Santa Stress

Standing in line at the mall to see Santa is a stressful experience. Especially when it's already been an hour and you finally see the small print sign that says you're not allowed to use your own camera. That's how they trick you. You can't see the sign until you're up front and then you think "We'll I've already given them an hour of my life. I might as well give them 30 minutes more. And twenty bucks." That's how it went for me anyway. Luckily, soon after I saw the sign, I also saw this:

It is one of those rentable mall carts, shaped like a car for extra fun. And if you look really closely, you can see this:

That helped brighten my holiday spirits.
Luckily, Joel was there with me so he could let Dane run around while I secured our place in line. Dane seemed to like wedging himself in tight spaces.


Finally, $19.95 plus tax later, here is the result:

The picture quality isn't great, but it is a cute picture nonetheless.
The next week, we had our ward Christmas party, which suddenly became very stressful. Even though there are plenty of able pianists in the ward, I have apparently become the go to piano person. Combine that with my inability to say no, and we develop a little problem. Out of the six musical numbers, I was in five. A couple were legitimate; as choir accompanist and primary pianist, I naturally was in those two numbers. Then, I had signed up to play the violin in another number. Then, they asked me to play some rousing carols so everyone could sing along. Fine. Then, someone's accompanist backed out because of the weather, and I was their backup. That was the most stressful. She wanted me to play this awful arrangement of Mary Did You Know? I didn't try very hard to play it well so she would switch to a different song. I guess I sabotaged her piece. But she ended up singing a much better piece, so I regret nothing. Maybe it was karma when a little girl started pounding on the piano and pulling my music off the piano during the choir piece.
Anyway, Santa came to the party. Dane didn't handle this one so well.


Haha, how we take joy in our child's suffering.
I'm not sure if I'll post again for a while since I'll be in Oklahoma for Christmas. But may all of you have a very Merry holiday, and I'll be back next year!

Christmas Prep, Etc.

I was talking with an older coworker of mine about all the projects I'm working on for Christmas. She laughed at me with a "You'll learn" kind of glint in her eye. I feel really busy with a bunch of fairly unnecessary projects that I voluntarily took on. We'll see if I learn next year. I bet I won't.
Anyway, it's been a while since I've updated. Here are a few pictures from Thanksgiving weekend that Meghan sent me since, of course, my camera batteries died.
Here is Joel blowing out almost thirty candles:

That weekend, while Joel's mom was still in town, we hit downtown and went to the I Am a Child of God exhibit in the Museum of Church History. Even though Dane was too small for a lot of the activities, he really enjoyed himself, and we enjoyed watching him.
He is too short to hold to the rod, and he kept slipping off the straight and narrow path. Should I be worried?

Then we saw the beautiful lights on Temple Square.


Since then, we have been doing a lot of Christmas prep. I say "we", but I mean "I." It makes me really happy to decorate for Christmas. Joel has been kind enough to haul out our tree and help when I've needed it.
Here are the matching stockings I made:

I did a quick little sewing machine embroidery on them: tree, ornament, and star. The ornament one is kind of ugly, but overall, I am happy with how they turned out.

This is the fourth year now that I have strung cranberries and popcorn to decorate the tree. As I was doing it this time, I told Joel this may be the last year because it takes so long, but I really like how it looks on the tree...so we'll see what I decide for next year. Here is a poor representation of its splendor:

Does it look like the decorations are disproportionally distributed on top? I have one hyphenated word for you: 14-month-old. Those ones on the bottom are shatterproof. He likes to take them off and yell "Bwoh!"
Finally, I got an early Christmas present from Joel, courtesy of IKEA as-is department. A new bookcase! It is so pretty. Our old bookcase was an ugly yard sale find, and it was overflowing with books. So I got my Christmas wish! Here is Dane, climbing on it:

Here is handy man Joel, admiring his work:

And here it is, all filled:

I should've taken a "before" picture, but it was pretty scary.

Happy Birthday Joel!

