Who needs goodreads?

Okay, so I am a goodreads member and enjoy their periodic emails updating me on books my friends have read. It helps me add even more books to my mental wish-to-read list. I just can't make myself update my profile. I don't have the patience for it and it's like #723 on my list of things to do. But I've got to stick with precedent and record exactly how nerdy I am. Here's what I read in 2013 (I had a hard time keeping up on it this year, so hopefully it's all correct, not that it really matters).

• Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter
• Allegiant by Veronica Roth
• Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson
• William Henry is a Fine Name by Cathy Gohlke
• Insurgent by Veronica Roth
• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
• Forest Born by Shannon Hale
• True (...Sort Of) by Katherine Hannigan
• Molokai by Alan Brennert
• Beyonders: Chasing the Prophecy by Brandon Mull
• Ida B by Katherine Hannigan
• River Secrets by Shannon Hale
• Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
• The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
• Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
• The Year of Goodbyes by Debbie Levy
• City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
• Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Blood Red Road by Moira Young
• Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
• The Gates of Zion by Bodie Thoene
• Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax
• Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Austenland by Shannon Hale
• Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
• The Candy Shop War: Arcade Catastrophe by Brandon Mull
• The Curious Incident of a Dog In the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

I may have to call this the year of Shannon Hale. She certainly seems to dominate the list. Overall, though, I feel like I covered the genres fairly well. Heavy on the YA fiction, yes, but I'm really okay with that. And never fear, I've already gotten a start on my 2014 list. Good books make me happy.

To: Earth

Last Sunday we were singing hymns during our Christmas program at church. We were working on the second verse of Once In Royal David's City. I wasn't thinking particularly deeply about the words until Aiden tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the first line. "Mom," he whispered. "It says 'To earth from heaven'. Like a gift!"

To: Earth
From: Heaven

What a perfect observation, and how I wish I might have been the one to notice it! Because Christ was heaven's gift to the earth on that night so many years ago, the gift that still gives today and will give eternally. This is the message of Christmas and the reason we have cause to rejoice.

And with that, here's how Caleb's advanced percussion class showed their Christmas spirit. If you can't find Caleb based on height, your second clue is tent.

Merry Christmas!

July dump

I soooo want to be a valiant blogger. Kind of like how I want to have a clean, organized house. And keep up on my correspondence. And have an updated photo album. And . . .

But since I don't really want to burden you with all of the things I'm not doing, I will instead delight you with some of our July DOings!

We painted.

I will pause for a moment to let the momentousness of this sink in.

This may not seem terribly noteworthy, especially when our color choice has a name like "rye," but since painting normally sits up there with all the things I would like to do but don't, it's actually very significant. Plus, we had to move the piano. We've lived in our house for 10 years now, and the front room and kitchen have remained builder "apple peel," minus one red wall in the kitchen. Please don't judge me. Painting also gave me a chance to do the spring cleaning I didn't get around to this year, or even possibly last year. Did I already ask you to not judge me? I haven't taken pictures of the finished product, but you can check me out cleaning atop the plant shelf [or whatever you call a useless 3/4 wall].

We celebrated Morgan's 6th birthday. Jeremy and I actually ditched her for half of the day to attend the temple sealing of our good friends to their adopted baby daughter. After we came home, we took the family to see Despicable Me: 2 and to dinner -- at an actual restaurant. As gifts she received additional modes of escape, I mean transportation, in the form of a scooter and a new-to-her bike.

Six!

Somewhere in there I made a cake. Morgan first requested a unicorn, which eventually evolved into baby Princess Celestia from My Little Pony. Aargh! I gave it a good effort. She looks a little freaky with her too big Japanese anime eyes and strange tumor wings on her back. Oh well. I guess I should stick to blue pigs.

It looks a little better if you squint.

We went camping in American Fork Canyon with Jeremy's side of the family. We stayed at Timpooneke, which is the most fun campground name to say pretty much ever. It was truly beautiful up there, and I'm ashamed we don't spend more time in our lovely mountains. Not only did it take a mere 45 minutes to reach the campsite, but the temperature was about 20 degrees less than in the valley. Jeremy took the kids fishing, we played lots of games, splashed in a creek, went on a hike, and lazed around. 

Am I standing in a hole?

Praying to the campfire gods

Marissa and I wearing our girls camp sweatshirts, just in case we get lost in the forest.

I think that pretty well covers it. And I think I've made a record number of appearances here. Now on to August!

