The Book Thief

Halloween!

How Do I Act So Well?

Sir Ian McKellen.  I've loved him since he was the bad guy in the Scarlet Pimpernel.  And after hearing this, it's easy to tell why!

28 Things

On my birthday I decided to make a list of 28 things I wanted to accomplish this year.  It was an idea totally ripped off from someone I admire, but I still tried to be original and make it my own.
One of my goals was "Blog Once a Week."  In fact, when I wrote my list, it was number three.
But, obviously, that plan fell flat on its face.  You could say I've been under too much pressure.
So, with my goal so severely in the negative, I've decided to still accomplish the equivalent, which is writing at least 52 blog posts this year.  And, since making the goal, I think this post brings us to number, ahem, 6.
Two things I've learned about myself so far in trying to accomplish these 28 goals this year are:
1.  I often get daunted by tasks because they seem to big/time consuming/scary/insurmountable and then once I've done them, I think to myself, "Wow.  I need to remember that starting is the hardest part.  Once you get in it, whatever 'it' is, it doesn't seem so bad when you just take it step by step."  And then the next thing on the list comes up, and instead of remembering my lesson, I go back to, "Oh.  That seems way too hard."  I want to turn the realization into a positive thing.
2.  Some of the things on my list aren't really things I want to do.  And with two of them, I feel like in some ways I've unintentionally? unconsciously? sabotaged myself so I had to do them anyway.  Which brings me to, Why not just do them in the first place?  It would be so much easier.  

Six!

On April 29, Kameryn turned 6.

In honor of it, here are my top Six Favorite Things about Kameryn:

1.  She has a great sense of humor.  She can crack a joke that makes everyone laugh.  And sometimes I'll crack a joke and I love hearing how much she laughs.

2.  She's always been a good sister, but lately she's especially patient.  More willing than before to share her toys, or let her sister have the pink seat.  She'll do little things to help me out and she's gotten this quiet maturity.  It's not always there, but more and more often it is.

3.  Allison got her a little notebook that looks like a purse, and shortly after she got it we started driving around running errands.  She was sitting in the back, quietly looking at random words and writing them down in her notebook.  She was completely content.

4.  She loves music.  She can hear a song a couple times and she'll know most of the lyrics.  She loves singing Adele, and she loves watching the songs from Glee.  The other day I took her and Reagan to Arctic Circle.  They ran to play in the PlayPlace when I ordered.  And when I walked in Kami and Reagan were singing, "This place about to BLOW!"  by Kesha at the top of their lungs.  I did get a few strange looks from the other moms when it became obvious that they were mine.

5.  When Kami started Kindergarten again in Bountiful it became obvious that she hadn't been taught well down in Provo.  She was behind her class on knowing her letters and the sounds they make.  And she's got the Hanna trait that she hates feeling stupid and when she does she gets really upset.  But it hasn't stopped her from working really hard.  She loves to learn, she loves going to school.  At this point I don't know if she's completely caught up yet, but she's leaps and bounds ahead of where she was just a few months ago. 

6.  She's a really happy, sweet kid.  I love coming home and spending time with her and Reagan.  I love the relationship they have with each other and how they look out for each other.  Kami woke up a couple weeks ago from a nightmare.  Crying, she told me, "I dreamed there were holes in the mattress and little people were coming out and I couldn't find Reagan!  I was afraid they got her!"  Her crying woke Reagan up and Reagan heard what the dream was about.  She said, "It's okay, Kamer, I'm right here.  Hold my hand."  And when Kami took her hand she was comforted enough that she stopped crying and they both fell asleep again.   

Sarah Kay

I was looking through Facebook one night and saw that one of my aunts had posted a video of a poet doing a Ted interview.  I LOVE Ted interviews so I clicked on it, and that was the first time I heard Sarah Kay's poetry.  Since then I've tried to listen to all I can.  I love the way she writes, I love the voice in her poem, and I love this poem she did with her friend.  I thought it was really sweet and I wanted to share it.  Had you guys heard of her before?

Friends

Baltimore

Not long after I started my current job the neurologist for whom I work started saying he wanted to train me to do nerve conduction studies to help him out. We talked about it a lot, and I told him I was interested, and I even started reading materials on it and practicing on Jay. (Jay is such a good sport!) But then we got so busy it fell by the wayside.

Until recently.

