Stuff On My Kids

A book we frequently check out of the library is "Stuff On My Cat A to Z." It goes from A to Z with pictures of stuff on cats. You can see it here. After reading it many times, I started picturing some of my own pictures with my own A to Z stuff and my newest creation began. I put together "Stuff on my Kids A to Z" with my digital scrapbooking software and got it published (Kelsey's wedding guestbook was the first thing I ever published, but this is the first thing I've publish of my stuff for me... oh so exciting!) at an online publisher place. I was even more excited when I got an email from the publishing place (viovio.com) saying that they thought my book was adorable and wanted to feature it in their June/July newsletter! I'll be famous! Of course, they have since told me it will be the August/September newsletter, but still... if it ever is I'll sure and let ya know. Anyway, the book came this week and although it was supposed to be for Father's Day, we celebrated early. Here are some of my favorite pages.

Here are the front and back covers. I am both prejudiced and biased, but I think the whole thing is absolutely adorable!

When the books got here (I ordered a small size which came with two books automatically), we were just leaving for a walk. I opened the package and showed them to Elijah and Miriam. They each took one and plopped down to have a read. Perhaps the Father's Day present won't really be for dad...

Who needs preschool?

Signs that my 3 year old may be watching too much PBS or perhaps may not be watching enough:

While at the aquarium looking at an informational setup on the life of kids who live in the Amazon, she asks "so is this a habitat or something?"

While Elijah spins her in circles in the bathtub, she squeals "he's trying to rotate me!"

Looking out our window and excitedly pointing out the stop sign on the corner, she states "there's an octagon outside our house!"

Feeling much better after throwing up and being sick for a day, she tells me "my immune system chia-ed down my germs." (The term "CHIA" is pronounced like chia pet and is her own verb meaning to kick or punch.)

Gazing up at some seabirds at the beach, she gasps "Mama! They have pteranodons in Mexico!!"

It's EDUCATIONAL television! And we obviously love it at our house!

Buck up, little camper

Miriam is now a camper! Brent took her on her first outside outing this weekend with his parents to Topaz Mountain. It's one of Brent's mom's favorite camping places because of all the topaz chunks to find. It's also where Brent asked me to marry him. Anyway, not being an avid sleep-outsider myself, I was interested to see how she would do. Turns out Miriam is a star camper. She cooked marshmallows on sticks, hammered out rocks, and loved every minute of it. While he woke up every hour throughout the night, Miriam just slept and slept and slept. I was most concerned when it started pouring rain here. I pictured them huddled in a soggy tent with the wind and rain whirling around them. But then I checked the weather radar map. There was a huge red/yellow storm right over Salt Lake County, with a huge circle of green. There was only the extreme edge of the storm, the feathery green parts, over Topaz Mountain. As a mother who has only spent three nights away from her little girl, and all of them in the hospital with Elijah, I think I did as well as she did.

Miriam with her hat, flashlight, bunny, candy necklace, and fanny pack for collecting topaz.

Showing off her topaz.

