Stats

Last night I asked Andrew to pull together some statistics for my blog. Like, I could tell that my total posts per year had gone down over time, peaking at 539 (in 2008, the year I was raising only one baby and moved to Egypt) and dropping down to 231 (in 2022, the year I was raising my sixth baby and finishing my master's degree). There are many other reasons for my total number of posts dropping over time, especially since 2010—Rachel offered the fact that I've had, like, four babies between 2010 and now (and mentioned that she was going for an absurd number of babies...but then realized that four was accurate in my case) and Andrew offered the fact that we moved from Egypt to, uh, Orem (which kind of dialed back our "excitement" level). 

Still, I wondered whether my post length had increased (it had) and whether that would even out my total word count—like, I wanted to know whether I was writing fewer posts (obviously) but ultimately hitting the same word count annually. The answer is, that my post length is up on average but my word count is trending downward.

Oh, Phoebe!

This morning Phoebe lingered in her pull-up. 

She has been particularly difficult to potty-train, as far as my kids have gone. Probably the second hardest kid (next to Benjamin, who wins the title of Moste Difficult, hands-down). During the day she's really pretty great, but she simply will not consider nighttime potty training.

Alexander was probably the easiest kid to potty train at night. I told him he needed to stay dry and he was like, "Got it. Consider it done."

That child has wet the bed twice. Like, from the moment I took him out of diapers. That's it. 

With the girls (and Benjamin) I would wake them up in the night to go potty around the time they would typically wet the bed so I could intercept them to take them potty before they wet the bed. For example, if they usually woke up at midnight...wet and sad...I would wake them up at 11:00 or 11:30 to take them potty. And then eventually they'd start waking up proactively to go potty at that time, so I'd stop waking them up to go potty. And then eventually they'd just...stop getting up to go potty.

(Oh, who are we kidding? They still regularly get up to go potty in the middle of the night when they need to (and sometimes when they're just bored of sleeping, I guess)).

A beautiful day in December

We got out for a healthy dose of Vitamin D this afternoon. The kids chose Jones Bridge Park. We've been avoiding that park lately because they've been doing so much construction there, but I figured we could check out the progress. Turns out it's still...undergoing some serious construction.

They're redoing the water drainage in the park to help with erosion, since it's right by the river and the river tends to...eat away at it. I guess. Something like that.

Memorized Scriptures 2024

We had 22 scriptures on our list of scriptures to memorize this year and while I'm not sure everyone memorized every scripture, we certainly made a valiant effort. We officially crossed off 19 of them and are still working on 3. Perhaps we'll cross off more tomorrow.

Phoebe the photog

Phoebe has figured out how to take pictures with tablets and phones and things and some of the devices are linked to my account (I don't know how these things work)...so I end up with picture after picture after picture like this on my camera roll: 

A few of our favourite things

We opened our gifts days ago and I'm...still talking about it...

We had quite a stormy night last night—on a tornado watch all night long, but no tornadoes for us (thank goodness)—and the morning was absolutely dreary when we woke up. Things were still drizzling when we went to church, but when we came outside after church the sky was a brilliant blue and you'd hardly know it was the end of December!

Zoë was excited to wear her new (with a heel!) shoes to church. She chose to stand with this holly bush behind her (because it's so Christmassy).

Christmas Train and Christmas Stockings

Phoebe succeeded on sleeping in the basement on Christmas Eve...but only because Andrew went downstairs to sleep with her. She woke up at 2:00 am buzzing with anticipation and didn't fall back asleep until around 5:00 or so. So we didn't get up particularly early. 

Here she is ready to assemble the kids at around 9:20 am:

Silly Rachel stories

Everyone got new highlighters in their stocking (except for Phoebe who abuses highlighters). Rachel pulled out her highlighter and fiddled with it for a while before saying, "This button does nothing! How does this highlighter even work?!"

Family call

Just this morning my family settled on a time for a Christmas call:

11:00 PM CET (for Patrick in Austria)
5:00 PM EST (for us in Georgia)
4:00 PM CST (for Rosie in Oklahoma)
3:00 PM MST (for everyone else in their various locations: Utah and Wyoming and Alberta and BC)

Abra lives in BC so she would have been at 2:00 PM PST but the region she lives in doesn't observe daylight savings (and hasn't since the 70s), so they're permanently aligned with MST (which means that for half the year they align with MST and the other half they're kind of PDT...but also still just MST)). 

But look! We all made it into the very same Zoom room:

We didn't play any games (I think we're planning on doing that later this week), but we did get to chat with one another. Phoebe and Ireland got the same Bluey grocery cart and cash register (and were both thrilled with them). Allen and Brady both decided to shave their heads. Kelline and Allen were both technically at work (Allen driving Uber...but on a break while talking to us...and Kelli waiting in her hotel room in Wyoming for her shift to start). We had little kids filtering in and out of three different screens and some cats curiously visiting in a couple of others. 

All in all it was a wonderful visit! 

Our Best Year: The Phillips Family

Every year I make Andrew a new calendar of family memories to go in his office at work. I started a long time ago when we were young and poor grad students* (now we're old and middle class grad students*...so moving up in the world) and Shutterfly sent an offer for a free calendar. I still wait for those free offers and this year's offer happened to come right in the middle of finals week, basically. 

I was swamped with work, but I still managed to churn out a calendar for him. 

Were the pictures the most carefully curated? Not remotely, but my motto is that any picture printed out is better than no picture printed out. And I was pleased with myself for crossing one gift off of my long list of gifts to procure.

Then it arrived in the mail and I...noticed I made a huge mistake...but wrapped it up anyway...because what option did I have at that point?!

Andrew was already confused by the wrapping job. 

Somehow or other it came just the same...

I feel like we have so many more things to do before it could possibly be Christmas and yet...here we are! 

The kids were very excited for their sleepover in the basement today and spent all morning getting things ready downstairs. They even set up a little game table for themselves and spent some happy hours playing games together which...was perfect. They don't do that very often and I have spent years encouraging them to do so and they are finally starting to do it. 

