Quotes from Connecticut episode 1

Jubilee:

"I can want this?" meaning 'can I have this?'

"I a lamby frog!" hopping around.

"Whose name?" meaning 'what's his name?'

She didn't want to get out of her carseat and go inside, so I told her a story about a girl named Jubilee who got out of the car. She gave me the stink eye and said, "I don't like dat story."

Alysa: Wow you are getting to be so big!
Jubilee: I not so big. I so tiny. Sooo tiny.

Alysa: Where do you live?
Jubilee: Pink Playground!

We had some friends from out of town over, and I was trying to get all the kids' attention. I said, "One, two, three, eyes on me." All the school-age kids immediately stood attention and said "One, two, eyes on you." Jubilee was struck with the response I got, and once the kids went about their assigned task she marched around chanting "One, two, eyes on me! One, two, eyes on me!"

"It's cocoa dots!" describing her polka dot leggings.

I was making Jubilee a burrito. I had just pulled it out of the microwave and was letting it cool a little before I rolled it up. Jubilee was ready to eat and asked, "Can you burreet it?"

Alysa: Do you want to say a little prayer [on your breakfast]?
Jubilee: No. I say a BIG prayer.

We went to the library and as I was signing us in on the parking sheet she asked, "I can go in the alligator?" I was so confused. She meant elevator.

 

Levi:

I was making a sandcastle at the beach, and someone (Jubilee?) asked me to make it a "sand church." Levi took an interest and when it was a pretty big pile of sand he said, "I'll put the Angel Moroni on top!" He cast about in the sand for something to top it with, and I glanced over to check on Benjamin. When I turned back to the sand church Levi sat on it.

We were playing "soccer with hands" in the back yard, boys vs. girls, and the boys beat me and Jubilee (who repeatedly scored on our goal). Benjamin was pleased with how well they'd done. He did some mental calculations and said, "You're a mom, and we're eleven, comvined!"

I was looking back at old pictures and saw that Levi's birthday cake last year said "4 so happy" upon his request. This year he had brownies for his cake, and I didn't write anything on them. But I asked him, "If we had written on it, what would your cake say this year?" "Feliz Cumpleanos." Levi has got into the bilingual immersion program, and is now learning Spanish.



Benjamin:

"Instead of playing with 10 cards, we're playing with ALL the cards!" playing Dominion with his friend Alistair.

We were trying to skip rocks on the river, which devolved into throwing rocks in the river. Benjamin picked up a rock bigger than a brick and said, "They don't call me The Big Skipper for nothing!" and chucked it in.

Jacob:

Jacob and I were asked to accompany the Primary children on our clarinets, during the annual Primary Program. We had been practicing our parts and the kids had been practicing their singing. On one song they were to sing the final verse in Spanish. Jacob affected an Eeyore voice and said, "I'll be playing the clarinet in Spanish. But no one will probably notice."

We played the song "Follow the Prophet." I did the melody, and Jacob did some fun and fancy harmonizing written by Tara Haglund. Afterward we got many compliments, and two or three people independently told us we gave the piece a snake charmer feel.

Alysa:

I went to the church building to watch the General Women's meeting. We were chatting beforehand when Sis. Weseman, the RS president, dropped a bomb: "the satellite is broken."

We were all worried about how we would watch the broadcast, but she told us she had called the Bishop, interrupted his shower, and he had told her that his counselor had it all taken care of. Since there was no evidence of this, we were all a little concerned. One sister offered to text message the counselor. Another sister asked if we should go get the TV and try to test it out.

"Well, we have 45 minutes." said Sis. Weseman.
I turned and looked at her. "That's what the five foolish virgins said!"
It all worked out fine.

Egg Hunt and Spring Break Fun

I thought I'd pop on here and share a couple of fun videos from the past little while.  The first is from when my sister Rachel and her family came to visit over their spring break.  Even though it was a couple of weeks until Easter, we decided to do an egg hunt and I recorded this fun video while we were doing it:

We did this for a family home evening activity and everyone had a lot of fun!

