Jackson and Jackson. Coincidence?

I wonder if my friend Mimi would consider this more than a butterfly coincidence....

My new visiting teaching partner and I are Chrystie and Christine.

Our husbands are Jeff and Jeff.

Our sons are Jackson and Jackson, 2 months apart. (she says she doesn't even have to think of a name for a second son now, it can just be Lincoln!)

Her dad and my Grandpa home teach together.

Apparently, her mom and my Grandpa's brother are related by marriage as well! I

just keep finding out more and more connections every time we meet! I happened to see her dad this weekend while I was in Texas for a visit, he was assigned to be in our ward that day for Stake business. I have met him several times... he was present at our Jackson's blessing, shortly before his grandbaby was born. He interviewed me for my temple recommend (when we first made a connection about Choctaw and Grandpa). They were also in town here in Texas a few weeks ago for their Jackson's birthday party/Easter egg hunt which we attended.

Choosing Pink

I just want to write this up as a reminder to myself because it is my favorite part of the book I just read, "The Secret Life of Bees."

"There is one thing I don't get," I said.

"What's that?"

"How come if your favorite color is blue, you painted your house so pink?"

She laughed. "That was May's doing. She was with me the day I went to the paint store to pick out the color. I had a nice tan color in mind, but May latched on to this sample called Caribbean Pink. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, "Well, this is the tackiest color I've ever seen, and we'll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May's heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it."

"All this time I figured you just liked pink," I said.

She laughed again. "You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart--now, that matters. The whole problem with people is-- "

"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

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What is funny is that I've been telling people all week about how when I took Lincoln to Wal-Mart to pick out a camping chair he said, "I just want the pink one." I chose a nice green instead... not willing to let him have a pink chair as a boy with no little girls in the family (yet?). I guess I was more concerned about how it would look for a family with no girls to have a pink kid chair. A small thing, but worth thinking about in the bigger scheme of things.

Chipmunks and Squirrels

You really know when a kid likes what they are eating when they will just keep stuffing it in whether they've even begun to chew the first bites or not. I learned this weekend that you can also tell how much squirrels love marshmallows when they will let you get really close to take a picture so that can keep on eating, rather than risk dropping the marshmallow while running away. I've been calling Jackson a chipmunk for a while now, as he tends to just keep on storing food in his cheeks until you give him something to drink.