asking for prayers

I don't tend to write extremely personal things on my blog, and I suppose that even the following excerpt from an email doesn't really delve into my own emotions at this time. I feel too emotionally drained and physically exhausted to even try to express any of that right now. I did, however, want to let people know about what is going on in my life right now. Here is an excerpt of an email I just wrote:

As you may have heard, I rushed to Utah on Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with my family after hearing very sad news about my mom. We found out on the 23rd that my mom has colon cancer - and the cancer has spread to her pelvis and liver. It appears that a large tumor in her ovary slightly shifted last week; it was the pain from that slight shift that caused my mom to go to the hospital and get checked out. We are at least glad about that - if my mom hadn't felt that pain, we might have not found out about the cancer until it was too late.

It appears that my mom has had cancer for years and years. It is listed as Stage IV, which is the highest level of classification in regards to cancer progression. She will likely start chemotherapy on Wednesday, although my mom and dad are still busy trying to consult with other doctors to get second opinions regarding the option of surgery. I'm not sure if the doctors have given my mom a time frame (I don't know if she would tell us if she did get one), but I do know they have recommended that she write her will. She has received several priesthood blessings, and the one last night blessed her with the gift of healing, although we know that this blessing must also be in accordance with God's will. We all have felt comfort by the Spirit though, which is helping us at this time. We are also exercising our faith and not giving up hope.

I am glad I've been able to be with the family and help out. Sam has cheered everyone up and I know he has been a happy distraction for my mom. My mom told V that this past Christmas was the best one our family has ever had - she felt like we were all unified and connected as a family unit.

I don't know how long I'll be in Utah; I assume I will be here until the end of this week. Please keep my mom and family in your prayers. I will send an update on my mom's situation when I have another free moment.

My second cousin is setting up a blog which will give people updates on my mom's condition. Once that gets set-up, I'll pass along the link and information.

Merry Christmas

We are definitely going to have a white Christmas this year. In fact, J didn't have to go to work on Thursday because of the snow (which was a really fortunate thing, since he accidentally overslept by two hours that morning!). It's still snowing right now. We're hoping that J won't have to go to work tomorrow as well.

This is a view of our deck this morning. I love the little snow caps on the potted plants.

Happy Holidays!

room #1

The change between Sam's new room and what it was a week and a half ago is quite drastic. I should have taken a picture to show what J's old room was like. To give you an idea, it was decorated with black and white plaid wallpaper with additional wallpaper strips of suns (suns with human faces on them - my mom calls them "New Age" suns) and stars. Very cool wallpaper for a middle schooler in the '90s. Not-so-cool wallpaper for a six month old in the 2000s.

In recent years, J's bedroom was nicknamed a "museum" by members of his family. Essentially, J hadn't changed or cleaned out his room since he left for college. And on top of that, his room became the storage area for extra guitars and recording equipment. It was starting to get difficult to walk around. It took us several days to wade through all of J's old stuff and decide what needed to be thrown away and donated to charity.

Finally, though, we're done! After this MASSIVE cleanup and new paint job, I give you Sam's new room:


I really have to give credit to my friend Ixoj for the green paint idea. A day or two before I moved she mentioned seeing an "awesome!" paint job that was done in kelly green. Although this isn't quite kelly green, I became fixated on using green in Sam's room because of that conversation. Thanks for the inspiration, friend!

Phew. This battle is over. One room down, three to go.

the battlefield

This week has been a week of battles. My main battleground has been J's old room (which will be Sam's new room). Hopefully we'll have this room painted and finished by tomorrow. So far, I've fought through two layers of wallpaper; I'm still attacking the vestiges of wallpaper glue on the walls. In the process of stripping the walls, I've learned two things. First, I've decided that wallpaper is a big commitment. If you want wallpaper in your house, you need to be really, REALLY sure. It's hard to get back to stripped, clean walls. I've also learned that it is a BAD idea to apply wallpaper glue with any amount of enthusiasm. Enthusiastic applications of wallpaper adhesive = hours and hours of scraping.

Once we finish Sam's new room, it will be time to do a reconnaissance of our other rooms in the house. I'm not sure what we'll do in those rooms, but I'm pretty sure we'll strip the wallpaper and/or repaint. Maybe after all of these battles, we'll be able to get really moved-in and settled. I'm getting tired of living in a war zone with strewn boxes everywhere.

