Parentheticals

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...

At the game day last week, Caitlin and Sal told us about something that they have been learning: how to use epoxy and mixed media in order to refurbish a counter to look like it is stone. They have been practising their skills on tiles that they bought, and they showed us the samples. They looked really amazing, and we told them so, so they asked if we would let them do our counter as a practice for the house that they are planning on buying and renovating. We agreed to that, because even if the equipment costs a couple hundred, the things looked really good, and it seems worth the effort to have better-looking counters. On Monday we went to the library and got the usual things (tons of books for the kids). Mike also went to the accountant's office where he gets his taxes done and tried to get his returns from them, however, they were not ready yet (despite them having texted mike and said that they were.) On Tuesday, the accountant texted again saying that the tax documents we...

This week Alison and the kids went to the zoo, thanksgiving point, and the library to get Italian books (to get in the mood for Italy). It was a busy week. Rea took some pictures at the zoo. Here is one of the best ones: On Monday Mike started another semester of teaching CS 101. This time he is teaching two classes simultaneously, which has been so far doable. Finals might be a little crazy, but aside from finals, the first week of a new class is the hardest part. On Tuesday, Mike was biking to work, and both of his brakes on his bike quit working (half way down a hill). He finished his trip very carefully, and then when he went home, he fixed them both (replacing the disk brakes pads, and tightening the pad brakes). Hopefully that won't happen again. We are leaving for Italy in 2 weeks and 2 days, so we have been spending a lot of time getting ready for that over the last week. The kids are watching muzzy, and we are trying to remember all of the last minute things that ...

Mike left for a work convention last Sunday after church, so we didn't do our blog post. So this post will cover two weeks. Last week, Alison and the kids started doing Forest Kindergarten again. After mushroom hunting, the kids really wanted to go to Dimple Dell, so we went there all week. The kids loved it. Alison was not huge fan of the switchbacks, but the creek and trees at the bottom are nice. The kids had a fabulous time, and Alison and Gideon sat and read and cuddled. Friday we had Brown Family Dinner, because Daniel had graduated and his parents were in town. We met at Amy's house and had pizza. It was fun. Mike showed off the Brave Lala illustrations Sheila made; they are awesome! The kids loved playing in the playhouse and on the trampoline. The adults talked about investments. Saturday morning Alison had to attend a Stake Baptism for a girl in our ward. Rea was invited along to sing, and all the kids ended up coming. They were decently well-behaved, and Rea sa...

Alison doesn't remember what happened Monday. They probably went to Forest Kindergarten. We had a Family Home Evening. It was a good day, we're sure, even if we don't remember it. Tuesday the kids went to Wheeler Farm during the day while Alison went to the midwife. The baby is still doing well; he's changing position instead of staying huddled in the right back corner, so Alison has laid off the crazy exercises with some confidence that when labor begins he'll swing around to the front left like he's supposed to be. The kids loved showing Grandma all their favorite things at Wheeler Farm; it's one of our favorite places to go, so they had lots of them to share. Tuesday Mike went to the board game design group. He presented his game, and they played it. It went very well. He is really enjoying it. While Mike was at the board game design group, the kids cleaned up really fast, so they got to watch a movie before going to bed. This is Alison's stand...

On Monday Alison had a very sick day; the kids were watching a movie at 9am and she texted her mom asking for ideas. Grandma Julie suggested that she take the kids to McDonalds play place, so they went there after lunch. It worked well. For the price of a container of fries and two small ice creams, the kids played happily for four hours while she laid on the floor. Rea actually got bored eventually and came and took one of the books Alison brought into the play place to read it. It was "Ella Enchanted," and she liked it a lot. As part of family night we started to make Lilac Jelly. It turned out pretty good this year. It ended up making about 6 pints. The recipe was the same as last time that we made it, so I am not going to post it again. On Tuesday for Timmy's date night we went on a long walk and petted a dog. Timmy had a wonderful time. He loves dogs. Sara, on the other hand does not like dogs at all. On Wednesday the kids were invited to go to the zoo with Gra...

This week has been much less busy. We didn't have plans most evenings and, although Alison and the kids met Grandma Julie and Cousin Ellie at City Creek and the zoo on Monday and Tuesday, Timmy was sick with a cold for the second half of the week so not much happened. Timmy points to anyone with a beard and says "Ho, Ho, Ho!" meaning Santa Claus. This is ironic when it's actually a picture of Jesus. His speaking is improving every day. He now makes 2 word sentences. He also says "Daddy" instead of "Dada" Hurray! On Friday we were invited to a Financial Fitness class with some other couples in our neighborhood. We are more financially fit than many people, but we still got some good advice and enjoyed the time with friends. We are slowly working through the homework, which is very detailed and takes a while but has some good discussion questions. Mike has been spending a decent amount of time preparing for his Ion Award presentations. This nex...

