Know-it-all

We just want you all to know that Ellie, our brilliant 4-year-old, knows everything. We think it's heredity, or perhaps it’s the environment. I didn’t say WE know it all. When Dave and I try to tell her anything, she says, in a very bored teenager-like voice “I know, I know.” We were walking around our pond a couple days ago when Ellie spotted a dead fish near the shore. We went closer to inspect it and I said “I think that’s a catfish!” “No Mommy,” came the reply, “I’m pretty sure it’s a dogfish.” She knows best! Also a few days ago, in the car Dave was telling her that he can speak several languages. She wanted him to show her, so he started speaking Spanish. Unimpressed, she informed him “You can’t speak Spanish, you’re not a Spanisher!” Hee hee! We’re laughing now, but we’ll see if the attitude’s still funny in about 8 years.

In other news, I just came back from Stake Choir. I’m not a great singer but I love choir singing and can do a decent alto. Our stake conference (with Elder Ballard coming!) is in several weeks. They have a guy directing who has a degree in Choral Something-or-other. It is so fun to sing for someone who really knows what they’re doing! One of the songs we’re doing is Come thou Fount of Every Blessing, one of my favorite hymns. We are also doing a complex arraignment of I Stand All Amazed. It should be fun to learn! Just an FYI for you music people, there is a web site Defordmusic.com that has tons of free downloadable LDS sheet music and MP3 tracks of many of the songs.
http://www.defordmusic.com/comethoufountomyfather.htm

Food for Thought

Do any of you have foods that always remind you of someone or bring back memories? Lately I’ve been enjoying the happy memories that certain foods bring back to me. For example, the other day I made strawberry freezer jam with Ellie. Making jam brought back wonderful memories of my Grandma C., the summers I spent on the farm, and the time my grandma spent with me teaching me how to make the jam just right. When I make taco salad, I always use Fritos because that’s how my Grandma H always made it for my grandpa, and I think about them both. Veggie soup always makes me think of my mom and how glad I am that she encouraged a love for healthy food and kept the soda and junk food to a minimum when we were kids. To this day I still don’t have much of a taste for that stuff, although I do love my chips. Tonight I made baked sweet potatos, something I hated as a kid but love now. Anna was the one that re-introduced them to me while she was visiting, and I couldn't help but think about the good times we had while she was here while the potatos were baking. I could go on but you get the idea. I hope Ellie grows up to enjoy cooking with me and that I can share some of my memories with her and give her happy food memories of her own.

What a circus!

Dave and I took Ellie to the circus last Saturday. Some new friends from church were taking their kids, so we decided to go too. Tickets were $15 for adults. We’re cheap people, so $30 to be entertained, while not breaking the budget, is not something we do every day. Dave and Ellie have never gone though, so we thought it would be a fun family activity. It was in the parking lot of the greyhound bus station, which should have been our first clue. Our second clue should have been the circus tent, a ratty red and yellow affair that looked like it would be a death trap if any inclement weather came up. But, like P.T. Barnum is supposed to have said, there’s a sucker born every minute, and we were the suckers. We shelled out our 30 bucks (kids get in free!) and went in. The benches around the ring were about 6 inches wide, so we balanced our rear ends on them as best we could and waited for the show to start. It was supposed to start at 4:30, but of course they waited and waited, hoping I think to let our kids have enough time to wear us down with their whining for the ridiculously overpriced snow cones, popcorn, and cotton candy. Finally, they started the show. Out came the 5 performers that were the entire circus staff. They did a reasonably good tightrope and acrobatic act for 10 minutes, and then announced a 15 minute “intermission!” They then spent 20 minutes trying to sell $4 coloring books to the kids, who were still bored and whiny. If I remember correctly, we then got to witness one of those horribly lame clown acts. At this point I was ready to leave. But no, here comes the “World’s Smartest Horse!” Out from behind the curtain came this tiny pony. His owner led him by his lead rope in circles until the poor horse looked like it was about to fall over. Apparently, this was the horse dancing. After that impressive showing, they put two 6 inch high hurdles in the ring. As the pony was led around the ring, it got thunderous applause for jumping over these things. Let me just tell you we were desperate for ANY entertainment. Following the “World’s Dizziest Horse” came “Shrek’s Donkey!” For only 5 little dollars we could come down and get our picture with the donkey. Now came another intermission, presumably so we could consume more junk food at 3 and 4 dollars a pop, get our picture with Shrek’s Donkey for a fiver, and buy one of their balloons for four little dollars, now reduced to TWO little dollars! The sound of cheap balloons popping filled the air as we sat in despair on our tiny benches, with our numb derrieres and bored children. The show ended with a repeat of the first act, minus the tightrope. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough while behind us, the ringleader reminded us to come back for the next showing at 7:00! Not likely. We ended our ghetto circus experience by taking the kids to dinner at a McDonald’s playplace that was almost as dirty as the circus had been. Somehow it was a fitting end to the night.

