Tell You [a] Little Story

Don't not live somewhere because of the weather. Do not give reciprocal Christmas gifts or cards. Accept what others give you graciously, with no manner of "Oh shoot now I have to give them something, too." Don't go to Walmart. Buy good toilet paper. Neither encourage nor discourage the believing of Santa Claus. It's like a Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, but if you have to do one or the other: discourage. Keep your children's expectations for Christmas presents low. Do this by never asking them to make lists of what they want. Have a policy of inclusion when it comes to social gatherings. Try new restaurants or new menu items at old restaurants. Mismatch whenever possible. Express gratitude when people do nice things for you. Read the news. Make sacrifices, especially in the name of financial responsibility. Sleep is more important than many, many things. Few things in life are worth waiting in long lines for. Try new recipes. Take recomme...

Somebody should buy these darling dresses on Etsy. Is there a pioneer trek in your future?  Fabulous bargain! This  could be really great. Love it. Why have I not shopped on Etsy before?  darling darling stuff . I would do prom so differently if I had it to  do over. Shopping is so fun. All of a sudden I'm an Etsy fan. More: All right. I'll stop now.

Abby posted this picture which inspired me to steal it and say a little somethin or other about my baby. Calvin: is 14 months today! is not in the least bit interested in walking is by far the last of my children to walk can take a step with his right foot, but is ever so much afraid to lift up his left foot, so when I force him to try to walk, he pivots around in a circle a little bit, then gives up and crawls like a madman has the greatest toothy grin, which I have yet to capture on camera (bad mom!) sleeps like a champ says, "Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom." a lot also sometimes says, "Daddy" but that's about the whole vocabulary upon finding a barrette or hair tie on the ground, immediately takes it to Norah where he fiercely insists on putting it in her hair. If she tries to take it, he resists until she lets him be her hairstylist grew out of his stranger anxiety mode in the last month or two and will now be non-cry-ey and even tender with other adults. G...

It's not every day we get to make calls to the furnace guy, the plumber, the garage door repairman, and the yard guy. All! In one day, lucky us! Fixing broken stuff, all of it. Good thing we gave a bunch of money to our former yard guy to redo our backyard and he has been AWOL for 8 months. Actually, not good thing. That was sarcasm. In other news, I went in to help out in Isaac's Chinese class today for the first time. How awesome is it that all these 6 and 7 year olds can count to 100, recite poems, do the hokey pokey, write characters, do addition problems, and sing songs in a language they knew nothing about a few months ago? Not sarcasm this time, it really is awesome! I am taking advantage of a Chinese instructor who is giving some parents lessons in the language and even though it starts at 9:30 on Monday nights and I never want to go out in the cold at that hour to go, I'm always really glad I did. It's amazing to learn new things. The kids today were du...

-- my husband is happy -- I feel safe (perhaps naively so, but I feel safe nonetheless) -- my neighborhood feels like the center of the universe in some ways -- I experienced few public discussions about my changing body when I was pregnant -- no dirty looks at restaurants or grocery stores when all the kids are in tow -- the mountains are pretty -- the summertime weather is ideal -- living so close to BYU offers much in the way of culture, sports, enlightened thought, et cetera -- everybody comes here to visit -- my children don't hear a lot of bad language at school -- I know and love all of my neighbors — really, all of them -- much parental volunteerism at school results in good opportunities for my kids

Do I ever watch tv? It's a rare, rare occasion. Have I watched tv at night since the finale of LOST? Negatory, I cannot remember a single time. As a good citizen of this fine community and country, is there anything to do but watch election results trickle in? There is nothing else to do. What do I want to see happen if Mike Lee wins? When Mike Lee wins, I want my friends Marcus and Michelle to be appointed as grand rulers of something important and festive and magical. Am I dreading writing a big term paper for my South African history class? No doiphy, Ralph. Should Marcus and Michelle be appointed as Rulers of Classes That Can't Make Their Students Write Terms Papers? I can support that. Do my children have a hard time understanding what "Don't talk!" means? Their supreme lack of understanding qualifies them for the remedial class. Or something like that. Is it kind of lame that I bought the AppleCare Protection Plan in May and it's...

