Let's go fly a kite,......

These days the girls and I are pretty Ben-less. He's in major crunch-time to turn out 4 term papers in the next two weeks, plus an academic conference he's to present at University of Kentucky on April 17th. He's spending a lot of time at the office, today's the first day he's been home and awake for most of the day since last Sunday. Evelyn and Jilly are like, "Whoa, Dad's home. What are we supposed to do?" So our social life is somewhat on hold, and the girls and I are finding other adventures to pursue while Ben temporarily lives in the world of word-processing and reading. That should end by the 23rd or something this month when the last paper is due. Actual finals will be a breeze compared to all this. It really isn't terrible hanging out with two girly toddlers all the time. I just have to find new things to do. Which explains the kite.
One of Ev and Jill's favorite Disney movies is Mary Poppins, and Evelyn can kind of sing all the songs in the movie. We were at the park a few weeks ago, and she saw someone flying a kite. She got all excited, and started singing, "Let's go fy a kite, up to highest height....". I planned on getting one for Easter, but couldn't find one until last week, a $2.88 'My Little Pony' kite at Wal-Mart. We took it out the next day to a large park a few blocks away, got it up in the air and promptly stuck in a tree. I felt like a dork, and Evelyn was screaming that her kite was forever stuck up a tree. I was able to get it out, but the streamer stayed there for a while until the wind blew it out.
I thought this picture was kind of cool. I didn't think I'd be able to get far away enough to get Ev and the kite in the same frame.
She thought it was cool to hold it for while, but then though swinging would be more fun. I was paranoid the whole time she would let it fly away.
Jilly was the official camera bag packer, a job she enjoyed.
I let Jill hold the kite, and she wanted to run with it. I think they both enjoyed watching me run around the park getting it up in the air and keeping it out of trees. That's why Jill wouldn't hold still for this picture.
There are some steep hills at this park, and Evelyn didn't want to go home and decided to run up one to get away from me. I ran up after her, and she thought it would be a good idea to run down the hill, which gave me visions of falling, breaking an arm, etc. So I taught her to roll down it instead.
Jill liked picking the dead grass and throwing it, with Evelyn covered in it.
She didn't enjoy being rolled into as much as Evelyn enjoyed rolling into her.
Jill likes to pick out her outfits, this was the most recent/funny one. She's wearing her panties on top of the PJs, but under the skirt. She started potty-training herself 2 weeks ago. We've had some messes, but she's a lot more willing than Evelyn was to go in the potty.
Sorry for all the pictures recently, but the Grandparents love them. There are a few more below. We're feast and famine posters.

So here I am, another late Friday/early Saturday morning at the office, writing another paper. I’m really excited about a book I’m reading right now and I’m using it for a paper I’m currently working on. It is called Remembering by Edward Casey. It’s a philosophy book but I think it’s pretty accessible if you’re interested. He introduces the history of memory and remembering in the introduction and writes about how for the Greeks it was almost a divine act. I bet most of you know who Zeus is, the father of the gods, but you probably don’t know that his wife was Mnemosyne, (which means memory). Casey goes on to address how memory and remembering has lost its prestige not only in our contemporary education system but in our society. It’s something we’ve relegated to computers, yet the human remembering and the computer version are different. I’m writing my paper on remembering as an ethical act, or as Casey puts it, “a way of getting (and staying) in touch with a past that would otherwise be consigned to oblivion; a fateful fending off of forgetfulness (Casey, 12). It’s a topic I’ve been interested in for some time now, and I made a good effort to read this book…Bergson’s Matter and Memory, but it uses very opaque language. I’ll give it a go again this spring. One of the reasons I’m so fascinated with memory, aside from the fact that I’ve noticed that mine is starting to fade, is how often it is mentioned in the scriptures…Old/New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants…it’s an integral part of how we are to worship and approach God the Father and His Son. Give your scriptures a whirl and see how important it is. And if you want to read an incredible study on memory, I recommend Casey’s book. Unfortunately it’s $34.

Gosh dang technology!

So I tried downloading a new background from pyzam and completely messed up my blog. Probably user error, I have been having a lot of these lately. Somehow in the process my links list was deleted. So if you would all be so kind and leave me your blog address, I would appreciate it.

