Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Calvin's Snowmen, pt 2
Okay, okay. We're even.
It snowed here.
And they canceled school.
Not just for the kids. The universities closed too.
And I thought they were nuts.
But then I found out why.
See, snow in Maryland is promptly followed by rain and then freeze. Which quickly results in ICE. Ice like I have never seen after living a decade in Utah. The entire lawn at our church is one solid pane of ice. You could ice skate on it. At mutual the boys were dive-sliding across it. And they didn't make a single dent in the ice. It was crazy! Well, you obviously cannot make snowmen out of ice, so we'll just celebrate with more Calvin ...
Two Thoughts
1) I really hope this stuff wears off before Sunday, because soap just doesn't seem to be doing the trick ...
2) I guess this means that my 6 month-old baby is ready to graduate from 6-9 month up to 9-12 month clothes. That or he has really large feet ...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Eastern Excursion 27: Eastern States
Went to Trenton just for you, brother of mine.
Eastern Excursion 26: New York City part 3
Alright, alright. I know you're sick of these. But hey, for my own sake I have to record it. Don't read it if you don't want to. But if you do read it, you darn well better comment so that I know Sam isn't the only one who actually reads my posts. :)
This is actually three days worth of stuff, but I'm combining it for one post. So on Sunday night Betsy took us on a drive through Westchester County (where they live) to see some of the sites there. We saw quite a few old chapels and unique homes, but my favorites were:
Hyde Park and the Vanderbilt Mansion. (I would love a lawn that huge! My own personal football field.)
The Old Dutch Church and Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow. (Yes, that Sleepy Hollow. We even saw the headless horseman bridge, but I didn't get a picture.) I love cemeteries. I mean love, love, love cemeteries. Especially old ones. They are so beautiful and peaceful. I love thinking about the people who are buried there - what kinds of lives they lived, what they might be doing now, and how excited they must be for the resurrection. I used to think this mild obsession of mine was a bit morbid. But Sam always tells people, "Janae loves cemeteries, just like President Monson." Boy, I love that man. Always putting my quirks in a good light.
The Castle on the Hudson. This 125 year-old house is now a hotel, and Betsy gave me my own private tour ... as we were walking through the various ballrooms, dining rooms, chapels, and gardens, I asked her, "Are we allowed to do this?" She shrugged and replied, "I act like I know what I'm doing and no one stops me." Ha, ha! It was beautiful. Rooms cost up to $1400 a night. Ouch!
On Monday Betsy took us to the Long Island Sound, then we decided to see the rest of New York (that we hadn't gotten lost in yet), namely Queens and Harlem. We didn't get out of the car. Need I say more?
We intended to actually go inside the American Museum of Natural History (from Night at the Museum) and the Met, but we didn't have enough time. We'll have to do it on other trip. But we did pass the United Nations Headquarters and go through Central Park.
And, of course, I snapped some more 'classic NYC' pictures. First, those cover things that lead out of fancy buildings so that you can get into your taxi or chauffeured vehicle without getting wet. Second, NYPD. (Which is really hard to say without adding 'blue' at the end. Even though I've never even seen the show.) And last, but not least, graffiti. Classic big city, don't you think?
The next day, on our way home from New York, we crossed the outlet of the Susquehanna River. It was foggy, so the picture isn't great. But it's the Susquehanna, so who cares if the picture is great?? (The restoration of the priesthood, or authority to act in the name of God, happened in the early 1800's along the banks of the Susquehanna, so it is a special place to us Mormons.)
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Jussumore Stories
Nope, I'm not posting about anything interesting trip today.
I'm not the one who did the interesting trip.
I just stayed home with the kids and chalked up brownie points in heaven.
Yes, I, Janae, the coolest wife ever, sent my artist-of-a-husband to the Met for the entire day (until it closed at 9 pm!) so he could draw to his heart's content. You should have seen him beam excitement as he left. Better than a kid on Christmas morning.
But since you are obviously expecting me to post about what I did today (notice the sarcasm), I will treat you to a few quirks and a few stories.