The second video is from our trip to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History today.  I got three free tickets from one of my students who had helped out at their poison exhibit.  His research group studies monarch butterflies, which are poisonous, so they were invited to help out at a special night at the museum.  He got the tickets as a thank you and then passed them on to me when I mentioned that we hadn't been yet.  So, thanks Kevin!  This little video just has some photo highlights from the trip:

Anyways, that's a couple of fun things that have been happening around here lately!

-Jacob

Fun pictures

So Alysa and I recently got new phones, with significantly better cameras than our previous phones.  As such, we've been having fun taking lots of pictures of our kids, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites on the blog, since Alysa keeps reminding me that there are people who read the blog but don't see the pictures I share on Google+ from time to time.  (If you want to follow me on Google+ to see those pictures, you can do so here: https://plus.google.com/+JacobStewart or follow me on twitter if you're interested: @jacobtstewart).  Google does some fun things with pictures that get automatically backed up, like make animated .gifs which you'll see below.  Enjoy!

Here's the view of our front yard, 360 degrees style.  I tried out this new feature on my camera phone yesterday while we were raking the yard and I think the result's pretty cool.  As you can see, the weather in November is great in Georgia!

Benjamin was pretty excited about doing the raking yesterday - here's a picture of him doing some yard work.

Here's a .gif of some pictures I took of Jubilee sitting up in the back yard.  She thinks the grass is pretty interesting.

Here's Levi and Benjamin play fighting on the driveway.

And to finish it off, a self-portrait of Alysa and me at the Robert Randolph and the Family Band Concert.  Thanks Jared and Camille for the birthday present!

Some recent pictures

Well, it's been a while since I have actually written a blog post here.  I usually just share things on my Google+ page, since the pictures from my phone automatically get uploaded there.  When I shared some pictures there earlier, Alysa insisted that I also post them here, because most people who read the blog are probably not checking my Google+.  So, for all of you folks, here's some recent pictures from my phone of our kiddos.  Incidentally, these are the only recent pictures we have, because our regular camera appears to have been misplaced just after Jubilee was born, and never showed up in the process of moving to Georgia.  Anyways, here you go:

This is a .gif of a series of attempts to get a picture of Benjamin, Levi, and Jubilee together.  It's a pretty good representation of what the process was like.

Here's a good one of Levi and Jubilee

Our sweet little Jubilee!

I hope these pictures make you smile!

Jacob

Thank goodness for the internet... (envy=bad)

Alysa: "Okay, now that* reminds me of the other talk by Jeffrey R Holland. The one where he was like, '...If you have to eat...a poopcake...every time something good happens to anybody else...that would really stink.'... I am pretty sure those were not his exact words."

Jacob: "Yeah, let's look that up. Yeah, I'm certain those were not his words."

Here are his words, by the way, from the April 2012 conference talk Laborers in the Vineyard:

...envy is a mistake that just keeps on giving. Obviously we suffer a little when some misfortune befalls us, but envy requires us to suffer all good fortune that befalls everyone we know! What a bright prospect that is—downing another quart of pickle juice every time anyone around you has a happy moment!

Pickle juice! I knew it was something yucky, and not lemons... thank goodness for the internet.

*that here refers to this talk by Jeffrey R Holland, which Jacob and I watched together after he turned on this video.

We are moving and we have a cute baby and Jacob defended.

You guys, we're actually moving. Oh, man. The official drive away date is Friday June 28th. Our truck will arrive the Tuesday prior. We're doing ABF U-pack, that worked well for us when we moved out here from Utah.

Anyway, things are totally crazy, of course. Jacob is gone this week at the International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy. He's giving two talks there (yeah, he's smart). Oh, and he defended his dissertation, also! I meant to mention that earlier, since that was on the 7th. I attended his defense and he did a great job. I found myself thinking, "Wow, Jacob must be a good speaker because he has kept my attention fairly well this whole time and I don't even really know what he's talking about." :-D

On the 9th, we blessed Jubilee in church. It was a lovely blessing.

