the hunt

We hunted eggs and had a barbecue with our friends the Hamiltons on Saturday. They have four boys, who match up almost perfectly in age with our kids. (Of course, Mary wishes Drew was a girl!) Easton and Thomas are so much alike that people are starting to mix them up sometimes — I didn’t get a picture of them together, but they’re a very cute pair.
The Hamiltons’ home is perfect for an egg hunt — Mediterranean style, with tons of nooks and crannies. Matt had fun playing with their built-in grill.Lots of fun with friends.

week in pictures

Middle School Spirit Week silliness.

Feeling a little homesick lately. Sure sign — surfing the Utah real estate pages. Also really tired of being hot. It is fall here, but still so, so hot in the afternoon. And I miss celebrating the coming of Spring in conjunction with the Easter holiday — the symbolism of new life is perfect for our contemplation of resurrection. Here, the leaves are falling. Also, no Cadbury Cream Eggs, though a kind friend brought some American Easter candy. Really, no reason to complain. Just looking forward to our home visit — only 2 months (and a little) away! My handsome men on the way to Priesthood Meeting.“Arts in Action” celebration at school. Love the pageantry and the celebration of the visual arts (Sam painted his own bird wings, and Jonathan made his bird) together with the performing arts. Really, an impressive tradition. I’m kicking myself for not taking a picture of this high school student who performed the finale — a boy dancer/gymnast/aerialist on a ring who was amazing. (Like maybe he could be in Cirque de Soleil after graduation.)Matt was overdue for new eyewear, and discovered that with newer/better/thinner contact lenses his sensitive, dry eyes can be glasses-free! (The contacts are in the mail.) Also bought these new frames which are a little more hipster/Clark Kent. What do you think? (I’m just happy that he went with new glasses and not a sports car.)And the requisite egg dying. The kids really love doing this — one of these years I’m going to blow some eggs out so we can keep them on display. We hiked Cerro Manquehue, or part of it, on Good Friday. In retrospect, not a very good hike for kids. Still fun though, and then we came home to watch “The Ten Commandments” which our kids hadn’t seen before. They actually liked it a lot, and I think this may become a new Easter tradition. (Wow, is that thing campy!) Happy Easter to all!

one month down…

I’m starting week 5 of P90x (big pat on the back for myself) but I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m working out with Phil Dunphy:

 

Is it just me? Tony Horton’s jokes aren’t funny either. But, lots of different workouts means you don’t have to hear the same jokes every day — more like once a week. I like it. I haven’t been perfectly on schedule the last couple of weeks, because I still struggle to fit it into my day — really, you need two hours of uninterrupted time including the (necessary!) shower.

When I started this little experiment, I wanted to see how fit I could get, and to be perfectly honest, I wanted to see what we could do about the last little bit of “baby belly” that I still have after #5. I never really understood why anyone would want to have a tummy tuck until about my fourth baby. Oh, now I get it. The good news is, I think the program really is making a difference. Not planning to post any actual pictures of my abdominal area, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Also, as I head into my late 30s, I have a strong desire not to develop those “flaggy” upper arms that women get. This program does lots of work on your arms and shoulders, and is definitely going to help with that. And since I started out not being able to do a proper pull-up nor a proper push-up, we’re going to see some dramatic changes in my strength, which is pretty fun.

And now that I’m feeling really shallow and vain, I’ll say that I really do feel good (besides one tiny nagging spot on my lower back…) and that I believe that we are stewards over our bodies, which are a literal gift from God. As I’m trying out this rather intense program, I can see how the body could quickly become an obsession, and something to worship or to improperly prioritize. Something to think about and to teach our children — how to honor and care for our bodies, without elevating their importance. Any thoughts on this, friends?

a double wedding

We crossed, “attend a double wedding” off of our bucket list last week. These sisters are two members of a family from church, a family which we dearly love. And (I always want to know these details) they are both mid-thirties, both served as LDS missionaries, and neither have ever been married.  I think maybe we should hang around with Peruvians more often — look how tall we look! (Kind of pasty white though, and my farmer tan is a little sad.) Actually, only the women are Peruvian. Patty’s new husband, Juan Pablo, is Dominican. Isn’t he handsome? I think he looks like a movie star.And Edita’s new husband, Manuel, is from Mexico. Can you tell from their faces in this picture what dear, dear people they both are? Edita worked in our home for a while last year while our nana was on maternity leave and I just love her. She asked Matt and I to be the legal witnesses for the wedding, which was truly an honor. During the process, it occurred to me that her Spanish is even harder for me to understand than is typical (not sure why) and therefore, I’ve never had a completely coherent conversation with her. Experiences like this are teaching me a lot about what loving people really means.I wish I had taken more pictures at the reception, because they made our little church building look really lovely. When our kids walked in, their jaws dropped.

Wedding preparations and events made the week a busy one, but a great one. I know I always say this, but we feel so lucky to be here.

Mary’s first date

They’re so cute! Even though they had Matt do that weird pose. (Who is he, Donald Trump?)She was very happy with her hair, which is a BIG deal, right?With her darling friend Carolina who happens to be Brazilian. Matt said you could tell Caro was Brazilian by how well she danced! It’s in their blood, he said. He’s a little biased.

preschool cracks me up

I have nothing but respect for preschool teachers, but their brains definitely work differently from mine. This art project is a reminder of our weekly “dia de la fruta” when we’re supposed to send fruit in for the snack. So I can just hear the teachers thinking, “Let’s have the children make a GIANT orange.”
“Yes, I know, we’ll have them glue tiny orange squares on it.”
“Then, let’s punch holes and make it into a necklace bigger than their heads!”
One more reason why we love preschool, because they are clearly way more fun than I am!

