I know, you don't believe it, but I am a Mormon...

This video explains very succinctly one of the big reasons that I'm a fan and an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints/LDS/Mormon church. I love my family, all the different crazy branches of it--Mormon, Jewish, Sikh, Mexican-American, Romanian, Punjabi Indian, European mutt. I'm constantly amazed by the similarities that pop up across the ethnic and generational divides.

I am grateful for those that have gathered and retold and recorded stories of my ancestors

-GSG (Bapu) for tape recording his parent's telling their crazy life stories (Beji was a hoot and a half, and a strong independent woman & loving mother) and for taking me on a military-march style tour of Punjab, where he was raised Sikh before moving to America to attend college and join the crazy Mormons, who's doctrine made more sense to him. Thankfully, for the benefit of all his brothers and consequently nieces and nephews, he did not abandon his family when he switched religions, and he is somewhat responsible for a vast number of organic rouge grapes being produced in Cali & for bringing Kansas the plant genetics genius BG.

-GoGo for asking her mother-in-law all sorts of questions about her family: how she grew up in Canada as the child of Romanian immigrants and how she managed a mental illness with motherhood with the support of an excellent husband and father Julius. (who was also a haberdasher, just wanted to throw out that word. No mad hatter, as far as I know.) GoGo has shared these collected stories with her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and also with me. (I need to record more of her memories before it's too late and will be eternally grateful that she took such an interest in her husband's family history.);

-I miss Mom/Grandma Betty frequently and am so glad that I got to know her personally and hear her stories, even if I often refused to learn the lessons that she was trying to pass on. (It is with very typical family stubbornness that as she would attempt to tame my tangled locks and my eyes would sting with tears, I would listen to her recount how she had been too proud to speak up when it hurt when a family friend had combed her hair at my age, and although she was counseling me to do the exact opposite, I refrained from telling her how painful her combing was because I was strong and thought I had to prove it.)

-The actualy Aunt Flo, for helping her children put together a book recounting stories like that of fireman/dairyman/cotton farmer Daddy Joe, my great-grandpa and the youngest son of polygamist Helaman Pratt, who raised his families in Mexico once polygamy was outlawed in the US/Utah. Daddy Joe's mother, Bertha, was having no luck finding a husband in Utah, and so moved to Mexico after visiting her sister and becoming the 4th wife to her sister's husband. After Helaman's death, the two sisters set up household together, with Bertha teaching school to support them financially and her sister raising the children and managing the household full time. I'm related to Mitt Romney through this line, somehow.

Hopefully my facts aren't too mangled. These are the stories that are in my brain and heart and inform my identity as a proud Caucajewmexdian. As I type these, I see that all 4 branches held women, strong and faithful matriarchs, of great power and influence for good in the world and their families. I am honored to live in their legacy and hope that I add my own stories worth passing down!

Life with Children

I have an amazing part-time job as a sitter for 2 of my nephews (& occasionally niece, but she's usually at school while I'm there) while my sister-in-law teaches at the nearby college twice a week. I get to play with the boys, feed them lunch, attempt to get them to nap, and clean up from all of these activities. I get paid, and I get to eat delicious leftovers for lunch. (My sister-in-law is an excellent cook.)

Ji, who is currently 3, is always saying extremely quotable things. (For example on Tuesday he told me that he loves me because I let him use "xissors." Which for the record happened once before this statement. It did happen again several hours after this statement, probably because of this statement. He has my number. When I was in college, a friend in the photo program with me once teased me that I would let a monkey use my camera if the opportunity came up. I would just tell the monkey to be careful.) Today when I asked him to go pick out some books to read (a before nap ritual) he said, "Let's do a scary book. Like Mouse Paint. That one's not scary for people." Then I was left trying to remember if Mouse Paint has a cat or a snake in it. (It's a cat. Or at least hints of cat.)