Last night Benjamin said, "I can't wait until we get to Georgia!" I think he's getting tired of hearing, "I packed it already. We want to take that to Georgia." He's ready to start unpacking, a little. Then, of course today he was trying to convince me that we should wait until after the Primary summer party on the 29th to leave. Alas, not happening. I had to remind him there will be Primary activities in Georgia.

Jubilee has started smiling more - enough so that we've finally got photographic evidence. Look at this cuteness, captured by Kate Lovett.

Perching in a Peach Tree

Perching in a peach tree
To see what I can see,
Cuz there ain't nobody anywhere
Exactly like me.

I have composed the above especially to announce that We Are Moving to Georgia!

There's peach trees there, I'm told. (Millions of peaches, peaches for me. Millions of peaches, peaches for free.) Also, I'm hoping to record here some of my observations about our experience. We'll be alighting in Georgia for two years or so, we expect. I've never lived in the South before -- in fact I think the only time I've been to the Southern states was a quick weekend trip to Arkansas, most of which was spent in close proximity with Jacob's family, who are the same no matter where they get together.

Anyway, I figure I'll be surprised and interested by some things, and I'd like to commit to writing those down. Because anybody can go to the South, but I am the only me, and I can only move there for the first time once.

Jacob will be working as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University, beginning in July. (Yay, Jacob!) Being a postdoc at Emory will give him both research and teaching experience he needs in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a professor of Chemistry. That Jacob is always headed toward his aspirations. He's an achiever.

I've heard they have cockroaches in Georgia. I don't think I've seen one since my AZ days. I don't remember seeing any in my UT time (though maybe I just saw fewer?), and there are none here in IL. Illinois has cicadas, which I did not know about -- could not know about -- until I lived here.

I've heard it's hot and humid in Georgia. That doesn't really scare me (yet?) and I was looking longingly at the Atlanta forecast (60 degrees) as I watched light snow fall all day today.

Other rumors:
Atlanta traffic is horrible
People in the South are nice (but sometimes it is fake-nice)
They have these things called hurricanes?
There are loads of counties in GA. Atlanta itself is in 2 counties, to say nothing of the metropolitan area. I think there are, like, 15 counties in all of AZ. I can probably still name most of them.
It's only 6.5 hours from Disneyworld.

My first ever trip to Georgia will be in late March. (We've got to go find a place to live! Preferably before I go into labor!) I will let you know what I find out. Anything you want to know?

Happy April!

On the night of March 31st, under cover of darkness, I eye-bombed our house. That's right.

kablam!

nneeeew-pshhh!

what the? putting googly eyes on some of our framed pics was my fave.

i think this little guy is super cute.

Australia is alive!

the peephole is a worried mouth

"what are you plugging into my face?!" said the t.v.

Jacob's contribution. "Clocks have faces" he said.

almost looks like an elephant?

on april fools we watched General Conference. And Pres. Monson watched us, too.

Benjamin LOVED finding all the little eyes. He had found 90% of them by the time we sat down to eat breakfast and was so preoccupied with the hunt that at one point he spit out some of his cereal saying,

"I think I just ate an eye."

"No, honey, I didn't put any eyes in the cereal box."

You know what I loved? That I got to take credit for it. So many of the cool things we do on holidays get handed to Santa or the Easter bunny or whatever. This one? All mine. And I was a very cool mom.

I also dyed the toilet water purple with a few drops of food coloring.

"What's going to happen when I pee in it?" Benjamin asked.

"I don't know. I've never done this before." I said.

Benjamin's preschool spent the week prior to the silly holiday discussing how this Sunday was for playing jokes on people. He definitely wanted in on the action. So while Dad was downstairs we stuffed the toes of his shoes with tissue paper. Unfortunately Benjamin was so excited about it that he didn't really let the joke unfold organically and ruined it just a little. Still. It was fun and harmless and easy.

By about noon Benjamin was hounding Jacob to play a joke on him. 

"Play a joke on me, Daddy! Play a joke on me!"

"We'll see," was about all Jacob would say. I could tell he was uninspired. So later in the afternoon when Benjamin was grouchy I poured a few Teddy Grahams into an opaque bowl and told Jacob to take them to him.

