Something's Missing

 Can you tell what it is?

This just may be the most anticlimactic first tooth loss in history.  We went out to eat on Saturday and as I was putting his seat belt around his booster seat, I noticed the gap on his bottom row.

"Where's your tooth?" I asked him.

He immediately felt for his tooth and then started giggling.  He said, "I guess it's in my hamburger!"  I didn't even know it was loose.  His other bottom tooth isn't.  Weird.

Isn't four WAY too young to lose a tooth?  He is almost five, but....but....well...he's Henry.  He's supposed to be delayed.  I guess his teeth are ahead of the curve.

Thanksgiving With The In-Laws

My sister-in-law, Peggy, said as she headed home after our Thanksgiving Break family reunion, "Be kind to us on your blog!"

I had no intention to be anything but kind.  After all, I happen to have some fabulous in-laws.  Not perfect in-laws.  As Peggy, the organizer of the event can attest to, getting them all together is no easy task and once together, coming up with a group plan has to be at least as challenging as designing those ever-mysterious traffic signal algorithms.  I'll take their quirks any day, however, because each of them also happens to be wonderful.  Good, kind, fun, helpful, dedicated people who make the world a better, brighter place with their efforts.  Lucky me.

Jay's younger sister, Kelly, was the first to arrive and we had the pleasure to have them stay with us.  Jay's other two sisters, Molly and Peggy, and their families arrived on Wednesday and we had a delicious dinner of bbq pork sandwiches prepared by my mother-in-law.

Thanksgiving morning included a five mile Turkey Trot.  It was a bitter cold morning with temperatures in the tens and only the bravest and fittest dared the run.

Adam was a baby when I started dating Jay.  Now he is a star runner who treated those five miles like they were child's play.

Kelly is not to be messed with.  She is fast and competitive and it's fun to watch her run.

Karin, my oldest niece, got married to Ben this summer and he is a delightful addition to the family.  I think he had a smile on his face the entire time he was surrounded by the other 38 of us and is just a good, good guy.  He also managed to smile when he was running even when he said there was no air to breath at our bruising 7,000 ft altitude.

Here's my favorite runner and his new turquoise shorts so that I can spot him while he runs the memphis marathon this weekend. 

All of Peggy's boys ran, but I missed their finish.  I got their mom's brilliant finish, however.

The brave runners.

The equally brave cheerers.  Sadly, cheering while freezing doesn't burn that many calories.

Jay's two other brothers arrived in time for Thanksgiving Dinner and we got all the cousins in order of oldest to youngest.

Here they are in one single line (minus Caden who is being held by Doug).

Another format.  From left to right:  Ben, Karin, Scott, Derek, Michael, Jacob, Adam, Delanie, Doug, Reese
Thomas, Seth, Erin, Creed, Sam, Matt, Brooke, Emily, Kate, Henry, Sara, Ethan and Caden

It isn't a get together with Grandpa unless a pinata is involved.

The boy cousins

And the much fewer girl cousins

Grandpa Vaughn, who is currently serving as President of the Monticello Temple, shares some of the history of the temple, as well as some of the miracles associated with it, one in particular known as "The Miracle of the Green Windows."

We joke about being the out-laws but we are all lucky women to have married such fine men.  From left to right:  (Stephanie (holding Caden  married to Clark), Patty (Vaughn Jr.), Bekki (Rex) and me with my new brunette locks.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

And Table 4 where Jay and I sat.

On Friday, we headed to the Monticello Temple for a meaningful moment to gather at the temple where Jay's parent's serve.  It was really something to see all of Jay's siblings and spouses in the same session, as well as Karin and Ben.  Later, all the youth twelve and older did baptisms with their father's as ordinance workers.

Jay's lovely sisters, Molly, Kelly and Peggy

The boys:  Vaughn, Rex, Clark and Jay

Here's all the kids and spouses in order of age.  We stood in order of age of sibling with Clark, the youngest, on the left and Vaughn, the oldest, on the right.  I was totally bending my knees so that I wouldn't be huge Lucy in the middle.

My in-laws.

Here, I attempted some photo merging.  Obviously, Jay is facing the wrong direction in this picture.

And Vaughn's eyes are closed in this one.

So, I did a photo merge on Vaughn and Molly's side.  It's not perfect but it's not bad.  I had to do some extra cropping because Vaughn ended up with three legs but it'd do in a pinch.

It was a great week and a nice break from school for the boys.  Now, it's time to gear up for Christmas.  I guess I better start shopping.  And decorating.  And getting Christmas cards ready.

