Friends

We visited the zoo today with friends Hannah and Noah. The kids loved running through the zoo together. At one point they all held hands and walked to the giraffes. It was darn cute, and funny to see their clumsy little walk while they tried to figure out how to walk together.

A Sunday giggle

A good day in Primary today. Our little five year old star of the week declared his favorite movie to be... Gone In Sixty Seconds. And an observant (and time conscious) 9 year old asked me why we sang the songs to slow notes. Didn't I know that we would get through the song SO much faster if we just said the words?

One of my students once told me that Martin Luther King was the king of rag time.

Why no pictures?

Well, I'll tell you. I've lost the memory card reader. I'm hoping to find it this weekend, as there are some fun Boo pictures that I know some of you are waiting to see.

After two weeks of rotating illness, I think we're finally pulling it together. It all started with Boo getting hand-foot-mouth (along with about everyone we know), but fortunately that didn't last long. She and J have been fighting colds, and I am finally getting to be not so tired after my bout with strep.

So now I'm busy getting caught up on housework (it never ends...arrrg), etsy orders, paperwork, and sorting through my therapy stuff. I recently went digital (scanned ALL of my therapy papers), but now have to get it all organized and backed up. It was great to get rid of an enormous tub of binders and a drawer of files, but now I don't know where to find anything.

I've found a new way to keep the Boo busy for up to five minutes. She loves to watch slide shows of pictures set to music. At the end of each year, my brother puts together a 'family movie' using Windows Movie Maker...pictures of everyone set to cool music. Much like the ever popular wedding video. But if you don't have a Peter to do this for you, Picasa does it all by itself. But the music isn't as cool. It's great for entertaining the small people in your house.

Enjoy the weekend everyone. It's fall.

Tasting

Of course the best part about cooking is tasting.

Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton

Here's a GREAT skit from Saturday Night Live.

Brite Music

Lately Boo has gotten more interested in listening to music, so I am thinking of getting some of the Brite music albums I used to listen to (on records). The creator of Brite music, Janeen Brady, is an old family friend, and my grandma's next door neighbor for years.

As a kid, I loved listening to The Safety Kids. I was thinking back at the songs they sing about safety, and what a great teaching tool it is. There is a song to help you memorize your telephone number ("I know my number, my telephone number...") and I STILL remember my phone number from when I was six years old because of that song. There is another song about what to do if you get lost ("Look for a grandma or mother with children..."), and what to do if someone you don't know tries to grab you ("Sometimes you've just gotta yell and scream...").

Then there's the Standin' Tall series. There are 12 CD's in the set, each CD is a story, with several songs, about a different value: Obedience, Honesty, Forgiveness, Work, Courage, Happiness, Gratitude, Love, Service, Cleanliness, Self-Esteem, and Dependability. Some are better than others, my favorite is Dependability, featuring CAPTAIN DEPENDABLE. If you click on the links above, you can listen to some of the songs from each CD.

So if you have young kids, head over to Brite Music and check out their sets. They are going digital, so you can download individual songs for 99 cents, or the whole book for $9.99. If you download the book you also get coloring pages. If you prefer to buy the CD and books, you have to buy the entire set.

Elmo and Andrea Bocelli

As a general rule, I don't care for Elmo. But I can't say enough about the brilliance of the Sesame Street writers. I stumbled across this and wanted to share.

My daughter, the flasher

Sorry folks, no picture with this one.

Boo has this really cute denim dress, with snaps from top to bottom. She wore it again this Sunday, couldn't talk her into her pretty pink dress. Partway through church she discovered that she can unsnap herself. She spent the last few minutes of Sacrament Meeting giving me the devil smile and trying to unsnap herself before I caught her. Then on to nursery...where I HOPE she behaved herself. Although as soon as I showed up to do the music, she planted herself right in front of me and ripped open her dress. Picture me trying to lead the kiddies in "The Wheels On The Bus" while snapping her shut.

It gets even better. I collect her from nursery at the end of church, and we are standing in the hallway chatting with friends. I look down just in time to see her turn around to face our friend Thomas, and rrrriiiiip open her dress. From top to bottom. See me turn four shades of red. Thomas has four daughters and a great sense of humor...and is from Las Vegas. Several table dancing and Vegas try-out jokes later, I wipe the laughing tears off my cheeks and snap the little nudist shut.

Now we are about to leave when I notice that we are missing THE PUPPY. (Why do I let her bring it to church?? Oh yes, it's our compromise between bringing no animals and five animals.) So we go in search of the puppy. I'm stopped by Jack who has some papers for me. "Oh thank you" I say politely, and then I hear, "Um, I'm not sure you want her to do that." Unsnapped again, holding the two flaps of the dress open and swaying to her imaginary stripper music. Deep breath, snapping shut, more firm words about how we undress ONLY at home. All I get is a big smile that means I don't have long before it happens again.

A quick search of the nursery room reveals no puppy, only now I come out to find a completely naked child running free. Ok, she still has her panties and sandals on. Where is that dress...oh discarded on the floor. I thank my stars that we take such a long time to get ourselves out of church that there is no longer anyone here to see the nudey show.

I'm sewing the dress shut.

90 Minute Bread with a twist

I had a great bread talk with Ellen a few weeks ago, and so I tried a new thing with my 90 minute bread. Instead of 4 1/2 cups of flour, I used 2 cups of blended up quick oats, 1 1/2 cups white wheat flour, and 1 cup white flour. My intent was to make a less crumbly, but still mostly whole grain bread. The bread tasted great...still a bit crumbly though.

MIT

Unlocking knowledge, empowering minds. Free lecture notes, exams, and videos from MIT. No registration required.

Seriously, how cool is this? We watched some of Professor Walter Lewin's physics lectures. Here's a clip of an experiment on the ferromagnetic curie point.



Check it out, see if there's something you want to learn...for free.

BEHOLD!

Fans of Arrested Development will remember GOB...



...and will enjoy this Sesame Street clip. The youtube clip is missing the Gob magician music, but it's still great.

Baby I'm still free, take a chance on me

I had a GREAT girls night out last week...we went to see Mama Mia. Loved it. Even the things I didn't like about it were so laughable that I liked them anyway.

Loved: Two hours of ABBA. Wohoo!

Laughed: Some really goofy choreography, particularly at the beginning of the movie.

Loved: Rosie, the sidekick.

Laughed: Meryl Streep and those silly overalls.

Loved: "You are the dancing queen..." I got all sentimental as I watched all those women dancing on the docks, thinking about my great girl friends.

Laughed: Pierce Brosnan singing "SOS". Seriously, his drama was hysterical. As much as I love Remington Steele, the man was not made for singing.



Loved: Just when I thought my favorite song "Take A Chance On Me" was going to be left out of the movie, Rosie takes it on.

Laughed: Those seventies costumes. Maybe my Halloween costume this year.

Loved: "I have a dream..." at the very end, paired with some a lovely scene on the dock backlit by the moon. Beautiful.

Loved: "Slipping through my fingers..."



Loved: I think that ABBA makes a cameo in the very last shot. Just as I thought I recognized either Benny or Bjorn, the shot was over.