My Imaginative Girl

Grace loves to play pretend with her toys. But, she often finds herself short of some essential prop or toy for the needed imaginary scene.

One example is a scene from our favorite movie: Howl's Moving Castle. She needed a fire, logs, a frying pan, eggs and bacon to fry, and a magical "searing" love note for howl written in ancient sorcery symbols. So, she went into nap time armed with markers and a stack of blank typing paper. She emerged with a magical Fire (named Calcipher- from the movie), a stack of firewood for burning, and all the needed cooking implements drawn to specification. The love note was particularly impressive. She even made a fried egg, which she promptly crumpled into a ball that would fit into a plastic egg, for more realistic play. (She could "crack" open the egg, and let the fried egg fall into the pan.)

She has also drawn

• paper laptops, (several, depending on what she needed on the screen)
• a birdcage window with the bird inside showing through,
• a puppy for Sienna,
• a complete set of makeup (made from other odds and ends such as bits of a drinking straw, cotton ball, etc.) including lipstick and mascara,
• and, most recently, an ATM cash dispensing machine with separate "credit" card

She basically draws whatever toy she needs, and then colors it and cuts it out. I am so interested and amazed by the things she thinks up, and then makes come to reality!

Royal's Deep Dark Culinary Secret

There is one thing which I bet none of you know about Royal. He has an undeniable flair in the kitchen. That's right! You heard me! When necessity forces that handsome devil into the unfamiliar realms of the kitchen, miracles come out.

It is a strange phenomenon, which I have now observed dozens of times. Actually, I'm trying to remember a time he made something that didn't taste amazing.

And, I'm NOT talking about frozen pizza. I'm talking about whole chickens baked with weird spice combinations rubbed under the skin (including crushed mint.). I'm talking about ramen "stir fry". I'm talking about fruit salads with things that aren't fruit.

He always uses spices and ingredients that I dread tasting. And, they always taste great. Now, to find a way to get him to want to be the primary cook....

(PS: We did not get our house. We were outbid. Still looking.)

Royal's Randomnoughts

I tried to help Elizabeth through the labor and delivery of each of our children. I think I was more help with Sienna's birth than Jim's. I guess I'm out of practice, because I couldn't really remember what to do to help. There was a nurse there that came to the rescue, though. Heaven bless nurse Jenny. All turned out just swell, but I'm pushing for E to get an epidural next time, if at all possible. I just don't like seeing her in so much pain, even though I love the fruit. (he's so cute!)

The house, if we get it, will definitely be a blessing. It's a mix of a trailer and a separate addon. It's going to need some work, though, so I've been trying to "improve" it in a 3d program called Sketchup.

We love you all. We're hoping that our friends and family will forgive our inability to keep in touch without mass correspondence. We jsut ain't built that way.

Something interesting has happened to me recently that I'd like to mention, too. It might sound a bit strange, but I feel like I've been sleeping for a long time and have finally awakened. I'm beginning to understand so much more of the scriptures in a way I never have before. I feel the power of the atonement in my life and really do want to go back to the sacrament table again and again for healing. For the first time, I'm anxious not to be late to church. It's really cool to be happy again. I'll probaby write more about this change again.

A quick note before Nap

I have so many things I want to write and say.

Here is a summary:

The birth was very hard. It was the most painful so far.

I love little Jim. He is the most congenial baby we've had yet, and that is quite an accomplishment on his part. He eats well, and he takes at least one long night period (4-4.5 hours) during which I get a little sleep. He never cries, except when we change his diaper. He is just very agreeable.

I am working very hard to make sure I don't do anything requiring much effort so I can fully recover as soon as possible. I am overly eager to return to a way-too-busy way of life with way-too-many goals. My goal is to rest as fully as possible for 2 weeks. I have one week to go. So far I feel good and get about 3 one hour naps/day. (Royal's been home to watch the girls.)

We found a great deal on a house. We made an offer yesterday. As long as there isn't something seriously wrong with the house that shows up on the inspection, we hope to move in June-ish. (close at the end of May, and then fix it up for a month or so.) The bank has a week to respond to us, so it may be a while before we know.

We'll find out next week if they accepted our offer.

Announcing our New Arrival

Please Welcome with us

James Michael

born at 3:44 AM
8 lbs and 8 oz
dark hair, and all the right boy parts

Royal at 2.5 months

PS: we're still pregnant.

PPS: Isn't he cute as a blonde?

Royal at 2 1/2 years old

(I restored the colors a bit. If I had a better scan I could do more. -R)

The value of thrift

You know, the science of spending less money but living well is just so personal. Not only does appropriate thrift depend completely on your personal values, but appropriate thrift also depends greatly on your individual situation.

Here's an example of the first principle: (thrift depends on your values)
When we were attending SCAD, our main goal in life was 1. stay married and 2. Get Royal through college. So, we didn't value embellishing our home, for instance. We didn't spend much time or money improving our home decor. A great carpet sale would not have "saved" us any money.