O Tupperware, O Tupperware...

There's this meme setup that goes "if I ever won the lottery, I wouldn't tell anyone...but there would be signs," and the accompanying picture is...whatever the sign would be. 

I feel like this is my kitchen right now, only it's "if my marriage was approaching two decades, I wouldn't tell anyone [or would tell everyone]...but there would be signs." And this would be the accompanying image:

It's a spatula/flipper (as opposed to a spatula/scraper; we tend to clarify at our house because I grew up calling both these things "spatulas" and didn't everybody? Apparently not) that we've had for nearly two decades now. The handle was melted at one point. And a couple inches of it broke off a few years ago. But we kept it around because we liked it. 

We've accumulated several others over the years, but this spatula was different.

This was a good spatula. It was the spatula, if you know what I mean. 

There are other spatulas and then there is the spatula.

It's rather met its demise now, I think. 

I'm sure a new favourite will surface, but for now we're keenly feelings its loss.

*****

We were gifted some take'n'toss Tupperware for our wedding.

Live nativity (and other things)

The evening the youth in our ward took a shift as the live nativity for the Giving Machine set up in Alpharetta. I was a bit shocked when they told us that we had an assignment and that we needed to provide six youth because, well, that's just about (but not quite) everybody. But we did manage to more or less fill the necessary roles. We had two young men and four young women show up and they invited the older primary kids to participate as well, so we had three primary children present to bolster our numbers.

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2024

This year's newsletter had to wait until finals were over to get started and I did have concerns about whether or not I would finish it in time, but here it is! We've come a long way since I first started writing these things. Miriam wanted to make sure that we took family pictures before she had oral surgery, so we ended up taking them the same day I got my braces. My face was in agony...and Miriam's surgery ended up being postponed (until January 3)...but the pictures turned out alright. And we at least got to cross "taking family pictures" off our list of things to do!

You can download it here or read it after the jump!

Dwaine the bathtub

Rachel and Miriam went out to see Wicked with some friends the other night (Tuesday) and it was dark when they came out of the theater and the moon was big and round and beautiful. We'd been admiring the full moon on Saturday. And still on Sunday. It was still quite impressive on Monday. It really wasn't quite as full on Tuesday, but it was still awe inspiring, at least enough for Rachel to comment on it.

"Wow," Rachel said. "Look at that full moon."

"Oh, I think it's waning," Miriam corrected her.

"No, it's not," Rachel said.

"Yes, it is," Miriam said. 

"No, it's not," Rachel said. 

"Yes, it is!" Miriam insisted.

"Are you crazy?!" Rachel asked, holding her hands out, palms up to the sky to prove her point. "It is not raining!"

"No," Miriam agreed, "But the moon is waning. Like...the actual phase of the moon is waning gibbous today, so it's not technically full anymore, it just...is still really big..."

"Oh," Rachel said sheepishly. "I thought you were just...talking like a baby for some reason."

I wasn't even there, but the telling of the story was so perfectly hilarious and we've since all had a marvelous time falling into a baby voice to tease...well, Rachel really...but it's Miriam who gets embarrassed it for some reason.

¡Y el pavito ya está aquí!

Today was our last day of co-op this semester.

On Sunday a few of my ukulele kids (Zoë and three others) joined my primary kids (Zoë and Alexander and three others) to perform Christmas Bells at our stake Christmas Sing-Along evening. That's eight total kids that I managed to pull together. We were small...but mighty. 

Then on Monday our co-op group played at a retirement home down the street. It was a little bit chaotic because I had it on my calendar for 3:00 but then the time was changed to 2:00 but somehow I missed that memo. We ended up getting there around 2:30, just in time to have my kids play their pieces on the piano before our ukulele group performed...and then Miriam accompanied the whole group singing a few pieces. We missed everyone else's solos! But, the kids all did just fine.

At the end of the semester the kids are encouraged to give little thank you notes/gifts to their teachers. I crocheted little trees for my kids to give to their teachers, along with a note of gratitude. I got a few chocolate bars and a lovely collection of notes.  

Our 19th anniversary (and other tales)

It was our 19th anniversary on Monday, so Andrew and I went out to do something fun, just the two of us. That hardly ever happens! Even for anniversaries! 

The older four kids went to see Wicked with Grandpa and Darla a couple of weeks ago, and we also wanted to go, so we decided to go see that. A friend had invited me to watch it with her on Tuesday because she had an extra ticket...but Andrew had to go into campus and I didn't feel great about making the girls babysit two nights in a row...so instead Rachel and Miriam went with this friends' family (because they're friends with her oldest daughter). It worked out well.

Anyway, Andrew and I went to watch Wicked. It was my first time in a theater in six years, as far as I can figure. The seats were fancy reclining seats, which was bad news for my perpetual state of exhaustion (I could not stay awake through Dancing Through Life, of all numbers to feel drowsy during), but the theater was freezing and made me long to be at home, curled up on my own couch with a warm, fuzzy blanket.

But it was nice to go out and not have to worry about anyone else's needs for a little while. 

When we got home, the kids were all gathered around the table decorating cookies together. They rushed to meet us at the door with their cookies in hand. It was nice to be greeted with such enthusiasm.

Christmas activity of the day #2 and #3

We had our ward Christmas party this evening. It was our first time attending a Christmas party ever in this ward. 

We didn't have one in 2019 because our ward was so new that we just "couldn't even" (as the kids say, though I would say that we "prolly" should have). There was no party in 2020 due to COVID (good call, honestly). And then I found this in an email from 2021 that states: "We held our first annual [redacted] Ward Christmas party with an exciting 'Service Swap' on Saturday followed by a Relief Society social on Sunday."