We've also had some battles with Sam this week. He's getting too big to be swaddled anymore, so we've been trying to teach him how to relax without being wrapped. This week, we've been just wrapping one arm. At the beginning of the week we had some rough nights, but I think (hope!) he's starting to get the hang of it. I don't know if I'm ready to start a second attack by unwrapping his other arm. Maybe we'll leave that for next week?

And does anyone have any suggestions on how to teach a baby how to soothe himself to sleep (without leaving him in his crib to hysterically scream for an hour)? It's time to break Sam of his rocking + roaring white noise + bouncing + bottle + ssh-ing routine. We feel like he big enough that he should be able to start relaxing on his own. Any ideas? I wish that he would take a pacifier to help him calm down and sleep - that would make my life easier.

Oh, and I guess I need to tackle Christmas shopping sometime soon too. I keep forgetting that it is the holiday season...

mesmerized

We didn't get television at our old house. We had a TV, but you could only watch movies on it; there was no cable. Now that we do have cable, it will be interesting to see if we succumb to television watching.

From what my husband tells me, it is not uncommon for some members of his family (the men in particular) to get mesmerized in front of a television, regardless of what is being shown. I think J is right, mostly because I've seen how entranced he can get by something as mundane as a Comfort Inn commercial (although, granted, some of those commercials can be pretty funny - have you seen the one where the lady says "Beautiful!" after she gets caught picking her neighbor's rose? Anytime J or I say "Beautiful!" we have to say it in that woman's nasal voice; if one of us says it, than the other one inevitably ends up saying "Beautiful!" too).

Anyhow, it looks like Sam might follow in the path of his mesmerized forefathers. About a week ago we sat him down for his first television experience, watching an episode of "Baby Einstein." And instantly, he was mesmerized for about fifteen minutes (which is a record for such a wiggly-piggly boy).

Who knew that learning about the atmosphere could be so captivating?

the S family language

My family has a pretty distinct way of speaking and communicating, especially the kids. We all have similar inflections in our voice patterns, and we also have our own little grammatical system. I think the older kids (me, V, and A) picked up on silly grammatical things that the younger siblings did when they were smaller, which eventually developed into the S family language. My sister L, the youngest child, continues to influence the family language inflections with her little nasal-ey voice. We also continue to add her little phrases into the family vocabulary, although we have resisted to include L's difficulty with irregular past participles into the family grammatical system.

We have many different aspects to our family language. It is common to speak with a hyperbolic/superlative-y twist, adding "the most ever" or "the bestest ever" to a sentence. One distinct characteristic of the S family grammar is the use of the pronoun "it." Really, "it" doesn't quite function as a pronoun, because it is used in sentences that also include the noun which "it" as a pronoun is supposed to replace. For example, if we were speaking normal English and wanted to discuss how much we love a toy, we could say, "We love it" (with "it" meaning the toy). However, in S-ian grammar, we would also have to include "the toy" in the sentence: "We love it the toy."

"We love it the dog."
"We love it our house."
"We love it the car."

If you want to be especially clever, you can actually use "it" in the proper English fashion, but also include a S-ian "it" in the sentence:

"We love it it."
(Obviously, this second "it" can refer to anything - you have to contextually deduce what we are talking about - aren't we sneaky!)

The S family "it" also has another variation, "itch." So, one can say, "I love itch the dog." Or, one can ask, "Did you love itch the movie?"

Ah, family silliness. It's great. Our vocabulary also has been influenced by younger children over the years. "Li-berry" = library. "Jennifer Conference" = General Conference. "Sam-witch" = sandwich.

What about you and your family? Do you have distinct vocabulary or grammatical structures that would require explanation to an outsider?

hilton head

After depleting our bank account to move to the West coast last Saturday, we got on another plane two days later and flew to the East coast to spend Thanksgiving with J's family. We had a great time riding bikes on the beach (the sand was firm enough to support the bikes along the shore!), seeing dolphins swim in the ocean, watching beautiful sunsets, and eating lots of good food. It was a lot of fun.