How'd they do that?

I was exercising the other day when Morgan popped in and exclaimed, "TWINS!" Her friend from across the street then peeked around the corner, and this is what I saw:

I would like to know how it is possible to duplicate such a unique and spectacularly mismatched means of self-expression. It's a mystery to me, but they succeeded triumphantly. This outfit represents Morgan's daily clothing choices fairly well. We have mean fights on Sunday mornings in which I insist you can NOT wear purple and pink striped leggings with a black and yellow flowered dress to church. Well, okay. I suppose you can. But only if you let me do something pretty with your hair. And since that's not going to happen ... Point mom!

I had to get a close up of their twinner grins. Morgan lost her top tooth a little prematurely thanks to getting elbowed in the mouth while playing on a neighbor's slip-n-slide. Oh, the hazards of summer!

 

Write on

I admit, I harbor a selfish wish that one of my children will actually like writing and reading. I know I'm supposed to embrace the individuality and unique talents of each child -- and I really do -- but once in a while I wonder why my kids are so not like me. [That is until I have a completely eerie jinks with my 5-year-old.] Now believe me, in most ways it's a good thing they're not like me. But it would be kind of nice if, for example, I didn't have to assign reading as a summer chore just so I can have an excuse to gobble up the pile of books I've picked up from the library.

Maybe it's still too soon to tell. There's a chance Aiden might have a knack for words. He brought home a story he wrote at school that was gobs and gobs of pages long and which I have yet to read through since it was all out of order and completely confusing. Here's a sample from the first page:

If I were a butterfly, I would go to South America, and grow some facial hair, and then I will travel to New York and make the biggest smile, and then put it on Lady liberty and take a picture...

That's an intriguing and entirely random beginning, and I see some creative promise [or something?]. I'll let you know how it ends -- if I ever figure out which page is the end.

I've been getting a kick out of Morgan's budding efforts to express herself with the written word. It's trial and a whole lot of error at this point, but it is highly entertaining.
This morning while I was fixing breakfast, Morgan slapped the following sticky note on my back:

 Care to take a stab at the translation?

Give up?

"I don't like oatmeal." I guess this was her protestation of her cereal options. It also reminded me of another early morning note she wrote a little while ago. This one was actually a conversation which went something like this:

Me: What do you want for breakfast?

Morgan:

nothing

Me: How come?

Morgan:

I am tired

Morgan:

am super tired

Morgan:

and I have to go pee

At this point she left to address the issue. When she returned, I asked if she was ready to eat now, to which she responded:

am still tired.

Fair enough.

All this reminded me of one last thing. For Aiden's 3rd grade spelling, each week he had to take a pretest at home. Then whoever gave him the test was supposed to sign it. Well, one week -- I think this was when I was in Oregon for Spencer's wedding -- everyone was scattered in different directions. Jeremy came home and offered to help Aiden do his pretest. This proved unnecessary, however, as Morgan had already given him the test.

In Spanish.

And signed it.

Complete with a curlicue G.

Yes, we let him turn this in. And yes, his handwriting is barely decipherable. And yes again, those are food and grease spots all over his paper. I think I may owe educators everywhere an apology.

Oh, my ganache!

Today's topic: culinary hurdles met and conquered.

When I asked Marissa what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday, she requested a blue or green pig. I turned to the ever-trusty internet and saw the best pig cake ever. I couldn't resist and had to try it. But it required some things I've never made or used before.

a) ganache
b) fondant

Don't you think just the sound of both of those is intimidating? But I decided to press forward undeterred. I found a recipe for ganache which looked simple enough and turned out divine. I don't think I can go back to regular frosting. Then, because I'm cheap, I didn't want to go out and buy fondant, so I tried a recipe for homemade marshmallow fondant. And it worked! The next step -- the fun part! -- was molding and assembly. The end result brought me great joy. Marissa was pretty happy with it, too.

Pigs in the mud

My pretty [and one of a kind] 12-year-old

This was a major milestone birthday for sure. Marissa graduated from elementary school, entered young women's, had a sweet birthday party, went to girls camp [which I also attended as assistant director], and got her ears pierced. In the same time frame she has played soccer as one of the team's top scorers, went to basketball and volleyball camps, participated in a piano recital, danced in the end-of-school La Fiesta, and I've-lost-track-of-who-knows-what-else. It's fair to say she's been hopping. And she's still nice. Phew!