Timmy continues adding words to his repetoire each day and is making great strides in potty training. On numerous occasions, he has told us he needs to use the potty, gotten there with dry pants, and tinkled or pooped in the potty. However, he has gotten addicted to our current reward system (watching a movie clip on a parent's phone while sitting on the potty) and sometimes likes to sit on the potty every five minutes so he can see more movies. (He prefers movies of horses with background music; the girls want songs from the My Little Pony TV show.) We are very excited about his progress. Sara has come up with a fun new descriptive phrase construction: when she's wrapped up in her new snowsuit, she is "warmer than a warmit" and if she goes outside without it she is "colder than a coldit" and so on. We have fun coming up with "-er than a -it" and laugh a lot. Rea is making excellent progress on learning subtraction. This week they were counting...

Since we have tickets to Star Wars in Dec. we are trying to watch the rest of the Star Wars movies before we see the new one. I don't think that we are going to make it. We just finished Episode 2, and we have been trying for over a month so far. This week, Alison added a new section to Kidschool: Montessori activities.  She studied Montessori and we invested time and money into learning about it and making materials back when Rea was a baby, but it never really worked well then.  But she's pulled it back out now, with more mother-skills and knowledge about adapting things, and it's going very well.  The kids ask to do Montessori most days and spent hours using the materials on several different days this week.  It's been very rewarding for Alison to finally have it work. On Tuesday, Rea achieved her math goal (playing our math block Mastermind with four blocks hidden) and wanted to go straight to the zoo.  Unfortunately, Alison got flashes of light obscurin...

This week we finally decided that the kids were old enough to enjoy the 10 gallons of Legos Mike has saved since his childhood, so we've taken them out on about three different occasions and let them play.  Rea and Sara enjoy putting people on the horses and setting up barns and pastures.  Timmy watches Mike build space ships and then flies them around with whooshing noises and smashes them into things.  It has been very enjoyable. A neighbor gave us a large bag of beets this year.  She gives us all kinds of garden bounty and we're very grateful for it, but Alison is the only one who really loves beets.  So Alison spent a lot of time and effort this week trying to find new beet recipes.  Probably the best-accepted one was beet-stuffed ravioli in a cream sauce.  Beet hashbrowns aren't bad either. We did a lot of Halloween things this year.  One night we had a fire in the fireplace and ate donuts and drank apple cider; that's not exactly Hallowe...

This week Timmy has woken us up way too many times. It is like he has no respect for sleep. On Tuesday the kids and Alison went to the Zoo. Rea and Sara both loved the dinosaur birds the best. Apparently, some scientists have decided that Utah Raptor was heavily feathered, so the zoo had a new feathery Utah Raptor. Timmy liked the elephants best. Timmy has been playing peekaboo with people, and saying "Boo!" a lot this week. On Wednesday Timmy had his 15 month check up. Alison was a little worried that the doctor would be concerned that he's not walking yet, but the doctor watched him walk holding on to Alison's hands and realized that he's capable of walking, he just doesn't choose to, so no worries. That's nice. Apparently his language development is right on target, although it's so far behind where the girls were at this age. He'll get his next shots when we get the not-sleeping-through-the-night thing worked out. On Friday, Alison'...

Alison and the kids went to the zoo TWICE this week. The first time, on Tuesday, was for a goal day party, and they met Grandma Julie and Aunt Becky and Cousin Ellie there for a fun time. Thursday Uncle Chauncey finished school, so he went with Becky and Ellie again, and they invited Grandma Julie, who invited us. We had a great time both days. Tuesday they were setting up the dinosaurs (Zoorasic Park 2 this summer!), and Rea was excited to see them on Thursday, but they were all covered up until opening day. Now Rea wants to go this upcoming Friday for the dinosaurs. On Wednesday we had a Board Game Design Group of Sandy meetup. There were five people there, and we played two games: Polynesia and Zodiac Dice. It went pretty well. The girls had a babysitter and had a lot of fun as well. On Thursday we ate dinner in the front yard. As we ate the heady scent of the lilac flowers made us think about edible flowers. We looked up the edibility of lilacs, and found that lilac jelly is a ...

The Dancing Robots have taken a bit of a break recently. My server went down and I had to reinstall the os. The power company has been 'trimming' (read genociding) the trees that live in my yard that are near the power lines. One of the maples have given up the ghost and I intend to take it down some time soon (to harvest the wood for use in growing more mushrooms (perhaps more oysters, but more likely maitake)). The vinca are all still alive and they seem to be doing fine. I will probably transplant more of them today if I can't get a hold of a chainsaw. I have picked two more batches of Scotch bonnet from my yard. The people from the mycological society said that they look like they are identified correctly, but that they do not guarantee an identification without more than one image. (I sent them more, but they were having a big morel hunt, and they seemed to be busy). Speaking of mushroom hunting, I tried my hand at it on Saturday. We got fourteen mushrooms all ...