Books, books, books

So I started a reader's group. During our meeting earlier this month, we voted on books for the upcoming year. I served booky cake, which was I think my first attempt to make a cake look like something other than cake, so please don't make fun of its floppy sides and uneven frosting. If you really want to mock/admire a cake, please try something here. The top book (er, I mean, cake) is Oliver Twist, my main nomination for the book list. The second book (cake--sorry!) is the Work and the Glory, a series I've recently gotten into. There was loads of this sweetness left over, so I unfortunately snacked on it daily for about a week straight before I finally threw away the rest. Hate to throw away food. But then, cake is hardly qualified as "food." More "junk" than "food" to begin with, right?

Here's what we will be reading for about the next year, if anybody is interested in joining us:
Rainwater, by Sandra Brown, The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, The Candy Shop Wars, by Brandon Mull, Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin, Hannah’s List, by Debbie Macomber, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini, The $64.00 Tomato, by William Alexander, Fearless, by Max Lucado, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer, The Soloist, by Steve Lopez.

I'm more excited about some of the titles than others of course, but figure it is good to get outside my typical rut of reading and look at some suggestions from what others have liked. I think we have almost every major genre represented here. Cool.

Cutting paper is SO. FUNNY.

So, I still haven't uploaded any new pics or videos. But here's a video from a few weeks back that I just rediscovered among the files, and it still makes me smile. We were cutting fliers at the church library, not even considering Lo might be entertained by such an activity. I love when he expresses delight at the simplest things.

I felt a little nervous having the baby so near that giant cutter, btw, so rest assured we were always holding tightly to that Lo to keep his fingers safely away from the blade. He kept trying to lunge for the object of his fascination.

Just to make sure I don't forget

I had thought to just wait until a few weeks when I do his nine month report, but he keeps changing so much all the time that I figured it was better to get these fun new developments recorded now while I remember. The latest tricks of Dat Lo:

• Yesterday he got serious about sharing his snacks with me. Shoving slimy baby crackers in my mouth, holding his apple up for me to try, etc. mmmMMM.


• He holds toys and such in his mouth like a puppy...crawls around, climbs on stuff, uses both hands galore, all while gripping a piece of toy in his teeth. Did I mention yet that his top teeth came in.


• Often ignores his pile of toys in favor of practicing gross motor skills on the living room furniture. We had to move the kitchen table in front of the stairs because we are too cheap to buy a real baby gate at this point.


• Crawls UP stairs. Falls down them. A few days ago (with me right next to him!) he fell down a couple stairs. I'd looked away for a second to check a text message. Sad. But he was more scared than hurt and quit crying long before I did. No, I didn't actually cry. But I was trembling and shaking so bad, and my heart pounded and it kept replaying in my head all the rest of the day. Horrible.


• Holding just one of my fingers, he can walk a few steps before getting off balance. Prefers this "practice walking" to crawling. I cater to him and hold my hand down there for him to grab.


• Yesterday he showed animal awareness pretty firmly--this one is exciting for me, since I've been working toward this for awhile now. We were walking outside and when he saw the geese grazing, instead of just ignoring them like he usually does, he told me "aDa!" as he caught sight of them. Then he craned his neck around to keep staring at the flock as we passed.
  
• His head bobbing/dancing to music and rhymes has extended to involve dancing to any sound with a beat--including the sewing machine, dishwasher, electric fan, etc.
  
• While he still loves his farm animal books ("MooMOO says the cow" generally gets an excited reaction), his latest favorite seems to be a Sesame Street Elmo puppet book. Which is exhausting for me to read, since the Elmo puppet makes my fingers cramp up trying to scratch Elmo's nose, do a dance, rub his tummy, etc. I think I'll be glad when Lo starts to like other books instead.

Guess that's long enough. A few of these should have had cute pictures and videos to go with them but I'm feeling too lazy to upload at this point.

odds n ends of the Palmyra trip

Here are a few last pics from the trip. Check out the other posts below to see other good times we had this past weekend in New York. A big thank you to Uncle Lynn and Aunt Carolyn for letting us use their house as our base to sleep and eat, etc. It really helped us (especially because we travelled with a little baby) to get to break up the trip into more enjoyable shorter driving periods (their home is exactly a half-way point between our Ohio residence and the Palmyra sites). Four-Church Corner. There is a different denomination on each corner of this Palmyra intersection, really illustrating the competing faiths Joseph Smith spoke of around the time that he sought direction to know which of all the churches he should join and subsequently received his First Vision.

We just did a quick stop at the Grandin Print Shop, and plan to do a more thorough visit next time we go to Palmyra. We also have to keep on our "to-do-list" for next time: Fayette Chapel, the Peter Whitmer Farm, and...? Maybe more time spent at the Smith farm as well.

Such a treasure to live close enough to see all these historic sites. We love it!

The Sacred Grove

We forgot our real camera for this trip, btw, so the photo quality is not the best (taken with Jerry's phone). But the beauty of The Sacred Grove is still evident:The Sacred Grove is one of the most sacred places on earth, and a pilgrimage site for all faithful LDS people. While we walked through it, we sang softly "O How Lovely Was the Morning," and taught Lo what happened here. Then Jerry and I took turns holding Lo so each of us adults could get some reflection time alone. There is a special spirit here. One of the senior missionaries in the grove offered to take a family photo for us. Once again, blurry photo, but such a good memory for us. We look forward to going back again someday when we have older children who can appreciate the significance of this site. We rushed through some of the earlier parts of it (Smith Homes/Farm) because Little Tam was having some tiredy meltdowns. We are thankful he had mostly quieted by the time we got to the grove.

