Last week Asher and I watched the inauguration of President Obama-- I thought he should be present for such a momentous event even though he was much too young to have a clue what was going on-- And while the whole inauguration was beautiful and inspiring, I especially loved the musical number which was played right before the President took the oath of office, Air and Simple Gifts by John Williams, performed by Yo Yo Ma on the cello, Itzhak Perlman on the violin, Gabriela Montero on the piano and Anthony McGill on the clarinet. (And just as a note-- they "lip-synched" the whole piece because it was too cold outside for their instruments to be tuned properly.)



I simply LOVED this piece, it was amazingly beautiful and it pierced me to my soul. I think it perfectly captured the beauty, the peace, the grandeur, and the significance of America transferring power peacefully to the our first black president. We really take it for granted what a miracle it is that every 4 or 8 years we turn control of the most powerful nation on the earth over to opposing parties with absolutely NO VIOLENCE. In a world that is rife with political turmoil, it is really quite remarkable and is a tribute to our nation.

Even a week later, this music is still lingering in my mind and my heart. It seems incredible to me that there was once a time when blacks and whites went to different schools or when they couldn't even drink out of the same drinking faucets. I can't imagine a world like that. And it makes me SO grateful that my son will think it incredible that there was once a world where the idea of a black man becoming president seemed impossible. Hopefully he will never know a world where someone is discriminated against for the color of their skin. I loved the part of his speech where President Obama said something about 60 years ago he wouldn't have been allowed to sit in a diner with white people, and now he is President of the United States. What an amazing change in so relatively short a time, it gives me hope that in another 60 years we will have made many more such positive changes.

That is what this song captured for me, the beauty and the peace of HOPE. The hope that the world can be better place and that it can be kind, loving, and just. I can't help but wonder what other changes will happen throughout my son's lifetime. What other "miracles" will happen that I can't even imagine? Even though the world may get darker, I have faith in the good and that it will increasingly get brighter. I hope you enjoy this music as much as I do.

Last year I learned this tidbit of advice that has changed my life-- in that I haven't since bought a gross, dry, sour orange (you know the type I am talking about). I can't remember if I read it in a magazine, if Jon's grandma told me, if I heard it on the radio or if it was just inspiration from God, but I thought with orange season in bull bloom right now I'd pass how to pick the most juiciest perfect orange.

When picking an orange don't pay attention to the color, the size, or how hard or squishy it is. All you need to go by is how heavy the orange is for its size. If when you lift the orange you are surprised that it feels heavier than you thought it would, or heavier than those around it, you know that it is full of juice. Sometimes the heaviest oranges will be the ones that aren't the most orange or that look kind of funny, but they are usually the best tasting ones. Granted, you don't want to pick the ones that really looked squished or are lopsided, those probably wouldn't be good no matter how heavy they were.

Well, I hope this tidbit changes your orange picking season and that you are blessed with many heavy, juicy oranges! I guess the only downside to this method is that the oranges do cost more because they weigh more, but it is worth it to get good ones and not gross bitter ones.

We've been enjoying the winter weather up here lately. This weekend my little sister came up from Provo to visit and we all went ice skating. I'd forgotten how much I LOVE ice skating. I think that maybe I missed my true vocation in life... even though I don't know if I'd ever have the guts to pull of one of those triple toe axle thingys. We just put Asher in his umbrella stroller and pushed him around the ice. He really seemed to enjoy it, even though I think one time he got dizzy and it was WAY past his bedtime. We are excited because they just flooded the park by our house and are going to let people start skating on it soon. I think it is free! Well, I guess you have to rent skates.

Then Monday was my mother-in-law's b-day and all of Jon's family went cross-country skiing/snowshoeing. It was a beautiful day and was really warm. Asher and his cousin River were all bundled up and rode behind us in inner tubes. We took turns pulling them and both of them were snug and happy bugs. Don't let Asher's face throw you off, he enjoyed it more than his expression suggests! The sun was in his eyes.


Surprisingly Asher took a nap for most of the ride-- I guess the excitement was just too much for him!

