Archive for January, 2008
Bryan planned a date night for tonight. Bob and Maryanne watched the boys while we ate at Pat’s Barbecue (featured in my list of restaurants I want to try). Good stuff. We got the three-meat combo (ribs, shredded pork, and chicken) with sides of cole slaw and meaty gravy & rice (Bryan’s choice, in case you didn’t guess). The shredded pork and chicken were excellent. The ribs were good, but not as good as the other two. I also got a slice of pecan pie for dessert - delicious. I see us going back to Pat’s within the near future. Kid-friendly, too.
After dinner, we saw Cloverfield. I liked it - it seemed original, though I’m not sure why. Love story, monster destroys NY, it’s been done before. I guess just not in this way. All-in-all, a fun night.
I also dropped off five (!) small quilts (for the Africa quilt project) that Maryanne offered to bind. Very generous of her.
January 18th, 2008
Today I found Daddy’s iPod (a hand-me-down from Mark). I made it play loud music. I just have one question - what is the roll and the rockin’ all about?
January 17th, 2008
Rees and Jamie are constantly talking. Rees didn’t really start talking until he was almost 2 & 1/2, but he is certainly making up for lost time. Between the two of them, there is never a quiet moment. James has been talking up a storm since his first birthday. I assembled this list of words James uses regularly (not just repeated):
Food items: nax (fruit snacks), muck (milk), wah-doo (water), juice, hah-gog (hot dog), han (ham), peh-tut (peaches), pez (pears), ba-ba (banana), bed (bread), kwa-koo (cracker), cookie, wa-wa (waffle), pa-key (pancake), a-poo (apple), yo-get (yogurt), tuh-key (turkey)
Objects: ah-mal (animal), puh-zoo (puzzle), book, heh-cah-too (helicopter), kee-kee (kitty), dog, duck, cow, moon, stah-ew (star), hock (sock and/or shoe, or shark), bock (block), peg, hai-ew (hair), eyes, nose, mouf (mouth), ease (ears), toes, fush (fish), tuh-tuh (turtle), fog (frog), tee (tree), cah-ew (car), bah-ew (ball)
People: Mommy, Daddy, Wees, Buh-guh (Grandma and/or Grandpa)
Other: hep (help), peas (please), yah-weh-coe (you’re welcome), baf (bath), cack (quack), moo, oick (oink), no (always accompanied with a head shake), up (multi-purpose word for change - out of bed, picked up, etc), dig-ooh (tickle)
He is so cute - he always says please when asking for something (”Nax? Peas?”) and often asks for help (”Book? Hep? Peas?”) However, he never says “thank you” - if you tell him “thank you” (as in - repeat after me), he always replies with “yah-weh-coe” (you’re welcome). He also has several songs he likes to sing, including Wheels on the Bus and Happy Birthday (his new favorite).
Rees and James don’t communicate verbally with each other much. It’s not for lack of trying on Jamie’s part - he talks to Rees plenty. I think Rees is just too busy and distracted to actually listen to James and try to figure out what he’s saying.
January 16th, 2008
and a hockey game broke out.”
Today was Rees’s first day of “Mini Jacks” (beginning sports skills) class at The Little Gym. Watching a bunch of three- and four-year-olds learn to play hockey was hilarious. They’ll work on hockey for three more weeks before moving on to another sport. Rees had fun and had no trouble going to class by himself, so next week I think Jamie and I will do our grocery shopping at the Dan’s next door.
January 14th, 2008
This morning our friends Michelle & Kevin blessed their baby, Zeke (their older son Robert is friends with Rees). They adopted Zeke about six months ago and everything was recently finalized. It was fun to visit their ward and have lunch afterward. Bryan introduced himself to everyone as “Robert’s soccer coach”. 
We then went on to the first two meetings at our ward (YM/YW/Primary/SS), skipping out on Sacrament meeting. Then home for a quick nap, then off to Michael & Sarah’s house in Provo for Ally’s birthday (we brought fruit & yummy fruit dip). I will be making her an embroidered pillow, but it’s not done yet.
I had a conversation with the bishop today… I can’t say what is up, since it’s not final yet, but it will be a change for me. And at the moment, I can’t say I’m happy about it.
January 13th, 2008
Bryan put in two full work days in the last 24 hours - last night he went back to work at about 8:30 PM and stayed until 4:30 this morning! He went back again at around noon today for a few hours. Later in the afternoon, I painted the upper half of the bathroom walls. I was worried about the new texture being unsealed in there for very long. It looks like I have other things to worry about - I think I patched the walls with the wrong material. I used “patching plaster” (since our walls are made of plaster & lathe), but it reacts strangely to being painted with latex paint - it seems to absorb moisture from the paint and then kind of flakes off. Ugh. We’ll have to let this coat dry for a while and see if I can improve it on the next round. I did turn out well though, and looks nice. Another issue is around the edges of the new acrylic shower walls - the white silicone sealant, of course, cannot be painted. And the edge of the silicone is not very uniform. So I think we’ll have to tape off a strip about a half-inch wide around the shower walls and paint it white so there will be a clean edge. I think it will look fine.
