Parentheticals

We missed writing last week. Certainly stuff happened, but I can't remember all of it. I can recall making a cheddar, and practicing my presentation a lot. This week I practiced my presentation more, started making a game called "Doge City", and also started printing Dominion Adventures tokens on my printer. We spent a lot of time outside (it was certainly unseasonably warm out in Utah, perhaps global warming finally caught up with us.) We spent a few hours on Saturday fixing up all the bikes and preparing for Alison to take three kids on extended bike rides. Alison has been reading a blogger called " Mr. Money Mustache " about having a better life by buying less, and one of his big points is how much better bikes are than cars. She is eager to try it out. (Warning: the MMM blog does include swearing.) Our first chicken started laying again, so we have about 8 eggs so far. Hopefully the others begin their laying regimen soon, otherwise we will have to sell...

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...

This week two of my games were announced to be ION Award finalists. Last year I had two finalists as well, however neither of them went on to win the competition. Perhaps this year I will have better luck. In order to prepare for the presentation of my games, I am hosting the first ever  ION Award finalist showcase . I know one of the other finalists personally (he comes to our design meetup), and I have met an other a few times, so I got them to agree to presenting their games to the public as a practice. Anyone is invited, so if you are interested we would love to hear your feedback about our presentations. I have also been really enjoying preparing for SaltCon proper. I always love participating in the math trade, and enjoy planning how I am going to be spending my time during the convention. This year the Sandy Board Game Design meetup group is going to be meeting at SaltCon to do some play-testing, and I am also presenting a game at prototype alley. Timmy started "readi...

We asked the kids what we should write about and they said: "More Snow!" We have had more lovely, beautiful snow this week. It is very fun to play in. On Friday night we went to a local middle school's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. For a middle school, it was a fabulous performance. The actor who played Pharaoh really stole the show with his Elvis impersonation, very good for an eight grader. The kids absolutely loved it and we've been singing the songs ever since. Alison told the kids the story, read them the scriptures, and sang most of the songs before we went, so they were prepared. Rea really understood and enjoyed it. Sara seemed to have fun. Timmy bounced and clapped and sang along to all the songs. He also followed the plot somewhat; when the sons of Jacob came to Egypt, he looked up at us meaningfully and said "Nom nom?" meaning, "Now they'll get some food?" We've been talking a lot about how much...

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...

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...

After having read a post from last year we decided to interview the kids about this week. M: Tell me about the 12th day of Christmas. S: We played. R: And had a crown cake and opened presents. S: that's all we did, and didn't eat breakfast or lunch or dinner, but be ate dinner but didn't eat breakfast or lunch or dinner but that's what we ate. <singing> "do do do do" and I'm a fairy that waved her dangily wand. R: The thing that any fairy can do is change her self into a princess S: Well, I'm a princess fairy - see her wand? M: How about the Tabletop Simulator R: All I know is it is tabletop simulator and that daddy can move things around in it. S: I know chess! M What about that Princess/Jedi Party? S: I was a princess and I was a princess and there were so many princesses - even a ton of the little kids that - Rea, tell the rest. R: It was fun and we played and had a lot of treats. I wished I could stay there. S: Yes. M: Thi...