Are kids growing up faster these days?

I just have to add a bit to Dave's post about the pizza place. While we were there I noticed two little boys running around while we were having dinner. Their mom did nothing to control them, so the waitress finally had them sit at a table with crayons and paper place mats to draw on. Ellie went over to draw with them for a few minutes before we left, and the little 7-year-old asked her to write her name on his picture. She did, and I thought it was kind of cute until he proceeded to ask her for her phone number! I hollered over to his mom "Isn't your son a little young to be collecting girl's phone numbers?!" I then advised Dave in the car that he needs to think more seriously about getting that gun he's been wanting. ;) I can't imagine how bad it's going to be when she's actually old enough to date!

Deep Dish

There are so few things in this world that are as satisfying as a good deep dish pizza. I mean really let's be honest. Aside from the horrendous caloric intake, the cheesy goodness, spicy sausage, mushrooms, and olives......I mean Wow! Tonight Charity, Elisabeth and I went to try out a small "dive". The internet reviews even mentioned you'd have to swat away flies while eating but that the food was great. The locale actually wasn't as bad as I had imagined and the food was really well flavored and... drumroll please.......even inexpensive. What a treat to combine all of that. The name of the place is Zachary's Pizza and it's right across from the University of Arizona. The name of the pizza we tried was the Big Z. Great name even if I am sort of partial to the letter Z.
As a side note, does anybody really understand why it is that the majority of women seem to need more sleep than men? Charity stands by the statement that she needs at least 9 hours to function and she isn't the only woman that I've heard say that. I'm good if I get six and a half or so. Maybe at some other point I'll delve into that subject more but I'll stop right about now since, no surprise, Charity wants to go to bed. :)

Ahoy There!

These are some pictures from a little community activity we went to a couple weekends ago. Tucson has this thing called Rodeo Days and yup, everyone gets several days off school because the rodeo is in town! It is a big deal around here! Our community did a "Rodeo Roundup" and we went with Anna and her kids. The kids had a great time! They got to ride the ponies, play in the bounce house, ride the little electric train around the park, go to the petting zoo, and Ellie got her face painted. On Anna's advice, we went as soon as they opened which was really smart. It got quite hot by the time we left, and at that point the line to ride the ponies was wrapped completely around the pony ring. I told Anna that I don't care how much my kid wanted to ride the pony, there's no way I would wait in line for at least an hour in the hot sun for a 2 minute pony ride. I'm such a mean mom!
Ellie is such a fun child. Granted, she has her moments where I don't want to claim her as mine, but most of the time she keeps us laughing. We were out for a Sunday walk around our little lake, and she saw someone fishing in a rowboat. She went right to the edge of the lake and called out "Ahoy there!" Dave and I and the fishermen along the lake had a good little laugh over that.
She is also in a funny stage of always asking unanswerable questions. I put on Mary Poppins the other day so I could have a break to do some work on the computer, but I finally gave up and went to sit by her to attempt to answer all her questions about the movie. "Why is the dad mad?" "Why are they singing?" "Are they laughing or crying?" "Why is she putting black stuff on her nose?" "Where are their chairs?" We love our Ellie bug. She keeps our lives interesting!

So quiet...

Well, things are pretty quiet around here. My sister Anna and her two kids have been visiting the past 6 weeks to get away from the snow of Idaho, but they left a couple days ago to go back home. I really miss having another adult around during the day and other kids to play with Ellie. All the sudden I am entertainer #1 again...sigh... Thanks for coming to visit Anna! We miss you guys! I've been pretty busy though. I finally got my last few boxes unpacked- they were full of books. I don't want to buy new bookshelves unless we decide we're staying here because they don't survive moves very well, so I rigged up some shelves in our playroom closet with some plywood scraps. I'm kind of getting my semi-annual itch to get organized and reduce the amount of junk we keep stored away in our closets. It surprises me sometimes what I hold on to. For example, over the years of not getting pregnant again, I've gotten rid of Ellie's crib, car seat, baby clothes, etc. For some reason, I've held on to a diaper changing pad. It's a big, bulky thing you set on a counter or something, and it would cost me all of $20 to replace if by some miracle we did get pregnant again or if we adopted, but I still have it clogging up my closet. I think it's time for it to go. It felt good to finish getting unpacked though, and I have great weekend plans for getting our garage organized with some new shelving and stuff so both Dave and I can park in it now that it's starting to get hotter. I'll let you know how it goes!