Can't Win

We had a visit last night from the tooth fairy. I was of two minds about whether to invite her to our home or not. I don't mind having my children believe in Santa Clause, but I'm becoming more uncomfortable about the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy and others. However, we decided to give it a go. 

Sam walked into our room this morning very sad and whiney and pathetic. "Dad, the tooth fairy stole my tooth last night!" 

"Well, didn't she leave you some money?"

"But I wanted to keep my tooth for 9 days."(still whiney)

I explained to him that when he puts his tooth under his pillow that tells the tooth fairy that he's ready to give it to her. He wandered disconsolately out. 

A few minutes later he came back in...still sad

"Dad, I wanted the tooth fairy to give me dollars, not coins!"

So we're off to a rough start with the tooth fairy. Maybe it's a sign that we don't even need to have her here. Or maybe we just have an inexperienced fairy who doesn't quite know what she is doing yet!

First Lost Tooth!

Last night we reach other mile-stone in child rearing. After about a month and a half of wiggling and jiggling, Sam lost his first tooth!!

If you look REALLY hard, you'll see a little white speck in his hand. Oh, and also notice that Sam's eyes are closed. He seems to think that closing his eyes for pictures is really funny. We were lucky in the above pic.
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In this next picture you might be able to see that the permanent tooth is already grown in quite a bit. In fact, we noticed it growing in before the baby tooth started getting all that loose. It's about 2-3 millimeters behind where the baby tooth was. Kind of weird, but there's not much that is normal about Sam's teeth. The dentist has already told us we should take him in to an orthodontist when he turns 7 or 8. He has cross bites, over bites, extremely narrow bridges, and who knows what else. We do have a savings account for him, maybe we should rename it the dental account. Oh brother-in-law John, why couldn't you be an Orthodontist!?!

On the second day of spring

This is what Pullman looks like this morning. Yeah, it's snow. Lovely. 

Even though it's not quite April

when faces called flowers float out of the ground

and breathing is wishing and wishing is having-

but keeping is downward and doubting and never

-it's april (yes,april;my darling) it's spring!

yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly

yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be

(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound

and wishing is having and having is giving-

but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense

-alive;we're alive,dear:it's(kiss me now) spring!

now the pretty birds hover so she and so he

now the little fish quiver so you and so i

(now the mountains are dancing, the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found

and having is giving and giving is living-

but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing

-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!

all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky

all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea

(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

e. e. cummings

Culinary update and other things

My mint brownies were not the success I had hoped they would be. While the mint and chocolate top two layers were delicious, the brownie layer was rubbery and, strangely enough, salty, though there wasn't much salt in the recipe and I know I didn't overdo it. I guess you just can't make a low fat brownie and expect it to be all that good. So now I have a large pan of brownies that I had hoped to give most away. Luckily Sam seems to like them. 

Speaking of Sam, tonight at FHE we were talking about Easter. An FHE 'phantom' left us a basket of Easter eggs, each with a symbol and scripture describing some aspect of the Saviour's atonement, crucifixion, and resurrection. So for our lesson tonight we each took turns opening an egg and talking about what the symbol meant and what happened to Jesus. It was going really well and then at the end I told Sam and Grace briefly about what resurrection means and how we will all be resurrected because of Christ's sacrifice for us. Sam got really sad and said in the most pathetic voice imaginable, "But I don't want to die. Do I have to die? When will I die? How long do I have to be dead before I can be resurrected?" Aahh! Break my heart! I wanted so badly to be able to tell him that he would never die, that that sorrow would never touch him. But I knew I had to tell him the truth; that while it would be sad when we died, we could be happy knowing that we would live again and be a family for always. It was a difficult few minutes for me and Rob, and I'm not really sure what Sam got from it. He seemed happy afterwards, but that could have been because it was time for brownies. How grateful I am for the knowledge of the gospel, that I can promise my son that he will live again and that we can be a family forever. Especially that there can be joy even after the pain and separation of death. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Rob really wanted corned beef and cabbage today. I'm afraid I couldn't go along because I have this aversion to corned beef, even though I have never had it. While I was growing up, my idea was that corned beef was actually canned beef. I had this image in my mind of a can of greasy, pale beef swimming in some kind of liquid that had corn in it. Gross. It wasn't until I met Rob that I learned that corned beef is actually beef brisket that has been seasoned with peppercorns, hence the corned part of the name. I found a recipe from an Irish cookbook that has you rubbing the spices (peppercorns, cloves, allspice, others I can't remember) into the brisket every day for a week before you even think about beginning to cook. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I suppose these prejudices we develop as children really do stick with us, even when we know they are erroneous. So we're having carnitas for dinner tonight, which literally means 'little meats' and is in no way Irish or even northern European. I am making mint brownies for dessert with the mint layer dyed green as my one concession to St. Patrick. Ok, I am also wearing green today. Two concessions. 