Our family was refraining from superfluous social gatherings throughout 2021 and 2022, which I'll admit did put a damper in our social life. But to our credit, I was (1) in a high risk pregnancy in 2021 and (2) had an infant in 2022 and (3) COVID was still, like, raging and (4) my kids enjoy, like, getting pneumonia and stuff anyway so I oddly feel like being sick for 90% of the year isn't very fun so with COVID in the mix it (crowds of people) just didn't seem like a thing I really wanted to deal with.

Phoebe has never gone to nursery. And we joke that it's because she's stubborn (oh, she's stubborn...we're not joking about that part!) but I'm honestly not broken up about it at all because the idea of sending her to nursery where germs are swapped like Pokemon cards is, like, not at all appealing to me. 

Anyway, totally our bad for not attending the ward Christmas party in 2021...or 2022...or...2023...well, we sent our teenagers to help babysit in 2023 (because that is what the teenagers evidently do at the ward Christmas party)...and we finally dragged our sorry behinds to the party this year. We're low-key social pariahs in the ward. We wear mask (to cover our piranha-esque teeth, of course) and lurk on the outskirts of the action. Afraid we might bite (or something), people are pretty good about steering clear.

Stick figures

Phoebe is starting to draw such lovely people! 

Rocket man!

A family in our homeschool co-op is actively involved in a rocket club and on Friday they invited us all to come and put rockets together with them. Their friend had a surplus of rockets and was itching to get a group of kids together so he could lure them into the rocket club (I suppose). Whatever the case, I signed us up for three rockets. There were probably 20 or so kids there.

The rocket family (and their rocket-expert friend) talked about rockets briefly before helping everyone put their rockets together. I was surprised by Benjamin's knowledge about rockets. I did not know he knew the answers to all the questions he was answering about rockets...but apparently this was a good activity for him. 

I don't have pictures of him putting his rocket together because he was at the "advanced" table with the older kids in the homeschool group. I hung around with Zoë and Alexander, who needed a little more help putting together their rockets.

Christmas activity of the day #1

This morning we went to the stake primary party (to practice our songs for the stake sing-along tomorrow evening), only we drove to the stake center instead of the Lawrenceville building...so we ended up being 15 minutes late to the party. 

First of all, I have to commend whichever ward's Christmas party we stumbled into—because the stake center was a hip-hop-happening place! They were having a pancake breakfast (which smelled delicious, but was a sign we were in the wrong place) and they had a cookie decorating station set up (a sign that we were perhaps in the right place) and all sorts of fun things going on. Noticing our confusion (and general not-quite-fitting-in demeanor), someone came up to us and asked us if we meant to be at the ward party or the stake primary party.

The latter! 

They invited us to join them, said they'd love to have us, and had plenty of everything to go around...but also pulled up the email about the primary party so they could verify the details for us. 

So nice of them...and entirely our bad. We should have read more carefully.

We arrived at the right building fashionably late, but it didn't even matter because—let me tell you—my hat is off to this primary presidency. They plan the sweetest little activities. It honestly doesn't matter if you're 15 minutes late because you've missed nothing. They typically have little rooms set up for the kids to filter through at will. However long the kids are engaged in the activity is how long they're welcome to stay in the room. So if you're late, you just hop in somewhere and start having fun. It works very well! Especially, I think, for a situation like ours where people are sometimes travelling quite a distance to be there...and/or then drive to the wrong building first.

Today they had a little crafting room where the kids put together an ornament of Baby Jesus:

Puppy kisses

Last night all the kids from Zoë on up went to a game night together, leaving Alexander and Phoebe languishing at home. They fared alright—Alexander wanted to play Switch Sports, so we did that for a while, and then we got into jammies for story time. 

Andrew picked up some fuzzy pyjamas for Alexander while he was shopping a few weeks ago, so we gave them to him tonight. Phoebe was distraught because all of her Christmas-themed pyjamas were in the laundry. We finally convinced her to put on her snowmen and hot chocolate pyjamas (made of the same soft velor-type stuff that Alexander's jammies are made out of, but she wasn't quite happy about it and many tears were shed while she was getting dressed, but she agreed to pose for a picture under the tree with Alexander anyway (excuse her red, tear-stained cheeks).

He asked her to give him a kiss, a request that...carries great risk. Here you can see her leaning in with some little kiss-face lips and you think, Maybe this is going to be a normal kiss:

I know her!

Phoebe was in a bit of a wild mood before bed this evening. She was drawing with Rachel when I stumbled upon her/them and she said, "I'm making all the grown ups draw with me! Here's your paper, Mom!"

So I sat down to colour with her and Rachel. 

"What am I to you—a kid or a grown up?" Rachel asked.

"Ummmm...you are...Zoë!" Phoebe said. 

"What?! I'm not Zoë."

"You could be."

"How?"

"You could be Zoë for Halloween!!"

This kid is a trickster, a jokester, an imp.

A few minutes later she leaned toward Rachel and said, "I'm going to kiss you!"

"This feels like a trick" Rachel said.

"No, it doesn't," Phoebe assured her.

"It might not be a trick," Rachel said. "But it feels like one."

"Shhh...it's not," Phoebe said and then she leaned in and licked Rachel instead of kissing her.

I'm a great aunt

This week my niece Rosie shared a little letter that Ireland had written to Santa (with the help of her preschool teachers). The letter reads:

Dear Santa,

I have been good this year and for Christmas I want an iPad. 

Love, Ireland (age 3.5)

In reality, though, Ireland had recently bonked heads with another child in her class and they were both given an ice pack. This was a novelty. What could be cooler than an ice pack? 

In Ireland's eyes—and perhaps quite literally in her experience—nothing.

And that is what she asked Santa for—an ice pack! 

Not an iPad. An ice pack. 

"Ireland is kind of hard to understand sometimes," Rosie explained.

Benjamin's Spritz Cookies

Benjamin needed to make cookies for his youth activity tomorrow. The boys are planning on taking some cookies around to various people, which meant they needed cookies. They asked Rachel if she would make some cookies for them and she said, "No way!" She felt like the boys were perfectly capable of making their own cookies. And she's not wrong!

