Parentheticals

Last Sunday we had a game day with The Wilsons. We played the Goose of Grillner Grove , a rules light RPG where you try and dissuade a newcomer in your town from messing with a dangerous and troublemaking goose that has been terrorizing the place for 20 years. It was fun. We also played half a game of Mike's RPG and had a fun time with that too. The kids played with the Waters family kids multiple times this week. We are really glad that they moved in right next to us since they seem to be really fun for our kids, and Alison and Mike also enjoy spending time together with the parents as well. One thing that Timmy wanted to add to the blog is that they have a chameleon, and that Timmy was able to get some of its skin and look at it in a microscope. This week Gideon earned a goal-day party when he read through the half way point in one of his reading workbooks. He had us go to ride the ponies at thanksgiving point and then make pizza for dinner with fruit pizza for dessert. It was fu...

The kids just discovered stop motion animation and are making videos of their modeling clay dinosaurs. They're having fun. We have a wasp nest in our big tree in the front yard that Mike is really, really trying to figure out how to deal with before the weather warms up. It's much too high for any of the normal methods. He's thinking of shooting balls of clay at it with a slingshot to try to knock it down. This week we had CC and the kids are making friends with a new family, Will and Grace. They're nine year old twins and Timmy and Sara are having fun talking about Wings of Fire and Spirit Animals and other books with them. Tuesday the Rogers were off school, so we went with them and Grandma Julie to Thanksgiving Point all day. We did the dinosaur museum in the morning and butterflies in the afternoon. The kids got to see some new butterflies being released into the Biosphere, which was very exciting. Timmy and Gideon got separated from the rest of us in the Dinosaur M...

 Monday started off with Alison waking up at 3am to throw up. Mike had to take two days off work because she was too sick to get out of bed. Monday he did school with the kids, and Tuesday Rea threw up when she woke up, so Mike cancelled school and just took care of sick people (who mostly listened to audiobooks). Wednesday the kids were fine and Mom was better enough to do school in the morning and sleep all afternoon; Thursday she stayed awake most of the day, and by Friday and Saturday everyone was better. Sara's math program right now has her mastering a concept and then using it to decipher a recipe that Alison has made into math problems. She learned rounding last week and then figured out the recipe for peanut butter fudge. She made it Monday morning with Aunt Amy's help, and she did a wonderful job! It was the most creamy fudge anyone in the extended family made this year. Everyone loved it. While people were sick and stuff, Boo went in the bathroom and painted her hair...

Hey, look, we wrote two weeks in a row this time! We finished up the Twelve Days of Christmas this week and are heading into Carnival season, where we plan a party every week to head off the intermitability of January and February. We got out of the habit during the lockdowns from COVID, so hopefully we'll do a good job this year. It really is helpful with the February blahs. Last Sunday the power went out on the other side of the ward, so the Plastow kids came and built an amazing snow fort and played with our kids. Amy and Dave came over for dinner and we invited them to spend the night if their power didn't come back on. It did come back, but the kids were all excited about having a sleepover, so Logan, Dustin, and Brooklyn spent the night. Monday we had our annual New Year's Day game day. Becky and Chauncey's family came, and we had a wonderful time playing The Scarlet Pimpernell. The girls actually got invited to hang out with their friend Marissa from Sandy in the...

 We always do the Twelve Days of Christmas between Christmas and Twelfth Night (January 5th), so this week we've done a bunch of fun things: Watched a whole bunch of 50+ year old Christmas movies (we're watching one every night; we've done claymation Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, Muppet Christmas Carol, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas so far, and we'll be watching more this week) Made gingerbread houses (Alison found a clearance kit to make a gingerbread village with 5 houses and bought it for $8; it was very much worth the money) Made Christmas tree ornaments (led by Rea) Made and decorated gingerbread men (actually all shapes - these are in place of sugar cookies because they taste so much better than sugar cookies but can be shaped and decorated the same way) Went to Becky and Chauncey's house and played games Went to Grandma Julie and Grandpa Craig's New Year's Eve party with a balloon drop at noon and hot tubbing and card games Built our New Year...