A Pleasant Time was Guaranteed for All

The branch talent show was one of the best church activities I've been to.
While we were walking in everyone would ask, "Did you bring your talents?" I thought it was a pretty good question. I appreciated that it implied that we for sure had some talent and that the only doubt was whether or not we had brought it with us.
Luckily several people were more prepared than us and were willing to entertain what was a very lively group of spectators. The De Luna's went first with a family chicken dance. President De Luna wasn't on stage with his wife and kids because he was stationed in the audience with the fart machine. When it was time for the hips to wiggle the sound of loud flatulence went across the microphone. I am not kidding when I say that people were literally falling over with laughter.
The fart machine, by the way, made its uninvited way into several other parts of the evening and never seemed to dim in its hilarity.
Three kids did a short play which included a lot of fighting, but in the end the princess was saved.

One little girl got up there and jumped rope. It was pretty cool because she didn't really do any tricks or anything, just stood up there with a big smile and jumped for about five minutes.
A young boy played his viola, but he was so embarrassed that he stationed himself on the side of the stage behind the curtain so that nobody could see him. We had to take his word that he was actually playing the instrument and not just a recording.
The missionaries did a couple of magic tricks.
One of them required that a small piece of paper was burned. Nobody had a match or lighter so a couple of guys took a napkin over to the church kitchen and held it over the element on the stove until it caught fire. They carried the flames back to the audience in a bowl. We were lucky that the smoke alarm stayed quiet.
An older man played the guitarra and sang some songs that everyone knew from the seventies.
People were clapping and singing along. Another new member sang a couple of Christian rock songs and was really surprised that nobody else seemed to know the words. President De Luna made a second contribution and balanced a spinning top on his hand.
In the end I was still wondering, did anyone bring their talents?
It is pretty awesome to be in the Spanish branch.

A Picture and a Bunch of Words

A Picture

Rocky hasn't been feeling well this week, but she has been a real champ about it.



A Bunch of Words

I've tried unsuccessfully to write a blog on three different topics tonight, but the words just aren't supporting me. I am under pressure because Brandon still has one paper and half of a test to finish and I only have a few minutes while he is going over some references. I mean, I have had plenty of time to write something, but just knowing that I have to do it right now takes away all the fun. You are probably at this very moment full of surprise because you have always just thought that I was naturally gifted and that profound and extremely witty commentary on motherhood effortlessly flows from my fingertips. While you are, in fact, correct, this gift does not seem to work during finals.

P.J. I Like That, Do You Know I Do?

I've obviously been thinking a lot lately about Rocky's evening wear. Tonight as I was getting her ready for bed I found myself in deep meditation about pajamas. It struck me as very funny that we refer to them as P.J.s. I wonder who started that and if it caught on right away. It was probably like in the Robin Hood Disney cartoon, when Prince John gets a kick out of being called P.J. There is a poetry about it.

I also like to refer to them as Jammies. As you can tell that once Rocky gets into them she thinks that it is time to really jam out.

Bye Bye Bunnies

There is always a certain amount of unpleasantness that comes when you realize that you no longer fit in one of your favorite articles of clothing. Trust me when I say that it is an experience that I have had more times than I feel good about mentioning.
As bad as it is when I can no longer button my jeans I can at least hang on to the hope that if I lose some weight there is a chance that I could wear them again.
But, when Rocky got too big to wear her bunny pajamas, I had to face the facts that there would be no going back.
I am happy to see her grow, but I am sad that I have had to retire so many of her best outfits.

New Hobbies

Rocky and I spend a whole lot of time hanging out during the day and although I take all kinds of pictures of her, she has never even taken one of me.
At first I thought it was because photography didn't interest her, but now I know it is because I haven't started any new hobbies. Really, if she tried to document my growth and development all she would probably get would be a bunch of pictures of me taking pictures of her. She is my new hobby and because she is always changing I never get bored.
Here are a few of her newest tricks.

The yoga ball has lived in our front room basically unnoticed for the last several months, but since she discovered it, she can't get enough. She still isn't even showing the slightest interest in crawling and the ball is quite elusive which perplexes her quite a bit. She has found that working with the ball is the most effective way to strengthen her core muscles.


She's also taken up reading thanks to our baby time group at the library. It's not as fun at home because I don't play the ukulele like the guy there, but it is kind of reassuring that all the teeth marks on the books here come from her nub instead of someone else's. She usually spends a few minutes on the light reading that you see here with the Little People then moves on to the classics which include Dr. Suess and Tolstoy.

In her spare time she works on her acting skills. This is her Hester Prynne in the one-woman production of The Scarlet Letter. I've been impressed by the depth of emotion which she portrays. She prefers to perform in her crib because it physically represents the emotional entrapment that binds her character.

After all her practice and study is finished sometimes she has time for relaxation and some laughs with her old lady.

Oscars

Yeah, I know that by now the Oscars are old news, but I find myself reflecting on them again today. I love the Academy Awards because for the past few years I've been able to attend my cousin's annual party.

This year was another success. It had all the important elements including nachos, TiVo, great prizes and our own prediction ballots, as well as a new popcorn maker.

Although Brandon was not able to attend he did keep his undefeated record of winning the booby prize. He almost lost this year though, when he tied with London (who is 8 years old and randomly marked boxes). They both predicted 4 out of 15 awards. Technically the honor went to Tyler who only got 2 correct, but Nikki insisted that the hosts can't win.

In order to prepare myself for success this year I watched the trailers for all the movies that were nominated which I pretty much considered hard-core research. We also watched the documentary film Man on Wire and the Duchess because they were 'On Demand' with my parent's Comcast. I also saw Wall-E and Kung-Fu Panda and a couple of the animated shorts. For anyone who hasn't seen it, you should try to look up Lavatory Love Story because it is awesome.

All this effort didn't really pay off though because I only ended up with 8. It is a pretty serious competition and I knew right off that I wasn't going to be in the running for the big prizes. I was a little bummed because I thought the Benjamin Button wristwatch that ran backwards looked pretty cool. I shouldn't complain though because we all ended up with some great T-shirts, a movie pass and it was a good time.

Rocky wanted to model her House Bunny shirt.

A big thanks to Nikki for making everything so fun.