every mother crow

My mother used to say, "Every mother crow thinks her baby is blackest."

Well, I think I'm that mother crow now. After graduating from BYU last April, Charlotte spent the summer interning with LDS Church Magazines in Salt Lake City, working for The New Era (magazine for youth ages 12 - 18). Beginning this month with "A String of Good Examples," her articles will appear in the magazine through February or March of next year.

The internship was a great experience for her; she was able to implement some of her own ideas and was given real writing assignments--not just your typical intern-who-makes-the-copies stuff. I'm so proud of her and have become the overbearing mother who shows the magazine to any captive audience.

Look--her name is in the magazine's masthead!

Yes, I think my baby is blackest.

six for saturday

1) This is the laundry pile that greeted me this morning. My dryer can't quite keep up with the washer, so the entire process takes a bit longer. Now it's 7 p.m. and I'm not quite half-way through it (all of the white fluffy stuff on the floor is costume laundry from the show--yes, I realize the show closed over six weeks ago).

2) Sarah has another sore throat, not sure if it's strep, but I think her tonsils are going to have to come out. She has been getting sick about once every month or six weeks. This is the pile of Puffs left in her wake. I can't seem to convince her that she can use each tissue for more than one wipe of the nose.

3) We took the car in today for a pre-road-trip diagnostic check. Mark says it runs sluggish when accelerating. I think only men (at least in my family) can hear car noises; as long as it starts and the A/C works, I think everything's fine. It turns out it needs new spark plugs and the fuel lines flushed. Who knew?

I like our local mechanic, Dustin. He owns the Lube and Latte.

4) John went on a Boy Scout camp out last night. They hiked into the campsite with all of their gear. This is John before he left on Friday afternoon (note Sarah's paper chain bedroom door curtain in the background--her own design):

And this is where his stuff got dropped this afternoon before he crashed for a nap on his bed:

5) I savored the last piece of my birthday cake (it had been patiently waiting for me in the freezer) which was a little more emotional than usual since it was the last cake my mother ever made. If I had known that when I had written the description on the Ziplock bag I certainly would not have added the exclamation point!

6) My dad generously took us all to Red Robin for dinner tonight. He and Mom used to like to go there for fish and chips regularly. They would always share an order, finding it to be just the right amount.

Tonight I shared the order with him.

out with the old, ring in the new

What better way to welcome the new year than by (finally) replacing the leaping elk towel bar?

Happy New Year, all!

this and that

Since blogging seems to be the thing that most often gets pushed to the bottom of my to-do list these days, I need to mention a few random things that happened this month so I at least have some record of it.

• Sarah had a solo in our ward's Primary program this month. She sang the first verse of I Feel My Savior's Love and--in my completely unbiased opinion--it was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard! I have never heard her sing alone and I was really impressed by the clear, sweet, and sincere quality of her voice.

• Speaking of singing, John had his first choral concert this month. He made it into the top mixed choir this year (coincidentally the same one I was in when I attended his high school). I wish this photo showed the great pinstripes in the guys' pants and the rows of dots in their ties. John has really found his niche in high school and I love how much he loves singing in choir (much of which I attribute to his fabulous and darling teacher, Mrs. Burns).

• Speaking of high school, my long-time friend Ann came for a two-day visit with her beautiful daughters earlier this month. It was a fun surprise and a treat to have them stay with us; the actual reason for their visit was to see the show Wicked, but we enjoyed watching movies, eating carmel corn, shopping with our girls, and playing Bananagrams. Moosey made friends with them all.

• Speaking of Wicked, my mom and I were invited by a friend in our ward to go to the show, complete with a back-stage tour prior to the show! Yes--I said BACK-STAGE TOUR. It was fascinating to see the costumes, props, and sets first-hand. To top it off, we had box seats. I felt like royalty and only wish I had been allowed to take photos of the experience.
• Speaking of photos, I just had to take this one of a flyer I found lying around the house. At first I thought it was something from Sarah's school. When I asked her about it, she confessed she had made up a stack while playing School the other day. It made me smile.

• Speaking of things that make me smile, Sarah convinced us to carve our Halloween pumpkins tonight for FHE. Though I confess I had sort of been dreading the time-honored and messy tradition, I had fun hacking away at the pumpkins with the rest of the family.