When we first learned the boys would need cookies (yesterday) we talked about having Benjamin make cake mix cookies since those are so easy. But then I suggested he make spritz cookies because they really aren't much more difficult than cake mix cookies and I...just always want them during Christmas. 

Not that I'll get any of this batch..but if you teach a boy to make Christmas cookies...chances are he'll make them again...right?

So Benjamin made spritz cookies this evening, mostly by himself. We mixed by hand because Rachel was cleaning in the kitchen and we didn't want to disturb her...and because I grew up mixing practically everything by hand so I rarely think to use the stand mixer for cookie dough.

Here he is stirring;

The devil's interval (and other tales)

This week has been a little...bit much. 

I didn't actually have to go into campus, but I did go to a conference in Atlanta (LRA), where I ended up leading a mentoring session (by myself) for an hour, which was super intimidating and stressful. But I did it. 

My dad's Christmas memories

I found a long-forgotten project on my computer the other day, a collection of "family lore" surrounding the Christmas holidays that I pulled from my own blog and from the blog Reid used to keep and from my mom's blog. I had some good stories. Some touching stories. Some funny stories. Some this-is-how-things-were stories. But I'm missing several perspectives. 

Tonight when I was talking to my parents, I asked my dad to share some Christmas memories from his childhood. Some of them I actually remember hearing, now that he reminded me of them. I'm going to write down what I remember of our conversation here.

First, you should know that my dad has five brothers (and a sister). You should know that the first handful of boys came one after the other—boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Like firecrackers.

Here's a little scrapbook page of the oldest four (for some reason I have it in my mind that this was my Grandpa's scrapbook):

Thanksgiving 2024

We went to Thanksgiving dinner at Grandpa and Darla's house this year, and what a treat that was! We've been in charge of Thanksgiving dinner for many, many years in a row so not being in charge was quite a relief. Of course, Andrew kept busy in the kitchen experimenting with bread and pie (our two major assignments) and Miriam made a big ol' vat of cranberry sauce. But that's all we had to do. 

Dishes were a lot more manageable. And our leftover status is on point.

GG came for dinner as well. We ended up with ham, zucchini stuffing boats, frog eye salad, potatoes...and some other things I'm probably forgetting. It was a delicious feast and the company was wonderful. 

We ate dinner soon after arriving, though first Phoebe had to chase big Titus around to show him little Titus. He kept running from her and then every time he'd decided to give in and greet her she'd scream and run away. But eventually they managed to stand side-by-side.

Autumn birthday balloons

We've finally pulled down our birthday balloons from our autumnal crew! 

New poem just dropped

I wrote a poem about Phoebe's little incident with the pokeberry bush and it was published today in the most recent issue of Irreantum (21.4)! It's called "In which my toddler eats forbidden fruit."

And that's really about how much I have to say about that, except for the fact that I haven't worked on my term paper all day and don't really want to start working on it now, so perhaps I'll start brainstorming for our Christmas poem (because that deadline is coming up, too, and it's Thanksgiving and all my professors keep telling me to make sure I take time for a break (even though they're the ones with the deadlines—Rachel is experiencing this with her classes as well)). 

So some creative writing...as a treat...right?

Miriam's on the road!

Miriam took her learner's permit test this morning, so she can officially get behind the wheel! 

She only missed three questions on the test, so basically passed with flying colours! By this time next year she'll be a fully-fledged driver, which is wild! 

She'll miss out on getting all her hours in driving to seminary, which is how Rachel got her hours in. This isn't because the girls aren't going to seminary—they are! But Rachel is driving them in, and Miriam can't drive with Rachel (she has to drive with an adult). Last year Rachel and Miriam drove to seminary with Grandpa, so he was in the car supervising Rachel's driving.  

But, that's okay. We have plenty of other ways to get driving hours in. 

And we know to have her practice in Andrew's car (which has a back-up camera) so that she can reverse park into a stall during her driving test. 

And...I'm sure it will all be just fine.

Way to go, Miriam!

Now to sign her up for driver's ed...

And the cheeks softening on the dollar trade...

As the farewell post for one of my classes (spoiler: QUAL 8400) I wrote a little song, recorded it, and put it up in the discussion board. It was one of the options that we could select to say farewell to our peers and, well, I think we're all fairly sick of reading and writing in that class.

To give you an idea of how much writing we had to do, I had my final paper: 5036 words; weekly reflections and writing assignments: ~15,000 words; midterm paper: 3200 words; a 10,695-word transcript; 7000 words of responses to peers—that makes for a grand total of approximately 41,000 words! 

Times that by three courses...

So I, yes, I went a different direction with my final reflection on the course.

I just got braces, so I won't be posting a video of me singing it for you (because I still feel like I am learning how to talk around these things). My enunciation isn't the best right now, so I added subtitles (which is always a good idea for videos anyway). 

We had to answer a number of questions in our response (mentioning a peer who was particularly helpful, what readings were particularly useful, things of that nature) so it's smashing a bunch of random thoughts together but...it more or less made sense, I thihnk.

Here's what I tried to sing (I also played the ukulele, which is why the chord markings are there):

C                                                          F

In QUAL 8400 we learned a lot of things

              G7                                                     C

on qualitative research and how that research brings

                                         F

perspective to our fields. Each choice in method yields

              G7                                      C.         G7

an emic understanding of our planetary sphere.  Oh!

Chorus:

C

Phenomenology

C                  C7

ethnomethodology

F                       C

hermeneutics, grounded theory

D               G7

critical traditions

C

Feminist theory

C                           C7

ethnography and sym-

F                    C

-bolic interactionism,

G7.                  C

post-qual inquiry

Today's activities

This morning Andrew took Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander to the Festival of Trees to see Benjamin's creation on display. We didn't realize that Benjamin would be given tickets for entering and had planned originally planned that only he would go with Dad, but because of the free tickets we had a couple of the other kids go along.

