Vacation, Alek is 10, Fitz is 4 Months, and Other Things I've Been Neglecting to Blog About

I do realize I haven't posted pictures of my family or done any updating in forever. I am lazy, what can I say? Here is a super long post to make up for that. And I apologize in advance for all the red-eye. My camera is being lame these days and I just can't take the time right now to fix all the red-eye in these pics.

Things that have happened this summer

Alek turned 10. Yes, I have a 10 year old. I can't believe how quickly the years have gone. It doesn't seem like so long ago that he looked like this:

BTW, I defy you to find a cuter kid. As cute, maybe, but cuter than this? Come on.

Alek is awesome. I can barely remember what life was like before he existed here on earth. He is one of my favorite people in the whole world and I am so blessed to be his mom. He has been in Arizona for two weeks and it's been torture. I can't wait until he comes home (still 9 more days).

We were visiting with family in Utah on Alek's birthday so he got to have a birthday party with a bunch of his cousins. He had DELICIOUS pizza made by his cousin, Ellie, and my sister, Jen. (Jen I need that crust recipe.) He had a very ugly cake made by yours truly (it was an unplanned rush job and I feel really bad about how it turned out). He opened presents and watched Inkheart. He enjoyed himself, as he almost always does, no matter what is going on. Even when he has extremely chapped lips.

So, as mentioned above, we went on vacation to Utah to visit family. We stayed with my sister, Jen, and her family. My mom moved in with them a couple of months ago, so we stayed with her, too, I guess. I got them to myself for a few days and then toward the middle of my stay, I picked up my sister, Heather, so she could spend some time with us before moving to Iowa. And then Amy and her family came to visit. At one point, we had 29 people in the house. Awesome. I don't know how Jen put up with all of us, but we had a great time.

Jen and her family live at the bottom of a gorgeous canyon. See?


Josh spent a lot of time drawing and reading, two things he hardly has time to do anymore, thanks to full-time dad duties. He had fun showing our nieces and nephews how to use the stylus pad.


Alek spent almost the entire vacation outside and I rarely saw him. Katie spent a lot of time following Gracie around. Charlie spent a lot of time trying to (and often succeeding) play in the toilet and bathtub.


Fitz got to meet the other two Geer grandbabies born in March. Josh and Fitz are just one day apart, and Sally is about 4 weeks older than Fitz. Can you tell?

Fitz and Josh

Sally and Fitz

Sally and Josh are both cuties and it was so fun to see Fitz with the cousins his age. If only we could have had little Max there, too, then we would have had all the new babies together.

While in Utah, my mom and Jen offered to watch all 4 of our kids one day (they're saints) so Josh and I could go on a date. We made the two-hour drive into Salt Lake, ate lunch and took in the sights at Temple Square. We also took a tour of the Conference Center. We had a great time. Being at Temple Square, I just felt overwhelmed by how much I love the church. There is no greater organization on earth. It's such a tremendous thing to be a part of.

Josh took this picture. Isn't it good?

Utah was awesome and I can't wait to go back. Hopefully next time I can squeeze in some time to see friends and make it to BYU.

Besides our tremendously fun vacation and Alek's birthday, our summer has been pretty typical. Charlie got a haircut. We used to be able to do this:



Now, not so much.


I've declared it the Summer of Harry Potter at our house. Katie is obsessed with HP; she watches the first three movies on a regular basis, constantly talks about HP, pretends to read the books, and tries to curse me daily. Alek started reading the series and is already on book 4. I'm a huge HP nerd and so I am re-reading the series. I am on book 6.

Eat slugs!

Alek the reader

On my birthday, we had a family photo shoot. It didn't turn out too well. Turns out, Josh completely does not know how to smile for the camera and we all know how easy it is to get kids to cooperate for picture taking.

First, we tried to get a picture of all of us together. This is the best shot.



Then we tried to get a good picture of me and Josh. Josh didn't make it so easy.




Last, we tried to get a picture of the four kids together. Ha ha ha. Here is how that went.





