Category Archives: Just Life

Posts about the good normal everyday life stuff: eating out, family outings, coloring, just living life and loving it.

I’m four now

Carson’s four-year birthday interview:

  1. What is your favorite color? Red.
  2. What is your favorite toy? Caterpillar toys
  3. What is your favorite fruit? Bananas
  4. What is your favorite TV show? Puffin Rock
  5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Cheetos
  6. What is your favorite outfit? This one [the one he’s wearing right now: a shirt and underwear]
  7. What is your favorite game? Sonic the Hedgehog
  8. What is your favorite snack? Cereal
  9. What is your favorite animal? Lizards
  10. What is your favorite song? Rain, Rain, Go Away
  11. What is your favorite book? Curious George 
  12. Who is your best friend? Annelise
  13. What is your favorite cereal? Cheerios
  14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play with sand and let it drizzle
  15. What is your favorite drink? Lemonade
  16. What is your favorite holiday? Breakfast in bed for Daddy
  17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Lizzy [stuffed lizard]
  18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Cereal
  19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Pizza 
  20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Daddy 

Lights and bushes

Carson after church today: “My teacher said Heavenly Father doesn’t want us to hide our light under bushes.”

Me: “Oh, yeah. And what light are we supposed to hold up? A flashlight?”

Carson: “No, a phone light. Flashlights are only for caves and camping.”

  
Conversations like this are the best. For the humor, of course, but also because it’s so great to know that Carson is learning (in his four-year-old-way) about the gospel at church. I’m so grateful for his primary teachers!

General Conference, October 2015

Today was General Conference Saturday. The kids are in bed now and the living room looks like this:


It was a good day. A little crazy, but really good. In the morning we went over the story of King Benjamin’s address and set up the tent for fun. The kids got some new Conference goodies too: some new markers and crayons and candy. And we had our conference board with laminated pictures of the speakers and topics that Carson taped up when he recognized them (when he wasn’t busy coloring or playing/making loud airplane noises on the floor).

Actually, Carson got pretty excited about the Conference board. He would listen for words he recognized and look to find the picture card. Unfortunately, I had a limited number of topic cards. He ended up listening to the talks and, about every other word, asking me “Do we have a card for that?” E.g.,

Elder Oaks: “when we experience trials…”

Carson: “Trials! Do we have trials??”

Elder Oaks: “…and heartaches…”

Carson: “Hard eggs! Do we have hard eggs??”

So it wasn’t necessarily the perfect way to keep Carson occupied so that Josh and I could listen to the talks uninterrupted, but at least Carson was getting something out of it.

(We hope. At the end of the afternoon session, I asked Carson what his favorite part was. “I don’t have one,” he said. “It was way too boring to have a favorite part.”)

I know Annelise paid attention, too, at least to Elder Oaks’ talk. When he was talking about how the Savior succors us, she turned to the TV and yelled excitedly, “Sucker!”

In all seriousness though, I was proud of the kids for the way they behaved and hope that I could make General Conference memorable for them. It was neat to see them recognize songs or words they knew. Annelise loved watching the primary choir during the second session. Carson thought President Uchtdorf’s name was great and kept (trying to) repeat it (Elder Oof-dork was probably the best mispronunciation.) (I hope that wasn’t just blasphemous for me to say…You don’t the President Uchtdorf would get offended, do you? … Nah, not with his sense of humor, right?)

As for Josh and I, we somehow got some spirituality out of it, too. We both liked the talk about praying for specific ways you can progress spiritually (Elder Larry R. Lawrence), and of course I loved Elder Holland’s (as I sat listening to it with tears running down my face).

Now the kids are in bed and Josh is at the Priesthood session, and here I am painting my toes and typing up a blog post while I wait for the nail polish to dry. I could clean the kitchen, which is a mess after dinner, or the living room (which you’ve now seen – not awful, but could use a tidying up). I could prep the delicious creme-brûlée-French-toast-with-strawberries recipe for tomorrow that we’ve started making as a Conderence breakfast tradition.

It’ll all get done. :) Right now, I wanted to say how, despite all the difficulties and distractions and the time outs Josh and I had to give and the fact that Josh wasn’t feeling too well and despite the glass bowl that Annelise broke – despite all that, it was such a wonderful day. We’re so blessed to have a Prophet and apostles to lead and guide us today. We’re blessed to have three new apostles (side note: one of them is our bishop’s uncle!). I don’t know where I would be without the Lord’s guidance in my life, especially through modern-day revelation.

So here’s to another day of General Conference! I’m so glad we’re not done yet.

Mommy/Carson date

 
Josh and I want to start doing monthly one-on-one outings with the kids, just short ones. So we put all the dates in the calendar and got organized. 

My first one with Carson was yesterday. He picked playing at the park (the Sonic slushes were my idea). And we had a blast! 

It was fun to have some one-on-one time with Carson. Sometimes I feel like I hear “Play with me!” all day from the kids. (More like “pwaywifme!”) But there’s always things to do or we’re about to walk out the door – playtime with mommy often gets cut short.

But having the dedicated time set aside made all the difference. It was so easy to play with him and nothing else. We ran around the park (luckily we had it to ourselves) and pretended we were swimming away from sharks. Then we climbed on the “boats” and sailed to the North Pole, then to UtahColorado (since our road trip to both states this summer, driving/flying/boating there has been a popular play theme, and it’s become a compound noun. I guess to the kids you can’t visit one without going to the other). We played tag and ate slushes and talked.

I didn’t even get frustrated until the end, when Carson kept disobeying and sticking his playground-dirty fingers in his slush and then his mouth, trying to eat all the last Nerds. Ah, well. :) I think this is going to be a great tradition.