Wait...let's go back and do this week again instead.  Yup.  I like my in-laws so much I'd do it all again.  How's that for kind, Peggy? ;-)

Smiles

9:30 AM smile

10 o'clock smile (albeit forced with the infamous lip stretcher)

10:45 smile

We went and got haircuts afterward to get rid of the au naturel ear muffs and I hardly recognize this boy anymore. I'm sure it won't last but he loves them right now. Thanks for the colorful smile Uncle Vaughn!

Book Review - Room

What really gets me excited about reading is when I come across a particular book that requires me, the reader, to think about something in a new way.   It's even better when the new perspective comes attached to a compelling story.

Room, by Emma Donoghue, could claim to be about a number of things.  I'm going to be one of those annoying reviewers who promises that the novel is best read with as little foreknowledge as possible, which is definitely true in this case but only for about the first fifty pages.  Unfortunately, that means I also have to keep my mouth shut about the other three-hundred that follow, but I think the lack of preview is worth it.

Ultimately, what I think Room is about, and what it as a novel does best, is deliver a unique lesson about perspective.  Those first fifty pages (or so) have our five year-old narrator, Jack, talking about objects and his surroundings and schedule in a room in a way that doesn't really make sense.  Until you know the reason why, it's almost difficult to read because...well...that's not how we talk.  Then the question becomes, "Why?"  Why is this boy's perspective so different than mine?  Where is he?  What is he doing there?

As the answers are divulged and the more recognizable backstory is presented along beside Jack's, the author challenges you to stay with Jack and his point of view.  His incredible experience allows each of us readers to break down some common, everyday occurrences, or even what could be considered general truths, and really examine their validity.

Donoghue does an amazing job of keeping a realistic vibe while describing a sensational story.  The attitudes and actions of most of the characters are fascinatingly predictable, both in a good and bad way.  In other words, I know these guys.  They represent me and my world.  However, because of Jack, there is more to consider.  If my world doesn't make sense to Jack and Jack's world doesn't make sense to me, is one superior to the other?  Due to the premise of the plot, the answer to this question, this time is yes.  Obviously yes.  Jack has suffered from not being a part of my world and as he adjusts, he'll understand that.

But Jack was happy in his world.  Perhaps he wouldn't always have been.  Circumstances being what they were, it's fairly easy to assume that would have been the case.  It made me think, though.  My world seems pretty ideal, particularly because I am an American, white, and middle class.  Doesn't the rest of the world suffer because they don't have all the same experiences and opportunities that I have?  Isn't my world superior to theirs?  I think of the women in the world who wear Burquas, or who have to wash their clothes by hand or even those who can only have one child as dictated by their government.  Surely my reality is better than theirs.  After all, I can wear whatever I want in public, I have a front loader that cleans a load of clothes at the touch of a button and three charming boys who delight me.   I think those other women couldn't possibly be as happy as me with those limitations placed upon them.

Maybe that's the case.  But maybe not.   Probably not.  After all, happiness is a state of mind.  Heck, there's been enough literature, movies and facebook status updates to highlight that money (or nationality or race or any number of things) doesn't make us happy.  We make ourselves happy.   With one child, or twenty, covered or uncovered, by hand or by machine.  Our happiness is only dependent upon our ability to choose it.

Ah, I digress.  This isn't about me, or the world, it's about Jack.  It's about a little boy in his room who could choose happiness in large part because his mother gave him the ability by shielding him from the alternative misery.   I like that thinking about Jack made me think about these other things, though.  I like that even though the author wrote a story about a boy whose world was a room, writing about a room made me think about the world.

Halloween Memories

It's hard to go back and write a Halloween post two weeks after the event, and I hate giving the blasted holiday any more attention than its already greedily demanded, but, I have these cute pictures I just downloaded from my camera and the accompanying story is one I want to remember.

Even though I personally dislike the holiday, I love the creativity the event seems to inspire in others. As I knew many months in advance that we were going to be gone on Halloween day (traveling to Disneyland), I told the boys that we weren't going to purchase any new costumes. Instead, they could use ones from our current stash in the dress-up box or create their own. After witnessing each one's resourcefulness creating their costumes from "scratch", its going to be hard to shell-out money for a costume-in-a-box in the future.

Henry was the big surprise. He had told me for weeks that he was going to be Mr. Incredible. It wasn't until the day before his preschool party that he announced that, instead, he wanted to be a scary ghost.