Last, but not least, Fitzcutie turned 4 months old on Wednesday. He had his 4 month check up today. He is 26.5 inches long and 17.5 lbs, which is 90th percentile for both. He is rolling over both ways, clearly wants to be mobile, and has two teeth. His hair is getting lighter every day and I can't tell if he's going to end up being blonde like Charlie, a redhead like Katie or some in between color. He is the sweetest, cutest, most easy going baby. I'm enjoying him a lot.



And thus concludes the world's longest blog post. Hope you enjoyed it.

UPDATE: Alek is actually 2/3 of the way through book 5 of HP, now. Just talked to him this morning and got the update.

More Good Reads

Andrew C. McCarthy

Jonah Goldberg

Mona Charen

AND THE MUST READ: Mark Steyn on health care

Articles I Read During Lunch Today

http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2009/07/22/take_two_aspirin_and_call_me_when_your_cancer_is_stage_4

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/07/23/magician_politics

http://townhall.com/columnists/MikePence/2009/07/23/its_time_to_de-fund_planned_parenthood

http://townhall.com/columnists/MeredithTurney/2009/07/23/the_ungovernable_state

I'm Enjoying My Old Age

This past Sunday, just a few weeks late, my birthday was celebrated during Young Women's. I stood at the front of the room, with two very grown up looking 15-year old girls next to me, realized that I was more than twice their age, and thought, "I'm old." But the funny thing is, the thought that I was old did not bother me one bit.

Now, of course, you will be tempted to tell me that I am not old. Well, certainly I am not old compared to many billions on the planet. I do grasp that. And I certainly intend to live for a much longer time, so I am not old in that sense, either. Rather, I am old because . . . well, because I am not young. I do not have that young mindset or spirit. You know, the whole, when I was a child, I spake as a child thing. Actually, that scripture makes me think of an interesting and important distinction -- the difference between being childish and childlike. Childish bad, childlike good. In my worst moments, I hold on to childish things, but as the years pass, I am letting more and more of them go, and I think I have let enough of them go to now consider myself old.

Now you'll have to forgive me if I offend you with what I am about to say; it certainly is not intended. But one of the childish things I have given up (gave up quite a while ago, actually) is the belief that socialized medicine is a good thing. When I was a teenager with a sick dad, socialized medicine seemed like a great idea. We didn't need it; we had health insurance. But I felt bad for all those who didn't. Feeling compassion for others is not a childish thing. That is an important, eternal thing. Forfeiting responsibility for ourselves and our fellow man and calling it compassion is a childish thing, as is using compassion as an excuse to ignore facts.

I am old enough now to realize that a government whose stated goals are to make everyone equal and give everyone a warm, fuzzy feeling is a bad government. It is not the role of government to attempt to make us equal (which is impossible for it to do, by the way). Government should recognize that God created us as equals and what happens after that is up to us. And a good government lets it be up to us and stays out of our way as much as possible. I am also old enough to realize that a government who says they want to make us all equal is actually just manipulating us to grow government and gain more power.

A good government is founded on sound principles. A good government protects the rights of its citizenry. A good government is not charitable, but through its protection of liberties allows its citizens to be charitable. A good government looks at facts, takes time to make major decisions and does not pass bills that do not even yet exist in physical form.

As has been said, facts are tricky things. Here are a few facts: where the United States government has gotten involved in health care, it has made a mess of things; socialized medicine in other countries has not led to lower costs or to better health; the numbers of how many uninsured there are in this country include those who can afford insurance, but choose not to be insured, and illegal immigrants. Here's another fact: the rich among us (which includes many more of us than you probably realize) should not have to pay 60% of their hard-earned money in taxes to support bloated and inefficient government programs, including a socialized health care system. Are there so many millions of us who are still childish enough to believe in the Robin Hood principle of stealing from the rich to give to the poor? Is stealing ever okay? Do the ends justify the means?

