Parentheticals

Well, we missed a week again, but here we are now, so that isn't too bad all things considered. The biggest thing that happened this week has been Christmas. We have been preparing for and celebrating Christmas. On Christmas day the kids woke up around 7 and we opened stockings and then presents. We spent the most of the day playing with them. Elsa made some figurines out of the modelling clay that we got, which were very good. Alison tried to get pictures of everyone with their christmas gifts, but most of the kids were having too much fun to play along. The girls are finally done acting in the Frightmare Before Christmas. They had a lot of fun, and invited their friends to see it one night with the two free tickets that they each got. Mike and Rea have succeeded in their monthly temple baptisms goal. It was difficult at times, however, they always were able to make time to do it, so they will be having a goal day party for it soon. One night we went over to the Brown's house ...

Written and illustrated by Tim.  So we all got sick today and yesterday and the day before that. But I wasn't sick I was jumping, or for most of the time I wasn't sick. Gideon barfed twice, Booie barfed twice, Gideon's frogs barfed zero. It made it so we couldn't go to the great sleepover that we had planned. Gideon got baptized. My job was to look at him and see if he went fully under and if Dad messed up on the words. Most of the time we were sitting around listening to music and listening to talks, and then we got to see him get baptized. It was very great, and he got the gift of the holy ghost. We had ice cream at the end and then we played cows and Bob. When it was time to leave we hid from the adults.  We had open about five presents this week three of them were intentional: first we opened a gnome and we named him Logan, because that is the thing that you do. Then we open the greatest Christmas Pageant ever, and then we opened a muffin tin. And then we opened up ...

These past few weeks have been fairly difficult. We all ended up sick we discovered bad news about our house and Gideon stepped on a goat head. As you all know we have been out of our house for about 4 months now because we have been having a home addition put on. We recently discovered that the contractors that we hired are involved in government investigations because they seem to be ripping people off and not completing their houses. Once we discovered this we immediately stopped paying them and also told them that they need to finish our house before we pay them anymore. We got a lawyer also.  We discovered that they never got a permit for construction, so everything that they have been doing has been illegal. We are currently giving them one last chance to get a permit and finish the job without us paying them and if they fail to do that we're going to have to find a new construction crew to finish the house. This has been very stressful and annoying to us. Grandpa Mike also g...

On Monday for the first time Alison made breakfast cookies to try and bribe the kids to be good during CC. The kids liked the breakfast cookies and did behave fairly well, so hopefully that continues to work for them. Tuesday morning Rea and Sara made a valentines day breakfast for all of us. They really like celebrating valentines day, and Mike and Alison don't do anything for the holiday, so they have to do it themselves. On Tuesday we also had Gideon's carnival party. He invited over the Birds (Mason, Malachi, and family) to play with us. The kids all had a fun time, and Alison talked with Brittney (the Bird mom) and had a fun time too. We have had sickness in the house for most of the week in various forms. On Wednesday Alison got sick, and she is still sick today, so for most of the week we didn't do too much more than the absolute necessities. Mike took a partial day of work on Thursday, but she planned on dropping off the kids with sister Dalyia on Friday but ended u...

 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...

Apparently we forgot to post this last week, even though we started writing it. On Monday (last week) Alison and the kids met up with Katrina and her kids (their friends who moved to southern Utah). They had a fun time. Friday Alison and the kids went to nature group and it was raining and snowing and quite cold and they were all very sad so they came home early. On Friday night the Plastow kids came over and had a sleepover with our kids. They are all good friends, so they enjoyed sitting up all hours of the night and talking about things. Baby Elizabeth slept down with them and she only woke up once during the night, so she seems to be getting much better at sleeping through the night even under unusual circumstances. Saturday Mike and Sarah went out to gather raspberry canes to transplant into our yard. They were located in a park in Sandy on the top of a wooded hill. We ended up digging up a total of seven plants and we planted them in our backyard beside the strawberries. Hopefull...

Mike is doing midterms for his master's program, as well as doing week one of his BYU-I class he teaches. He's doing a good job keeping up with all of it. At BYU-I, he's teaching a new kind of class, and they're paying him an extra $400 to be a "class representative" and $300 for teaching something new. He normally makes $900 per class per semester, so he's getting almost twice as much as usual for one class (which is all he wants to teach while also going to school and keeping his day job).  Alison is still teaching her program to two groups (one is 9 weeks into the program and one is 3 weeks into the program). It's going well; she's getting things automated and feeling like she's doing a good job on the coaching calls. She's cut back everything else she does in her business to a minimum until after the move. It's nice to have that freedom. We finally got a plumber to check the main sewer pipe at our new house, and it has roots growing...

Monday Alison felt sick - she had a temperature and wanted to lay around all day. Mike offered to stay home and take care of her, but she said that she would be fine. Rea did a great job keeping the other big kids happy and fed, and Gideon loved being able to snuggle with Mommy all day long. Monday about 11:00 we got an offer to host a foreign exchange student from China. One of Mike's co-workers knows a guy at a college whose job it is to set up places for them to stay. We all discussed the offer, and decided to give it a go. The kids are very excited. 柳青(Liu Qing) is a 40 year old grad student who wants to learn English as part of her medical education. She will live in the spare room for at least a month (if both parties are still having fun after that, then it can continue on a month to month basis up to until she gets her degree). She is arriving on Monday. It has been a very busy week, getting ready for her. Tuesday Alison was feeling better, but still lethargic. As ...

Our week in California was wonderful, just like it is every year. Timmy liked playing with Grandpa Craig, Sara and Rea both liked everything about California, and Alison like sitting on the beach and talking to her parents and siblings. Mike liked being with Alison and the kids among other things. Rea thinks that we should mention that we built sand and water structures on the beach. Mike found out that the natal plums that grow all over the place out there are edible (which is cool). Perhaps next year we will make a salad out of them, and bring some seeds home to try and plant inside our house. Rea and Sara both loved the beach and stayed out all day with whatever grown-ups were there. They played in the sand and the waves and Rea even learned to boogie board. Timmy liked the beach somewhat but was always happy to go back to the house and didn't ever get wet. Alison sat and held a baby inside or outside, and Mike worked on his NaGaDeMon game and kept Alison and the kids compan...