Parentheticals

Last Sunday was Aelfric's baptism. Aunt Laurie gave the talk, and Gideon like it so much that he told me, "I want her to speak at MY baptism!" (He really wanted the Kit-Kats she gave out.) The baptism went very smoothly and it was really nice to be there. Especially for Gideon, since he'll be baptized this year (in November). On Wednesday, the Activity Days kids and their families had a meeting about goals and the Children and Youth program. We used to be really good about goals right up until the new Children and Youth program, with its emphasis on goal setting, came out, and then we stopped being good about it. (Actually, the real change was Covid lockdowns, but it makes a funnier story that way.) Anyway, we're trying to start back up, so Mike is paying a nickel to each kid who talks about their goals at dinner. It seems to be working OK. Maybe we'll achieve great things this year! We are getting really close to the opening night of Utahoma! The girls had pr...

I started this week by asking Elsa (Lizzy, Boo, etc) what she wanted to write in the blog, and this is what she came up with: "For team clean I love cleaning up table and benches. My favorite animal is tiger-cats. My favorite color is pink. My favorite toothpaste is very strong toothpaste. I love Dad and Mom. I am wearing a beautiful shirt. I love Jesus." She then told me "Isn't this a beautiful heart? It reminds you you have a heart. If your heart breaks or doesn't break. Its for everyone in our family, And Rea is asleep, so make sure you don't wake her up." She then added "I love cats. Especially pink cats. I like to cuddle with them and play with them. I like to take them on a walk." When this ended, I asked Gideon if he wanted to add anything and he told me "No", but I persisted and he told me the following: "My favorite color is red, My favorite animal is cats, and my favorite Team Clean job is Stairs." Gideon then refu...

Apparently we missed some blog posts recently.  Christmas went well. All the kids enjoyed their presents. We made egg rolls and had Mike's parents over for dinner. The only complaint that anyone has was that we didn't have a white Christmas For the 12 days of Christmas this year we did the following: Day 1: the Tuesday after Christmas we went to the Gateway Lights On! - we actually went to Gallivan Plaza first accidentally. It was really pretty, but after realizing we were in the wrong place we took the train to the Gateway and saw the lights there. We had Panda Express, played in fountain (the kids thought the risk of getting wet was worth it (and no one actually got wet anyway))  One of Mike's Christmas present was a new faucet for our kitchen sink because Mike has hated the faucet we have ever since we moved in. Before going to the light show Mike installed the new faucet and ever since then has been appreciating it every time he turns on the faucet in the kitchen. Day 2...

This week we have been busily trying to get ready for christmas. We have all of the presents that we need and Alison did all of the shopping, so really we're pretty close now. On Wednesday Mike was able to use some volunteer time off to go to The cannery at welfare square and help them can applesauce. He ended up canning about 15,000 pounds of applesauce. It was good, and he appreciates that guys work pays him for it. On Wednesday we all went to the church because the activity dudes and young women (and men) were having a caroling activity. We had a fun time going around and singing and then ate cookies and drink hot taco after. Gideon and Elsa ended up going home early with Alison. Thursday after dropping the kids off at Grandma Julie's house Alison went all over the entire valley to every store that exists in order to buy things in preparation for Christmas. (Alison wants me to add that it was only actually four stores.) Despite having gone everywhere she was still unable to ...

Last Sunday after we wrote our blog post Rea received her patriarchal blessing. The patriarch was not far away from our home, and she received a nice blessing. The patriarch's wife acted as a stenographer, and they delivered a text version of it to our house a few days ago, so she now can read it when she wants to. The Dalyias came over on Monday and the kids all played. They had a lot of fun and apparently ate a lot of mints as well. Wednesday was a very busy day. In the morning Alison and the kids went to the Poulson's house and then Mike took Sara to her acting class. Next, Rea went to the temple open house, and Alison took the kids to her presidency meeting with her, and then Mike took Sara back to her activity and grabbed the kids. Here's hoping that we can avoid that busy a day for at least a few weeks. Gideon had a lot of fun at Sullivan's birthday party on Thursday. They jumped on a trampoline, ate pie, played a lot of games, and ran around, so it sounds like it...

Look, we're posting on time! Only one week's worth of stuff, so it'll go fast. Last Sunday, Rea got her patriarchal blessing! She decided she wanted it and set up interviews and things, and it was so exciting to have it happen at last. It was a lovely experience. Wednesday Rea did a Secret Santa gift exchange in Young Women's. She had planned to make a snow globe with a sea turtle in it, but Mom procrastinated shopping until it was too late to find the turtle. After a lot of thought and effort, she ended up putting a Christmas candle in the glass globe with blue glass gems and a package of peppermint bark. It was pretty well received. One of her good friends got her name, and gave her a gorgeous locking journal cover that you can put new books into when you fill one up. It was perfect for her! Thursday this week was Rea's end-of-semester blue book exams. She had to draw the Western Hemisphere + Europe and label all countries, US states. and Canadian provinces and th...

This post is going to be 3 weeks long because we have been lazy about writing apparently. Three weeks ago we were getting ready to go to California for the Poulson's family beach trip Thanksgiving extravaganza. We all got flu shots and COVID boosters as well. Everyone was very good and we got ice cream after. Elsa also got a hold of Mike's phone and took a bunch of pictures of her face, so here is the best one Two weeks ago we drove to San Diego for Thanksgiving. We took two days to drive there spending the night in Las Vegas in a hotel. During the time that we were there the weather was exceedingly clement, none of the people who made it to Thanksgiving got very sick, and the kids mostly got along as well. We were sad that both Andy's and Katie's family were not able to make it (one because of distance, and the other because of sickness), however despite them not being there we still built giant sand castles pretty much every day and still had chocolate mint pie. The k...