Joel turned 30 on Thursday. Old! Being the thoughtful wife that I am, I made arrangements to have a huge dinner for him, complete with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie . . . haha, I'm not really that thoughtful. Some might think that it would be a little anti-climactic to have your birthday on Thanksgiving, but we had a great time. Joel's mom came into town, and she made him a yummy crepe birthday breakfast, which we ate under the crepe birthday streamers I had put up all over the kitchen. Then, we baked/cooked away in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner. I had all of Joel's family members and in-laws email me a favorite memory and/or thoughts about Joel, and I put each one into a little card. My plan was to give him one every hour on the hour, but since I ended up with 22 cards, I just ended up handing them out randomly throughout the day. Kind of overwhelming to be loved so much, huh? I think it was pretty easy for people to come up with thoughts about such a wonderful, lovable guy.
(this post is sort of constantly going to be morphing between birthday post and Thanksgiving post, so hang on tight)
One of my contributions to the Thanksgiving dinner was a ginger-meringue pumpkin pie that I had read about in a magazine. It ended up tasting like nothing special, but it sure looked pretty, if I do say so myself.

Then we went over to Stephen and Meghan's house to put it all together. The resultant dinner was super yummy and definitely helped us feel grateful for all of our blessings. I should have taken a picture of the lovely spread, complete with cranberry ball centerpieces, but I didn't. It was beautiful, though.
We played outside for a bit while we waited for the finishing touches on dinner. Here is Dane in his Thanksgiving outfit, refusing to look at the camera:

Here is Lauren in her fancy Nancy dress:

My mom made Dane a little harvest bow tie to complete his little outfit.

Then, Meghan announced that it was mandatory nap-taking time, so we all obeyed. Once we were all refreshed, Joel blew out birthday candles on his birthday pecan pie, we sang him every birthday song any of us had ever heard, and he opened some presents.


Here are Kenji and Dane, looking equally bemused:

All in all, it was a happy, full day (in more ways than one).
To conclude, here are thirty things about Joel that you may or may not know (this idea was taken from Laci's birthday tribute to her husband, Christian)
1. He would happily eat pecan pie over practically any other dessert, hence the birthday pecan pie.
2. He has huge, gorgeous feet.
3. He makes everyone laugh.
4. He is thoughtful and helpful.
5. He has a million creative ideas a day.
6. He has a great sense for good editing and film making in general.
7. He loves his family.
8. He wrestles with Dane and makes him laugh uncontrollably.
9. He often runs home from the train station to see me and Dane as soon as possible.
10. He is smart, witty, and insightful.
11. He doesn't like being in a crowd but is perfectly comfortable being in front of a big crowd.
12. He does all the vacuuming and ironing in our house.
13. He gets nervous when ordering at a restaurant and often ends up ordering something he didn't really want. This is very funny to me.
14. He has an amazing talent for impersonating voices and mannerisms. Ask him to impersonate anybody, and he can most likely do it with uncanny resemblance.
15. He'd rather eat Grapenuts or plain Cheerios than any cereal that is remotely sweet, which baffles me.
16. He is a talented pancake maker and flipper of any food that needs flipping.
17. He has the ability to stay awake during any movie, no matter how late or boring, but will often fall asleep if I am trying to have a conversation with him at night. I am starting to get suspicious.
18. He is very popular. Even now, almost four years after graduating, we can't walk across BYU campus without someone that knows him striking up a conversation.
19. He has pretty much kicked his lifelong habit of biting his fingernails.
20. There is pictoral evidence that he once posed for a high school picture wearing bib overalls and no shirt. Yes, he was flexing. No, I don't have that picture. But if I ever lay hands on it...
21. He is not a fan of dogs, but he puts up with my family's two pugs.
22. He carries a handkerchief.
23. He is honest and hardworking.
24. When necessary, he contributes to the "swear jar," even if I was not there to hear it.
25. He always lets me choose the restaurant when we go out to eat.
26. He claims to love almost everything I make for dinner.
27. He is very strong.
28. He is generous with his time, talents, and service.
29. He is a wonderful father and husband.
30. He is mine forever, and I love him!
Happy Birthday, Joel!

See?

First, I'd like to direct everyone's attention to a touching little tribute to parents that my sister-in-law wrote. It includes some pretty awesome pictures. Thanks, Kendall. In case you can't tell, this "Kenta" that she keeps referring to is my brother. By extension, we have the same parents, which is why I am referring you. Of course, if you didn't know this, I'm not sure why you're reading my blog.
Second, here is something that I find amusing: I bought Dane some little board books for his birthday. They are Tonka books, so every page has at least one truck in it (see how I'm training him to be masculine?). Most of the books are pretty cute, like Colors! and Numbers! It seems pretty intuitive how they worked the truck theme into those. But then there's Words! Since it is a ten-word book, I'll write it all out for you:
STRONG
FAST
MIGHTY
BIG
TOUGH
FEARLESS
DARING
HARD-WORKING
DEPENDABLE
FUN
That is it. This is supposed to help you teach kids words? With a bunch of synonyms? Lame synonyms? And doesn't it sound eerily similar to a certain someone's performance review visual aid?

