Cheeky Monkeys

I know, I know -- I only seem post pictures of those little people. It's time to branch out and do something different. Unfortunately, I can't seem to free myself from the powerful force of my babies' cheeks. I swear these heavenly orbs have their own gravitational pull. Today we walked home through the orchard and I snapped a few pictures of them in them in their Halloween costumes.



As for the source of the MEGA-cheek, it's completely from their father's genes. Look at the cheeks on the cousins that came to play this week.



Next week I promise to come up with some new material. Until then . . . if you have a complaint, you will just have to take it up with Grandpa Bert. (Uhhh, WAY up.)

I HEART Pumpkins

Two weeks ago we bought some pumkins . . .

carved them up into nice little jack-o-lanterns. Then we put them on the front porch . . .

. . . for two whole weeks. Luckily, global warming help to age them into perfect moldy monsters just in time for the big day. Thanks, global warming. Now I can see rising world temperatures has an up side.

Have a warm and happy Halloween.

Sunday To-Do

1. Make first attempt at family Christmas picture. (Pick one or die.)

2. Teach Primary.

3. Chat with Katie and Sam.

4. Have lunch with Ma and Pa in Alpine. (Above with grumpy princess.)

5. Get Cinderella home before the stroke of mid-night.

Tune in later for The Princess and the Moldy Pumpkins.

Red, Yellow and Blue

By hook or by crook I decided that I would get the proverbial kids in leaves pictures today. Also by hook or by crook my camera was set to 3200 ISO -- which is really not what I usually shoot. Maybe it was OK. Maybe we try again tomorrow.

(BTW - These are leaves we found down the street a bit. Don't tell the Mitchells it was my kids that messed up their neatly raked piles. But it was all in the name of art.)

Bananas for Maxfield

This is Stuart, he lives in my basement. Stuart is a rockstar (and the brother of Andrew who is the husband of Liz.)

Good Morning Maxfield played on campus at BYU this week and I took my mini-groupies for a little homeschool music appreciation lesson. These guys are really good and you should go to their shows and buy some music from them. Check out http://www.maxfieldmusic.com/. Here is a YouTube of a live show at Velour.

After the show, I took my little rockers to the Twilight Zone to grab some lunch. They put on their own show for the 33,000 BYU zoobies by walking all over campus while chatting on their banana phones. They just looked so little next to the giant frosh of the Y.

(Hey Kim, isn't that a bee face on Xan's shirt?)

At one point I lost sight of Xan and later found him sitting next to some beautiful blond number in a snug sweater set. He was showing off his new red cast and impressing her with his bizarre knowledge of anatomy. Me -- "Xanny, I have been looking all over for you. No -- you don't not need to show her where her xiphoid process attaches to her costal cartilage and sternum. And get your hand off her anterior sacral foramina right now, young man! You are only 5 years old, for heaven's sake." Kids these days.

I didn't take these pictures!

(Editor's note: I have decided to remove the topless elder due to getting sick to my stomach every time I saw him. If this has caused any inconvenience, please email me at andipitcher@aol.com and I will send you a file you can easily use as your new screen saver. Thank you for your patience.)

This is dedicated to Zina and her almost No Word Wednesday. . .

http://www.mormonsexposed.com/


As for the calendar, the site explains that "the 'devout dozen' are stepping away from the Mormon traditions of modest dress and 'baring their testimony' to demonstrate that they can have strong faith and be proud of who they are."

When they say proud . . . just how proud do they mean?

Jewel Fruit

Turquoise Cluster Grape Broach from Saver's -- $4.99

Lone Bosch Pear from Backyard Tree with Spiderman Rings -- $1.25

FHE Bubbles -- $.69

Fancy Camera with New Lens that makes my Life Look Idyllic -- $$$mailto:$$!@#$%^&!.

(This message was brought to you from the LDS Woman Bloggers Association for Prettier Impressions That May or May Not Accurately Represent My Real World. Remember, sisters, anyone's house can be clean on-line.)

I'm glad we had this chat.

October 21 First, 2007

Happy Birthday, golden boy.

Love,

- mom

Xanny assigns colors to each year -- 3 was green, 4 was red, 5 is white. It's a genetic synesthesia that he inherited from his father, the same way he inherited sneezing when he looks at the sun. (Luckily, the sneeze will keep him from qualifying to be a fighter pilot.) For his birthday this year he asked me for a really big telescope so he could look past Pluto and see what color eyes Jesus had. What a kid.