Well...ghosts are easy. All I needed was a white sheet, right? I made a mental note to hit Walmart after choir practice so that his ghost costume would be ready for the morning. Only, they were doing road construction as I drove home and actually had the turn into Walmart closed off! I never thought I'd experience that emotion - wanting to get to Walmart and being physically unable to do so - but it's happened. That's scary.

I came home and complained to Jay and he suggested just using a spare pillowcase since Henry is so small. Perfect. I'd find one in the morning.

Now, Jay is a smart man, but he doesn't care much about where things are and where they go in the house, particularly things he doesn't use, such as spare pillowcases. While I was making breakfast, he proactively helped Henry with his costume by...stripping Sam's pillowcase off his pillow and cutting eye holes in it. Swell. Except. Sam's pillowcase was blue.  And dirty.

It was such a strange feeling to be embarrassed about my son's costume. As soon as I got to the preschool party, and he put on his costume, other mothers started chuckling about how cute he was. I felt immediately defensive and needed to explain about the last minute change...how his dad was in charge...etc. etc. Henry was having none of it, however, and was undeniably proud of his costume. He went up to everyone - EVERYONE - and made a ghost sound followed by a very loud, "BOO!" He worked that blue pillowcase, toothpaste marks and all!

As cute as he was, the eye holes were a bit crooked so it was hard for him to see during his parade. I had to keep adjusting the holes over his eyes and when the parade was finished, he spent the remainder of the part out of costume because it was so distracting. Still, Sam came home and said his class voted and out of the 27 students in his class, 26 voted Henry's costume best. And I was embarrassed! Now I'm only embarrassed about my embarrassment.

Seth totally took on his own costume and was a business man for the school party, complete with cell phone, portfolio and bluetooth, but switched over to a secret service/FBI for the school's Halloween carnival later that night.

Sam chose to be a nerd and all we had to do was put a bit of tape around his glasses, find an old pair of church pants, and stuff his pocket with pencils and a calculator. Oh...and we gelled both boys' hair. They liked that.

I love my boys.

You can even see the original eyeholes Jay marked on the pillowcase going in the wrong direction.

Sitting among some peers in less....homemade frocks.

Singing the itsy bitsy spider song for the parents.

Parading through the classrooms for some loot (nothing unhealthy though.  Pencils, pretzels and stickers.  Even their party menu was applesauce, vegetables and hummus.

Taking pictures and going on their only trick-or-treating outing to Grandma's.   Henry changed his mind once again and decided to be a cowboy.  I'm telling you, once they get that chance to create their own costume, their power is unleashed!

Trying to get a shot without Dad in it but its windy.

Over and out.

A Magical Week in a Magical Place

Disneyland was better than great. It deserves every bit of its good reputation. Going with my sister, Jen, and her family was the best way to go as my boys had their best buddies for rides and keeping each other entertained in lines, which, I was reminded several times, were not nearly as long as they could have been (but were still plenty long in my crowd-phobic opinion).  Plus, their expertise kept us from being that rookie family that decides what ride they want to ride on next and go stand in line.  Pssshhh!  Not us!  We, on our very first time there, followed my savvy brother-in-law's schedule using fast passes and ride max.  There was a schedule!  While that flabbergasted me at first, I am very grateful to have done it that way.  We saw a lot of the park in a very efficient manner.

The weather was hot...really hot....but that only bothered me on the last day after I could claim I had ridden every ride in both Disneyland and California Adventure (except Dumbo, and the little train right next to it)and I felt totally justified riding Pirates of the Caribbean, splash mountain, Grizzly River Run, Space Mountain and any ride that didn't require me to feel hot as many times as I felt like. All in all, it was a dreamy week. It was essentially all of our first time to the famed park (I did go when I was five, but I've talked about my bad memory before so no further explanation of why that doesn't count is necessary) and it was worth the cost, week off work/school/responsibilities. It's just so....clean. And cute. And happy. We loved it!

Here are some pictures in no real particular order. I'd cut and paste but no one really cares about the chronological order of rides and days, do you?

One perk to 90 plus degree weather is how good ice cream tastes.

Sam and Owen were great buddies all week.   They also both got lost during the week (Sam once, Owen twice.  Nerve racking but those Disney employees are great!).

First time I rode this, Jen made sure I was in the front seat.  It was so, so, so fun.

I love the Sword in the Stone.  Too bad they didn't have a ride because I would have recognized THOSE movie scenes.  As for most of the other rides in Fantasy Land, I realized I need to brush up on my Disney Movies.  Seriously.

Waiting in line for the Matterhorn.  Fun!

A frequent sight.  It was great having kids old enough to not need a stroller or diaper bag but Henry's little legs occasionally got tired and his dad's shoulders got a lot of use.

