Paper arrow-planes and Fanuel-on-the-Wall

On Saturday afternoon, Zoë and I put stars on about thirty boxes I'd reserved over the course of several months. I drew the stars on (scrap—it had been printed on) paper and glued them to the boxes; Zoë painted them yellow. 

I took them to church on Sunday for singing time, where we're busy doing review for the sharing time presentation. The children sang their little hearts out in some "Primary's Got Talent" acts I challenged them with and a panel of judges rated their efforts by holding up a number of stars. I selected that number of children to go grab a box from around the room to build a wall of stars in front of me (we talked about building a strong foundation last week, so the kids were on top of their construction strategies). By the end of singing time we had a big wall of stars and I brought out the surprise—Samuel the Lamanite—to stand on the city wall while they children all threw paper airplanes at him to try to hit him. 

See, because "Samuel the Lamanite, high on the city wall, came to warn the people and repentance was his call." The people did not like what Samuel had to say, though, so they tried to kill him, but "arrows could not hit him, for a man of God was he."

The trick here is that I attached Samuel to a box fan...so those paper airplanes simply could not hit him.

Alexander and I tested several things last week—ping pong balls, ball pit balls, wads of paper, etc.—but it was the paper airplanes that worked the best...meaning that the fan could redirect them away from Samuel well enough. 

So during the last few minutes of singing time I let the kids throw paper airplanes at Samuel (high on the city wall) while we sang the verse about him from "Book of Mormon Stories." 

The kids had a blast. And we practiced four or five songs.

And then I recycled all my prep work for family night! How environmentally conscious of me!

We could construct a full wall because Phoebe had made a house out of all the boxes and was feeling territorial.

Funny Phoebe (and other stories)

Admittedly, Phoebe is not always funny. 

Sometimes—not every day, but sometimes—she dumps out a full bottle of water onto a laptop. 

I've matured a lot as a parent (and as a person) since I started raising kids. And I just want to let the record show that I didn't even yell about the laptop (not really). I sat Phoebe in timeout and gave her a little lecture. And Zoë got a little lecture as well (since she's the one who gave Phoebe the water bottle in the first place). But I didn't even yell. 

I yelled at Benjamin through the window this evening—in full view of who knows how many neighbours—to "STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER WITH THAT STICK RIGHT NOW OR YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET IT!" to which he responded, "I'm not hitting him hard..." to which I responded, "YOU'RE HITTING HIM ENOUGH AND I'M TELLING YOU TO STOP!"

And then when he had stopped hitting Alexander with the stick (or threatening to hit him or whatever was going on there) he refused to stop tormenting him, so I yelled, "HEY, BENJAMIN! I NEED YOU TO CLEAR SPIDERWEBS OFF THE HOUSE, LIKE NOW!"

Because clearing spiderwebs off the house is the same thing as regret, right?

Thoughts (and prayers)

I will share a whole lighthearted bunch of funny Phoebe saying soon...

But first I just have to say...more...about gun violence (which is out of control in this country, specifically, though not exclusively)...and about school shootings in particular. 

I hate that "school shootings" is even a term. But whether I like it or not, it is a cultural practice that if we have not embraced as a nation, we have accepted (see: JD Vance's remarks about school shootings being a "fact of life"). I think it's high time we—as a nation—push back against this cultural practice. 

We need to explore its roots and weed it out because trimming it down (by installing locks and alarms and posting armed sentinels at the constantly-locked doors) will do nothing (or at least very little) to end the violence. The root of the cause is elsewhere and that's what we need to get at.

Wednesday things

This morning Phoebe spilled a cup of water on a laptop and completely fried it. 

Zoë was doing math on the couch, lying on her stomach, with the laptop resting in front of her. And Phoebe walked up with a cup—and open water bottle, actually—and just...there goes that laptop.

She has been a challenging child lately (I mean—are open containers of water even allowed in the living room? They are not so...).

Fortunately she's very cute.

*****

We had our first day of co-op today. I'm teaching ukulele to...some group of kids. Are they grades 4 and 5? Who is to say? Zoë is in my class, which she's excited about. 

I was nervous about saying yes to co-op because I'm afraid I'm a little bit busy, but the moms really wanted me to come back to teach ukulele. So I said that I could as long as I didn't have to be a co-teacher for any other classes. So I'm teaching 8 hours, but my kids will end up with 32 hours of instruction (24 of which I'll be able to be somewhat alone to get some work done—I could be all the way alone if Phoebe would go to the preschool class, but...she won't go alone, so...Rachel went with her for the first hour today (while I was teaching), but Phoebe wouldn't go back alone and Rachel wanted to get some math work done, so Phoebe just hung out with me). 

I taught the kids outside because apparently there were some complaints about me wearing a mask while I was teaching last year. But, honestly, my kids have been sick since the middle of June so everyone should be grateful we're masking up and not sharing these germs we have (because they are brutal).

I checked for various hazards before spreading out blankets for the kids to sit on—anthills and goose poop, mostly—and the area I chose seemed to be mostly clear of those things. A couple of kids noticed some stray ants wandering across the picnic blanket, but nothing too concerning.

After class, a boy in the class wanted to show me some things that his brother had taught him already (his brother took ukulele with me last year) so I stopped to listen to him, and he's really quite good already (so I know I can bring in some more challenging stuff for some of the kids to work on while other kids are mastering the basics). And then I started stinging all over because...

I'd stopped to listen to him right on an anthill!

Allatoona Falls

I do need to write the introduction to a paper this evening, but Blogger uploaded my pictures in the exact order I wanted them (instead of the exact opposite order, which is what usually happens) and so to reward the system for doing a good job, I will write a little bit about today.

Evidently we didn't communicate things very well and so weekend plans got a bit complicated. I think Grandpa texted us rather early in the week about weekend plans. Tuesday, if I believe, which is one of our busier days around here. I was already nagging around about it on Wednesday morning. And at some point he wrote to his dad and made a plan.

The plan was that...because Andrew had taken so long to write back to his dad...and then his dad had taken so long to write back to Andrew...that Rachel was busy babysitting on Friday night and then on Saturday night the girls planned a wild night of crocheting with their friends, so if the kids were going to squeeze in a sleepover at Grandpa's house it was going to have to be Sunday to Monday (because it's a long weekend). 