Update: As you can see, I was able to find many of the addresses through my computer history and other subversive methods. (Just kidding). Because my memory is not 100% accurate, I'm sure someone's link is not on my list. If that's you, please leave a note for me and I will fix it!

Our first real Easter

This year I felt justified in going all out for Easter, since I felt the girls would actually have fun with it. And they did. The only thing I would have changed was doing the festivities on Saturday instead of Sunday, that way we would have more time to focus on enjoying our little morning family celebration. And we could reserve Sunday for focusing on the real meaning of Easter, the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.


We got the girls up early and we told them the Easter Bunny came, and led them out to the front room. They were both trying to figure out what was going on.

Jilly was very excited once I showed her what was inside the eggs of her easter basket. She does the best surprised face.





Evelyn just wanted to dig into the candy. I think she ate 1/3 of her candy in about 20 minutes.












Here they are pleasantly reading their new books. Jilly was excited about hers because it has a picture of a cat. She loves cats. Unfortunately, we will never own one because Ben is allergic. Evelyn's book was about shapes, and she wasn't so excited about it. I think she thought is was too educational. :)





We had an easter egg hunt after church outside our apartment building. It was a lot more fun that last year, when we hid them inside the house and Evelyn still had no clue what to do with easter eggs.








Jilly caught on really quickly as to what she was supposed to do in the Easter egg hunt. She found just as many eggs as Evelyn.
She would say, "Egg!" every time she saw one on the ground.

Sorry the pictures are placed all weird. I forgot to center them when I was adding them. The only easter tradition we did not accomplish was egg dyeing. I thought I would save that potential disaster activity until next year. Yesterday I bought an egg dyeing kit at Wal-Mart on clearance to put away so I would remember next Easter. It's a lot of fun to see my girls finally getting into the spirit of holiday celebrations.

No intro needed...

Nosotros que profesamos el culto de los libros

I had a crazy weekend. I cam home Friday night, spent some time with the girls and with Shaunie and after Evelyn went to bed and Shaunie was rocking Jillian to sleep I hopped in the car and went to my office. I stayed from 9pm to 3am. The funniest part about it, I wasn't the only one there. I went in Saturday at about noon and Shaunie and the girls picked me up at abut 8pm. After they all went to bed, I was up until 5am. Reading, grading papers, writing outlines for my term papers. Strange is the life we lead, nosotros que profesamos el culto de los libros. Here are some pictures to document the weekend that was lost forever in the pages of fiction...


This is the top of my desk, a lot of these books will be used in my thesis. I'll be reading many of them this spring. The papers are tests and writing assignments that need to be graded. And of course, there is my mate (pronounced mah-tay), it's a beautiful thing.
I share a desk with my friend Jared. He's sane though so he was at home when I took this picture. Jared filled his candy jar with M&M's on Thursday and they were gone on Saturday. He used to have Atomic Fireballs but those lasted longer because nobody likes them.
Here is my picture of Shaunie, I need to get a picture of the girls up there too. When I'm at school the real Shaunie can't be there so I have to settle for a simulacrum.
Here is the full view. In the lower left-hand corner you can see part of blanket because I thought about sleeping there that night. The two gentlemen in black and white would like to remain anonymous but if you can figure out who they are you can earn a gold star!
This is the community electrical hot water kettle (We all use it for our mate) that will disappear in the spring, then I'll have to heat my water up at home
This is my friend Cody talking with his fiancé Karina (she's in Chile) on Skype. On top of the desk is the community pillow, Mr. Penguin. Whenever someone takes a nap, Mr. Penguin helps them soften the harsh reality of sleeping on a hard desk/floor. I guess you can call him the office mascot, and Cody is kind of like the office little brother, everyone either teases him or gives him hugs...also, Cody is one of the few people Jillian likes more than Daddy. Whenever he comes over for dinner or movie night, both Evelyn and Jillian will let Cody hold them, he's like an uncle.
This is my buddy Chris who I met in the MTC many years back. Destiny has brought us together in the same field of study, one year apart. We hope to one day have offices right next to each other at Harvard...or wherever we get hired.
This is someone's desk. I thought the mess was exemplary, it's always a work in progress. This person told me today that in a "good" month, a good month for books that is, he will drop about $200 on books. Sometimes I'm jealous of that, but I don't read as quickly, and I get to come home to this every night...
In the mind of a two year old this makes sense, Mr. Potatohead ears go in the holes on the side of his head, so they should also go in the holes in the side of my head. AWESOME!!! I love my girls!!!