• And speaking of hacking away, Mark got a little carried away with the hair trimmer last Saturday and ended up giving himself a new 'do. He has been more than a good sport about the whole thing and we have been laughing about the reactions of his friends and coworkers. People at church yesterday were asking if he had lost some sort of bet relating to the oh-so-sad outcome of the BYU football game of the previous day. Someone at work today asked him if he had joined a Mexican gang. I suggested that we could send for the Cougar Spirit wig we found at the BYU Bookstore last August when we took the girls to school. He was not amused.

• And speaking of not being amused, I have taken on a sewing project I'm afraid I'm going to live to regret: 22 (yes count them, twenty-two) dance costume tops for Sarah's clogging team--that's eleven each of two different styles. Yes, it's a paying gig, but I'm afraid by the time I finish I'll be lucky to make about $1.25/hour.
  

never too old for nurturing

Thanks to my good and generous friend Linda (and to the great Stake Conference talk we had a couple of weeks ago about the Family Proclamation and our divinely-appointed role as nurturers) I spent last weekend in Provo with my two lovely college daughters. Sorry to my Utah friends who I didn't visit; this was a nurturing mother trip.

Linda came to see her son Dan in Provo and her daughter Karen in Cedar City. Our first night in Provo found us at the ever-popular Brick Oven where we enjoyed great pizza and iced mugs of root beer (Diet Coke with lime for some).

What BYU visit would be complete without a tour of the now-famous Giraffe Office in the Physics Department? Linda, as evidenced in this photo, had never seen it before. Words cannot describe.

Emily showed us her office, complete with official-looking nameplate.

And of course, we got to personally meet the Goose For All Seasons we had heard so much about, dressed here in her back-to-school best.

Charlotte, ever the "hideous copy editor," found this grievous sign outside the pool at Emily's apartment complex. I mean, really--are they trying to stop unauthorized swimmers or simply alleviate bad hair days?

After a trip to Charlotte's doctor on Friday we found ourselves at University Mall, where I talked Linda into buying new Dansko clogs (among other things). We shared a favorite treat of Pretzel Bites and lemonade and were sad that Emily had a class she couldn't miss.

This apron at Deseret Book seemed appropriate for the occasion. It says "Hold tight to Mom's apron strings."

I never knew that Deseret Book carried fabric! I bought these cute pieces to make an apron (one can never have too many, you know):

We next met Emily outside her classroom door, made a stop at the BYU Bookstore for a sequin "Y" tee shirt I had been pining for since last month's visit, and then stopped to snap a photo with Brigham.

What nurturing trip would be complete without a Donut Night? I brought along the donut fryer so that the girls and their friends wouldn't have to miss out on our semi-annual tradition.

Our long-awaited and highly-anticipated trip to Provo's T-shirt Bar on Saturday (Michelle had piqued our interest some time ago) turned out to be a bust. The door was unlocked, but this is all we found inside. I guess cute, customized tee shirts were not in the cards for us.

The best part of the weekend came on Saturday night. We were the lucky recipients of front-section tickets to the Relief Society broadcast at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, courtesy of the girls' religion professor. More on that later. (And many thanks to Dan, who relinquished his car to us for the day.)

At the end of the fun-filled long weekend I was left to wonder at the goodness of the Lord, who--when He might have sent two beautiful, exceptional girls to someone who could give them lessons and instruments worthy of their talents, travel and education worthy of their intellect, and a clothing budget worthy of their good taste--instead sent them to me. I will be forever grateful for such a gift.

A/C = happy mom

I can't let the summer pass without blogging about the best thing to happen in my house in a long time: WE FINALLY GOT AN AIR CONDITIONER!

This is our fifth summer in this house and every year I dread the season more. Can you blame me, when this was the average summer's day reading on the digital thermostat of my main floor hallway?

I was skeptical when Mark told me that this one little window unit (which doesn't even look that ghetto) would cool most of the upstairs rooms of the house.

Believe it or not, it does! Look at that same wall thermostat now:

I can't believe what a difference this one little window unit has made--not just in the temperature of our house, but in the mood as well. AWESOME. That's just about all I can say. AWESOME.