Merry Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your festivities, goodies, pastries, and families. I thought I would share a video of a classic Christmas song... with a new twist. Enjoy...

(Just as a bit of explanation, these are supposedly Monks who have taken a vow of silence, but still feel the urge to sing praises...)

Why Would You Do That?

That's the response I got when I held the door open for someone at the Post Office and let her go ahead of us. She literally stopped and looked at me, like I was something she'd never seen before, and asked, "Why would you do that?"

I was so taken aback by her perplexed gaze that I spit out, "why not?" Do people really not do nice things for each other? She characterized me as "very kind."

Really? Or are other people just not aware of the people around them? I don't think of myself as "very kind." I try to be nice, to do what I would appreciate...but that's nothing abnormal.

Or is it?

Do people stay in their little bubbles and not notice the people around them. We were the only people in the post office of like 15 people talking casually. She was very nice and seemed to really like us. That quick. We made a friend just by opening the door for her.

So, what do you think? Do people just not expect others to be kind to them? To show them a bit of decent courtesy?

I'd also like to say how it makes me a sad to hear "Happy Holidays" as a wishful goodbye versus a "Merry Christmas." Christmas is here! Shouldn't we be serving each other as we think of our Savior Jesus Christ? For every one that we serve, we are serving Him. For every one that we love, we are Loving Him. For every one that we share the Christmas spirit with, we are sharing Him with them. That's what I think. I reference my sister's blog post. We need to put Jesus at the forefront of our Holiday Celebrations. Our CHRISTMAS celebrations. Celebrate HIM.

and open a door for someone. :-D

Sunday Lessons

Church has evolved into a whole different experience since Caleb was born. Those three uplifting hours have transformed into one solid block of chaos intermingled with spiritual enlightenment. In honor of this new chapter in our lives, I would like to publish a top ten list of things that I have learned at church these past few months. They are as follows:



1o. Five diapers are only sufficient on an abnormally good Sunday.

9. One 3-4 month old baby requires 30-40 pounds of gear for 3-4 hours of church. It takes 30-40 minutes to move a baby with its required gear from one room to another. This is the major reason that Sunday School and Relief society are often held in the same room.

8. When you pick up your infant son, you instantly gain a crowd of adoring onlookers and friends. These people will smile and coo at you. They will tickle the air around you. DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS BEHAVIOR. They are actually only paying attention to your baby. No one has noticed your presence yet. Smiling and cooing back at them will only make you look foolish.

7. While holding a baby, I can open doors with my love handles. I can close them again with my chin/neck.

6. A baby is a "golden ticket" to skip or attend any meeting you desire. This privilege must be used responsibly in order to avoid suspicion.

5. If you walk past the Elder's Quorum meeting with a screaming baby, no one will notice. If you walk past the Relief Society meeting with a screaming baby, over half of the concerned women will have made it to the door before you have even passed.

4. There are few things as satisfying as the sound a dirty diaper makes when tossed into the trash can from across the rest room.

3. If your baby is clothed when you take him out to change him, and naked when you bring him back, it is no secret what has happened.

2. Baby bodily noises will occur during lulls in the meeting. This will most often occur right after you raise your hand to answer a question. These snores, toots, and groans will be ignored by all except the young men and the missionaries.

1. Families are forever. That's all that matters.

Miscellaneous Fun!

These are some random pictures that I've had sitting here that need to get up!


This is a picture of the booties I made Caleb. They're a little bit big, but they're cute! And so is he!. :)

Justin made us dinner one Sunday a few weeks ago. He made gnocci and flan: gnocci is an Argentinian pasta made from potatoes. It's really good! We mixed it with pesto and alfredo. The flan turned out DELICIOUS! It's made from eggs...so it must be good for you, right? lol He is such a good cook, and is so willing to give me a break! I love it.

These were some pics from this past Sunday on our way to church. We had a light snow Saturday night (nothing compared to yesterday) and the trees looked all fluffy and pretty! I'm excited for winter, but I think a bit naive about what kind of winter it will be. Hopefully we'll have a White Christmas!

Give THANKS...and then some

It's a little late for a Thanksgiving post (lol), but I took these pictures and wanted to get them up. I've just been so busy and it takes a bit of time and coordination to get them uploaded, edited, and then uploaded again and blogged. Anyway, enough excuses. Here are the pics!

All the FOOD! So much of it. We had leftover dough from the rolls and so we made bread bowls. Great idea, Justin!

The whole family during Thanksgiving! We spent all day cooking...and Dad worked really hard on the computer. Really hard. haha

Here's our little family. Caleb is a Turkey! lol. This is the first time I styled my new hair cut, and it didn't quite stay flipped out like it was supposed to. I've gotten better at using wax and the straightner. Aren't we a cute family?!