My Summer Project

In the area we live, many homes (if not most) are fronted by a sidewalk. Between the sidewalk and the road lies a thin strip of landscapable terrain called a park strip. Park strips give pedestrians a cushion of space between them and the road with all its busy cars whizzing by, and studies show that the park strip indeed calms traffic, assumably by making the road appear narrower by separating the sidewalk. These things are all well and good, but gosh the darn things are terribly hard to deal with! When we moved into our home, the park strip immediately in front of us was filled with grass and lined with four stunted catalpa trees. I'm not sure how widespread the custom is, but in our area it was quite popular during the 60s to plant catalpas or other fast-growing trees in the park strip area, then to cap them, cutting off their top branches to create a ball effect each year with the new growth. We call them "Dr. Seuss trees," although I have also heard them referred to as "lollipop trees" and "wow those are really strange trees." Anyway, our four trees were surrounded by grass. Which was very difficult to water. And really bizarre to mow. So we jumped on the Slow-the-Flow bandwagon and ripped our strip. I wanted something in that area which was alive, but required little maintenance, which included water. We decided to transplant some ivy, growing profusely on the south end of the back yard without any help from us, into the park strip. Over the next few years, sections of this ivy flourished and looked beautiful, climbing and winding up the silly little catalpas trunks. The other half of the park strip was less desireable, sporting dead chunks of transplanted ivy. Every year it was the same. Transplant more ivy to bare areas. Watch ivy dry up and die. Despite the water and fertilizer I lovingly gave it. More dead ivy. While I know I'm not a green-thumb-make-everything-outside-gorgeous person, I enjoy growing things and felt like an absolute failure. So I decided to (finally) try something different. After attending a "Simple Solutions for Problematic Park Strips" class and going to the Conservation Garden Park in West Jordan, as well as the Central Utah Gardens in Orem, I realized my fatal flaw. Ivy is a shade plant and literally shrivels up when too much sunlight shines directly on it! The half of my park strip that is empty isn't a sign of my failure, the half that has ivy growing in it is actually a sign of my abilities and successes in the growing world! What I needed was an aesthetically complementary yet sun-loving groundcover which is tolerant of poor soil and drought to put in the patches of park strip where the ivy turned to dust. After much searching, I chose "Turkish Speedwell," a tiny dark green plant which spreads across the entire ground and produces a carpet of beautiful tiny little purpley blue flowers. You can see seasonal pictures of it at this link. I loved this plant at first sight when I saw it in the demonstration gardens, but the bright blooms made me think it required a lot of water or at least shade. Not so! According to one website, "this charmer is as tough as it is beautiful." Turns out it is a very desert-y non-water and sun-loving plant! So last week was action time. I dug out all the dead ivy and prepared the soil, then planted my little Turkish Speedwells. Miriam was a help, but Elijah tended to run down the sidewalk while we were working, so I did it mostly during naptime and after Brent got home from work so he could run after Eli. But my little plants are so dang cute! And I have such high hopes for their prolific survival! They're DESERT plants, after all! I just hope they feel happy and at home in my park strip. Because I sure feel happy with them! It is my summer project to keep them alive and make my park strip a beautifully low-maintenanced area. I'll keep you all updated whether you like it or not ;).

Here is a shot of the entire park strip. You can see some of the bare spots up close, then again surrounding most of the area around the 3rd and 4th tree. You can also see the loveliness of the ivy winding up the tree. I really do love that part.

Here is an above-shot of one patch of my newly planted plants with the soaker hose winding around them to help them get established.

One already has a bloom! SUCCESS!!

"In Praise of Boise"

Just sharin' the love!
Lexington: In Praise of Boise. TheEconomist May 15, 2010

Is GENII the plural of genius?

Cause I've got two of them on my hands! (And perhaps I can add myself, too! It only took me two days to get the video clip saved to my computer and uploaded to blogspot! WOW!)

ELIJAH: He mastered crawling, walking, running, running in circles, and walking backwards. But those darn stairs were giving him fits. We worked and worked and worked on the feet-first-belly-down skooching method. He could cruise right down if I put him on the stairs in the correct position, but he had a heck of a time trying to figure it out. One day he actually fell from top to bottom (thank heavens they're carpeted!). Funniest part of it was that he was wearing a bumble bee costume (Miriam was in a carebear costume and had chosen Eli's outfit). Flight of the Bumblebee if I've ever seen it. He was awfully wary of stairs for quite a while after that. Definately safe. Anyway, he finally got it! He lays down on his belly and then pushes himself backwards until he gets to the stairs. If he hits the wall then he just tries again. Then he just skooches on down and he's in business. He has transferred it to other getting-downs, too. He's aok with beds, tables, and has even tried the trampoline. I helped him on that one. Take a gander at his early technique. Sometimes he would get on his belly and slide for a long time before he hit the stairs, if he ever got there. He's a pro now and can get from standing to the bottom of the stairs in the time it takes him to get in position now, but it still is cute to see!

MIRIAM: After she could identify by sight all capital and lowercase letters, I started on writing. She wasn't ready, though. She just couldn't get the concept. So I dropped it. Then one day at library class, she said she wanted to write her name on the back of her bird craft. She picked up a marker and wrote MiM. I was amazed. I call her Mim all the time, but didn't realize that she knew how to spell it and how to write it. The next day, she asked to write her name. I wrote it out and she copied it directly underneath. She's sporting her dorky smile, but the name is pretty impressive, to her Mama at least. I was amazed. What a girl!

I still have a blog!

"I used to have a blog," I thought the other day. Then with excitement I realized that they usually don't just delete those things and I probably still have a blog! YAY! I DO! And since I quit being a lively blogger...




