Parentheticals

We had our first sub-goal achieved this week: Rea finished reading 1st Nephi. Her goal for the year is to finish the small plates section of the Book of Mormon, but waiting until the end of a year for a goal day party is too long for the kids, so they get parties for important milestones. We went to a drive through for a chocolate Oreo milkshake and made homemade macaroni and cheese with ham to celebrate. (The mac and cheese had a secret ingredient that no one even guessed: a baked sweet potato pureed in the sauce. Alison had her doubts about the recipe, but no one noticed a thing, so maybe this will always be done in the future; more vegetables are always good.) Gideon loves grabbing on to people's fingers and getting picked up in that manner. We compliment him profusely when he does (calling him a strong baby). Whenever he is done with a diaper change Alison does that, and Mike just does it whenever Gideon seems to be in a good mood. He really is a very easy baby. We are so h...

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...

In January we switched over to late church. Late church is not my favorite thing, it feels like the whole day is used up getting ready for church. Alison doesn't love it either, but at least we don't have to have two lunches. The kids seem to be adjusting OK. This week Gideon started sleeping all night long. It is a much appreciated development. He still has rough nights, and he still doesn't always sleep all night, but he does it a decent amount of the time. He is almost two and a half months old. This might be the youngest that any of our kids have slept through the night, but we aren't sure. Alison and the kids have been really regular about doing Montessori time; they've done several hours every morning this week. They are really enjoying it and learning a lot. Sara can count much better than Alison expected and is moving quickly through the Montessori math materials; it's time to start the Golden Beads. We are also doing a read aloud challenge, where bo...

This year we acted out the nativity with our children. Timmy chose to be a donkey while Alison was Mary and baby Gideon was baby Jesus. Rea and Sara were all other characters. Mike was the Narrator. During the performance, there were many hasty costume changes. We opened our Christmas eve pajamas, and the kids loved dressing up in them. We ended up taking a picture for our Christmas post in them. Christmas eve we left out fudge for Santa, and he swapped it for cookies, which he must have picked up somewhere in the neighborhood or something. We definitely did not make them. On Christmas morning, the kids woke up at 5:00, and we went out to open our presents. Santa had also brought us fruit, which we all cut up and made a salad out of. It was amazing. We also had Apple dumplings, but the salad was really the star of the show. Gideon got two presents,  and he didn't really like either of them since he doesn't grab things yet. Timmy really loves his robotic dog toy. He al...

Apparently we forgot to write last week. This post will cover both weeks. Last week everyone got better from their sicknesses (except Gideon, who was still a little bit sick, but also much better). By now he is pretty much the rest of the way better. Last week and this week we wrapped Christmas presents. We have a few more to wrap, but we are mostly done. Mike has been working on the rule books of his games in anticipation of sending them in to the Ion Award again. Hopefully he gets them done in time. If anyone wants to help, feel free to volunteer. The 3d printer has been broken for a long time, but last Saturday I fixed it, so it is working again. Alison has begun doing Montessori again (for the past two weeks). They have been doing it pretty much every day, and are enjoying it a lot. The kids watched a few episodes of My Little Ponies as Sara's date, and then they were all terrified (except Timmy). Sara won't go to the bathroom by herself since then, which is rea...

This week was quite an eventful one. We had various family members throwing up most of the week (cousin Ellie was throwing up at Thanksgiving, so we probably got it there). Gideon did not get the throwing-up sickness, but at his checkup on Monday the midwife said she was worried that his cold might get into his lungs and told us all the signs to watch for in case it did. As a result, one of the parents has been awake for most of each night watching to make sure he can breathe. When Mike tried to go in to work on Monday his car wouldn't start (it was pretty cold, and his battery was 6 years old, so he thought it was that). Alison and all of the kids took the van and dropped him off with a plan of buying a new battery that evening. When they went to pick him up, the first snowstorm of the winter was starting, so it was a long commute, but we got the new battery and made it home. Mike installed the battery Tuesday morning, and the car still wouldn't start. He decided to try ...

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...