You know there aren't many things that I feel I JUST HAVE TO HAVE. Usually, I am pretty content with what I have and leave it at that. But Jon's uncle just got one of these for Christmas and he let us borrow it for a few days and now I don't think my life can go on without one.

It is a SCOOBA robot that sweeps and mops your floor for you. We let it go in our kitchen and it did the whole floor in about 15 minutes. For the couple of days we had this beautiful little machine in our house, my life was heaven. I think out of all the household chores that I DESPISE it is sweeping and mopping my floors-- if you don't believe me you should come see my kitchen floor. One glance and you might just go out and buy me one of these little babies.

The problem is that they cost between $ 200-300, so they are definitely NOT within our price range. I guess for now I will have to live without one, and every time I look at my floor will have to dream of the little blue robot. Someday.... someday....

Here is a clip of the new biped in action. Sometimes it still takes me by surprise to see him walking, he just seems so short to be able to walk. But he does it, really well.

Yippee! Our laundry room is finally up and running. It was the "last" (yeah right!) big project we had left to do on the house-- well not counting the yard-- and it is now finished! It took Jon most of Christmas break to get it done, but it is fantastic. He got kind of carried away with it though. We initially needed a five gallon bucket with a sump pump in it to pump the water from the washers into the sewer line, but with the true spirit of a water engineer Jon had something much bigger in mind. He dug a big sump pit 5 feet deep (he got WAY carried away with the digging) and bought a fancy pump that can pump 100 gallons of water 30 feet into the air (not that we needed it to do that) and rigged up the fanciest plumbing I've ever seen. His hope is that in the future we will be able to drain all the water from our bathtub and sinks into the pit, treat it and then use it to water the lawn. Here is what the room looked like before ( it use to be an old root cellar)

and what it looks like now!


It is really nice to have laundry capacities in our house now, even though we VERY much appreciate everyone who let us do our laundry at their house for the past 7 months. I especially LOVE having two washers and dryers. We had a set before we bought the house and then the house came with a set. I was going to give one set away, but Jon's unlce mentioned that we could keep them both and have our own little laundry mat. I think that was the best idea ever. Laundry gets done SO much faster! Also, we rigged up a laundry shoot from our bedroom to the basement. When we tore the floor out in our room we found there was already a hole in the floor and decided that instead of patching it up we would utilize it. I am super exicited, even though I am a little terrified that my kids are going to jump down it. I think I saw a Resuce 911 one time where a little girl got stuck in the laundry shoot and I have been traumazited ever since. But ours isn't very long so I don't think I have to worry about anyone getting stuck, and I guess I'll just have to reconcil myself to the fact that it will get played with. Here is a picture of Jon's sump pit before he poured concrete in. I have to admit I was skeptical about it, but it works amazing. I am slowly learning to trust my husband's ideas, they always seem to work out better than I could ever imagine.

My heart has been breaking the last few days. I can hardly listen to the radio or read the newspaper without wanting to 1st-- throw something and 2nd-- to bawl my eyes out for the all the people being killed in Gaza. This morning on the front page of the New York Times was a picture of a little Palestinian girl who had been killed by Israeli bombs and the article went on to say that MOST of the causalities in Gaza are civilians, many of them children. It was extremely gratifying to see an article that actually acknowledged Palestinian's as human beings and didn't justify Israel to the roof, but still...... it isn't enough! There was an article in Al-Jazeera that I thought did a good job shedding light on how the US gets Israel skewed versions of what is happening in the Middle East. I thought this statement was especially poignant, "What if 350 Israelis had been killed and only four Palestinians - would the newspaper have run the stories side by side as if equal in news value?"

I can't believe that the US population isn't more upset about what is happening-- it is our tax dollars that are paying for it! Israel claims that they are being "surgical" as I heard one Israeli General say on the radio, but people in Gaza are so packed together and there is so little room that it would be impossible to be only target military personnel. In the last week 400 Palestinians have been killed and only 4 Israelis! Any loss of life in my opinion is a great tragedy, but to me such an unequal force of power seems downright vindictive and cruel. It would be like the US letting force all its military power on Haiti or Puerto Rico. What Israel is doing isn't self-defence --- it is ethnic cleansing.


