Category: Picture/Video

The Smallest Thing

Jacob:  The smallest thing I am grateful for is the electron because electrons make my job and most of modern technology possible.

Marcia the Elder:  The smallest thing I am thankful for is DNA because I am amazed at how living things/beings grow and form and develop and change over time and how we get all of our unique traits.*

Marcia the Younger:  The smallest thing I am thankful for is this bowl** so that Corban doesn’t burn the house down.
Also, I am thankful for atoms because they make up everything.***

Hinckley:  The smallest thing I am thankful for is family, no, it is food.

Corban:   I think the smallest thing I am thankful for is the entire house.  Wait, it is bigger than us.  Uh, uh, I know, a mini-robot that is this small.****


*What a run-on thought!
**A wooden bowl where we put the knobs for the stove top ever since he lit a pan of brownies on fire causing a bit of an issue.

***This is where Jacob said, “That’s why you shouldn’t believe atoms, because they make up everything.”  To which, she did giggle.
****Pinching his fingers together with about a centimeter space.

Who Knew the 4 Year Old Would Win

Jacob has a chess app on his phone, and the copyrights enjoy watching him play and are thrilled if they get a chance to try it.  The app simulates playing against Magnus Carlsen at his abilities at various ages.
Tonight Jacob let them each take a turn.

Corban seemed to not really have a method.
Hinckley thought he had a method.
Marcia seems to have a better understanding of the game.


They each played against “Magnus Carlsen (Age 5).”  As indicated by the arrow.


Arrow indicates:  “You defeated Magnus!”
He was pretty thrilled to have won.
The older two did not win or lose, they each had a draw, or a tie.

I think the best quote while he played was when he exclaimed, “I captured another pond!”

One Whole Decade

Mar©ia went to bed as a nine-year-old, and woke up ten!  We like to wake the birthday girl with bells in her doorway by singing “Happy Birthday” to her, I think she liked it.

Even if the picture is blurry, I love the smile on her face.
Her birth-minute picture:

Maybe another day I will finish telling the events of the day leading to her expulsion.

Beautiful Savior

I wrote this arrangement of “Beautiful Savior” (also commonly called Fairest Lord Jesus or the Crusader’s Hymn) and played it for our virtual Sunday church service.

The three variations invoke three different aspects of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ: The first variation is simple, based closely on a children’s version, reflecting the simplicity of the Savior’s message, and His love for little children. The second variation is full of flourish and technical passages, symbolizing wonder and amazement at the miracles He performed. The third variation is strong and sonorous, suggesting the power and majesty of the resurrected Jesus.

Give Thanks

Jacob:
I am thankful for the temple, where families are sealed together forever, and where I married my best friend.
I am thankful for my home office because that’s where I work to provide for my family, it’s where I study and learn a lot, it’s where I do some of my favorite leisure activities like playing chess and writing music.
Marcia the Elder:
I am thankful for the Grand Canyon because nobody fell in!  And because I enjoyed spending a week down in the there hiking among the beauty, while I was in college, and then a couple years ago we got to go as a family* with the Fairlie women!
I am thankful for the hospital where I birthed my children, because there are caring doctors and nurses, and I am so glad that I did not have to clean up the “Lake of Machu Picchu”** in my house.
Marcia the Younger:
I am thankful for libraries because they have lots and lots of books, and I love books!
I am thankful for Compton Park because the bridge is very good for riding your bike over and it has a beautiful “river” there.
Hinckley:
I am thankful for our house.  I love our house because if we didn’t have our house we wouldn’t live anywhere, but we do have our house so that we have some shelter and a place to live.
I am thankful for the school because I need to learn, and the school is exactly the right place*** to learn.
Corban:
I want to do what Hinckley said, but a little bit, a little part:
I am thankful for our house, well, because it has dishes.
I am thankful for Earth because it has a lot of houses, and a lot of people, and a lot of houses for that people.

* This was the only time Jacob had been to the Grand Canyon, even though he lived in Mesa, AZ for 14 years.

** The lake was so named by the midwife, because the older two children named the unborn Corban, “King of Machu Picchu” and he made a great lake during labor.
*** “Place” may be more of a concept than an actual location, because this year our kids are attending school online only. Here is the setup they have.

The “lockers”
   

Give Thanks

Eight years ago today, we welcomed this little guy into our family.

We are so very thankful to have him with us.  Every day he makes us laugh.  Every day he looks for something new to learn.

Today he chose to be baptized in the same way that Jesus was baptized.  There were 8 of us in the room where it happened.  With more than double that attending over Zoom.  I am also thankful for the ability to have virtual meetings where we can be together, and apart, at the same time.

Here he is with Jacob at his birth minute, only minutes before they stepped into the water.

There is joy in my soul today.

