My little Nathan has always had a knack when it comes to building things and fixing things. When he was 3 years old he found a screwdriver and took apart Patty’s electric piano. Patty had lent it to me and Nathan watched us put it together. So obviously he just did the reverse of what he watched us do. He carefully removed the legs and proudly showed us his handiwork. Nathan is also very good at building things—particularly with his Legos. Not too long ago he built this depiction of Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life. For you non-LDS folk out there, it’s a story from the
Book of Mormon. We had read that story for family scripture study and Nathan soon afterwards built this wonderful rendition of the Tree of Life. I like how Luke and Obi Won are holding onto the iron rod but Anakin and Han Solo are drowning in the evil abyss.
Well, Nathan is 9-years old now, and he has done it again. I bought a DVD player at Wal-Mart this week for the upstairs TV. That TV doesn’t have any reception so movies are about all it is good for. Anyway, on my way home from Wal-Mart I am thinking with dread that I have to hook this dang machine up. I am terrible at stuff like this. Oh sure, I can read a sewing pattern successfully but I can hardly put together my Ikea finds. But then I remembered that Nathan is Inspector Gadget. When he came home from school I handed him the box and said, “I know you can hook this up.” He
immediately told me that he wasn’t sure if it would work because that TV is old and it probably didn’t have the right cable hook ups in the back. (Winnie donated this TV to us and a garbage can donated it to her.) Nathan came down 15 minutes later, announced that the TV didn’t have the right hook-ups, but that he routed the cables through the VCR. (The VCR eats tapes now but we’ll keep it just to run the DVD player. Good grief.) So there we have it. Nathan can hardly answer the phone with more than a cave man grunt, but by golly, that boy can fix/build/connect anything. As Nathan always says about my dad, “Grandpa can fix anything.” Guess it’s all in the family.
advice because they've seen my house. Nobody asks for hair advice because they've seen my unruly curls. But people ask my food advice and that makes up for all of it. In the last couple of days I've had a friend call me and ask how to cook a good steak and which to buy, my sister called and asked about what potatoes to use for viccysoise, and I just received an email from Paul's uncle telling me that he tried the butternut squash soup recipe on my food blog and that it turned out great. Next he was tackling the curry. Well, now we're talking! 
Paul and I had our annual Christmas party at our house just last Saturday and it was a big ol' success. A few years ago I noticed that nobody has Christmas parties anymore so I set out to change that. Or maybe nobody invites US to their Christmas parties. Well if the mountain won't come to Mohammad.....So we invited 40 people and 34 came!! Our house is roomey, but not that roomey! People were crammed everywhere and for that I felt badly. That's never happened before--usually only half come because it's Christmastime and everybody is too busy. Who's too busy for a party? Did they come in droves because we are loved and adored by many? Maybe it's the fact that the invitation had one catch-your-eye phrase on it "Mexican dinner served." So we fed 34 people a dinner of tostadas, refried beans, and rice. It was a load of fun. Who doesn't like food smothered in hot sauce and cheese? Crazy people, that's who. That's my Christmas present to my friends and neighbors. Instead of a plate of sugary treats that are rarely edible, we feed 'em bacon fat infused beans and fried pork carnitas. Now you know why they came.
I hit my 100th sale on 