Georgia festival ticket prices feel a little outrageous (i.e. more than double) compared to Utah's pricing, which is unfortunate. But I suppose it's (1) for a good cause and (2) completely optional. We don't have to (and didn't) take our whole family to the festival, but sometimes I do wish events could be a little more "family friendly" around here. 

Anyway, here's Benjamin beside his display:

Georgia Festival of Trees: Christmas Brick Challenge

"There! I'm finished!" Benjamin declared. "Bare minimum—I get third place."

We told him that it was the experience of completing the challenge that was important, not winning. And he was satisfied with that because he honestly made a fantastic creation. 

It had two houses, decorated inside and out, a mountain with a cave inside, a fishing pond, a cozy fire, a snowball fight...it had just about everything imaginable. He originally named it "Christmas Truce" after the story of the Christmas Truce during WWI because the two warring groups in Star Wars are cooperating in this scene. Benjamin can tell you what the warring groups are...

First Encounter with a Newspaper

 

The Georgia Writers Museum mailed Zoë a copy of the newspaper her story was printed in and she tore open the envelope with gusto. 

"What in the world!?" she exclaimed as she unfolded and unfolded and unfolded the paper. "This thing is huge!! Are ALL newspapers this large?"

"Looks about right," I said.

Fun fact! I used to have a paper route!

I took over from my brother when he started early morning seminary. I'd get up and fold newspapers and then ride around on my bike and deliver them around town in the wee hours of the morning. 

I gave it up when I started early morning seminary myself a couple of years later, but...yeah...I guess you could say I'm pretty familiar with the general dimensions of newsprint. 

"For real?!" she squealed. "I thought newspapers were like…magazine-size…or something. But no! Look at this thing! That actually makes a lot of sense…when you think about it."

"What does?" I asked.

Filters

Finals are upon us. 

Or at least upon me. 

And I'm feeling it. 

But we'll get through it. 

The other day I was talking with Rachel and Andrew rather late in the evening, after Rachel and I got home from campus. I have three major papers due in the next three weeks and didn't feel like I had a lot written for any of them (and still somewhat feel like that), but I had to do an oral presentation on one of my papers and when I compiled my slide notes for that I found that I had nearly 2000 words. 

And I called it my first draft. 

"I already have 2000 words in my first draft. They're bad words, but they're words," I said.

"You're using bad words?!" Rachel said, with some feigned pearl-clutching.

"Would you like to know what people really call first drafts in my world? Poopy first drafts, that's what. But they don't say poopy."

"They say crappy?!" Rachel gulped, continuing her feigned horror.

No. They don't say crappy, either...though that's also a word we avoid in our house, to be honest. They use a much stronger word. 

I Saw Three Ships

This morning Andrew took Miriam to record "I Saw Three Ships" at the Johns Creek United Methodist chapel—on the organ from Trinity Church. It's a lovely organ!

And Miriam plays this piece phenomenally well! I'm just in awe of her talent!

Grandpa reminded me the other day that I can boast that I taught her how to play the piano. And that's true! I did! I taught her how to play the piano so well that I soon had to find an actual teacher for her (Aunt Linda) and we've been on the hunt for more and more advanced teachers for her ever since!

She's working with Ms. Deb right now and it's been wonderful! Ms. Deb is as excited about Miriam as we are! We love her studio!

Phoebe is THREE!

Phoebe finally got to open her presents on Saturday morning. But first we had to finish folding the clean laundry, which she was excited about because sitting in laundry baskets is one of her favourite activities:

On Wednesday Phoebe turned three

As I think I've mentioned already this semester (and probably more than once), but Tuesday—Wednesday—Thursday is a real slog for us. Tuesdays are my big day on campus. Wednesday we have co-op every other week, music lessons every week, and church activities in the evening. Thursday is Andrew's big day on campus. And...it's just a lot. 

It's even more of "a lot" when Andrew's out of town.

He went to Montreal to run a workshop this week and...it was a lot, a lot. 

In the middle of the whirlwind that was Wednesday, Phoebe quietly, and in a very self-satisfied manner, turned three. With no expectations about how the day should go, she was simply satisfied knowing that it was finally her birthday.

We didn't open any presents. We didn't have cake or ice cream. But it was her birthday, by golly!

She was so excited to go to co-op because she knew they were going to call her up to the front to sing to her. And they did. And she loved it. 

She bravely went to the preschool class for the first hour and then hung out with me the second hour while I tried to get some work accomplished. And I did—I finished reviewing a paper!

Digging in the LEGO bin

Quality time is tricky to identify because it can look like so many different things. 

Today, for Phoebe, it was making sure she got her morning "huggles" in. 

For Rachel it was making sure to go on a midday walk. 

For Alexander it was reading a chapter of a novel aloud before bed.

For Zoë it was getting to make dinner with Daddy.

For Miriam it was...surely something...checking in on her English project?

For FHE we all sat around and the kitchen table and looked up scriptures about remembering. Today was Remembrance Day and I forgot to do anything with the kids earlier in the day (the boys had doctor appointments this morning, so we did that), so we looked for things the scriptures ask us to remember and talked about the importance of not forgetting valuable lessons. That was some quality time right there. 

But perhaps my favourite little bit of quality time from today was following Benjamin down to the basement to look at how his LEGO entry for the Festival of Trees is coming along and then pawing through bin after bin of LEGO to find more and more white pieces for him to use so he doesn't have to dismantle another creation that's hogging all the white bricks. 

Technically you're supposed to enter your creation under the age of the oldest contributor. Benjamin was worried my "assistance" would disqualify him, but I assured him that having his mother look for certain bricks wasn't a meaningful contribution to the project at all—he's the one doing all the building!

Benjamin's LEGO creations are phenomenal. He's a bold and creative builder.

My creations are...

Why did you change it?!

I'm both embarrassed and pleased to announce that after 5.5 years in this house, our upstairs hallway bathroom is fully functional! 

Remember that one time when the people who owned the house before us put in a new shower but somehow put the shower liner under the shower threshold instead of over it, so water was leaking out under the threshold for years...and the entire subfloor rotted away...so we had to gut the bathroom down to the studs and start over from square one?

