Note Passing

I've always been a note passer.  In fifth grade, my best friend and I created an entire secret coded alphabet so we could pass notes without anyone being able to read what we wrote.  (We got fast at it too, being able to write nearly as quickly in code as in the regular alphabet, and to this day I can remember about 6 or 7 letters from it.)  My family is particularly guilty of passing notes in Church.  (Playing tic-tac-toe, number games and the 'dot game' also fall into this category.)  The first year of marriage, I carried a small notebook with me in my scripture case, and each week I'd trick Greg into getting into long winded written conversations with me during Sunday School.  I am officially a horrible influence.

And, like so many of our bad habits, I'm passing this one on to my kids.  :-)  Today was Stake Conference, and while my Dad had to rush off to fix Star's broken furnace, and Greg stayed home with a sick Isaac and a wilder-than-we-want-to-deal-with-in-a-2-hour-meeting Ellie, my Mom, Annie and I headed off, just us girls, to our meetings this morning.  It wasn't long before Annie was writing a letter to Cody, and then wanting ideas of what to write in her notebook.  To this day I'm convinced one of the reasons Annie recognized all her letters so early was because for the first two and a half years of her life, we lived in my parents Ward, and my Mom would write letters and words and names with Annie throughout Sacrament Meeting to keep her quietly entertained.  Well, today I wrote out a couple math problems for Annie, keeping them simple as to not frustrate her and cause any math-related-drama during the meeting.  But soon, my Mom was writing out problems for her, and my Mom is able to 'push' Annie a lot further than I can without tears or whining, and Annie was having fun working out math problems with Grandma.  When one got 'too hard', Grandma just bribed her with a new necklace if she'd attempt the problem, and Annie had it solved in no time . . .

The 'too hard one' was adding three numbers, instead of just two.  The problem in the middle, second row from the bottom was when Annie wanted to challenge Grandma and gave her a problem of her own to do.

 I am fairly confident that if I just let Annie attend Church with my Mom each week, I would not have to teach her anything until Junior High . . .


Grandma and Annie went on to carry on a long one-sided conversation on paper (my Mom would ask questions in writing, that Annie would have to read and then answer), and eventually the topic came around to Annie 'earning' a prize for Ellie as well (since she'd already earned a prize from doing her first page of math.)  Annie said she was willing to do ONE last math problem with Grandma, in exchange for Ellie getting a matching Christmas necklace to Annie's promised new one.  Here was the problem Grandma came up with . . .

Grandma is very tricky.  :-)

Here's a couple pages of notes from Grandma to Annie . . . 

I already mentioned Annie knew her letter because Grandma constantly wrote them for her during Church, but I should also mention I think a huge part of her ability to read came from my Mom writing her out stories and notes from a really young age . . .

The nice thing about having a 'village' to help raise your kids, is that they sure learn a lot more this way!  There are things my parents teach my kids to do that I wouldn't have even thought they were anywhere near ready to learn . . . my parents don't seem to have any of those same preconceived notions about what and when kids can learn.  I would be like, "It's too early to teach them that," and my Mom & Dad are more like, "Teach it to 'em, then they'll know it."  Which is also why Annie is currently creaming most of the extended family in the card game 'Mormon Bridge'.  Grandpa taught it to her, and it turns out she rocks at it.

Biggest Loser -- Family Edition

So, tonight is the last night of our family's biggest loser competition. You may have noticed I haven't mentioned it much . . . the reason for that is two-fold . . . on one hand, I am kinda unexcited about my progress. Which is rather silly of me, as I've lost 10 lbs or better in the past four weeks. Which actually rocks, but for some reason is disappointing to me. But shouldn't be. Weight and my emotional well being have a rocky, unhealthy relationship; but the intellectual part of me is all, that's better than 2 lbs a week, which is a great, healthy, exciting weight loss if you weren't a nut who'd done stuff like an all chicken, spinach and all orange fruits diet that dropped you 7 lbs in as many days, and made you kinda lightheaded, you dork. The other reason has been to not say anything on my blog that might motivate my sisters to try harder. :-) I thought about posting lots of tasty looking pictures of their favorite foods instead, but felt that would backfire and I'd be walking around going, "those were some really good looking brownies."

So, anyway, tomorrow morning we weigh in and declare the Biggest Loser family winner. First, second, third and fourth at last look were so close it was ridiculous (and I'm among that bunch.) All of us have been just trying to make it through the weekend without blowing it (and deciding that if we EVER do this again, we're making the cut off date a Friday instead of Monday morning, since weekends suck for weigh ins). So, one day left . . . meaning of course, our very sweet neighbors invited us over to dinner tonight. Upon leaving I sent out a batch of accusatory text messages to all of my siblings, so convinced was I that one of them had to have bribed our dear neighbors to have us over, possible even providing them with a list of foods Hilary will love. :-) Chicken cordon bleu (with some really tasty raspberry sauce), corn, baked potatoes, fresh homemade rolls, and even pistachio jello salad. THEN, there was coconut cake with Maggie Moo's cake batter ice cream! That was a really good dinner. Although, I do have to say, after laying off sugar lately, eating the cake and ice cream made me kinda nauseous and dizzy. You think a food making me feel positively ill would tell me something about what it's doing to my body and how I should really lay off of it . . . but for some reason I won't even think of that the next time someone hands me a bowl of really tasty ice cream. Hmmm. (French fries and I go through this same silly battle . . . I eat them, they make me feel like vomiting, I don't have any for six months or so, then all the sudden one day I'm all, "You know what sounds good . . . " Some people never learn. Really dumb people. Who'll struggle with their weight 'til the day they die. Mmmm, Chick-Fil-A's waffle fries are sounding kinda tasty . . . )

We should know the winner tomorrow morning (if all these slackers actually remember to weigh in and text their number to my sister Lacy in the morning . . . if not I'm saying they should be disqualified from any prizes, but I have no real authority in this . . . so I'm bugging Lacy to make such a rule.) I'll let you know how it goes (assuming I finish somewhat respectably!)

Oh, and as a side note, Greg and I now have callings in our new ward . . . he's Elders Quorum Secretary, and I'm the Compassionate Service Leader [gulp]. I actually had people come up and hug me and congratulate me on my new calling. I've never been so nervous about one before . . .