Quote of the Day

 Malia: “Have you ever microwaved blue tape?”

The Scriptures According to Malia

This is a transcription of actual unscripted events that occurred during our family scripture study this evening in which we were reading D&C 66, verse 2:

Malia: “Verily I say unto you, blessed are you for receiving mine everlasting covenant, even the fulness of my gospel, sent forth unto the children of men, that they might have life and be made pranksters…”

Kevin, Shauna, and Matthew: “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!”

The Classics

 Actual comment spoken at the table during dinner this evening:

Malia: “To be or not to be. Is that Shakespeare…or Yoda?”

[Insert laughter here]

Also, Malia’s science homework is four million times cuter than my science homework ever was.

Eternal Laughter

Malia is the youngest of my children by a fairly sizable margin. She is 11 years younger than Daniel and 4 ½ younger than Matthew. As such, she often feels like she’s being left behind. And that’s a valid feeling. Daniel and Nathan no longer live at home and are only around for occasional visits. Now that Matthew is in high school, he is gone more and more often and when he gets his driver’s license next month, I fully expect his time away to increase. So she’s completely justified in feeling like she’s the lone child at home. There are advantages to that, but it also means that she spends a lot of time waiting to catch up with her brothers. 

Today was one of those days when she finally caught up. After years of patiently waiting, today was the first time she was able to go into the temple with us. We scheduled far in advance so that Daniel and Nathan were able to come down, and all six of us went to the baptistry together. I’ve said many times that I love being in the temple with my family, and today was very sweet indeed. All of my children together with Kev and I in the temple. We had expected to wait another year for this event since Nathan was originally slated to be in Texas until next year, but another tender mercy of his early homecoming was the fact that we were all together for Malia’s very first temple trip. It was a day of pure joy.

As a side note, today was also Nathan’s first meeting with the ASL Institute Council. As I mentioned before, the members are scattered all over the U.S., so the meetings are held via Zoom. Also remember that only two or three of the council are hearing. All the rest are deaf. The rest of us were working on our Saturday jobs while Nathan was having his meeting. It was Matthew’s turn to vacuum, but he was web browsing instead of vacuuming so like a diligent mother, I asked him why his job wasn’t done yet. He told me that he was waiting to do the vacuuming so he wouldn’t disrupt Nathan’s meeting. While that was thoughtful and all, my response was, “Ummm, Matthew, the meeting is in ASL. Running the vacuum won’t matter.” There was a huge “duh” moment and then he got out the vacuum. And I laughed. 😂

My family laughs kind of a lot. We chuckle, we giggle, we snicker, we chortle, and sometimes we outright guffaw. We honestly enjoy being together and that is reflected in the way we interact with one another. As such, it seems oddly appropriate that this post has ended up being a combination of a glorious afternoon spent in the temple with my eternal family and an occurrence at home that made me laugh. I know a lot of the world thinks of heaven as being a peaceful, serene place where we float around on clouds all day playing harps. But not me. My version of heaven is a joyful, happy place where my family and I are engaged in a rousing game of Phase 10 or And It Came to Pass. There will be laughter, and light, and endless quality family time. I hope to see you all there. And bring your favorite game. We’ll have lots of time to play!

Snarky Pants

Malia spent this afternoon with her longtime friend, Raylee. As they talked, Raylee noted that the top of the doorframe to her grandma’s backyard playhouse now hits her mid-chest which proves that she has grown. Malia related this comment to us at dinner this evening. Kev being snarky replied, “I’ve hit my head on a lot of doorframes…maybe that’s what happened.”

Without a pause, Malia added, “To all your hair?”

Loud laughter from all, including Kev. I’m so proud that her wit is up to our family’s standards.

Comic Relief

If there was ever a day when I needed a good laugh, it was today. The Lord accommodated that need by sending me a clever girl child who happily shares her view of the world with us. This evening we were reading Words of Mormon for our family scripture study. Malia read the first two verses and then the following conversation occurred:

Kevin asks: “Who is writing?”
Malia replies: “Mormon.”
Kevin, looking for more info: “Which Mormon?”
Malia exclaims: “I don’t know his first name!”

Kevin laughed long and hard. I chuckled, which is about all I could manage this evening, but it helped. Thank goodness we were given children that fill our lives with mirth. It is a blessing.

