Two weeks in a row of writing on time! Be impressed!

Follow-up on the Missionary broadcast

BJ writing here...
So, last week we mentioned our speculations about the missionary broadcast. I was right about some things, but not everything. (Surprise!) But we're excited about the changes. It makes sense to let missionaries contact people online, via Facebook, etc. And they had a few videos that showed missionaries using an iPad to do various things. A digital area book makes so much more sense than the old paper ones. Being able to see a map of what members live closest to each member, for example, would be awesome. Honestly though, Jessa, we're not sure how much of the changes will even be applicable in your mission, where it's such a poor region. I'm not sure I can see them giving you all iPads there.But for other areas, it will be nice.

They also encouraged members to become Facebook friends with the missionaries in their area, which was cool. But the most unexpected thing (at least to me) was that they're going to be opening meetinghouses for public tours by the missionaries. I think it's an awesome idea; a great way to get people comfortable in the church without the pressure of everyone seeing them come in and all the expectations that will set. So yeah. Exciting stuff.

End BJ, start Tianna

Insanity

So, this week it was officially decided that I am insane.  I'm sorry to inform you that your nieces are being raised by a crazy person, but, alas, it is true.  Let me explain why, and you can decide for yourself.

Thursday I decided I wanted to can some more chicken broth.  I only had one pint left.  Normally this isn't a big deal.  But one chicken only gives me 7 pints of broth.  And where some recipes use up to 3 pints, I go through them fast.  Plus, my canner can can (wow, that was a lot of cans all together) up to 18 pints, so I wasn't letting it live up to its full potential.  So I asked my neighborhood group if I could borrow some crockpots.  I got 5 (including my own).  So I went to Smiths and they happened to have whole chickens on clearance.  So I bought 8 (read: all that they had on clearance).  Because I'm insane.

Now, this wouldn't be such a huge deal, except that night was Grandpa's viewing, the next morning I had a presidency meeting at 9, then the funeral at 11 up in Riverton.  Then that night was our mini-float parade that we helped build the float for (we ended up not going).  The next morning was the grand parade that our float was in and we were in charge of walking with our float, then Saturday night the family went fly boarding with Nick.  So… somewhere in there I was supposed to fit in 8 hours of crockpot, picking chicken of bones, straining broth, and canning.  Hahahaha.  Yes, I'm insane.  I know.

I got everything but the canning done before the viewing.  We went up to that where Kessa squealed with delight at getting to see Chelsea again (first time since New York) and Abby wanted nothing more than to wander the halls.  We came home, BJ put the girls to bed, and I started canning.   While the broth canned and the girls slept, BJ and I started to clean up the messy kitchen.  BJ worked on washing 5 crockpots and the other misc. dishes that had piled up.  I decided to take the 3 chickens I didn't cook out to the freezer in the garage to cook another time.

And… our freezer had decided to stop working.  It was completely warm.  One roast, one steak and 3-4 stew meats completely defrosted.  And all the blood had dripped down to the bottom, making a nice pool.  And all the subsequent drops of blood splattered all over the walls, doors, and shelves.  Just what I wanted to see at 11:00 at night when I'm already exhausted and know I have to wake up early.  So I spent the next hour scrubbing down the freezer and throwing things away.  The chicken went back in the fridge.  [sigh]

And I only canned half the broth that night.  18 pints.  Which is all that fits.  So then I had to make room in the fridge for the giant stock pot holding the rest of the broth.  Luckily, I'm the master at fridge Tetris.  But then I had to find more time on Saturday to can the rest.  I ended up with 34 pints!  I think I could have gotten one more, but I ran out of lids.  :)  So I put the rest in the fridge.

I'll tell you about the funeral and the parade later, but there's one other thing I wanted to note in this section.  So, that was all Thursday night, right?  Saturday afternoon when we got home from the parade, BJ happened to notice something disconcerting.  He pointed over to the door and wall leading to the garage where I noticed that it was completely splattered with what appeared to be dried blood.  Jessa!  I have no clue how that happened!  If it was from the freezer, which is the only thing that makes sense, I'm at a loss.  I did most of the scrubbing down in the garage.  The few things that came upstairs with blood still on them were two shelves and a bag of bread (I know.  Sad.) and I can't fathom how those items could do so much damage.  The shelves didn't have that much blood.  And I don't recall fanning any of those items at the wall/door.  Some of those drops of blood reached as high as I could reach to clean up while on my tiptoes!  IT WAS INSANE.  The other ridiculous thing about this theory is that it means that we went two days going in and out of that door without noticing.  At all.

The only other option that I can think of is that some creepy person broke into our house while we were at the parade and did something creepy to splatter blood all over the door and wall (but not a drop on the floor or ceiling!)  This scenario is far too creepy for my liking, so I'm forced to believe the first scenario, even though I have no logical explanation for it.

Also, it's now Sunday and my freezer still doesn't work.  :(  I'm going to have to call in a repairman to figure it out.  Luckily it's still under warranty.

Funeral

I'm sure your family will tell you more details about the funeral.  My favorite part was Cher's talk where  she bore a very strong testimony about the Spirit and the gospel.  I was in tears.  But as you'll get better details from your parents, instead I'm going to tell you more about it from Kessa's perspective.

When Grandpa first died, I told Kessa.  I told her that Grandpa and Heavenly Father had decided it was time for Grandpa to come live with Him again.  She accepted that without thinking.  But when I told her that he died, her eyes got really big and concerned.  Probably because we talk about all the things Abby shouldn't do (or Kessa shouldn't do to Abby) lest she die.  I had to explain to her that we all die and that Heavenly Father tells us when it's our time and then it's ok.  That it was happy for Grandpa to die because he had been very sick and had been wanting to go home to heaven for a long time.  And then she was ok with it.

On the way to Riverton (the girls stayed with a babysitter at your mom's house during the funeral) we were trying to explain the Plan of Salvation to Kessa.  We were explaining that while our spirits go to Heavenly Father, our bodies stay on earth.  So we have a funeral to honor the person, and then we take them to a cemetery where we bury the body to protect it until the resurrection when our perfected bodies and our spirits come back together.  Kessa asked, "Protect them from what?"  "Umm.  From animals."  "Yeah.  Like from bunnies.  When the resurrection comes, there's going to be piles of Grandpa Goddard and bunnies!"

Later she told us, "He couldn't take his body because he couldn't climb the stairs to heaven!"

After the funeral we went back to your parents' and got the girls and took them up to the cemetery for the graveside service.  We were running a little late, so I was watching everyone on Find My Friends.  Resa's flight didn't come in until 1ish, so we were hoping she'd make it to the cemetery.  As I watched, I noticed her getting closer to the cemetery so I commented that she would probably make it there about when we did.  Kessa piped up from the back, "We are so lucky!"  Confused I asked why.  "Because we get to see Resa!"  Awww.

Parade

So, remember how I told you that we got called to our float committee?  Well, it's finally done and over!  Except tearing apart the float.  We haven't done that yet.  We ended up staying at your parents' house after the funeral and playing a game with your mom (we didn't get home till 10 pm!) so we didn't go to the parade on Friday night, but as we were in charge of walking with the float on Saturday, we figured we should probably be there.  So Saturday morning we packed up the girls and headed out in 100º weather to walk a mile or so in a parade.  Great fun.

Kessa got to ride on the float (she was the only one on her side) and wave (very shyly) to everyone.  It was cute.  And she did great!  We had to remind her to keep waving a couple of times, but overall she did great.

Abby got to ride in the stroller while I pushed it behind the float, which she was happy with, as she was tired and hot and thirsty (so she guzzled her sippy cup the whole time) until about 1/4 mile or so from the end.  Then she cried and flailed until I took her out and carried her while pushing the stroller.  Great fun.  :D

And BJ got to help pull the float.  (Our floats had to be man-powered.)  And sometimes dance.  Yes, dance.  Let me tell you about our float.