What wasn't fun, however, was getting to South Carolina. I have never had such a stressful journey. Since this is a season of gratitude, however, I thought that I would focus on the positive aspects of the the trip back East. Therefore, I am grateful that:

- I have awesome in-laws who went to bought me some clothes when they heard that we forgot to put my suitcase in the car before we went to the airport. (J and I both thought that the other person had loaded the suitcase in the trunk. When we went out the door, I was too busy organizing Sam's processional of baby paraphernalia into the back seat to notice that I didn't have my own things.) Luckily, I have a very observant and tasteful mother-in-law who knew exactly what kinds of shirts I would like to wear.

- There was a washer and dryer in our condo, so I was able to wash my clothes and underwear every day. Phew. I'm glad I didn't have to stink all week long.

- We were able to make both connecting flights, albeit that we were the last ones on the plane both times.

- Although I have a low milk supply, I was able to nurse Sam on the plane since his bottles and formula were also left at home. Although he was still ravenously hungry, at least he didn't perish mid-air.

- The flight stewardess offered to carry my belongings to my seat, since I was having a difficult time cleaning up Sam's explosive diaper while cramped in the airplane's restroom. Really, she was just trying to get me to sit down so that we could take off (the whole airplane was waiting for me and my poopy baby), but it was still nice of her to carry the bag.

- I noticed that J grabbed the wrong boarding pass when he left the Chicago security gate to go and find formula. Since I didn't have my phone (yep, left it in Seattle too!), I couldn't reach him to let him know of the switchup. I'm glad that he saw me waving his boarding pass at the other end of the security gate when he returned with formula in tow, and I am also grateful that a security guard picked up the pass from me and brought it to J.

- We found a baby bottle in the Seattle airport and formula in the Chicago airport. Although it would have been nice to have gotten things before the final connecting flight to Savannah/Hilton Head, at least we got it. Poor Sam, he drank 12 ounces as soon as we offered him the bottle. He was so so hun-ga-ree.

- My in-laws offered to come and pick us up from the Savannah airport. Initially, we were going to wait an hour or so for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law to arrive on a later flight. However, we were both so frazzled that it was really nice to just leave and not wait around the airport any longer.

- My mother-in-law does a good job of taking pictures at family vacations, so even though the camera was left at home, I know that I will be able to get copies of the pictures from her.

Despite the horrible onset to this trip, everything else went smoothly and carefree-ly. It was so nice to have a vacation inbetween the chaos of moving out and moving in. It was fun to see all of J's family too. This definitely will be a Thanksgiving to remember.

move, moving, moved

Well, we arrived in Seattle last night. Everything went relatively well (although this kept us on the freeway for quite a while). I'm not really in the mood to recount details though. Besides, the details are not terribly interesting. The point is: we made it here.

I thought I'd post a couple pictures of our old house, family, and friends - just to help alleviate future nostalgic longings. Maybe I've been reading Goodnight Moon too much to Sam; I spent the last few days saying "goodbye" to things in my head the same way that the bunny wishes objects goodnight in the book:

Goodbye blue door.

Goodbye garden. Goodbye plants struggling to grow in the garden.

Goodbye kitchen.

Goodbye French doors.

Goodbye flag. Goodbye grocery store.

Goodbye treehouse.

Goodbye swing.

Goodbye little sister.

Goodbye mes amies.

my YouTube dreams have come true!

To see the new Monty Python channel, click here.

sam's new tricks

Sam has learned a couple of new tricks lately, such as smacking his lips together. He also is starting to "get" the "peek-a-boo" game. I've included some video clips below to showcase these newfound skills.

As you can see from this picture, Sam also likes to suck on his sweatshirt zipper. I guess J used to suck on the strings of his hooded sweatshirt when he was younger - maybe sweatshirt sucking is genetic?



Some awesome lip-smacking skills



Playing "peek-a-boo"

church choir

Since we are moving, this means that last Sunday I held the final rehearsal as choir director of my church choir. In some ways, I have loved being choir director since I got to superimpose my musical preferences on the ears of the congregation. Over the past two and a half years, the choir has sung Renaissance choral music, John Rutter, traditional French Christmas carols ("Whence is the Goodly Fragrance Flowing?") and some of the lesser-known hymns. It's been really fun. Furthermore, I made sure that the choir has never sang any Mormon pop/EFY songs that contain ridiculous over-extended metaphors about candles, bridges, stormy seas, lighthouses, or seashores. Hooray for good music instead! At the same time, however, directing the choir has been rather stressful and difficult. I thought I would list some of the things I have learned during my time as choir director:

• Make sure that the person chosen as choir accompanist really knows how to play the piano.
• Practice with the choir accompanist before he/she comes to rehearsal for the first time.
• If necessary, play the piano accompaniment for the accompanist either before or during the rehearsal.
  