Remember how a pipe burst during the renovation and flooded the ceiling of the bathroom below and the whole thing collapsed into the other?

I literally have nightmares about that bathroom.

But, we paid thousands and thousands of dollars to fix and...it worked for a while...until we started noticing wet spots on the ceiling after the shower was used. 

So we stopped using it.

Natural back, Cool Joe!

For Christmas the primary children will be singing a medley of "Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus" and "Star Bright" that Miriam arranged. This week I worked with the kids on the variation to the tune of "Samuel Tells," which lowers the part a bit for the primary boys and young men to sing more easily. And then we turned our attention to "Star Bright." 

We have three little Korean boys in our primary and they knew that we'd be learning a Korean part for the song (we're doing English, Spanish, and Korean), so they started chanting, "Korean first! Korean first!"

How could I not do Korean first then? 

I introduced the kids to the Korean words a couple of weeks ago and it was...rough. 

So this week I listened and listened and listened to the Korean (thank you, Google translate) and paired sounds of the Korean with similar sounding words in English...like this:

당신은 밤을 (Dancing 'n pummel)
낮으로 바꾸죠 (Natural back, Cool Joe!)

To Be Atermined

Thinking about my sweet little toddler Rachel and all the funny things she used to say, I think enough time has elapsed that I can share a sweet little teenage Rachel story, which is simply this:

You know the acronyms TBA and TBD? 

They're thrown out quite regularly. One place in particular that TBA shows up in our religious culture is in the ward bulletin, usually in place of putting any names down for opening and closing prayers. 

Typically these are listed as the "invocation," (not an incantation, Alexander), a prayer used to invoke the spirit, and a "benediction," a blessing or good word (of prayer) offered at the close of the meeting. And quite often these invocations and benedictions are unassigned...until they're assigned at the last minute when the bishop or one of his counselors shakes your hand.

So beside invocation it will say "TBA" and beside benediction it will say "TBA" and you just kind of have to hope it's not you (unless you happen to be the kind of person who likes praying in public and then—kudos)!

Anyway, poor Rachel knew about TBD from other contexts—schedules, itineraries, etc. will often say some date or time or amount of something is TBD. That's "To Be Determined." 

And for years Rachel simply figured that TBA stood for "To Be Atermined" (whatever that means).

So now we say it whenever we see TBA and one of these days I know we're going to say it aloud in an important meeting by accident because...that's just how life goes!

Beautiful things in my world

On Monday I went out walking with the kids. Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday has been such a slog this semester. But on Mondays we can take things a little slower. 

We had time to admire the leaves.

Here comes Simon! Here comes Simon!

We've been very busy with animals lately. 

The kids have been taking care of their own cat, of course, as well as the hermit crabs—which all had been on a deep dive under the sand, and only recently reemerged (much to Benjamin's relief). 

Then there's Luna puppy, who the kids still take out for a romp three times a week. But Luna had a friend over last week so the kids were taking out two puppies (bliss for Phoebe). 

And then Rachel has also been taking care of her former YW leader's cats the last couple of weeks as well. There are three of them: Simon, Xander, and Rose.

Last Tuesday as I was writing a list of things to do on the board before leaving for campus, Benjamin reminded me to put Luna up there, so I did. 

"Oh! And the cats!" I said. "Miriam's going to have to give Simon his shot this evening because we won't be home in time for Rachel to do that."

Two things you should know: Rachel drives me to campus and Simon's care includes twice-daily injections. There are just so many things to know in the world.

So, I'm writing on the board...

▢  Luna (lunchtime walk)

▢  Simon (next injection around 8:00)

And because I am me, I started singing while I was writing.

"Here comes Simon! Here comes Simon! Here comes Simon...my little funny bunny!" and so forth.

Drop and give me twenty!

On Sunday during dinner we usually ask the kids what they learned at church that day. Other days (and Sundays as well, to be honest) we ask what their favourite part of the day was. We always start with Phoebe and work our way up in age order. This week, Phoebe surprised us all by telling us:

"Well...Daddy makes me do push ups at snack time."

"Push ups?" I repeated. "Daddy makes you do...push ups...during sack time?"

"Yeah."

"What do you mean?"

Phoebe slithered off her chair and got down on the floor in push-up position. 

"Like this!" she said. "He makes me do so many!"

After she did a few (very poor) push ups she climbed back up into her chair. 

"That's what you learned at church today?" I clarified. "That Daddy makes you do push ups at snack time?"

"Yeah. Daddy makes me do push ups! He makes me do so many push ups!"

Andrew, who had been laughing too hard to speak finally wheezed out, "What do you mean?"

"PUSH. UPS." she said firmly. "I'm talking about push ups! I can show you!"

A broken bowl

The good news is my kitchen floor is (now) freshly mopped.

The bad news is that I only mopped it because Benjamin dropped a hot bowl of potato soup while he was getting it out of the microwave.

The explosion was loud and scary. 

Shards of glass went flying from one side of the kitchen clear to the other (and skittered into the dining room...and even made it onto the counter and the tops of the dishes drying in the top rack of the dishwasher, which we thought was particularly impressive). The soup splattered a bit, but its spray radius was nothing compared to how the glass scattered.

Jack-o-Lantern Carving

Halloween morning got a little rough at our house, with me losing my temper because I have so much to do, so many balls to juggle, and some of us (who shall remain anonymous) have been difficult to motivate to complete their schoolwork. It was...a frustrating morning...and Halloween, too, so I'm sure that contributed to the general chaos of the day. 

Also, a neighbour was having some trees removed in their yard so we were hearing chainsaws all day and...I should have been aware of how that was affecting me so I could have put earplugs in or something (too much ambient noise tends to make me really tense), but I didn't. Instead I just lost my temper in a huge way.

See this pumpkin? That's a little bit how our morning felt.

Happy Halloween 2024!

