The Big Leagues

J bought me a 50mm lens for my camera for Christmas.  It is supposed to be the best lens for portraits.  We did some test shots on Sunday and I sent one into Costco to see what it would look like when printed.  When I picked it up, the lady at the counter said "This one was flagged for copyright infringement". I told her I took it myself and she asked me if I was a professional photographer.  I told her no, that I was still learning and what I did was relatively easy.  I had to fill out a form to be put in the system as a professional so that my future orders aren't flagged.  I told her I was very flattered.  I don't personally think it was that fabulous of a picture, but I can understand why someone would think it was professional.  Here is the picture:

I'll be attempting a family portrait for Jenn hopefully later this week if I get my new flash cord in time.  I need to get our family portrait done soon too.

Xmas is Legit

Life lived vicariously through kids is a life well lived.

Fefe really loves stuff animals right now.  Who knows how long the stage will last, but she sure appreciated her new doggy from Ephant.

Ephant gave Brother B a nice hug for giving her a Hannah Montana puzzle.

Digging for treasure:

The Wii Fit, boy is my shoulder sore!

Fefe knows you are supposed to stand on the balance board:

Brother B mentioned to J that night that he realizes he only plays with his new toys for a few days and then they aren't fun anymore.  Luckily the Wii seems to have broken that trend.  This is why Toys R Us is so terrible.  It is so hard to find toys that the kids will actually play with for an extended period of time.  Part of the problem is that my kids have never been big on pretend play.

For those of you wondering, J is currently editing his latest nativity creation.  

This Day is Such a Special One

Loofa's much anticipated 4th birthday finally arrived last week.  He's been so desperate for a remote control car for months now.  That was the one thing he told Santa he wanted for Christmas.

Fefe was really upset that she couldn't get down and attack the presents:

Fefe couldn't get enough of Loofa's Fusion scooter, J probably pushed her around 50 times on it and she was still upset when he stopped.

The long awaited remote control car:

And There Was Fire

We've lived in this house for over 6 years now and have never used the fireplace.  At times we've considered adding in a gas fireplace or a stove, but that's been secondary to all the other work we've done.  With the recent snowstorm I decided to buy some wood in case the power went out.  The power never went out, but J built us a couple fires over the course of the last week.  It was fun to finally use the fireplace and it sure was pretty with all the Christmas decorations.

RSS Feeds For Dummies

If you are new to blogging you may be thinking that it is really cool to read everyone's blogs, but you get sick and tired of clicking through 10 people's blogs to find out only 2 of them have put up any new posts since last time you looked (I'll refrain from naming names here).

There are a couple of different solutions to this problem and they all have to do with RSS feeds. All blogs (and lots of other sites (like news sites)) provide an RSS feed which basically gives other programs a standard way to read that site and tell when things were posted so that it can pull content together from many different sites. Instead of clicking on lots of links every time you want to see what is new on everyone's blogs, you can get an RSS reader set up with just the sites you care about and go to one place to see everything that's new. Its like checking your email except that instead of emails, it has blog posts. Easy.

Since Google is the best at everything, I'm going to recommend Google Reader (all you need is a google identity and you can get set up in about 5 minutes), but other sites have their versions of the same thing. Here is a very short video explaining the idea and how to use google reader:



For a video walking you through a couple of more options, try clicking on this:
Google Reader Tutorial by Andy Wibbels

Just like any program, there are a bunch of different options and views. Once you subscribe to your favorite blogs, you'll have to play around with it for a few minutes to get it to display the way you want, but it is a million times better than clicking all the links (unless you are Marv and like clicking on lots of links). You can ask questions in the comments if you have problems and we will read your questions and laugh.

Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Any Better

The snow has continued and Saturday brought the heaviest accumulation of all.  I swear it was about a foot of snow, maybe a tad less.  I'm sure the cats are hating it.  I'm also sure the retailers are hating it.  So much for heavy duty Christmas shopping yesterday.  We still went out.  J had a gift card for Powells and I needed a couple books for the kids so we headed out to Beaverton.  We had to pull over periodically to de-ice the wipers.  I need to get better wiper fluid for that.  Once we got there we only had about 20 minutes before they announced they were closing early.  I wasn't too surprised about that.  When we got home we decided to run out and enjoy the snow.  It was pretty cool having the snow up to my mid-calf.  I felt bad for the kids with their less than desirable winter wear.  I do pretty well since I still have all my snow gear from Utah.

During the night the snow transitioned to freezing rain so there is a thick rind of ice on top of the snow now.  The kitties are enjoying the fact that they can walk across the snow without sinking in.  

My snowman has a nice skirt from later snowstorms:

The kitties really want to get back to the railroad tracks, but their efforts have been hindered:

Last, but not least, No Church Today!