"I brought you some raisins for a snack!" said Jacob. Then, the reveal. 

That one was a big hit, too. 

I have a tradition of writing something untrue in my journal on April 1, and this year was no exception. I like to make these things fit in seamlessly, so I wrote about our day and how my ankle was feeling better until the evening. I stood up after finishing giving the boys a bath and felt a painful twinge (true). This twinge knocked me off balance and into the tub. I was soaked etc etc. (not true).  The joy of this tradition is that at some unsuspecting moment, far from April 1 I will reread this and totally fool myself. It's pretty fun.  

I hope you had a fun first of the month and if you didn't pull any pranks on your family here's a good one I read about -- just slip a raw egg in amongst the hard boiled ones this Easter. Someone will get a little surprise! :)

It's February!

So. How's it going? I'm pretty excited it's February, are you?

On February 1st I did my Valentines shopping. Bought a gift for my one-and-only, a little something to send to my sister in the mission field, and super cute supplies for making Valentines for my friends and family! My mental list of people I'm sending Valentines to is nebulous and keeps expanding. If you want to make sure I send you a Valentine, just holler. Chances are I'm already planning on sending you a one, but if you tell me you want one particularly it will put a little "bold underline star star" next to your name on my mental list.

Yesterday Benjamin and I went to the grocery store. We forgot it was the day before the Superbowl. As we were navigating the crowd Benjamin asked, "Do all the daddies go to Meijer on Saturday?" I had to laugh. I explained that lots of these daddies were having parties tomorrow. "Is our Daddy having a party?" "No." "Why?" Hmmm. Because he's not interested in the game, because he isn't going to watch it, because he only cares about college football (and really only about BYU football) and because it's Sunday. Secretly I have always wanted to have a Superbowl party. Maybe because I love bean dip? We had some friends over for soup and cookies, instead.

Levi is now in the habit of saying "Ready, set, go!" Before he does almost anything. Often it sounds like "Reh, seh, go!" but I did hear him get the second syllable on to his "ready" today.  Friday he was consciously practicing taking a step down, ready-set-going all the time. First at the playground, from a higher platform to a lower one, then at a friend's house on their front stoop. I have to say the best was when he scootched right up to the step, said "reh, seh, go!" and then did a slow biff onto the grass. He only got half his foot off the step, so the knee went down, then the other knee and finally he had fully fallen. Jacob and I both witnessed and laughed. The slow biff is performance art.

Jacob has decided to do a post doc after our time here comes to a close. He still has anywhere from a year and a half to 2.5 years left here, but before we had been clinging to the idea that we could possibly get him into a faculty job without the post doc. Turns out that with Chemistry those cases are few and far between. He's taking a class this semester called something like "how to get ready to become an awesome professor" or something. Oh, apparently it's "Preparing Future Faculty." ;) He's been working on his CV (Curriculum Vitae -- like a portfolio sized resume) piece by piece.

I am having so much fun working and playing on Everead. I'm super excited for the giveaway we've got going on right now -- it's been forever since I've done one!

I've also been enjoying following Downton Abbey. The acting is really stellar. The show just kind of sits in my brain all week, pretending to be real. Someone mentioned a Matthew someone-or-other in church today. I got a mental image of Matthew Crawley. Fun times.

This week on Everead

A comic series for babies!

Ta da! Princess Academy is going to have a sequel, so we're doing a giveaway!

p.s. How early is too early to start giving away Valentines?

Quotables

Discussing a group date at a steakhouse
Alysa: Do they have salads? (Jokingly:) I'm vegan now.
Jacob: Don't worry, they have chicken.

Waiting outside the bathroom
Benjamin: Mommy open the door!
Alysa: I'm almost done.
Benjamin: (mutters for a bit) Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your bathroom in!

After cleaning out the sandbox for the winter (hard work!)
Alysa: Are you ready for a nap?
Levi: Mm! (nods) <3 (snuggles)

Just now
Benjamin: I would like to have roast beef cookies.

