The cogs in Josie's head
Dear Riley,
I should just write every day the things Josie says. But we have to eat too and I could be busy constantly transcribing.
She's been singing One Republic's "All the Right Moves" but this is how it goes: "All the right friends in all the right spaceships... yeah, we're going down."
She's been kind of worried about dying lately. So while we were talking about how pretty much everyone dies, she thought about it for a second. Then she came to a conclusion. "Well, I'm pretty special. So. I'm probably not going to die." She's told a couple different people that in the last day or two.
Josie's new word is selfish. She'll be playing with a character and say, "I'm a princess and I'm being SELFISH." And then her character will say, "Guys, come play with me; I'm not being SELFISH anymore." Then when you ask her what selfish is, you get all kinds of zany definitions.
While Josie plays with her characters, she inserts theme music. It goes something like this, "Prince, save me!" Duh-ni-duh-na, duh-ni-duh-na, duh-ni---duh----naaa. Or sometimes, there's percussion in it. Donchhhh, Di-donchhhh, chhhhh. Aleah said she actually found herself singing one of Josie's theme songs the other day.
Saturday - Josie has been sick with a cold this week. But last night I put her in a lavendar bath and did hot socks/cold socks and she woke up feeling much better. She tried to crawl up into Elise's bed this morning saying, "Elise, I need a love and a snuggle because I feel better."
Josie couldn't wait to tell us about her dream this morning. Apparantly I left her and Aleah at the store and a worker found them and the had blue things there and they had a car seat in their car and drove them home. And when they got home, I asked them where they had been.
So in my bigger letter, I will tell you about fixing the reciever set up. But I was playing music off the hub with Josie yesterday. It's been so inconvenient to listen to the music that we haven't listened much. But I turned on Adele's Rollin' in the Deep. As the first drum beats fell, I could see instant recognition of the song and Josie sat transfixed for a second as the song unfolded. I don't know if you remember, but she LOVED that song when she was just little, couldn't contain the urge to move to it.
It's a fun life having her around. She misses you fiercely. The other day she had a peice of paper from the mail that she was convinced you had mailed her and she was possessive of it for a minute.
OK, more family stuff in your big letter.
Love ya! Mom
Spring in February?
Dear Riley,
It’s already February! But the weather has us all in Spring Fever! It’s been high 60’s and low 70’s and sunshine and mild and wonderful this week. It gives me weather survival guilt because the northeast is slammed.
Today in church, the C’s reported from their mission in the Northwest. They were advisers to 13 mission presidents and their wives, advising them on health issues as he is a doctor. They told us that mission presidents are very busy. They have something major every week. But they assured us that they really love their missionaries and are concerned to make each mission as successful as can be. In one of the mission postings from your mission, there was a video from the transfer meeting in December. As a sister was sharing something touching with the group, Sis S was in the background wiping a tear. I knew at that moment that she loves her missionaries like a mother. It made me feel safe sending you to them.
This week has been really busy for me. I was at the school probably every day for something PTA related. But even so, yesterday was the first Saturday in weeks that I didn’t start the day with five times more to do than I could get done. So I went to exercise and wanted to watch a show. We got a new receiver back in December because the video inputs on the old one weren’t working on all the settings. But it’s been sitting on the hearth for weeks not installed. Since I wasn’t super busy yesterday, I decided to install it and watch a show while I exercised.
It has all HDMI inputs which makes set-up easier… if there isn’t a problem with the HDMI inputs… which ours has. Grrr. So after a couple hours passed and it was confirmed by the support people that I had a defective new receiver, I had to put everything back together with the old one. I used a different configuration and we can now play music over the hub (cell phones work again) and watch tv, and play playstation without changing any plugs. Maybe I just saved myself $300. Not a bad day’s work.
We got a box from S yesterday. She had asked us what we wanted from India upon P’s return to the States. I had only asked for ayruvedic medicine for my neuroma. But she was a mind-reader. Elise said as I was opening the box, “I hope she sent her homemade chivda.” And she had. She also sent this wonderful tamarind candy that is the sour tamarind paste, sweetened with sugar, rolled into little balls and coated in coarse sugar. We love the stuff.