We went to a movie as a family this afternoon. Calvin lasted  -2 minutes, which is to say I left with the wiggly squiggly child before the opening credits rolled. Had been meaning to get some maintenance done on the van, so pulled up to BigO: Hi, I think I ought to get the 120,000 mile service done on my van. It has 133,000 miles and I've never done that before. What does that entail? Please infer: I'm willing to spend a lot of money, and I don't really know what the car needs because I'm a girl, so please take advantage of my gullibility. Not sure, I'd have to look up your specific model. Let me pull it around back and take a look at everything. Everything looks great. You seemed to have maintained your car really well. You don't need anything done. Wow. I appreciate your honesty. But are you sure you don't want to sell me some service that's really expensive? The front end shakes... I can fix that. It's just the tires that need to be rebalanc...

Note: While I hesitate to post this photo for fear that the possibility of a child getting his head stuck in the rails might give my mother a bad case of the ND, I just can't resist. Sorry, AG. We call him: Calver, Calvino, Cal, Calvie, Little Dude, Pumpkin Nose His latest tricks: picking his nose, shaking his head fervently when anyone asks him a question, going up and down the stairs with great finesse, lifting up the toilet seat and splashing around We love his: irresistible toothy grins, sweet sweet hugs, goodbye waves, open-mouthed kisses He likes to eat: crackers, rice cereal, fruits, pasta, olives, beans, whatever we are eating He promptly deposits on the floor: Cheerios He is getting better at: letting people hold him, not crying for the babysitter The cake that we made for his family birthday gathering which ultimately had to be canceled due to vomitous children in the house was: maybe the best cake I've ever made, really delicious and we're sorry we couldn...

Every once in a while I like to revisit this song. It's a favorite. See 1:50.

Somebody took pictures of an event in the Craig household (and her name is Abby), so I present to you a photographic account of Miss Norah's rainbow birthday party

When I remember, I like to end each day asking each member of our family his favorite part of the day. It causes us to end the day with a memory of something happy or fun or peaceful, instead of dwelling on all the garbage we dealt with. Today, though I neglected to ask my children, I am choosing to sort through much mucky muck of this day and remember the best part: a spontaneous and fervored duet with Steve of rem's Radio Song as we were getting ready for bed. I also liked when Abby came over and was nice and supportive and helpful. I hope she had fun seeing Phoenix tonight in concert. I like Phoenix, both of them. I love Abby and I'd like to add that all of my sisters should live near me. I adore rem. And I like favorite parts of days that really aren't altogether stupendous.

My life is sort of crazy right now, much busier than usual and with ever so much not getting done (*ahem* laundry/backyard/temple/bills/reading for class), so what did I do? I started attending a Chinese class that a neighbor put together for parents whose kids are in the immersion program at school. It starts at 9:30 at night. No problem, right?! Xie xie.

I like to change up my blog design with great frequency, and sometimes I like to make it purposefully ugly and unpleasant to read. Why would I possibly want to have an ugly blog? Because, my friends, every once in a while I need to channel my younger, sassier, and more defiant self who wants nothing to do with the status quo and has general distaste for conformity. Not that I don't appreciate beautiful blogs . I do. My sisters are both the bomb.com at making things look gorgeous. But it's not necessarily a talent that I value enough to dedicate serious time to myself. Plus, while I love having a forum in which to have conversation and I especially love conversation and am interested in what people have to say and so I think blogs are great especially since I'm taking a fb hiatus (breathe), I do not seek after nor desire a large audience to read this blog. I have never once promoted my own blog and I like that's it's very grassroots and raw. That is why I said, ...

