Another Decade Gone

I'm 30 now-that's right, 30. That means I can command more respect. I'm feeling a little arrogant about being old-like I want to tell some young person-"how old are you?... yea well I'm 30 so listen up". I think I'll try that one on Jeffrey. I don't think I really act my age-or look it (except for my graying hair that I dye-oh and the eye doc told me I should wear reading glasses, plus the other day I noticed I have smile wrinkles around my eyes-great!). John surprised me with an I-Pod Nano-so now I really don't act my age cause I rock out around the house while I'm doing dishes, folding laundry. So on my birthday(I say "so" a lot-so what?), John made my favorite breakfast, french toast with strawberries and powdered sugar. Then he took the boys downtown for the Denver Home and Garden show and I went shopping. Then treated myself to Rubio's. Sat. night we had to go to stake conference so no parties. Sunday my sister in law and her hubby came over for dinner and cake. And I got the usual phone calls from the fam-so all and all a good time.

East Coast Times

As I mentioned before, we recently took a trip to Fairfield, Pennsylvania (southeast corner near Gettysburg). John had business in Virginia, about an hour and a half from his family so the boys and I tagged along. It was a fun visit and the weather was nice. We went to a children's museum in Gettysburg one day. Its just a old house that an older couple has converted into a museum. The kids particuarly liked the bubble machine, train table, construction zone. Jeffrey painted some pictures. Another day we went to a train museum in near by Haggerstown, MD. There were a bunch of toy trains ran by train fanatics. They all tried to talk to me about their trains-the types, the engines, the cars etc-but it went way over my head. I thought I had a fair base knowledge of trains because of my boys interest but the visit to the museum blew that notion out of the water. The last day we were there we had a brunch with John's Grandma Brown and played games. Thank you Earl and Janice for letting us come visit!-oh and Spencer, you too-for getting us hooked on guitar hero.

This is a classic picture of Jeffrey, jumping up and down
waving his arms.

Jeffrey painting

The bubble machine...so fun



Sammy and Grandma Moats

Jeffrey watching the toy trains

The whole gang at the train museum

Roots Discovered

I always get asked who my boys look like, because they certainly don't look like me or John. Jeffrey has all dark features while John and I have blue eyes and lighter hair. Sammy has the right coloring, but still doesn't look like us. On a recent trip to Pennsylvania to visit John's family we found a picture of John's great great uncle and great grandpa, James Long and John Harris Long. Do these two look familiar?


Sammy also looks like John's dad, except the mouth. Here's a picture of Allan Kjelstrom at 19 months.

Journal-y Thoughts

I've had two items I've wanted to record lately. One is a few things Jeffrey has said recently. One day he told me, "Mommy", I say "yes", then its "Mommy" a few more times while he's working out his thoughts, "People have two slides in them, one for pee and one for poop". Very observant little boy. Today, my sister-in law Katrina was over and she's pregnant and had to keep going to the bathroom. We were all playing Go Fish, Jeffrey's new favorite game, and so I explained to Jeffrey that Katrina has a baby in her tummy, and when you have a baby in your tummy you have to pee all the time. So he thought about this and says "When I'm big, can I have a baby in my tummy?", I said no, just girls. Later in the day he says "Mommy, when Sammy and I were babies we were in your tummy then we dropped out and started crawling then walking and then we got big, big, big". I'm really afraid I'm going to have the birds and the bees talk with him way earlier then planned. I also noticed the other day that Jeffrey eats his M&M's just like me and my Dad. Growing up, I would seperate them into colors, then eat them so that all the colors had even numbers, then eat them color by color in some kind of order. Well, Jeffrey isn't that sophisticated yet, but he does eat all of one color first, then another, then another. Hmmmmm....is there some kind of M&M eating order gene?

So the other item I've been wanting to write about concerns a more serious topic. A few days ago our semi-liberal (because its no New York Times) paper, The Denver Post, printed an article on the 4th page of their main section titled "Mormon Women Seek Greater Role". I immediately start reading-and the author is saying that there was an uproar about Julie Beck's talk from last conference that said LDS women keep sacred covenants by keeping tidy homes and dressing daughters in nice clothes for church. That 250 women wrote an online rebuttal against Julie Beck's talk and that we're all anxiously awaiting the new prophet to see if women's roles will change. I'm exagerating a bit in my explanation but it was that bad. So I'm fuming-250 women? out of how many-5 million in the church? Did this guy read Julie Beck's talk? He didn't get the point AT ALL!! Why do they even feel like this is news? really-250 women?? Why publish this. And if you are going to do a report on it-at least do your research. So I wrote my own rebuttal online-I wish I knew if the author will ever read it. He's from the Associated Press. Click here to read the article

January Birthdays!

John turned the big 30 on January 22nd. Of course he wouldn't let me throw him a party, so I made a nice dinner and we had cake at home.

Jeffrey turned 4 on January 30th. I had playgroup at my house that day and we had a party with the playgroup friends plus other friends-Nathan, Camden, Spencer, Andrew, Jocelyn, Paige, Brooklyn, Kate, and Alyssa. Jeffrey enjoyed his party very very much-especially opening the presents. I didn't want any of the parents to buy gifts for him cause I felt like my house has too many toys, but they ignored my request. And I'm happy they did because Jeffrey loved it!