________________________________________
Remember how I told you that we cracked Elijah's code? (The hug thing.) I think we may have cracked Seara's. It's called "scratch your back." Seara will do ANYTHING for a "scratch your back." The only problem is trying to stop scratching her back. She's a persuasive little thing.
Elijah's cute thing lately is that he asks for his morning nap. Early. Dang that kid cracks me up!
My favorite thing Enoch does is that when he cries he comforts himself by sucking his right thumb, and then holding his left ear with his left hand. Elijah liked to hold his ears, too. They just love those large ears that did not come from my side .............. I say that in love. I love Sam's 'floppy ears'! "All the better to hear you with my dear," as we like to quip here at our house.
________________________________________
As Seara finished her snack one day, she got up from her chair singing. She sang one continuous song, without pausing, but changing the lyrics to fit what was happening at that moment. This is how it went:
I am a child of God, [as she is getting up]
I'm done with my chocolate milk, [as she hands me her cup]
My mom will wash my hands and face, [as I wipe her hands and face off]
And I will behave! [as she runs to play]
________________________________________
Seara has finally started occasionally allowing others to pray in our home. This is a food prayer with Elijah. It happens this way every. single. time.
Me: Dear Heavenly Father,
Lije: Dear Heavenly Father,
Me: Thank thee for this food,
Lije: Thank thee for Enoch,
Me: Thank thee for the food,
Lije: Thank thee for Enoch,
Me: Food,
Lije: Enoch,
Me: Please bless the food,
Lije: Please bless Enoch,
Me: The food,
Lije: Enoch,
Me: In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Lije: AMEN! [throws his hands in the air like he made a touch down]
But his personal prayers are getting much better. The other day I didn't prompt him at all and this is what he said:
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank thee for this day ...
Thank thee for drink of water ... [I had just given him a drink of water]
Thank thee for McQueen ... [the toy car he got for Christmas]
Thank thee for Buzz Light-gear movie ...
Thank thee for Wall-e movie ...
Thank thee for Jesus ...
Name of Jesus Christ, AMEN!
________________________________________
Alright, I guess we'll end this with some pictures we took this afternoon. During Enoch's nap, I took the kids in the back yard to play with the snow. We may not get any snow that sticks in Baltimore this year, so we had to take advantage just in case! Tim and Betsy have a very nice, kid-sized hill that we sledded down. Elijah made a snow angel without any prompts from me. (He didn't know what he was making, he just randomly dropped to his back and started moving his arms and legs. I helped him make it a bit bigger, though.) And Seara made a 'snowman' with small chunks of ice, since the snow was too dry to pack. You remember that she is obsessed with snowmen, right? She talked about them all spring. And summer. And fall. And now winter.
They sled down the hill, and at the bottom Seara tells me, "Take a picture, mom!" Okay.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Eastern Excursion 25: New York City part 2
Today we started the day by going to The Cloisters, which is a branch of the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) that displays only art and architecture of the Middle Ages. They built the monastery using sections of five different medieval churches (disassembled in Europe and reassembled here) and then furnished it - doorways, columns, and all - completely with pieces from European churches that were being destroyed (or that had been destroyed during revolutions). This happens to be Sam's aunt's favorite site in New York City (and they have lived here for some thirty plus years). She absolutely insisted that we go, and I'm so glad we did. It was AMAZING! It was like visiting dozens of medieval churches all at once.
Windows made in the 1200s for monasteries in Germany, France, & England; Sepulcher of a Spanish Count from the early 1300s
After The Cloisters we skirted our way down to Midtown Manhattan. We walked down Broadway to Times Square and took pictures from both directions. If you look closely at the bottom picture on the left you can see the New Years ball and '2009' lit up.