Ra's humor is more the Buster Keaton type, as he does not say words yet. Or do baby signs if an outstretched hand with fingers opened and closed will suffice. It's amazing the range of things you can express with this one gesture. Banging your feet rhythmically against your high chair also draws attention to your recent lack of food or boredom with the food given to you. We think he's going to be a musical genius. He can just reach the piano keys while standing, and gently picks out a very melodious arrangement. Another pastime of Ra's is transferring food from one place to another. Pieces of bread dropped into bowls of yogurt. Baby food poured out of the container onto the tray to be used as finger paint. Today he got meta and put his bowl of yogurt inside of his bowl of soup. (After dumping most of the soup out in disgust.) He also managed to turn his bottle upside-down while I was holding him and trying to wash dishes at the same time and doused my shirt before I realized what was happening. So much for multitasking.

Usually Ra will play quietly and happily by himself in the bedroom while I lie down with Ji to get him to sleep for his nap around 2 pm. (Sometimes their naps align, but it's rare, like an eclipse.) Today Ji was especially cuddly, stroking my arm and nestling against me. His movements stopped and breathing finally slowed, but I was afraid that if I moved he'd wake up again. Ra decided to get out a toy that makes noise and to squawk loudly himself, and Ji woke up, full of energy. I tried to bribe him to by offering a cookie if he'd lie down with his eyes closed again, and I gathered up Ra to snuggle in bed with us (Ra was not tired, but was willing to cuddle for a bit.) But the damage was done. No nap for Ji today.

Sometimes I try to bring something to do with me. Today I brought the ingredients to make our own graham cracker-like cookies and the animal shaped cookie cutters that I bought at Ikea thinking how much Ji (& my sister Ju) would like them. We made some cookies before lunch and then saved the rest of the dough to finish when K got home from school. K was not content just to use the cookie cutters, however. She had a grander plan in mind. She traced around her hand and made a hand-print cookie. Then she made another one of Ji's hand. Meanwhile Ra, who was mad when I shut the dishwasher (his personal playground. I had to stop him from climbing onto the open door), took the plastic lids that I had given him to play with and hid them inside a pot, in the cupboard he managed to open.

 Can you guess which pan of cookies I decorated with raisins and which one Ji decorated? In case you're wondering, it's Ji's professional opinion that the bottom right shape is a wolf, not a fox. Wolves have fluffy tails, too. The squiggliest shapes are from the pieces between the cookie cutters. I got lazy/creative.

Hand-made cookies! You can find the recipe here. It was very simple and delicious. The dough held up well being rolled out multiple times. It's also vegan, so no raw eggs to worry about when Ji started eating the dough. Although I did have to tell him to stop so we'd have dough to make cookies. (I did double the recipe, and we baked 4 cookie sheets worth.)

Pancakes!!! For Lunch!!!

Grandma G, Ji, and Grandma V:  3 generations bonding with Bisquick!

      My mom came for a visit last week. She was mostly here to see grandkids, but I did get to hang out with her some too. On Saturday she came over with my oldest niece and nephew. M and I had been talking about making pancakes for lunch (after deciding that we should pioneer bagel smoothies: "It's Not Nearly as Bad as it Sounds"), and I thought this would be a fun thing to do with the kiddos. Just as I set the Bisquick down on the counter, Ji materialized next to me and pronounced his desire to help. His first step was scoot a chair to the front of the fridge so that he could reach the freezer, where he knew that there were frozen strawberries. (This kid knows where we keep the good stuff.) I partially defrosted some and let him at them with a butter knife. (I did stress that he could only use a knife if an adult was supervising.) Turns out even the blunt side of the blade can cut through partially frozen strawberries. K was much more interested in making signs for our restaurant. They have their own restaurant, Rosie Rose's, at home. Ji is the cook in their play kitchen and K manages and markets the restaurant. I have eaten many a plastic fruit and vegetable soup there. I am occasionally employed to work in the office at Rosie Rose's, where I take internet orders and balance the books.

