Baby Art Supplies

If anyone happens to see this, I was wondering what some good art/sensory supplies would be to have on hand now that I want to get Xander into more sensory play (probably should have started awhile ago, but oh well).

Fun Library Discovery

We found "Little Red Riding Hood  a Newfangled Prairie Tale" by Lisa Campbell Ernst at our library and enjoyed this new twist on the classic. At the end is Grandma's secret wheat berry muffin recipe, which we tried and it was delicious! The secret ingredient is sunflower seeds, which we ended up really liking...and some almond extract which was pretty prominent flavor-wise but we liked that too. The batter is super thick, unlike regular muffin batter, but it all works out. I might try adding sunflower seeds to my regular muffin recipe and see how that works.

Look for the book to read with the kids and make the muffins! You can find the recipe here or for a slightly healthier version, visit here

(photo from thesisterscafe.com)

S&J moving up in the world!!!

Sorry we couldn't make it to the chat tonight. We had a feverish little girl and were trying to get her taken care of. Her ears look clear and she had a blessing and is sleeping right now.



Here is a video of the Cortina home we saw that is almost finished, we point out the differences between this home and the one that we would be buying. The biggest difference is just the colors.

Here is a video of the actual home we would be buying looking out at the back yard.

Here is a pic of the front of the home that we toured that is almost finished. 

Here is the link to the floor-plan of ta different home I am going to look into tomorrow or later this week anyway. 

https://www.edgehomes.com/file/2017/11/Nicole_110617.pdf

Peterson Picks: Places to See, Things to Do!

Recently we sent a list of our favorite places to visit in NYC to Rebecca & Neil to help them plan their trip to New York & Hershey this summer. We then thought it would be fun to share the list with everyone, in case you are ever visiting New York with your family. Our list is posted below!

***If you had to create a list of the top spots to visit in your area, what would you put? What are your family's favorites?*** We would really love to know!


Natalie & Eric's Favorite NYC Spots

Upper West Side (we lived here our first year):
-NY Temple
-Natural history museum
-Shake Shack
-Lincoln Center
-Children’s museum of Manhattan
-Levain Bakery (amazing fresh cookies)
-Alice’s Tea Cup (super cute girly cafe, really good treats & they even give out fairy wings for little girls to wear)
-Sixteen Handles (Yummy froyo)
-Vive la Crepe

Central Park:
-Row Boats (you can ride these row boats in the middle of Central Park. You get beautiful views).
-Bethesda Fountain
-Central Park Zoo
-Strawberry fields (close to where John Lennon from the Beatles was killed, so they have a tribute for the Beatles there)
-Alice & Wonderland Statue (fun place to take pictures)
-Belvedere Castle
-conservatory water: Many scenes from the movie Stuart Little were filmed there. They have many cool mini model sail boats.

Upper East Side:
-Met Museum
-Trams to see Roosevelt Island (Really cool views of the city as well).
-Moma
-Guggenheim Museum
-Frick Museum
-Neue Galerie (Austrian Museum with a yummy German/Austrian restaurant)
-Serendipity (super yummy dessert place-they make a frozen hot chocolate that’s out of this world)
-Dylan’s Candy Bar
-Alice’s Tea Cup
-Sprinkle Cupcakes

Midtown:
-Grand Central
-Time Square
-NY Public Library (super big kids section that actually has the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal set the story was based on)
-Rockefeller Center (includes Nintendo & LEGO store).
-Empire State Building
-Chrysler Building
-High Line (I'ts a huge free park that’s built on top of an old railroad. Super cool art & architecture. Along with nice views. There are multiple entrances & it runs for about a mile).
-Baked by Melissa Cupcakes

Financial District:
-9/11 Memorial
-Ferries for Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island
-charging bull Statue
-Battery Park
-Federal Hall
-Georgetown Cupcakes

Bronx:
-Bronx Zoo
-Botanical Gardens/Christmas Train Show

Gratuitous Beauty.

Another gospel thought.

Carol noticed a while back this quote from the Sherlock Holmes story The Naval Treaty:

“What a lovely thing a rose is!"

He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects. 

"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”

She especially likes the phrase "It is only goodness which gives extras," referring to the beauty we see in flowers, though nowadays those who argue for a purely naturalistic explanation for human life would say that it somehow gave us or the flowers or both some evolutionary advantage.

Lately I've been enjoying a gift I gave myself from the Great Courses of "Dark Matter, Dark Energy" where the lecturer is Sean Carroll from my old undergraduate school, Caltech.

In the lecture on Galaxies and Galactic Clusters, he makes the comment that the first thing you notice about galaxies is that they are "pretty," "beautiful," and "esthetically pleasing."  He then says he has personally wondered about that beauty and comments that it seems hard to explain their attractiveness from evolutionary psychology.

I agree.  I think the Sherlock Holmes quote applies that only goodness gives extras, and I would add galaxies as an example along with flowers.

Love,

Dad

TV Shows

Does anyone have recommendations for good TV shows? I have been having a really hard time finding shows to watch that aren't wildly inappropriate. Shows on Netflix or Hulu would be best. Thanks!

Thoughts on the good Samaritan

Today at Ward Conference the first counselor in the Stake Presidency mentioned the good Samaritan and I began looking at the parable in Luke 10:25-37.  Maybe one of the things in the talk pricked me to think about it, the fact that he pronounced "shewed" as "shooed" instead of "showed" (for some reason that mistake always gets to me, sort of making the scriptures less readily understandable for the sake of phonetics).

Anyway, there is a parallel example of being tempted by a lawyer on the same point in Matthew 22:35-40, though it only emphasizes the two highest laws.  Back in Luke, I realized that the response to the question put to the savior "who is my neighbor?" is a return question "Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?" and the answer is "He that shewed mercy on him" that is, the Samaritan, who represents the Savior in the parable.  What occurred to me was that logically speaking, the implication seems to be that the neighbor whom the lawyer was to love as himself is the Savior and the lawyer may be the victim of the thieves (though he may not realize it) and he should be loving the Savior as he loves himself.

To sort of back this up, the surrounding verses in Luke 10 and those in Matthew 21 and 22 seem to be emphasizing the Savior's power and authority, not lessons in treating each other compassionately.  Of course, this doesn't take away anything from the point of our behavior being supposed to be emulating that of the good Samaritan, which is mostly what this story is used for.  But I thought the way the Savior framed the question to the lawyer (who was neighbor to the victim?) as opposed to how it might have been phrased (who treated the victim as a neighbor?) seems to be purposely including another teaching a little different than the typical point of the parable.

Love, Dad