Found them ...

No, this doesn't mean my room is clean. I found these two pictures yesterday and I just couldn't resist. They will make sense if you read yesterday's post.


Click on this picture to see the detail on Favorite's upholstered white-vinyl piano. The TV is pretty cool too. Below is the picture I was talking about in my last post. Here we have Gilbert and Zina Nutter vacationing in Hawaii with Favorite and Morgan Pitcher. Did anyone else's grandparents hang out together? Seems like a nice thing to do for the grand kids.

East of Eden Favorett

Time for a little catch-up posting on our Huntsville holiday (and then I am grounded from blogging until I clean my room ... like until November.) There's a Favorett that lies in a grave east of Eden. Sounds like a line from a celtic ballad (like one you might hear if you purchase a Fiddlesticks CD in time for Christmas.) No, really, there is a Favorett in cemetery in Huntsville, just up the road from Eden, Utah.

Lena Favorett Grow was my grandmother's aunt. My grandmother is also a Favorite as is my daughter. Somewhere the spelling shifted. From what I can gather Lena Favorett -- my great, great aunt -- was named for a relative who's name was Favor. Just like Hope, Faith, Prudence or Temperance, Favor (or Good Favor sometimes Goodie for short) was a 19th century, christian name. "Favorett" is the diminutive form of Favor, little Favor. Maybe she was named for her great, great aunt who was named Favor. The genealogy is very hazy on this point. Could it be my fore-mothers were given some of the first true Utah names? (Read "made-up".)


I don't know much about the first Favorett. Se died at 19 and her father was the Henry Grow who was the bridge designer responsible for engineering the SLC tabernacle. The next Favorite is legend. Grandma Fay was a character and a vision. She upholstered a piano in white vinyl with rhinestone studs and would dye her white hair slightly pink to match her cardigans. (She is quite famous in Alberta, Canada ... I dare say you might know someone who has an Aunt Fay orange roll recipe.)

My family is FLUSH with Fays as a middle name, but not one Favorite made it to the next two generation. It was the subject of much debate in my house and I all I will say is that I added the name to my baby's birth certificate when sweet Marco was away on business . . . in Calcutta. But that is a story for another day.

My two grandmas, Fay and Zina, were friends and would go on cruises to Hawaii together. (I will have to find a picture another day. But find one I will.) By giving my kid both of their names, I was hoping to bestow her with the hidden gifts. May she sew both fast and precise.

********

Our other stop in Huntsville was the monastery of Trappist Monks. **Hey Marco, will you take a 10 minute mental health break and write up a brief description of this? Please include the words: bomb-shelter, apricot-honey, reverse-mortgage and monks who flirt with grandmas. Go!**

Marco's visit to the Monks.
Huntsville is known as the birthplace of David O. McKay, Mormon Prophet, but just up the hill a few miles you'll find the Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, an Trappist monastic enclave that's about the last thing you'd expect in a rural Mormon town like Huntsville. It was founded by monks from Kentucky in 1947, and the post-war roots show: The entire complex is built of recycled army quonset huts that look like they could double as bomb shelters. The main chapel (where they meet to recite their prayers 8 times a day) also has the feel of a Washington DC metro station....

Between rising at 3:15 am for the morning vigil and retiring at 8pm after the last evening prayers (with six other common prayers chanted in between), they farm several hundred acres and keep bees and sell a variety of fruit-flavored honey. (You can check out their prayer schedule, and even see a video, at the monastery's website. ) It must have been quite an adventure for the young men that started it up all those years ago, but judging by the average age of the brothers we saw hobbling around, apparently it's getting harder to make recruits these days. A life of hard work, silence, poverty, and celibacy, no pay, no vacations. They probably don't get a lot of takers at college job fairs.

So it seems like the founders from 1947 are still the ones running the show now -- and they're starting to look a bit, um, past their prime. The monk at the gift shop, assured my mom (who must have looked like a fresh young thing to his ancient eyes) that "the ladies love the apricot-honey. Trust me, dear, you'll be back for more," he said with a sly wink. A bit cheeky, maybe, for a man of vows, but, hey when you're short handed you can't come down too hard on monks who flirt with grandmas.

