Mid Seventies

It's a good week to live in Boston! This doesn't happen very often (at least not so far this year):

Tonight Partly Cloudy Lo 56 °F

Monday Sunny Hi 75 °F

Monday Night Mostly Clear Lo 51 °F

Tuesday Sunny Hi 73 °F

Tuesday Night Clear Lo 51 °F

Wednesday Sunny Hi 74 °F

Wednesday Night Mostly Clear Lo 56 °F

Thursday Sunny Hi 77 °F

Thursday Night Mostly Clear Lo 57 °F

Piano Bench

Check out our amateur re-upholstery work. We're pretty proud of it!

Before:

Covered with plastic so that icky yellow antique-smelling dust wouldn't get all over our house.

During:

This was after the hard parts were done. Ben was the man power behind this job. I was the brains, the craft, and the style. And Ben was some of the brains too (it was his idea to look on YouTube for how-to videos).

After:

It's hard to see the little polka-dots. It's a spill-resistant fabric!

Voila! The most comfortable (and beautiful) piano bench we've ever owned.

Ten of The Best

A few things that are too good to not recommend . . .

1. Best dinner recipe: This recipe for Gnocchi with Summer Vegetables from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. I tried 10 new recipes over the past month, and this one is the winner! Uses fresh ingredients -- so healthy and delicious.

2. Best dessert for the moment: This recipe for Yummy Peach Dessert. We make it almost every year when peaches are in season, and it always hits the spot. Maybe I'm just in a peach mood this year, but fresh peaches (especially paired with a graham cracker crust and cream cheesy goodness) are SO good.

3. Best children's book at the moment: Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? by Dr. Seuss. I get such a kick out of reading this one aloud. And it has a great message, for any of you who are feeling down in the dumps. There is always somebody worse off than you! Read my full review here.

4. Best way to get 20 minutes of peace without someone asking me a million questions: The Wee Sing and Learn series of board books + CDs (we request them from our library). Henry is mesmerized by these just as much, if not more so than he is mesmerized by Diego DVDs. He will sit at the kitchen table by the CD player, following along with the songs in his board book. He sings along. He enthusiastically answers the quiz questions asked by the children on the CD. And he does it all by himself! Such a lifesaver for me, all without adding extra screen time to our day (Thanks, Mary & Jack).

5. Best audiobook: Angela's Ashes, read by the author, Frank McCourt. Ben and I listened to this book at the same time, and it has been one of the great highlights of our year. It is compelling, witty, and heartrending. And McCourt's Irish accent is phenomenal (which is why you MUST listen to this rather than read it).

6. Best new discovery: Probably you have already discovered it. But on the chance that you haven't, I thought it was worth mentioning that Pandora has changed our lives over the past 6 months. It is a website that creates free, online, custom radio stations for you. You just type in the name of a band or artist you like, and it creates a station for you based on similar artists. No more stupid radio stations! No more listening to music you don't like! If it gives you a song you don't like, you can tell it so and it will never play it again. You can mix up different artists. There are pretty much no commercials. Why did no one tell me about this sooner? (Thanks, Shug). Some stations for you to try: Oren Lavie/Sondre Lerche, Regina Spektor, Ben Kweller, Cute is What We Aim For/Copeland.

7. Best new CD: Regina Spektor's Far. It is beautiful, bold, and stirring. A tad bit more mainstream than her older albums, which I don't consider to be a bad thing in Spektor's case. It is also better than Begin to Hope by a couple of notches, in my opinion. Henry has picked up on it quickly, commenting often that "blue is the color of our planet from far, far away," and asking "Why is no one laughing at God?" If you trust Henry's taste (and you should), you will like this (Thanks, Brittany).

8. Best old (2006) CD: Cute is What We Aim For's The Same Old Blood Rush with a New Touch. I popped this CD in last week and was like, "Dang, this is good. Amazingly good." SO many awesome, edgy, upbeat songs on that album. They just keep shooting 'em out, one after the other. Mmmm hmmmm. Try it (Thanks, Brady & Tanner).

9. Best Miracle Worker: Tilex Mold & Mildew Cleaner. Maybe some of you don't live in Boston where humidity reigns. Maybe some of you have decent ventilation in your bathroom. Maybe some of you are better at cleaning your shower than me. If you are not any of those people and you have had yucky black mold accumulate along the corners of your shower or even on your bathroom ceiling or miscellaneous items in your sticky basement, then this product is for you (I should get paid for this). I have spent hours scrubbing at the caulking in my bathroom and haven't seen any difference in the mold. And then . . . I sprayed the Tilex on, waited five minutes, and it magically disappeared. I kid you not. Maybe you all knew about this a long time ago. Let's just say cleaning is not my forté. I'm working on it.

