Reading with Gigi

Teaching this girl to read is a hoot. She is very interested, but can drag things out impressively, because she is very easily distracted. Here is a conversation we just had:

Gigi: "llllliiiiiiiiiiicccccck. Lick! Lick me mom. Okay then, I'll lick you. (Rubbing my arm after the licking) It's like lotion! A little bit. Not very.

WAS. WAS goes to jail. That silly WAS is not following the rules. I can make a jail for that naughty WAS with my fingers and he cannot get out no matter what. Look, you can't even see him anymore. He's sleeping in his jail now.

K, k, k, k, Come on, mom, see if you can say this faster than me.

Rock. (curling into a ball) I'm a rock. Hit me and you'll see. C'mon! Hit me! Did it hurt your hand?"

And on and on and on. It is a good thing I am not in any hurry. Oh, and she calls periods 'stop dots' and she won't let me hold the book!

Excellent Birthday

It was a banner year here for me! Dirk made me my favorite breakfast: grits and eggs. But he doctored the grits with Parmesan cheese, sharp cheddar, jalapeños and goodness knows what else. They were the best grits I have ever had. Someday, children will sing songs in the streets about these grits. They will be served to kings (um . . . the grits, not the children). That is, if he is ever able to reproduce them. I think he took a 'little of this, little of that' approach. Anyway, I will move on, for those of you not as passionate as I about this great cuisine of the South. Incidentally, isn't there a festival for just about every kind of food somewhere in this country? I'd like to sign Dirk up for the next grits festival. Moving on.

Dirk took the kids out shopping (while I lounged around luxuriously and read a book) and each got me something special that they thought I would like. So sweet! That meant: nail polish from Gigi, peanut butter M&Ms from Isaac, lip gloss from Brody. Then Dirk gave me the best gift ever, which was a bunch of pictures of all of us that he had edited to black-and-white and worked other magic with that I cannot fathom and put in a sleek black frame for me. It was something I had been wanting for awhile. I used the bacon grease from breakfast to make some roasted butternut squash risotto for dinner. Yum!



In the evening, we painted our toes, the boys helping by choosing the colors and my mom took us out for Nielsen's Frozen Custard (which should also be sung about and served to kings).

Oh, and the pictures! They slaved away in the office doing their top secret birthday cards.






Overall, I think we had enough fun (and saturated fat) to last us 'til Christmas. Thanks, little family. Best birthday ever.

Halloween

I volunteered to help out at Isaac's Christmas party at school. It was fun to see all the cuties dressed up. I made these eyeballs for the kids. You can find the recipe here.

I made Isaac a fruit bat costume. I accidentally called him batman and he was quick to correct me. He also asked that I make him a label to avoid further confusion. I am pretty sure this was all inspired by Stellaluna.

Okay. From the front he was cute enough. But Brody-as-a-giraffe was impossibly cute from the back.

Tristan was also a giraffe. But Brody kept calling him a cow.

At our ward's trunk-or-treat. Gigi was so excited to finally able to don her Tinkerbell costume.

Kung Fu Panda (Gigi's latest obsession) and some kind of fire-breathing dragon (for such a sweet and gentle kid, Isaac's interests tend toward the macabre). Brody was asleep during pumpkin carving and I was in the bathtub. We never knew what we'd missed.

Road Trip -- Part 1

We recently completed a road trip to Houston, Texas, to celebrate Dirk's sister's wedding. It was lots of fun, and went amazingly smoothly, considering the number of small people involved. Our first night, we stayed with friends in Phoenix. It was so nice to see the Bennett's! The kids all reconnected right away.

Brody and Claire had fun on the water table.

Isaac and Charlie really enjoyed playing Charlie's video games. Clever Charlie convinced Isaac that the lemmings would only work when Charlie was playing, so Isaac did a lot of watching. He asked me if we could get a lemmings game that would obey him, too.

Gwendolyn and Jack

Brody found the idea of tricycles in the house novel and wonderful.

Thanks, Bennetts!

Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen by Thomas J. Stanley


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was very interesting and inspiring. Someone had recommended The Millionaire Next Door to me, but my library didn't have it in, so I got this one. I think his title including the word "millionaire" gives the impression that perhaps he is going to preach about chasing wealth and getting rich, which is not at all the case. He profiles the conservative and hardworking behaviors and lifestyles of people who are actually financially independent and contrasts that with what symbols society usually interprets as denoting wealth. He is heavy on the statistics, which tends to make my eyes glaze over a bit, but it definitely lends validity to the conclusions he draws. I am inspired this week to finish up my budget for the year and make some savings and investing goals, so I would say it was a very successful read.

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A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. There is something magical about a book that takes about 100 pages to even get interested in (and made me a little cranky in the trying), then suddenly becomes a neglect-your-kids-and-stay-up-too-late-reading kind of book. I actually woke up this morning and was so sad that I was finished.

I don't even know how it happened. One day I'm complaining about it, the next I am irritated with my husband for interrupting my reading to ask where I'm keeping the diapers these days. So confident is Dickens that he will capture you eventually, but completely, he doesn't work too hard at the initial hook. AND, I knew the ending about 80 pages before it happened, could see it all clearly, and I still couldn't tear myself away; would in fact read paragraphs twice because they were so good.

I thought his portrayal of the opposite sides of the French Revolution was spot-on, and brilliant. He illustrated perfectly the fact that, when people are so viscously oppressed, their reaction to it, when it finally boils over, will be just as evil.

I know that people say that Dickens is sentimental, but maybe a novel isn't supposed to be so realistic. It is fiction, after all. Maybe it is just as high art if it is beautiful and extravagant as it is if it is beautiful and minimalist or cynical or whatever serious literary people love. This is good stuff. I give it 4-and-a-half stars. No, five. Yes, definitely five, and I am off to read the Scarlet Pimpernel. Amen.

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Conversation I just had with Isaac

Him: Can I play the Wii?
Me: Not today.
Him: What can I do?
Me: I dunno. Use your imagination.
Him: I can't! It's not working today!