bullet points

• classes are going great. if i didn't crave this stuff, i'd fail it. there are so many interesting lectures and so much to read. the only thing that comes in the way is my adorable son. just sitting doing my homework and somebody needs attention. he comes first. it's time to stop and play. and i'm not even mad.

• i made some delicious lentil soup last night, i've been craving the crap out of that stuff since i got back from italy! i was so excited. my lovely husband comes home, sees me stirring it in the pot and says "you aren't going to put that in the lentil soup are you?" -"this is the lentil soup." nice. the man has the least adventurous pallet ever. luckily he's learned the best thing to do is to taste it anyway. and about 90% of the time he's put himself to shame, loving what i've made. i win. that is my mattism for today. 

• grant has been wanting daddy a lot more lately. he would NOT go to sleep the other night and this one was tired on account of being woken up over and over the night before. he fusses and fusses and matt takes him - BAM he's out. i went to bed. nice work.

• grant's favorite thing is to be scared right now. he practically begs for it. he thinks it's hilarious. 

• for my art of the renaissance class i am reading dante's divine comedy. i never thought of it as a love story, but it's in there. i've learned more about art in the first two canto's than in an entire humanities class. it's had to put my other books aside for a little bit. 

a post on food

i've been told costco doesn't carry these any more, i'll for sure be checking that out but our asian market has them in small bags. oh my word. i could eat these all day.

matt and i made a little discovery called awesome ice cream at winco the other night. it's hard finding the good stuff in a grocery store. umpqua!

 tried the crockpot pumpkin bread last night, success. it's so moist and perfect. i tell you to try it. i was in the fall mood.

aaaaand these were on my mind for months, i just never bought grahm crackers and then i finally did. matt was all "eww...i don't want any." then i made him try it and changed that to "THESE ARE AWESOME!!!!"

supermaaaan

grant is bound to grow up loving all superheros just like his daddy. it will be awesome. matt will be in heaven.

here's our little superman. matt likes to turn on the theme song and fly him around. regularly.

book review

this was a good one. i actually listened to it on tape, read by anne hathaway, and i thought she did fantastic. grant enjoyed listening to it too. almost as much as the mans voice who reads the scriptures on the church website. he loves that.

there where several differences from the movie, i liked how much more they showed how much wisdom the scarecrow already had, how the tinman didn't really need a heart because of how much love he showed already, and how the cowardly lion was already so brave. i saw it so differently this round.

i've been on a bit of a wizard of oz kick, sad to have missed wicked when it was in town. i will just live on my memories of the last 3 times and listen to the soundtrack over and over, that works. i cannot wait til it comes out in theaters! 

matt, grant, and i watched the movie together after watching part of the tom and jerry version, it's true. it was on tv. we are excited for oz the great and powerful.

brooklyn's second!

we got to go back to see the babes on saturday but for brooklyn's party this time. i was just barely pregnant at her 1st birthday. she's changed SO much. she's just precious. i love this little girl. she's a rock star.

these three are so stinkin cute together.

we got her some pj's just like we got brayden two weeks ago. i'm peeved they didn't have female superhero ones, come on!

she was so cute with all her presents, going around and showing everybody. we had to pull her attention back to open others.

this one was the winner, she refused to get off her horse once daddy showed her that it was ok to get on it. "do you want some cake, brooklyn?" "no."

compared to brayden and compared to her birthday last year, she ate her cake like a princess. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROOKLYN!

jace is one!

we had two baby birthdays on saturday. the first was little baby jacey face. he is 1 and that is weird. time flies so quickly, it's strange to think about grant turning one.

amanda dressed grant for the day, he loves her! they are buddies. and i love her for cleaning up that diaper. good sister.

i remember when robert told me brittany was pregnant over chat while i was in ukraine. i was so bummed because i would miss her entire pregnancy and his birth! then i ended up coming home sooner than expected, living with them for awhile, and got to be there through it all. i love this little boy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACE!!

springville art

grant and i took a little visit down the street to the springville museum. i don't think i can get sick of it. they have 2 levels, the downstairs is where they change things up, upstairs is their permanent artwork.

right now the downstairs is a quilt showcase, it was pretty incredible. i can't imagine how some of those were even started. and i can't imagine how much time they each took to accomplish!

grant is too heavy. and that carseat plus his weight, i don't think so. SO on pinterest i found a DIY baby wrap, for some reason i'm not finding the tutorial, but it's pretty much a huge piece of fabric (that i made out of an old maxi dress i don't wear anymore) and then i used this website to help me know how to wrap my babe. it worked oh so well, i carried him comfortably around all day through the library and museum. when he got tired, i just put my arm there for him to rest on and he was out. while awake, i kept my hand on his back just to make sure he didn't jerk and flip out backwards but i didn't have to hold him up at all.

once i had my fill of quilts, we went up the gorgeous spiral staircase for some of my favorites. this one is so awesome, i've yet to figure out who everyone is but i've got most of them down. can you name them all for me?

my favorite room will always be the russian art, esspecially after spending so much time in that area of the world. my three favorites over there:

invasion:enemy at the door

back stage

peace to the world:may day, red square

love this museum, i got chills when i saw the curators office. that's a dream of mine, one day i'd like to curate. we shall see.

thai

i've had a curry craving all day, matt would never say no to thai so i mentioned it and immediately placed our order.