• Never expect the choir to sound like the Cambridge Singers.
• Do not let people perform with the choir who have never come to rehearsal. (We practiced a Thomas Tallis piece for three months and I made the mistake of letting someone sing with us during the final performance. I didn't know how to turn her down. Anyhow, she came in one beat too early on a verse, and it through the whole choir off for the rest of the song. When singing Renaissance choral music, one faulty musical entrance can ruin the whole song. And, well, the performance was ruined. After we toiled on the same song for three months.)
• You will never be able to convince the people who actually know how to sing to join the choir.
• You will never be able to convince the people who actually play the piano to be the choir accompanist.
  
• There will always be at least one person in the choir who can only sing LOUDLY. And flat.
• You can try to teach the choir about enunciation and pronunciation (in an effort to help soften the hard Utah accent), but it just won't work. Even if most of the choir does it, the effect will be ruined by the same LOUD singer. Bless her heart.
  
• Do not order Christmas music from Best in Music. It will never arrive.
• Only 25% of the choir will come to rehearsal on a consistent basis. Consequently, you will spend two out of three weeks reviewing the same music for people who weren't at the previous rehearsal.
• Bringing treats to choir will not increase attendance.
  

If I'm ever the choir director again, I know that there are some things that I would do differently. I definitely have had a love-hate relationship with this calling. Last Sunday, after rehearsal was over, I was sad that I wouldn't be around to hear the performance of our totally awesome Christmas music. At the same time, though, I have never breathed a bigger sigh of relief.

katie and haylie

One of my best friends since high school came to visit this past weekend. Katie lives in Germany, but she is in the States now for a vacation. Originally, we were going to get together in December, but when Katie found out that we are moving she changed her travel plans to spend a day with us. It was a nice for me to take a break from packing! It was also really fun to meet Haylie, Katie's little baby girl that was born three weeks after Sam. Katie and I are already devising an arranged marriage between the two. Here are a couple of pics from the weekend:

Okay, so maybe it wasn't love at first sight for Sam or Haylie. They still have at least 20+ years to grow attached to each other, right? (Note the moving boxes in the background!)

Our brothers came by to visit too. This is the first time Scott met his niece.



By the end of the visit, I think that Sam and Haylie started to warm up to each other. Maybe this arranged marriage has potential. They are kinda-sorta holding hands in this picture. However, I don't think Haylie realized that Sam was putting the moves on her when this picture was taken...

Thanks for coming to visit, Friend!

where i voted today

I bet this is the only time in my life that I will have voted with an elk peering over my booth. Taxidermy museum + early morning = no waiting in line at the polls

surprise!

So, J just got offered his dream job as the junior designer here. Okay, his real dream job would be at the Tate Modern or the MOMA, but the SAM is a close third. So, we're moving. To Seattle. In two and a half weeks.

I know, I know, we're crazy!

We are thrilled that J gets this chance to work in the museum industry. Plus, since the museum is in Seattle, J is really excited at the chance to contribute to the community and city that he loves. He's wanted to do museum design for a while, but he got discouraged this summer after applying to several museums and never even getting called for an interview. And then, this job at the SAM just fell into his lap.

When we went up to Seattle this past August, a BYU grad offered to introduce J to the creative director of the SAM. J was excited to have this person as a contact, and went to the meeting with no expectations (J had actually called the SAM a few months prior to see if they were hiring any designers, and at the time they weren't). This director really liked J's work, and basically spent a good hour explaining to J why he should come work for the SAM. J was floored. The director said that he would be in touch with J - and we basically have been waiting, white-knuckled and with bated breath, to hear about this position for the past two months. (This explains all of my ambiguous "status updates" on Facebook about waiting, right?)

So, J was offered the job on Thursday. He starts the beginning of December, so we're going to move up to Seattle before Thanksgiving. Yikes!