Phoebe had her heart set on being a puppy for Halloween. Kind of. She went through a lot of other ideas before settling on a puppy but knowing what I know about Phoebe I eventually decided to start putting together a puppy costume for her since no matter what other idea sprang into her mind...she kept coming back to "puppy."

And not just any puppy. Luna Puppy.

So I thought I'd just crochet a little hat for her with puppy dog ears. I pulled her onto my lap and we searched for a pattern for a crochet puppy hat. Many adorable options popped up.

"I want that one!" Phoebe said, pointing at the screen. 

"Which one?" I asked. "That doesn't tell me very much."

"That one!"

"Which one? This one with the cute little face on it?"

"No. That one."

"The one with its tongue sticking out?"

"No."

Phoebe wanted the design by Kristen Holloway—the plain one with flopped-over ears (the middle picture on the top row).

And she wanted it in black, just like Luna Puppy.

A Musical Number for Carter

Grandpa flew out to Utah for our cousin Carter's baptism this weekend and suggested that we perform a special musical number, specifically a special organ arrangement (Ryan Murphy) of "I Know that My Savior Loves Me" (Bell and Creamer). 

Grandpa gave us a copy of the music in September and I taught it to my kids by singing it for their lullaby every night for the next six weeks! We recorded it for family night a couple of weeks ago and...it went alright. 

There were a few complications. For instance, we couldn't sing in the chapel because the organ drowned out our voices. So we sang in the hallway, but then we had trouble hearing the organ...so Andrew stood in the doorway between the hallway and the chapel trying to conduct both our little choir and Miriam at the organ so that we could kind of be together. It's not the best recording ever made—we have some loose cannons in our troupe (*cough*Phoebe*cough*) but it'll do.

The kids sang their little hearts out. Grandpa played it at the baptism this afternoon. It's like we were there...but also not...

Perhaps we'll brush it off for a musical number sometime.

I suppose another complication is that although it's an organ and SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) piece, we only had the organ music, so we kind of made up where our voices were supposed to come in and sang in unison rather than in parts. We could learn parts if we were invested enough...

For now, though, it's time to turn our attention to Christmas music.

 

You are a triceratops

Last night I was telling Andrew about a comment a peer made to me about the other night after reading some of my writing: "You sure don't toot your own horn much!"

And—despite my devoted, decades-long presence on this public weblog, which could be considered a form of tooting one's own horn, albeit a rather antiquated form in this day and age of rapidly transforming digital platforms—I don't really think I do toot my horn all that much. 

I rather enjoy being in the background. 

Oh, I like to be appreciated as much as anyone else, but I prefer passive accolades. 

Anyway, Andrew said that I would probably do well—at least in the academic world—to toot my own horn a little more, but even if I didn't, I should "remember that you have a horn, even if you don't toot it."

"Like a unicorn," I said. "Has horn. Does not toot it."

"You are not like a unicorn. You," he said, "are a triceratops!"

Spooky Story Contest

Both Zoë and Benjamin submitted stories to the Georgia Writer's Museum "Spooky Story Contest" this year. They worked on their stories from July to October, going through plenty of drafts and revisions. Zoë must have tested out five different stories or so. At first she really wanted to set her story at The Devil's Tramping Grounds in North Carolina because that sounded like an interesting place to her, but she was having trouble imaging any details for her story because she's never been there.

So I suggested that she set the story somewhere she's been. 

She eventually settled on Doll's Head Trail, which we hiked last year, and ended up writing a rather hilarious story about a squirrel named Pipipash. We loved that character so much, but Zoë wisely determined that the number of giggles we were stifling meant that her story was silly and not spooky.

Guys—at one point Pipipash passionately called out, "I'm not all fur and no brains!" 

Pipipash was the best. 

But Pipipash was ultimately cut from the story. 

What Zoë settled on was a little too creepy for me. Her doll is a little too blood thirsty for my taste, but Zoë insisted that to water her doll's refrain down would detract from the feeling of the story. 

And that's why I'm not a spooky story writer myself, I guess. 

Anyway, we were checking the website all day for the results...until we gave up...and then we got busy doing all of our Halloween preparations and I didn't think to check until the kids had headed out to go trick-or-treating and I was in the middle of my class and my teacher said something about the emerging scholar award at LRA and was like, "I wonder who won this year...oh, it's so-and-so" and I was like, "Wonder who won, indeed!"

So while he was looking up emerging scholars, I hopped on over to the Georgia Writer's Museum and saw Zoë's name—1st place for fourth grade! 

And then I just had to hold that information inside me until she finally got home from trick-or-treating (she was the very last child to make it home because she stayed up at her friend's house instead of walking home with everyone else). 

Anyway, a very exciting evening for her! You can read her story over at the Georgia Writer's Musuem website!

Miriam's 15!

Miriam turned 15 on Friday! 

She (and Rachel) had some friends over for a game/movie night so we had her birthday dinner and cake on Saturday, but she still opened her presents on Friday. She didn't have much on her list, but asked for some new clothes, some novelty pins, and a book. Most of what was on her list was actually marked "maybe for Christmas?" but that was probably because she only got me her list a few days before her birthday and knew those items would need more time to ship. 

For example, she wants new organ shoes. I can't find or ship those in a couple of days. 

Last time (or the last couple of times) we just got her (boys'/men's) latin dance shoes because they're cheaper than actual organ shoes but are...along the same lines. But now that she thinks her feet have stopped growing she wants real organ shoes. So we'll probably look into that for Christmas. 

Anyway, here's Miriam opening presents, with Phoebe right beside her so that Phoebe can be in charge of telling Miriam which order to open her presents in:

"I've made a huge mistake"

As emotionally exhausted as I was from this week (and despite having a lot of reading and writing to do), Andrew encouraged me to go to bed around 8:30 this evening, shortly after I finished reading bedtime stories to Alexander and Phoebe...and subsequently fell asleep on the couch after they skipped off to roast marshmallows with Daddy.

Here's the thing—it's Friday night! And Miriam's birthday! 