So they planned to go up on Sunday for dinner with some of Darla's kids and grandkids. And then they'd watch some movies (a kid movie before putting Zoë and Alexander to bed and then a scary movie with the big kids because Grandpa likes scary movies (he calls them "suspenseful")) and then sleep over. 

In the morning, we'd do a hike...and then return for lunch at Grandpa and Darla's and then go swimming. 

Boom—weekend planned.

Benjamin informed me at church that he'd forgotten his pyjamas. This was slightly problematic because in order to get to Grandpa and Darla's house in time for dinner, the kids had planned to leave directly from the church building. But, I mean, pyjamas aren't the end of the world, so I was like, "Well, deal with it."

It's not like we hadn't told the kids precisely what to pack—a change of clothes (with underwear! because Alexander forgot underwear the last time he slept over at Grandpa's house...but had arrived in his swimsuit...so he just wore his swimsuit all weekend), pyjamas, toothbrush, swimsuit. I mean, they were all bustling around packing things Sunday morning.

"Who is going to pack the toothpaste?" I heard Benjamin.

"I will!" Zoë volunteered.

"I'll pack the melatonin!" Alexander offered.

He got out a ziplock bag and counted out three doses of melatonin. One for Zoë (the most important dose) and then one for him and Benjamin...just in case.

They seemed to be doing well.

But it turns out they all forgot their pyjamas! 

And then Rachel and Miriam somehow didn't get the memo about bringing swimsuits!

And then, Andrew and I left the house en route to the trailhead, thinking that everyone else would be meeting us there. But they were blithely sitting around playing "Happy Salmon" (a card game), thinking that we were going to drive all the way to them before we all drove to the trail head together. But the park is between our house and Grandpa & Darla's house, so we had no intention of doing that.

Luckily I texted Rachel to tell her we were running a bit late but would be at the park in 5 minutes or so and she was like, "Wait...at the park??"

So they all scrambled to rush to the park (where the trailhead was) and we took our sweet time to get there (stopping at a gas station to fill the van and take Phoebe potty). We arrived within minutes of each other. 

I got out of the van—in my swimsuit—and the kids were all like, "Why are you in your swimsuit?!"

"There's a waterfall at the end of the hike," I said. "Remember...we talked about this..."

"We did not!" Rachel said. 

"Benjamin—we totally talked about this!" I said. "Because remember you wanted to do that other hike."

"You can't swim at that hike."

"I know! But that other hike was farther away for Grandpa and Darla, so we picked this one and you can swim at this hike. I showed you pictures. I told you to pack your swimsuits for the hike..."

"Oh, yeah..."

So, it was a morning filled with miscommunication, but in the end we made it and it was a beautiful day for hiking, given the season (which is still hot). 

Our first point of interest was this sand mine:

Two times TODAY where reading has undone me

Number one

We are reading Anne of Green Gables for school right now. I didn't precisely go into the school year with a plan. We read a non-fiction book about the Great Famine in Ireland, and then read Nory Ryan's Song, a historical fiction account, mostly because that's a topic Zoë's been curious about. 

And then we read Kwame Alexander's Door of No Return because it's nominated for the Georgia Children's Book Award this year and...that's kind of my job. It is set somewhat contemporaneously to Nory Ryan's Song (within 20 years). 

And then I had picked out Anne of Green Gables for a nighttime read with my big kids, but they selected a different book (Good Different, another book on the GCBA list). But I just feel like there's no bad time to read Anne of Green Gables, really. Plus it's set within 20 years of Door of No Return, so it's somewhat contemporaneous...right? 

At any rate the kids have been working on their spooky stories and using rich description to invite their readers into their story. What better mentor text than Anne of Green Gables for that?

Zoë started her story with a rather bland sentence: It. Was. October.

She started reading Anne of Green Gables and her revision and suddenly "the October sun" is "shimmering" through the leaves, "casting suspicious shadows" on the path.

Delightful. Thanks, L. M. Montgomery!

Math and Brownies

Alexander was so excited to start his Beast Academy (math) training online this year. I ordered the workbooks for him last year because I wanted him to work on his handwriting skills. But this year I signed him up for the online platform so I could—more or less—take something off my plate.

*****

We had a linger longer on Sunday, which Zoë baked brownies for. 

She left a rather threatening note for Rachel in the kitchen, informing her that Zoë was going to be the one to bake brownies for the linger longer and—importantly—she did not need Rachel's help with that task.

So Zoë baked some brownies. And they were fairly popular. 

When I was in line at the dessert table, a couple of women in the ward were like, "And what came from your house? 'Cuz I know I want a slice of that!"

I explained that the brownies came from our house, but that Zoë had claimed baking rights and had kicked Rachel out of the kitchen. The ladies were hoping for some of Rachel's sugar cookies that she's made for a couple of youth activities lately.

Rachel is a phenomenal baker.

Inland tsunamis

Tuesdays are my long days on campus this semester, but so far the kids have been good about doing their work (they have assignments to complete throughout the day and they have to check in with me with emails and sharing documents and things to show their work). 

My advisor told me I could take home some books from the book room that were ineligible for consideration for the book award this year, either because their publication date was too old or because they weren't the first in the series or...you know...whatever doesn't meet our criteria. So last week I brought home a book haul for the kids and gave them each a book before I left for campus on Tuesday. 

Alexander had read a Magic Treehouse non-fiction companion book with facts about tsunamis and other natural disasters and was absolutely riveted, so I gave him a book about how to survive a tsunami and he sent me a rather desperate-sounding text message about half an hour into the drive to campus:

"is our house bolted to the foundation mom (I finished the book about tsunamis by the way)"

While I was writing to tell him that our house would be just fine, he wrote to tell me that the book was "also about earthquakes that caused the flooding that caused a tsunami that destroyed a house."

So it's possible that book was a little too much for him. But he's read it about 50 times today as well, so it's also possible that it's just his speed.

Sting, Crash, Splash!

Would you look at this adorable bee clinging to our mountain mint?

A phone call to Vienna, or "Time Zones—boy, I dunno..."

Alexander enjoys calling people (on Discord), but he can sometimes be a little persistent if no one answers him, calling over and over again on repeat. 