Cabin Fever

Well, the snow continues.  It now looks like the kids are getting an extra week of Christmas vacation.  I don't mind too much.  It is an adjustment to have all of four of them home constantly, but since the troublemaker is Loofa, it is not a big adjustment.  Loofa decided to a little crazy on Tuesday.  Of course it is always when I decide to take a nap.  At one point he came upstairs and asked if he could use a marker.  Little did I know that on the way down he would decide to use it on the banister, downstairs wall and door.  At some point he also decided his hair needed a trim and snipped off a few chunks up top.

In other news, the boy is partially deaf.  Before you get too worried though, it is most likely due to fluid in his ear.  I'm glad we weren't wrong though about him having a problem.  His pediatrician said they don't put tubes in ears anymore if it is just one ear affected so I guess we just continue to deal with "Whadyasay" for a while longer.  His tonsils are enlarged, which could mean enlarged adenoids, which themselves can cause the fluid problem.  We are supposed to listen if he has apnea episodes when he snores.  If he does he'll need to see an ENT.  He seemed fine when I listened to him last night, but we'll keep an eye on him.

Since we were tired of sitting around the house we decided to venture out today.  The roads really aren't terrible to drive on as long as you are slow and think ahead.  We ate lunch with J since it has been awhile.  The kids were excited to see the workplace, especially the break room with the Foosball table.  Brother B especially liked it since he doesn't remember what it looked like from when we've visited before.  In the afternoon we built a couple snowmen and a snow fort since the snow is less powdery now.  Ephant hid behind the fort so she could pelt J when he got home from work.  It warmed up enough to rain tonight, but it is supposed to cool down and freeze again the next few days.  I'm enjoying it, snow has always seemed so magical to me.

Ice Children

We went sledding nice and early this morning, hoping to beat the rush.  It was cold!  It's about 21 degrees right now.  The kids were warm enough everywhere except their faces.  Loofa got pretty upset towards the end because of how cold he was.  Fefe cried the whole way home.  Her poor little red face was so sad.  I'm wondering it school will be cancelled tomorrow.  It isn't going to get warm enough to melt and I don't think this town owns a plow.

I can stand!

I can walk!

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas

Snow was predicted for the weekend, but I was starting to doubt it when we woke up to no snow this morning.  However, while getting ready for church, the snow started to fall.  Luckily, it was cold enough to actually stick.  It built up a good amount during church so as soon as we came home the kids threw on their snow clothes and ran outside.  I think Brother B last the longest, about 1/2 hour.  Fefe wasn't totally sure what to think of it.  She was interested, but also slightly disturbed.

Loofa followed me outside and for some reason thought it would be fun to lay in the street and do a snow angel with no coat.  He was okay at first, but then realized how cold he was.

School has already been cancelled.  It isn't snowing anymore, but we'll have a fair amount of ice tomorrow due to freezing temperatures.  I'm sure if this was Utah that school wouldn't be cancelled, but this IS Oregon.  If we still have enough left tomorrow we are planning to go sledding.

Ghosts

I had fun playing with my cameras flash sync the other day. While doing so I discovered that our house is haunted.

Organization

One of my favorite things to do is organize my house.  That is part of the reason I was so excited for Ikea to come here.  Our back room has been getting way too crowded with toys so I ran to Ikea last week and this was the solution.  The toys are now in the kid's rooms.  I wish we could still have them downstairs, but the clutter just looked terrible.  J is going to be putting in some wainscotting in the back room soon and once that is done it'll be the next room to get new carpet.

Update

As Jacob mentioned, I was sick for about a week and a half.  I had alot of church stuff too so if I wasn't sitting around then I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  We had our Christmas enrichment on December 3rd.  I thought it went really well.  I get pretty nervous with the responsibility of entertaining 60 some odd people.  We turned out to have the perfect amount of food though and everyone seemed to enjoy the program.  

The following Sunday I had to teach an RS lesson.  I was on my death bed at that point, but after 3 months of planning I couldn't bear to not teach.  I skipped the rest of church that day, but came in to teach.  I was pretty happy with how well that lesson went too.  My topic was judging others and I found a really good talk from Elder Oaks on the topic.

The kids are really enjoying the Christmas season so far.  Loofa keeps getting excited about each step.  He was extremely excited to get the Christmas tree.  The kids decorated it on Tuesday night.  I finally purchased new lights because I'm so tired of one color not working on my current lights.  I bought some of the new LED lights.  They are pretty neat although I sorta of wish they didn't have the purple lights.  I love huge Christmas trees, but this year I might have gone a little too far.  It's great that good Christmas trees are so easy to find here.  I don't think we'll dare put presents under the tree till we hit Christmas though with the Fefinator in the house.

Loofa has been our latest sick casualty.  The other day he said "I'm feeling a better, but I still have a little beaver".  We might get his hearing tested at his 4 year appt next week.  He constantly says "What did you say?" .  I'm pretty sure he is just saying that because he's not paying attention or is distracted, but with how often he does it it is worth looking into.

Ephant is really excited about the school holiday celebrations.  Her classroom is studying Swedish traditions.  They are going to put on a play and she wants to be St. Lucia.  They are doing a drawing to determine who plays her so she may or may not get the part.

