Parenting

"[My son] has taught me that children do not exist to honor their parents; their parents exist to honor them. My time with Ronan has been shot through with light, laughter, and, above all, a love that has stripped me to the bone. Along the way, I've learned the bittersweet truth of parenting's ultimate goal: to love our children wholly and truly, without conditions or strings, while learning to let them go."

Having been a pseudo-parent (nanny) for two and a half years now, I was incredibly moved and saddened by the excerpt from Emily Rapp's book about losing her son to Tay-Sachs disease at age 3 (in this past March's Vogue). I thought this quote was a gem, something all of us should take in to ourselves whether we are parents, proud aunts and uncles, or just a friend to the beautiful little people in our lives.

My two little friends!

Monster landscapes

This was too fun and too Halloween-y to not share. From the blog Twisted Sifter:

You know how thrift stores often have a load of outdated, sometimes decrepit landscape paintings for sale? A few artists thought they would breathe new life into them by painting in monsters (which, if you'll notice, they did smartly-- matching each painting's original brush stroke style, general color palatte, etc). If only I had inherited my mother's painterly skills....

 My personal favorite:

I've been busy...

Watching general conference with sickie Russell... I offered him tampons to stave off the runny nose, but he opted for manly TP.

Russell's sweet parents Gary and Carla took us to see the world's biggest movable radio telescope! It's in a valley in West Virginia, and the the whole town has no wireless devices or cell phones or anything of that nature because the dish would pick it up!!!

Imagine Dragons concert!!!

BYU v. UVA game. This was the only pleasant memory from that game. If you were there, or tried to watch it on tv, you know why.

Sunday afternoon trip to the Botanical Gardens! My favorite picture of us :)