Vienna is 6 hours ahead of us, so fortunately our lunch time is only Uncle Patrick's dinner time (or thereabouts), and lunchtime is often when Alexander thinks to call, but there are other times that's worse for Alexander to call (like at our dinner time, for example, which is bedtime for Uncle Patrick).

I've explained phone etiquette to Alexander, telling him that he needs to arrange phone calls beforehand (especially with people who live far away in different time zones) and I thought he understood that, but the other day he started calling Uncle Patrick again (and again and again).

Uncle Patrick tried to be polite about it. He explained again to Alexander that he should send a message beforehand, to which Alexander replied that he did (because he had messaged "call" two seconds before calling...not much of a head's up). Uncle Patrick tried to give him an example, telling him that he could call him in a bit and talk for five minutes or so. 

Alexander interpreted that to mean that Uncle Patrick would be calling him in five minutes, so he set a five-minute timer so he wouldn't forget when he needed to be by his phone. 

I texted Patrick to tell him how excited Alex was and he was like, “Oh, then I’d better call him! I was going to call him after I had dinner…” 

So, Uncle Patrick called and the first thing Alexander said was, “I set a timer on my phone for five minutes, but it seems like Vienna has a different time zone even for minutes because you called me and it hasn’t even been five minutes here!!”

They spoke for a few minutes (mostly about what everyone was having for lunch and/or dinner) and then hung up and Alexander exclaimed, "Time really must be different in Vienna because Uncle Patrick said he could talk for five minutes but the phone call duration was seven minutes!!"

First day of school for me!

Not last week but the week before, I had my graduate student orientation. 

Because I'm such an anxious driver, Andrew is training Rachel to take me to campus (though I'm also trying to take as many courses online as I can so that I limit the number of days I need to go to campus). It's quite the commute. 

Last week I had my first day of school, but only for online coursework.

Today I had my first day on campus. Here I am by one of the many bulldogs on campus:

Birthday Balloons I

We are hopelessly behind in celebratory events this year. I really didn't think the summer would end up being as hard as it was...but then pneumonia happened...and it ended up being as hard as it was.

That said, for FHE we finally finished up writing our birthday balloons for everyone.

Yes, it took us May, June, July, and August to finally write birthday balloons for Zoë, Benjamin, me, and Rachel. We figured we should finish them up before the next wave of birthdays hits us in a month.

Here's for Zoë:

From Benjamin:

You're nine! That's 3² and so old. You are a good swimmer and sister and just an amazing person altogether. 

amaZing

Origami cadet

Elated to be 9

I love you!

Kinda blah moments

Things aren't so terrible over here. 

One of the fans of our air conditioners went out on one of the hottest days of the year (as these things tend to go) and it has been doing its best to chug along while we waited for a part to come in. Today we finally got the call that our AC people have both the fan part and the vent for the heater (which evidently had broken at some point, which means that our heater would have been venting into our house instead of outside) and said they could come this afternoon.

But our road is being repaved right now—a project that has been in the works for quite some time now...nearly two weeks? First they scraped up really broken sections and repaired those before scraping up the entire road (which I am sure is logical for some reason) and then they laid down a layer of rocks and tar and they're just now getting around to surfacing it. And I get that these things take time, but we just never know when they're going to let us use the road and when they won't. 

Our neighbour up the street missed a prenatal appointment last week because they wouldn't let her out of her driveway. I couldn't go to campus on Tuesday because our cul-de-sac was off limits.

And our road was also off limits today when the AC guys wanted to come (as well as when we came home from our homeschool "not back to school" party at the pool—we had to park at a friend's house about half a mile away from our house and then walk home across all our neighbour's lawns).

Fortunately, the air conditioner is still working even if it isn't running at full throttle.

Unfortunately, our washing machine also decided to give up the ghost last night (or the night before?).

Glory, glory hall-lelujah!

When Andrew and I met with our stake president (President Jack Christianson) before getting married, he drew out what I can only describe as football diagrams to counsel us on how to...be...when we were married. He was a quarterback at Weber State University, so he talked about football quite a bit. He told us that we were a team and should be together:

X X

And that sometimes, as children come along, he'd see that team kind of split apart on the pew at church:

X o X

And then:

X o o o X

Which he felt was a real shame. He preferred to see a couple sit together with their children beside them (rather than letting children "push" them apart):

X X o o o

His counsel was to always be a team. And, I mean, we tried that for a few years. It was fairly easy with Rachel. She'd sit on one lap or the other and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. Then Miriam came along and there was still a lap for either child and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. 

By now we've about given up on following this advice because while it may be nice to sit beside each other, it isn't logical, and isn't representative of our unity as a couple at all. Besides, Andrew is so often the organist and for a time I was the chorister, so that means he's up on the stand—or Miriam is up on the stand—or I'm up on the stand. And our current ward has hardly any deacons so Andrew often ends up passing the sacrament with Benjamin before sitting down. 

So we usually end up sitting somewhat like this:

z a N p r b A m

And then by the time Andrew comes to sit down with us, Phoebe is ready to sit on his lap instead of sitting by mine, so we end up like this:

z a N r b A p m

So instead of looking like a tidy football play we look like we're kind of struggling with the alphabet. But I think that's okay because although it's not bad advice (and may even have been good advice), it's not necessarily practical advice. President Christianson himself rarely got to sit beside his wife because he was always on the stand, right?

Plus, we started to hear other advice along the way. One of our bishops (or stake presidents? or was a general authority?), for example, mentioned that he liked to see fathers carrying out screaming babies instead of the mothers. Andrew wanted to help out with our babies more but they were all such momma's babies that they wouldn't sit with him unless they were far enough away from me. That meant Andrew had to be farther away from me so he could wrangle babies and I could enjoy the meeting.

What I'm getting at, I suppose, is that there are times and seasons to things. One day, perhaps, Andrew and I will sit side by side on the pew again. Maybe...if we're lucky...

Lego-tionary for FHE

Benjamin was in charge of our family night lesson on Monday. He had us create scenes from The Book of Mormon out of Lego. While some people were thrilled with the assignment bestowed upon them by a slip of paper they drew out of Benjamin's hands (Andrew scoffed, "Oh, this will be easy!") I was...less thrilled.

But I managed.