My baby girl turned three. THREE! Can you believe it? She posed, but see, she's three, so it had to be HER pose. If the camera panned out, you would see she is bent double at the waist and has her arms straight up in the air. Very chique.


My baby boy turned one. I get so dang sentimental on my kids' birthdays and to have both so close makes me kind of basket-case-y for that block of time. He is such a happy boy. He loved his candle and cake. He had that huge smile even though the next day he was finally diagnosed with a raging ear infection. What a trooper!

My baby sister got married. Okay, I don't think I've ever ever called her "baby sister," but it fit so sequentially with the first two that I just couldn't help it. Kelsey and Spencer got married on March 20, and we had a fun-filled two weeks preparing for and enjoying the many festivities that accompany wedding celebrations. Miriam loved it and is all about who is married to who. She is sure that she will marry Elijah when they grow up. Eli seems to agree. I've decided to put off the incest discussion and just appreciate that they like each other.

We spent a week in Mexico. MEXICO! Brent's parents took their three boys, along with wives and children, for a fun-filled weeklong Mexican extravaganza. We visited Chichen Itza and Tulum, some Myan ruins, along with Xcaret and Cozumel. Our favorite times were playing on the beach, building sandcastles, and collecting seashells. It was hot. And it was wonderful. This picture is from a dinner at the restaurant at our resort (yep, right on the ocean!).

Anyway, last week we came back from Mexico with ear infections in both kids. And I'm pretty sure Elijah got some sort of a Mexican virus (or do they prefer the term Latin virus?). And what with the crazy schedule the week before in Mexico along with the various maladies, sleep has been bizarre. Strange. Almost nonexistant. Very hit-and-miss. This morning, miracle of miracles, I woke up in the morning without having been awakened all night long. HALLELUJAH! I could easily have slept a few more hours, but I felt great. It's amazing what the value of non-interrupted sleep is.

And that about sums it up. Hope your lives have been as eventful (and maybe more restful) than ours.

She said it

We were watching the Olympics and they were doing a clip on the women's snowboarding halfpipe. They showed fall after crash after magnificent wreck. Then they showed a clean run.
Miriam: Wow!
Me: She was really good, wasn't she?
Miriam: Yeah!
Still Miriam, but very solomnly now: Those other girls were not good.

We were at dinner and I mentioned that the school district equalization bill died in committee.
Miriam: Oh. Was he sick?

Take 72

My mom asked for a picture of my kids together, which is actually something I've wanted for a while. Still, it's easier said than done. Can I just say how much I love digital cameras?

I've always thought these two looked like siblings, but not alike. This proves that they look the same when they laugh at their mom. I can be pretty funny :).

Wrong tax website

So I clicked on my own link to get to the free tax help website to schedule an appointment and OOPS! I put the wrong one down. It's UtahTaxHelp.org. Not com. Sorry if anyone actually tried to go use the services and thought I had stuffing in my head, but now it will work!

Brilliant Boy

Elijah is 11 months old and absolutely fascinated with putting things into other things. I find crayons in the recycle bin, his glowbug in the dirty laundry, and cookies in the toy box. I have a lot of bins around to organize the stuff of life, and most of the toys are separated by toy type. The other day Elijah and I had put away the crayons in the crayon bin, and had moved on to putting away a building set kinda like huge Legos but not really. He picked up each piece, looked at it, and put it in the bin. Over and over and over. He picked up a crayon we had missed, looked at it, and put his hand over the building set bin. Then he froze. Utter confusion passed over his little face, then he looked all around, almost panicking, for the crayon bin. I slid it off the shelf and into his line of sight. A wave of relief flooded his expression and, shreiking happily, he put the crayon into the crayon bin with a satisfied "AAAAA!" Then it was back to the building set. I was so proud of my little guy! He is already a sorter, an organizer, an arranger. A genius! I LOVE MY BOY!

Free Tax Preparation

I just found out about this program called VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance). This is from their website: "VITA is a program implemented through the statewide EarnIt.KeepIt.SaveIt. Coalition made up of local community partners. The coalition works to recruit volunteers that proved free tax preparation services to low-to-moderate income households... If your household income is under $49,000 a year, you may be eligible for free tax preparation from IRS-trained community volunteers." WOW! How awesome is that?! I don't think I'm divulging too much when I say that our family comes in below the 49/year mark and we will be participating in these services. I'll let you know how it goes! Go to UtahTaxHelp.com.