      Reader's Digest (which keeps coming in the mail even though Grandma stopped subscribing) had some ideas to liven up pancakes: dividing up the batter and making each a different color with food coloring, using a squeeze bottle to make lacy shapes; that I thought would be fun to try. Instead of just using food coloring, though, I thought we could also use different ingredients. So we made one batch with peanut butter, dyed yellow, and one with strawberries, dyed pink.

      I had gotten a Tolovo Pancake Pen as a gift, and M (check out his new haircut) was the master of pancake creation. He went beyond just letters to pictures using both colors of batter! Notice the lion face on the left below:

      We all enjoyed a hearty lunch of pancakes and scrabbled eggs. Although Ji's request to have ketchup on his pancakes went unanswered. The best part was that Mom volunteered to do all the dishes and cleanup :).

Hanging with the horses while the pancakes cooked. Notice Dell, Ji's nephew.

Game Night

For my brother J's birthday, his wife N got him a new board game, 7 Wonders. I was staying over the night of his birthday, so we decided to try it out. It was a little complicated to figure out, but after the first game, which took about an hour, we were all 3 hooked.

We played Sunday night for the first time, and then again Monday afternoon. My niece K came home from school & wanted to join in, so we played a second game after dinner for our FHE activity. The three of us took turns helping her with her turn.

Ji, my nephew who is not quite two, was content for awhile to climb into his high chair with an issue of Baby Bug and look for pictures of dogs. While we played at the table. Then he climbed onto J's lap and played with the extra tokens for awhile. We knew that we had gotten too absorbed in the game, however, when we realized that Ji had wandered over to the clean, unfolded laundry, pulled out his blanket, and was ready to fall asleep.

Ack! It's been nine months!

Dear Readers,
I can't believe that it's been 9 months since I last posted. Sorry about that! A lot has happened in that time. (No, I have not produced a baby. My niece did ask me if I will be a mother by Mother's Day and her mother pointed out that it was biologically impossible in that time frame. Maybe I could adopt, though.)

One of the biggest changes in of location. I have left Brooklyn to move back to Utah. I thought that with the slower pace of life, less stress, and fewer hours of gainful employment, I would have plenty of time to do things like write blog posts. But it turns out that I really like to take naps and play with my niece & nephew. (And hang out with their parents.)

So, I will try to be better about posting. Maybe I'll even get around to telling you what I've been up to the last 9 months.

xo,
aka Olivia

P.S. I DID NOT get married in the past 9 months, in case you're wondering. I am working at a birth center, and training to teach childbirth education, so I do have babies on the brain.

More cuteness

K with the snake that I made for her. Carrying on a proud family tradition of cozying up to reptiles. (This one's for Grandpa Zorro.)


He's cute even when he's about to sneeze!


With a cousin, and Grandma Z in the background.


Looking up to big sis.


His shirt says "Peek a Boo" and has a ghost.

Auntie Olivia

This week I am visiting my brother and his family, to meet the newest family member. Here he is with his big sister. Aren't they adorable?

Here is someone else adorable...

Some of the best portraits...

just happen.

These photos weren't taken with great lighting, or in a great location, or with any direction or styling on my part. We were just spending time together, and I happened to have my camera and got a shot. Even people who weren't there when they were taken somehow see a bit of the personality, love, and connection between the subjects (and the photographer.)

This first one was taken 2 years ago, when these two were newly engaged. They've now been married over a year.



This is much more recent, taken in June. J. and N. were engaged then, and K. is N.'s daughter. J. and N. just got married last Friday.



as J. said, "This is my life now." I'm glad that they are all a part of my life, too.

I *heart* film

Got some film back from the lab recently that I shot with my holga camera. It's a toy camera that both amateurs and professionals embrace, as it can create fun effects like vignettes, light leaks, and double exposures. It's also very lightweight and easy to carry around. But to get to the point, shooting with film is fun--I love the suspense of waiting to get the picture back and see what's there. You can have happy accidents, like this,



where two different exposure overlap with a beautiful effect.

It was a lot of fun photographing J & N. K wasn't being so cooperative, but I had fun photographing her on the trampoline.









Can your digital camera do that?