We had ten minutes to create our scenes. Excuse the messy basement...this room is constantly a disaster. The kids have been setting up the doll house for The Borrowers to move in (we just finished reading the book) and there is Lego mess and Play-doh mess and fort building mess and...we do clean down there. It just is a very played-in area of the house.

Anyway, here's Phoebe sharing her creation which was "an airplane with all of these guys":

Firetrucks and butterflies

This morning Andrew took Rachel and Benjamin to the doctor for their post-diagnosis check-up and the doctor determined that...they both still have pneumonia. Rachel, like Alexander (who is doing just great at this point), has it in her left lung. Benjamin has it in his right lung. But it seems like the antibiotics did their work and the kids will just have to cough it out. So lots of (generic) Mucinex for them!

I had the much more pleasant task of taking the little kids to the library (we left Miriam at home to work on some things in a quiet house). Our books were due and I had several holds waiting for me. 

The fire station is next to the library and we could see from the parking lot that they were working on one of the trucks—they had the ladder extended and were greasing it. Phoebe is the one who saw it. First she saw the crane from across the street and said, "Oooh! Loot! A tane!" And then she saw the ladder of the firetruck (which was horizontal) and said, "Oooh! Loot! A boat!"

"I don't think that's a boat," I said. "I think that's a firetruck."

"I think that's a boat," she said.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's a firetruck because that is the fire station, which is where firetrucks stay when they're not being used. What you're seeing is the ladder of the truck all stretched out."

"Well, I'm pitty sure it's a boat."

"Should we go see? Let's go see."

We walked over to the edge of the parking lot and peered through the trees. 

"See," I said. "It's a firetruck."

"Oh! It is a firetruck!" she admitted.

"Come on down!" the firemen called (we were, relationally speaking "up" on a hill above the firemen). "We'll show you the truck!"

The hill was pretty steep, but we decided to slip and slide down it anyway (leaving our three big bags full of library books sitting unattended at the top of the hill). The firemen showed us the 100 foot ladder, how they were lubricating the hydraulic press that works the ladder. They made the ladder go all the way up and all the way down (to make sure every bit of it was lubricated). Then they showed us all the hoses on the truck (they keep several different hoses of different lengths). When the hoses are filled with water they get pretty heavy—a one foot section ends up weighing about one pound, so a 200 foot hose weighs about 200 lbs But they also have, like, 1000 foot hoses as well, so things can get pretty heavy!

Olivia's wedding (7/28)

 

Olivia got married on Sunday and it was truly a beautiful day!

Kelli assigned herself a few too many tasks to do and was a bit frazzled (to put it lightly). She decorated, she catered, she walked the bride down the aisle... And everything was wonderful—the food, the decorations—but it was a lot!

I was glad that I volunteered my mom, Josie, and myself to chop vegetables for her. We spent hours chopping onions and tomatoes and olives! But I wish we'd done more (because, Kelli did so much). 

We should have showed up early to help set things up, but then—I suppose—we wouldn't have had the energy to help out during the reception. I ended up in charge of the live stream recording of the ceremony (so family members too far away to attend could still attend), so I sat right behind my sister, which felt a little too VIP for my station. 

Another one bites the dust

Technically she bit the dust over the weekend. And we thought she was getting better. But in the last couple of days she spiked a new fever and has been terribly, terribly sleepy. We took her SpO2 levels this morning and they were low enough (and her cough awful enough) that we decided to take her in as well.

They heard some wheezing in her breathing so decided to give her some albuterol. But even that didn't clear up all the noises in her lungs, so they gave her an antibiotic prescription as well. They considered giving her an x-ray to confirm, but since both her brothers were easily diagnosed with pneumonia the doctor decided her borderline case was likely also pneumonia.

So very fun times over here! Hopefully we will all get over this thing soon!

Pneumonia boy, part 2: Benjamin bites the dust

While I hopped in the shower this morning, Andrew started calling the pediatrician the minute their office was open. We'd decided last night that Benjamin's cough was (a) wild and (b) lasting far too long. He'd fallen ill on Thursday (the day I left) and had been running a temperature between 100° and 105° the whole week long. 

Everyone else who has had this sickness got really sick but then started feeling better. 

I was just barely feeling nearly 100% when I headed out for SLC, so I was fairly confident I wasn't going to be spreading germs. I was just sad to hear that Benjamin wasn't feeling well—and missed the sleepover at Grandpa's house because he wasn't feeling well—and then Rachel started feeling sick the following day (though she hasn't been as sick as Benjamin). 

Anyway, I was only sick for about a week...but I was almost better by the end of that week. 

Benjamin has made no apparent movement towards getting better. His fever was lingering, his appetite was down, his cough was persistent... It was feeling very much like Alexander (and those symptoms felt similar to Andrew because he was also prone to pneumonia as a child).

Unfortunately, the same storm that brought down all the branches last night before I got home also knocked out the power at various places around town. We were fine over at our house, but our pediatrician's office was without power. When Andrew couldn't get through on the phone he went over in person to see if he could make an appointment, but they were running on generators over there and weren't going to make an extra appointments until the power came back on. 

So we took Benjamin to the urgent care. 

A Library Miracle

On the way up to the airport on Tuesday my mom and I stopped at the Orem Public Library to say goodbye to Josie (who works there). She took us through the new art gallery where I got to see an installation by my friend (?) acquaintance (?) tutor (?) colleague (?) AshMae (who taught the "Mine to Tell" course I took years ago, who I've visited with at BCC events, who I'm friends with on Facebook but don't truthfully know that well in real life). The theme of her exhibit was stay-at-home parenthood.  

It was fun to run into AshMae's work there. 

More museum pictures

As I mentioned, I had a few pictures of our museum trip that I was expecting to come from other cameras, and now they're here!

Here's Rosie trying to balance both of her daughters while eating lunch:

Monday at the Museum

We sure were worn out by the time we finished cleaning up at the wedding and made the drive home. And then we stayed up until around midnight putting food into the freezer and cleaning crockpots and things!

My mom and Josie were very happy they'd taken Monday off work! 

Somehow Kelli apparently managed to make it up to Idaho to go to Bear World with her daughter Amy (which was likely a needed break for her as well...but which also sounds like quite a lot of work, so I don't know). We decided we also needed to see some animals, so we went to the Bean Museum.