If  you click on the "quotable" tag below, theres more where this came from! I've just been enjoying browsing the archives...

The Queen Champion

All of these taken from the lips of Alysa, on the same day in history.

****
"Benjamin. Now is not the time to ask inane questions."
****

****
"Don't pee, don't pee don'tpeedon'tpee..." all the way to the grocery store bathroom, with a small pause when we passed an employee. This after the announcement from Benjamin, "I'm starting to pee."
****

****
Alysa: You underestimate me! I am the Queen Champion!
Jacob: Of what?
Alysa: Things.

Preschool!

I just dropped Benjamin off at preschool!  Can you believe it?! It's pretty crazy.  But totally sane, of course.  So here is how I was feeling about this: excited, nervous, not at all sad. A little bit worried that Benjamin would have a hard time (which is highly unlikely, given his track record of doing well with babysitters and in nursery at church), a little bit worried that I would not be able to adjust my daily schedule to make a trip out of the house before 9 a.m. (this remains to be seen, but was a success for today). Honestly, I'm not a morning person.  I like being awake in the mornings, I like getting things done and such. But I find it so much easier to do in the evening!

Anyway, we're carpooling with a friend of ours, and let me tell you, listening to those two boys chatter in the back seat was awesome!  Firstly because it is hilarious, secondly because it meant I was not constantly trying to answer strange questions during the whole drive.  You mothers of 3 and 4 year olds know what I mean. My favorite little line from their conversation went like this.

Benjamin: In Cars the movie, there is a race car his name is Light'ing.
Jared: Me too!

They proceeded to talk about how they both had Lightning McQueen toy cars and Benjamin said that he "Just started collecting" them.  Hm. Good to know!

Anyway, this whole preschool thing is pretty crazy because Levi is still taking a morning nap, which means. . . ME time! What!?!  A time, not late at night, when I am not accompanied by a small boy? The possibilities! I could . . . blog! :D

So, sorry to leave you hanging on the Cheese Curling! Leila let me know you were all waiting with baited breath. Thank you Leila, it made me feel special to know you cared. The results of the 2011 International Cheese Curling Competition boil down to one fact:

The Stewarts prevail!!!  Jacob was on the winning team again this year!  Our team of former glory, Blue Cheese, did not even come close to winning this year.  Haha!  But some other friends needed a fourth for their team, The Freestone Cheesestones, and they ended up in a major tiebreaker and it was all so exciting! Except I didn't see it because the boys and I were hanging out in an air-conditioned gift shop.  Man. Labor day was like the hottest day of the summer for us! Strange, but true.

Anyway, we had a blast and did not take any pictures because as soon as I turned on my camera a message on the screen said "You forgot to bring batteries! No pictures for you!" And I have continued to forget to replace the batteries, so I have not taken a "first day of school" picture of Benjamin either! I will take one on my phone. And buy new batteries.

Lots of pictures have been going up over on my google plus account, if you are interested, since my phone automatically uploads them there and I can just click to share them. So nice. So if you want to see our pet caterpillar/butterfly, Milko, add me over there.

So. What do you have to say about that?

New World Symphony

Jacob and I seized the opportunity to attend an orchestra concert this evening. We haven't been to a concert, especially a concert without kids, in roughly 3 years. Anyway, we left the boys with our trusted friends and monthly childcare swappers the Freestones. (Thank you, Freestones!)

We attended the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra's concert, and got to see our neighbor, Sungmin on the violin and our acquaintance Alice on cello.  The orchestra played 4 pieces, including a gorgeous oboe concerto. Let me tell you, this girl was good.  Jacob whispered to me, "It is really hard to make an oboe sound that good." and I agree.  We're both erstwhile clarinet players. They also favored us with some of the Lord of the Rings score by Howard Shore, and a personal favorite, Dvorák's New World Symphony.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to see orchestra perform live. It's not just the music, it's the movement.  The orchestra, like a great beast on the stage, moving, quivering, dancing in perfect time with the music -- because its movement creates the music.

