Category Archives: Happenings

The Need to be an Optimist

I have recently observed that I am very pessimistic. I worry about my son dying of SIDS (chance: 50 of 100,000). I worry about the car falling off the edge of the mountain as we drive around sharp corners. I worry about a rock piercing the car tire and leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere. (Can a rock even do that?)

And yet, as Boyd K. Packer said (Ensign, November 1977),

Somewhere there is a message in the protest of a man who said: “You can’t tell me worry doesn’t help. The things I worry about never happen.”

By extension, then, the things I do not worry about do happen.

This is our garage ceiling the day before we left town for our Christmas vacation:

Apparently, three days of spring rain flowed through a leak in our roof. The buildup of water subsequently leaked through the ceiling and collapsed through the dry wall in a big gush of water.

There has been another Disaster recently, this one involving a litre of vegetable oil in the trunk of the car. I don’t want to talk about it.

Whatever is going to happen will happen, whether or not I agonize about it first. I really ought to let go. Life will be more pleasant. And then I wont be afraid to live and take chances. (My “chances” will be within reason, of course. I am still me, after all; I am conservative in the risks I take.) I need to be realistic in the things I think about and concern myself with what is important.

Therefore, my first New Years goal is to not worry. I promise I won’t post pessimistic things on this webpage. And I’m going to let go of my worries. It’s time I embrace optimism or, at the very least, realism.

Merry Christmas to All!

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Merry Christmas, everyone! I love you!

Love,

Paul

Santa Baby

Paul was Santa’s helper this year.

Paul Discovers a Toy

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I’ve often tried to get Paul to notice his toys. I put all of them on the blanket around him and try to force them into his little hand. He lets go of the toy immediately and then tries to eat his hand.

“Look!” I say excitedly. “It’s a toy to play with! Play with it!”

He laughs at me. Despite the colorful toy I’m shaking right in front of his face, his focus doesn’t shift away from my face.

“Ah, well,” I think. “It’s good my child is not materialistic.”

The other day I peeked into his play pen and this is what I saw.

I didn’t even force it into his hand. He found it himself. He held on to it for a about 10 minutes and then fell asleep, his arm curled around it.

Maybe he imagined he was calling one of his grandmas to say hello.

Merry Christmas, Paul! (and Mommy too…)

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For Christmas this year, we got Paul a Port-a-cot (aka Port-a-crib) to be used as a portable bed and as a playpen for downstairs. I put the unopened package by the tree, but I finally gave up waiting for Christmas, and I opened it. I bought it for Paul because we need it! I didn’t see the point of waiting. (We were going to open it to take on our trip the week of Christmas anyway…)

I love having a place downstairs to put Paul down!

When he’s awake and I’m cooking dinner, he just watches me and follows me with his eyes. I think it will be a nice safe place for him as he gets older and actually begins playing with his toys.

(Note that Paul has discovered his fingers, at least for sucking on, as evidenced in the second picture above.)

Gingerbread

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Inspired by my cousin’s report of making gingerbread with her kids, I decided to have a go at the holiday treat too. Why not make Christmas cookies to get the Christmas spirit? Besides, I’ve been reading food blogs lately and the recipes and pictures looked so enticing.

The first challenge was the lack of molasses in this country. I’ve since been told that I can get molasses at a health food store (why a health food store?), but last week I didn’t know that. At every grocery store and specialty shop I asked, I was either asked what molasses is or directed to the pomegranate “molasses” (which is pretty much just pomegranate juice). Alas! How can you make gingerbread without molasses?!

I would have used corn syrup (known as golden syrup here) but I also couldn’t find it. I guess I didn’t want to go around to all the specialty shops again, so I just settled for maple syrup, which I had at home.

The maple syrup didn’t add particularly much. The final result was more gingersnap-like rather than gingerbread-like. That was a little disappointing, but they were still tasty. I had a fun time decorating some cookies for the ward Christmas party.

I made some missionary gingerbread men (notice the bow ties)….

and I made some gingerbread ladies. (Notice her ruffles and the high heels.)

OK, so I was a bit silly in my very amateur decoration. The piping tip was too large for such small cookies.

I enjoyed myself for a while, but then I looked down at all the gingerbread left to be decorated. It was already 9:30 on Thursday night and my husband had already returned home from his long meetings. I still had tons of icing left and more than 30 gingerbread men still unclothed!

I recalled how last year Mom, Dad, Frank, Elizabeth, and Daniel came and decorated graham cracker gingerbread houses. How I miss you all! Daniel, I think you’d have enjoyed decorating these little guys! I invited my husband to join in, but, you know, it really isn’t his thing.

(When I mourned the fact that I still had so many left to decorate, my husband gleefully said, “I have no sympathy!”After he ate some, however, he thanked me most sincerely for bringing the Christmas Spirit into our home. And then he cleaned up the icing-covered kitchen. What a wonderful husband I have!)

So what do you do with 32 unfrosted gingerbread men? I did what anybody in her right mind would do: I invited my Sunday school class (13-14 years old) over to decorate the rest. I froze the undecorated little guys, and they came today (Wednesday) and frosted the rest of the gingerbread men. Then they ate them and took them home with them! (I neglected to take pictures of their marvelous little creations….)

Next year, Paul will probably still be too little to even eat these guys. But in two years, I look forward to seeing his delight as he decorates his own Christmas cookies.

Sunday Afternoon

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Roll Over

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Spring Ride

I’m Two!

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I am two months old today. I’ve decided to still be a cute, smiley boy. I just had a bad day the other day.

Here are some pictures of me from the past few weeks.

Cute Me in Late November

Here are some cute pictures of me from the end of November.

Cute Me in Early December

Here are some cute pictures of me from early December. I smiled at Cowboy Joe for the first time. I’m learning how to push up on my arms and look around.