The only downside to the job is that it is a major pay cut from what J is making now. So, we're going to be poor. Like, really poor. But hey, I figure that if we're going to be poor, this is the time to do it. J is going to want to try his hand in the museum industry sometime, and it's probably better to be poor with a small baby than to be poor with a kindergartener, right? And who knows? I might like being poor. I've been conjuring up a lot of romantic ideas about poverty: we can wear patched-up clothing and huddle under the blankets together to try and get warm. I even told J that I could get a job as a laundress like Charlie's mother (in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and wash laundry in a large vat of steaming water. We're going to be living in the house that J grew up in, so I've envisioned that I'll put my vat in the living room, next to the grand piano. Yesterday I began to perfect my rendition of "Cheer up, Charlie." It'll be awesome. You'll wish that I did your laundry.

I'm a little nervous about moving across the country, but I'm happy that J's family is there. And one of my best friends from high school lives there too, which makes me reeeeeally happy. And my aunt lives in Portland, which isn't too far away...

Yippee!

the autumn leaves

One of the things I love about Utah is the brilliant fall leaves. I spend a good deal of the fall months enjoying the leaves and I have the jazz standard "Autumn Leaves" stuck in my head for at least one hour every day. Sam and I have been taking lots of walks in the afternoon and looking at all of the beautiful colors. I also realized that walking with a baby in autumn has its advantages; one can make extra-satisfying crunches in the dry leaves with the help of a stroller.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

The other week we drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon to look at all of the leaves. The whole mountain seemed like it was ablaze in a carpet of yellows, oranges, and reds. I think the Wasatch Front during the fall season is one of the most beautiful things in the world.

However, I am reminded each year of how difficult the fall season is for the perfectionist. It is impossible to rake up every single leaf off of one's lawn. Aargh! I feel like I have to stand on guard, rake in hand, to catch any leaf that make try to sneak its way to the ground.

This picture of our backyard was taken this morning, just about a day after I had raked the leaves into five nice little piles. Now I can't even spot where my piles are/were located! I think I might go crazy!

There definitely are disadvantages to being a perfectionist.

happy halloween

Happy Halloween

- Sam the Polar Bear

austen, byatt, and eckhart tolle

I thought I'd jot (type?) down some thoughts regarding some books I finished recently.

As a Jane Austen fan, I'm embarrassed to admit that I never read Persuasion until last month. I really enjoyed this book (much better than Mansfield Park), although I couldn't help being reminded that Jane Austen tends to use the same themes and character types in her novels. Sir Walter Elliot as the silly and ridiculous parent = Mrs. Bennett (Pride and Prejudice). Anne as the demure and sensible heroine = a mixture of Fanny (Mansfield Park) and Jane (P&P). Mr. Walter Elliot is exposed to be a man whose character is less-than-admirable, which = Mr. Wickham (P&P), Mr. Willoughby (Sense and Sensibility), and perhaps Mr. Crawford (Mansfield Park) too. And Lady Russell seems like a combination of Mrs. Weston (Emma) with a little of Lady Catherine De Bourgh's (P&P) pride.

I thought it was interesting to see Austen's own feminist sentiment reveal itself at the end of the novel. Anne and Captain Harville are debating whether men or women have the capacity to truly fall in love. Harville comments that all prose and poetry contain references to women being fickle, but then recognizes that these were all written by men. Anne agrees, "Yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had advantage to us in telling their own story...the pen has been in their hands." I think that Austen was expressing her own frustration as a female writer through this conversation.

I don't think I would have read A New Earth on my own volition, but this was the book chosen for my book club. It took a while for me to get into this book, perhaps because I felt that Tolle's writing was sometimes laced with a slightly condescending tone. I did think he had some interesting points, though. For example, he argued that people get attached to material possessions because they project part of their personality or image onto those things. For example, I am attached to a really cute red purse. According to Tolle (and I agree with him), I am attached to this purse because I think it's cute, and thereby I consider myself to be cute when I'm using the purse. This point made me rethink my attachment to material goods - including all of my purses and shoes! There were several other interesting points in this book, but I don't know if I would ever read it again or recommend it to someone else.

