Parentheticals

This has been a busy week! Monday we had CC. We lost another tutor, so now we have all 15 kids in one classroom. The tutor who's still here is a former public school teacher and is AMAZING, so it works, and the kids have made some new friends in the group. But it's also harder to keep everyone focused. We're working on other ideas to help the kids sit still and quiet. Tuesday and Wednesday Alison felt like she was coming down with a cold, so she rested a lot. Everyone else did fun things, probably. Thursday was Rea's Carnival party. We came home from Grandma and Grandpa's house early to meet the Dalyais. Rea picked Vietnam as her theme, and she and Aunt Amy made Vietnamese ginger cookies (yum!), and she helped everyone make paper lanterns and taught them a Vietnamese game. Then they had so much fun playing for four hours that we forgot to have dinner and got to bed pretty late. On Friday the 3rd we had a game day with the Wilsons at our house. We finished up playing...

 What happened this week? Yesterday we had a game night at Caitlin and Sal's. It was really fun! The kids were very good watching a movie and barely interrupted us at all, and we got to play Battle Sheep and Treasure Island and Tricksters. They were all really fun, especially Treasure Island, which we'd never heard of but was a really fun cooperative-competitive pirate game. Earlier that day, Mike and Rea went shopping for toys to fill a box for Operation Christmas Child. They got some very cute stuff; the toddler boy who gets it should be very happy. Before that , Rea had gone to visit Max with Grandma Sheila and Papa Mike. They had Jimmy John's and played Sushi Go and she had a great time and was really happy she went. Today at church, Rea taught her first Young Women's lesson! She said it went great! She spent a lot of time this week preparing, and we're so glad it went well for her. Friday Mike and Alison watched The Man Who Knew Too Little for their date. That...

We had lots of warm weather this week. The kids have been loving being outside for long periods. Inside, though, they have been argumentative and grumpy. It got so bad that when they finally started playing nicely together on Thursday, we canceled everything we had planned and just let them play as a reward. But we eventually decided that everyone needs more sleep in order for things to go well, so we're overhauling our bedtime routine. We're going to try to put each child to bed separately, so bedtime will take at least four times as long as it does now. If it means that everyone gets enough sleep to be reasonable during the day, it will be worth it. The kids thought this was an excellent week because we saw the Dalyais every day except Sunday. Monday they came to our house for a Carnival party; Tuesday we all went to nature group; Wednesday we have the Dalyais' nature group and Thursday is ballet taught by one of the older Dalyai girls; Friday Faith Dalyai had a birthda...

Today when we were walking to church, Timmy came up with a new retirement plan for us: Mike  would become the president of the US for two years, and then retire from it (since we told him that after someone becomes the president they keep paying them for the rest of their life, and so after being president for four years you could retire, and he decided that since we are "half way" to retirement, I only would have to be president for two years.) So, if you haven't voted in the primaries yet. Mike for president. This week we realized that no-one in the family has been sick for  3 weeks and one day. This is quite surprising, since ordinarily during winter we get sick more often than that. This week has also been unseasonably warm. It has been nice after that snowstorm. The kids have not whined at play group much at all. We even skipped going to the library (gasp) to play outside more. (The last three pictures were taken by Rea.) Rea and Sara got up at 5:00 am t...