Happy Mother's Day to All the Women in Our Lives

The Johnson Family Christmas Card, From Last Year

Here's our Christmas Card Photo for 2012, only I never mailed any cards.

So in an attempt to not let perfect be the enemy of good, I'm posting the picture.  I hope you had a joyous holiday season in 2012, and will have another in 2013.

Our village hosted a photo night, where you could sign up and have your picture taken for $15, and also included the kids' picture with Santa.

The photos are in focus, so it looks like we spent at least $17.  However, they were totally "flat" and looked they were in RAW format, so what you see here is after I processed them in photoshop.

Merry Christmas!

Sister Kira Archer: Sister Missionary Portraits

I got to take pictures of my cousin Kira as she prepared to leave for her LDS mission to Alaska.  She'll serve for 18 months in "The Last Frontier."  While I know her family will miss her, I have never met anyone so excited to serve a mission. Kira has exuded enthusiasm whenever she talked about preparing for her mission.  Her mom commented on Facebook after leaving Kira at the Missionary Training Center that she knew Kira was "Finally living her dream."

Good luck to Kira while she is on her mission.  She will be in our prayers.

It was such a rare treat for me to have a beautiful, cooperative model that can hold still when told to.

 

This cat was stalking us while we took her pictures.

Dinner at Hogwarts

On Monday, Nick and I attended a very formal event, held at Northwestern's University Club.  It started with drinks and hors d'oeuvre in the eighth floor library, overlooking the Art Institute.  This was no public library.  It looked more like a castle library you walk into and discover the Duke smoking a cigar as he reads Shakespeare. I didn't want to appear out of place, or overly impressed, so I played it cool and didn't take lots of pictures.



But when we walked into the dining room, it was too impressive to maintain a cool demeanor.  It was a cathedral-like room, and to add to the magic, had dozens of large golden snowflakes hanging from the ceiling.  It instantly reminded me of the great hall at Hogwarts in Harry Potter with its enchanted ceiling.  The room has crests of Ivy League schools all along the wall.  The stories-tall Christmas tree added to the charm.  My pictures don't do it justice of course.

This picture doesn't show how awesome my hair looked.

The place is so formal, that I think they made the one guy who showed up without a jacket borrow one.  The event was to present three surgeons with endowed chairs at UIC.  Everyone in the program was wearing doctoral robes, which look a lot like wizarding robes.  The was a formal procession in, with the lead person carrying a giant wooden staff, which then went into a holder on the stage.
I never figured out what that was about.

Nick was invited by one of the honorees who he has worked under and co-written a paper with.  I think we were about thirty years under the average age of attendees.  We sat next to a really fun couple, and when they found out we were from Utah, asked if we were Mormon.  Then they said, "Oh, so do you know so-and-so?"  And yes, we did know that family.  

When we were leaving, I found this door when I was looking for the bathroom.  How can this place not be Hogwarts?

Spelling is Important

I took this picture the last time I went to the St Louis version of the DMV, which is actually run by AAA.  This is how not to spell Tiffany.

Fire Station Tour, or House of Horrors

Part of the tour scared him, but he was all smiles when it came to the fire truck.

Our playgroup toured a local fire station last month.  As much as Henry loves fire trucks and red hats, it was not all fun.  Part of the tour is they show a fireman in full protective gear to acclimate children to the appearance of a rescuer.  Henry was terrified.  The fireman became a sort of brown version of Darth Vader in all his gear.  Henry would not go near him.  He hid behind me.  He made me pick him up and hold him.
The firemen stressed the importance of family fire drills, smoke alarms, and fire extinguishers.  But with this age they said the really important thing is to teach them not to hide from fire fighters in an emergency.  Henry was too frightened for that message to really sink in, so we will have to go back for another tour in a few months.

Gigi at Almost 16 Months

Gigi is almost sixteen months.  In many ways she is still a little baby, but she is completely her own person.  She is very determined and strong willed, but there's a lot she will do if we simply ask nicely.  She hasn't let me feed her any pureed or baby foods since just before her first birthday.  She's still very unskilled with a fork, so as a result her face is usually messy because of her wild ways of feeding herself.  She also hates to have her face wiped off.  She will eat some fruits, but I can't trick or bribe her into eating vegetables.

She loves to play on the playground, and she would spend all day on the slides if we would let her.  She's figured out that if she holds up her feet, she will go down faster.  Last week she started going down some of the slides head-first.  She's pretty much fearless.

Most of her clothes are sized 12 months (which generally means a 9-12-month-old would wear them.)  I just recently put away most of her nine month clothes, and both of these pictures are 9-month size.  Often people are surprised by what she can do, because they think she's six months younger than she is.  Often I get asked if she's walking yet, and moments later they see her running away from me.

She loves clothes, shoes, and accessories.  Not only is she a fan of her own wardrobe, she loves everyone's.  She brings clothing items to me that she wants to put on.  There is a particular pair of heels in my closet that she digs out over and over again, then tries to walk in them.  She doesn't get far.  She also loves to have her nails painted.  On the rare occasion I put make-up on, she wants it too (but doesn't get it.)

I think she's just about to take off talking.  She says a handful of words that even a stranger would understand, but I know she's trying to say so much more.  She clearly says, "Mommy, Daddy" and most emphatically, "me! me!"  "Me" is her word for everything she wants.  Dallas joked that we should change her name from Gigi to Mimi.  You could interpret it as "Give it to me, please!" or "Help Me!" or "Give that to me now or I will cut you!"  She's very persuasive.  She yelled "mine" for the first time two days ago.  She is just beginning to say "thank you."  She says "oww" for up and out.  She also seems to have music aptitude.  She can keep a beat and seems to have a talent for matching pitch.

We have had to trim the back of her hair because it had become too much like a baby mullet.  Nick cut it.  We figured since barbers used to be surgeons, can't the reverse also be true?  She is still using my hair as a security blanket.  When she is really tired, you will still catch her sucking her left thumb and playing with her hair with her right hand.

She loves all of Henry's toys, and as a younger sibling does, wants to play with him a lot more than he would like.  She's been making "vroom" car noises for months.  She likes hugging her stuffed animal, which Henry has never done.  She also likes to cuddle with a blanket, and maybe even carry it around for a while.  She seems to like baby dolls, somehow not realizing she is a baby herself.  

I think she's going to be more mischievous than Henry was, but it may be because she has him as a tutor.  A few days ago she shampooed the carpet, meaning she took the pump of shampoo from the bathroom and squirted some onto the stairway carpeting.  She is a skilled climber, and is getting better and better at opening things she shouldn't.  

She and Henry are still sharing a bedroom, and it works pretty well for the most part.  She just finished getting her upper K-9 teeth, and is now working on the lower ones.  She hates having her diaper changed and tries to escape before you can get a new one on her.