Don't push the button!

Today was such a nice day, we went to Oak Grove Farm Park. It's like all our other afternoon attractions/distractions (like the library, Richardson's Pond and Prospect Hill) about twenty minutes on foot.
Caleb was, of course, the smallest kid there. This fact, I delight in because in a round-about way, I still have a baby.
I'm glad we got out today, the rest of the week is suppose to be gloomy. Speaking of the rest of the week, the silver lining is General Conference.
I want to know what YOUR General Conference traditions are, if you have any.
Ours, of course, is food-related. We always buy snacks (for Mike: cheese-whiz (yuck) and crackers, salsa and chips, for me: I like celery and grapes). We always have cinnimon rolls for breakfast, we go out to eat in-between the Saturday sessions, and Saturday night I make a snack for Mike's return from the Priesthood session. We eat and talk about what he learned. The last tradition that I mentioned I learned from my dear friend Rachel's family. They are great, I love them... and their donuts. ;)
Have a great weekend. I'l be back next week with some great Conference one-liners, I'm sure!

Confection Carnage, Library Outing, Exercise

1. This past week was Caleb’s birthday. Being the Martha Stewart that I am , I made a round cake with cream cheese frosting ala Duncan Heinz, frosted it with white and blue and plopped a rubber duck atop.
Now, you can learn a great deal about a kid’s personality from how they “eat” (claw, mangle, obliterate) their cake. I was expecting Caleb to rip through the sucker.
WRONG. He tasted the frosting one finger-full at a time.



This says the world about Caleb… he is very unpredictable. I think this characteristic is what has driven me to the brink of motherhood insanity. I’m glad to say that during the first year things get progressively better, like everyone has always said. Caleb sleeps better, he plays harder, and can entertain or feed himself while I take a shower, or do the dishes.

Whew. It only took 12 months!

2. Besides being Activity Committee chair, Mike teaches one of the youth Sunday school classes. Between work, us, personal enrichment, and sleep he has little time to prepare lessons, so every Saturday Caleb and I drive to library to allow Daddy to plan a lesson in peace. At the library Caleb plays with trains, board books, puzzles, the wiry toys you often see at doctor/dentist offices (whatever those universal playthings are called, right?) and he sits in a chair for minutes without moving. Can’t believe it? Here’s proof!

3. Why is it that I never seem to finish my exercise routine anymore? If the weather is dreary we skip the walk and stay inside to dance, to perform sit-ups, fire hydrants, and bits of katas.
Whenever I begin my routine by lying down to do my sit-ups and cockroaches, Caleb will quickly scramble to climb on me. I’ve tried placing him in the kitchen with his tupperware drawer (yes, Caleb has his own kitchen drawer), and even though he is fully engaged, once my back hits the wood panel-
thump thump thump
goes the hands and knees.

Caleb's kitchen drawer.
Contents include: tupperware, funnels, lids, a wooden spoon, trouble,

and sometimes serenity

Happy, Happy Birthday, Caleb Dear

A year of…
Curiosity

Adventure

Learning

Errors

Blessings

A Day in History: MARCH 26

On March 26th... 1484, William Caxton printed his translation of Aesop's Fables... 1812, An earthquake destroys Caracas, Venezuela...1830, The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York... 1874, Robert Frost is born...1930, Sandra Day O'Connor is born... 1962, John Stockton is born...1968, Kenny Chesney is born...1982, A groundbreaking ceremony for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is held in Washington, DC...

2008 Caleb Elias Thomson is born.

Alright, I'm not okay with how un-baby-like Caleb looks here.
He looks all toddler-like.
NOT. OKAY.

BIG News! (continued...)

Good job, Erica and Greg!

You guessed it. Mike's going to Harvard.

And good job, Michael. I love you.

BIG News!

My husband managed to do something Rori Gilmore couldn’t…



more tomorrow.
(Let the guessing begin!)

Bringing Up Flagstaff

The Furniture Barn

Flagstaff, Arizona

So, I was browsing the Millis Library and decided to pick up the movie Raise Your Voice. Here’s why: they didn’t have Forest Gump or Tag against Time a book by Helen Hughes Vick. Get my drift?

Yeah, I was pining (haha) over Flagstaff.

In the movie Hilary Duff’s character is a girl from Flagstaff who dreams of becoming a vocal success. I was expecting to see familiar settings and scenery. I was disappointed.

Besides the opening credits shots of the furniture barn, an overview of downtown, Francisco and Beaver- there really isn’t much of Flagstaff at all. Even the accident scene (opps, sorry to spoil the movie) IS NOT SHOT IN FLAGSTAFF. I SWEAR.

I paused, reviewed, paused, and reviewed and NOPE, there is no intersection in Flagstaff that looks like that- Flagstaff’s street signs don’t even look like that. And her house??? Okay, let’s say that house is tucked away in Continental somewhere… how can a small diner owner in Flagstaff, Arizona afford that house?

And after watching the movie for the first fifteen minutes, I got the idea- call it a hunch- the person who wrote this atrocity never actually lived in Flagstaff but merely passed through one day and assumed it was a podunk town.
Here is my hang-up:
We are suppose to believe that if Hilary Duff’s character doesn’t get out of Flagstaff her vocal talent will wither and she’ll be stuck in this dead-beat town. Forever!

(cue dramatic music)

Um, like I said, the person who wrote this story just kept on 89 all the way out of town; they must have not noticed Northern Arizona University.
My ol’ roommate was a vocal performance major for some time and I learned two things from her: 1) the program is very competitive and demanding and 2) it will consume you alive. I am doubtful Hilary Duff, yet alone her character, would have been admitted into the program. Maybe that was her problem: she received a rejection letter. That would’ve made the story more realistic to me.

Perfectly Pear

If you’d ask him, Mike would say my favorite fruit is avocado. He’d be wrong. I adore pears. I find them awfully tasty and terribly romantic. (I mean, haven’t you seen the pear scene from City of Angels?)
But a recent revelation brings new merit to the phrase

you are what you eat.

I was reading CJaneEnjoyIt and I saw her soft delicious center button, that declares her body type is a middle-figured apple, and decided to go to Cardigan Empire and give it a whirl.

BC & AD
Those of you who are mothers know this already, but those of you who aren’t should be naïve no longer-

PREGNANCY, BIRTH and the MOTHERING LIFESTYLE change your body. Period. Expect to buy more clothes than you ever have in the space of a year than you ever had before. There’s the pre-pregnancy clothes, the pre-maternity clothes, the maternity clothes, the post-partum clothes (don’t forget nursing outfits, if you are breastfeeding) and then the “hey-I’m-back-to-my-original-weight-and-nothing-fits-still” clothes. Yay!

BC (Before Caleb) Measurements:

Bust: 35.5

Waist: 26

Hips: 38

AD (After Delivery) Measurements:

B: 34.5

W: 28.5

H: 39

After some math, the results were in. According to Cardigan Empire I was a
Pear!

It gives you a description of your figure, and advice how on how to drape your body type.

One sentence rang true to me:

"Feel free to exercise to your heart's content (hearts like exercise). But when you are done, you'll just be a smaller pear."

This is a fact! I actually weigh LESS than I did BC, and although I climb up and down stairs all day, go on walks, and do fire hydrants- my booty only looks better not smaller.

Nevertheless,

What’s YOUR body type? Post with pride my sisters!