for 1-time exception)
10. showers allowed, but NO getting "ready"
11. bring depends (ok, that wasn't one of the original rules, but it's on the list for next time!)

we should probably come up with a different name, because it's actually sisters, & our mom & our niece, & our two "adopted" sisters: our cousin vanessa, and our friend courtney. (while they technically have their OWN sisters, said sisters live far far away and are not interested in 'project-ing')

we say the purpose of it is to bust out all the unfinished projects that haunt us. and while a lot of that does happen, there's at least an equal amount of treat-ing, laugh-ing, tease-ing, sleep-ing, and...for one of us, wet-ing going on.

below is everyone with at least one of their finished projects. cousin vanessa put us all to shame and finished i don't know how many things - i lost count. she's the silent, but deadly crafter.

seriously. i get tired just reading her blog. there have been times when i'm planning to blog after i read blogs, and since her name starts with a "V" it's the last one i read, and afterward, i just "X" out of firefox and go lay on the couch.  thanks vanessa.

suspiciously missing from the "finished projects" pictures is....me. and, for once, it's not my fault. everyone was due to arrive @ my house friday afternoon, but i had to work that morning. on the way home i decided to stop @ target to get a couple last-minute things. and it happened right there in line, such a definable moment, i was listening to the old man cashier trying to sell the lady in front of me into getting 5% cash back on all her purchases directly from her checking account, and it was like i literally powered-down. my eyes glazed and went out of focus. everything and everyone around me looked like it was in the matrix. i felt my cheeks go pink, and my forehead go moist. i weighed 576 pounds. somehow i got to the car, and even though i live 3 blocks from target, (LUCKY! i know) the action of turning the key in the ignition was so overwhelming. i wanted to put my seat back and go to sleep.

and...i didn't power-up the rest of the weekend. i pretty much slept in my bed 98% of the time. i caught snatches of conversation and laughing, and i'd laugh along, alone, before sliding back into my drowsy little dream world. hostess with the mostess, i know.

also suspiciously missing from the photos is heidi. because she took all the pics on my camera. she did manage to take a picture of her quilt, just not her with it....

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

movin on up...

 

this little mama graduated from the mommy-n-me class.  or in our case, the "cousin"-n-me class. and NO ONE is happier than this little mama:

 

zannie. now she can retire her itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-black-&-white-striped-bikini for the rest of the winter. 

seriously. nothing so small has ever come out of my washing machine before. and i have a baby....i'm probably just jealous.  the first time i pulled it out of the washer it took me at least 5 minutes to transfer it to the dryer. i just....stood there....first trying to figure out what this little triangle was. and then, trying to figure out how it would feel to be so tiny that a body part would fit in that triangle. i guess based on that last sentence, i'm definitely jealous.

GO PIPER!!!.....

... and zannie!!

1-11-11

i like numerically cool days like this.

in celebration, we went to chuck-e-cheese. (aka "tricks for jesus")

well, technically we tried to go on the saturday the 9th, but apparently lots of people had the same idea and so they had a WAITING LINE to get it.  who knew that chuck e cheese was the new hottest club in town. but since i'm no longer 22, and don't have the interest/stamina for waiting in lines. so we left with the promise to be back on monday.

i actually didn't realize it was 1.11.11 until heidi had them take pictures in the photo booth and i saw the date printed... but then i was happy that we had evedince of who we were on 1.11.11.  better planning ahead for 12.12.12. or maybe 1.2.12.

 

i'm really glad heidi had the kids get in the booth for these pictures because they are so apropos: 1. levi flanked by women who want to kiss and hug him, and 2. piper crying because levi is in the booth with her, and levi egging her on by being silly. that's pretty much every day.

 
 

gingerbread cake with mango frosting

 

oh....this cake. 

my first clue should have been that i found the recipe in FOOD magazine. "foodies" read FOOD magazine. and foodies seem to really like complex servings.this was no exception. 

the fact i had a FOOD magazine does not make me a foodie...it was totally random and unusual. probably because the cover had pictures of cute gingerbread people, and i'm a sucker for a gingerbread man. 

all i could think during the THREE & 1/2 hours of making the frosting was: i really hope i don't like this frosting.  because I NEVER WANT TO MAKE IT AGAIN!!

yeah, not a typo - 3.5 hours of making frosting alone, never mind the cake which required sifting. anytime a recipe calls for you to sift, you immediately know you're in the middle of a big-girl recipe.

as luck would have it, i didn't like it.  i mean, it didn't suck. but it wasn't so amazing to my tummy-buds that i will ever get a hankering for it again. 

whew.

the cake, however, was REALLY good!  it was really dense, and ginger-bready.  but not that spice-y, cinammon-y gingerbread...the tang-y, tart-y gingerbread. and dense. did i already say dense? because dense cake is sooooo good.

cake, yes. frosting, no.

 

spanish pickles

 

"mommy, why does pickles speak spanish?
"does pickles speak spanish???"
"well....weeeee can't understand what she's saying...."

the "exact" baby

 
 

zannie was getting piper dressed in her room this morning while i was getting ready for work, and i overheard this conversation between her and levi:

levi: "look at her little baby nose!"
zannie: "yeah..."
"and look at her little baby bum!"
"heh, heh, yeah...."
"and look at her little baby toes!"
"yep, she's a little baby"
"she's such a cute baby, isn't she zannie?"
"yeah....she is"
"she's such a funny baby too."
"she is...."
"i got the EXACT baby i wanted."
"oooohhh....well that's a good thing..."
"yeah....i'm really going to miss her when she's not a baby anymore."

since i don't have any brothers, the brother/sister relationship is an anomaly to me. especially since i found out my son won't have any brothers, and my daughter won't have any sisters.

somewhere in the recess of my mind i worry about it. about if their relationship will be enough for one another. but not too much, cause...it's an unsolvable, and, for now, non-existant concern.

so conversations like these warm my heart. and quiet that distant worry.

now, if i can just get pickles to love levi as much as he loves her.

1 down. 1 to go.

 

CTR - 4

 
 

oh, that? that is levi's scriptures protected by a shield of freezer bags, and put up "high" where piper can't reach them...

heidi took levi & gracie to get their own scriptures and scripture bags today, and apparently she gave him some words of wisdom. something about keeping good care of his scriptures, and keeping them put away so piper wouldn't try to "read" them and rip the pages.

when he came home he went straight to the couch and was laying on his stomach, scripture bag underneath.  i tried to talk to him about where they went and asked to see what he got.  he told me that he couldn't show me until piper went to sleep.

i pointed out that was a good 4 hours away...reluctantly, he showed me. never was a boy so proud. except when that same boy on the same day got a CTR ring. he is beside himself with these 2 new posessions.

later tonight i realized that he had been shuffling around in the armoire next to me for more than a few minutes. i asked what he was doing in there, and his little face came around the side of the door, "huh?"
"what are you doing in there?"
"oooohh..." he closed the door a little to reveal his hand clutching a freezer bag...with his scriptures sealed tightly inside. "i'm just putting my wormin book up high so piper can't get it.
"aaahhh...."
"that's what heidi said."

good job heidi.