Have you rafted over to the Pirate's Lair?  I thought it would be lame but the kids LOVED it.  It was so fun to watch them play with all those great props.

We saw almost all of the shows, I think.  The musical, Aladdin, was really good.  I only felt bad when, near the end of the show when Jasmine is marrying Prince Ali, Sam leaned over to Jay and asked what happened to Aladdin.  Yeah...our kids don't watch much Disney either.

Gotta ride the tea cups!  It's iconic!

I love the movie Cars.  If it's a Pixar movie, I've seen it.  I definitely want to go back in 2012 when the Cars ride opens.

We saw Mickey on our first day.  That was the one thing Henry was expecting to see so it was fun to watch him have that experience.

Pluto poses with the boys.

A Bug's Life land was really fun for the younger kids.  That movie, "It's Tough To Be a Bug" can't be missed. I screamed, laughed and got grossed out.  These bumper bugs don't go fast but it was still fun.

In front of the famous castle.

This ride was great appreciated when the temps got close to one-hundred degrees.

Henry and Sadie could ride every ride except California Screamin' and Indiana Jones.  That didn't stop the employees from checking and re-checking every. single. time, though.

From Jen's camera.  I don't even know when this happened.

We had breakfast with Minnie and friends and even though it was pricey, it was a great morning.  So many characters and great food.  Plus, that air conditioning felt fantastic:)

This really should have been the first picture.  This is most of the group waiting for the shuttle to take us to our first day at Disneyland.  We were all so excited.

Especially this little guy.

We got there early every morning because it was all part of the master schedule to ride some of the notoriously long wait time rides first off in the the morning.  I do realize that the crowds could have been worse but these were difficult moments for me.

Hello, Walt!

Love Jonas's face in this one.

Checking out the helpful map.

Henry almost always hugged the characters.  Most of my pictures are of Henry.  That gives me Mom guilt but, honestly, Seth and Sam didn't really care and Seth just plain old hates to have his picture taken.  So...Henry it is.

Henry really wanted a picture on the L.  We were there to see some of the transition from Halloween to Christmas since we were there the first week of November.

Any kind of water toy was in demand in this heat.

Our travel companions.  Love them!

More messy ice cream.

I thought this was a funny picture.  A raccoon with a skunk.  It's funny if you know the back stories.

I took Henry and Sadie up to Tarzan's tree house twice while the others rode Indiana Jones for the second or third time.  That was a ride that always seemed to have a long wait.

Jen and I in our matching BYU shirts.  Seriously, announcing our affiliation with this school made the other, many, many BYU fans come out of the closet with friendly greetings.

More Breakfast with Minnie pictures.

I know Sam had no clue who the lady in blue and pink was.

Or this helpful seamstress.  I need a daughter!  Not really.  I'm good.

Pirate's Lair.

We went to the Innovations "ride" and were horrified to find ourselves in a Home Builder sales pitch.  But, upstairs, they did have a few cool gadgets and gizmos, including this face ager.   It's a bit freaky to look at, but this is what Henry could look like should he become a chronic smoker and likes to tan and overeat.  At least he kept his lovely blond locks!

Riding the Nemo Submarines.  It was pretty cool!

Henry loved, loved, loved all things Buzz Lightyear so it was really fun to see him outside of the Astroblaster ride.  None of us could get enough of the Toy Story Mania ride.  Too bad that line was always long too.

We did a bit of shopping.  The hats were not purchased.

Riding the Swings late at night.  Oddly enough, I found myself the most nervous on this ride.  Just something about only a chain keeping me from flying out into the middle of the park's pond got my heart racing.

Sam declared the Symphony swings his favorite ride.

A picture of Seth.  See?  He was there and happy.

All week long, Henry wanted to see Donald and on the last day we found him!  So cute.

Not very cute but this just might be on our Christmas card.

Crazily enough, my sister-in-law, Bekki, also planned a trip to Disneyland and our last day there was their first.  We rode several rides together, the first being the rafting ride and Sam and Brooke got absolutely soaked.

I am not a fan of Ferris Wheels and it wasn't until the last day, when there was no line and I had already ridden everything else, that I decided to give Mickey' Big Wheel a go.  it was Surprisingly not bad.  The swinging gondola kind of freaked Jay out once but he did not actually need to use this bag.

Nearing the end of the day and both of the youngest needed a big of help from their dad.

One more chance for ice cream before heading back to a Colorado November.

Now that I got that post finished, maybe my brain can wrap itself around blogging again:)