Parentheticals

The girls worked like crazy this week to earn money; they each did over a dozen chores. They had seen the Valentine section in the grocery store and wanted money to buy things. Alison decided to capitalize on their enthusiasm and started another round of Organized Simplicity. She and the kids cleaned out the shed and went through it and organized it. The kids actually helped a lot and earned a bag of candy for their Carnival party this week. On Thursday (for Carnival) the kids had an Easter egg hunt in the snow at the park. They invited their friends the Dalyais and the Beuses. The big girls found some eggs without candy in them and decided it was a mystery. Their evidence points to the big boys sneaking it. They really enjoyed it, actually. Rea has been reading a lot of Boxcar Children mysteries lately. Mike also found out that the Perfect Moment (the game that he has a publishing deal for) is going to be published in June of this year! It has been a multi-year goal to get that to...

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...

Being sick over Christmas is no fun! We managed to do many of our traditions, though. Everyone got Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh, and Swaddling Clothes presents. Sara loved her new dolls, Timmy was excited to get a Playmobile nativity set, and Rea can't wait to start horseback riding lessons next month. Alison got a new phone, which prompted weeks of work to get her old phone replaced under warranty and send it to Katie. That should be completed tomorrow, which is exciting. Mike's favorite was his new board game about meteors. Then we tried to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas (which, if you recall, were originally after Christmas; that works well for Alison, who is never organized enough to do them before). The first few days we got to spend with the Brown and Poulson grandparents, which was awesome. We did a few activities at home, like making homemade face paints and finger paints, but we mostly watched a lot of movies. It's really hard being too contagious to leave t...

It has been nearly a month since we posted. Sorry about that. We have all been sick for most of it. Our entire family got a nasty cough, which went on and on and on. Mike even got sick, which is saying something, because he usually doesn't. During the long sickness, we had a lot of soup, and Mike used his "work from home" ability far more than he ever expected to. The kids have mostly recovered. Alison and Mike still have coughs. During the time, we made gingerbread cookies (which turned out really good). Rea wrote a short story unprompted recently: Creel and the dragon By Rea Once upon a time a girl named Creel rescued herself from the dragons. The end. It was pretty short, but it has all of the elements of a story. We were excited about it. Timmy has really loved building legos, and making board games with Mike. He and Mike are working on the Jurassic universe game that mike made a few years back. Timmy loves to throw all sorts of animals into a space sh...

It snowed multiple times this week. We didn't get a ton of snow, but it was enough. The kids skated on a frozen pond one day at nature group. They enjoyed that quite a bit. We made half and half barley and wheat bread this week. Other than with Sara, it was well received. Because Sara didn't like it we probably won't make it again. Most of the week we have been doing Christmas things. It feels like we have most everything ready, which is nice. Alison reminds me that we still have seven more things to do... Friday we went with Amy and Dave to The Last Jedi. It was pretty funny, and the characters seemed to develop into deeper characters throughout the movie. I won't spoil it, but generally we liked it. The kids were babysat by Loren and his family while we were there. It is sort of funny to Mike that Alison is in contact with them more than he is, but that is what home schooling does. On Saturday we went to a performance of the nutcracker. The kids enjoyed it, ...

Oh man, we started up a blog post last weekend, and somehow never completed it. I am posting this late, because better late than never. Timmy's arm brace is now off. His thumb is still a little bit tender, but he is taking it manfully. On Wednesday of last week we went to the library as part of Rea's date night to see Santa. The kids enjoyed it. On Friday we went to Star Ward Christmas at the Off Broadway Theatre. It was pretty funny. There was this part where a character was dressed up in a small person costume (because he was supposed to be far away from the audience, not because he was supposed to be an actual little person.), and he was trying to move a large rock, which ended up being very funny. Gideon is talking a lot this week. He mimics quite well, and he is so cute. We decided to strip the minerals off of our cloth diapers this week. It is an amazingly huge task. It took hours spread over the course of two days. Now that it is done, the diapers are softer, a...

Apparently we forgot to post about the trip to California. We went for the entire week of Thanksgiving. It was fun, however we mostly all got sick and were throwing up the last half of the week. Timmy was the only person that remained immune to the sickness. Mike even got it (Gideon smearing vomit on his face probably was the deciding factor). The kids were pretty good on the drive there, but Gideon screamed for hours on the drive back. We spent the last week mostly trying to get back into the swing of things. The kids suffered from grandparent withdraw, and the after effects of the sickness made it difficult for the adults as well. On last Sunday the Peruvian Park ward tithing settlements began. Mike was gone for hours, and he will be up until about Christmas Sunday. It is the hardest part of his calling, but it only happens once a year, so the calling is still a relatively easy one. This week Mike also finished his Ion Award submissions - this year he was able to prepare thre...