I really enjoyed Byatt's Possession a lot, although a handful of things bothered me. This book is about two scholars of 19th century poetry who stumble upon love letters between two poets. One of these scholars, Maud Bailey, is a feminist professor who is a specialist of the poet Christabel La Motte. Roland Mitchell is the other scholar, who specializes in the poetry of Randolph Henry Ash. The book follows the discovery and research regarding these found letters, and it's absolutely fascinating. In regards to the unfolding of plot, climax, and resolution, I think this is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. Plus, the past year and a half of my life has been spent doing intensive research for my thesis, and I get excited when others make exciting discoveries in their research.

I really loved the last chapter of the book, but I had one issue with the second to last chapter (which involves most of the resolution of the plot). The two scholars, Roland and Maud, have begun to form an attachment to each other. In this chapter they are deciding what to do about their relationship, now that their adventure is ending. Roland says, "I'll take care of you, Maud." And, basically, that's the end of their story. I was kind of mad - doesn't Roland know that that phrase ("I'll take care of you") is the absolute last thing that a feminist scholar would like to hear a male say? I kept on reading, hoping that Maud would get mad too, but nothing else is written. Perhaps Maud wasn't the true feminist that her character seemed to be during the previous 400 pages?

Next books on the reading docket: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
The Genius in the Design: Bernini, Borromini, and the Rivalry that Transformed Rome by Jake Morrissey.
Mila 18 by Leon Uris (I know nothing about this book - it's this month's choice for book club).
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Douglass' famous autobiography).

the whipping boy

Does anyone remember the children's book The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman? With Jemmy and Price Brat? I loved that book growing up. Even today, when I cook with too much garlic, I think of Hold-Your-Nose-Billy.

Maybe because I loved The Whipping Boy so much when I was little, I especially like these Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis clips from the Colgate Comedy Hour. This is the perfect premise for a Martin and Lewis sketch - Prince Dean has all of the fun while whipping boy Jerry gets beat up. I especially love Jerry's mock praises and insults. I cracked up when he said to the guards (with metallic hats), "A plague on thee, a plague on thee, thou father of a nail file!"

all hail the Magic Pumpkin Sleeper

So, for all of Sam's four-month-old-life, he has hated to have "tummy time." As loving parents, we still force him to lie on his stomach for a little while each day, and just bear with his crying and exasperated looks which seem to say, "Hey, aren't you going to help me out here and flip me over? Don't you know that I'm hating this?"

That is, Sam has hated tummy time until we dressed him in the magic pumpkin sleeper. Our Aunt Susie mailed Sam this Halloween-themed sleeper, which he has been faithfully wearing this whole month. And when he wears this sleeper, he likes tummy time. In fact, he liked it so much last week that he fell asleep promptly after I laid him on his stomach for the obligatory exercise time. I was baffled. It was magical. There was no swaddling + rocking + shhh-ing + roaring white noise + nursing + bouncing for fifteen minutes to get Sam to sleep. And he was on his stomach. I know you're not supposed to let babies sleep on their stomachs anymore, but I had to let Sam snooze while I took pictures of him in his magic pumpkin sleeper.

Maybe Sam liked sleeping on his stomach because he could show off his cute pumpkin bottom?

Last night, for the second time ever, Sam slept through the night. He was wearing his magic pumpkin sleeper. Finally, at 6:30 a.m. I woke him up (I was about to explode with milk), nursed him, and he fell asleep soon after. And he's still asleep now - and still wearing his sleeper. Coincidence? I think not. Magic? Definitely.

Everyone needs an Aunt Susie who can give their kids magic pumpkin sleepers.

for joanna and katie

Two of my best friends from high school, Joanna and Katie, gave Sam cute outfits that he is now big enough to wear. Since both Joanna and Katie live far away (one lives a sixteen-hour drive away and one is a ten-hour flight away), I thought I would post pictures of Sam in his cute outfits for them to see. Thanks, friends, for being so thoughtful. It hasn't been cold enough for Sam to wear his hat or mittens yet, Katie, but I'll send you a picture when he starts to wear those.

"SMALL BUT INTELLIGENT"

up in arms

After posting this morning about The Inspector General, I was reminded of another great Danny Kaye movie, Up in Arms. This is a really entertaining film. Danny Kaye plays a hypochondriac who ends up getting drafted in the army. I remember watching this film a lot in high school. My mom thinks that my best friend Katie looks like co-star Dinah Shore. Maybe she does a little bit.