Pandora, all of a sudden. People who genuinely love my children. This expression of specific belief. Saying "I believe" or "I'm coming to a belief" in favor of "I know" in formal bearing of religious testimony. My mom and dad and brothers and sisters. Long weekends. Days with nothing whatsoever on my calendar. Buying gifts for people. Receiving gifts. Eating out. Exploring big cities by myself. Beating Ryan at Scrabble. Bargains . My Blendtek blender.

I'm so proud of BYU for choosing to go independent in football, and proud of our friends who were intimately involved in making it happen! You know something exciting is happening in sports when Steve and I are is spending a lot of time talking about it. BYU as a rule doesn't like to rock the boat, but they rocked it, baby!  I couldn't be happier.

If I were still on Facebook, I'd post a link to the $38 quadrillion lawsuit  because that's just rad. And I'd also link to the Utah Prader-Willi charity winning the APX money  on the Facebook contest. Congratulations, Purcell family! I'm thrilled for you and your friends. I'd also link to this article about my near-relative Jason Bagley  winning an Emmy for his Old Spice commercial. Seriously very cool. But since I'm not on Facebook, I'm going to stop snooping around on my mom's account that she left signed in on my computer, stop thinking about Austin's Logitech contest and how I want to suggest that I don't think it's guaranteed that the top three in each city will be finalists but I am confident he will be one regardless, stop thinking about Facebook altogether, and get ready to welcome my children home from their first day of school. Thank you, that is all.

Something about Steve is that he is brilliant. He reads things, he studies things, he ponders things, and -- this is the kicker -- he retains everything . Maybe he wasn't brilliant when he was four (but me? I'm pretty sure I was a brilliant four-year-old), but he's 34 now and has all those years of knowledge and wisdom and insight swirling around in his head (me? I'm pretty sure I still know at least as much as I did when I was four). Seventh grade science class? He remembers every last property of a nucleus and could regurgitate it with finesse. An obscure Old Testament story he read on his mission? He could name the reference, give or take 5 chapters. A quote from the documentary about U2's Joshua Tree album he watched last night? Rest assured he will be quoting from it in some conversation 17 years hence, because he will never forget it. He just really will not. That is something about Steve. I love that guy. I married him thirteen years ago today, and it w...

Some good deals to pass on: Macey's Provo has discontinued (but very good) bags of pasta for $.25 each, back by the milk and eggs. Also lots of Mexican crackers and cookies for $.79 per package. We have especially enjoyed the vanilla wafer cookies. Today's Groupon is two hours of bowling for 6 people at Fat Cats, including shoe rental, breadsticks, soda, and pizza or tacos or enchiladas, for  $25. I bought two and am going to use them together for a birthday party, which they said was totally legit.  Click here.

are my very favorite. Thank you to my anonymous, thoughtful friend, whomever you are*. You truly know me, and you made my day. *Until I hear otherwise, I will operate under the assumption that it was Cerise the beautiful because she is generous and well-read and the reason I read Mountains Beyond Mountains and I love her so.

We went for a walk this afternoon to deliver some cookies to neighbors, and ended up with some new artwork, our first J. Kirk Richards original. It's tiny and beautifully framed and we are really excited.

Steve says: "Emily, your problem is that you are friends with all different kinds of people: stoners, skaters, Republicans, Mormons" [everyone falls into one of the above categories, don't they?] "and that worked for you in high school, but that isn't working for you anymore. You get it from all sides. You're too conservative. You're too liberal. You're too Mormon. You're too whatever. You can't win." Elliot says: "I think Facebook is, like, pulling people apart, not bringing people together!" I say: Amen, to all of it, except the part that suggests I shouldn't have diverse friends anymore. I'm taking a pretty major Facebook sabbatical because I've been in the enemy-making business too much lately. I honestly do not try to say offensive things to people, but the written word is so much harder to interpret for meaning and nuance than is the verbal word, and I tend toward abruptness, so I end up irritat...