She Has Inherited the Sarcasm Gene

This evening Mr. Rushmore came up in the course of our conversation. I could give you the whole train of thought that led us there, but I’ll spare you the torture of needing to think like one of us and just share the punchline. Kevin mentioned that Mt. Rushmore was closed for renovations and Malia declared, voice dripping with sarcasm, “What are they gonna do? Blow it up and add another president?”

(all the rest of us laugh our heads off)

Rule Maker

This evening I discovered the following on Malia’s bedroom door.

Apparently, she’s trying to take control of some portion of her life. Being the youngest can have it’s challenges that way. 😂

Fashion Statement

Apparently, Malia felt that our Easter decor needed to go punk this year. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a chick with a nose ring before.

A Little Shower Music

Our house is awash in music. With so many musicians who have so many musical preferences, we have a little bit of everything. Every single one of us has a mental soundtrack that accompanies our life. At least once a day, I’m compelled to tell one of my offspring that their soundtrack is leaking out and interfering with my soundtrack. As such, it is not unexpected that there are often impromptu concerts that occur in the shower. This evening, Malia was the featured bathroom soloist. As the water ran, I heard her belting out “The Queen of the Night Aria.” Then she moved on to “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” She rounded out her set with “Rock Around the Clock.”

It was a well programmed performance. She started with the serious stuff and ended with the fun number. And it made me laugh!

F(X)=X2(X+1)(X-8)

My boys are good at math. They get asked for help all the time. It comes so easily to them that we have to remind them fairly regularly that math is really hard for most people. There are people who just can’t wrap their brains around it and honestly don’t understand it. Math just makes so much sense to my boys that it is difficult for them to comprehend that lack of understanding. Daniel thinks calculus is fun and Nathan loves physics, which is all about the math. And Matthew is going to be starting 7th grade in the 8th grade honors math class. So yeah, they are good at math.

Recently, Daniel had a classmate ask him for help with calculus. He scheduled his tutoring session on the calendar as a “party.” 😂

He’s Doing the Mambo!

We have very eclectic tastes in music. Our iTunes library has a little bit of everything from plain chant to Weird Al Yankovic to Queen. Our Christmas playlist reflects our massive range of music preferences and contains selections that range from the sublime to the ridiculous. One of those songs that falls in the ridiculous range is a catchy little number by The Bobs called “Mambo, Santa, Mambo.” It was added to our collection last Christmas and has already become one of our upbeat favorites. We were listening to our holiday mix while we were in the car earlier and this song came up. When we hit the chorus, Malia declared, “On Christmas Eve if I hear Santa and he’s mamboing to this song I will freak out!”

Yup. Pretty sure we’ve messed up all our kids. But as I tell them all the time, normal is boring, right?!

Quantifiably Funny

Malia loves the water. She loves to take a bath and will stand in the shower all day if we let her. This evening I told her to get out of the water (something that happens every single time she is in there) and she responded with, “Ok. I have about ten more bubbles.”

She’s Definitely One of the Techie Generation

I’m currently teaching primary which means Malia and I are in sharing time together. Today one of the primary presidency members asked the kids, “What do you do if you have a question?” Malia raised her hand and answered, “Ask my mom and dad.” Then the presidency member asked, “What if they don’t know?” Malia’s response? “Ask google.” All the adults in the room laughed, me included.

My Very Favorite Malia-esque Scripture

“The bourbon of baby lion…” (2 Nephi 23:1 “The burden of Babylon…)

There was laughter, so much laughter. Scripture time is often jovial around here...

The Kind of Things Nathan Does When He’s Bored

Just One of a Million Reasons Why We Love Our Elementary Music Specialist

With Child-Like Understanding

Malia has become a confident enough reader that she takes her turn when we do family scripture study. She reads what she can and we help her with the words she doesn't know and can't sound out (because sometimes scripture language is hard-like Gadianton and Ammonihah). This evening one of her verses was 3 Nephi 11:19 and she read,  “And Nephi arose and went forth, and bowed himself before the Lord and did kiss his feet…{with a totally disgusted look on her face}…ew.”

I’m not sure anyone else heard her, but I snort laughed. Right in the middle of scriptures. Let’s face it. The girl has three older brothers. She is intimately familiar with the smell of teen boy’s sweat socks. And they are definitely “ew.”

Truth in Advertising

Today I went through the drive-through at Jimmy Johns, ordered three sandwiches, paid and then waiting maybe 2 minutes before they handed me my sandwiches and apologized for the wait. Freaky fast indeed. 😉

And I was much in need of a lighthearted thought today.

Seamstress Stress