when we were dating, wanting to go teach english in thailand, we found an amazing family owned thai restaurant close by and matt would eat it every single day if i let him. and just like every other restaurant, he always gets the same thing. three brothers-a chicken, pork, and shrimp meal. and he LOVES jasmine rice. it is the perfect rice.

as for me, i've got a couple dishes i mix it up between, pad thai, pad woon sen, and of course today i neeeeeded the curry so...red vegetable curry it is.

i don't know why i've been fighting making this at home! the only reason is because i have to go get all these new ingredients i've never cooked with. but i know i'd love it...bah

grant's in this stage of random overwhelming happiness and giggling that switches in a second to frustration and tears. coincidentally, they go hand in hand with whether or not he's getting attention at the time. but it's adorable!

a book review and the wisdom of a man

if you are planning on reading life of pi and don't want the details ruined for you, just skip to after the first picture - or leave. whatever.

i finished it today. it's one of matt's favorite books so he mentioned that the ending would blow me away. i admit i was very confused. i did a little research afterword to discover the opinions of others. i wish i had thought of this story as symbolic from the beginning. i really like how the whole thing is encompassed in religion and faith. i didn't recognize that until after his 2 stories were told side by side and pi states the purpose of the entire book "..and so it is with God".

i am very excited for this movie to come out, i am interested to see how it is going to be put out. although i'm always disappointed in movies after i read the book. i hope they do well.

my favorite website of explanation, HERE, explained the book as the author's "personal protest to stop making sense. to believe in a reality beyond chemical."-"religion goes beyond the confines of the reasonable." ...all definitions of faith, no? sometimes it amazes me how much people refuse to just trust the Lord and have faith in things that don't makes as much sense to us right now.

speaking of religion, i was blessed with a very good and faithful husband. we've been married a year but i still have moments of amazement when he speaks. he's very wise. he loves deep doctrine, but he also knows there are some things that we just rely on with faith. he has a strong trust in the Lord that gives me a new strength.

matt has a special gift with blessings, it's something amazing every time. you can feel and hear the words coming straight from heaven. that has been a powerful blessing to me. and with his strengths i know i can go to him anytime. he has such an incredible way of making me feel better about things. he helps me feel good about myself. 

today i was struggling with a friend. if she ever read my blog, she'd know i was speaking of her. but she doesn't so i'm safe while also being completely fine if she did. she is making choices in her life right now that are very different from how we were raised. she goes with the flow, conforms to those she is closes with at the time. i struggle with the guilt that i haven't done enough for her. i talked to matt about that. his lesson to me was simple but profound.

Matthew: in tagolog there are two words for listen. "makinig", which is more like hearing and "pakinggan", which means "giving heed to". that's where a lot of us have a problem.

it made me think about those things that i give heed to and those things that i just hear and let pass through my mind. i know that my friend hears what i have to say, i'm grateful to always been comfortable to be able to share with her my concerns. i just hope that one day she can learn to "give heed to" the council of her parents, family, and friends who love and care about her. 

i'm grateful for the trials in my life that helped me learn to have more faith, to trust in my Heavenly Father more, to trust in my own judgement again, and to trust in the Holy Ghost. it lead me to better choices that resulted in the two most incredible blessings in my life. 

(my religion)

little look alike

matt came home yesterday, obviously satisfied with my choice of outfit on grant today because he said "he looks like charlie brown." and it was true. although he still looks more like his daddy.

i LOVE that he lets me cuddle him and he smiles and laughs when i kiss him all over his face. he knows i love him. although i know that stage will fade and it will embarrass him to be kissed and squeezed in public. so i'll enjoy it while it lasts!
and i have to add this first try picture of his charlie brown-ness. his faces crack me up everyday.

recent discoveries

~my current favorite thing is grant's routine when he wakes up from his nap. first he calls out to me and waits patiently. when he sees my face peek over his bed he smiles all big and happy that i came for him. then he stares up at me with his head tilted down, his eyes up, resting his cheeks into deep into his chest - i'm guessing this is some kind of stretch - i say "hi baby!" and he lifts his chin right up, his eyes open wide. i even caught it on camera. it's hilarious.

~grant is growing up too fast. the toys that get his attention recently prove it. he's a crack up.

~sometimes he doesn't even seem like a baby to me. he's like a little man, not like any of the babies i've ever met. is that just because he's mine?

~just another thing to add to the list of his similarities to his daddy, matt has to pull the blanket up to his face too. i can't sleep with it even near mine. if grant he doesn't have a blanket, his hands are up there. what weirdos. and also cute heads.

~i fail recording recent mattisms but the last one i did write down cracked me up. while watching the gymnasts during the olympics, he calmly states "batman could do that."

~i've recently discovered how many very different kinds of feminists there are out there. i always thought i was one to an extent, but now i realize i'm in the lower end of things. i'm proud and choose to be a stay at home mom. but i still feel it's important for me to finish my college education. i'd like to go back to work when all my kids are in school. i'm grateful for my gift to bare children and i'm grateful for my husband who holds the priesthood worthily in our home, those two things are what make us equals.

~i still can't eat pickles. i ate far too many whilst i was with child.

~finding a good cheesecake recipe is hard work. i've tried 4 different ones now and they all fail. although the last one could have been better with a good crust.

~my hair is finally starting to get "long enough". i don't regret chopping it off but i do miss it.

~i'm so excited for classes to start, 6 days and counting! 

~slow cooker salsa chicken is still a huge winner, i've made it plenty and it's what's on the menu tonight!