on-hand modern

and the gang's all here

have a great weekend, everybody!

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kansas city temple

here are a few photos i took with my phone while volunteering at the open house last week. the temple at night is my favorite.

i was so nervous to play the organ! i barely slept the night before, my palms were sweating (let's be honest, everything was sweating, there is no anti-perspirant on the planet that can compete with my anxiety), i snapped at my husband about his driving on the way to the temple and then pretty much had a full-on nervous breakdown when we got there and i realized my life was over because what!?!?! static cling!!! disaster!!!

i know, dramatic much? turns out that, duh, everyone at the temple is a volunteer just like me and we're all doing the best we can and believe it or not to my knowledge no one has ever gotten fired from being a volunteer church organist for sweating too much on the organ keys, so...eventually I calmed down a bit and enjoyed the experience.

plus, the temple itself is a calming influence. i believe that if we really try, we can feel close to God in many ways and circumstances, but for me it's easier in the temple. thankful for that.

have a great day, friends.

***

spring break tour of parks

this one is for the local folks mostly.

so we stuck around for spring break and explored some new parks around johnson county and the KC metro area. we have our favorites close to home (especially this secret one, it's where we had scout's birthday picnic) but it's always fun to try somewhere new if you don't mind a little bit of a drive, don't you think?

- pirate park (can't find a website for this one; it's listowel park at 71st and quivira in shawnee)

- penguin park (at north vivion and norton in KCMO)

- castle park (this is black bob park in olathe, on 151st street between black bob and pflumm)

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kid portraits january 2012

Hiya. This post is for people who like to see regular photos of the children. I took these last month for my mother-in-law’s birthday.

There are two specific events from the last two weeks that I want to remember.

Event One:

It finally snowed one day, and the middle child volunteered to shovel a friend’s driveway. He worked for most of the afternoon, and when the job was done, the friend offered him a $5 bill, which the child graciously accepted.

Later that evening over dinner, the Engineer asked to see the money the child had earned. Middle child reluctantly replied he didn’t have it.

“Why not?” we asked.

“I didn’t need it,” he said. And then he went on to tell us how when no one was looking he had quietly and discretely left the money on the friend’s desk.

“I didn’t need it,” he repeated.

Event Two:

The oldest child has a mostly quiet and reserved nature, but the effect of her goodness on people is startling. I recall a year ago when she spoke in front of a large gathering at Grandpa’s funeral. Her 8-year-old’s tribute to Grandpa was more than I think anyone expected. She made us all laugh; she made us all cry. Most of all, she gave us hope. To look at her and listen to her—eloquent, funny, beautiful, brave, and good—was to know that life goes on. And that it’s going to be awesome.

It was the same last Sunday. She sang “If The Savior Stood Beside Me” in church in front of probably 200 people. Whoa. Grown men cried like babies. (And not just the Engineer.)

I don’t know if this space is the right place to record experiences like these, but I feel compelled to write them down somewhere, and I hope they uplift and inspire you like they do me.

Have a great weekend.

***

a trip to st louis

the LDS temple here in kansas city is *this* close to being finished. there will be an open house april 7th through the 21st, and if you are local, i do hope you will come. in fact, let's go together! the doors of the temple will be open to the general public during those dates. we'll tour the building, talk about cool stuff like, i dunno, Jesus Christ and families, AND we'll even get to wear some of those awesome disposable booties. interested? (and let's be honest, how could you not be? BOOTIES.) email me.

meantime, we drove to st louis over the weekend to attend the temple there for the last time. we ate some local food and spent an entire saturday at city museum, which is not so much a museum i decided as it is a giant psychedelic jungle gym. (ten-story slides, massive ball pits, and such. fun for all ages.) that said, my favorite part of the trip would have to be scout's unscripted sighting of the famous st louis arch as we looped around downtown on the freeway:

"A RAINBOW!"

life with a two-year-old is grand. which, unfortunately, is more than i can say for imo's st louis-style pizza. (i know, i know. spoken like a true tourist. my apologies to all st louis-ians. especially holly. what can i say? i like my pizza with carbs.) fitz's root beer + cream soda get a biiiiiiig thumbs-up from me, though.