How the Prairie Dogs Ended EVERYTHING! (part 3)

—The Beginning as told by Hinckley—

Mom:  …  Okay then. So, what was at the beginning? If that was the middle and the end was the end, what happened before the middle?
Hinckley:  Uh, I already said.
Mom:  When they were in Australia, what happened in Australia?
Hinckley:  Uuh, renember they spreaded all the black, the thing they needed…
Mom:  But they did that in Arizona. What’d they do in Australia?
Hinckley:  No! Australia, renember Australia also got sprayeded all with ….
Mom:  Well, who sprayed it over there?
Hinckley:  The prarie dogs!
Mom:  But where did the prarie dogs get it?
Hinckley:  Remember the plane?!
Mom:  But where did the prarie dogs get the plague?
Hinckley:  Oh, the prarie dogs caught it from the very first one which is kind of weird and kind of embarrassing, but from elephants!
Mom:  From elephants?!
Hinckley:  Yeah!
Mom:  Do you think there are elephants in Australia?
Hinckley:  No! The elephants are in, um Africa!
Mom:  So, okay, so…?
Hinckley:  So, they started at Africa, spread it all, to all the animals there, except for the elephants so. Wait, the elephants did it to all the animals there except for the prairie dogs. The prairie dogs got the plague, then the….
Mom:  Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, I need to understand. So, the elephants had the plague in Africa?
Hinckley:  Yes.
Mom: And gave it to prairie dogs?
Hinckley:  Yes.
Mom:  And the prairie dogs, how did they get to Australia? Because you said that they got it in Africa.
Hinckley:  Umm…
Mom:  Or did the elephants…
Hinckley:  They got the plane in….
Mom:  Wait wait wait wait!
Hinckley:  In Africa and got the, and got to…
Mom:  So did the elephants go on the plane?
Hinckley:  …Australia to from the plane and they spreaded all the people with it, then they did it to Arizona, and then BOOM! All done!
Mom:  So wait, you’re telling me that prairie dogs got the black plague…?
Hinckley:  From elephants.
Mom:  The bubonic plague from the elephants in Africa, and then they went to Australia and spread it all over there, and now they came to Arizona to spread it all over Arizona?
Hinckley:  Yes.
Mom:  Where are they going next?
Hinckley:  They’re going to spread it all over the world.
Mom:  Why would they do that?
Hinckley:  So that they’re the only ones alive.
Mom:  Oh, so you think that the prairie dogs are trying to take over the world?
Hinckley:  Yes.
Mom:  I don’t know that I like that. Where would I be?! I don’t want to be a prairie dog!
Hinckley:  So, they all did not live at all happily ever after, but the end!

How the Prairie Dogs Ended EVERYTHING! (part 2)

—The Middle as told by Hinckley—

Mom:  Alright, now tell me what happened in the middle.
Hinckley:  Um, everyone was dy-ing.
Mom:  Why were they dying?
Hinckley:  ‘Cause they, wait mom, what’s the sickness that has black as a word in the name?
Mom:  The black plague?
Hinckley:  Yeah, everyone got the black plague.
Mom:  Did they get it from the prairie dogs?
Hinckley:  Yeah.
Mom:  Why were they in Arizona?
Hinckley:  That’s where the prarie dogs are?
Mom:  That’s where the ones I know of are that are spreading the plague. Whats another name for the black plague?
Hinckley:  Um, killing.
Mom:  Bubonic.
Hinckley:  Bubonic.
Mom:  Yeah the bubonic plague.
Hinckley:  So, and before they got that, they were in Arizona. But the prarie dogs haven’t gotten there yet. The prarie dogs were coming towards it.
Mom:  Where’d they come from?
Hinckley:  The prarie dogs came from Australia.
Mom:  Okay, how did they get to Arizona from Australia.
Hinckley:  Uuuuh, they took a prairie dog plane.
Mom:  Okay.
Hinckley:  And after they, and before they took that plane they spreaded all the uh, on purposely, they spreaded all the Black plague that they could spill to the Arizona people as in they spreaded all they need to kill everyone in Arizona.
Mom:  And all Arizona?
Hinckley:  I mean, in the…
Mom:  What about the apes apartments?
Hinckley:  Ugh! Stop! As in I meant Australia.
Mom:  Okay.
Hinckley:  Then they took that plane to Arizona and they spreaded the black plague all over there.
Mom:  Oh, how did they spread it? With a butter knife?
Hinckley:  No. They spread…..
Mom:  With their poop.
Hinckley:  Ungh!
Mom:  That’s true.
Hinckley:  So, and somehow they put the black plague as a liquid into a bottle and sprayed it everywhere.
Mom:  Do you know how prairie dogs spread their, the black plague?
Hinckley:  Yeah.
Mom:  How?
Hinckley:  Um, no…poop?
Mom:  Their poop! So your telling me they put poop into bottles and put water in and they made it liquid?
Hinckley:  Yep!
Mom:  And sprayed it everywhere?
Hinckley:  Yes!
Mom:  That sounds disgusting.