Congratulations Kelsey and Spencer!

Kelsey and Spencer are getting married! Hooray! I first met Spencer at Kelsey's birthday party about a year and a half ago. Kelsey had told me about him prior to the bash and told me he would be the one with a mustache but to not let him know I knew anything about him. He was indeed sporting a big fat hairy one but I just pretended that he looked normal and then I pretended that I didn't know all about him already. ANYWAY, Spencer has been a part of our lives since then and has attended major Moore family events such as Miriam's birthday party and Elijah's hospital stays, along with babysitting for us on our anniversary and other sundry nights. He and Kelsey hosted Thanksgiving dinner for us as well as my parents, Spencer's brother, and Spencer's mom. Brent likes that he is a fellow proud hair-shaver. I like that he will do all the research on major purchases and tell me about them. We ended up buying the virtually same tv on black Friday. Miriam likes that he has a Mexican league soccer team. The Pumas, if you were interested. Elijah just like him. Any time that Kelsey is going to come over, Miriam always asks "Is Spencer coming too?" I always have to text ahead of time because if he's not, I have to prepare her for that. We're so excited that he's going to be a permanent part of our family. CONGRATULATIONS TO KELSEY AND SPENCER! If you'd like, you can read Kelsey's post about the engagement on her blog.

New Year New Look

So on New Years Day we decided to go sledding. We borrowed some sleds from the neighbors and headed out to Union Park. The park is just down the street has only one very small hill. It's not a huge magnet for sledders, but was exactly perfect for us. We had a fantastically amazing time. Miriam was a sledder extraordinaire. She loved coasting down the icy hillside. Really, it was only about 50 feet and even I liked it. And I don't like activities in the cold outsideness. Miriam decided to go by herself, and she did amazingly well. But on her second solo flight, somebody (okay it was me) put her sled on a direct collision course with a tree. The sled hit the tree. Miriam flew off the sled. Miriam's face hit the tree. Oh the guilt. She was scraped up, her nose was crooked, and there was tons of instant swelling, so we headed for the car and took her to the local docinthebox. When we arrived, we had nothing but shuddering sobs. After we got settled down, Miriam was much more animated about this adventure. And when the doctor told her that because she was such an awesome patient she could have tokens to the toy machine, she was absolutely energized! Amazing what a ten-cent toy can do for a girl. She had an x-ray, and still likes showing people how she had to hold her head. All of her bones are perfectly intact and her septum is straight. No more guilt! Anyway, here's a track of the first few days...


Day one: This is when we got home from the doctors. She's still in a lot of pain, but is an absolute trooper.











Day two. This might have been the worst of the swelling days. Remember on Willow when everybody was getting turned into pigs? She was sporting the half-way between human and pig look. Very cute.










Day three. Still kind of swollen. A lot more bruising. I don't think the flipping off is intentional. Then again, maybe she realized it was me who aimed her sled for the tree...







Day four: This was probably the worst bruising. It was this day that she looked in the mirror and said "I'm a monster from PBS kids dot org!" She didn't seem too sad about it, but I was a little sad to hear that that was her opinion of her own reflection.

Day 7: Today: The swelling has mostly gone down and the bruise is more green than anything. Even the black streak under her eye is more lavender than purple. And yes, I know she has the same hairstyle and pajamas on as she did on day 2. But I have proof that she has changed clothes since then!

We did it!

We did it! We did it! We did it! We did it! Yeah, lo hicimos! We did it! Imagine, if you would like, Miriam, Elijah, Brent and I along with even JoAnn and Zeke doing the Dora Victory Dance. Why? BECAUSE OUR BASEMENT IS DONE! AND IT IS BEAUTIFUL! Okay, so we really didn't DO a lot, just watched all the workers come in and out and out and in. And we painted. And that's a bigger job than it sounded like when we initially said "oh yeah, we can paint..." BUT IT'S DONE! We finished one big play/tv/office room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. There are 8 doors (do you know how long those take to paint?), two colors of wall, white ceilings, a granite shower, and a warm happy feeling. We still have an unfinished bedroom, along with the washroom/storage room that will probably always be unfinished. We gained three closets (some of my favorite things), a place for guests, and virtually twice the house we had before. They finished everything the Monday before Christmas and we started moving in. We have already hosted our first houseguests-who-get-a-real-place. Brent's grandma died and Steve and family stayed with us while they were in town from California for the services. While he was here, he helped us get our internet set up a lot better than we had it. Phew. Somebody has to take care of us. Anyway, here is a before and after shot. The before shot was taken from the bottom of the stairs, which is about ten or so feet in front of where I took the after shot. I also would like to show you the wall behind where I was standing, but Ikea was out of the bins that we wanted, so everything on my flashy new shelves is in reusable grocery bags. So I'll wait on that, but you get the picture that this is AWESOME.