("Are these people really my parents?")

Craigslist - Provo

First thing first -- I have no idea who this nice girl is. I randomly found this little jem on Craig's List - Provo/Orem in the photography section this morning. Only at BYU!

("Hello? Yeah, I saw your ad on craigslist and I really want my wedding pictures back, psycho.")

*************

FOUND BYU Wedding Photos Bride at Salt Flats

---

Reply to: sale-448472404@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-10-13, 9:32PM MDT


I purchased a 512MB Compact Flash card at the BYU Lost and Found Sale the other day and when I examined the card, it had 159 photos of a brunette in her wedding dress at the Salt Flats.

The photo date on the card is 3/21/2005, so we are looking for someone who - by now - has fond memories of Spring Break 2005. Now she's might be chasing her toddler around the WyView. Maybe we are looking for someone who didn't get married after taking her bridals, hates the guy, and would only want the images so they can burn them. I have no idea who she is, but I thought these photos would be important to her.

I'm not looking for any money, here ... or a date. I just want to get these photos back to the bride-to-be, or newlywed. I tried to include some representative photos here. A few closeups, one shot my wife and I discussed (that is a code word for argued about), and one shot of her on the phone. (My wife didn't think I should include it, but there were quite a few photos of her on the phone. Maybe she's a talker. Anyhow, I did include it, so don't rat me out.)

If you know her, are her, or are married to her (and would want to score BIG-TIME marriage points ... take it from me, they are really hard to come by in MY house) please contact me with the appropriate info. I will need proof that you know her and aren't some brunette-in-wedding-dress-stalker ... Either way, let me know.

Glinda and so much more.

Dear Georgia, Regarding Glinda ...

Once upon a time, long ago, I did whip up a Glinda costume for Halloween. The inspiration came while I was mailing a package at the post office. I spied rolls and rolls of pink packing bubbles behind the counter that needed liberating. Hmmmm. How lovely that would be draped over the bustle of my wedding dress, I thought.

Several hours and one lampshade crown later, I grabbed my curtain rod scepter and headed out to trick or treat. This was before the babies and in the middle of teenage stepkids. (Katie and Liz, I am sure, are scarred for life due to utter embarrassment.) All I have to say is that I was born this way. Somewhere in my DNA is embedded the genetic code to costume madness.

Exhibit A: Pioneer Day - 1971, Denver. That would be my dad, Max, in the long Indian braids and baby Andi on Shauna the squaw's lap. I think mom was the token Pioneer that my brother, Tom, got to shoot with arrows.

Exhibit B: Random afternoon - 1974, Houston. Here I am with my older brother, Steve. I am the little one SMOKING THE CIGAR and carrying the attractive handbag. I think this has something to do with a random yardsale, but I will have to have Bertie explain the details. My young mind didn't mark the occasion as out of the ordinary so I have no memory of my only cigar.

Exhibit C: Fourth of July - 1976, Houston. (Did you know my family lived in Houston for 20 years?)

Tom as Davie Crockett, I am Betsy Ross and Marcia as the show stopping Statue of Liberty. (I am still jealous of her costume. Marcia always got to wear the shoulder baring dresses.) This I actually remember. It was the only Summer of my childhood we skipped going to Colorado due to my dad's bad back.

Now you know. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. My own children have been a 1 year old Spock complete with the ears, haircut and an 8 foot rolling model of the Starship Enterprise. Last year it was a 20 foot tall hot air balloon with basket big enough for two toddlers wearing goggles. Halloween is just around the corner and I keep pretending that the NASA commander suit alone is enough this year. But you and I both know it would be so much better if it came with a ten foot long Space Shuttle. Hmmmm. Is there anyone out there in the blog-o-sphere who has a gift with pyrotechnics? Maybe it is time to call my friends at NASA.

Kershisnikesque

Do you remember that first time you had peanut butter straight up out of the jar? Last week while vacationing in Eden, we stopped for lunch at the library. Now, if you are a boy, and very nearly 5 years old, and vacationing literally in Eden ... what would be your greatest temptation? For Xanny it was the knife I left sticking out of the peanut butter jar. I turned my back for one second to grab a camera and watched my boy fall into a mortal state of bliss.

The result is a kershisnikesque dance of earthly delights.