Brother B's class is studying Israel.  He sings the dreidel song constantly.  I'm glad he is enjoying it.  He told us he wanted to celebrate Hanukah the other day, I think he decided that when he heard about opening presents each day.

Both he and Ephant are doing really well in school.  Ephant was tested for the TAG program again and passed both the reading and math portions.  Brother B is at the top of his class in everything as well.  He's very responsible with getting his homework done too.  Ephant has always been quite forgetful with her's, but Brother B does it on his own most of the time.

Last night we went over to Aunt J's to eat Gone With the Wind for her birthday, but she had to dash out since someone in the ward just died.  Now I get to help out with another funeral next week.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Fefe's favorite things include her Pooh Bear, which she loves to roar at, toothbrushes from the afformentioned toothpaste drawer, and her blankie.  It is rare to catch her without a toothbrush in either hand.  Daddy (not pictured) is her other favorite thing.  Anytime a door opens she shouts out "Daddy!".  That lovely mark on her forehead is from her climbing trick.  She discovered she could stand on one of her open drawers to reach higher, but she neglected to consider balance.

Lesser Known Milestones

Fefe has finally hit the Pull Everything Out of Drawers milestone.  We are so proud of her, she's shown true acumen for such an important step.  I think she is ahead of the curve.  No drawer is neglected in the exercise of this important skill.  The toothpaste drawer has been a particularly noted beneficiary.  A closely related skill is the Scatter Drawer Contents Over the Whole House milestone.  Even while I was sick, my thighs have benefited from the constant pickup.  We are looking forward to the Jumping Off High Objects milestone.

Word of Wisdom Reading

Steph has been sick for a week or so now so I thought I'd jump in and contribute something to the blog.

I thought I had read most of the key articles on the Word of Wisdom, but this last week someone I know linked to one I had missed. Before getting to that, if you ever get bored and decide it would be fun to read about the Word of Widsom (hereafter WoW), here are some places to get started:

Peterson, Paul H. "An Historical Analysis of the Word of Wisdom." Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1972

This thesis provides a great overview of the history of the WoW from its inception to the modern (1972) day. Here you will get an taste for how attitudes have varied among members and changed over time. Although there have always been people who took the WoW seriously an urged observance, the first thirty years emphasized moderation over abstinence. During the 1860s, Brigham Young ramped up the emphasis on the WoW for largely economic reasons, because he was appalled at how much money the Saints were sending out of the state to import items prohibited by the Word of Wisdom. Observance was still tremendously lax by today's standards and people were encouraged from the pulpit to grow their own tobacco rather than importing it. There was another revival about the WoW in the 1880s in which the leadership got serious about requiring observance among the leadership for the first time. With the early 1990s came prohibition and the WoW became intertwined with national politics. Pres. Grant was a big supporter of prohibition and after becoming President in 1919 he quickly moved to make WoW observance a requirement for temple and mission service. His time as prophet lasted until 1945 during which time the WoW took its place in Mormon orthodoxy as one of our most distinguishing practices.

Lester Bush, The Word of Wisdom in Early Nineteenth-Century Perspective, Dialogue 14:3
We often talk about how amazing it is that the WoW was revealed back when science had no idea about the effects of alcohol and tobacco. While it is true that "science" in the 1830s couldn't tell a remedy from the whole in the ground, there were some widespread theories about the underlying causes of disease and the WoW fits very well with those theories. That is to say, they had totally wrong ideas about why alcohol and tobacco are bad for you, but their wrong ideas still said that they were bad. The WoW reflects in many ways the scientific understanding of the time. In fact, the prohibition against “hot” drinks makes good sense in the context of nineteenth century theories of disease even though it seems strange by today’s understanding. There is a great quote from a Dr Caleb Ticknor talking about how hot water is even more dangerous than tea because the medicinal properties of tea offset the dangers of the hot water. (It was literally the temperature of the drink that was considered to be harmful.)

In any case, having an idea about nineteenth century theories of disease brings some parts of the WoW into focus. Most of the prohibited items were also used medicinally in the 1800s and it appears that during the lives of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the WoW was not understood to prohibit those items when taken for medicinal purposes.

Thomas Alexander, The Word of Wisdom: From Principle to Requirement, Dialogue 14:3

The title of this one sums it up well. The journey from principle to requirement is examined in a bit more detail than in Peterson’s Master’s thesis.

Leonard Arrington, An Economic Interpretation of the “Word of Widsom”

Robert McCue, Did the Word of Wisdom Become a Commandment in 1851?, Dialogue 14:3

The content of these two papers is summarized pretty well in Peterson’s thesis, so you only need to go read these ones if you want more details.

Finally, here is the paper which I missed until it was pointed out to me last week, although I had heard bits of the theory previously.

Clyde Ford, The Origin of the Word of Wisdom, Journal of Mormon History 24:2

Ford makes a very interesting case for the WoW being a composite of three different revelations, given at different times, for different reasons, and to different audiences. There is a fair bit of conjecture in the article, but also lots of good information, and plenty of food for thought. Go read it and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.