At the end of March we found a class on April 21 and 22. In Baltimore, Maryland. And last week we found out the hospital agreed to pay for me to fly out and take the class. So a few days later I registered for the class and paid for my flight and hotel! And now I'm a week and a half away from flying across the country by myself!

I'm both excited and REALLY nervous! But this was one of my goals on my list of 28 goals for this year, so I'm excited to get to check off such a big goal so early!

That Awkward Moment When...

You're making a list of 28 things you want to do while you're 28 and you realize that you REALLY want to put "Read All the Harry Potter Books Again" on it.

I Seriously Love These Kids

Sleep-Talking

So does everyone remember how Jay talks in his sleep?

He usually talks a bit, more mumbling, and I can only catch a word or two.

But the other night, in the middle of the night, he started laughing. The way Jay laughs when he's really pleased with himself.

And this, verbatim, is what he said, while still sleeping:

"Half past eleven.

Eleven-thirty.

Thirty minutes past eleven.

I snapped a fly with my coat and sent it spiraling to it's death!"

And then he chuckled a few more times and was asleep again, silent, with me laying next to him. Laughing uncontrollably. And saying it to myself over and over so I could remember to tell him the next morning.

And anyone who knows Jay will probably guess that when I told him what he had said, he got a huge smile on his face and was just as proud of himself as he had been the night before!

And the Oscar for Best Picture Goes To....

Every year Chelsee and I (try to) go see all of the movies that are nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Chelsee always succeeds. I have failed every year. Except this year! This year, for the first time, thanks in large part to Jay's parents for babysitting and Jay staying home to watch the girls, I actually saw all nine movies nominated for the Best Picture category! Hooray for finally reaching this goal!

In trying to figure out which one I liked the most, I thought I'd blog a little blurb about each one. Up till now I've been ranking them in order of which ones I'd most like to watch again, and that's not going to work out anymore. Some of them are so beautiful and feel so personal that I don't think I'd watch them again, but I still love them.

In the order that I watched them, here are some of my thoughts on the movies:

Moneyball: I thought this movie was really interesting. It's a baseball movie that doesn't show any baseball games. It plays out more like a documentary. It's a documentary on how the little guy in baseball, the Oakland A's, took a gamble in order to keep up with the bigger teams in baseball that have so much more money. Brad Pitt paired with Jonah Hill made the movie witty and thoughtful. They have a dynamic that was so much fun to watch. I loved any scene they were in together. I'm a sucker for a happy ending, and this movie is one I'd definitely watch again.

Midnight in Paris: Directed by Woody Allen, this movie wasn't one I was really looking forward to. And, it could be argued, it's not one I was able to watch in its entirety because the night before we watched it Reagan woke up with a stomach bug and I stayed up with her during the night. Thus making me fall asleep for several (short! I promise!) times during the movie. But, I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. It's one I wanted to keep thinking about, to try and figure out. And how cool of an idea that a man can go at night and meet his literary idols! I loved that! Every movie had a character in it that I just loved, and in this movie it would be Zelda Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

Tree of Life: I've heard that the audience for the Tree of Life during screenings has been polarized. Some clapped when it ended, and some booed. It was polarized when we watched it, too. I LOVED it. I feel like the filmmaker got into my head, and put on a screen the things I think about when thinking about loss and death. I was able to follow where they led, even when they started showing dinosaurs. Jay, on the other hand, needs to plot things out in his mind. The movie needed to have a timeline, needed to answer some questions, needed to be plotted on the map. So he hated it. He thinks it was too "ADD" for him. But we all know I have no talent for maps. I thought the movie was daring and beautiful and unlike anything else I've ever seen. The closest thing I could compare it to would be "The Fountain." It takes a certain kind of person to "get" this movie. But I feel like I did.

The Help: What I will always remember about watching "The Help" for the first time is that there's a moment at the end when Aibleen says something to her employer, the mother of a little girl that is constantly ignored and belittled. When she said the line it struck me in a way I hadn't prepared for. I don't know why it became so personal to me, but there I was on the couch, trying to fight it back. And nope, it broke through anyway. The ugly cry. The sobbing out loud, throat-so-tight-it's-almost-a-scream cry where everyone else stops watching the movie to look over at you and figure out what your problem is. It was like watching "The Cure" all over again. Before Allison took me aside and said, "Let me teach you how to cry during movies..." So the movie has been overshadowed by a bit of embarrassment. Luckily I was only home with Jay and Chelsee! So.....good movie overall!