Children's literature at its best.
Finally, I also found it amusing that I actually italicized the names of these ten-word books. Nerd.

Before the Snow

Yeah, it snowed like six inches the other day. It's pretty much all melted away now, but I feel like autumn was achingly short this year. And the snow always seems to last forever. But I did get a nice little autumnal photo shoot with Dane before it was too late.




Isn't it magical how the leaves seem to be falling right over him at exactly the right time? Yes, I scooped up some leaves and let them go at the right time.
Then, I stuck him under a tree for some reason, but it was cute.


Blech...I've run out of things to say. But enjoy these pictures of fall frolicking.

President Barack Obama

I heard this thing on the radio about a text message that was circulating among the African- American community:

Rosa sat so Martin could walk
Martin walked so Obama could run
Obama is running so our children can fly

Regardless of how each person voted, I think Obama's victory means something significantly good for our country in terms of what has been our society's status quo for so long. Racial barriers have been knocked down, and I am excited for the opportunities that are open to minorities, opportunities that we--and I think I can include myself--didn't have before. That makes me feel good.

Happy Halloween!

Well, another Halloween has come and gone, and we had a great time. Dane's first debut in his costume was our ward mother's group Halloween party, but of course I forgot my camera. Maybe I will get some from my friends.
Anyway, then the big day was here, and we went to a party at George & Melanee's. Here is the best picture I could get of Dane, since he was very adept at taking off his hat:

Toad! In case you don't recognize him, he is Toad from Mario Brothers of Nintendo fame. Let me know if you recognize Toad or not; at church, I found it was 50/50. I am not very happy with the pictures. I may have to dress him up again and get some better shots.
Anyway, Joel and I got in the spirit of things, too:




Here are some more pictures to show how good Dane was at taking off his hat:


I also made a little Ghost Fishing game that was a big hit among the little kids, literally and figuratively. I had to confiscate the fishing poles before an eye was poked out, but it was fun.



Even though we didn't watch Thriller this year, we had a great time. Thanks to George and Melanee for hosting us.
Happy Halloween!

I Think We Need to Do Some More Baby-Proofing

Pumpkin Carving, Etc.

Well, our beautiful pumpkin from Wheeler Farm sat on our table for over a week before we got around to carving it, but we had a good time playing with the pumpkin for FHE last night.
Here is Dane, admiring it's green veiny goodness before we removed its head.

A helpful boy. Please be so kind as to ignore all the clutter in the background.

Scooping out the guts.

We stripped him down to his diaper so he wouldn't get his clothes all messy, but we should have known from his birthday cake experience that he doesn't like to dive into messes. Oh well.
This is his favorite squatting pose:


He is very stable that way.
We tried to recreate last year's pumpkin shot, but it didn't quite work the same way:

Haha, he's such a big boy now!
Then we put Dane to bed, and I beautified the pumpkin while Joel read our voter information pamphlet out loud to me. We decided to vote by mail because there are a lot of things going on on election day and we didn't want to stand in line forever. So, we did a nice little Halloween activity and our civic duty in one fell swoop. Swish.
Here is the final creation:

Pumpkin House!
On its rightful place on the porch:

And then in glowing glory:

In other random news, last Friday we went to see Kenji play in the pit orchestra for BYU's production of Don Giovanni. It was a good show, and it was nice--though abrupt--to see the evil main character get his just desserts at the end. Afterward, we went to Chili's with Kenji and his friends. The server recognized us from Brand X, and we felt like celebrities. He even comped something on our bill. So we pretended we were celebrities and gave him a nice big tip. That was fun.
Then on Saturday, we had our ward Chili Cookoff. Some of you might recall that I was an award-winning chili chef last year with my entry of Chili Wonka. This year, I submitted Chili Sasquash and hoped to regain an award. Alas, it was not to be. However, we did win some stuff in the silent auction, and won some yummy chocolates and some fresh-pressed apple cider in the dessert auction. When I say "fresh-pressed", I mean it because it was literally pressed that day. It could quite possibly be the best tasting drink ever. It is so yummy. I can't get over it. Wow, it's good. I wish I could offer blog samples so you all could taste it.
So that's that. Stay tuned for Halloween costumes. I've been slaving away at Dane's costume, and I hope it turns out cute.
Happy Autumn!