But first we made a stop at my Uncle Bruce's office, where he gave us the grand tour of the inner workings of BYU's OIT and gave him some lettuce (because we are giving everyone lettuce these days; Kelli prepared way too much food for the number of people we had, but that's okay...I suppose it's better to over prepare than under prepare and there are plenty of people to share around the leftovers with).

Here I am with Uncle Bruce:

Friday visits

I didn't take a single picture of my visit at Grandma Pat's place...but that's okay because Andrew's extended family is really not into pictures. Last time we visited we made people take pictures, but that was for Phoebe to have a picture of herself with her great-grandparents. This time I didn't have Phoebe...so I didn't press for a picture (as much as it hurt the "must take a picture every time the family gathers" gene I got from my Grandma). 

We met at Grandma Pat's senior living center. It was my first time going there and—man!—that place is nice. Like, I had heard stories (it's jokingly referred to as "the cruise ship") but I was seriously impressed. 

Her apartment is darlingly decorated. The amenities are plentiful—a pool, a gym, a games room, a theatre, a post office, a store, a bistro, a restaurant, a bank... You name it, they seem to have it! 

And all the staff were so friendly! 

I was, as I said, seriously impressed. 

Grandma Pat took us to lunch at the bistro (us = me, my mom, Grandpa Frank, Uncle Matt, Aunt Becky, and Aunt Nicki). The food was good and it was lovely to get to visit with everyone!

Getting to Utah

I haven't really taken very many pictures yet this trip, but I have had a few wonderful visits!

Andrew dropped me off at the airport rather than making me ride MARTA (like I make him do). My anxiety tends to go through the roof when I travel, so I was having a frazzled morning with lots of wonderful tummy aches (not that he was planning on putting me on MARTA, anyway). 

Not having to navigate the airport with any children in tow was certainly different than...you know...dragging a number of children through the airport. On the one hand, it was lovely. I didn't have to worry about whether anyone was going to wander off or leave anything behind or pee their pants or sit down and cry and refuse to stand up and walk again or...you know...whatever. 

On the other hand I had to stand in the regular, ordinary TSA line with everyone, rather than being put in the expedited line for those who need assistance, so that process took much longer (but I was all by myself so it wasn't all that bad).

My flight was delayed by about half an hour, but after all the news about cancelled flights this past week I was just glad my flight was going at all. I had never experienced Delta's system of assigning seats...when you get there...that was weird. They put up passenger's names on a screen—just the first two letters of your last name, followed by the first letter of your first name—with your assignment, but you have to read the list quickly because the screen will change and cycle through several different slides of other information before popping back up again for—in my opinion—an absurdly short amount of time.

My seat was 39F (the window seat in the very back of the plane) and I was in zone 8 (the very last zone to be seated) and ended up very near the end of the line because I was helping another girl figure out what seat she was supposed to be in (because the app on her phone hadn't updated to tell her which seat to be in, as mine luckily had since I didn't figure out the seat assignment chart until later). 

Random tidbits

While I was busy in primary, having a pioneer hoedown during music time, President Biden dropped out of the election, which was some pretty good news. 

Grandpa came over for dinner...and to bring back the kids' car seats, which we forgot to take out of his car when he dropped them off on Saturday. We had homemade pasta, which was delicious. 

In less good news, a faulty software update caused practically every flight to be grounded over the weekend. More than 5000 flights were delayed. Delta Airlines was particularly hard hit.

Rosie and I both have flights out to Utah—on Delta—later this week for Olivia's wedding. We're crossing our fingers everything is ironed out by the time we need to fly.

*****

Phoebe can be a real riot. Here are a few stories from her this morning:

Phoebe: Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…

Me: Mmmm…

Phoebe: Wake up. 

Me: Momma is still tired. 

Phoebe (tickling me): What is this?

Me: That’s my armpit. 

Phoebe: It is so pokey. 

Me: Thank you. 

Phoebe: And you have yucky elbows. My elbows are so smooth. Your elbows are so yucky. Disgusting. 

Me: Thank you. 

Phoebe: Will you hold me? I just want to hug you!

Me: Yup. I can hold you. 

Phoebe: Hold me with your yucky elbows. 

Me: Mmmmhmmm. Wait until you get older…

She still has perfectly soft baby skin. But that will change, I'm sure.

Rachel is 17!

Somehow—almost impossibly—Rachel turned 17 today. 

She (and Miriam) had a game night with friends last night (so it was like a birthday party but without her having to be the very center of attention, which she doesn't particularly enjoy) and Rachel woke up to a flurry of texts from her FSY friends. 

Later in the morning she and I solidified her schedule for next school year. She'll be doing a full course load at BYU-Idaho and is particularly excited for a sewing class we found—Apparel Construction 1. 

Grandpa brought the kids home around noon. We opened presents soon after they arrived. Phoebe has actually been pretty okay with birthdays this year. I mean, the first few were upsetting, but she's realized that her turn is coming and rather than being upset by the ongoing anticipation she's chosen to be increasingly excited for when it's her day.

When she wandered into my room at midnight—soon after I'd finished wrapping Rachel's presents—she said, "Oooh! Are these presents for me?!"

"No," I said. "They're for Rachel."

"Oh," she said, slumping. "Okay."

She perched right beside Rachel the whole time:

Home with Phoebe

Tonight Phoebe and I had the house all to ourselves (which is a rather unusual thing). 

Alexander, Zoë, and Benjamin went to Grandpa's house for a sleepover (Darla is in California helping with her new grandbaby so Grandpa is lonely). Rachel and Miriam had planned to have a bunch of friends over to play games this evening, but they usually play games outside and it ended up storming quite a bit so they decided to head over to the church to play games instead (Andrew went to provide adult supervision, but the church was bustling with activity—a group was there playing soccer and another group was doing something else—so there were plenty of adults around...our teens just took one of the bigger rooms that weren't being used). 

So, yeah, Phoebe and I were left alone together. 

She was a little gutted that she wasn't invited to sleep over at "Gampa-Dala's" house. She packed all her most important items in a little backpack and was all ready to go...and then we crushed her dreams. 

There are just a few benchmarks she has to meet before she can be considered for a sleep over. Things like (1) sleeping in her own bed, (2) ditching overnight pull-ups, (3) not panicking whenever Mom or Dad can't be with her. Simple things like that. Once she understood that Mom wasn't going to "Gampa-Dala's" she was much more okay with the idea of staying home. 