***

2012 so far

while the rest of the world was busily goal-setting and new year's resolution-ing, i spent most of the first month of 2012 getting my bearings after the holidays, reading a lot, thinking, re-thinking, planning, and i guess maybe even dreaming a little. i did some writing too, which i did not share here. mostly in the form of notes and half-thoughts, jotted on scrap paper and taped to the fridge or tucked between pages of library books.

it might be a slow start, but it's a start? i'd love to hear how 2012 is going so far for you. at the start of a new year are you off and running like a rabbit/hare, or are you more of a slow-moving tortoise like me?

p.s. nerd alert! why yes, that *is* an official regulation-size hopscotch in the photos. and yes, there is such a thing. and, duh, of course we used a tape measure. 

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a scout outfit

shoes are minnetonka trampers from santa.

be awesome today. xoxo.

***

photos of cute baby friend camilla

at 16 days old.

we turned the living room into a little make-shift studio. i shot most of these while standing on a chair. late morning light. north-facing window. i had the sheers open at first but the light was better filtered, so i ending up closing them for all but the last shot.

sigh. i do love the newborns. especially the hairy ones. :)

thanks for letting me share.

***

what to do with kids: classic movies + backyard pop-up movie theater

peeps, you may or may not have noticed, i'm having some trouble getting back on the blogging horse in 2012. for lack of any better explanation, i think i'll just go ahead and place the blame squarely on the weather which has been nothing short of RIDONCULOUS (in a good way) since christmas. sunshine + sixty-degree temps in january in kansas? for weeks in a row? unheard of.

last weekend, we hauled out the projector + huddled up in blankets in the backyard to watch E.T. what could be better? i confess, life seemed pretty good.

hint: the engineer picked up our projector for $50 at a university surplus sale years ago. it's worth doing some research into sales in your area--if there are deals to be had, they might as well be had by you.

and now as i'm typing this the kids are waking up and jumping up and down because it SNOWED last night. ha. of course it did.

p.s. thank you for the birthday wishes. i'm all warm and fuzzy inside even though my feet are freezing.

[top photo by k]

***

hey, i got older

the week before christmas i had a birthday. we rang the salvation army bell like i talked about doing here, which turned out to be a lot of fun and i hope to make it an annual tradition. we also had dinner with friends and then there was homemade red velvet cake and balloons and some thoughtful gifts from k and the children. i felt loved by friends and family, and it was pretty much a great day.

the big surprise (to me) about turning 33 is that i'm basically the same person i was at 22. i still burp out loud like a 14-year-old boy. i still answer the phone sometimes in a really lousy asian accent. (disclaimer: i am not, nor have i ever been, asian.) i still love junk food, Quantum Leap, and karaoke--not necessarily in that order. i'm proud to say i've mostly conquered my fear of feet, but clowns of any kind and dolls lined up in rows still make me shudder. i confess, i've never tried sushi and can't see any reason why i should. and i still don't know how to properly hang up a pair of pants, though i can see how this would be a useful skill if for any reason the engineer one day woke up and decided he'd rather declare his undying love for me in some other less-endearing way than carefully lining up seams and folding and draping my jeans over a plastic hanger. (he hasn't yet.)

on a more serious note, i still have a lot of the same self-doubts i had when i was younger, and maybe even a few more. this is perhaps the great disappointment of growing up. as a kid i never thought adults felt uncertain or confused, self-conscious or insecure. i was wrong about that. 

okay, so painful awareness of my nerdiness + shortcomings aside, i'm also aware that in some ways i have changed and become an upgraded version of the old me. for one thing, i'm better at relationships than i used to be. not perfect, but better. according to my dad, compassion is "love with action" and i've made some progress in that area as i've gotten older. i'm a pretty good friend in general but a great one in a crisis, i think.

i've changed in other ways too, but i think that may be the most meaningful.

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