I like that my blog is boring. I'm sick of the Provo scene. I am a misanthrope who loves people, or is it a philanthrope who hates people? Our backyard situation is very demoralizing. I like the word demoralizing. I need a hobby and a talent. Probably the most likely option for a talent to develop is playing Scrabble. But I'm not going to spend time to get good at Scrabble. So I shall remain talentless. My children are good at reporting the problems. What I need are solutions. (What I need is solutions?) I could make grammar a talent, but it would take some work. I should probably do that. My basement smells like human pee and rat poop. I'd like to receive an anonymous package containing a miniature tollbooth and a map of The Lands Beyond.

In Washington,  Steve and I and Diana , my sister-friend, had dinner in Chinatown where we took Pepper's advice on the honey walnut shrimp. It was all very delightful. Calvin wanted a fortune for each hand and one for his mouth. Calvin was and is a super champy baby traveling companion who at 9 months has been to 12 states*. The peeps behind us in this photo had SO MUCH FOOD on their table -- all meaty dishes. It was grody to the max. *In order: Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, California, Montana, Wyoming, Maryland, District of Columbia, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania

I've been limiting my Costco excursions to once a month or so in favor of other grocery stores in the area, but the result has been that when I do go to Costco, my list is full of the items that it really only makes sense to buy there, usually for cost reasons. These things include but are not limited to: baby wipes frozen fruit baby formula garbage bags artichoke hearts kalamata olives dental floss minced garlic printer paper gum What have I missed? What else is cheaper and/or best to buy at Costco?

They were setting up for Clinton's second inauguration on the lawn in front of the Capitol. (You know, They.) I was wandering the city alone, having successfully indicated to Nate that though we were left alone together on this capital adventure, we were not together. There were really not many people around -- it was cold. Loudspeakers blared Unforgettable by the Coles -- I mean really, really blared -- and I wanted to dance. I'm pretty sure I was heartsick for Steve and it was him with whom I wanted to slow dance right there on the mall, but I'm also pretty sure I didn't allow myself to entertain that dream. He was newly home from Chile; we had been spending all kinds of time together, for he was my best friend (but most especially he had a car and could take me to the grocery store); but there really was just no way a romantic relationship was ever going to come of that. He was convinced of it and I was reluctantly convinced of it and no, we had never had this disc...

Question: Would these skirts catch your eye if you found them at JCPenney? Kohls? Talbots? Eddie Bauer? I was going to say no way, I would not think these were especially great at any of those stores and is Anthropologie duping us all but then I remembered that Anthropologie clothes feel better almost like there's a quality thing happening there and that I'm wearing my forever-old, green Anthro skirt with bleach stains on the back today and it has made me feel pretty(ish) in spite of the cold sore smackdown happening all over my face* and thus I have concluded that I need more clothes. *not kidding about that it is a pathetic manifestation of how broken down my body has been due to my year-and-a-half steady stream of pregnancychildbirthbackpainstrepthroatweaninghormonalchanges [that's a thing]

A few minutes at an airport pay phone yielded heaven sent weekend hosts: a family in the church in Virginia who could not have been more gracious.   Sure, you can stay with us. When we were in college, we did stuff like this, too. Here are the directions to our house and when you get to the end of the Metro line, call and I'll pick you up to drive you the rest of the way. You can have the entire basement to yourselves. We'll feed you many meals, including Sunday dinner and every breakfast. Want to take a drive? Here are the keys to our Suburu. They were fabulous. I don't remember one single thing about the Students for International Development conference, except that we hooked up with some people from it to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant one night. It was fun and messy. I do remember that, for whatever reason, Cassie and her boyfriend deemed it prudent to go home early -- as in, catch the next flight home -- a few days into our trip. I remember it being in the midd...

Calvin was six months then he was seven months Norah was too sexy for her Easter hat and the boys swam at Nana and Papa's.