She got to watch Daniel Tiger while I cleaned the kitchen. And then we had some music time and reading time and drawing time and playing time before getting ready for bed. 

"Here’s the deal—" I told her. W need to start getting ready for bed, so it’s time to tidy up."

"Sure hope kids are ‘kay!" she said.

"You…sure hope…" I echoed with a snicker.

"…kids are okay, yeah," Phoebe finished before sighing a big sigh. "Wonder what they’re doing right now…" She sighed again. Evidently she was starting to feel lonely without them.

Anyway, here she is drawing a picture of "my kitty, my Waffles":

Cute Phoebe Stories

Last night Phoebe conducted our Family Home Evening (that is, Phoebe got to decide who did what). Ordinarily the conductor welcomes everyone together (which Phoebe did) and then they invite someone to choose a song to sing and someone else to offer the prayer (which Phoebe did not). Instead she said:

"Welcome to Family Night! I will choose the song!"

Choosing the opening song is a great honour, so it's no wonder she wanted to snap that job up.

"Okay," Andrew said. "And who will say the prayer?"

"Also me!" she said. "And I will do calendar!"

"Okay, that's going a bit far," and considering the fact that she can't read or write or navigate a calendar, that's true. "Let's start with song and prayer. What song do you want?"

"Ummmmmm..." Phoebe hedged. 

She's not actually very good at choosing songs. We usually have to suggest a few for her to pick from because she's not so great at thinking about these kinds of things on her own yet. Fortunately for her, the Primary Children's Songbook was open on the piano. 

"Ummmmm...we will sing...this boat song," she said, running up and pointing to the music that was open (which had a picture of a boat a the top of the page). 

Watermelon, Sunflowers, and Pollinators

Watermelon is usually pretty good on its own, I think. 

Andrew, on the other hand, doesn't ever think watermelon is good.

Everyone else in our family enjoys watermelon, though, so in the summer Andrew will often pick up a watermelon when he does the grocery shopping (because he does the grocery shopping at our house). He won't typically cut it (though he has on occasion), but he will buy it for us. 

I have never succeeded in growing one, though we had some butternut squash volunteer in our yard this year (from the one time Andrew made butternut squash soup, I guess) and it is going wild. Well, the vines are, anyway. We've got a couple of lovely butternut squashes developing, but that's all. 

Definitely sick

Rachel and Miriam took the ACT today. When we signed them up we actually chose GSU campus for their testing center because then Andrew can take them in and just...go hang out in his office while he waits for them to finish. We know because...this is not their first time taking the ACT. In fact, the ACT company gave out a two-for-one coupon for each of the girls when they took the ACT the last time, so this was essentially a free second test.

Unfortunately, they cancelled the test at GSU for our testing date and the girls were moved to a random high school way down the the airport. 

Sick, no...healthy, no...sick, no...healthy, no...sick!

Alexander's still coughing from his pneumonia, but he's feeling just fine. But then last week Zoë got sick. And this week Phoebe has been sick. And we've been...doing very little outside of the house. 

But today? Today no one had a fever (and those who had been feverish had been fever-free for 24-hours!) and we really needed to take our glass to the recycling collection point so we (at least the youngest four) took all the glass we've been amassing the past few months (as well as our textbooks, because we're on week two of our school year) and went to the park. 

Here's Phoebe showing off her big-girl ponytail while Alexander sets out his school books in the background:

I can't imagine a more beautiful thing

We planted corn this year.

I don't think we've tried corn since we once tried it in North Carolina..and things didn't work out well for us. I think a big storm came through and flooded our garden and all our corn fell over and...that was the end of that.

Things went much better this year. Our stalks grew nice and tall...and then they got tassels...but I saw no silks anywhere. So I was a little worried we weren't going to get any ears of corn at all. But then my silks started appearing and I began instead to worry about pollination. We went out and did some hand pollinating, but I honestly think the tassels were simply too far spent to have that do much good. 

Still, we got a couple of lovely (little) ears of corn:

Hermes

Benjamin got his hermit crab—Poseidon—about two weeks ago and we've been meaning to pick up a friend for it ever since...but life has just been so...busy. Andrew and I have a lot of work projects and swim team was coming to a close and Alexander had pneumonia and the girls are off to FSY and...I dunno...getting to the pet store just felt a little hard.

But then yesterday we were driving home from the road race and I hopped on Facebook and saw that someone was giving away a full hermit crab set up—the tank, the crabs, everything. So I said we were interested and...the next thing I know we're bringing home a 20-gallon tank stocked with three new friends for Poseidon (they said it was four...but we only found three crabs and the, uh, remnants of a fourth).

Benjamin was over the moon!

Fourth of July Fireworks

We started our homeschool year this week so we can get some school days under our belts before the real chaos begins in the fall. Did I give my children the day off today? Well...no. We didn't have any big plans, so we we hung out at home, did some schoolwork, played some games, and had a wonderful barbecue dinner. And then we headed out to watch fireworks with the neighbours. 

First we went to some friends in the ward who have kids around Phoebe's age (so the fireworks were a little bit earlier). Here are the kids enjoying some sparklers:

2024 Peachtree Junior

We woke up bright and early this morning—and, in fact, prior to it being bright—to head downtown for the Peachtree Junior Road Race. My neighbour sent me a link about it after she saw Benjamin and I running earlier in the year and I went ahead and signed Benjamin up...and then when I learned that the race was sponsored so fully by Microsoft (as in: the event was free)...and because I figured the littler kids would be tagging along anyway...I went ahead and signed Zoë and Alexander up as well. 

Alexander could have run the mile race, but I decided to just sign him up for the dash because he's a pretty timid kid and doesn't like to be out of sight. I wasn't sure he'd make it through the mile course on his own. And it turns out this was a doubly good call because...evidently he's getting over pneumonia. 

Anyway, backing up a little bit...

We left the house at 7:15, aiming to arrive when registration opened at 7:45 (and knowing we wouldn't be there until more like 8:00). Things really slowed to a crawl, however, and by 8:15 we were still sitting in a long line of cars waiting to turn into the parking garage. So at a red light—and a mile or so away from our final destination—the runners and I hopped out and started booking it to The Meadow in Piedmont Park (where packet pickup was). 