Also, Sam has named his new race car St. Patrick. I am unclear why. 

Pictures from the beach

What's in a name

The time has come for us to buy a second car; a minivan. As reliable and serviceable as our little Suzuki Esteem is, we just can't fit another car seat into it, not to mention all the camping gear we are slowly accumulating. We've been talking about this for a while now, and just last Monday made our first foray onto an actual car dealership lot. In fact, this is my first foray ever. I've never been in a position to buy a car before and have never test drove anything. Rob's an old hand at this so I let him do most of the talking. Anyway, what I never realized before is that all car salesmen have strange names. At least, I must assume they do. We've looked at three different brands of vans this week with three different car salesmen, each with an odd or unusual name. Sno showed us the Mazda, Butch showed us the Kia, and Cleve showed us the Toyota. Is there a rule about this in the car salesman code? Do they change their names to make them more memorable? I don't understand. Can it be coincidence that three different men in different parts of the state who have the same job and have weird names are the three men that we happen to run into on the dealership lot? 

In case you were wondering, we like the Toyota the best, but it is pretty much out of our price range unless we get one that is older then we want to go. The mazda and kia were ok, but the quality is obviously laking compared to the Toyota. Cleve says that he's going to look real hard for us, even calling other dealers in town, to find a van that fits our requirements as far as price, year, and miles. We'll see how hard that really is. 

Last Weekend

I've been trying to download pictures from our weekend on the west side all day and it is just not working. This is the only one that will work, and it isn't nearly the best I have. But since the weekend was to honor Elaine's birthday I suppose it is appropriate to have this one on the blog. At least you get to see the cake Rob and I got for her, though I'm not sure you can really appreciate just how big it really was from this picture. The thing was gargantuan! Black Forrest, and no, we did not make it. I'm not a big fan of cherries so I really couldn't put my heart into it. Besides the fact that our recipe called for cherry brandy and I didn't fancy another trip to the liquor store. I don't know what the alcohol content of this cake was. I figured if I didn't know I could just say it had none. It certainly didn't taste boozy...

Why?

I just received an email from my mom telling me that one of her friends, and mine, from our old Mesa ward passed away today. There were many of the women in that ward who influenced my life but few more then Ann Rogers. She was my Mia Maid advisor and I got to know her pretty well because I was the Mia Maid president. Then after I started college she helped me get a job at her brother's clinic when I was at home. She was the accountant there so I saw her every day and really enjoyed her company. 

I remember when she was called into Young Women all us girls were sceptical and probably a bit unfriendly towards her. She wasn't one of the 'cool mom's' who act just like one of the girls. She had lots of boys but only one daughter who was much older then us. In fact, one of the first things she did was veto one of our planned activities which, I think, was to go to the mall and do something (now which YW value would that have classified as?...) You can imagine that this did not make her very popular. But I can vividly remember thinking, as I was listening to all my friends complain and bash her (I might of joined in, I hope I didn't) I can remember thinking that she might not be as fun and hip as our other leaders, but that she had more substance, more dependability, more of what I wanted to be like when I grew up. As I came to know her more I learned that she was a smart, funny, kind, and generous person, one worthy of my emulation. She had many trials to bear, including the estrangement and rancor of her eldest son who left the church and disowned his family. However, just in the last while he has been returning to church and his family. I grateful that she was able to be here for that.  She was diagnosed with leukemia just last Thursday and passed away today from a brain aneurism. I know that she is in a better and happier place, but I ache for her family. Its hard for us who are left behind.

Ok, who isn't excited for this?

Changes

I keep changing the look of my blog. I'm just trying to find something that I really like...thats really me. This current one feels pretty good. We'll see how long it lasts.