Michael Bublé

You know what? We’re pretty lucky people. Really we are. I was never a super big fan of Michael Bublé, but my friend Tracy is, and I’m a big fan of hers! Doesn’t she look a little like Marcia Gay Harden? Her daughter, Melissa, is in Mary’s class and I’m so glad we’ve gotten to know each other. Such a lovely person. Our husbands had never spent any time together, so this was a “first date” and we had a great time! Turns out Bublé is really good live. He is the real deal. I’m including this video in case you (like Matt) are thinking, who’s that again? [Matt is tired of me teasing him about this, but actually, I mean it as a compliment. Honey, you keep track of all the important things like world geography, current events, and being trilingual, and I'll handle the pop culture and math, ok?]

Also, the opening act, Naturally 7, was really good. I had fun sharing this video with Sam who is super impressed with the sounds these guys are able to make, 100% acapella.

on camping

I grew up in a non-camping family. (Yes, mom, I remember that one time.) My parents love the outdoors and are big gardeners, but prefer to sleep in their own bed. Perhaps growing up without indoor plumbing made camping seem less than exciting for my dad?

When I was 12, and joined our church’s youth program, I became a yearly girls’ camper. Guess what? I loved camping! I loved the camaraderie, loved sleeping in a tent (sometimes we were in cabins), loved campfires, loved hiking, loved the smell of our lovely Oregon woods. I was a lifelong camper, for sure.

Then I grew up and started having babies. I figured out immediately the main reasons my parents were never campers. Camping with small children means dirty, dirty kids, a potentially dangerous fire, and trying to get everyone to go to sleep in a tent (also known as mission impossible). Not to mention a ton of work to get ready, and a huge mess when you get home.

So here’s an admission. Our youngest two children have never been camping. We haven’t been camping together as a family, well, ever. The last time I can remember really doing it, Sam was a baby.

Until this weekend, that is. Our cub scout pack has a family campout every fall, and I sent Matt with the three older boys last year, but now that Thomas is three I realized we could probably take everyone. We had bought a used tent from another family who was leaving a year or so ago, so I rounded up seven sleeping bags and off we went.

Guess what?

I love camping.

I loved waking up in a tent (turned out to be a great tent for our family — a roomy 8-man, and easy to set up and take down) with all of my kids around me. Thomas was a little slow to settle in, because, after all, sleeping in a tent is pretty exciting. And Sam talks in his sleep (sometimes in Spanish!). But Matt and I had an air mattress, and didn’t sleep too badly.

Our kids loved the campfire — Sam led the singing and was very cute and enthusiastic and Lambert-y. And they loved the little hike and other activities planned by our cub scout group.

We were in a lovely campground, and really did feel away from it all.Even though it’s two days later and I’m still trying to catch up on laundry and finish cleaning out the van, I think we should do it again sometime soon. (PS can you tell I didn’t take enough pictures as usual? Someone help me — how do I remember to get the camera out more?)

happy weekend!

Just returned home from Mary’s kindergarten play, which was written by the children and featured the following characters: Minnie Mouse, Mario and Luigi, Harry Potter, a dragon, a kangaroo, a flower, four ballerinas, a butterfly, and the King of Disneyland. I didn’t even know Disneyland had a king, but it’s a good thing, because he really saved the day at the end. They are big on the kids doing things themselves at this school, and I hope you’ll notice the face paint, which they’ve been practicing all month long.
I’m not going to recount the plot, which I only sort of followed, but I will tell you that this was the most successful bun I’ve ever made in Mary’s hair (or anyone else’s). Instructions here.

re-thinking common sense

I listened to this podcast the other day that really made me re-think a few things.

(I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but as a mother of young children living in a foreign country, I really feel like listening to podcasts helps save my sanity. I also feel that Doug Fabrizio and Terry Gross are my friends, which I realize sounds slightly less sane.)

The guest, Duncan Watts, is a social scientist who was once a physicist, and I know this reflects a little intellectual snobbery on my part, but the physics background gave him some extra credibility for me. His book, which I should probably read, is about how what we think is common sense probably actually isn’t. Two main points which stuck with me…

• Our common sense is based on our experiences, so what is common sense to you will not be common sense for, say, a tribesman in Africa, or even just someone raised in a different family than yours.
• What we often refer to as common sense is actually hindsight, which as the saying goes, is always 20/20. There were some interesting studies that proved this — that when you tell people the answer, they’ll say, “Well of course,” but then if you give them a different answer to the same question and tell them the second one is really the right one, they will still say, “That makes perfect sense.” Can’t you see yourself doing that? I can.

Here’s my lightbulb moment. I think assuming things are common sense makes us judge other people unfairly. It seems so obvious to us what to do in any given situation, why can’t they see it?

Matt has a brother who is a social scientist, and I’ve offended him several times (he takes it really well) by opening my mouth when I should probably keep it closed. He studies things like how gratitude affects our happiness, and my smart-alecky response to that is, “Don’t we already know that gratitude makes us happy?” Well, it turns out, maybe not everyone does. I, and many of you, were raised in a way that makes his research seem like common sense, but perhaps doing a peer-reviewed study on the topic opens it up to a world where it isn’t common sense for everyone.

This same brother and I had quite a go-round on the topic of self-help books, which are popular in Matt’s family’s culture, but not so much in mine, and I realized my new thinking applies there too. My contention (among other things) was that  self-help books are chock full of common sense, and therefore a waste of time. Well, again, there are people for whom, “putting first things first,” for example, isn’t so obvious. One of my own children, I think, may benefit from reading about how to win friends, as it isn’t coming very naturally for him.

I can think of a thousand examples of this, and it’s probably not new news, but it bears repeating. We can’t assume that what we think is common sense or obvious. And we always need to give others a fair shot — maybe their common sense is just as good as ours, or even better.