Hill Cumorah--Site and Pageant

I guess we came expecting something just a step above a local roadshow type play, but the Hill Cumorah Pageant left us absolutely dazzled and amazed. We talked afterward about how we cannot figure out how some of the special effects even came to pass. And yes, I shall speak unto ye in scriptural language from this time hence. Because that is how blessed this pageant was unto us.

The moon rose as we waited on the field for the pageant to thus begin (it must have full darkness to start).

The setting sun came and with its colors, the actors in their garb filled the field:

Their joy was contagious as they wandered among the audience. Lo ceased his crying to say hello to a few of the colorful cast. (he wailed for about an hour straight right before the pageant began, as his bedtime was long past and the rest of the journey had proven taxing for him).

A wise man from the East. The set in the background is of exceedingly fine workmanship which left us astonished beyond all measure. And maybe left this woman astonished also:

We did cause that our position be relocated to the top of the hill for a time, in order that we might view the secret parts of this creation. We saw behind the scenes, the trebuchet that lifted the cross and figure of Christ, the stone which held the gold plates on Cumorah (and an actor putting the stone in place), as well as Moroni's monument.

This monument also had positioned around the base the names and statements of witnesses who saw and felt the gold plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. There are 3 witnesses who were shown the plates by an angel, and 8 who saw the plates from Joseph's hand.

Here are the words of Moroni as he stood on Hill Cumorah thousands of years past:

And when ye shall receive these things [these plates, these scriptures], I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things.

There are some in the world who fight against this truth. They and their children lined the road which borders our church's Hill Cumorah land, and all throughout the pageant, used bullhorns to blast slander and lies about Joseph Smith, the Angel Moroni, and current members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I normally do not like to waste any time even acknowledging these types of sad and pathetic fighters against Christ. But I want to mention them at this time because of a good memory I had that night as we left the pageant. Jerry and I felt so warmed and thrilled as we walked back to our parked car leaving the pageant. It had been a richly spiritual experience for us, as well as a joy to the physical senses. As we neared our car, the sounds of the protesters on the roadside became audible yet again (during our time in the pageant the church music had drowned out the protesters). At first, we felt a growing dullness in our hearts, as we were forced to listen to the protesters because it took about 30 minutes of sitting in traffic to drive beyond their range of noise.

But then it dawned on us that we did not have to listen to the din. We turned up the volume in our car of the latest EFY CD, and began sharing with each other our favorite parts of the pageant. "Mine was when the actor playing Christ descended to the crowd of people--how do you think they lowered him like that?? Wires?? I bet he will look just like that when he comes to earth in real life--so glowing, bright, and powerful." Jerry agreed, and shared that he was struck by how realistic it had seemed when the prophet Abinadi was burned to death. There will always be wicked people who fight against the prophets. As the sounds of the protesters faded from our consciousness, we felt again the warmth of the Holy Spirit fill our hearts.

The adversary is powerless when we make good choices. As Jerry and I chose to fill our car with uplifting conversation and spiritual music, then the bad feelings we had concerning the protesters simply left. I am grateful to have had this reminder. The entire evening was a testimony building experience.

Palmyra Temple

Members in our church are encouraged to make temple worship a regular part of our lives. The term "regular" allows for some individual interpretation, so even though we Tams used to have monthly temple attendance as our goal when we lived closer to many temples (in Utah), the current goal for us is quarterly. We don't have a temple near us now, and Lo needs a babysitter whenever we go, so it feels like such a treat to make this experience happen in our schedule. This past weekend we did some sealings at the Palmyra Temple. Our sweet friends Clegg and Kim watched Lo during our time inside. Here is Lo on the temple grounds. Such lovely flowers. It was a pretty muggy day, so we tried to keep Lo hydrated by using his sippy cup. He likes to pretend he can drink out of it...

But he always ends up needing a bit of assistance to get the cup tipped into his mouth.

aaaaawwwww

Jerry took a nap wearing Lo on his back with the mei tai.  It reminds me of a monkey or opposum or koala bear or something like that. 

Got Spiritual Births? Especially Medicated Ones?

There is occuring right now a compilation of stories from LDS women who have given birth, as well as their thoughts on motherhood, pregnancy, etc. It is worth contributing if you've got a birth story ready to go, and they are especially in need of medicated birth stories right now. I know some of my readers have had GREAT experiences with medicated births. They point out that for some reason natural birthers are just more eager to share their stories, though they are certainly not the only ones having spiritual experiences related to birthing children. Anyway, here's the link: check it out.

Too bad I don't have a waterproof camera

The following are a bunch of disappointing pictures from when I took Lo swimming last week. Since I went by myself, it was tricky to simultaneously A) keep my camera out of the water and B) keep Lo's face out of the water. And C) Make Lo look at the camera and smile also proved difficult as well. Oh well. It was fun and I promise he did have lots of laughters and splashing...but none of that got caught on film. Next time. This waterfall is beautiful and if you lay under it, it gives great massages.

Squinty in the sun. That Lo never gets burned--I do try to be diligent with the sunscreen--but he has a funny farmer's tan between his fat rolls (the insides of the rolls is white, but the top part of the rolls gets browned).

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to train him to wear a hat. We do have one with velcro straps under the chin, but I misplaced it. His swimsuit is a reusable cloth swim diaper. Way better than the one-time use disposables. And it shows off his thunder thighs so much better than traditional swim trunks would have done.