Opus 361 - Day 4

Favorite Book

Another easy one: Russka by Edward Rutherfurd. When I was in college I had the incredible opportunity to tour Finland, Russia, and the Baltic States. Before leaving on tour, one of our directors recommended that we read Russka in order to get a better understanding of the Russian people (it's a historical novel that takes you through Russia's entire, complex history). I loved the book and have read it more times than I can count. Something about it drew me into Russian history. I have read many books on the subject since. The only thing I don't like about the book is that it jumps right through the cold war. I would have enjoyed reading more about that time.

Opus 360 - Day 3

Favorite Television Show

This one is much easier. I have two:

The West Wing - I just enjoy the drama :)

Jeopardy! - I learned to love Jeopardy! while we lived with my grandma when we first moved to Arizona (it was six months before we finally had our own house). Grandma loved Jeopardy! She always watched it. There was only one TV in her house, so it was Jeopardy! or nothing. I chose to watch it with her and got hooked. Ken Jennings is my hero. Not really, but I did love watching him. Grandma passed away just before he was on the show. She would've loved him. Actually, she was probably helping him out. I'm just like my grandma - I never miss an episode. The best part is that I feel like it helps me get smarter. You'd be surprised how much I've learned, and retained, from watching Jeopardy!

Opus 359 - Day 2

Favorite Movie

Oh boy, here's another I can't narrow down to one:

A League of Their Own - I mostly like this one because it has one of my favorite songs (see previous post) and one of my favorite quotes (I guess you'll have to wait for the post on favorite quotes for that one!).

An American President - I don't know why I like it, I guess it's a girl thing :)

The Pirates of Penzance (the one with Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt and Angela Lansbury) - I was introduced to this in college, then conducted the pit orchestra when I was teaching HS band, and have used it as a cross-curriculum assignment with my students (studying parodies). Funny, funny, funny. If you haven't seen it, go find it!

Aladdin - This is my all time favorite Disney movie. I watched it a ton in high school (in Arizona). So much so that we could recite it from beginning to end. We did it during football games - our team was really, really bad. We were 0-10 my Junior year. So we had to entertain ourselves some how!

Anne of Green Gables/Avonlea - What girl doesn't love these?? We used to have Anne marathons and stay up all night watching these. I can't wait to get my little girl addicted too.

Opus 358 - Day 1

Favorite Song

This one is actually really hard for me. I have so many "favorite songs." Just ask my students - I'm always saying, "This is one of my very favorite songs..." I don't know that I can pick one favorite, so here a few on my "favorites" list:

A Movement for Rosa by Mark Camphouse - This is a song I played when I was in BYU's Wind Symphony. It tells the story of Rosa Parks through music. I fell in love with it and still love it. I've created a power point slide show with images of Rosa Parks with the music playing in the background that I show to my students every February for Black History Month.

Last Farewell, New Christy Minstrels - This is song from my childhood. My dad had a tape or reel-t0-reel with this song on it. I remember hearing it a lot as a child, but then we didn't listen to it anymore (for whatever reason) and I forgot about the song. But every once in a while I'd hear the melody and it would almost haunt me - I couldn't figure out where I knew the tune! I finally recently figured it out, but sadly still have not purchased the CD. Maybe I'll get it for Christmas :)

The M.T.A., Kingston Trio - Another song from my childhood. It's just fun and I love listening to it. I enjoy listening to a lot of folk music: The Kingston Trio, The Brothers Four, Peter Paul & Mary...

This Used to be My Playground, Madonna - This song came out right before we left Indiana. I had lived there basically my entire childhood (Kindergarten - 10th grade) and it was hard to leave. I remember this song coming on the radio when I was driving around the base, looking at all of the places that had been my "playground," and thinking that I was leaving and that place would never be the same again for me. This song is definitely an emotional one for me. I rarely can hear it and not cry. So many memories come flooding back.

There are many more, but I don't want to bore you so I won't go on :) I just can't pick one song, really!

Opus 357 - 1-2-3 Magic

The kids have started to have some discipline problems lately (getting close to 3, I suppose), especially during the day with Daddy. They pretty much don't listen to him. We've heard some good things about 1-2-3 Magic, so we checked the book out of the library and decided to give it a try. It's only been a day, so I can't tell you if it's totally worked or not, but we did have a pretty entertaining moment with Joshua. To understand it, you first need to know that the system basically works like this: When a kid is doing something they shouldn't and you ask them to stop, but they won't, you say, "That's one," wait a few seconds, "That's two," wait a few seconds and (if they still haven't stopped), "That's three, take two" and put them in a 2 minute time out (1 minute for each year of life).

Both kids got to experience this several times yesterday. After he had already experienced it (for other things), Joshua was banging his Lightning McQueen on the blinds. I asked him to stop. He kept going so I said, "That's one." Joshua replied, "That's one" then he groaned (a huge groan - as if giving up in defeat) and said with a sigh, "All done." I found it so entertaining that I'm still chuckling just thinking about it.

