Parentheticals

On Monday Sara was still a bit sick. The doctor was closed for president's day, so we didn't take her in to get help. She cried most of the day (Sara, that is). By Tuesday Sara seemed much better, so Alison didn't take her in. We had a missionary meeting in the evening, which Sara cuddled through while Rea played quietly. They were all very impressed (the other ward missionaries/ward mission leaders that is) at how well behaved our children were. This is (of course) in comparison to the last meeting, where they were running around talking loudly and giving out liberal bloody noses (one bloody nose which bled very liberally was the extent of the liberal bloody noses). On Wednesday, the girls had a get together at Amy's house, and our daughters got to see Great Grandma Yoder for the second time. She game them wind up cars (which were very popular). In the evening I took all of the doors off of the cabinets in our kitchen in preparation for painting them white so tha...

Early this week we got a message from the county telling us that we couldn't store a car that was not licensed on our property. We have no unlicensed cars, so I called and asked what they were talking about. Apparently they checked the wrong box on the message, and what they meant to say was that we couldn't store hay in our carport and that our firewood had to be six inches off of the ground. After talking more, it just turns out that we can store hay in our carport, we just can't openly store hay in our carport, so draping a tarp over the hay should be good enough to appease them in that regard. Apparently in an agriculturally zoned neighborhood hay is considered to be unsightly. I am willing to comply with their demands for two reasons: They probably have a reason why wood laying on the ground is not a good thing (perhaps because it will attract termites or wood boring ants). The government is so big as to be unstoppable, and if I were to try to make waves I woul...

During stake conference Sara pretended Rea was a baby. She was very gentle to her. Hopefully it is good practice for when we have another baby. This week we tried out a Poulson family tradition one night: "Two dollar dinner". You all go to the store and get two dollars worth of whatever you want. We ended up with pineapple, sweet potatoe and veggie Panko, and chocolate doughnuts. For those who have never had it, Panko is like tempura, but it is crunchier. With all the snow melting we have noticed  that the Swiss chard that we planted last spring is still growing and doing fine. This is pretty strange because it has been buried under snow for a few months at below freezing temperatures. With cold frames, we might be able to eat fresh greens all winter. Rea wrote a note to Briar and Star today. She asked Alison how to write a g first. When Rea was done with the g, it looked like a P. Alison drew her a g, and then Rea corrected her own g, and then wrote an o. She wrote a...

This week we discovered a new member of our family: Sara the sleepless. She looks just like Sara the happy girl, but she has snot running down her face, and coughs a lot all night long. Rea has also read her first book all by herself. It was 5 pages long and had about 30 words (we had never read it to her before, so she read all the words.) We had a party to celebrate. We played "Herd your Horses" and ate blueberry cake. She also got a book light so that she could read in bed. I finished up taxes on Saturday while Alison and the girls were at aunt Becky's baby shower. The Utah government tax site is pretty darn bad. Friday we had Amy and Dave over for pizza and games since their little boy is getting bigger. We played Love Letter, and made gluten free pizza. Alison recently decided that I need to take Rea and Sara out on more dates, so Daddy Daughter Grocery Shopping Dates were invented. You'll never guess what they consist of :). In order to combat Veggie T...