Parentheticals

We missed writing blog post for 2 weeks, so we are going to attempt to remember what happened during those weeks.  Two weeks ago it snowed and the kids had a lot of fun time making snowmen and snow forts and playing in the snow and throwing snowballs. The snow only lasted a few days, however, we still were able to enjoy it quite a bit. After the snow had melted, and we decided to go on a walk one day because the kids were being grumpy. We took them to the local church because there isn't any local playground and they climbed on a big metal railing that is on the side of the sidewalk and played on that like it was monkey bars. After that got boring we climbed up the trees and played in the leaves and we threw windfall apples at the dog. Rocket is not traditionally the type of dog that likes to chase balls, however, he was having a lot of fun chasing the apples so maybe the problem is that the normal balls that we throw are too big? We have thrown him some windfall apples at other ti...

The funniest thing this week was probably when Alison decided that too many kids had colds and they couldn't go to CC. Timmy spends every Sunday evening/Monday morning whining about how much he doesn't want to go to CC. This week, when he heard Alison talk about it, he started in with "But I don't want to go to CC."  Alison replied, "Guess what, you don't have to!" There was this moment of blankness before he started to whine, "But I want to go! Why can't I go?" Alison has now declared that she is not listening to his whining any more, since obviously he is just whining to whine and not for any real reason. Alison and the girls went at lunchtime to show Grandma Sheila the kids' artwork from this quarter and then to do Essentials. The kids' artwork looked very impressive:   Wednesday we had a huge snow storm. It was beautiful! We went out and played in the snow (it was deeper than the dog's legs, and he loved wallowing in it)...

 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...

Well, we're back. We were tired on Monday, but we made it through Classical Conversations. Timmy and Gideon were encouraged to behave by promising that they could have Logan and Dustin come over. They were pretty good, but unfortunately the Plastows were sick this week, so it didn't happen until Thursday. They played their new game Amazing Frog and seemed pretty happy about it. We got some snow this week, which made the dog and the kids very happy. At nature group on Friday, they went sledding and had a great time. They ended up making chains of sleds and sending up to six kids down the hill at once. The "hill" they chose ends in a drop-off into a pool of water, and they seemed to think that the steering challenge added spice to sledding. No one actually got wet, so that was good. Speaking of the water, it's a collection point for storm drain water, and someone must have poured dish soap into it somewhere, because it produced an incredible amount of bubbles the en...

Pretty much all we can remember about this week is getting used to having a dog. He really is an amazingly good dog. He loves his kids and is very well-behaved in general. Alison has also started on obedience training and he is good at it; he learns fast. Timmy is the most responsible for him, so Timmy and Alison take him out morning and night to walk around the block or run around the dog run. Brewster Rockit absolutely loves playing "Tag;" he play-bows, and the humans crouch down and then jump or lunge. Then Brewster dashes around at top speed before play bowing again to start over. Sometimes he goes around trees and waits behind them to see which way you're coming before running out the other way. It's a lot of fun, although Timmy is getting less enamored of the process as it gets colder. Alison will have to help him get properly dressed for the temperature before going out, even if it's annoying to spend as much time dressing and undressing as actually being o...

This week we've been thinking about and working on Christmas presents. There were two big ones that we knew we wanted to get off KSL, so we were working on finding the right ones: a basketball hoop and a dog. We have been getting flu shots and finishing up everyone's covid vaccinations (the kids can now get vaccinated, and the parents can get a third shot, so we are doing all of those now. On Monday Boo got her flu shot. She was sad when she got it, but she also got a sucker, so that was good enough that she stopped crying right away. Later in the day Mike got his flu shot and his final covid shot too. After that he went to check out one of the basketball hoops that was for sale, and decided to buy it. It took about three hours to get the thing in the car (we had to take it apart and dump out the gravel from the base, and some of the parts were rusted. They broke one of the bolts, but otherwise it came apart without any trouble. On Tuesday, we played with the Dalyais for the fi...

Oops, we forgot to write last week, so here's two weeks' worth of notes: Last week we played the board game Near and Far with the kids for the first time. It's a board game with a bit of an RPG flavor, so we picked it when Timmy wanted an RPG and the girls wanted a board game. It was fairly fun, although Timmy wanted a real  RPG and wasn't totally satisfied. Timmy got masking tape tangled in his hair and decided to cut it out instead of asking for help. He ended up getting a haircut, so it's now chin length. Mike did a good job; it looks nice and he still feels like it's long. Every kid has to cut their own hair at least once; at least Timmy's was more fixable than Sara's. There was a snowstorm last week; Alison offered the kids the day off school if they spent it outside in the snow. They had a good time. Gideon helped shovel Grandma and Grandpa's driveway after the storm (Mike invited the kids to go along, and he was the only one who accepted). The...