(video)


The theme of the parade was "You saw what?"  We interpreted that to be YouTube.  So we made a computer, complete with keyboard and mouse, then printed a sign that looked like a YouTube screen.  We cut out the actual video portion and put a mirror behind it, so as we went by the crowd, it looked like they were on YouTube.  Then we played 45-second clips of three popular YouTube songs (such as Gangam Style (sp?)).  One of our YM leaders danced like a crazy man as he walked along, and eventually recruited BJ to dance with him.  (After BJ tried his best to hide from him, but eventually failed.)  After awhile of that our bishop happened to be walking by me and saw BJ in front dancing and commented, "Wow.  BJ is dancing without any inhibition!"  Next thing I knew, bishop was up dancing with them.  Then some of the youth.  It. Was. Fantastic.


Yard/Garden

Jessa!  Our garden is SO HUGE!  We get comments on it all the time.  It strokes my vanity wonderfully.  (Hey, at least I'm honest.)  But mostly it just makes me happy and giddy.  Especially after last year's failure.  We've already eaten two yellow squash and a zucchini and given two more zucchinis away.  And both are growing at least a half dozen more right now.  We've got lettuce, spinach and kale coming out our ears.  We've got tons of basil, parsley, green onion and sage (though the sage is mostly just for pretty).  We've eaten one giant cauliflower (I believe I put in a picture last week?) and we've got another big one out there now and another on the way.  Plus some broccoli (though not as big.)  Our strawberries are finally starting to come out of shock (partly) and we're starting to get strawberries growing.  Kessa's already eaten one.  But they have awhile yet till they look like they're doing well.  I got four blueberries off our bush yesterday!  I walked over to check it and found them just laying on the ground.  They were tasty.  :)  Though, a couple were still a little tart.  Hooray!  AND, I got pictures this week!  Yay!  You can tell that part of it is the soil we used (Miller's Mix) because we planted two of the exact same tomato on the same day, maybe 3-4 feet apart, but one was in our garden box with the good soil and one is just outside (I ran out of room).  They both get watered by a drip line on the same station.  But the one outside is still tiny and the one inside is huge.  (The top right picture below.  The tomato in front is the small one and the giant bush behind it is the big one.)

Potty experiments


Kessa has had a hard time with potty training.  We started a year and a half ago and I'd say, for the most part, she's pretty darn good.  But she still has accidents.  A lot of them.  Probably an average of once/day.  Some days are a lot worse and some days are a lot better.  She's even gotten to the point that if she has an accident, she'll go upstairs and change her clothes without being asked.  So what motivation is there to not have accidents if cleaning up after herself doesn't bother her?

The other day I had a brilliant idea.  I think that part of her problem is that she doesn't recognize the need to go potty.  I'll ask her if she needs to go, she'll say no, then literally two minutes later has an accident.  So I found a way to help her recognize that need.

We set up an experiment.

Whenever I think she *might* need to go potty (either from how she's acting or length of time since last potty trip), I ask her to think about her body and what it's trying to tell her.  Then I have her give me a guess (hypothesis) as to what her body is trying to say.  Then she has to go sit on the potty and find out if she was right or wrong.

Unsurprisingly, the first several times her answer was no.  And then she would be genuinely surprised as she sat on the potty and realized that, "I was wrong!  My body was saying yes!"

Soon her answer was no, then partway to the bathroom she'd change her mind to yes.  "Mommy!  I thought it was no, but then I just felt it and it's saying yes!"

Every once in awhile her answer is, "Yes, no.  That means maybe."

But more and more often, her answer is yes.  And when her answer is yes, she will willingly go potty.  It's a miracle!  Seriously!  I'm so happy!

Yesterday she told me that she didn't want to do the potty experiment anymore.  She wanted to do a different experiment.  I told her we could do other experiments, too, but I wanted her to keep doing the potty experiment until her guess was right every single time.  I figure that by that point I can trust her answer when I ask.  And that if the answer is yes, she'll recognize it and just go on her own.

[crosses fingers]

We can always start up the experiment again if we need to.

Fly Boarding

On Saturday we all went down to Utah Lake to try out Nick's Fly Board. Kessa was thrilled to see Chelsea, and BJ was excited to try out the Fly Board. I stayed on the shore to keep track of Kessa and Abby, and got some craftiness done. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun.

Here's a video of BJ on the fly board. This was his first run—he did pretty well.

Misc

Kessa really wanted to wear my heels.  Rather, she wanted to wear heels, so she came and asked me if I had any "this tall" (which was probably 12-18" tall).  She decided to settle for my approx. 1" heels.  She wore them all over upstairs for probably a half hour.  So cute.


Abby is SO NOT Kessa.  She is way more adventuresome.  For example, One of her favorite things to do is jump from the hand chair to the bean bag.  Now, Kessa does that, too, but I doubt she would have done it with this abandon at 17 months. (video below)


Speaking of Abby being Not Kessa, I'm gonna let BJ tell you about going to the park.

Start BJ:
So, the other day, I took Kessa and Abby down to the "yellow slide park," creatively named after the fact that it has three yellow slides. There's a small, waist-high one for little kids, a ~12-foot tall spiral one for most everyone, and then a ~18 foot tall tube spiral, where you're fully enclosed as you're going down. Kessa's our usual cautious child, but has finally become comfortable with the 12-foot open spiral one.

Anyway, we walked down there for a quick park trip. Kessa went down the spiral slide, and Abby just wanted to follow right after her. So I followed Abby up to the top. When she saw the slide, she was a little nervous, but I took Abby down on my lap, and she loved it. We got to the bottom and she immediately ran around to go again. This time, I sat her in front of me so she was actually on the plastic, and she loved it again.

The third time Abby went down, I didn't even go up with her. I reached up and held her hand as she was going down, and I even let go of that halfway through. She loved it. She was dying to go again, but it started to rain, so we had to head out.

So yeah. Where it took Kessa until age 3.5 to get comfortable with that slide, Abby is doing it at 17 months. Crazy.
End BJ.

Kessa lounging after the parade


Goofy family pic


Kessa-isms

I think I put these last as a reward for reading all the way through.  We'll pretend that you can't just scroll to the bottom.  :D

• Me: Who do we learn about at church?
  Kessa: Jesus!! [pause] Bird poop.
• Me: You're a punk.
  Kessa: No I'm not. I'm not a witch. I'm a Kessalyn.
• Me: What food should we have for dinner?
  Kessa: You're going to have health food and I'm going to have cereal.
• I snapped at Kessa tonight before bedtime. When she said her bedtime prayers, she prayed to have Jesus give me more patience.
• BJ: No, we can't go to the park on Sunday, because we want to do things that help us think of Jesus
  Kessa: We can think about Jesus while we are at the park. We can think about him while we're on the slides and while we're climbing, and all the time. And we'll think about Jesus and how he got dead and came alive again. And we'll think about Grandpa Goddard and God and Jesus.
  BJ: (flummoxed for a bit, but eventually recovering…) But it's not a reverent activity.
  Kessa: But we can go down the slide and the swing, AND fold our arms while doing it.

Bonus:

• Me, pretending to be Kessa and blocking BJ from going down the stairs: Nope, I'm a gate and go clear to the ceiling. You can't go through.
  BJ: And what if I jump through the fence?
  Me: You might knock it over and break it.
  BJ: oh. That wouldn't be good.
  Me: Nope. Maybe if you say the nicest words you can think of, it'll open.
  BJ, after a long time thinking: Paprika.
  
  He totally fails at this game.

Look at me writing a whole day early! :)

Dear blog readers ~

So, the last couple of weeks Jessa has gotten short, frantic emails when she got online hours before I expected her to.  So, while she has gotten letters from me, you have not.  I hope to remedy that tonight. But if I don't, here's my apology.  And here is also a full letter for this week.

~ Tianna

Dear Jessa ~

Hi!  Look!  I managed to write on Saturday night.  Aren't you proud?  haha.  Ok, let's see what's happened since my last frantic email.

But first, if you have an email from your parents, you should read it before this one. I don't want to spoil their news.


Father's Day 
I made a video for BJ of a bunch of pictures of him with the girls throughout their lives.  It prompted this post on Facebook: "If you were to judge my family life solely by the pictures in my iPhoto library, you would be hard-pressed to believe that my children have parents."  It's so true.  I'd post the video here (for my other readers), but I didn't export it in the best resolution, so it's really pixelated.  I haven't fixed it.  Sorry.

