Why Children Should Pray Often in Church

The new year brought me a new class of children to teach at church. I traded in the rambunctious 5-6 year-olds (you may remember such comments as "Are you in marriage with him? He looks like a Chinese man" from the loquacious and affectionate Clara, or "I can karate you in half from head to toe" from freckle-faced Gideon) for an angelic little troupe of 4-5 year-olds (five girls, one boy). They are beyond adorable.

Every Sunday offers several of those delightful, artless, and brilliant conversation pieces that only imaginative children are capable of delivering. The winner for this week came during the closing prayer, given by the most precocious and heart-meltingly verbal four-year old I have ever encountered (that fact that she is quarter-Japanese may also warm my heart towards her). She has an articulate, pronounced little voice that belies her tender years, and began her prayer with the endearing but customary petitions for everyone to be nice to each other, and thanking the Lord for the nice day at church. And then came this jewel:

"Please bless us that we will not be eaten by foxes, and that we will not go into the woods without our parents."

Not only was the initial "bless us that we will not be eaten" a shocker, but to be followed up by "foxes"?! Too wonderful. The best part may have been that no other child in the class blinked a figurative eye at this. This is why children are so marvelous. They perfectly understand the sincere desire in one of their peers to not get eaten by foxes, even when sequestered inside a sterile church-building in suburban northern Virginia, and do not think such a wish in any way out of place with "thank you that we learned about Jesus today" or "bless us to be nice." Who knows how many of them were feeling slightly nervous about the trip home from church, and if foxes might be encountered along the way.

Adults could not similarly impress children because most of our fear-driven petitions would either sound boring ("Please bless our 401K to be fruitful and our tax return to be mighty") or totally irrelevant ("Please bless me to not get skin cancer from all those times I should have worn sunscreen") compared to possible dismemberment and consumption by foxes.

To My Groom . . . 15 Months Later

In honor of Valentine's Day, here is a brief tale of homage to my beloved groom:

One of the first things I learned about Josh was his love/obsession for football. I made a lucky move at a critical point in our early dating relationship when I suggested we go to a park and throw a football around, and I credit this moment for spawning a mutual twitterpation. I think his twitterpation stemmed from (1) the fact that I said the word "football," and (2) my pathetic/endearing but dogged attempts to throw a spiral, while mine probably had more to do with his forearms rippling in the moonlight, or something like that. And that he didn't laugh at the throws that weren't spirals, which were most of them. And that the cherry blossoms were in full swing, and it was spring . . . something along those lines.

When Josh was overseas during our engagement, I sometimes wondered which he missed more: me, or the college football season. During our first fall as a married couple, I spent my Saturdays listening to middle-aged men on TV excitedly spout phrases like "true freshman" and "play-maker," and learned to memorize the same four inane commercials that ESPN 3 recycles about every five minutes.

The point being, Josh loves football.

So four months before my wedding, I bought a football cake pan, thinking I would "have time" the night before we got married to bake and decorate a groom's cake for Josh. Ha. In reality, I spent the night before my wedding having various breakdowns about whether or not we had enough utensils for the reception or trying to getting peach bows tied on the lanterns, and I didn't even have time to start packing for my honeymoon until around midnight. So the football groom's cake didn't happen . . . until . . .

. . . Superbowl Sunday, 2012 (almost 15 months to the day after our wedding), when I finally decided it was time to follow through on what I'd started. So in honor of the last official day of the football season, Josh finally got his groom's cake, and here it is:


Happy Valentine's Day to all, and especially to my football-loving true love. And yes, Jack already has some BYU football attire purchased and ready for wear (thank you, Jen!).

*You may be wondering about my attire in the above picture. I have my thoughtful mother-in-law Shigeko to thank for what I like to call my "culinary surgical costume." It's a full-body Japanese chef's apron, and it even covers my great-with-child belly. She gave it to me for Christmas this year, and it has already saved many an outfit from the inevitable cooking-while-pregnant destruction (my belly ends up in everything). It is especially visually effective when I am carving a roast or chopping vegetables with large sharp knives.

Also, as a bonus and tribute to another of Josh's endearing obsessions, here is the batman cake I made for Josh's mighty 30th birthday a few weeks ago. Hooray for holidays and celebrations!