hinckley brag

last weekend, we went up to boston to hear my brother-in-law sing in Handel's Messiah. there is much to brag about on the hinckley side of the family right now, and since the only reason i am associated with any of these people is through marriage, i will now shamelessly and unapologetically brag.

we saw the performance on friday night. my brother-in-law was the solo tenor. i'm no music critic, but his voice seems richer and fuller everytime i hear him sing (and it was pretty dang awesome to begin with). this was the 155th consecutive performance of The Messiah by this society. the conductor was insanely energetic and a pure pleasure to watch. at times, it looked like he was bull-fighting with sections of the orchestra. there was a section of period instruments that played a "half-step" lower and gave a feel for how the piece would have sounded when it was written. somehow now our CD of handel's messiah doesn't seem quite up to snuff.

the next day, we were joined by my brilliant (i've already mentioned that she's at a top notch law school in vermont, right?) niece, chelsea, and her husband jake. all the women in my niece's family have more talent in their little finger than i do in my whole being. (don't believe me? just check out my sister-in-law's art or writing. susan also amazingly gave birth to frida about 80 years after the fact?)

the whole gang went to lunch at p.f. chang's. i only mention this because somehow the seating on our side of the table went: jake, pat, lily, evan, grace, me. after lunch, pat made some comment about how it's not fun to take our whole lot out to lunch. it was only then that i realized how i had sat next to the 9 year old for the whole time. it's easy to enjoy your lunch when hubby gets all the young'ns and disabled one and you get the more than capable 9 year old.

here's the hinckleys we were able to visit with (minus brian).

getting back to hinckley bragging, my nephew who lives in seattle made it on an all-regional football team and already has an offer to play football for air force. he was recently in the seattle times with other all-regional player. (he's christian rennie).

the biggest brag of all is getting to visit with this beauty pictured belowed. annie and brian's youngest, jane, is now 6 months old and is very sweet natured. it was fun to see her again.

oh, and if you look close at the above pic, you'll understand why i keep calling grace: "granny". she has lost the baby teeth on either side of her four middle top and bottom teeth.

ok, fine, i'll put one brag in from my side. here's my little nephew, ian, that i get to see in a couple weeks. he and jane are just four days apart.

lily-isms

lily keeps requesting to read one of my childhood favorites at bedtime. it's entitled "the king who rained" and goes something like: "daddy says there was a king who rained for 40 years" then shows the little girl looking at a king in the sky with rain coming out of his belly. anyhoo, i could tell lily wasn't "getting" any of the book, so when it came to the page that said: "mommy says that little children always have bear feet" and has a picture of the little girl with hairy feet and claws, i tried to explain to lily how she had bare feet because she wasn't wearing any socks, but that the girl in the book thinks "bare feet" mean "bear feet". we kept reading. then a few minutes later, lily practically in tears, proclaims: "i don't want bear feet!!"

then tonight, we read the book again; (she requests it every night). when we got to that page, lily said: "can someone get me some socks? i don't want to have bear feet!" i asked her if she thought her feet would get all hairy and she answered in the affirmative. i tried again to assure her that she will never have "bear feet."

oh, childhood. i must admit that it's one of my favorite things to exploit my kids naivety and try to get them to believe things that aren't really possible. but i am hoping i haven't scarred her too much with this book.

debonaire

here's mr. handsome in the pea coat that his nanna, aunt annie and uncle brian gave him for his birthday. (click to enlarge).

thanksgiving weekend

we had a nice thanksgiving weekend. i made dinner this year for all three of my parents and my sister's family. everything turned out well except the turkey that i planned on taking four hours (max.) to cook took 5 1/2 hours. lucky there had been plenty of appetizers and everyone was patient. there is something very satisfying to me in cooking a big meal for everyone (must be my italian lineage). i did decide to wear my 2 1/2 inch leather boots (hey, they matched my outfit) and proclaimed how excited i was to take them off after the pie was served. to which grace responded: "mom, you didn't have to wear them, you know." i also did what i thought was impossible by not being able to finish my third piece of pecan pie (don't worry i did it in three settings - one day, but three different settings). but i can't think of a better way to spend thanksgiving than overstuffing myself with homemade pecan pie. yum.

"When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if not…mmmmm, boy!” -Jack Handey

friday morning was spent shopping the sales; (luckily my brother in the pacific time zone, i.e. 3 hours earlier, decided to shop too and was therefore actually awake when i called him 8 am eastern time.) then on saturday night, my stepmom and i took my sister to see "twilight" for her birthday. (wendy, i would tease you about your age right now if it wasn't practically owning up to my own age on my blog).

anyhoo, i painted my nails red in honor of seeing the movie. must say, i enjoyed it. yes, some lines fell a little flat, and sometimes angry vampire translated into "looks like he's constipated" vampire. but as in the books, the romance won me over in the end.

there were no "twilight" posters, so we chose to stand by this "bloody valentine 3-D" poster.
this picture illustrates why i've never thought of myself as photogenic. the woman in my family always take great pics and then there's me.

how???

really, how???!!! i'm rooting for ken and tina!

a little sad

just heard that elder joseph b. wirthlin passed away. he was a leader of my church who gave some talks that have been a source of great comfort to me in recent years. it's a little ironic in that i recently had the thought that i should go back and read some of his older talks since i keep enjoying his new talks so much. i guess that will have to pacify me since there will not be any more greatness coming from this good man in this life. (he was 91 and his wife had preceeded him in death by four years.)

you can find some of his talks here and especially here.