BYU Law & Religion Symposium

Joseph just finished with the five day Law & Religion Symposium at BYU. He was on the committee that organizes this event, and what an event! The delegates come from all over the world and include many important leaders, lawyers, judges, and other officials who are in charge of religious freedom in their countries. From what I understand, the purpose of the symposium is to bring together leaders from around the world and have an open dialogue about religious freedom. It's also a great PR opportunity for the church, as people who have never previously known about the church, BYU, or Utah are shown what we are all about. He's participated in the symposium previous years as a translator, but this year he was very involved in all of the administrative aspects, so we didn't see much of him during the symposium. One night I was able to attend a dinner and a Living Legends (BYU performance group) performance with him at Thanksgiving Point. We drove a van full of the performers up to the event and back. My impression of these people is that they are all solid, smart, and extremely talented individuals. It was a great experience to get to know them a little better.

I bought Halloween costumes recently at Kid-to-Kid. Hyrum was so excited about his pirate costume, he has worn it at some point during each day since we purchased it. Here are the boys having a moment with Daddy. It's always a treat and one of the boys favorite things to do. This was right before bedtime, one of our nighttime rituals that we cannot skip!

As the seasons have turned, hot summer days have been replaced with the chilly autumn, and so I have had to rotate clothing, bring out fall/winter clothes, and boxing up and/or giving away outgrown/summer clothes. As I was doing so, I realized Malia didn't have any warm fall/winter clothes her size (this is never a problem for Asher, who just wears Hyrum's clothes from the year before). This dilemma had to be solved, so I went to Kid-to-Kid (a gently used children's clothing store) and had a lot of fun buying some really cute girlie clothes. Since most of Hyrum's clothes have been hand-me-downs from generous cousins and since he's a boy, I haven't had the pleasure of shopping for him. I think I might have had too much fun shopping for Amalia and then coming home and dressing up Malia. I kinda felt like I was playing house, Amalia being my doll, except much better than when I was five years old, because THIS doll actually interacts and is SOO cute! Please indulge me, here are some pictures I took of her in her new leg warmers (yes, I know, so 80's, but their rather cute on babies!), mini skirt, and pink glasses (which I didn't buy, they were given to us).

Another thing that we've been doing lately is having people over for dinner. Nearly every week we try to have family/friends join us for Sunday dinner and it's always a lot of fun. Here's a picture of Asher and cousin MacKenzie eating dinner together.

On to more recent days...the picture below was taken this morning. I walked out of the room for no more than a minute or two, came back into the kitchen only to find this little munchkin doing this:

Yes, she is on our kitchen counter top (she climbed on top of our bench then from there continued her ascent onto to the counter). And yes, she's trying to dip her little paws into the brown sugar. I suppose it's about time this little one caught up with her trouble-making older brothers.

Below is a picture of Mals in favorite place of hers: the cupboard of our bookcase. It's the perfect size for her, a mini-playhouse where her brothers sometimes try to join her.

Hyrum loves routines, in fact, he's insistent on them. One of them is his wake up routine. He wakes up, and immediately must go to his "getting ready for the day spot" (a bench where I lay out his and Asher's clothes for the day). Socks and shoes are readily available so the kids can get ready all by themselves.

I have a container for all of the shoes, next to it are all of the gloves and scarves and hats, right below coats and jackets. Having all of these things in one place makes going places so much easier, especially in the cold, when it can take up to 1/2 hour longer to go anywhere if I have to run around the house trying to figure out where everyone's shoes and coats are.

Squinty-eyed man is happy to be dressed. And he did it all by himself! Now he's ready for breakfast!!

Breakfast is usually some variation of hot cereal. This morning it was oatmeal. They also have a little of my morning fruit smoothie too.

And one last pic, here are the kids taking a bath together in our laundry room sink. They loved it! Joseph has special names for things. He and the kids call this a "Super Shower."