Needless to say, we absolutely LOVE IT!

Real Simple!

I rarely read magazines, but I love Real Simple. It's fabulous. AND RIGHT NOW YOU CAN GET A YEAR'S SUBSCRIPTION FOR ONLY FIVE DOLLARS! It's one of Amazon.com's big deals right now. If you want, you can head over there and snag the thing through tomorrow night.

Always guess conservatively

I have learned in my life that if somebody excitedly asks you to guess what grade they got on a test, guess like an 85%. That way, when it's a 92%, it'll sound fabulous. If you would have ventured a 100%, then the 92% would in turn seem a little lackluster. When Brent comes home from playing basketball and asks me to guess how many baskets he made, 4 is a much better guess than 14. Because then the answer will impress. Just this week, I was the one that got to impress with the real answer. Elijah had his 9 month checkup. We were about a week and a half late with the checkup because our normally scheduled appointment on his actual 9 month birthday got postponed due to an extended vacation in Boise where we were waylayed with H1N1. So as we were waiting in the exam room, Eli was gollum-crawling around, pulling himself up on everything, trying to work the blood pressure gadget, and in general being a pretty typical 9 month old little boy. The doctor came in and welcomed us, commented on how well Elijah was moving around and of course how adorable he was. He then looked at the chart and said "9 months? I would have sworn he was 12 months based on his getting around!" Even though I knew the game, it still made me feel good. Yes, my 9 month little boy is performing at the level of most 12 month olds. Aren't I a wonderful mother? He's down to the 50th percentile of weight, but still in the 85th percentile of height, which makes him the same ratio of height to weight as Miriam was (and presumably still is) on most of her chart but I think that's off a bit because Eli is admittedly a lot squishier than Miriam ever was although it could be the difference between boys and girls... ANYWAY, at the end of the appointment, I asked for flu shots for both Elijah and Miriam. The doctor poked his head out the door and asked the nurse if she had vaccines for Elijah who is 9 months and for Miriam who is (at this point, he turned back to me and asked) "four?" I smiled and said "two." The girl is precocious and knows it, but there is no way she could pass for four. So here is my advice: ALWAYS GUESS UP. OR DOWN. Whichever is more flattering. People will always want to be around you.

Frazzled

Do you ever feel like you're behind in absolutely every aspect of your life? That there are about ten million projects that are half done and waiting for you to get back to? That you think you know what's going on in your church calling, but are about a month late with anything you do? That you think you know what's going on with any work-related happenings, but really you're way off base? That any time you sit down to get caught up with bills or paperwork or anything else that you can't focus for long enough to even find the project? That every room of your house needs a scour-down or at the very least a tidy-up? That you have all these awesome ideas of how to do things better but the thought of implementing them seems virtually impossible? That by having virtually quit posting, you're letting down the blog followers that have developed a deep appreciation of your wit and wisdom (and rightly so)? Then you, my friends, know how I'm feeling now. Sigh.

An ineffective punishment and a grand compliment

Miriam is absolutely amazingly wonderful and I love her to pieces. One thing I love about her is her determination. Unfortunately, it causes at times some motherly frustration. Something that we struggle with is getting dressed. It's not that she minds wearing clothes, she just doesn't like putting them on. She has developed a habit of running laps (down the hall, through the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, and back to the front room and the hallway again) any time I get clothes out. I didn't want to make it an issue, and figured she was old enough to be embarrassed, so one day last week I told her that if she wasn't dressed, she'd have to come running errands with me in her jammies. She may be old enough to be embarrassed, but she is not embarrassed by wearing jammies in public. She thought it was awesome. So much for that route. I now give her a piece of her Halloween candy for every item of clothing that she puts on. It works much better. It's only bribery if it's illegal, right? Anyway, after we got home from the jammies-in-public event, it was lunchtime. She chose to have a cold hot dog stick (as in not cut up) with ketchup to dip-dip in, cold canned green beans, and some cheese cubes. I almost gagged as I watched her dive in, but my little mama heart just melted when she enthusiastically and through a full mouth said, "This is the best dinner I ever had! I love the taste!" Ah, a little appreciation sure goes a long ways!