The concert hall was lavish as well -- intricate mouldings* and gorgeous wood paneling.  I couldn't decide if the huge, yet somehow delicate pipe organ that was set into the stage was the teeth of the beast or its crown. Probably the crown. I mean, the violin bows, chomping away during the last movement of the New World Symphony were definitely the teeth. Like Jaws.

After the concert we presented Sungmin with an origami rose (courtesy of Jacob's mad paper folding skillz) and Hyuna told us that we were very good neighbors. We are so glad that we went. We had a blast.

*British spelling! As I looked at the moulding, I thought to myself: That's not molding. That's moulding. 

Portraits by an Artist who's a Young Man

Benjamin took these portraits of our family:

Levi, looking chubby.

Alysa, with lamp.

Jacob, in jacket.

self, through smudged lens.

You can read this.

It is a little bit about Jacob on his group's website.  Featuring bonus picture of the family at group Christmas party!

ETA: Oh, and you can watch this. It is "Mormon comedy at it's finest" according to my aunt's niece.

The never-mailed Christmas Letter

A Christmas Letter from the Stewarts

International Cheese Curling Champions 2010

by Alysa Stewart

Jacob continues his graduate studies in Physical Chemistry. He hopes someday to become a professor of Chemistry. Don't be surprised when he doesn't end up teaching at Berkeley – he would rather teach than have to worry about producing amazing research results. 

This is the part where I try to make Jacob's current research sound exciting, dangerous and kind of understandable: Usually Jacob and Brian are trying to get their tiny oven to reach 1300 degrees Fahrenheit. Or perhaps they're aligning the laser which is smaller than a toothpick (no smoke, all mirrors), or refilling the liquid nitrogen which could freeze your hand off, or tinkering with the pumps (which required an addition to be constructed on the building). Once this is all set up, they heat Buckminsterfullerene in the oven, cool it with the pump, shoot the laser (which is kept cool by the liquid nitrogen) through it, and analyze the graph that comes out of their spectrometer. The molecule costs $20/gram, and one gram only lasts an hour in the oven. They've never seen the lines it is supposed to be making on the graph, so they plan to test pyrene (which can cause cancer and birth defects) next.

Jacob also spent the year serving in the church. He worked with cub scouts until this summer when he was called as ward mission leader. He enjoys helping the missionaries teach the gospel and working with new members of the church. He also enjoys popcorn, books by Brandon Sanderson, and tickling the boys.

I spent the majority of the year pregnant. I volunteered at the library, delivering books to homebound women, until the belly got too big, the books got too heavy, and Benjamin got too rambunctious (read: kept ditching his pregnant mommy with a stroller full of books and running through nursing home hallways, attempting to board elevators unchaperoned). I served in the Stake Young Women's presidency (helping organize youth dances and meetings, and training youth leaders) until August. Recently I was called as the ward Relief Society meeting coordinator, and will help organize meetings and events for the women in the ward. I've kept busy the past few months as a judge for the Cybils (Bloggers' choice children's literature award). And of course, in the day-to-day, two little guys keep me scrambling to make sure everyone is dressed and fed properly.

Benjamin is two-and-a-half and finishing up his first year in nursery. He especially loves music time with Brother Miyasaki. He enjoyed being in Kindermusik (taught by mom) at the beginning of the year, and often pulls out instruments to play. This year he has participated in a grammar study at the U of I and loves going to play (on camera) in their lab. It is amazing how much he has learned to say. He is working on potty training, and can be relied upon to wake his parents up with a smile in the morning. He loves to webcam with relatives.

Levi was born on September 7. He has already flown through boxes of Benjamin's hand-me-downs, and almost rolled over several times. His signature move is the ab crunch. He sleeps like a dream, but took his time learning to nurse properly. It is easy to see he loves being part of the family, and it is apparent that he inherited the sensitive skin genes. 

Merry Christmas!  Remember how Jesus Christ was born? And lived? And died?  Well he was resurrected, too! And he's coming back again soon!  We can't help but smile as we celebrate his birth. 

Thank you for caring about our family.  Best wishes for the New Year!