Alleviating suffering is not the role of government; that is the responsibility of each capable person. We are all called upon to bear one another's burdens, to lift up the hands that hang down, to look after the sick and afflicted, the poor and the needy, the widows and the fatherless. These are the duties that each person who strives to be called a decent human being must undertake. And it is the childlike among us who will undertake them. And it is the childish among us who will look at what others have and which they lack, stamp their feet and demand we hurt others so they can get their fair share.

More food for thought:

Thomas Sowell
David Kahane
Rich Lowry

Surviving Civic Duty and Other Updates

For the first time ever, I had jury duty today. It actually wasn't bad; it was mostly interesting. But the case I was a potential juror for is going to last about two weeks. I cannot be out of work for two weeks right now. Cannot happen. Too busy. But apparently, the court does not consider that a good excuse. I sat all day listening to the judge and lawyers ask questions and dismiss people, but by 3:30, I still hadn't been called as one of the people to go sit in the jury box. I thought I was home free.

Then they called me to be juror #11. Nooooooo!

I thought for sure I was doomed to miss work for the next two weeks, effectively putting me behind so far that I would never catch up. But once I explained to the judge and lawyers that I once had to get an order of protection for Alek and that I had family members who had been victims of a serious crime, they got rid of me pretty quickly. Thus I was juror #11 for about 15 minutes. (As a side note, I didn't talk about my issues in open court -- well, I did about the order of protection, but that's because I forgot to talk about it when I was privately discussing the other matter with the judge and the lawyers. But I was very vague about the details when I had to speak about that in front of everyone. I mean, hello, some things are private. Of course, this concept is lost on many, as was all too apparent today. I actually didn't need to know that one potential juror is an alcoholic who used to beat his wife. That just doesn't seem like the kind of thing you bring up in a room with 65 of your closest strangers. Maybe that's just me.)

I actually would like to be on a jury one day and I think I could be an excellent juror. But the timing right now would be pretty awful. Call me back in about 10 years and we'll see.

The worst part of the day was lunch. I went to grab a bite to eat at a local, cheap place which I have been known to frequent. When I got there, there was an obviously mentally handicapped woman trying to buy a burger, but she was a dollar short. She was having a hard time understanding that she didn't have enough and that there wasn't a smaller, cheaper burger she could order. I felt bad for her. She was hungry and was at just about the cheapest place to eat in downtown Sacramento and didn't have enough money for her meal. So I offered to make up the difference.

The woman was very nice and grateful and it was no big deal at all -- I gave her a buck and some change so she wouldn't go hungry. It was such an easy way to be of service and I felt good that I had been there to help.

Then the most appalling thing happened. The woman working the register, someone who I have had several conversations with since I am a fairly regular customer, said, "I'll let you pay for her this time, but next time, you can't do that. Because this is my place and I don't want you doing that."

What?! I was seriously disgusted at that. I can't imagine what her problem was. She got her money, what difference does it make to her who it came from? The woman I bought the burger for wasn't dirty or loud or obnoxious or making other customers uncomfortable or anything. She seemed like your run-of-the-mill, sweet, mentally retarded woman to me. I was so taken aback at the time I didn't know what to say, but I intend to write a letter to this joint and tell them I am not coming back. I don't want to go to a place that can't appreciate a simple act of human kindness and that cannot treat the mentally disabled with respect, compassion and courtesy. Consider my business lost.

So we recently got back from our trip to Utah, during which we celebrated Alek's 10th birthday. I'll post about those later and include pictures.

I did want to share the exciting news that Fitz is now rolling from his back to his stomach. He started on Monday and now he is a pro. In fact, we can't keep him on his back. Funny thing is, he hates being on his stomach. Silly baby.

P.S. Just discovered that Fitz has a tooth, on the bottom front. It's not all the way up yet, but it has broken through the gums. Guess I was right that all the drooling he's been doing lately is because he is teething!

Now Lamer Than Ever

There are just a ton of things I need to blog about, dozens of pictures to post, thoughts I should put out in the world, etc.

Instead I am posting this picture my husband drew. On his computer. In about 45 minutes.



For an internet comic he is planning to do.