10. Best Popsicles: Popsicle brand Mighty Minis with "Slow-Melt" Technology. Okay, so I realize these might not be for everyone. I heard a rumor that some people have kids that eat a lot of food, and they eat it fast. My children, on the other hand, refuse almost every food and then still manage to spend at least 3 hours a day sitting at the table eating. Hence, the perfect combination: teeny tiny popsicles (2-3 bites' worth) that don't melt all over the place in the 15 minutes it takes my boys to eat them. Genius! And I like to think they are easing Ellis through his teething pain (my nurse recommended popsicles). Try them, unless your kids are the eating type (most kids could probably eat the whole box in one sitting. Not mine!).

Fast Train to MA, anyone?

Perhaps you could say that Henry is a bit jealous of the attention Ellis is getting recently. He manifests this jealously in many ways. One of my favorites is when he jumps in front of Ellis during walking practice and says, "I can walk too!" while knocking Ellis over. Such a sweet, nurturing big brother!

Case in point, as I'm making the previous post about Ellis, Henry - the Wingdings enthusiast of our family - insists that I post his latest creation from Microsoft Word here on the blog, for all [Grandma] to see! This is the train from Utah to Massachusetts. If any of you want to hop aboard, talk to Henry for details. Oh, and this is the abridged version.

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He Moves!

At 11 months, Ellis is finally a crawler! Well, not officially a crawler. He's still doing some version of the army crawl, but the important thing is that HE MOVES! If you've talked to me recently, you know I've been super anxious for Ellis to start crawling because our kids just seem to be so much happier if they can move on their own. In that conversation, you probably warned me that I wouldn't actually like having a baby that crawls. Henry never crawled, so I definitely didn't know all the woes of crawlers. Apparently, there's a lot to learn . . . like how you have to get rid of things like night lights plugged close to the floor and put barricades in front of things like toilet plungers. And you have to keep your floor swept and mopped fairly often, unless you want to be mortified by the color of your baby's clothes by the end of the day. Well, I still think it's worth it!

If you want to see the crawler in action, here's a video clip. This is one of my favorites -- watch for what happens the very moment Ellis notices that the fridge is open. And for the Ellis fan club, keep watching the clip for his other recent tricks (including kiss-blowing and his first 5 "words").

Ellis' New Tricks from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Babysitting Swap Article

I'm famous!!! I never knew how much I would like public attention until Rodrique Ngowi from the Associated Press contacted me in the process of writing this article about babysitting swaps. Now I know -- my name is all over the newspapers, and I'm feeling very important! I know the article showed up at least in the Deseret News and the Standard Examiner in Utah, and it's in the Boston Globe here. Unfortunately, we missed the photo-op because we were in Utah at the time, so are kids are not yet famous. :(

The article is about the babysitting swap we have been doing and loving for the past 6 months. I got the idea from Ben's sisters Katie and Kara, and I feel I owe them my life because it has been so nice! Our group has 5 families and a total of 8 kids. Every Saturday night, from 5:00 - 8:30, one lucky family gets to host and watch all the kids. The other 4 couples get to go on a date or do whatever they want. We love having 4 free nights of babysitting for the price of one. It's especially nice to just be able to count on it each week without having to plan anything. The kids also have a great time; we have been surprised at how easy it is to let the kids just run around, watch a movie, eat snacks, etc. Henry loves it and calls it a "Babysitting Party!" He is now good friends with all of the kids, and they are all comfortable with each other and play together well. It's a win-win situation all around.

August 13th

Happy International Left-handers Day! Don't forget to buy something special for that lefty in your life. And if you can't think of a lefty in your life, I can think of one who'd appreciate a gift! (Wink, wink)

To celebrate the day, here are some little-known facts about lefties, which may or may not be true:

-Most left-handers draw figures facing to the right.

-Left-handers adjust more readily to seeing underwater.

-4 of the 5 original designers of the Macintosh computer were left-handed

-1 in 4 Apollo astronauts were left-handed - 250% more than the normal level.

-They are "considerably more intellectually gifted", according to studies performed by Dr. Alan Searleman of the St. Lawrence University in New York.

-Left-handers were severely discriminated against during the 18th and 19th centuries and it was often "beaten out" of people (where's MY affirmative action???)

-2500 lefties a year die from using right-handed products

-About 66% of American presidents in the last 30 years were left-handed men.

-Left-handed people also tend to earn more money.
- You type the words desegregates, reverberated, watercress, aftereffects, and sweaterdresses exclusively with the left hand.

Enjoy your day, lefties of the world!

Mission Call

Jenn mentioned a couple of posts ago that my parents had their mission call but hadn't opened it yet because my dad was backpacking and my mom was in Virginia visiting a new granddaughter. Well, my dad finally made it to Virginia and they opened their call about an hour ago. The result? They're headed to ...

...Edinburgh, Scotland!!! They will serve as family history missionaries for 18 months, and leave November 23rd. Needless to say, we're all thrilled about the assignment (it's perfect for them!), and Jenn and I are secretly hopeful that their mission president will allow visitors. :) I'm sure there's an academic conference in the UK that I could present at, right?