We spent this week (and will spend the next) in self-quarantine before going to California for Thanksgiving. It's been challenging at times! But we also had some fun. Monday we woke up to snow! One day a week our school time is devoted to handicrafts and tales - normally we embroider or draw while I read aloud from King Arthur, Tales from the Odyssey, and whatever else we're reading. With the beautiful snow, I decided that snowcrafting was certainly a handicraft, so we headed outside. The boys and I built a snow fort, and the girls made a snow garden. It was a lot of fun! When we were tired, we came in and drank hot chocolate while I read aloud. It was awesome.  In the afternoon, we tried to do our Crowned with Virtue meetings over zoom. It didn't work so well. Only one of the two other girls got on, and Rea and Sara started by being super silly and ended by fighting. Oh, well. Tuesday we finished up our unit on medieval Japan. We must have done something else, but no one r...

This week baby Elizabeth slept better than she ever has before. She only woke up Michael two times during his core sleeps, and she was mostly happy for Alison on most of the nights as well. She is also sometimes eating meals with us like a toddler usually does, which is to say that she will pick one thing that she wants and eat a lot of it. This is significantly better eating than she usually does. Early this week we turned half of the Halloween candy that we collected from the children into Halloween candy cookies. We have approximately three dozen Halloween candy cookies frozen as balls and our freezer now. The weather has been good (up until today), so we have been playing outside a lot Mike's schooling is continuing to go well. He currently has A's in both of his classes. Mike's teaching is also going well, and he received some of the best ratings possible this last semester. He is also getting good ratings at work, and getting used to the newly reorganized team that he...

On Monday we had a guy from a window place come over to give us an estimate for replacing all the old windows. It was over 10k and Mike had already scheduled another meeting with another company, so we didn't accept it at that time. By Tuesday we had received offers from 7 people to buy our house. They went from 1k under the asking price to 15k above it with most in the 5-10k above range.  The one that offered 15k over also sent a letter and seemed pretty excited to buy the place, so we went with him. However, he had an inspection on Wednesday, and the inspector told him that some weeds were growing in the crawlspace, and it freaked him out so much that he backed out of the deal.  Mike went down there to fix the problem that night, and with the help of the teenage Dalyai boy, had all the tree roots removed in two hours. There has never been normal weeds growing in our crawlspace, however those trees of heaven aggressively sucker, and they constantly attempt to colonize the cra...

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...

Most of this blog post was dictated by the kids. See if you can guess which parts: On Monday and Tuesday there was a lot of snow here in Utah. It snowed all night, and when we woke up we had 10+ inches. It continued to snow until we had about 16 inches. We had a lot of fun in the snow, and it is still around a bit. On Monday we played outside in the snow in the yard. Shoveling the driveway took hours! We made Samoan cocoa afterward. Tuesday we went to nature group in the snow, which was fun. We found big icicles (as tall as Gideon!) and played in the snow. Gideon and Elizabeth were whiny, but the other kids had fun. Wednesday we went sledding at the Dalyai's nature group and it was very fun. There was a sled run named Potato Burglars' Run, which was fast and very fun and a little scary. Sara went down it twice even though she didn't like it. On Friday at nature group, Timmy and Sara sledded in Mommy's big sled and it was very fast. Mom bought this new s...

On Monday we had a family night activity, which was making fudge. We hadn't made the expected fudge during christmas, so we did it then instead. Wednesday morning we had an amazing snowstorm. It was about 9 inches of snow, and Mike took three times as long as is usual to get to work. He came back home a bit early, because it started snowing again. Also on Wednesday Rea made a nocturnal animal museum in the playroom. It had books to read, and Sara ran a snack stand. There was a nocturnal animal petting zoo, and the stuffed animals were on a green mat that was partly folded up. They were arranged in the same order that they came out at night - sundown to midnight to morning. There was also a "drawing nocturnal animal" station with a chair at it. Wednesday night Timmy threw up in the middle of the night. He was surprisingly self sufficient: he changed into new clothing, and found a new place to sleep. Thursday morning he told Alison, who was surprised. We assumed he ha...