We then made our way to the Empire State Building. You know I am terrified of heights, right? As in, we paid $40 to go to the top and as I watched the floor numbers change from 40 to 50 to 60 to 70 and finally to 80, I started hyperventilating. Just knowing that I was that high scared the daylights out of me. At the 80th floor you can just look out windows, to go outside you have to take another elevator up six more floors. Well, I paid $40 so I wasn't about to quit. But it took me much longer than most people to even step outside once we got to the 86th floor. And once I started out and got semi-close to the edge, people kept walking behind me and I'd jump thinking they were going to push me off. (Look at those bars - they couldn't have pushed me off if they wanted to. I'm just a psycho.) Yeah, why someone with such an intense fear of heights would pay $40 to scare themselves to death and practically wet their pants is beyond me. Oh wait.
Alright, alright, I'm a sap. I have to admit that one of the things that propelled me (besides being able to say I did it) was the whole I'm-a-girl-from-Baltimore-and-I'm-meeting-my-true-love-Sam-at-the-top-of-the-Empire-State-Building thing. You get bonus points if you can name that movie. :) Oh, and do you just love that Seara and Elijah are fighting in the picture I took of them? Yeah, that cracks me up. Very appropriate if we are trying to represent the truth.
After that we took a walk down 34th street and got hot dogs from a street vendor. I just had to do that. And Heidi - although they were good, your J-Dawgs are soooo much better. Gotta love that special sauce. Anyway, we actually ate the dogs inside Quiznos so we could sit and be warm. (Don't worry, we got drinks and chips from them so we weren't squatters.)
Just as the sun started setting we headed down 5th Avenue. Holy pedestrian traffic. There were so many people. I can hardly believe that there is that kind of traffic every day. The stores were hilarious (Sacs had these medieval-type fancy-shmancy slathered-with-jewels gowns on display that no one would ever wear) and the people were even better. You know on 101 Dalmations how Pongo looks out the window and sees different types of people? And one of them is a rich lady in high heels, fancy dress and furs, and her nose in the air? Okay, imagine that but in gold colors with more jewels and fur. Yeah, I saw her. For real. And it wasn't like someone poor trying to look rich. Nope, she was the real deal. I thought Disney was exaggerating. Apparently I was wrong.
We got to the Rockefeller Center just as dark hit so everything was lit up. St. Patrick's Cathedral across the street was beautiful, and of course it is fun to have a picture of Radio City Music Hall lit up. The ice skating rink looked so quaint and I wanted to go, but I had three major problems: 1) we were outnumbered, 2) I fall an average of 6 times a minute when I ice skate, and 3) there were over a hundred on-lookers and I wasn't about to make a fool of myself in front of all those people!
We ended the night at the Manhattan Temple. Sam's aunt and uncle met us there and took the kids to the chapel on the third floor while we went to do sealings. So here's how it works. You enter the building. If you go to your right, there is an elevator that services only floors 1-3. The third floor is the chapel. The nursery rooms was open and since they just remodeled, none of the cabinets had locks so the toys were fair game. The kids spent the whole time playing in there. The second floor is offices, I believe.
Okay, so once again, you enter the building. If you go to your left, there are doors that enter the temple. You pass the recommend desk and the baptistry (which they let us 'tour'), and go to the elevators. The fourth floor has all the laundry facilities and that is where you can rent your clothes (we wear all white once inside the temples to remind ourselves of cleanliness and purity). Then you go up to the 5th floor, where they have the dressing rooms and the endowment sessions. And the 6th floor is where all the sealing rooms are. The temple president himself did our sealings and he was wonderful! Afterwards he offered to let us go to the celestial room, and on the way we got to look into the endowment rooms. WOW. They were stunning. After a whole day walking around midtown Manhattan, you can't imagine what a relief it was to 'put off the world' so to speak, and relax in the House of the Lord. It was so rejuvenating.
You wanna know what? Going to the temple was actually my very favorite part of the day. And my second favorite was actually sitting down, eating hotdogs with Sam and the kids. I guess the older I get (ha, ha, I'm a ripe old 26!) the more I realize what my priorities really are. I loved seeing more of New York City. It was fun to see the stores and the lifestyle, to visit famous sites and popular places. But the best parts of my day were the two things I can get almost anywhere: time with God and time with my family. Yup. I'm becoming a softie. And I love it.