Ben's Birthday Present

So my birthday isn't until August but I thought I'd take a cue from Mom and take advantage of a good deal when I see it. If only I could get down the part where I buy stuff for other people. This was 70% off the list price though and it's been on my Amazon wish list for two or three years, so I couldn't pass it up.They are a really cool edition of Tolkien's books with illustrations by Alan Lee. Peter Jackson used his drawings a lot when making the films, in fact, Alan Lee was one of the art designers that worked on the films.

This is Helms Deep, they used this drawing to design the set in the film.

When I showed them to my friend Jared who just got accepted to PhD school he said, "Cool. I won't be able to read anything like that for about six years." That is sad but true. I think the summer between the masters and PhD school I'll read a lot of stuff like this just for fun. If I'm smart though, I will start on my reading list.

It's been a little while

It seems I go through blogging "feast" and "famine." Nicole told me I should update on her blog, so here I go. I've been meaning to for the last week, but just never got around to it. I've been waiting for the late-winter blahs to end, and after last week's really nice weather, it's really blah this week. I just want spring to be here! I am very glad we get Daylight's Savings Time this weekend. It will make spring seem closer. With the weather here in Utah though, you never know what Mother Nature may have up her sleeve.
We've been busy, but when I'm sitting here typing about the last two weeks' happenings, I can't think of much. I guess it's just been cleaning up one mess after another, shopping, etc. The day-to-day stuff that takes up time. Evelyn and Jilly are becoming expert partners in crime, with Jilly becoming the instigator about half the time with Evelyn gleefully following. Today's spotlight mess was squirting a quarter tube of my Bath and Body Works lotion into the sink. That stuff ain't the cheapest. I was able to salvage some of it, fortunately. Yesterday Evelyn shut Jilly's foot in the hinge of the door, LUCKILY, she only has a bruise today. I was only about 3 feet away when that happened, and could hear her little foot being crushed. I was afraid something was really wrong when Jilly kept crying for a while, but she wasn't bothered by it at all later or today. Ev got a BIG timeout for that one. Here are some random pictures:

Evelyn falling asleep before bedtime on the couch. Ben likes to take pictures of them asleep. They always look so peaceful.
Here they are in the apple box again. Check out Evelyn's hair! Isn't she stylin'?

These two love to bake goodies. Mostly becuase they like the dough, as you can tell from these pictures. Evelyn asks almost everyday, "Mom, can make cookies?"

These two love chocolate, just like their mother.

This is the toilet game, and they will play it for 20 minutes at a time, if I let them.

Evelyn unrolls the toilet paper, and they both grab some and throw it in the toilet.

Jilly is the official flusher, and flushes every 15 seconds or so. The toilet never has time to fill back up.
After Jilly has moved from her official flushing position, Evelyn has to clean the toilet. Which I didn't mind so much, except there was still toilet paper in the bowl, and then she tried to carry the brush around the house. Umm, gross? Later she actually got it stuck in her hair. I repeat what I said at that moment, with an air of exasperation, "Gross, gross, and triple gross!!!"

Jilly is looking and acting more and more like a toddler. This picture makes her look a lot older. Who do you think she looks like? She's also getting her top molars in, ugh. Evelyn didn't really get terribly grouchy teething, but Jilly has been a different story. I'm hoping they come in soon, I think we're going on four weeks now with bi-polar Jilly. She's still cute as a button, despite the crankiness.

Here's a request for all of you with little kids. I want to know which children's authors your kids like. I'm trying to venture away from the simple 'identifying' books and Baby Einstein. The only picture/story books I've found that Ev and Jill like are the "No, David!" books by David Shannon, and most Eric Carle picture books. I need to broaden their book horizons.

Alright Nicole, I think that is a pretty good update. Thanks for giving me a little push in the blogging direction.