I interviewed Kessa about BJ.  It was adorable.  I'll post the video, but I'll also transcribe it so you can hear her answers, too.

(Video here)


What's your name?  Kessa
How old are you?  3  (She's actually 4, but it's still new.  She forgets sometimes.)
What's today?  Sunday
What's special about Sunday today? Because it's Father's Day
Do you have a father? Yeah.
What's his name? Daddy.  And BJ.
What's your favorite thing about daddy?  [long pause] I don't know
What does daddy like to do?  Go to the museum!
Do you like to go to the museum with daddy?  Yeah! And with you.
And with me?  [nods]
What is daddy's favorite color?  Blue.  And green.
What's daddy's favorite animal?  Don't know.
What does daddy do for work?  Do his chores!
What do you like to do with daddy?  I love to play with him and my friends.
And… what do you love about daddy?  Because he loves me.
What does daddy do best?  [long pause]  To work hard.
He does do that very well, huh?  And, what does daddy do that makes you laugh?  Say funny things!
What does daddy do that makes you happy?  Plays with me.
Plays with you?  [nods]
What's daddy's favorite food?  Scrambled eggs!
What does… hmm… what's daddy's favorite song?  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, maybe?
Can you sing it?  [she sings it, repeating one line twice and needing help to get out of her infinite loop]
Do you want to tell daddy anything?  What do you want to tell him?  Do you want to tell him I love you?  [nods]  Ok, tell him "I love you daddy!"  I love you, Daddy! Happy father's day.  Happy father's day!  Can I see it?


5th Anniversary (crackpot!)
Can you believe we've been married 5 years?!  In a way that number blows me away because that's a long time!  Yet on the other hand, haven't I always been part of your family?  (I know, totally cliche, right?  But cliche for a reason.  It's totally true!)

To celebrate, BJ and I went up to Park City (Thanks Mom and Dad Homer for letting us use your timeshare!) while your mom watched the girls.  (Thanks again!!!!!) Our trip can basically be summed up like this: We got some exercise, we saw some nature, we got laughed at by Asians, we considered requesting a crackpot, and we ate really well.

More details?  Well, if you insist.  We decided to walk around and see more of Park City.  Park City has some great paths with nice landscaping around them.  So we stopped and looked at flowers and various landscaping (BJ is so good to me).  And we went through a few tunnels with legalized graffiti in them, which was interesting to look at too.  Also they had lots of wind features.  Artsy metal things that move in the wind.  I WANT THEM!  I mean, really, if something helps me like the wind more, wouldn't that save my sanity?  A lot?

We walked a mile or so (uphill both one ways!) to downtown and rode a ski lift up the mountain.  "What?!  Tianna?! Did something as "dangerous" as a ski lift?!"  Well, I will have you know that I happen to enjoy heights.  Unfortunately, it's been so long since I've been on any remarkable height that it took me about 5 minutes before I stopped clinging to BJ for "safety."  I laughed at myself the whole time because, let's be honest, if anything happened and I started to fall, holding BJ wouldn't help at all.  But somehow he felt safer than the bar.  But once I got past my initial discomfort, I enjoyed it immensely.  Except when we realized that it was FREEZING that high, in the mountains, in the evening, with the wind.  And we had left our jackets in the car.  Go figure.

Which leads me to the Asians.  We were on our way back down the mountain.  Evening was progressing quickly and the wind was not going home.  This time I was clinging to BJ, but for warmth, not for fear.  I was so cold.  And then, coming up the mountain, was an Asian couple.  They were too far to hear, but they were clearly looking at us and laughing.  When they got close enough to talk they asked, "Aren't you cold?!"  Well, yes.  I was wearing capris and we were both wearing t-shirts and we were cuddling for warmth.  Thank you for point it out.  :D  haha.  Really, though, I thought it was great.  Because it was so true.

And then we had to walk home.

The second I got in the room I crawled under the blankets.  I went to cuddle with BJ, but he was just as cold and that was so not helpful.  So he got banished to his side of the bed.  I had to talk to my mom about something, so I figured I'd call while I was thinking of it.  When she realized the situation, she was like, "Tianna.  If I were away on my anniversary trip and was cold, I wouldn't call my mom to get warm."  HAHAHA.  Love my mom.  :D

Later I was looking through the papers they gave us and there was a "Housekeeping Menu" where you could order your room cleaned more often, etc.  There's a kitchen in the room, so they also had a list of complementary items you could use, like a blender.  The first thing on the list?  "Crackpot".  I started at that forever.  I googled crackpot to see if there was a different definition than the only one I could think of.  There wasn't.  It was seriously probably 15 minutes (and a Facebook post) later that BJ pointed out that they probably meant "crockpot".  HAHAHAHA.  Oh my goodness.  I laughed so hard at that realization.  SO HARD.  It was awesome.

And BJ would probably want me to include that for dinner that night we had the most AMAZING chicken ever.  He raves about it every time he thinks about it.  Every. Time.  (It really was good.)  And for breakfast the next morning we had Einstein Bagels.  I'm sure you care.  Then we came home.  And caught up (almost) on Once Upon a Time.  Yeah, we're those lame people who go on vacation and watch TV.  But probably because we never do it at home.  So it's a treat!  (We also watched an episode of Mythbusters where they had to survive in the desert from Point A to Point B, including canyon walls and rafting down a river… with only duct tape and bubble wrap for tools!  It was kind of awesome.)  You may now judge us.

Float

It's not a very good picture.  Sorry.  Next week.

Our ward is in charge of the the float for the Lehi parade this year. The theme for the parade floats this year is "You saw what???", which really leaves things pretty wide open. We decided to build a YouTube themed float. It looks like a big computer screen open to YouTube, but instead of seeing a video there, we have a big mirror so the audience sees themselves in the screen. We'll have music from a bunch of the most popular/viral youtube videos playing as we go. It's been a big project, but just today we got a lot of work done, and it's starting to come together.

Worldwide Training speculation
Tomorrow (Sunday), the Church is broadcasting part of the New Mission Presidents seminar worldwide. This is unusual; usually they just present it in the MTC to the new mission presidents and then send out DVDs to all the other mission presidents. This year, they're broadcasting it to everyone in the Church, via stake centers and online, kinda like General Conference. It's at 4PM local time, and they've asked wards that meet later in the day to cancel part of their meetings so that everyone who wants to attend will be able to do so. They're making a big deal out of this. They've been calling it a "historic event."

Naturally, this has led to a lot of speculation. BJ found a recording online of a devotional given a couple weeks ago by a guy from the Missionary Department. He kept saying "I'm not going to make any announcements today," but kept hinting that it was going to be a big thing, that there would be some announcements that would "change the way missionary work is carried out for the rest of this dispensation." He talked about how the world is changing, and how door-to-door proselyting is far less effective than it used to be, and more and more areas are seeing gated communities pop up where the missionaries can't really even get in. He also talked about how in the early days of the church, most of the converts came from people sharing the Gospel with their friends. In fact, he called it a "social network," like the Facebook of the 1820s. He also said that in this day, the best investigators are often the ones who have read all about the Church online before ever talking to a missionary.

So, we're very interested to see what's coming tomorrow. It sounds like maybe more emphasis on sharing the gospel online, and less door-to-door work for missionaries. We're very interested to see how it will affect what you're doing in Cambodia.  Heck, by the time you get this, maybe you'll already know!

Random kid things

Abby will now fold her arms and (sometimes) bow her head at prayer time.  It's adorable.  We've never tried to teach her, she just likes to imitate us.  It is so stinking adorable!  It's seriously one of my all-time favorite milestones.

Kessa got shrinky-dink for her birthday.  She thinks it's so much fun to color then watch them shrink. (If you don't know… shrinky-dink is this clear plastic-ish stuff that you can color on, and then you bake it, and it shrinks way down. So Kessa colors some ballerinas at a comfortable size for coloring, and then they shrink down to the size of a bracelet trinket or something. Kinda fun.)