The first cut is the deepest

After much discussion and debate, we have decided to finish the basement. Brent would have done it a year ago, I needed more time to realize that it will be well worth it. We hired a contractor, moved all our stuff to the corners, and they started last week.

This is the north wall of our basement as of last Thursday morning:

And this is the same wall tonight:

The process has begun! We're going to have a large play/family/tv/office room, a bedroom, a bathroom, a storage area, and an unfinished bedroom/additional storage area. I am so excited for this! I usually get terrible cases of post-decision dissonance, but I'm really excited for this! HOORAY FOR STEVE THE BUILDER!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Elijah loves food. There's just no getting around it.

A few weeks ago, I figured Eli would be crawling within the week. He was just SO CLOSE! I would surround him with his favorite toys and wonder why he just sat there crying. Last week Brent figured out that I was using the wrong kind of bait. FOOD. In one afternoon spent with his dad, Elijah crawled to cookies, crackers, and cheese. The only times he didn't get there were when Miriam took pity on him and moved the food closer so he didn't have to struggle so much. The next day, a mom got goldfish out for her kid during storytime at the library. Eli honed in on it and took off. Now he can go pretty much anywhere he wants to and he is simply pleased as punch about the whole thing. He is so much more content and happy and it is so fun hearing squeals of delight when he gets to something he's been working on. He has a hitch-in-the-get-along technique that we call the Gollum Crawl. He crawls on one knee, but uses his foot on the other leg. He cruises along at a pretty good clip considering that last week he couldn't even hold himself in crawling position. Eli's cousin Henry was the first kid I ever saw use the Gollum Crawl and I was fascinated with it. When Eli started doing it I was thrilled! It's definately hereditary. Anyway, I was going to put on a little clip of Elijah going after a goldfish. It's completely adorable. But I can't find the camera right now and don't want to look for it. When it shows up, however, you'll be the first to know!

Things I Love #4: Orson Scott Card

In celebration of Columbus Day, there was an article in the paper this morning about how kids these days are getting a more rounded view of Christopher Columbus, such as that he really didn't know where he was going or getting into and that through his efforts he brought smallpox to the Americas and killed off thousands of Native Americans. Quite frankly, the most I remember about my Columbus lessons was the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria and that we got banana boats with our school lunch. But between the Columbus article and today's celebration of Columbus Day, I remember one of my all-time favorite books by one of my all-time favorite authors. "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus," by Orson Scott Card tells of a future where people have invented a machine that lets a person see what happened in the past. They are the researchers of the future watching past actions and listening to past conversations, discovering how things came to be the way the are. When these people of the future find that the resources of the world can no longer sustain life and that their future will not exist beyond two generations, the pastwatchers decide to intervene in the past. They choose Christopher Columbus' search for a water passage to the east and ultimate "discovery" of America as the key event that will make the future happy and healthy for all humanity. It is a fascinating voyage both through the histories of Europe and Latin America and through "what would have been if..." I love the research that Orson Scott Card shows by the detailed historical references that are laced throughout his writing both in this book and many others. Another thing I love is his focus on interpersonal relationships and how many of his characters' thought processes include how they should word or phrase an idea for the receiver to understand it in the way it was meant. This makes the characters much deeper. It helps me to consider how my tone may be taken by others, as well as considering that the way I initially take somebody else's mean tone may not be the way he meant it. It also makes for fascinating parallel books, where the same interaction is shown from another character's point of view and the whole meaning of the conversation is different. It makes for quite enjoyable reading. Orson Scott Card is on my personal list of fascinating people I would like to meet. I am just amazed at his ability to depict history and its influences on the future, his understanding of the human character and how we relate to each other, his imagination of how the future could be, and the manner in which he combines it all. There are some Orson Scott Card books that I didn't like (Magic Street, Songmaster, and Homebody for some), and some that I enjoyed but don't recommend highly (the Alvin Maker series, Empire, and Saints), but I think that makes my enthusiastic recommendation of others even stronger. The Ender series (starting with Ender's Game, then following through Ender's lifetime with Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind, then starting over with Ender's Shadow [taking place at the same time as Ender's Game but focusing on a different character], and following the lives of the other battle school kids in Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant) is wonderful albeit a bit tedious if you take them all back to back. The Women of Genesis trilogy (Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah) and Stone Tables, the story of Moses, are interesting and thought-provoking takes on Bible prophets and events. Enchantment is a delightful dip into fairy tales and fantasy whose main character is a distance runner. I read this one for the first time while I was dating Brent who is also a distance runner, so my view of it could be clouded by rosy glasses of happy happy times, but it only enhances the joy. And Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus is simply fascinating. I highly recommend it. Oh, and Happy Columbus Day!