I know that most of you aren't as passionate about this as I am but if you have even a little pity for what the people in Gaza are suffering I hope you'll take the time to sign this petition. It is being sponsored by AVAAZ and says:

Hello Everyone! I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas break and that life in 2009 has been treating you well. I had a really good break and had a wonderful time with my family. Even thought it was kind of bitter sweet to take a break from blogging. I had so much to do this last month and I figured that my family and my psyche would be better off with a break, but I missed it-- a lot. My thoughts just had to well up inside of me with no creative outlet, and for some reason a journal isn't as much fun as a blog-- I guess because it can't leave you comments. Anyway, here is a quick re-cap on my life for the last few weeks:

• Asher took his first steps! A few days before his birthday he started walking between Jon and I. He still can only take a few steps before he gets scared and falls down, but he is slowly, slowly getting braver. Every once in awhile he will let go of something and walk, but he still prefers crawling-- it isn't as risky. Here is a quick clip of him cruising around on the bike Santa brought him ( I know it doesn't "technically" count as walking by himself, but...). He does a pretty fancy dismount if you ask me.
  

• Asher weaned himself/I weaned him this month. He had been cutting back on nursing sessions over the last several months, and by December he was only nursing once in the morning for about 3-5 minutes. Sometimes neither of us would remember until late in the morning and then he would cry until I gave him a little milk. He wanted it more for comfort than for food. Then about two weeks ago Jon and I went skiing and Asher stayed with his Grandma. That morning both Asher and I forgot about nursing and on the drive up to the ski resort I figured that I was weaning him that day-- I'd been thinking about it for a few weeks. I think weaning has been harder on me than on him. He didn't seem to miss it much and likes cow's milk a whole lot, but I really miss nursing him. You get this special tingly happy feeling every time your baby nurses, and it is hard not to have that. Also, it is hard not to have a quick fix, whip out the breast and make the baby immediately happy trick up my sleeve anymore. Oh well, I guess he has to grow up sometime-- I just wish he would let me decide when he gets to grow up!

• Our laundry room is almost done! Jon poured the concrete for the pad last week, well actually he didn't "pour' it he mixed it all by hand because he thought it would save money. He had sore arms and a sore back for a week, it was A LOT of work! He also has all the plumbing almost hooked up! I am SO excited. Soon there will be no more hauling bags of laundry through the snow!
  

• Asher got his second hair cut. He really needed it this time, he was starting to look like a baby troll doll. My mother-in-law cut it, and it was quite the wrestling game. He did good for about the first 5 min. and then lost it royally. But she's had lots of practice-- she has 4 boys-- all of whom screamed as if she was cutting off their heads when they got their hair cut, well they don't any more...

• I learned how to crochet. After being taught 10+ times over the last 10 years, it finally made sense, and I am 6 rows into a dish rag. It is going to be marvelous.
  

• I ate way too many yummy things in the last three weeks. But I am not regretting it, because life is too short for guilt.
  

• I really like what I gave Jon for Christmas so I am going to show it off.
  

• Asher is now a three toothed chomper. He has his two bottom teeth and one top tooth. It is adorable. I think he looks like a hill billy. He bit his tongue the other day for the first time-- it was so cute, but a little sad, I laughed anyway.

• Jon and I scored two pairs of nice (Jon's) and REALLY nice (mine) cross country ski boots at the thrift store, now we are just on the look out for cheap-o skis and we will be daring cross country adventurers pulling our three toothed chomper behind us on a sled!

• Jon and I bombed out on New Year's Eve again. Last year we were so tired (Asher was only a few weeks old) that we went to bed at 8:00 PM and woke with a start at 12:00 when the fire works went off, Jon turned and gave me a kiss and we went back to sleep. This year we vowed to make it to midnight but at 10:30 PM we both fell asleep on the couch watching a movie and decided to call it a night. Pathetic-- maybe next year we will have to have people over so that they can make sure we don't bomb out again.

• Here a few photos from Asher's first b-day party. It was so much fun! He had a blast. I realized after I put him to bed that night that I had been so busy getting things ready that I'd forgotten to make dinner and all he had eaten was cake and ice cream!