While BJ was gone, nights were hard.  Abby did great, but Kessa was in my room almost every single night.  It was ridiculous.  I ended up making her sleep on the floor because, despite being small, she can take up more room than 6'1" BJ.  RIDICULOUS.  So when BJ got home, we found a timer app that lets her see the timer counting down and we bribed her with circle pancakes (as opposed to German pancakes) for breakfast if she would get in bed and stay in bed.  (Except, as she insists on repeating every time, if she needs to go potty or there's a fire.  Then she can get out of bed.  And then if our house burns down, we can go sleep at Izzy's house next door.)  And miraculously, it worked!  So on Father's Day, I made circle pancakes for breakfast.  As they're not BJ's favorite breakfast food, I also made scrambled eggs.  Which is why Kessa thinks they're BJ's favorite food.  Well, the next night she requested circle German pancakes for breakfast.  Uhhh… I agreed to try.  She stayed in bed, so I cooked them in muffin tins instead.  It was kind of awesome.  They looked like really tall doughnuts until they came out of the oven.  Then they were like little cups.  I think they'd be delicious with berries in them.  Mmmm.

For Kessa's birthday, then to welcome home BJ, we had balloons.  Latex, helium, and balloon animals. They are still all over the house and the girls love them.  Which is why I've never thrown them away.  Despite all of them looking very sad.  Kessa loves to play the game where you try to keep a balloon in the air.  (Which, btw, is surprisingly easier as an adult than it was as a kid.)  Abby loves to give you a balloon, have you hit it away, then chase after it.  Basically, fetch.  She'll giggle like crazy.

Speaking of Abby giggling, she'll giggle whenever she learns a new word.  She pointed to her face this morning so I said "Face."  Repeat 20 times.  Every time I'd say "Face" she'd smile or laugh.  She does this all the time.  She can't say face, but she can understand it a little, I think.  Hopefully she keeps this love of learning.

(Video here)


Abby's new favorite thing to say is "Ashes, ashes".  I think she plays on the trampoline with the other girls too much.  :D  They like to play Ring around the roses on there.

Abby adores the little head scratcher thing that makes everyone squirm like crazy.  You know what I mean?  Here's a picture.  If she's not making us use it on her head, she's putting it on her own head and wearing it around.  You'll also notice that she found one of my nylons and made us put it on.  She walked around like this for quite some time that morning.

Other misc. things
Lehi is getting really low on water.  Our reservoir is only 30% full.  (Wanna send us some of yours?)  So we're now on water restriction where we can only water MWF and spot-water on Sunday.  (The other side of the street has the other days.)  So everyone started using culinary water to water their yard.  Which lessened our culinary water so drastically that they thought we were going to have a water outage within just a couple of days.  So they banned that practice.  Yipes.  We're back in the clear again, but we're still limited for irrigation and have a banned list for culinary water.  It's crazy.  So pray for my garden, k? It's doing so well.  I can't lose it now!  But it really is doing well.  I was going to take a picture today so you can see it growing.  It's huge!  But instead, you can see a picture of the cauliflower I grew!  So big!  I've never grown a full head of cauliflower!  So happy!  It took us two meals to eat the thing.  And it was delish.

For round table we were in charge of making a flag for our stake.  So I delegated and they came back with an awesome flag!  In the words of the Roundtable Commissioners, "Oh wow!  That's amazing!  You've set a new standard for flags!"  I'm a little proud about it.  (Weren't you supposed to write me an essay on pride?) And I didn't even do anything!  Well, that's not entirely true.  I approved the idea and made the PVC stand.  :D

And now, Kessa-isms.  It's a short list this week, sorry.

• Kessa just put her earrings (she got clip-on ones for her bday) and her cupcake magnet in her wallet so that she's "ready to go to CostCo."  Completely out of the blue.
• Kessa greeted me today with, “Someone died today on our swings!” Then she wove a tale about our neighbor (no idea which one) dying on the swing. All told in a cheerful voice.

And… I told you it was short.  Clearly I failed at that this week.

And now it's getting late and I've got a lot to do.  Tomorrow we're going to Brandon Jenson's farewell (Minneapolis, Minnesota, in case you forgot).  We've got to be in Bountiful at 9 am.  :S  And probably need to stop at your parents' first to drop off food.  Because after we're done up there, we're coming back to your parents to a) watch the Worldwide Leadership Training and b) make them dinner.  Your  mom has a crazy day scheduled with visiting wards, and as I'm sure your parents told you (and I'm really hoping you read their email first so you don't hear it from me first), Grandpa Goddard died today (Saturday), so her life is even crazier.  I figured I could be of some help and give her a night off cooking.  And… it's almost 11.  So I should get going.

Hope you're having a wonderful time!  Can't wait to hear from you tomorrow!

<3 Tianna and Co.

In which I write while truly exhausted and the Discovery Museum

Jessa ~

I'm going to assume that I'll have an email from you when I wake up in the morning, as that's how it happened last week.  So despite desperately wanting to be in bed, even though it's only 9:30, I'm going to write you.  That's how much I love you.  :)

Why am I exhausted, you ask?  Well, for one, this weekend has been insanely busy with Primary stuff. I think even BJ is starting to be exhausted with all the slack he's having to pick up from me.  And you know BJ.  He's totally long-suffering and all that, so when he's starting to show wear, you know it's getting busy!  But in good news, I think it's going to start slowing down.  This weekend was just the climax of everything. Thursday I met at the church for baptism orientation where we meet with all the baptismal candidates and get them fitted and have them fill out a spotlight and give them a tour of the font.  It's kind of fun.  Friday morning I had a presidency meeting.  Then Friday night one of my counselors, Jan, and I went and cleaned the font.  Then Saturday morning I had to be at the church at 7:30 and didn't get home until 10:30 or so.  (And it was insane!  The people who come fill up the font forgot it was stake baptisms so when I got there, the font wasn't filling and it takes 1.5-2 hours!  So I had to start filling it up (thank goodness I borrowed keys because I don't have mine yet) and it finished maybe 10 minutes before we started.  Yipes!)  Then we had about an hour and then we went up to the Children's Discovery Museum, which I'll talk about later.  And then today I got about 2 hours after church while BJ was doing tithing, then I went to visit a Primary and sat through two hours of adorable children (after my 3 hours of church) and then had a 30+ min meeting with them.  And then I got home and realized that I forgot to take the baptismal clothing (which I spent last night washing) back to the lady with the keys, so I had to leave again and run those over.  Whew!  It's been so busy!  I'm really ready to just drop.  (But in good news, I'm really feeling like I'm getting a handle on this calling.  Finally.  I've still got a long ways to go, but I'm getting there.)

But before I catch up on this week, I realized that I forgot to blog about other things last week!  So let's catch up a little.

BJ working at home has been awesome!  Seriously.  I love it.  One time I needed to go to a garden store, so when Abby went down for a nap, I took the monitor downstairs and Kessa and I drove down and shopped and got home before Abby woke up.  I did that Friday, too, when I needed to go clothes shopping.  (Because, turns out, I'm going to be wearing a lot of dresses.  And now that I've put away maternity and winter clothing, I have somewhere around 2 dressy shirts.  Yipes! But so far I like my new options.  Two sleeveless dresses (one grey, one teal) and three shirts to wear over them.)  It's also nice that when I want to talk to him about something, instead of spending 10 minutes texting, I can run downstairs and figure it out in two.  And get a kiss.  Awesome.  And when it's 5:00 and I'm so done being a single parent, and I say, "BJ, when are you going to be done?" and he says, "Two more minutes," that means he'll actually be with me in two minutes.  (Well, 3-4.  He struggles with time sometimes.  :D)  Not two more minutes plus a 45 minute commute.  HOORAY!  It's so wonderful and I love it.

I'll let him tell you about his perspective.

Okay, BJ here. So, working from home is nice. It's nice to be able to spend more time with family; I get to eat lunch with them, see Kessa playing outside the window while I'm working, and come home sooner. It makes my life feel a little more family-centered. Which isn't surprising, because I am spending a lot more time with my family.  

In fact, that's one of the things that concerned me at first; I was worried I might end up craving more interaction during work hours. So far, though, it hasn't been a problem. I'm able to focus more, and I can still keep in touch with people in our work chat room. It's different, but I do feel more productive most of the time. 

We'll probably need to get a fan down there as the summer heats up, and I admit that the unfinished basement area next to the furnace isn't quite as nice as my old office. But it's quiet and easy to focus, so overall it's a good thing.