It was a great idea to send that. This week I made massaman curry for the first time. So when I went to the Oriental Market, I picked up more sweet tamarind pods. The curry uses the sour tamarind paste and the kids were mixing sour and sweet tamarind. So we love the candy S sent. Aleah pretty much only ate that for lunch. The massaman curry wasn’t a big hit in our family. But Eric loved the stuff, so I enjoyed it for his sake.
We have the Parish family birthday bash tonight. I took the dessert assignment again since two of the birthdays are ours. Since it’s been so warm, I feel like pudding and cream. At 10 last night Parker went with me to the store to get the ingredients for mock eau claire dessert as I didn’t have any of them. It takes graham crackers, pudding mixes and Cool Whip, which I haven’t bought in probably a decade. It took me way too long to make what I thought would be a simple dessert. I hope it turned out. I’ve never made it. But I do like it so much.
I may be going through menopause. I started having hot flashes and night sweats which were making me miserable and interrupting my sleep all night. So I went and got an herbal remedy and it has significantly reduced the severity and the frequency so that I sleep much more each night. You can do anything when you get enough sleep and good food.
Parker had to register for his senior classes this week. I was at the school while it was time for him to register, but the computer was unlocked and he had his little sticky note arrows on the screen. He’d enlisted Elise’s help and had run through a mock registration. But you know how it works, Skyward froze up on him midway through. He did get AP Chem and lab, and AP English Lit, but he didn’t get precalc. He meets with a counselor this week. I hope they can straighten it out. He had to put English where his precalc was supposed to be because while he was frozen out, the earlier class filled up. He said he missed you during that moment.
We had a large fire here in Orem at a construction site for a new high apartment building over by the Good Earth. This is the second fire like it in the past little while and they say we have a serial arsonist on the loose. The power was out for a chunk of Orem for a few hours. There was a plume of smoke this afternoon as well. Crazy.
Dad has all the uprights in place in the garage and most of the shelves in place. I am so excited to recapture this space. I dream about what will go where. Whoot!
When Dad and I went to the temple this week, we saw Bro Cooper’s son. We didn’t speak to him, but it felt good to have a friend there. It made me remember all the love I felt for Bro Cooper as he prophesied in your patriarchal blessing.
Cambry took Brittney to see “Into the Woods” yesterday afternoon. Cambry is doing well generally.
Elise is such a sweet and easy person to have around. She is helpful and pleasant. She’s had friend drama as a "sevey" is prone to. But she is kind where others are not.
Aleah is much the same. She gets excited easily about many things. She took all the leftover scraps from the hair flowers at her birthday party and made a slew of new hair accessories. They are really cute. She’s got a great eye. She works hard at piano. I had parent teacher conferences this week and her Chinese teacher said she is tops in Chinese. That immersion program is such a blessing to Aleah! Her brain just works well with it.
Ugh, the front room is a crazy mess and I Bro B just stopped by to have Dad sign some checks. Ahh. Such is our life.
So how are things there? Do you have diarrhea? When have you felt the Spirit? What has been challenging for you? Do you have people you want us to remember in our prayers? Do you get the Ensign? The February First Presidency Message mentioned missionaries and I smiled a new, knowing smile. I’m so glad to hear about your wonderful trainer. And it was so gratifying to know that I was impressed what to pray for and that you had already served your companion. The Spirit is great!
May you have it with you always!
Love you,
Mom
Party funnies
Tonight we were at Grandma's and E fell outside. She exlpained to us that she slipped running in her flip flops. Dad said, "I think you flipped in your slip-slops."
Q was sitting on Dad's lap and Dad dipped his pinky in his water and gave Q a Wet Willey. Q was ready to get down and as he was leaving, I told him to give it right back to Dad. He was all over that, dipping his pinky in the water and then into Dad's ears. Then he left for a little while. He came back after a few minutes for another round.
Q also told Cambry tonight that she's a really good tickler.
Grandpa still feels (and looks) pretty bad. They have him on his third round of antibiotic. He's pretty worn down. Rather than birthday money, they have been giving dates with them for birthdays. Aleah had hers this weekend and went to their house for dinner and then they went to the movies and saw Paddington. They all had a nice time.
Love you,
Mom
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