Butcept

Children have interesting ways of expressing themselves, with their interesting phrases, words, and pronunciations. For example, why do "Wal-Mart" and "lawnmower" sound the same coming from a child's mouth?

My two oldest children have a fun word in their arsenal: butcept. This is a portmanteau of "but" and "except." While they are remarkably advanced in their communication skills (imho), this is one word that I never correct them on because I think it is fantabulous (a portmanteau of "fantastic" and "fabulous," of course).

Speaking of their speaking skills, they are the only little ones I think I've ever seen who seem to understand the proper uses of lay and lie (refresher? click here). I'm certain that one day I'll hear a report that they corrected a teacher at school for their improper use ("Would you like to lay down?" the teacher may ask; "I think you mean 'lie down'!"). This, by the way, is one of those grammar things you learn and later wish you had never learned because of its almost universal butchery... especially if you're part of the self-appointed grammar police.

Interesting fact: there's a big difference between the words "repository" (definition) and "suppository" (definition). In working on my dissertation proposal, I was writing about an online suppository for the storage and dissemination of data, and something just didn't feel right... As I thought on it, I was reminded of the line from The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means."

There are many other examples I would love to touch on, butcept it's time to go.

People Are Good

When looking in a old magazine tonight, I came upon an eBay ad that simply said, "People are good." Apparently the push was to get people to trust someone they've never met by buying from them (with the help of the seller rating, of course). While I don't recall seeing any of these ads when they first ran, seeing it tonight reminded me of what I saw earlier today.

We took a trip to the Zilker Botanical Gardens to take our annual family pictures, hoping to get enough fantastic shots to put them together in a Christmas picture. We brought a little tripod to help us take loads of pictures (with all of us in them).

During our "photo session," many people offered to take our picture for us. I guess eBay was right: People are good.

Apparently we're not, though, because we politely turned them all down—we were using a custom setting to take a burst of five shots after a ten second timer, and our children are notoriously shy around strangers (they were the only children not nearly wiggling out of their skin trying to get called on as volunteers at a science demonstration we went to at the elementary school last night). I just hope that I'm not single-handedly undoing the good that is out there, embodied in the pervasive anomalous "people" that eBay cited.

It's always awkward being turned down when you offer to help someone.

Keep offering, anyway!


If you're dying to see the pictures we took, you can get a glimpse of two of them on our family website main page (link). If that's not enough for you, we added some pictures from our October adventures to our family website (link), like the cute one below.


Enjoy!

Tenacity

While listening to President Uchtdorf's recent general conference address this morning ("Two Principles for Any Economy," link), I was struck by one word in particular: Tenacity.

Adversity, when confronted with faith, courage, and tenacity, could be overcome.

I felt that I need to show more faith, courage, and especially tenacity.

Upon arriving home from work, I noticed something dangling from the open garage door. Closer inspection revealed it was a caterpillar stuck in a spider's web. Thinking of "Charlotte's Web," which my children recently watched, I ran inside to get a larger audience to view this epic struggle with me.

Here was a small spider against a much larger caterpillar, who wasn't going to go quietly. The latter was squirming and bending—literally fighting for its life. The spider reminded me of the need to be tenacious.


Interestingly, my brother called me while I was watching this struggle unfold. He mentioned that he recently tried some skateboard moves he hasn't attempted for some years, with the end result being that he, indeed, is an old man. Again I was reminded this same talk by President Uchtdorf:

While the phrase “been there, done that” may work as an excuse to avoid skateboarding, decline the invitation for a motorbike ride, or bypass the spicy curry at the buffet, it is not an acceptable excuse for avoiding covenant responsibilities to consecrate our time, talents, and resources in the work of the kingdom of God.

How fun to have two vivid, tangible reminders of important principles, back-to-back!

Fountain of Youth

We had a great time making labels for bottled water, apparently from the Fountain of Youth.


I designed this faux-label to accompany my home teaching lessons for this month. Ever since I've tried to teach more to the children, I've been having even more fun!

This month was great because we can talk about sailing on ships, the Fountain of Youth, whether or not the bottled water can grant immortality, and then tie it in to President Monson's message on the Fountain of Truth: Obedience (link).

I think it's wonderful that we know that through obedience (and made possible by the Atonement), we will not only live forever, but will live forever with God—Eternal Life: the greatest gift of God (see D&C 14:7).

New Pictures

We've updated our pictures page (link) to include our fun adventures of last month.


(This was a fun moment turned to tears when a smiling yogurt-covered boy started to play peek-a-boo... right when the camera was ready. )