Closure

Kristina & Kevin Hammer

Almost as much as I love a good obituary, I love a good Orem City Crime report. They arrive in my inbox daily, complete with photos and stories from the under-belly of our fair city. Usually it is just entertaining. Today it is personal.

-

A few of you will remember the lovely red handbag given to me by my mother several years ago. You may remember that the bag, along with all its contents and a make-up bag, was stolen last May. You may also recall my mission to find out who did it. If not -- I will tell the story.

-

When the credit card company call early in the morning and asked if I really did order $872.98 worth of baseball cards online, I realized that my purse was not at the bottom of the box of kid trailings I schlepped in from the car the day before. Checking the several cards I had in my bag on line we learned of close to $2000 of other charges at places like Shopco, Sprint, Albertsons and $200 in car washes at the gas station of 8th north and State St. We called the police and the card companies. Both said we wouldn't have to honor the charges and both seemed very disinterested in tracking down the lovely people who lifted my plastic. So I decided to see how far I could get on my own.

-

I called the baseball card company out of Yonkers, NY and told them not to send the cards but could I please get the address to which the order was to be mailed. In a very Yonkers accent the fellow told me that he was suspicious of the order when he noticed a nice lady in Utah indicated an email address of hugejohnson4-20@yahoo.com. "I says to my wife ... It's Mother's Day and some lady in Utah is ordering $872.98 in cards with this email address? I don't think so." He gave me the an address and wished me a Happy Mother's Day and I went to stake it out.

-

The house was vacant and for sale, so naturally, I called the realtor. As I took a tour of the house posing as a prospective buyer, I gathered as much information on the sly about the previous tenant as possible. The family consisted of a guy and his common-law wife who's daughter was living with them along with her husband and baby. After months of loud parties and no rent, they had been evicted just the week prior. No forwarding address was left behind, surprise. What they did leave behind were the stacks of collection notices and warrants for bounced checks. What caught my eye was the bill from the pediatric clinic for Kristina Hamer and her child, calling the baby (at least to this clinic) Crystal M. Hamer. No joke -- they told the doctor their child was named for their drug of choice.

-

I wrote down all the names I had seen and turned them over to the detective at the police station. All I got back was a polite note saying all the names matched people that have a history with credit card fraud but no known address. And that was the last I heard from the police.

Last week the following crime report put faces on my adventures of Mother's Day 2006. How sad for little girl, Crystal Meth. I know that staying at Grandma's house is no safer than driving around, asleep in the back seat while Ma and Pa are again casing garages on Palisades Dr. -- my neighborhood.

**********

07OR41711 - BURGLARY ARRESTS - 30-year-old Kevin John Hamer and his 28-year-old wife, Kristina Ann Hamer, of Springville, packed up their 4-year-old daughter in the car 2:00 am Saturday morning and came to Orem to do some burglaries. They looked for homes with open garage doors and stole from them.

An 18-year-old Orem man had opened the garage door at his residence on Palisade Drive and gone back into the house for a moment before leaving. When he went back into the garage, he saw Kristina Hamer run from his garage and jump into the passenger side of the Pontiac sedan driven by John Hamer and speed away. The witness followed the burglars in his own vehicle down Orem's Center Street and into Provo as he called the police. The thieves made a u-turn and retraced their path back into Orem, making an obscene gesture to the witness as they turned and passed him.

Officers stopped the Hamers at 500 E. Center Street in Orem.
The Hamers were arrested for burgalry after admitted and showing officers where they had gone and what they had taken. The pair was also in possession of methamphetamine. Their 4-year-old child was turned over to a grandmother while mommy and daddy Hamer went to the Utah County jail.

Snow and Bones

No time now to explain except to say ... SNOW on Sunday at Hope campground.

(Betty Jo knit that hat for Duane 25 years ago.)

Next came the fall on the Razer scooter and with it crying that wouldn't be stopped by a Popsicle. I knew it was broken and called the doctor. When they asked me to bring him in before ordering X-rays, I told the nice lady we would be going straight to radiology and to please call the order in before we arrived. What do you know, it was a broken humerus at the elbow. Xan has been a champ. He can't be casted until next week because of the swelling. Yesterday he asked me if he could try the Monkey-Bars one handed.

Xan's Boyz from the Hood came over to cheer him up. Below is David wearing some bling.