If you see my parents, tell then congratulations!

Look-alikes

Henry - 8 months

Ellis - 10 months

Free Food!

I just got all of this food ($25 value) for free! I will spare you the details, but if you are interested in this great promotion from Kraft foods, look here. I think it's still going on in most stores in the Albertson's/Shaw's family until the 23rd! Thanks, Rebecca, for the tip! Also, Rebecca posted on her blog about this fabulous website called She Shops Smart, which gives lots of great tips for similar promotions as well as how to combine coupons with store deals to save tons of money on groceries! Right up my alley, as you know. I would definitely recommend it, along with Grocery Smarts to those living in Utah or its surrounding states. The sites focus on deals in those areas in particular, and it's all free! Go out and get your free food while the deal lasts.

Utah, We Love Thee (Part 2)

Here are some pictures of our time with the Iversons. This was our last time with Ben's parents before they leave on their mission (they have their call in hand but can't open it until next Wednesday because they are not together at the moment). It was so nice to have a relaxed schedule while we were there to just enjoy being with them.

Henry and McKay? (a distant cousin) doing the three-legged race at the Patrick Family Reunion

Henry doing the sack race

I love this picture of my hair (no, I didn't win the race).

Ellis loved Aunt Elma's cinnamon lollipops!

Henry has been talking about rides ever since Jessica and Evan took him to a fair in New Jersey in April. We decided it would be fun to go to Lagoon while we were in Utah. He loved it! The face he's making in this "Bulgy the Whale" picture is typical of how he looked on every ride. Just a content little smile.

Henry's favorite ride was no surprise to any of us -- the bumper cars!

Henry and the space ship

Ellis and Grandma got to ride the carousel for free!

He smiled the whole time. I love this picture!

My favorite was all the time we spent just hanging around the house. Henry loved the trampoline. Isn't he ridiculously good-looking?

Henry and Sierra doing puzzles (Thanks, H for typing this line!)

Ellis loved playing with his cousin Zach . . .

and with Grandpa!

Everyone got to take turns walking Ellis around!

Henry helped with the garden. Yum -- fresh raspberries!

Henry and Grandpa built a city out of Tinkertoys!

Proof that Ben and his dad didn't waste their whole day at the Provo River :)

Water day with Grandma!

Ellis and Grandma became good friends.

Visiting Robbie at his pool with the boys

Visiting Brittany and Swain in Provo (pictured here at Bridal Veil Falls)

Thanks to everyone for visiting with us and for making our trip sensational (and sorry if you didn't get pictured in this post!). As much as we love Utah, we may never visit if it weren't for all of the people there that we love!

Utah, We Love Thee (Part 1)

There are perks to being the kind of citizens who can classify themselves as "unemployed." Who needs a salary? We prefer a wide-open summer vacation and the chance to spend nearly a month in the wide-open spaces of . . . UTAH! [For Ben's sake, I will clarify that he DID spend several days locked in a bedroom with his laptop "doing research"].

3 1/2 weeks in Utah = Lots of pictures. Here, the Griffin half:

This is the view from my parents' backyard. It's even more stunning in real life. I think I had forgotten how much I love being able to see far distances and open space. I love the trees in MA, but they (along with the buildings and houses being so close together) can make you claustrophobic after a while. Utah's vistas were good for my soul.

Ellis was mostly miserable for the first half of the trip because he missed his walker. He desperately wants to walk or crawl but is not willing to put forth any effort in learning. This resulted in Ellis being held most of the time. And his heightened stranger anxiety meant I got to be the lucky one to hold him! After a while, he started getting used to the idea of not being held. This is one of his only happy moments in the exersaucer.

Grandpa Dave set up the super-sized slip & slide. Isaac helped Henry to be brave.

Isaac, the role model for all things daring

Henry, who will protect his eyes from getting water in them at all costs

I love the mountains, especially for hiking and views like this (Silver Lake).

The hiking team (Grandma and Grandpa took the picture)

Henry filled his pockets and hands with rocks to throw in the lake.

Uncles Tanner and Brady indoctrinated Henry with Ninja Turtle knowledge and nunchucking skills. We all had a full-fledged Turtles night, watching the first movie and eating Dominoes pizza. It was a fun (albeit eerie) trip down memory lane. We opted out of watching all three movies in one night after the first one got over. Go ninja, go ninja, go!

Henry, Ivan, and Isaac riding the Front Runner!

Henry and Isaac riding the rails

This was outside the train museum at Union Station.

I love this pictures of all the boys with Grandpa Dave.

We miss our family so much! The whole trip seems like a dream. In his prayers, Henry has replaced "please bless that we can get more toys" with "please bless that we can get a better house." He wants a house "like the ones in Utah," and "all the houses in Utah are garage houses." We'll see -- maybe someday!