Before going into the army, Danny Kaye goes out on a double date with his friend. As the group stands in line, waiting to get into a movie theater, Danny Kaye sings a song about how all movie "pictures" are alike. I love the timbre of his voice when he mimics the chorus girls. (Sorry about the Spanish subtitles. This is the only clip I could find online).



One of the other scenes I love is when Danny is in the army. He is trying to listen to a recording that he made in a recording booth before getting enlisted - but he has to sneakily use the record player of another bunkmate. When the bunkmate walks in the room, Danny Kaye lip syncs to the record to he won't get caught. This scene starts at about 2:12 on the clip. I love when he forgets to lip sync one of the dog barks, and he just kinda shrugs it off.

the inspector general

Like Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye is one of my favorite comedians from the early film era. I can't even count how many times I've seen The Court Jester. I think that Danny Kaye is so endearing - even though I agree with critics that he uses his hands too much when he sings. He is especially good at singing tongue-twisting lyrics. Quite impressive.

One of the first Danny Kaye films that my mom bought for our family was The Inspector General (1949). It is about an illiterate stooge who is mistaken by corrupt town officials for being an inspector general. In this clip, Danny Kaye has decided to pretend that he actually is the inspector general, in an attempt to help the town get back some of the money that was stolen by the corrupt administration. During this song, Kaye imagines different personality traits that an inspector general might possess. Although this isn't the most hilarious Danny Kaye clip, it's quite fun. I watched this film so many times growing up that I have this whole song memorized. Unfortunately, the end of the song (which is quite funny!) is cut off in the clip. You'll just have to watch the whole film to see it.



This second clip is also quite fun. Here, the corrupt town officials have placed poison in Danny Kaye's drink, and they are waiting during this whole "drinking song" for him to take a sip. I think it's so funny to see the man joining in with the ladies (in the group assigned to say "ha ha ha!"). I also love when Danny Kaye stands up on the piano and puts his hands out like a little ballerina before he jumps. He hee!



If you love other Danny Kaye movies like White Christmas or Hans Christian Andersen, I think you should see The Inspector General.

four months old

Just over the past week or so, Sam has developed the funny habit of pulling his clothes up to his face and examining the patterns and colors- but this only happens when I lie him down to change his diaper. He often will stare at his clothes during most of the diapering process. Perhaps looking at patterns and colors is the baby equivalent for reading material in the bathroom?

"mom bottom"

I can't tell how many times I've teased J that I need to start wearing "mom jeans" since I'm now a mother. For anyone else who's paranoid about getting a postpartum "mom bottom," you will especially appreciate this.

sam silliness

Sam insisted on wearing a matching outfit with J this morning. Can you tell them apart?

This is the first time Sam got to ride in his stroller facing forwards. He wasn't quite sure if he liked it...

...and then he decided that he did like it!

Sam the cowboy. Does this hat look familiar, Zillah?

Sam the bear. He's all ready for fall with his bear jacket.

Sam's political persuasions

Tummy time

cuzzin time

These pictures are too cute. We got to visit with N, SJ and Norah tonight. Here are two pictures of the cousins - it's crazy to see how much to two of them have grown since our trip to Seattle.

We have obviously taken too many pictures of Sam - he is quite apathetic towards the camera. Norah, on the other hand, seems to be wondering why I'm keeping her from her nap...

latest project

I have wanted to hang curtains in the kitchen for over two years, and I finally got around to making them about a week ago. I felt quite housewifey with my little home-improvement project, and I feel even more housewifey by posting a picture of the curtains on my blog (!). However, since I've wanted these curtains for so long (long before I was a housewife, mind you), I feel quite justified in giving them their own laudatory post. Huzzah for a colorful kitchen!

our little schroeder

happy boy

Even though it's too early to tell, we think that Sam might end up being a blonde baby with brown eyes. I tried to take some pictures this morning to capture his hair and eye colors, but I don't think you can really tell (partially because of my poor photography skills). He was a very smiley boy for many of the pictures, though, so I thought I'd post them anyways. He's growing - can you tell?

He's starting to figure out how to lift toys with his hands.

And starting this week he likes to sit up with pillows propped around him. Often when I try to lie him down, he strains and tries to sit up himself. He likes to see what's going on around him...