Hay-Maze-ing

Last year I discovered that Engh Gardens on 7th East in Sandy has an amazing setup for kids in October. They have a hay maze, a pirate ship, all sorts of put-your-face-in cutouts, and it's all for free. FREE! My kind of place. If you live in the Salt Lake area and have kids, you absolutely should go. We spent the afternoon there with our whole family, plus Shauna and Charlee, and had a great time. Charlee loved the pirate ship, but my kids were all about the maze. I have had my share of corn mazes, and they're one thing that I can honestly say I don't like and I don't want to like them. But hay mazes are definately the way to go. We went through this one a lot. And I never once felt trapped, exasperated, anxious, bored, or even mildly irritated!

Elijah is becoming quite the walker. After being carried and flown through many times, he fought and struggled to get on the ground and in charge of himself. He is a very determined little boy in many many ways. Brent held his fingers through the first half and I tagged teamed to save Brent's aching back and held him up through the second. I can attest that he chose where and when to turn. If I tried to make him go down an aisle he didn't want to, he dug in deep with his heels and gritted his gums together. He only made one wrong turn and that was when he followed Miriam (who had lapped us) go down a dead end. I'm fairly certain he did just for fun and completely on purpose. When they got to the end, Miriam put her hands on her cheeks and said "OH NO!" Elijah laughed, turned, and headed straight out the end. What a boy! And just to glimpse the joy of the hay maze journey for him...

And one more thing... what happened to my cute little baby? This kid is practically a toddler-adolescent-adult!!

Let the celebrations commence!

The grand annual Moore Family Halloween Party took place last night. It sure felt early, but here we are weeks from Halloween and we already have all our costumes not only decided on, but gathered and prepared.

This is us having a great time at the party. I'm a bat (the wings are made from an umbrella and though you can't see them are fabulous), Brent is Grandpa Moore (who when we went through his closet after he died had innumerable white button up shirts and about fifty virtually identical v-neck sweaters varying only in the weave and slight shades-of-gray/blue changes), Miriam is a doctor (notice the no-nonsense aura of efficiency and competency), Eli is a frog (and not quite sure about the whole experience).

A month ago, Miriam told Brent that she wanted to be a doctor for Halloween. I'm sure not going to disuade her from such a noble aspiration, but when I found a CareBear costume at my new favorite thrift store for $2, I grabbed it. She loved it and wore it for two days straight, but it never entered her mind to change from Doctor to Care Bear. She got so excited as we prepared her doctor costume, and even at one time said "I AM DOCTOR VILLALOBOS!" Who is in fact, our family doctor. When we arrived at the shindig, her cousin Carter was a surgeon. Ah the flurries of cameras catching the two pint-sized doctors before the discardment of stethoscopes and lab coats! Does anybody else look at this little series and have nightmarish flashbacks of those awkward-corsage-pinning-high-school-dance shots?

Elijah decided to be a frog. Frankly I think he has a definately frog-like smile, in the nicest frog-like way possible. It may be in the genes: Miriam had a definate frog-look to her during those early months although I haven't noticed it for a while. The decision to be a frog came last Spring when my mom called and said there was a frog costume at a garage sale. Good going mom! But have you ever seen a cuter frog? With Eli is cousin Avery. She sadly got scooted out of the doctor shot, but Elijah the Frog thought Avery the Witch was great. Although he was highly attracted to Avery's golden white hair and had to be untangled from it more than once throughout the duration of the evening. The stuffing actually made him feel like a big old teddy bear. He's usually squishy and cuddly, but that extra padding really enhanced the effect.

Although I have never been a huge Halloween fan, I find myself getting more and more into it. Strange how two little people can change your life so much! Miriam has been talking about the party all day, reviewing who was dressed as what and all the things we did. At dinner she gave a big sigh and said "that was a fun party last night." HAPPY HALLOWEEN!