We speed-walked down Monroe Avenue and then jogged down Amsterdam Avenue. Our goal was to hop on The BeltLine Trail but when we got there it seemed to be completely closed for construction. Luckily there was a "gravel trail detour" that we could jog along. Unfortunately, we then had to sneak through the fence, across the trail construction, and through another fence in order to reach the meadow. 

By the time we arrived on the field we were hot, sweaty, and ready for our participation medals already. And we were still a field's length away from the registration tent! 

I rushed the kids across the field and then we stood in line and got our numbers, which was ultimately a very smooth process. They didn't preassign numbers for the kids, but we got an email with a QR code for each of them, which they scanned at the desk, then pulled out a bib and scanned that number to connect it with their racer information. You can see that Benjamin's number starts with a 12 (he ran with the 12-year-olds and all his signage was navy blue) and Zoë's number starts with a 9 (she ran with the 9-year-olds and all her signage was yellow). That made it easy to find where to go and gave me peace of mind about collecting the kids after (though we made sure to also fill out the safety information on the back of the bibs and I wrote my phone number on their arms...just for good measure).

Here are the kids after getting checked in: 

In the first five minutes Phoebe was awake...

"Tan we doe to the pool?" Phoebe asked, stumbling out of bed.

"Good morning to you, too!" I said. "Unfortunately, we can't go to the pool right now because we have to take Alexander to his doctor appointment."

"Oh. How 'bout you not tan tate Alexi to dotor. Daddy tan do that."

"Daddy can't do that because he's taking the girls to FSY right now. So Mommy needs to take Alexander to his appointment. You can come, too."

"Okay. I will choose some clothes."

"Good idea."

"What are you doing!? I want shirt and pants!"

"Of course, I see that you have both a shirt and pants here and I will help you put them on, but in order to do that we have to take off your pyjamas."

"Otay. This is such a busy day! This is not a church day!"

"No, it's not. We went to church yesterday, didn't we?"

"We have Luna today. We have dotor pointments. *sigh*"

"It is a busy day, but I don't think we have Luna today."

"Me so hungry! You so hungry, too? You have not eaten breakfast yet."

"I have not eaten breakfast yet. We can go get some breakfast together. What would you like?"

"Mac-roni and cheese."

"That does sound good. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to make macaroni and cheese for breakfast so you're out of luck there. Let me give you some options. We have leftover waffles in the fridge. We have lots of leftovers in the fridge! We have watermelon that's all cut up. We have oatmeal. We have cereal. We have..."

Last day of swim team

Thursday was a busy day! 

I took all three kids to swim practice in the morning because Benjamin wanted to be there for Alexander's mini-meet. Alexander graduated from Future Barracudas a while ago, so hasn't been attending their practices, but he was invited to show up for the mini-meet. 

So, we went to Zoë's practice. And then we stayed for Alexander's practice. 

For the past few weeks Andrew has been taking those two earlier in the morning. And then they've been coming home. And then Rachel leaves to take Benjamin to his practice. And then quite often I would take the little kids (including Phoebe) back to the pool...it's been a lot of juggling.

But on this particular morning I just took all three kids with me. Zoë practiced, Alexander practiced, then Alexander had his mini-meet.

Here he is all wet and shivery (and cute and tiny) and waiting for his event to be announced:

Hosed etymology and other funny(?) things

Swimming has been rather all-encompassing this past month. Andrew remarked (quite humorously, in my opinion): "I had no idea swim team would involve so much swimming!" 

And it's true. There has been a lot of swimming. And a lot of driving kids to the pool (which, honestly, if they didn't have to cross 18 lanes of traffic between two very gnarly intersections, I'd let them ride their bikes to the pool...it's only 3 miles away...but unfortunately they'd have to cross eighteen lanes of traffic to do so. And, yes, there are traffic signals but I'm still just not sure how much I trust the traffic).

Anyway, tomorrow is our last meet (before county, which I doubt we'll qualify for) and the kids are very excited. They went to morning practice today, and then we stayed after to swim, and then we went to afternoon practice as well and Phoebe and I swam while they were practicing because they only use half the pool for the afternoon practice. 

Amazingly we've only had a couple of storms this entire month. It's been so dry. Humid. But dry. 

That's a thing, right?

We haven't had to cancel any swim practices or swim meets due to bad weather (knock on wood because it's supposed to storm a bit tomorrow), which feels...unusual for June. But we did have a good storm the other night when we decided we'd encourage Phoebe to stay in her own bed using a sticker chart.

9:00 PM

Me: …so if you stay in your bed all night, you can choose a sticker to put on your chart! Doesn’t that sound like fun?
Phoebe: Yes! I want a sticker!
Me: How do you get a sticker? Do you remember?
Phoebe: Stay in mine own bed!

1:30 AM

Phoebe: *tip-toes down hallway, knocks on door*
Andrew: What’s up, Phoebe?
Phoebe: I need help staying in my bed! I want a sticker!
Andrew: *tucks Phoebe back in, turns on some lullabies, sits with her until she falls asleep*

4:30 AM

Mother Nature: ⛈️⛈️⛈️
Phoebe: *runs down hall, busts through bedroom door*
Phoebe: THAT WAS THUNDER! I don’t want a sticker! I want you!
Mother Nature: ⛈️
Electricity: *goes out*
Phoebe: IT’S SO DARK!

Obviously mother nature was not on our side. And then she came in bed with us last night, too, claiming she could still hear the thunder from the previous night's storm. We'll see how tonight goes.

Anyway...no rain...plus a lot of kids swimming means that the water level in the pool has gone down a bit. Often rain will fill it up quite nicely. But today they had the hose on, filling the pool back up to the level it needs to be for the skimmer baskets and things to work properly. 

Phoebe thought the hose was great! It was about 98°F today and the pool was lukewarm, but the hose water was freezing (or felt comparatively so). She loved playing with it.

She stood around asking everyone who walked by, "Wanna get hosed?"

A swim meet and pneumonia

We had another "home" meet on Thursday night. 

I mentioned that I sang the national anthem with the kids last week, since they weren't comfortable doing so on their own. But this week Zoë practiced until she felt comfortable and then sang the national anthem solo...and a cappella. The national anthem in the United States has a rather tricky melody and uses quite a large vocal range; it's not easy to sing. Zoë would have preferred to have accompaniment, but she did alright singing a cappella.