Btw, you got a job offer in the mail the other day.  Are you sure you want to be on a mission?  You could be making $15/hour doing who knows what in Sandy.  :)  Oddly, it came to my house.  Weird…

And a video you can't watch, but everyone else can, and I forgot it last week.  Abby saying shoes!  It's so cute.  :)

And… now I think we're caught up.  Whew!  Well, caught up to last week.  Now we need to catch up this week.

Huh.  Actually, it looks like most of my catchup was done in that first paragraph talking about primary stuff.  Haha.  There's nothing else in my Facebook or calendar other than the Discovery Museum.  And when I look through my iPhoto, it's mostly the Discovery Museum and videos.  Which is kind of lame for your sake, as you can't watch videos.  So, for your sake, I'll put all the videos at the end, so they don't have to taunt you throughout.

Ok, here's something.  The other day Kessa begged to go to IKEA.  So I packed up the girls and went. Kessa went to the play place and where I have nothing really I was buying (in fact, I was specifically not planning on buying anything) I decided to let it be play time for Abby, too.  So she and I went upstairs and just let her wander wherever she wanted.  She loved it.  She learned the word "cool" there.  She was obsessed with the different light fixtures and I guess I must have said, "Oh yeah, that's cool" a lot, because then she started to point at lights and say, "coo!"  Haha!  We only stayed about a half hour or so, though, because Abby was exhausted.  Guess I timed that poorly.  But we had fun while it lasted.  Aren't I just a cool mom?  (Hah.  Cool.  No pun intended.)  :)

Speaking of Abby learning words, she can now say doggy, cheese (though she hasn't said that for a long time), tickle, shoes, woah, uh-oh, hi!, Kessa (maybe?), cool, and Jesus.  In fact, Friday when I had my meeting, she came up to me and was all upset about something.  Like she wanted something.  I couldn't figure out what it was, so I finally just picked her up and stood up.  She reached over my shoulder towards the picture of Jesus on the wall and said, "Jesus!  Jesus!"  And then she was content.  Hah!  She just wanted to point to Jesus!  She is JUST SO PRECIOUS and I can't get enough of her.  It's also cute when you tickle her, then stop and pay attention to something else and she starts saying, "Kickle!  Kickle!"  And she is mobile!  Oh my gosh.  During Sunday School and Relief Society today, she just made the rounds and walked around the room, looking and smiling and talking to everyone.  Of course, everyone was enamored.  :)  But had I been one of those moms that needed her right there every second, I would have been frazzled.  Instead I figured that so long as the doors were shut, she was fine. There were basically dozens of moms and grandmas keeping their eyes on her.  I would keep a basic idea of where she was if I couldn't see her, and I was fine and she was happy.  And I got to pay attention to most of my meetings!  End of July will be nice, though.  Then she goes into nursery.  (Here's a happy fact for you.  While it may seem that you're gone for most of my girls' lives, Abby will still be in nursery when you get home!)

Kessa bonked her head the other day.  She was running away from BJ (she didn't want him to choose her cereal!) and turned to see if he was following.  She tripped and hit her head on the trim of the cupboard door and got a nice scratch down her forehead and bruise on her eyebrow.  It was really sad.  So she got a bandaid on it.  A nice bright one.  And then, of course, we took lots of pictures that day and then today in Primary they sang Happy Birthday to her.  Haha.  Nice and public, that owie is!  (It's not that bad, either.  Just a scratch.  A deep scratch, but just a scratch.  It didn't even bleed.)  But Jessa!  She's turning four on Thursday!  Argh!  What happened to my baby girl?!  I've really got to figure out her party.  She wants a Dora party.  I'll let you know how that goes next week.

Ok, Discovery Museum.  So, have you been there?  Up at the Gateway.  My cousin, Amanda, is staying in Bountiful for about a month with her daughter, Addison, who is about 6 months older than Kessa.  So we decided to get together and play.  So we went to Litza's Pizza, then off to the Museum.  It was really fun!  Kessa and Addison did a class where they learned about atoms and how they're made of protons and neutrons (which form a nucleus) and then surrounded by electrons.  They got to look under a microscope, draw a helium atom, then fashion one out of wire, beads and pom poms.  Then they talked about chemical reactions and let them pour water on polymer beads and watched as they changed colors and grew to make "snow".  It was fun.

Abby loved this wind tunnel thing.  Almost the entire time we were in the class, BJ was out with her.  There were a bunch of paper things around, you put them in the bottom, and then the wind blowing up through it blew the papers up and out.  Over and over again.

There was a playground full of giant foam pieces.  The girls built things and just ran around and had fun.  BJ took Kessa into a helicopter.  She was a bit nervous, but enjoyed it.  (Amanda tried to take Addison who wanted nothing to do with it at all.)  There was a water feature that they could play in that was fun.  A kid-sized house and grocery store.  And a little toddler area that both Kessa and Abby loved and stayed in for ages.

When we were done we went out to the fountain area and let them play.  Kessa, predictably, didn't really like it and wanted to stand out of it.  Abby loved it and kept running through the water, even getting a couple of direct hits.  She was soaked by the end.

Over all, it was really fun.  I really enjoyed it.  We applied our fee to a 3-month pass (it cost us $11 more), so I guess we'll have to go up at least a few more times.  Kessa keeps asking when we're going back to the "moo-seem".  And it was really fun to see Amanda again and get to know Addison better.  They live up in Idaho so we don't get to see them often at all.  I'm trying to get her to be brave and drive down to Thanksgiving Point so we can go to the Dinosaur Museum, but she's a scaredy cat of Utah traffic.  ;)  I'll figure it out somehow…

And now, Kessa-isms!

• Kessa: Did you know that cherries grow on Brand. New. Trees?
• Me: What grows on old cherry trees?
  Kessa: Old cherries!
• Me, incredulous: You have a school hymn?
  BJ: You barely had a school; you can't laugh.
• A dog was wandering through our neighbor's yard. Kessa: Did he get a toy dog and it grew like a real dog?
• Me, singing: Oh, I want a hippopotamus for Christmas…
  Kessa: No mommy!  We can't have a hippopotamus!  They eat *everything!*  They'll eat our plants and food and lightbulbs and paper and table and everything healthy for hippopotamuses! 

Wow.  There weren't a lot this week.  Sorry!

Bonus:

• BJ, cleaning up toys: Do you ever feel like our house is being taken over by the alphabet?

Have a great week!  [hugs]

~ Tianna and Co.

Videos:

Kessa pushing Abby on the swing

Kessa and Abby playing together

Discovery Museum: Stacking huge blocks

Discovery Museum: Abby playing with the wind tunnel

The girls a little scared of the fountain

Abby playing in the Gateway fountain

That's all!

I fail at timeliness, part 2

Jessa ~

Tuesday, May 28

Ok, here's part two of what you've missed since I was procrastinative enough to make you miss the last letter.  Again, I apologize.

While Damian and Lexi were still here I took the girls swimming at the Lehi Rec Center.  BJ decided he needed to work.  Damian was going to go with us, but he got some extra work at one of his jobs, so we decided to meet him there.  I was too nervous to go with all three girls by myself, but I figured I could do it for a little bit until he got there.  By the time he finally got there, it was pointless to get in, so I ended up doing it by myself anyway.  And honestly, it wasn't too bad!  The deepest the water gets is maybe 4'-4.5', so Lexi was able to play independently.

At first it was hard because Abby kept trying to run to the pool while I got ready to get in the pool.  Oh, first, the pool has this giant play thing in it which has a slide and waterfalls, etc.  It also has a giant bucket at the top that constantly fills up and when it gets full it tips over and splashes everywhere. So Abby was toddling towards the pool when it suddenly fell and splashed and scared her to death.  She stood there, crying, completely immobile.  I had to pick her up and hold her for several minutes before she'd calm down.  So then we got in the water (where it didn't splash) and I just held her on my lap.  Every time the bucket splashed (about every 3-4 minutes) she stared at it wide-eyed, though she never cried over it again.  But for the first 15 mins or so, she refused to let go of me.  I had to hold her.  If I tried to let her stand in the water, she screamed.  If I tried to hold her away from me a little, she shook violently, like she was ridiculously cold.  I wonder if she was in shock a little.

I didn't want to take Kessa out where it would be more comfortable for me to be mobile, so we stayed in the shallow end where I held Abby and Kessa just played around us.  But eventually Abby warmed up and I took Kessa by the wall where she could pull herself along it.  Eventually I held Abby in one arm and Kessa in the other (thank goodness for water which makes everything so much lighter and made this acrobatics as easy as could be) and we went around the lazy river a couple of times.  By then Damian was there and just stood around the edge of the pool.  We talked Lexi into going down the big slide, which terrified her at first, but after she did it, she thought it was the greatest thing ever and just did it over and over again.  It ended up being quite fun!  (And Kessa was able to go several days accident-free in anticipation of the event!  Hooray!  Though, that bribery has worn out its welcome.  We're looking for new options now.)

Kessa graduated from preschool!  I took a video of all of it, but of course you can't watch it.  You can watch it when you get home if you really, really want.  It wasn't a "real" graduation, though, considering she still has another year of preschool.  But, I suppose, she did graduate from that preschool and is moving on to another.  But semantics aside, it was cute and fun.  They made graduation caps out of card stock for the top, and a plastic bowl for the cap.  With a yarn tassel.  Adorable.  She won the award for "Tortise [sic] and the Hare".  Which cracks me up because it's so true!  That girl can do things ridiculously fast if she wants, but she can also take her sweet little time about everything.  We've been focusing on being "quick to obey" lately.  It's a work in progress.  I'm glad (and horrified) to know that she doesn't just act that way with me.

Abby adores the panda hat you gave Kessa for Christmas.  When she sees it, she'll put it on and wear it around.  The other day she went to the store with the panda hat and a pink cloak that Bonnie crocheted Kessa on.  It's hilarious.  She's such a diva.  She adores dressing up.  She'll wear any hat she finds.  Or yesterday she walked around with a pink headband on.  Except it wasn't on top of her head, it was around her forehead, just above her eyes.  She is obsessed with shoes.  She signs shoes much like the sign for "more".  When she gets out of bed, she immediately starts looking for her shoes.  As soon as she spots them she starts signing and saying, "Shoes?  Shoes?"  She'll run and grab them and take them to the closest adult, whimpering and look sadly into your eyes.  "Shoes?" Then as soon as you put them on her she is the happiest girl around.  Which is funny considering that when I first bought her shoes she wanted nothing to do with them and would rip them off pronto.  She's almost outgrown the shoes I bought her.  And I still have to buy more because Kessa wasn't even walking this young, so I didn't have shoes for her for several more sizes!  She also loves sunglasses.  Kessa got a pair of star sunglasses from a birthday party and she loves putting them on and grinning while she makes sure everyone sees her in them.  Diva, I'm telling you.

We went camping the Friday before Memorial Day.  It was just at a nearby park.  I decided that's the way to go.  About a mile from home (which made it easy to grab everything I forgot), and with people who are experienced campers, so I'm not responsible for food.  But even if we do go again (which we really want to) and need to provide our own food, if camp-cooking doesn't work out for us, there's a Subway close by.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner!  Haha.  We got a new tent and sleeping bags.  That's been fun.  The tent is super easy to set up and take down.  We set it up in less than 3 minutes.  The longest part was staking it.   We took a pack and play for Abby, but I'm wondering if next time we should put her in our sleeping bag, between us.  She was just so cold in the morning (we did give her blankets; they're just not the same as a sleeping bag)!  She didn't seem to mind, though, which helped ease my mommy-guilt.  Kessa loved it and wants to do it again.  We've already started to ask around to see if anyone else wants to camp with us another time.  By the time we came home, though, Kessa was exhausted.  She slept half the afternoon away on the couch.

In totally random, yet delicious news, Honey Maid now makes graham crackers without high fructose corn syrup!  This makes me so happy, because I haven't been able to buy graham crackers for ages since  I discovered that there weren't any without it.  What kind of children grow up in a house without graham crackers, I ask you?  It was a very sad existence for my poor girls.  But now the problem has been rectified and Kessa ate her first s'more while we were camping!  Well, a few bites.  Until she decided it was just too sticky.  Then she threw the rest in the fire.

I got set apart, along with my presidency, last Tuesday.  It was good, because it gave us an opportunity to pester the stake presidency with questions.  They laughed because apparently when they set apart male presidencies and ask if they have any questions, no one ever does.  But when they set apart female presidencies, they get bombarded with questions.  They couldn't decide if it was because men were too manly to ask questions, or if it was because they simply hadn't thought about the calling enough to realize they had questions.  Women, on the other hand, are always so on top of things and fearless that they come armed with them.  :D

Teresa has been staying with us for a little over a week now.  It's not much different than normal life, though.  We rarely see her.  She leaves early in the morning, usually before I even wake up, and then after school has to go home and do chores, then half the time goes to work, and the other half of the time has concerts, school activities, and is a prank war with friends.  She comes home about the time I go to bed, or after some days (I'm trying to go to bed early so I can wake up earlier).  So I pretty much only ever see her on Sundays or breakfast on weekends and late-start Fridays.  Mostly all it's changed is that I stalk her on Find My Friends a lot more and am always pestering her to know when she'll be home and what she's doing and reminding her of curfew.  I'm the nagging step-mother, I'm sure.  Haha.  I'll bet she'll be glad when she's back to her nice own mother.  :D

As your parents were out of town, I decided to host 4th Sunday dinner this month.  Teresa was already here, so we just had to get the boys out, which wasn't hard.  Oh my gosh, Jessa. Do you know what they did this weekend?  It's Nick, so don't think camping in Moab or something normal.  Oh no.  Not Nick.  He hired a company from Orem to go down to Goblin Valley and set up laser tag.  … Yup, you heard me right.  50 people playing laser tag, professionally, in Goblin Valley.  Hah!




After we ate dinner we headed up to Riverton for Grandpa Goddard's 94th birthday party.  There were lots of people there, so that was nice.  And lots of yummy treats.  I made a chocolate bundt cake that I found on Pinterest (which was rich and delicious) and took it up, along with some cherries (which made me sad that your dad wasn't there).  I'm not sure whose idea it was, but Nick and Shawn became the instigators to get a full 94 candles on Grandpa's cake.  So they took some white duct tape and placed candles along a strip (the duct tape was cut in half horizontally in order to leave room for the candles' height) with small spaces in between, then rolled it up into a giant roll of candles.  It happened to fit perfectly into the hole of the bundt cake.

They lit it, and Jessa, I really wish you could watch videos.  Oh my goodness.  The look on Grandpa's face when they brought it from the kitchen and around his recliner to where he could see was absolutely priceless.  His eyes bulged.  His mouth dropped open as wide as it could possibly go.  And I can't blame him!  Can you fathom what 94 candles all lit together looks like?  I'm not kidding when I say the very, very thick flame was at least a foot, if not a foot and a half tall.

Nick carried it and when Grandpa blew out the flames I sincerely feared for the health and well being of Nick's tie.  And all of Nick.  He had to kind of jump back out of the way, while still holding the cake plate in front of Grandpa.  Finally one of the aunts (Jan? I think?) put it out with a pan lid.  It was the Best. Thing. Ever.  I got the best screen shots I could manage to send you and will post the video on the blog.  You have to watch it when you get back.

Video:

Monday Nick came out in the morning and won the Best Brother of the Day award.  He installed a pressure reducer for us!  And there was just enough black magic (read: parts I have no clue what they are) that I'm glad we asked him instead of trying to do it ourselves or waiting for someone else.  And honestly, I'm embarrassed I didn't think to ask him sooner.  Really?  PVC problems and I didn't think of Nick?  The only thing worse would be if it had been made of legos.  Alas.  But he got it installed and we turned it on and there were no geysers!  Jessa, I'm so happy I could cry!

So, of course, something had to go wrong.  Let me teach you something about drip emitters, Jessa.  When you are installing them on drip lines, it is very, very important that you don't allow any dirt to get inside them, because there is no way to open them to get the dirt out.  It just gets clogged up and won't let the water drip out.  In other words, it would be a very bad idea when you install drip emitters to open a package, drop them in the garden bed, and proceed to install from there.  Because weeks later when you finally are able to turn on your drip system, half of them won't work because they got clogged with dirt.  [sigh]  So I had to go buy a bunch more (which means I have three different drip emitters installed.  They're all the same, just different brands) and reinstall.  But the way the emitters hook into the tubing is by having a dull barbed end.  So you push it into the tube and the tube stretches around it, making it nigh impossible to pull out.  Which is good in general, because you don't want the pressure of the water to push the head out.  So we ended up having to cut them off, then put new ones on.  [sigh]  What I expected to be an hour project (putting on all the heads for the tender plants that I just planted) turned into an all-day project.  In good news, it was a holiday, so BJ was home to help me.  But it was an all-day project with BJ's help.  Glad I didn't have to do that alone.

The end story, though, is that the pressure is reduced, the drip emitters are all dripping, and my plants are all getting water regularly.  Naturally, it's been raining all day.

And now, for Kessa.

• Kessa: Don't look until I say to look. I won't be in trouble.
  BJ: But will you be in trouble if we do look?
  Kessa: Yes, but just don't look and then there won't be trouble.
• Kessa: Daddy, do you know what a swimming pool is?
• Kessa ate 3 bites of quesadilla then left. When I asked if she was going to eat it or if Mommy could eat it. “Can I eat three more bites because I'm 3?” 
• Kessa, talking about the water draining out of the bathtub: “It's saying, 'Go into my brelly! Go into my brelly!'”
  Me: What's a brelly?
  Kessa: It's a tower with a clock and letters and numbers and [something I forgot]. And a bicycle.
  Me: A brelly is a [repeat description]?
  Kessa: No, that's a rockie!
• Kessa: Daddy, you're a cutie because everyone loves you.
• Kessa, discussing a craft: Don't do ants. I don't like ants. Because sometimes they eat us. [She then looked at me very seriously and continued with a piercing gaze.] And our clothes. And our eyes and ears and eyebrows.
• Kessa held up the numbers 145 in her foam toys in the bathroom today and insisted I guess what they spelled. When I was wrong (I guessed "one hundred forty-five") she informed me that it spelled “lightbulb”.
• Kessa, eating fried chicken: Daddy, if you forget there's a bone, good news! When you feel it, that's the bone!

Bonus quotes:

• Shawn: You're just jealous that you don't have a Peter Pan Down syndrome.
• Resa: It makes sense if you don't think about it.
• Me to Resa: But you told me to take you literally.
  BJ: But that was figurative.
  Resa: Exactly!

I fail at timeliness, part 1

Jessa ~

This is last week's email, which I had written before you even left the MTC, but just needed to add pictures to.  I had every intention on sending it Monday, just in case you got internet at the airport or before you left the MTC.  Clearly I failed.  And sadly that means you had p-day without an email from me.  Forgive me?  I'll send another one soon for the week that has lapsed since then, and then I'll send another one next week, before your p-day.  Which means that you will have THREE emails from me when next you open your email.  Scary, huh?  I hope you have time to read them all.  :S

Mon, May 20

I'm not entirely sure when to email you this week.  I'm guessing you won't have the same p-day.  And I'm not sure when you get to Cambodia.  So I'm still going to send this and figure I can always send little updates.  Or, I suppose, your next email can just be longer.

I got the drip line set up to the blueberries!  They are much happier now.  Or maybe it's because they have names now… hmmm.  Cross your fingers that they continue to live.  If they don't survive this year, I doubt I'll ever try again.  At least not in Utah.  I don't know what else I could do.  But one of them is already growing blueberries!  That would be Merriweather.  But she was starting to do that before I even bought her, so I can't take any of the credit.  Except that I've kept her alive, producing blueberries, for a whole week. Impressive, I know.  ;)

Nothing much else has happened in the garden this week.  It's been rainy for much of the week.  Which is happy in that I haven't had to water by hand as much.  :D  Still no pressure reducer, but I'm hoping to bribe my brother into doing that for me tomorrow.  [crosses fingers]  So maybe by the time I send this I'll actually have them!

And I will be happy to teach you to garden!  Absolutely!  I told BJ the other day that when the kids are in school, maybe I'll work part-time at a nursery or something.  Not for the money, but because I want to learn everything about plants.  It seems a good way to do it.  Then I realized that if I'm not doing it for the money I could totally take my paycheck and use it to buy plants for everyone!  Talk about fantastic philanthropy.  "Hi friend!  I saw you eyeing that weeping cherry over there longingly.  Well, guess what I happened to bring home for you today!  Hooray!"  Haha.  I'm such a nerd.  Speaking of awesome philanthropy though, BJ showed me a picture from the Internet today of a restaurant receipt for $60.something.  I guess the waitress was talking to the people at the table about how she wants to go to Italy someday when she can afford it.  They left her a $1000 tip with a note, "For your ticket to Italy.  Enjoy!"  Holy cow, Jessa!  I mean, seriously.  These people are awesome.  I want to be awesome like that someday.  Could you even imagine?!  I think I would go outside, then peek back in the window, just so I could see their reaction.  Or perhaps post someone inside with a camera to catch it on film without being suspected.  haha.

I'm slowly getting used to the idea of not being in YW anymore.  I still see them at church and in the neighborhood.  I still have them babysit.  So it's not like they're completely out of my life.  And I'm still going to do my personal progress, so the program isn't completely out of my life.  I'm still sad, but I'm getting more and more excited about Primary.  We had our first meeting on Friday.  There was a lot to talk about.  And there's still a lot yet to do.  I've spent several hours on my computer at least twice this week going through my to do list.  But I'm slowly narrowing it down and I think once everything is set up, it'll run smoothly.  But holy cow, Jessa.  Cub Scouts is so intensive.  I feel like I'm learning a new language.  And culture.  It's just so vast and foreign and I feel so lost.  I'm sure you can relate.  :)  So of course, they put me in a leadership position where I'm supposed to be in charge of people and train them and answer their questions when they're far more experienced than I am.  It's so intimidating!  I'll be honest.  Cub Scouts scares me.  Hopefully before you get home I'll be a pro and be totally comfortable.  Pray for me.  :S

BJ started his first day at Day One today.  We had a good laugh this morning that this is his day one at Day One.  So, of course, my brain kicked into high gear and I immediately set out to make him a Day One cake.  Pictures attached.  Aren't I basically the best wife ever?  Perhaps I should take a cake decorating class for the sake of future birthday cakes…

I love reading your stories about your "investigators".  I can't imagine how you must have to trick your brain into thinking it's a real investigator instead of a teacher who is already a member.  But it sounds like you were doing a great job!  I love how you listened to the Spirit and switched topics and just went on the fly.  And in a foreign language!  You are amazing!  Do you know what I love about the gospel?  That the Spirit can inspire you, even in situations like that.  It wasn't really about the investigator's eternal salvation.  And while hearing your testimony of the atonement probably helped him feel the Spirit, it didn't actually convert him.  Yet he still gave you inspiration!  Because God cares about you learning to teach!  Isn't the gospel so fantastic!?  I love how much God really cares about the little details of our lives.

I know what you mean about the letters being distinct now.  When I first was learning the Hebrew alphabet, so many letters looked so similar.  I distinctly remember coming into class one day after doing homework to learn the alphabet and asking my teacher to show me the difference between several letters.  Because try as I might, I honestly couldn't see a single difference.  And then she taught me the differences and now I look back and laugh at my ignorant self and wonder how I never saw the differences.

I wonder if Cambodians see a difference between blue and green.  I remember watching part of a documentary with Nick about this tribe somewhere that *sees* color differently.  I don't remember the details, but I think they could see different shades of one color very distinctly, shades that we couldn't have differentiated between, and yet two main colors (maybe blue and green?) they couldn't tell a difference between at all.  Maybe Cambodians are the same.  You'll have to make friends with some and ask them.

Hahaha!  I love that you have been saying "yes" incorrectly for 8 weeks and no one thought to correct you.  Any of you.  That is the best thing ever.  You are so going to have a major american accent.  Bwahahahaha.  Sorry.  I shouldn't laugh at you.  But it's so funny!

Oh, Jessa, you will appreciate this. Pinterest (at least the iPhone app) now warns you when you're about to pin something you've already pinned! THIS IS SUCH A HAPPY DAY!  I was getting super excited about it when I was telling BJ and Kessa immediately piped up.  "Good job, Mommy! You did the right thing and you got what you wanted! Good job!"  I love little moments like that when you can see that she internalizes what we teach.  Though, I'll admit, at the time I thought she meant it as if I were playing a game on my phone.  I did something right in my game and unlocked it.  But now that I read it it seems to have a more gospel-oriented message. :)

Kessa has been having accidents like crazy lately.  She had three stinky accidents in two days this week.  The last one in the bathtub.  I was about to pull my hair out in frustration.  Luckily the last one was on Saturday, so BJ was home, and it was in the morning so my patience was still somewhat high.  We had been planning on going swimming, because Kessa has been begging to do that for weeks now.  But after that we decided that she couldn't go swimming until she could prove to us that she can stay dry and not have accidents, because we really don't want an accident in the pool.  Then we made her clean all of her toys and the tub with a Clorox wipe.  She actually kept a pretty good attitude through the whole thing.

We had promised her a fun activity, though, for going to bed quickly the night before, so we felt like we still had to keep good on that promise, so we just changed the activity and went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point instead.  Have you been there?  It's actually really cool!  There's a room that is a completely dark cylinder with stars all around you.  So you walk on a bridge through it and there are stars above you and below you and to your sides.  And it's hard to see the bridge.  And I swear it moves just tiny amounts because it was seriously triply.  THE GIRLS LOVED IT.  Like ridiculous amounts.  I'm not kidding when I say I walked through it dozens of times.  We probably spent 20-30  minutes just going around and around and around.  Abby was hilarious.  She'd walk through on her own, get to the end, then immediately turn around to go back in.  But it's one way.  And since you can't see other people well, going backwards is a bad idea.  Especially when you're lucky to hit most people's knees.  So I would pick her up and walk back around to the beginning.  At first it made her MAD.  She would kick and scream until she saw the entrance again, then she'd squirm to get down and run through again.  Eventually she realized that I was taking her back to the beginning and she stopped getting mad.  She even started walking back herself.  Eventually she even started learning the word and sign for again.  Sort of.  She'd mostly say, "guh! gun!" while hitting her hands together.  Out of context I would have had no idea what she was saying.

Halfway through the exhibit, though, Kessa had a wet accident!  Ugh!  Her pants were all wet, too.  So we made her sit in her stroller as we walked quickly through the rest of the exhibit (with one stop to watch them feed some live fish a dinner of goldfish).  She didn't even get to do the fun fossil digging at the end.  So we've had several discussions about the consequences of accidents.  And we keep reminding her that she can't go to the swimming pool until she gets this under control.  We're planning on going tomorrow because Damian and his daughter, Lexi are here, so she's been good since Saturday.  Here's to hoping she can make it another 15 hours!  haha.  And then beyond that.  We have swimming lessons to look forward to (we're hoping to get her in the lake at Lake Powell this year!) so we're still holding this over her head as motivation.

But seriously.  Museum of Ancient Life.  Awesome.  I hope to go there again soon!  (If only it weren't so blasted expensive…)

Kessa insists that there is an order in which we pray. Great idea. The problem is that whenever it is her turn, she insists that it goes the other direction and that it's not her turn.  So the other night I spent far too much time on my Silhouette designing a prayer chart to avoid such … discussions. Hopefully this will solve the problem. So far it seems to be working and she even gets excited when it's her turn.  [crosses fingers it holds.]

Kessa is getting better about doing her chores before playing.  It might still take her until 3 pm before she's finally motivated to do it, but once she's motivated she can do it fast.  We even timed her the other day and got it all done in 4 minutes!  (With some help from Mommy that time.)  The other day when she made her bed, she was putting her stuffed animals on.  Right now a polar bear and giant Hello Kitty are the animals of choice.  (As well as the huge dog Resa gave her for Christmas, but that usually counts as the pillow, not an animal.)  But then she climbed up next to them and exclaimed that she was the third animal.  Haha.  Love that girl.

Like I said earlier, Damian and Lexi are in town for a few days.  Lexi has been fantastic with Kessa.  Seriously fantastic.  I haven't had to pay close attention to them for most of the day.  They play games, they play outside, they imagine things.  And I know that Lexi will be responsible outside so I don't have to worry at all.  She's great with Abby, too, when Abby is awake.  She carries her around, finds her binkie, and even helped her jump on the neighbor's trampoline today.  (Which Abby adored.)  This morning I got an invitation to join them for a royal snack.  It was upstairs on her play table.  Initially it consisted of a banana and a bunch of play food, but the longer it took before I could go up, the more real food got added in.  By the end it was a banana, mini m&ms, pretzels (two different shapes), and raisins.  I took up a surprise dessert of mini chocolate chips.

Abby is getting quite the attitude.  Holy cow.  If she doesn't get what she wants immediately she has got this squeal/yell/scream that is loud and obnoxious.  And very insistent.  But when she does get what she wants she is the cutest most adorable girl ever.  She has a smile that lights up the whole room.  And watching her sign banana is hilarious.  If you don't remember the sign, it looks like you're using the index finger of one hand to show peeling your other index finger, pretending it's the banana.  Except she gets so excited that instead of peeling her finger, she gets her whole arm.  I think she'd eat 5 bananas a day if I let her.  I haven't had a banana go bad in months.  I probably go shopping for bananas 3+ times every week, because she (and Kessa) eat them so fast!


Kessa-isms:

• Kessa clogged the toilet so I plunged it. “Mommy, are you magic to unclog the toilet?”
• Kessa, singing, while she's supposedly putting on get shoes and socks, “Sometimes I get distracted when I do things, but sometimes I don't. But I do sometimes, too.”
• Kessa was playing outside and had a pretty big accident. I was bringing her inside and she tried to run away to go climb up the neighbor's play set. I wouldn't let her and carried her upstairs, much to her dismay. “But mommy! I want to climb the ladder and go down the slide!” “Kessa, your pants are all wet, you are not going down the slide.” “But we can make it a water slide!”
• This morning BJ was spoon feeding Abby yogurt. He got the spoon up in front of her mouth and instead of opening up for it, she blew on. As if it were hot.
• Kessa, coming out of the bathroom: Daddy, I didn't have an accident.
  Daddy, after checking: Yes you did.
  Kessa: Do there need to be consequences?
• Kessa: What in the holy cow did I do?!  [editor's note: This is becoming a common phrase.  She says it all the time.  It still cracks me up.]
• Kessa: Mommy, are you possible?
  Me: Uhh… Yeah, I suppose I'm possible.
  Kessa, yelling: Then I'm going to squeeze your possible out of juice!
• Kessa: I'm pretending to be God and this (referring to a pretzel in her hand with a raisin on the end) is my stick.
• BJ looked at our tree out front and pointed out a little fruit.
  Me: Yeah, it's a flowering plum, but I don't think it'll grow into a real plum.
  Kessa: What's a flowering bum?
  (I speculated that it's probably bathroom air freshener.)
• Kessa: I love coconut so much! It's just white strips with sugar and, uh, a little bit of egg mix. And it's so yummy!  [editor's note: this did not convince her cousin of the deliciousness that is coconut.  Alas.]
• Kessa: How do you stop water? By turning it into ice!
  [editor's note: Her second joke, perhaps?]

Bonus:

• Me: You know what you can get me for my birthday? A time machine. I wonder how many of those I can go through.  (To be fair I meant a Time Machine hard drive for my mac because I keep killing them somehow. But the idea of using up dozens of real time machines is great.)
• BJ: Rain is just like a big cup of water being dumped out of the sky.

Have a great flight!  I'll talk to you tomorrow, but I don't know when you'll get my email. I'm sending it tonight, just in case you do get to check your email before you leave.  Hooray for a new stage of your mission!

~ Tianna

Videos I couldn't send to Jessa:
1) Kessa and Abby playing Ring Around the Rosie with Lexi and the neighbor girls, Riley and Gracie.

2) Kessa swinging all by herself.  BJ taught her how to pump the other day, and while she's sporadic about being able/willing to do it, when she really wants to, she can get up pretty high.