Now, on the other hand, our main goal in life is 1. Keep growing a stronger marriage, and 2. Enjoy our life as a family. So, beautifying our home, and obtaining an appropriately sized home, is a greater priority. We've spent much time, mental power, and money toward the goal of getting a beautiful home since we moved here. We are almost ready to buy a home, and a great sale on carpet could save us a lot of money!

Here's an example of the second: (Thrift depends on your individual situation)
We live 5 miles from a small Amish community. We now buy 2 gallons of raw milk from an Amish family every weekend. It costs us $1.50/gallon, plus transportation expenses. In that 2 gallons of milk is 4-6 cups of cream. So, we get about a pound of butter, 3 cups of fresh buttermilk, and 1.75 gallons of milk every week for $3 plus gas (about $1.50/week).

Any other time in my life so far, raw milk would have been either unobtainable, or prohibitively expensive. Not to mention the organic butter and buttermilk.

By the way, Raw milk tastes like milk, only better. And its a whole lot better than homemade soy milk. (Another thrifty alternative to storebought cow's milk) But the main reason we love it so much is that our lactose-intolerant daughter has no problems digesting it.

(bytheway, we're still pregnant.)

Still Pregnant

What else is there to say?

Whine, whine.

Complain, complain.

Get busy and pretend that having a newborn is easier than being 9 months pregnant. (Hahahahahaha....)

Try not to think about it.

I did take pics at the shower, Bytheway. But, they are on film. So, chances ofyou seeing them in the next 3 months are remote. Just thought I'd let you know. But, if any of you have a good digital camera lying around, just send it our way. We won't be offended. ;-)

Musings of an almost-not-pregnant mom

Well, its finally that time of day when there is peace on earth... or at least in our home.

It's Nap Time!

So, why aren't I sleeping, you may ask.

(Well, I'll pretend I didn't hear you since I'm already onto another thought.)

I am secretly hoping that this will be my last week of pregnancy. This pregnancy has been easy: very little physical pain, very little nausea, very little fatigue(And, its a good thing, too, since I have 2 children to keep up with.), and (shockingly) a fairly modest widening of the girth. Its widened a lot, but it is more basketball-belly and less whole-body-blob than my last 2 pregnancies.

But, now, at the end, the easiness of it is giving way to pain, aches, fatigue, nausea (strange to me at this stage, but anyway...), and chaos in the household. I've never wished for a friend who wanted to do my laundry before... Anyway, I was sort of thinking the household chaos would not ensue until after Junior was born. NOT!

Tonight the Relief Society is throwing a baby shower for me... So, maybe I'll remember a camera, and have some pictures of the HUGE belly for you! Maybe not. My memory has been a rare companion lately.

My friend Ann recently asked me why I'm not giving birth at home. And, you know what? I didn't really have an answer. I hope someday to be the kind of person who has a great, logical reason for all the choices I make. Or, at least, A spiritual prompting. After I showed Grace some under-water birth videos, she asked me why we don't have our baby at home, in the tub. I told her it was because we didn't know a doctor who would help us do that. But, really, I guess I was just too busy this time around to try to "beat the system". So, I just picked a DR from our insurance, etc.

Catch y'all later.

Old Websites Part 2

After making SpiralEye, I went to college and made Ubernube after my first year. Still pretty lousy, but getting better, I think. It hosted my very short claymation video work in progress and my industrial design work. (that was a fun class!)
Here are a few pictures from it:



I'm particularly proud of my design solutions in Unicron V2.0.

A few years later I added more recent work and sketches to "Floating Islands".
I actually still like this design out of all my sites the best. It has the feel I like the most. A little dreamlike, and it's really easy to navigate. That's nice too.

A couple images from there:



I also put up some old work that hadn't appeared anywhere else before:


More tomorrow.

Old Websites

Hello! Royal here. Around 2000 I started learning how to make webpages, and I made my very first one. Since then, I keep making new ones and abandoning the old ones. It's surprising how some of them are still floating around the web.

First, there's SpiralEye. I slapped up some thumbnails and some MIDI files and was really happy with the website. Now I think it's pretty lousy, but it does still host some of my older artwork from high school. I even posted some of my very first computer generated work. A couple pictures from there:


More tomorrow.

It's snowing!

It is snowing outside! Here in Kentucky.

Just thought I'd mention that....

Extreme Pine Wood Derby

The Elders got together last Friday for our own "Extreme Pine Wood Derby". It was a lot of fun. I placed third. Check it out!

Now! Reposted for your cleaner, better enjoyment!

I still win third in this version!

Extreme Pine Wood Derby

Metacafe put up some not-nice thumbnails at the end of my Pine Wood Derby Video, so I reposted it above, minus the additions.