And although we decided to hold off on celebrating as a family (because (a) neither Rachel nor I had time to put a cake together this week and (b) the girls invited friends over so we'd have to rush through our family stuff and I don't like rushing through family stuff) the girls did plan a little fire pit/game/movie night with their friends. 

In a brilliant move, the mother of one of the girls' friends invited Benjamin and Zoë to hang out at their house with their pre/teens, so those two weren't feeling left out.

But Alexander and Phoebe kind of were. 

We had intended to get outside and let them roast some marshmallows before coming in for bedtime, but one thing led to another, and then it was too late to go out to roast marshmallows because the teenagers had moved on to other activities and we didn't want to interrupt. So instead Andrew got out our little "table fire" thingy (which Alexander was a little afraid of because the last time we used it he grabbed the grate without realizing it was hot and burned his poor little hand so badly; fortunately future problems are easily prevented by remembering that everything about this production is hot) and roasted marshmallows inside with those two. 

And I fell asleep on the couch and was subsequently put to bed at the same time as Phoebe. 

When I protested, Andrew said, "But doesn't 12 hours of sleep sound glorious?"

Now, that's true. 12 hours of sleep does sound glorious, but as tired as I am theoretically...my body is also used to getting up and going after five hours of sleep or so. And that's typically five hours of interrupted sleep because Phoebe still doesn't sleep through the night consistently.

Anyway, around 2 AM my body and brain were like, "Time to start another day!"

Turns out going to bed at 8:30 was a "huge mistake."

So I got up—and took a melatonin—and read an article that wasn't on my list of things to read, but which felt important to read anyway, and about half of another article, and did Duolingo, made some edits to my mom's paper, and now I'm finally feeling like I could maybe fall back asleep, so perhaps I'll try it.

Twelve times I've cried this week:

(more truthfully in the past two days)

After a particularly rough meeting with a professor. After a particularly cheering meeting with a different professor. While adding another cousin to the spreadsheet of relatives with the BRCA gene mutation. When Matthew Cuthbert died. When Anne found renewed pleasure in life. When a friend texted to apologize for a lapse of compassion years ago. When that same friend suggested she take my younger-older kids to hang out with her younger-older kids while the older-older kids are hanging out at my house. After my oldest-older kid submitted her college application. When a cousin texted me out of the blue. When I listened to a new arrangement next-to-oldest-older kid is making of a Christmas song. When a girl in my class put her hand on my shoulder after my presentation and said that I did wonderfully and she appreciates having me in class. While reading about the needless destruction of the Jaredite nation. After seeing images of people sitting in the dirt, held at gunpoint, wearing nothing but underwear.

Maybe you've guessed it, maybe you've not...too bad.

While my days on campus are very quiet and I am able to get quite a lot of focused reading and writing in, I also tend to feel rather nervous about going to class while also feeling guilty about not being home with my kids. It's complicated, I know.

But, I always leave them with a long list of things to do and they do just fine with Daddy at home. 

My favourite part is when they email me (or text me or send a discord message of) little bits of assignments, to prove to me that they're doing their assigned work. 

Today I asked them to read some Halloween poems (their choice) and then to revisit their Halloween poems from last week to see if they wanted to revise their poem or perhaps write a new poem. 

Inspired by Phoebe's relationship with her pumpkins, Zoë wrote this poem. To give you context, Phoebe has been sleeping with not one but two pumpkins every night for weeks now. She carries them around and plays with them all day, pretends to feed them, takes them outside with her, drags them back inside, brings them in the van when we go out, reads them stories. It's...it's a lot. So read this poem knowing that we tuck in Phoebe and her gourds every night:

My best friend’s suit is bright orange, but has no tie at all

His nose is always yellow, and always set aglow.

His eyes are cozy triangles; but do not bring him in bed—

He’s round and hard and lumpy, as everyone has said.

Maybe you’ve guessed it, maybe you’ve not, but…

My best friend’s a pumpkin, and he’s the only friend I’ve got!

The attention to meter and rhyme is spectacular. There are a few places where the language could be tweaked, but overall I was so impressed that I thought for sure she had pulled out a mentor poem and simply adapted it. But evidently this was all her work.

Space heater

It's mid-October and sometimes chilly, but we're firmly decided on not turning the heater on until November. Just to see if we can (we totally can). 

Andrew (the cheater) moved a space heater into his office and when he turns that puppy on and closes his office door, things get pretty roasty-toasty inside. 

I was in the kitchen just now and he left his roasty-toasty office, leaving the door wide open. 

When I left the kitchen I had a moment of panic when I was hit by a waft of warm air, right in the face. 

"What in the world?!" I asked to no one in particular, sniffing the air. "Is the heater on? What is going on?"

Rachel and Miriam came to investigate with me (the little kids, the younger kids, the kids from Benjamin on down were taking care of Luna) and they agreed that the air was certainly much warmer at head level than ground level. 

This makes sense...because hot air rises. 

But where was the air coming from?!

It was Miriam who pointed out that Andrew's office heater was on and that air was spilling out of his office into the hallway. On his way back to his office he encountered us all bobbing up and down in the hallway, "Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold."

The difference was astounding. 

Quadoculars

Phoebe found a toilet paper roll ("toy-yet paper roll," as she says) and coloured on it and started using it as a telescope, only she wasn't satisfied with the idea of a telescope. Only one eye? How lame is that?!

"These 'noculars are broken," she insisted. "I need another toy-yet paper roll so I can fix them into real 'noculars!"

I didn't know where another toilet paper roll was off the top of my head (because I'd just donated all our toilet paper rolls to Alexander's recycled art class at co-op), but Miriam said she and Rachel had a toilet paper roll (or two or three) kicking around their bathroom. 

She brought them up and Phoebe was in toilet paper roll heaven. 

Do you know what's better than a lousy single-lens telescope? 

Binoculars.

Obviously.

Do you want to know what's better than binoculars?

Why, quadoculars, of course!!