We asked the kids to dictate some of the blog post: Timmy loved playing with dad this week. He also liked playing with a teapot and plates. Timmy and Sara like the snow that we got. Timmy liked getting doughnuts from Grandma Sheila Sara loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa. (Except Grandpa wasn't there.) Sara liked going sledding and playing with Grandma and Petra. Gideon, don't touch our buttons! Gideon loves everything, especially peas. And music. Rea's favorite thing this week was reading "Pollyanna" for the first time. Also, on Sunday she made tiny snowmen and pretended to be a Tyrannosaurus and ate them! They didn't have noses or eyes or mouths. Rea was also super excited for her Baptism Preview last Sunday. Rea will be baptized on November 3rd at 10am, for those who like to plan ahead :-). Mike has completed his second week of teaching CS 101 at BYU-Idaho. He has been having a fun time so far. He has also bought tickets to Salt Con (a...

This week Mike mostly spent working on the rulebook for Terran League of Defense Robots. It is getting much better. The entire internet decided to help him out, so he  had lots of good ideas to incorporate. Wednesday it snowed. That was crazy. On Saturday (among other things) Mike created an extractor for the laser cutter (to blow the cardboard fumes outside instead of leaving them in our house) It worked really well until he forgot to turn on the fan one time. Next time he vows to not forget. It was also announced this weekend that Mike's "The Perfect Moment" card game is a finalist in the Button Shy Games 18 card game contest. If he keeps getting finalists at this rate, he is eventually bound to win a contest some time... Right? This week Sara has been really helpful. It is nice to have such a helpful girl around. This week Timmy has loved robots a lot. 1) He named his toy robot "Anemia". 2) He has been wearing a t-shirt that he got from his grandma....

This week for FHE we talked about what we learned at General Conference. Wednesday we went to Wheeler Farm for Timmy's date night. The kids loved seeing the animals, and playing on the play structures. Thursday Mike went to the BGDG meeting, and the kids and Alison watched a movie. On Friday we went to the new sushi place for a date. It has really good prices, and the sushi was also pretty good, so we are excited that they opened the place up. We also got a large quantity of cooking oil, which we ordered from a website which had qite reasonable prices. At the rate that we use oil for Mike's bread making, it was a good thing to get. Saturday Mike spent some time getting Storybook weaver up and running on Alison's computer. Alison remembers playing it all of the time as a kid, and it seems that the kids quite like it already. Mike made a story for Timmy, and this is a page of it: Saturday night we had the church easter egg hunt, and made toothpick-marshmallow ge...

On Martin Luther King Jr Day we were invited over to Scott and Sheila's house to visit with them. Max and Olivia really wanted to play Axis and Allies, and so Mike set it up to play with them. Scott called the game after a few hours, and since Timmy had abandoned Moscow and Olivia had taken it over, the Axis won. Max was very unhappy about that. Mike took the opportunity to discuss an idea that he has had with Sheila. He has decided to make a children's book entitled "Brave Lala", and he asked her if she wanted to do some illustrations for it. She agreed to give it a try. We are looking forward to seeing what her drawings look like. In addition, Alison and Mike have been reading through "In Which a Prince Burns Things" - A very rough draft novel that Mike wrote in 2011. We are considering trying to clean it up to get it published. It has quite a few funny parts, but also needs a lot of work. It will be a fun change of pace from editing rules docs all the...

When we asked the kids what we should write about today, Rea immediately wanted to let you know that we LOVE snow. It has snowed so much this year, and it's snowing again as we compose this blog post. We have really enjoyed it. (Except when Mike's car got stuck. But other than that, it's been awesome.) It seems like we got about 5 inches this time through, and it was very wet snow. Perhaps we will make another snowman. Timmy is growing up into such a big boy. He's in the midst of a language explosion; he adds words almost every day and can really communicate lots of ideas. Sometimes he still has that air of, "I'll just keep repeating this to those stupid big people until they figure it out," but we usually do figure it out in the end. He is also doing really well with potty training. He went at least one solid day with no accidents last week. And he's started the funny phase where he says "no" to everything, even things he really wants. T...

Almost everyone achieved a goal in the last week or so: Rea read an entire chapter book by herself ( Polar Bears Past Bedtime , a Magic Treehouse book), Sara finished her first run-through of her phonics program, Reading Bear , and Mike read his scriptures for more than 60 days straight. (Alison needs to achieve a goal!) So we had a very big goal day party. The girls got balloons and created a unicorn piñata out of paper mache (mostly Rea with Alison's help). Then we stuffed it with some clearanced Easter candy and the girls joyfully smashed it open for our party treat. We also had hamburgers for dinner for our celebration. Alison and the kids were going to go to the zoo for the rest of the goal day party (goal day parties now include a special dinner, a treat, and a ride on the carousel at the zoo), but then it started to snow. It snowed for at least 24 hours and we got over 7 inches. Alison and Rea had a lot of fun playing in it; they like to play in the snow (yo ho!), mor...