The Descendants: In this movie, George Clooney is a man forced into a situation where he needs to be the supporting, stand-alone parent when up until now he had only been the "back-up" parent. It was about him trying to connect with someone when he had let that connection lapse. The awkward moments when you should know things about someone, but you don't. And how to get it back. In the movie his daughter becomes his confidant and co-conspirator and they support each other while learning to trust each other again. Her character made the movie for me. Even though the movie seems to be one blow of bad luck after another, I like that it always feels hopeful.

The Artist: If "The Artist" wins best picture it will be the first time a black and white movie has won an Oscar since "Schindler's List" in 1993, and the first time a silent movie has won since 1927. I wasn't very excited to see it, and it turned out to be better than I expected. They did some interesting things with the bits of sound they did use, making you appreciate the sounds the same way "Pleasantville" makes you appreciate color. And some of the sets were genius, like when the two main characters are talking on the stairs and you can see the floor above and the floor below, one character ascending while the other is on their way down. But in my opinion, if the Academy wants to reward a movie for taking chances, I hope they go with "Tree of Life."

War Horse: If there was a movie I would've missed this year, it would've been this one. Chelsee and I went to a late showing on a weeknight, and it wasn't one I really wanted to see anyway. A movie about a horse? In a war? Really Spielberg? It turned out both better and worse than I thought it would be, and I can't decide if it was a good movie with bad parts, or a bad movie with good parts. Which is more like a zebra than a horse! (Ba dum dum CH!)

Hugo: Scorsese making a kids movie. I had my doubts. Was I the only one who watched "The Departed"? Did a Scorsese kid movie just have a smaller body count? And though the movie was good, I feel like it was just a kid version of "The Artist." I can see that the Academy would love the message about the history of films and how important they are and how transforming they can be. But if Hugo wins it will be disappointing. I wouldn't want other, more daring and beautiful films to miss out because the Academy wants people to remember how much they love movies. Isn't that a bit of preaching to the choir?

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Going in, this movie already had some things going for it. It is a movie based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, who is an author I love. The casting is genius with Tom Hanks as the father, and Sandra Bullock as the mother. But I had read the book. I knew how this movie was going to turn out. Plus it's a movie about a boy dealing with his father's death after 9/11. Sitting in the theatre after the lights had gone out but before the movie had started, I had the feeling in my stomach that you get sitting in a roller coaster before the roller coaster starts jerking and trudging up that first hill. Even the movie trailer made me cry, so I was nervous. But not nervous enough. Where the book was heartbreaking, the movie drove all of it home with the images, the sounds, the facial expressions of the boy and his mother. I've heard that this movie doesn't have a good chance of winning best picture, but I think that's a mistake. I think this movie is so personal and beautiful. In my theatre when the movie ended the audience sat in silence for a few minutes. A respectful silence. It was one where, walking out to the car, Chelsee and I couldn't even talk about it yet. That's a good movie.

Oh, Um, Halloween Again!

Reagan was a "ballerina Cinderella" for Halloween. She loved the sparkly blue dress. The one thing she loved more than that, though, was handing out Halloween candy! I got home so that the girls could go trick-or-treating with Jay and I could stay home and pass out candy, but Reagan refused to go trick-or-treating because she loved the kids coming to the door and she loved giving them candy! When no one was at the door, she'd open it and peek out to see when more people would come! And when anyone came to the door she would run and open it, hand out the candy, and when she closed the door again she'd jump around the room yelling, "Mama! I did it!"

Since we live in Provo now we didn't know what to expect when it came to the number of kids trick-or-treating, and we ran out of candy fairly quickly because we

didn't expect THAT many kids! (But yeah, Provo, maybe we should've figured.) So finally when the candy was gone Reagan agreed to go out.

We met up with Jay and The Pink Witch, and went trick-or-treating! Kami loved her costume because there were lights in her skirt, but refused to wear her hat or carry her broom by Halloween. Kameryn seemed to totally understand trick-or-treating this year, but Reagan still got a little confused. Often she would go to the door and just say, "Hi." or once she even screamed out, "HALL-O-WEEN" instead of "trick or treat". Good thing she's cute, everyone let her get away with it!

Needless to say, they had a great time!

And now you've all been brought up to date with the annual blog post!

Halloween!

From the girls that brought you the fairy and the sheep just a short year ago, I present:

The Ghost and the Cow!

This ghost may look scary, but as you can see in this never-before-seen paranormal photograph...this ghost actually loves to paint her toenails pink!

