born today

• a testimony of the importance of the law of chastity to a child and that the Holy Ghost is real to my sunbeams
• hopefully not an illness of the food-type, due to the fact that the choices for dinner tonight involved leftovers from this past week {Sunday’s meatballs, Monday’s pizza, Tuesday’s baked potatoes and stroganoff, Thursday’s turkey in the rye, and Saturday’s Olive Garden}.
• {Re-}  Elli and Emma’s room that was supposed to just be cleaned, but got completely re-organized and re-designed instead.  which will probably surely end up being messier than it started, by day’s end.
• a sweet, beautiful baby boy to my brother Pepper and his wife Amy
• a flood of tears brought on by the pictures of my new nephew, full of life.
• a new parenting tactic that will hopefully bring less negativity and more love into our home, but will probably just be nothing but a pain for me to enforce
• possibly a new sunday tradition of “chatting timeslots” for scheduling private conversations with me and damon (more on that tomorrow).
• {Re-} ellison’s pierced ears that we thought had closed up
• ellison’s new shorter bangs, courtesy of our redmond first ward hair stylist:  Carly.   
• a knowledge of how to set up and take down our tripod
• a new love for watching the olympics together as a family
• a disappointment in my mad french-braiding skills when emma’s request for french braids that “look like the olympic rings” was denied.
• a new appreciation for our hometown of redmond (and, mostly, the fact that we don’t live in yakima)
• a junior all-state choir member       
• my love for my children in the form of a giant hershey’s kiss

• mild cramps from taking {claustrophobic} family pictures in the stairwell