A Rite of Passage and A Giraffe in Trouble

So there comes a time in every small child's life where they must experiment with scissors...and hair. Some just cut the hair of their favorite doll or My Little Pony. Some cut their real hair. Like mine did. On Saturday. The day before the primary program and 2 days before her first day of preschool in her new hometown. Yup. Jane chopped her hair.

She was very practical about it. She was genuinely confused at our shock and mild anger about what she had done. She said that some of her hair kept falling in her face that morning and so she just cut the darned hair off. Problem solved. Jane is very much like that, for the most part. See the problem, solve it. Like this summer when we went to the swimming pool and the life guard told her she couldn't jump off the diving board until she could jump in and swim to the side unaided. So, she came down off the board, grabbed my hand and told me I needed to teach her to swim. She practiced all afternoon and wouldn't give up until she could swim/doggie paddle to the side. Then, with her determined and triumphant little face, went off the diving board and with her mother's heart pounding, made it, in a desperate flailing of limbs, to the side.

Wow. Tangent. Anyway, here is the damage. Jev and I decided it was a rite of passage to becoming a true little kid. Everyone has their stories.



On a side note, my sister-in-law reminded me today of a funny episode last week as well. We went with her and her kids to Bean Museum in Provo, which is basically a huge gallery of dead, stuffed things. Think of the best hunting lodge you have been to with the moose heads on the wall and quadruple it.... and add animals from every continent you can think of. Quite fascinating really. Above the stairs, leading to the 2nd floor, they had mounted almost the entire front half of a giraffe on the wall. Allie saw the giraffe and was instantly convinced it was stuck in the wall. She desperately kept asking me to help it. When i didn't come down to pull it out of it's brick prison, she began to encourage it to help itself. "C'mon giraffe. You can do it." Then she would grunt to show it the proper sound effects to use when extricating itself from the wall. She pleaded for a long time with giraffe, urging it to liberate itself, or calling me to lend a hand, but there was just no budging the silly giraffe. She finally gave up but talked about it for days to come. Maybe you just had to be there, but it was so stinkin' funny.

Huh. Random post but here it is all the same.

La La Land

So I thought I would make it official. We did it. We moved. We bought a house in Heber. And yes, Jevan still works in Salt Lake - he commutes. My environmental studies teachers/friends would be so disappointed in me. He doesn't even commute in some sort of hybrid vehicle. I am SO hypocritical....but I can't help myself...I'm blinded by love.

I think I have been dreaming of living here since we've been married but I didn't think it would really happen. Whenever I would talk about it, Jevan would refer to it as my "La La Land." Well, La La Land, here I am. Here I get the Heber Creeper, Dairy Keen (not Queen mind you...it has the best shakes anywhere...and the greatest kids meal prizes ever), the Demolition Derby, the Cowboy Poetry Festival (what rhymes with yeehaw?) and the National Sheepdog Championships. Mostly though, it's just really pretty here. With the backdrop of Mt. Timpanogos and the areas of open pasture, I get this sensation every time I drive over the last hill and into the valley - a combination of relief, peace and belonging. I guess I really never have been a city person. And the best part? My city-slicker husband loves it too.

So, because people said they were curious, here's our new house. Come visit us some time. We'll rustle you up some grub and maybe even recite a cowboy poem or two.

Halloween Top 5

Top 5 favorite things of Halloween this year:

1. The fact that my second child isn't old enough to care that she is wearing her sister's costume from last year. Also, that if anyone tried to call her Alice she would yell "No! I Awwison (Allison) Wonder-and!" Get it right, people.



2. That the girls only lasted about 20 minutes trick-or-treating before they got too cold and wanted to go in. That made their stash of candy pretty small, and they were perfectly content to answer the door. Jane would fawn over everyone's costumes and Allie would yell "Oh! They're here!" EVERY time the door would ring. As if some long lost relatives finally made it to our house.



3. That our doorbell never stopped ringing. We went through 3 of the giant bags of candy that you buy at Costco. That's over 450 kids. It was basically a stampede of sugar-crazed little people running around the neighborhood.



4. That Halloween to a sugar addict (like myself) is like October Fest to an alcoholic. I might have stashed away a few Kit Kats as the candy started running low...just maybe....



5. That I have a brother-in-law who is the spitting image of Napolean Dynamite when in costume. It was definitely scary....and hilarious.