21st Century, Here We Come

So, yes, we finally have a digital camera. I have nothing clever to say about this; I just want to show you some pictures of my beautiful kids.

Katie loves to get woken up from her naps.

"Excuse me?"

Just being silly, as usual.

Look at that curly red hair. Don't you love it?

Charlie is already such a studious boy.

"Hey! What's going on here?"

Now with pictures

Got our tax refund last Friday. Mostly being super practical with it, but allowed ourselves to splurge on one item -- a much needed one in my opinion. Three guesses as to what we bought.

Katie is a Crack-up

Josh was quizzing Katie on the noises that different animals make. He decided to throw her a curveball -- "what noise does Charlie make?"

Katie's response? "Choo, choo!"

When he asked Katie what noise a horse makes, she said, "I can't do horse."

How Alek Avoids Getting in Trouble

We went to a baptism tonight and, like all good Mormon functions, there were plenty of refreshments afterwards. We hadn't had dinner, so the kids were not supposed to be partaking of anything sweet. Josh caught Alek eating a cookie and so got ready to lecture him.

"Alek, why are you eating that cookie?"

Thinks for a minute with an uh oh look on his face. "Because it's de-li-cious?"

Josh was laughing too hard to continue the conversation.

Jessica Today

I started my "new job", which is basically everything I've already been doing for the past two years, plus everything I've been doing for the past month and a half, with a slightly better title and slightly better pay. Also the promise of moving away from the front desk and turning over most of the clerical duties to a new person, whenever we hire someone -- that's the best part.

I lost three pounds this week, bringing me to a total of 37 pounds. So only 29 more pounds to go. Think I can get there by June 30 (my birthday)?

I volunteered to sing to my boss as part of recognizing him for 5 years of service. We're doing "Association Idol", because he loves "American Idol." What is wrong with me? Of course, at first they wanted me to be Randy Jackson. Singing seemed like the better deal.

I am still thinking about all the wonderful things I heard last night at the worldwide leadership training broadcast we had at church. I took a ton of notes and had a lot of ideas about how we could move forward as a family. It was such a great meeting and I am so glad I was able to go.

I am also trying to figure out how Josh and I can swing going on a date for Valentine's Day. Finding a babysitter is always the biggest issue.

Katie is singing "Wheels on the Bus", Alek is planning family home evening, and Charlie is hungry. That's my cue to sign off.

My kids are cuties

Is there anything cuter in the world than little kids' voices? I love hearing Katie talk. One of her favorite phrases now is, "Come on, let's go," which she normally says while grabbing your hand and trying to lead you away to wherever she wants to go. She uses this when she wants to dance, when she wants her teeth brushed, when she wants to leave the house, when she wants a snack. It's pretty adorable.

I think Charlie's eye color has finally stabilized. Looks like they're going to be green. Is that awesome or what? All of my kids have beautiful eyes. Alek's are a dark, dark brown, like mine (although darker -- more like mine when I was a kid). He also has some fairly amazing eyelashes. Katie's are also brown, but they have a ton of green flecks in them. But her eyes are not quite hazel. They're just gorgeous, though, and they look so great with her red hair and her pale rosy skin. And it looks like Charlie will be our one non-brown-eyed child. I couldn't decide for a long time if his eyes were blue or green, but I would definitely say they're green. Not like your typical green eyes, though -- I mean, there is just a lot of blue in that green.

This is why I never became a writer. I have no ability to describe how things look.

Charlie has recently developed a great love of stuffed animals. He has this gigantic bear he got for Christmas that he loves to attack and bite, and he recently started sleeping with a little stuffed dog. When I put him down in his crib, he crawls over to wherever the dog is and lays his head on top of it. This morning when I went into his room, he was just lying on his back, awake, with his little arms wrapped around that dog. He looked perfectly content. It was so sweet.

One of the things Alek is studying in school this year is the lives of the saints (the importance of doing good deeds and the consequences that follow good behavior, rather than a religious approach). Last night, he drew a picture of a story about St. Jerome that they have been learning in school. It's good to know that he is absorbing the information from school and enjoys it enough to revisit it at home.

I Should Be Used to It

But why do people hate Mormons so much? Not everyone, of course. Most people seem to at least think we're okay people, even if they think what we believe is a little strange. But there are those people out there who just genuinely hate us and say terrible things about us and believe all kinds of crazy things about us that simply are not true.

I've been getting this my whole life. Seriously. In elementary school, which is really about as far back as I can remember, I had a kid trying to convince me that all Mormon churches had statues of Joseph Smith in them and we all prayed to him and worshiped him. I tried to tell him that wasn't true, but he insisted it was -- never mind that I'd been going to an LDS church since birth and he'd never set foot inside one. He obviously knew more about all this than I did.

I know that these hateful people have pretty much zero impact on the church and absolutely zero impact on the truth or the fact that it will continue to roll forward. Brigham Young said that every time someone kicks the church, they kick it upstairs. So nothing to worry about, right?

And I'm not worried. I just feel sad that people feel that way. I feel sad that people who don't even know me hate me. And it's just frustrating and irritating (and very against my nature) to let other people have their say and not say anything in return. But I know it does no good to engage these people, so I just bite my tongue.

Sometimes I get tired of biting my tongue.

Maybe I should stock up on duct tape.

President Hinckley

So it doesn't seem right not to say anything about the passing of Gordon B. Hinckley. He was a great man and I will miss his smile and his humor and warmth. But I'm just so glad he has finally been reunited with his wife, that I just can't muster any sadness about his passing at all. I gotta think he doesn't feel too bad about it either.

Cheatriots Go Down in Flames

In general, I don't condone watching sports on Sunday; however, was that game awesome or what? Didn't watch the whole thing, but holy moly the last quarter was something else. Eli Manning and David Tyree coming through with that totally clutch miraculous pass/reception. What the heck?! How did Manning get away from what looked like practically the entire Patriots defensive line? How did Tyree grab and then hold onto that ball? AMAZING!!!

I'm not a big Giants fan, but I sure like Eli Manning and I sure hate the Patriots. Not a big fan of Tom Brady either, especially not since he pulled a K-Fed and ditched his pregnant actress girlfriend for a bigger name star. Unlike K-Fed, however, he has not gotten much flack for that behavior. I guess if you're a big star and generally thought of as attractive, you can pretty much get away with anything.

I would rant about that some more, but I don't really have enough emotional energy to get worked up about that right now. My emotional energy is pretty much all tied up in things that actually pertain to my life.

Anyway, hoorah to the Giants! Thank you for beating the Patriots.