Opus 356 - Blog Journal

A friend of mine is doing a 30 day blog journal. I've had fun reading her posts so I thought I'd give it a try:

Day 1-your favorite song
Day 2-your favorite movie
Day 3-your favorite television program
Day 4- your favorite book
Day 5-your favorite quote
Day 6- 20 of my favorite things
Day 7-a photo that makes you happy
Day 8-a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9-a photo you took
Day 10-a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11-a photo of you recently
Day 12-something you are OCD about
Day 13-a fictional book
Day 14-a non-fictional book
Day 15-your dream house
Day 16-a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17-an art piece (drawing,sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18-my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19-a talent of yours
Day 20-a hobby of yours
Day 21-a recipe
Day 22-a website
Day 23-a youtube video
Day 24-where I live
Day 25-your day, in great detail
Day 26-your week, in great detail
Day 27-my worst habit
Day 28-what’s in my handbag/purse
Day 29-hopes,dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30- a dream for the future

Opus 355 - Alex Boye

We had the opportunity to listen to Alex Boye as part of a concert series sponsored by Deseret Book at the University Mall. The weather was perfect and it was fun to hear him sing live.

Joshua really got into the music. He was dancing away!

Alex Boye:

Opus 354 - Zoo!

We took the kids to the zoo one morning. The weather was perfect, there were hardly any crowds, and the kids had a blast. They absolutely loved the zoo! Their favorite animals were the elephants, giraffes, and monkeys.

Opus 353 - Discovery Park

One morning we decided to try out Discovery Park in Pleasant Grove. It's a really cool park (that's free!) that is basically a huge swing set with lots of slides, stairs, jungle gym type stuff, as well as educational things. It's pretty neat. Naturally, the kids' favorite part was the sandbox :)

Opus 352 - Thanksgiving Point

We decided to try out $2 Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point. We originally considered going to the dinosaur museum, but changed our minds when we saw the eternally long line. We went to the Discovery Park instead. Lissa and Joshua enjoyed everything in there, but were particularly enamored with the waterfalls. "Look Mommy! A waterfall!" was heard several times.

Opus 351 - We're Ready for BYU Football!

Opus 350 - Pretty Princess

We tried real ponytails for the first time:

And have had fun painting toenails...

Opus 349 - Bath Time Fun

Opus 348 - HAFB Museum

A couple of weeks ago I realized that summer is just about over and we still haven't done several of the things I wanted to do this summer. So we made plans and started doing everything. The first thing we did was visit the Hill Air Force Base Museum. The kids loved the planes!

It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's Lissa and Joshua flying their own plane!

There was a little discovery zone for the kids. Leave it to Joshua to find the ball!

And of course they found cars...

And a barn...

Opus 347 - Crawdads

We had the opportunity to go up to Strawberry Reservoir for a crawdad boil hosted by a family in our ward. Jason enjoyed the crawdads. Lissa and Joshua loved running around and looking at the water.

Opus 346 - Oh Boy, We're In Trouble!

Opus 345 - Up in the Sky!

One of Joshua's favorite phrases right now is "Up in the Sky!" Everything happens "up in the sky." He recently told me that he fell down and got hurt "up in the sky." I think this may have stemmed from watching the fireworks "up in the sky."

Opus 344 - Tall, Tall, Tall

Lissa and Joshua have really gotten into building with their blocks. As they say, they like to build "tall, tall" (after Once There was a Snowman).

Daddy helped with this one:

Opus 343 - 4th of July

Because the 4th fell on a Sunday, Provo celebrated the 4th of July on two different days - the 3rd and 5th. The big Stadium of Fire fireworks were held Saturday night. Aunt Lissa came into town that day (she came early for the family reunion). We all went over to cousin Nicole's house and watched the fireworks. The kids had a blast making beautiful chalk art on Nicole's driveway with Aunt Lissa, then we all enjoyed the fireworks. Lissa wasn't so sure about the noise at first, but Nicole saved the day by providing some great ear covers. (I forgot my camera, so no pics of all of this.)

We started the 5th by going to watch the hot air balloons. Lissa and Joshua LOVE balloons so I thought they'd love this. The were scared of the balloons. Oh well, I tried :) We then walked over to the parade route, found great seats, and watched the parade. This was a big hit. The kids loved the parade. They talked about it for days. Yeah! Success!





That evening, we went to our neighborhood Sidewalk of Fire. Once again, it was a great success! This time we remembered the kids' ear covers, so they didn't have to worry about the noise. They had a great time naming the fireworks: "Yook (look) Mommy! A princess one!" "Yook Mommy! A Lightning one!"

I don't remember why Lissa had this band-aid on her head.
I'm sure it was nothing; she and Joshua love band-aids
(just like their Mommy did at that age).

Opus 342 - I'm back!

We were able to get all of our stuff off of our old hard drive! Thanks Nathan! So I finally get to catch up on the blog now that I have the pictures off of the computer. Here goes....

Opus 341 - Riots

I saw this quote today and had a good laugh:

"Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don’t you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there ain’t any real difference between triplets and an insurrection.” – Mark Twain

I most likely found it particularly funny today, of all days, due to the condition of my house while I read the quote. I went out for about 30 minutes to pick up my contacts (Jason was at home with the kids). When I left, the house was clean. When I came back, every toy (seriously, no joke here - every toy) was out and they were spread all over the downstairs. It really did look like a riot had taken place!

Opus 320 - Who hurt you?

We got home pretty late last night (more on that later). As we were driving home, we drove over some train tracks. After we went over the tracks, the following conversation took place:

Joshua: Mommy hurt Joshie.

Me: How did I hurt you Joshua?

Joshua: Go over train tracks.

Me: Joshua, Daddy drove over the train tracks, not Mommy.

Joshua: Mommy, Daddy hurt Joshie.