For dinner we decided to try Crazy Jim’s Buffet & Grill. A small but nice strip mall was recently built near our house (some tenants include Benjamin Moore Paint and AMT Printing), and we have watched a few small restaurants come and go from it. We tried the Hawaiian Barbecue - it was okay. A few months ago, Crazy Jim’s appeared, and we noticed that not only did it stay, but it seemed that a fair number of people were actually eating there. We thought a buffet would be a good choice for Rees, our picky eater.
Turns out, Crazy Jim is Chinese. Whodathunk? Nevertheless, Rees did find enough to fill his plate:
- Chocolate pudding
- Lemon pudding
- French fries
- Pineapple
- Red Jell-o cubes
- Fried donut-thing
- Mystery orange fruit
- Sweet & sour fried chicken
- Skittles
Our opinion - good, average Chinese buffet. Not extraordinary, but good enough. The best though, was the chafing dish full of tiny octopi. Seriously. Not calamari - they were tiny, perfectly formed octopi, each about three inches tall. They were not mixed with anything else. I couldn’t bring myself to try one, but Bryan did. He said it tasted exactly like you think an octopus would taste.
After the boys were in bed, we watched Stardust. I recommend. A nice PG-13er for the devout. We both enjoyed it - it’s reminiscent of The Princess Bride. De Niro was great as Captain Shakespeare.
January 12th, 2008
Tonight we had the missionaries over for dinner. Nice boys. One was a used-car salesman at an all-Mormon dealership in Pennsylvania (wha?). And, dinner was excellent. Rosemary-dijon pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, mixed vegetables with cheese sauce, chef salad, and cracked-wheat rolls. It was a success, although apparently Elder Bates does not like lettuce or avocados. He pulled the old trick of spreading the ingredients thinly across the plate to make it look like they weren’t left behind. Tricky, tricky!
January 11th, 2008
Bryan’s boss is participating in the One Laptop Per Child program, and Bryan brought one home for a little research tonight.
January 10th, 2008
This afternoon I got my hair cut. Later, Girls’ Night (with my Orem friends) was held at Los Hermanos in Lindon. Unfortunately, the Girls’ Night planned for December was canceled due to blizzard, illness, and a basement flood. So this month we celebrated birthdays for Kristin S, Ashley, and Becky. Fun fun. A few of the many topics of conversation were the above-mentioned basement flood, pregnancy (not me!), and the Nazi-mom of one of Kristin S’s primary students (shocking). I had the pork chimichanga and a Brisa. Gotta love the Hermanos. After dinner, I visited Michael & Sarah in Provo to get a good look at Ally’s nursery. I will be making an embroidered pillow, and of course, it must coordinate.
Bryan attended community council tonight, so the boys and I will be staying over at my parents’. Apparently, a very large new retail development will be built near our home (within our council boundaries) that will include a SuperTarget and a bunch of other “high-end mall stores” (?). Also, the dicey-looking semi-truck dealership next to the Costco has moved, and in its place a Costco furniture store will be built. I didn’t know that there were Costco furniture stores, but it sounds cool.
January 9th, 2008
Bryan took a sick day from work today - I can’t remember the last time he did that. It was nice to have him around, even though he felt yucky. Poor guy.
Rees and I took a trip to Lowe’s in the morning for some supplies, and later in the afternoon we did some improvements. I replaced the knobs and handles on the cabinets and drawers that make up the linen “closet” in our hallway. The existing hardware has always bugged me. Funny thing, when Rees came out of his room after nap, he immediately noticed the new hardware (it’s right at his eye level outside his door). His comment? “Wow! They’re beautiful! Did you make new ones, Mom?”
During nap I sanded, distressed, and antiqued the wood frame Bryan made for our new bathroom mirror. Bryan was amused by watching me hammer his nice frame with a pair of burly pliers. Later, he assembled the mirror and installed it tonight. Very cool! We haven’t had a mirror on our bathroom wall since we ripped out the old medicine cabinet in October.
Continuing one of my goals for 2008, I made Tomato Gorgonzola Soup and garlic bread for dinner. Afterward, for Tuesday mutual, the YW played games at Camillia’s. I brought Jim Bob along, and he ate his first Red Vine. AND, I won once playing Spoons. I never win that game! In fact, I’m usually out the first round.
We also watched two movies today. The first, Donnie Darko, I recommend. I think I’d have to watch it several more times to begin to understand it. The second, The Number 23, I do not recommend. The 8% approval rating on RT says it all.
January 8th, 2008
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