Primary and Sacrament Meeting Talks

Zoë was asked to give a talk in primary at the beginning of June. Here's what she said:

Good afternoon!

I was asked to talk about what it means to be “steadfast and immovable.” When I looked up this phrase in the scriptures I found that it is followed by either “abounding in good works” (Mosiah 5:15)  or “in keeping the commandments of the Lord” (1 Nephi 2:10 and 3 Nephi 6:14). 

Being steadfast and immovable means to be loyal, faithful, firm and determined. Being steadfast and immovable does not mean we should avoid change. President Dallin H. Oaks said that “the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to change. ‘Repent’ is its most frequent message, and repenting means giving up all of our practices…that are contrary to the commandments of God.” We can and should fix things in our life in order to become better people.

For example, I used to not like mushrooms and would pick them out of everything. One day, my brother Ben made sautéd mushrooms. He asked me to try one, and I did. I liked it. I was not steadfast and immovable in my dislike of mushrooms. And that’s okay! 

Mushrooms still aren’t my favourite but I’m able to enjoy more meals because I can eat mushrooms without gagging. The change made my life a little bit better. 

June is busting out all over!

Rachel just got home from babysitting (at 10 til midnight—and a good thing, too, because in Georgia 15 and 17 year olds can't drive between midnight and 5 am), so I suppose it's a good time to disclose how much of a secretary I feel like lately!

My phone has been off the hook with requests for my kids to puppy-sit, plant-sit, and babysit. Not to mention tutoring. And Benjamin's trying to start up a garbage can washing hustle.

"Can Zoë come over tomorrow at 2 to tutor?"

"Can y'all do puppy duty Monday and Thursday this week?"

"Any chance one of your girls is around on Saturday afternoon and wants to babysit?"

It can be a little chaotic to coordinate everything. Throw in daily swim practices and weekly swim meets (we just got home from the swim meet at 10:45 this evening), girls' camp (which Rachel and Miriam just got back from), music lessons, and the fact that Andrew has an actual job and I have some writing projects to finish up before the school year starts and...it's a real circus over here!

I thought I would share a few pictures of the more ordinary parts of our lives. The pictures are in reverse order (newest to oldest) because that's how they showed up when I imported them and I...don't want to take the time to switch everything.

My corn is flowering!

Miriam's Music

Miriam recorded some beautiful pieces on the organ today. She made a goal to record one piece per month and fell a little behind in March and April and May between breaking her arm and going to Austria and preparing for her piano auditions. She recorded three pieces from various angles and edited those views together. All in one day!

Here's "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing":

Phoebe in the pool

Phoebe is fairly convinced that she can swim—and she's not entirely wrong. She's really doing fairly well. The one thing she can't quite do is...breathe...which I think is a fairly important part of swimming. 

I've been working on teaching her how to flip onto her back but she hates it. She tends to growl one of a number of predetermined responses:

a) NO! *incoherent grumblings*
b) UGH! MOM!
c) Me gonna drown! (or sometimes "I am gonna drown!" or just "I/me drowning")
d) Me already breeved! 

The solution to drowning is obviously to get off her back and plunge her face back into the water, right? Silly kid. I keep explaining that she needs to learn how to relax and feel comfortable on her back in order to be a competent swimmer. She does not believe me, but she's making progress.

She doesn't like to rest on her back, though, because I told her she needed to flip to her back to breathe...and if she takes one breath, then she's good to go again, right? And, like, that's true for competitive—or even simply fluent—swimming. But I'd really like her to be capable of flipping onto her back and relaxing and breathing before flipping onto her stomach to continue swimming (rather than depending on me to lift her face out of the water). 

We worked really hard today and got her to be somewhat...chill...on her back. Here she is singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" for me (once she was done with the song she'd be allowed to flip back onto her tummy, see? so she was really rushing through it):

Generations and generations and generations and generations...

I redesigned our (extended) family newsletter this month. I figured that since I was changing the publication frequency from two times a year down to one time a year we could do with a good redesign as well (or at least a mediocre redesign). I decided I'd use this picture of my grandma's family standing in age order—from my great-grandfather and great-grandmother to their oldest son, Loren, on down through eleven (living*) children to their youngest, Ila June—in the header of the newsletter somehow. 

Hermit crabs for FHE

Benjamin and I haven't gone running in quite a while. Swim team, as it seems, takes up a lot of time! We're planning on hopping into things again soon, but in the meantime, I thought it was probably about time we made good on that hermit crab that he technically earned...on March 20. We put off the purchase until the end of the semester and then after the beach trip and then...tonight we finally went and did it!

We took the kids to the pet store for family night and this turned out being a very exciting field trip. Several of the kids hadn't ever stepped foot in a pet store before (my bad). Phoebe was the most excited at all. She wanted to see everything.

Swim Team Stuff

Swim team sure is keeping us busy! 

Alexander started in the "Future Barracudas" program the week we got back from the beach. He said he felt "the urge to excel" in swimming...and he did! He graduated from the "Future Barracudas" program by the end of the week and practiced with the competitive team this week. 

That means he missed the kids' first swim meet (on June 6), but he was an excellent spectator and learned how swim meets work.

Here's Zoë (dead center...and dead last) swimming last week:

Three videos of Phoebe

Here is Phoebe singing "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep":

I love that she always says "have you any wolf" instead of "have you any wool" 100% of the time. I also like how she lost track of all the deliveries the second time she sang the song. "Yes, sir! Yes, sir! One bag full. One for my master and..." then she pauses to think about it and realizes there's supposed to be three bags, not one, which means her "name" must be the recipient of two bags, but then what of the little boy who lives down the...what's the word again? Lane.

Phinizy Swamp Nature Center

We gave the Phinizy Swamp Nature Center another try on our way home from the beach. This time it was open and it was well-worth our time, I think!

They have beautiful boardwalk trails over a swamp, surrounded by tall reeds and trees dripping with Spanish moss:

 

Edisto Island, Day 7: In which my knee is loath to goodbye to the beach

How is it that a week seems like such a long time at the beginning of a week and like a mere blink at the end of the week? We were quite sad to wake up to our last day on the beach. Here's Phoebe enjoying some morning stories and snuggles with Daddy: