Fun Times

1. John discovered that if he put my candlestick in the light it would make rainbows.
2. Playing I-Spy Animals!
3. Making a snow man.

Clara said "Cute, they look like little pumpkins!"

Loops

Winter Leaves

City Creek Trail in Winter

It was a day to be outside. The air was fresh and the sun was warmed on my back. We were able to spend quite a bit of time exploring because Margaret and Kelly (he worked a night shift) stayed home to nap. Clara and John got a kick out of the ice covered creek. I enjoyed thinking about how the scenery had changed. There is so much beauty in each landscape in each season. Looking for it is so fun!
I told Clara about how, on occasion, I would kick a rock on my way home from school. She was surprised to find out that I would "actually walk." But, she was delighted with the game and really got good at it.

The photographs are in chronological order.

Jumping

Frosted Rooftops

Winter at Our House

Little Mom

Margaret says isolated words like baby, lips, blanket, or nap when she takes care of this doll. She took Clara's lip gloss and made sure to give the baby some. She does the rhyme "eye winker, tom tinker" to her and also sings "rocky guy," instead of rock-a-bye when she rocks her. Margaret's care and tenderness is so endearing.

Clara

She has a big, fat hole in her grin. It makes it more difficult for her to talk. It is darling!
John is an emerging reader. I asked Clara to listen to him read for me while I attended to Margaret. She was kind. So kind that she ended up feeding him all the words. Oh well! Not a big deal.
She is a fun big sister to Margaret. Picking her up and always trying to make her laugh.

Some Thoughts on Marriage by Ogden Nash

A Word to Husbands

 

To keep your marriage brimming

With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.

 

 

 

I Do, I Will, I Have

 

How wise I am to have instructed the butler

to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;

I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.

Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between
flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other
never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate
or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the
windowsill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right,
it's only raining straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

 

 

 

Ogden Nash is so sharp. Like a comedian, the punch line comes at the perfect time; however, there is always more to his poems than just the punch line. If the content didn't have weight then it wouldn't be so funny.  Isn't the rhyme on jetsam and forgestam brilliant! Line 5 is fun to figure out too! I looked up that Walter Hagen is a Tiger Woods type of golf player from the 1920's.  

Corn Bread and Chocolate Chip Cookies

24 Hour Shifts

Kelly has been working several 24 hour shifts lately. We miss him. So, Sunday we decided to take dinner to him. It was a homey meal; roll's, chicken and rice, and good ole Jell-O. It tasted SO good. Clara helped with making all of it. Kelly works hard and we love him very much.  

Clara listening to the soundtrack of A Muppet Christmas Carol.

City Creek Series

I feels like forever ago, but in reality it has only been 3 months since I took these. As I was cleaning up a file I saw them and though that it is fun to see them side by side. This is what happened over a three week period. 
I am wishing Margaret was in the middle one but, life is not perfect and we don't always get what we want.

The Work of Creation

The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty

 

This is a quote from a talk giving by Elder Uchtdorf titled "Happiness, Your Heritage."  I think about it a lot.

 

The first photo is a train.

John also made the tie die socks that are in the second photo.

In the third photo, it started out looking like as a contemporary looking temple. then it morphed into this Incan structure.

The fourth is Margaret destroying.