Kameryn was really looking forward to Halloween this year. She talked about it a lot, and the part she was most excited for wasn't the candy, surprisingly. She wanted to wear the costumes. And she decided really early that she wanted to be a ghost. I don't know why. And Jay bought this costume for her when I was at work one day. (Don't tell her, but I hate it. I think it's too scary for her.) But she LOVED it. She was so excited to wear it.

Reagan, as you may or may not know, LOVES the moon. She loves anything to do with the moon. So not long ago during a trip to Oregon, we bought her the book "Goodnight Moon" which became her constant companion. She reads it all the time and takes it to bed with her every night. So in her mind she wasn't just a cow, she was the cow that jumps over the moon.

The only time I could get her to put her hood on this time I only got a picture of her from the back. I can't help but love it because of the tail. And the irony of a little cow gazing longingly at the ice cream...

Reagan

I was going to post pictures from Halloween, but it's late, so I just decided to post this one of Reagan. It was on Halloween, but since it was raining we went to visit Chelsee at BR instead of going out trick or treating. Reagan, ironically, was a cow. I got this picture of her and I think it's so beautiful.

Manipulation

Last week on Saturday, I got my hair cut. I needed the cut SO badly. I cut about 6 inches off, and some people don't even notice the difference when I wear my hair down now because I was wearing it up every day. That's a fact.

We walked out of the salon (Does Fantastic Sams count as a salon?) and I was so happy with my hair, running my hand through, and Kameryn, the little beacon of light that she is sometimes, said,

"Mom, I HATE your haircut."

I wasn't really surprised that she felt that way, because she LOVES long hair. Her hair has always been short, and she frequently will put clothes and things on her head pretending it's long hair. She loved playing with my long hair. I knew cutting it off would make her sad.

I said, "That's alright that you don't like it, Kami. But it's my hair and it needed to be cut."

"No, Mom. I HATE your haircut!"

"That's okay, Kami. I like it."

And then she sat there thinking, and said out loud but strictly to herself,
"Hmmm, I want ice cream."

Then, acting like we hadn't heard her, she said, "Mom, I LOVE your haircut!"

Four Years

On Sunday, Kameryn was swinging on the swings at Allison's house. She holds up 4 fingers.

"Mom, there are this many days until my birthday."


Still holding up four fingers she says, "On my birthday, I'm gonna be this many."

"That's right." I say. She's been counting down to her birthday for months, usually just saying, "Mom, it's almost my birthday! It's getting closer and closer!"

Now she's pretty excited she can count the days on one hand.

"I used to be a little baby," Kameryn continues, "and I was laying in my crib. And I was crying. And I was drinking a bottle. But now I'm big, and I'm happy to see you!"

Yep, that about sums it up.

Memories

For me, it's hard to know how well I remember things from my childhood. I think it's because we lived in the same house my entire life and so I don't have a change in scenery to help provide a timetable. I'm not complaining about that. I'm grateful that I grew up where I did because it led to having amazing and lifelong friends who all lived in the same neighborhood as me. But still, the downside is not remembering things as well, and maybe out of order.

I've been thinking about how my girls, specifically Kameryn, are getting old enough to remember things. Which has led me to think about my earliest memories.

Strangely, when I think about my mom, I always remember her hands. Situations where I was watching her hands - helping me, dressing me, comforting me.

I'll be content even if my girls only have simple memories like mine. I remember her hands so well, but even in that limited memory, I remember feeling how much she loved me.

Catch Phrase

Allison: "What's your..."
Chelsee and me, in unison: "SIGN!"
Allison: "But even before I know your sign, I need to know your..."
Chelsee and me, in unison: "NAME!"

Starting Out Small

I love making New Years Resolutions. I understand that, really, they are just goals that you make at a particular time of year, and you can make goals anytime. But there's something about New Years resolutions that make them seem more possible than just a regular goal. More exciting.

I read this post by my friend Kim and loved it. Her entire blog is amazing, but this one post really spoke to me. This year I also found a quote that I'm trying to incorporate into my year. It was said by Oprah, which in my mind is both a pro and a con, but I liked it anyway.

"Devote today to something so daring even you can't believe you're doing it."

I'm trying to keep it in mind but start out small. Like Kim, I'm just trying to shake things up a little bit and try to do one thing every day that normally I would talk myself out of. Whether it be a big thing, or a little thing, or just waking up in the morning to go to the gym when I really would rather sleep. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be able to spend an entire day working toward something daring. But right now I'm just working on the little things.