Parentheticals

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'...

I have been printing up the 240 twist counter order that I received. I ran out of filament on Friday, and had to order more. I am not done with all of the counters yet, but I have completed 175 of them. Thursday grandma Sheila offered to watch the kids, so we went out to dinner and had a walk in a park. It was nice. We went to see Fiddler on the Roof on Friday. It was excellent. We took the Poulsons and the Browns out to see it with us, and we had a good time. I would highly recommend it to anyone that has not seen it. I have been reading about an ancient German permaculture technique called hugelkultur as part of doing research for my space game, so on Saturday we made a hugelkultur in our front yard. We have planted it with beans and are hoping that it will grow us lots of good food in future years. Additionally, on Saturday we made another Havarti. I skimmed the milk this time, so hopefully it comes out less sharp than it did last time. I had it hotter than it needed to be ...

Rea's rash is getting better, though it is still a little bit itchy for her. We expect it to be better entirely before next Sunday. I worked more on my space game this week. On Thursday we had a Board game design group meeting wherein I got a lot of good feedback. Alison and I brainstormed afterward and rewrote a lot of the game to make it simpler. Also on Thursday I got a rough draft of the Moar Moai board from Dave. It is looking pretty good. I look forward to playing it again once he finishes it. On Friday we finished off the sharp Havarti that we made a while back. We changed our minds and decided that we liked it because it melted so well. We will have to make another Havarti soon so that we can have more creamy Havarti goodness. On Friday and Saturday we were able to go the seminar that Alison wrote about last week. The seminar was not as good as Alison was hoping, but we still had fun spending time together, and talked about good things. We are grateful to the Poulso...

This past week we went to Wyoming to visit grandpa Mike and grandma Sheila.  We spent the early part of the week getting ready to go, and on Friday we left. We carpooled with those of or siblings that were also going, so that we only had to drive two cars total. The kids loved riding together, and on the way there they were very good.  The trip was successful (though sleep was hard to come by (due both to late night talking as well as kids sleeping poorly)). We saw some sites while we were out there (the coolest to me was an arch that spanned a river), and I also worked a lot on my space game.  My cards are coming along quite nicely. I should be ready for the design group meeting. Timmy is now folding his arms during most of most prayers, and saying amen at the end. He loves shaking his head 'no' at everything, and still climbs like a champ.  Sara was sick during much of the trip, but was still happy (for the most part). She loved playi...

This was Rea's first week of homeschool kindergarten: She missed the kindergarten cut-off by a month, so all her friends from Church and the neighborhood started kindergarten this week and she didn't. So Alison told her that they would do a homeschool kindergarten. Alison says there's definitely been a learning curve, but things are going pretty well. Rea says her favorite thing to do is math, which Alison would have guessed was her least favorite from her responses, so that's interesting. She also practices handwriting, reading (Rea is reading aloud "Little House in the Big Woods"), and memory work, and Alison reads some classics (fairy tales, Aesop's fables, etc) to her. It all takes 30-45 minutes a day and has been going well. Alison is looking for some sort of group to join once a week to get out of the house more, but she hasn't found one she loves. She might have to create one. On Wednesday we had Science time with Daddy for the first time. We ...

Monday and Tuesday we played some games of Jurassic space at work. We made changes to the game, and it seems to be getting better (perhaps more polished, but it is a little hard to say.) Rea asked me to print her a swan, so I printed two swan toys this week. One for Rea and one for Sara. They came out really good, and seem like they won't break. Here's to hoping. Tuesday it was Sara's turn for a Daddy-Daughter Date. She decided to go to Macy's and get an ice cream cup to bring home and share. But then she wouldn't let anyone eat it with a spoon; she insisted that they only lick. On Wednesday we had another Sandy board game design night. 6 people came (including two brother in laws). We played Jurassic Space and I got some good feedback. On Thursday we got a quarter-cow from a local farm. It was chopped up into steaks and ground beef and such. All we have done with it as of yet is to make steak fajitas on Saturday. They turned out pretty good. We need to make...

This week we spent some time working on the front yard. We have dug paths in a wagon wheel configuration around the yard, covered them with sand and pavers (that were being thrown away by a ward member), and also built a sandbox in the middle. Alison is ordering a patio umbrella to cover the sandbox (to keep the neighbor cat out of it), and we plan on planting various gardens in between the spokes of the wheel. Alison and the kids went on two hikes this week.  On Tuesday they joined a Meetup group hiking in Little Cottonwood Canyon.  The other big kids ended up not meeting us, so there were two 2 year olds and Rea and Sara and Timmy.  The girls still had fun, and we climbed on boulders and threw rocks in the creek and had a great time.  On Friday, we hiked Cecret Lake with Grandpa Craig and Grandma Julie.  Even Sara hiked the full 3.2 miles with steep switchbacks!  We ate currants, saw a moose up close, and watched waterdogs in the lake.  It was an ...