Here is a better view of Caleb in his Turkey suit. lol, I htink it's really cute. He loves to put his body at weird angles...not the best example, but you can kind of picture him craning his neck behind his body to see what you're doing. It's cute!

That was our Thanksgiving Day! So much fun, lots of food, lots of love. :-D

Hat, ears, and phone. Perfect.

He looks so innocent in this picture, huh? Well, he is! haha, Just had to put this up because I like it so much! He is one week shy of being 4 months and he is wearing a 6 month old outfit! We think he looks like an elf with a hat on because his ears stick out and are pointy. haha, he's a cutie. He loves his phone, so I'm glad we got it perfectly preserved in this picture...right in his mouth, where it usually is. Families are wonderful!

Happier note...

On a happier note, Thanksgiving was great!! We spent all day cooking (we being Justin, Mom Anderson, and I)...and it was delicious! The only thing left out was carrot-raisin salad because none of them said they would eat it. I don't want to eat it all by myself! We had pumpkin pie, lemon-meringue pie, and pinto bean pie. Yup, you read that right! PINTO BEAN pie!! haha, it's a fantastic recipe that has literal mashed up pinto beans. BUT, it tastes deceivingly like Pecan pie. Ask Justin. he's the best pie critic. I was so happy it was well received!

I have pictures, but I haven't yet uploaded them to the computer. Caleb was our little Turkey and he was a gem while we cooked all day. Oh, and I got my hair cut! It's REALLY short, but I LOVE it! it's super easy...and even though it doesn't look great if I don't style it, it works.

I ordered Justin's Christmas present! Why does shipping cost more than the actual product? That doesn't make any sense to me! I had to order half as much as I wanted in order to keep within my budget because the shipping was so high! Ridiculous! But, I am excited to get it...hopefully he'll be excited too! :-)

We also ordered a cloth diaper for baby. It's from a lady I found on Craigslist who makes them. Yeah, not perfect, but she uses them and they're 1/2 as much as the big fancy company ones (we'd like those, but ya know, money). If the one we get works, we can get the 10 or so we need and spend HALF as much as we otherwise would. and that's saving lots of money in the end! So, we're hopeful about that.

AND English lessons went really, really well on Wednesday! My friend gave me these amazing lesson manuals from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They have a literary manual? yup! "Ye Shall Have my Words" Definitely inspired. Definitely inspiring. I'm so excited to help my friend hopefully improve her reading and writing.

Website is still underway. Once it is published, we will let you all know. We were approved for our third and final (yet crucial...they have a lot of games we wanted to sell!) drop shipper. We're working on getting them on the site, and then we'll publish! LOTS of work, but we're hopeful and excited about it, too!

Overall, life is very good. Constant things happening, especially since we are more involved in the ward now. It's all worth it.

I need a Translator.

"Really? Are you sure? Because in order to ask for one, in order to actually talk to a REAL person, you have to listen to 2 menus in English. But yeah, we can give you one if you ever make it there. That is, if they're not busy. We're busy. You're busy. But we won't let your friend help you over the phone. Even if you say it's okay. It doesn't matter that you can't read. We need your address. Your phone number. Your birthday. Your friend can't help you. No, we can't talk to her unless you verify all this information. We know you don't speak English but the translators are all busy. No, we can't give you a list of other doctors until you verify this information. Your chest hurts? You have a history of chest pain and you were taking prescription pain medicine? Okay, call you doctor, No, don't go to the hospital: call your doctor. I'm sorry your doctor has a waiting list of 2-4 months. Why don't you get a new one? Yes, please tell me your birthday, address, and phone number. What language do you speak? No one here speaks that. Is there a similar dialect? They're all busy. Your friend cannot answer for you. No, we cannot speak to her unless you can verify this information. Sorry, we can't help you."

Wait what? Member service line, with a member number, the member RIGHT there, and you can't help me? Frustrating? No? I cried afterwards. I hung up on her. On the phone for one hour and I couldn't even get a list of OTHER approved doctors for my friend from Liberia. Don't even get me started on the politics of English learning and teaching and assisting Non-native English speakers. You might not agree with everything that I would say, but can you agree that the system that sent me in circles DOES NOT WORK?!

Past the point of No Return

Yesterday, during dinner time, Caleb found something extremely interesting underneath his swing. He tried to see it. He's strapped in, so he didn't fall out...nope. Instead, he leaned so far over to see what was there, only to realize there was nothing there, but then he was past the point of no return. He couldn't sit back up! He was so upset by it that he sat there, doubled over on the side of his swing and just screamed. Luckily, Grandpa was there to rescue him! Silly baby...he's so frustrated to not be able to see his entire world RIGHT NOW!