Triple goal-days and a dead fish.
I don't remember if I ever mentioned it, but Gideon is now crawling! Three weeks ago, on our vacation, he started scooting around on his stomach. By the time we got back, he could push himself up to all fours and then to sitting. Over the last two weeks, he progressed from scooting to crawling, and now he mostly crawls. He does the one-knee-and-one-foot crawl that most of our kids have done at this stage. It's very cute.
Gideon has also started signing more, usually by clasping his hands together and bouncing them up and down, but sometimes by patting his tummy. He also occasionally sticks his finger in his mouth to sign water.
Both of those were goals for Gideon, so we had a goal day party. Timmy decided to pass off on his color goal, so he identified something of the correct color each time we said it, for a dozen basic colors. So it was a triple goal day party on Saturday. Timmy picked the menu: shells with sausages and mushrooms, in a homemade white sauce with Havarti cheese, watermelon, and chips. Alison is very proud of her good eater (and wishes to hide the memory of all the goal day parties at which we've had Kraft mac'n'cheese). He wanted blueberry cake as a dessert, and Alison made one. It was a delicious party and we were very excited for our boys.
Also this week, we took X-rays and scheduled the surgery for Timmy's thumb and big toe. His surgery will be August 30th, and Alison's parents are coming to visit that week to help out. We really like his doctor and he seems very confident that the surgery will be simple and smooth.
Mike and Alison got a babysitter and went to the bookstore for a date. They discussed travel options again and found a book called "DK Eyewitness Family Guide to Italy" that Alison really wants to use to plan their trip. They also decided to spend plenty of time in Alba for the annual truffle festival and go truffle hunting when they go.
Alison went to her first meeting with the League of Utah Writers. She bought a membership with her birthday money and plans to start writing fiction again. Her first meeting was a little intimidating; the members are really good and many of them are published authors. She's excited to learn from them.
One of our fish died this week, and we realized that our filter is worn out. We replaced all the water while waiting for the new filter to arrive, and we hope that the other two fish survive until it gets here. They look much healthier with the new water, so maybe it will work.
The kids never once managed to get the toy library unlocked this week, but they still managed to have overwhelming Team Cleans. It's amazing how they find stuff to strew around the house, even when their toys are taken away. When we discussed this in Family Meeting, the kids' first solution was to lock up more stuff. We had to explain to them that we could not lock up clothes, dishes, library books, handouts from church, toothbrushes, and everything else that was covering the floor. Even if we did, they would surely find other things to leave around, given their track record. We decided to implement a new idea that Mike came up with. Each person starts the week with 10 tokens. If anyone sees anyone else leave something out, the person who sees can tell the person to either pick it up or give them a token. Whoever ends up with lots of tokens gets a treat. The goal is for the kids to police themselves and each other, so that the adults don't have to, because that simply doesn't happen at our house. We'll see how it works.
Finally, we reupholstered the armrests on the lazyboy, since they were pretty beat up. We used old jeans as a material, and they match the material of the lazyboy surprisingly well. This was a good thing to find out.
Gideon has also started signing more, usually by clasping his hands together and bouncing them up and down, but sometimes by patting his tummy. He also occasionally sticks his finger in his mouth to sign water.
Both of those were goals for Gideon, so we had a goal day party. Timmy decided to pass off on his color goal, so he identified something of the correct color each time we said it, for a dozen basic colors. So it was a triple goal day party on Saturday. Timmy picked the menu: shells with sausages and mushrooms, in a homemade white sauce with Havarti cheese, watermelon, and chips. Alison is very proud of her good eater (and wishes to hide the memory of all the goal day parties at which we've had Kraft mac'n'cheese). He wanted blueberry cake as a dessert, and Alison made one. It was a delicious party and we were very excited for our boys.
Also this week, we took X-rays and scheduled the surgery for Timmy's thumb and big toe. His surgery will be August 30th, and Alison's parents are coming to visit that week to help out. We really like his doctor and he seems very confident that the surgery will be simple and smooth.
Mike and Alison got a babysitter and went to the bookstore for a date. They discussed travel options again and found a book called "DK Eyewitness Family Guide to Italy" that Alison really wants to use to plan their trip. They also decided to spend plenty of time in Alba for the annual truffle festival and go truffle hunting when they go.
Alison went to her first meeting with the League of Utah Writers. She bought a membership with her birthday money and plans to start writing fiction again. Her first meeting was a little intimidating; the members are really good and many of them are published authors. She's excited to learn from them.
One of our fish died this week, and we realized that our filter is worn out. We replaced all the water while waiting for the new filter to arrive, and we hope that the other two fish survive until it gets here. They look much healthier with the new water, so maybe it will work.
The kids never once managed to get the toy library unlocked this week, but they still managed to have overwhelming Team Cleans. It's amazing how they find stuff to strew around the house, even when their toys are taken away. When we discussed this in Family Meeting, the kids' first solution was to lock up more stuff. We had to explain to them that we could not lock up clothes, dishes, library books, handouts from church, toothbrushes, and everything else that was covering the floor. Even if we did, they would surely find other things to leave around, given their track record. We decided to implement a new idea that Mike came up with. Each person starts the week with 10 tokens. If anyone sees anyone else leave something out, the person who sees can tell the person to either pick it up or give them a token. Whoever ends up with lots of tokens gets a treat. The goal is for the kids to police themselves and each other, so that the adults don't have to, because that simply doesn't happen at our house. We'll see how it works.
Finally, we reupholstered the armrests on the lazyboy, since they were pretty beat up. We used old jeans as a material, and they match the material of the lazyboy surprisingly well. This was a good thing to find out.
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