2025 MFECOE Poster Contest

A few weeks ago we/I/my class learned about the poster contest hosted by the MFECOE's Office of Research and Graduate Education, which all graduate students were encouraged to participate in...but which apparently none of us knew about. Dr. Misha encouraged us to use some of our creative ethnography from class as a basis for our paper, so we started looking into it and even though the turnaround time for this project was lightning fast, we managed to pull something together. 

The graduate school will print our posters for us—for free!—which is pretty cool because when Andrew was at BYU and Duke we had to pay to print posters. They want four business days to print a poster, however, so you have to plan at least that far in advance. 

I needed to pick up the poster on Friday, which meant we had to turn it in by Tuesday of last week. That's one week exactly to the day from when we first heard about it! We planned to submit it by Monday, just to give us a cushion. So we met about things on the afternoon of Good Friday and I put the poster together over the weekend and submitted it to be printed last Monday, picked it up on Friday as planned. And then presented today.

Yellow Flamingos

Today I was reading Can You Dance Like a Peacock? with Phoebe and she got really excited about the flamingo page. 

"Can we get some flamingos at the store?" she asked. 

"I...don't know...that you can really get flamingos at the store...?" I said.

"You can!"

"Where?"

"Just at the store! They have them! But not usually pink flamingos."

"Yeah, see...I didn't think they had pink flamingos at the store."

"They have yellow flamingos. Can we get those?"

"Yellow flamingos?"

"Yes! I love them!"

Frog update

The kids and I were outside looking at the tadpoles, some of which are more like frogs than tadpoles now. We've determined that perhaps they aren't bullfrog tadpoles after all. A wood frog, perhaps. Something smaller than a bullfrog.

This little guy is developing some impressive jumpers:

Benjamin holding the froglet

Maypole

Me: It's math hour. And I need to finish writing a paper. You guys need to be focused on your work right now so I can focus on mine.

Also me: I wonder if we can fashion a maypole out of items we have in our house...

Math hour is still going. I would say "going strong" but that might be overly optimistic. 

But also we have a functional maypole! 

Easter Sunday

We had to be at church early last Sunday to rehearse for the Easter program, which went well. The primary children sang, and then the young women sang a piece Miriam selected and which they learned all on their own, and then the ward choir sang a few pieces as well. 

Miriam stayed to play the organ for the Spanish ward. Rachel stayed to drive her.

Then when she got home we had to leave for Grandpa and Darla's for Easter dinner, which was lovely. But we didn't get home until it was nearing bedtime. And the Easter Bunny had not stopped by yet.

Our children were incredibly patient about this. They hardly asked when or whether the Easter Bunny was going to come. Benjamin and Zoë did drop some hints about their expectations, like, "Gee...if we took the little kids down to the basement to play for an hour do you think the Easter Bunny might how up thing?" But they were very mature when I turned down their "offer," reminding them that their older sisters weren't at home and the Easter Bunny probably wouldn't drop by when it thought it might get caught by children coming home. 

Anyway, Rachel was in charge of dessert for Easter dinner and she needed to put some frosting on the carrot cake after she got home from church (which took her forever...wink, wink), but the kids were already getting anxious to leave for Grandpa and Darla's, so we told them to each grab a book and head out to get buckled in the van. They did. And then they waited while Rachel first iced one cake, which Andrew brought out to the van, grumbling about how long Rachel was taking in the kitchen. And then Rachel got the other cake ready (she'd also made a lemon-glazed vanilla dessert). And then we finally, finally got in the car to head to Grandpa and Darla's. 

We ate, we visited, we played some catching games in the backyard...and then we headed home and...the kids were so surprised to find that the Easter Bunny had come! Phoebe thought it was magical while Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander were perplexed about how we managed to pull off a surprise like this. 

I am not a very surprising person, it seems, so this was a smashing success.

Georgia Botanical Gardens

I had to go to campus again today on a two-fold mission: (1) to attend the awards luncheon for my program (I didn't win anything this year...but they wanted people to come support those that did), and (2) to pick up the poster I had printed for a conference on Tuesday. 

The awards luncheon was at the Botanical Gardens and...wow!

I mean, we've seen the signs but we just...never knew. It's like Duke Gardens...but better somehow? Except that it's not connected to campus directly so it's a little less accessible. But it's pretty awesome. 

They have beautiful plants...

Turns out...

Yesterday Phoebe wanted to go to the park, but it was too wet for that. In the afternoon when we went for a walk, however, there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky. 

"It's a rainbow for real life," Phoebe told us.

Phoebe and Alexander on campus!

One of my earliest memories—or perhaps one of my earliest memory of a memory—is attending a horticulture class at BYU with my mom. 

What I remember remembering is that I was sitting under a desk eating Froot Loops from a little cup. The classroom was dark, except for a screen at the front, which was showing slide projections of various plants. 

That's it. That's the memory. 

After verifying this memory with my mom, I learned that I would have been about two years old when that memory occurred. The teacher of the class was Dr. St. Clair (who I would later work for in the Integrative Biology (or "InBio" as it was then called) department shortly after Andrew and I got married). 

I wonder why that memory stuck with me so firmly through all the many years that it did—and the feeling of the memory as well...just of...feeling content and safe. 

And I wonder what memories my children will take with them moving forward. 

Will Phoebe remember getting to come to campus with me today? She was terribly excited to get to come...only to be required to be still and quiet. She played with her felt boards and drew on her drawing pad quite happily through most of the poetry readings.

2025 Easter Egg Smackdown

Eggs. Boy, I dunno...

They're about $6 per dozen right now. We boiled 25 eggs for Easter this year, so it cost us about $12 for an afternoon of family fun—and that included dinner! Not too bad. 

Do I wish eggs were cheaper? Certainly. 

But I also think there are bigger fish frying here and that in spite of—*waves hands vaguely*—all this it's good to be together, it's good to enjoy each other. I got to read some of Delores Williams' Sisters in the Wilderness over the Easter weekend and particularly enjoyed this passage: "the text [scriptures] suggest that the spirit of God in Jesus came to show humans life—to show redemption through a perfect ministerial vision of righting relations between body (individual and community), mind (of humans and of tradition) and spirit" (p. 146). 

Righting relations. What a beautiful summary of everything the Saviour asks us to do—to love others, to mourn with those that mourn, to find what was lost, to just...go about doing good...to make things right. That's it. That's the message.

I'm not sure where to go between this point and the next, so before I tell you the first (and perhaps only) miracle of our 2025 Easter Egg Smackdown, I'll tell you that this week was Easter Sunday, so we only had one hour of church. Last week was our ward conference (and the week before that was General Conference), and two weeks before that was the week Benjamin spoke in church. 

Anyway, a major highlight of his day last week—during ward conference—was that the bishop quoted him in the middle of his talk. Bishop Dallin said, "As Benjamin Heiss advised us all a few weeks ago—do what you can do!"

That also happened to be the message of Andrew's underwear talk during FHE this evening. 

But I digress...so now I suppose I can tell you the miracle of the 2025 Easter Egg Smackdown: not a single egg was cracked during the egg dying process. No one dropped one or accidentally put all their weight on one or knocked one off the table or anything. We usually lose quite a few in the process of dying...but I guess the kids are growing up or something and now they all (mostly) know how to treat eggs with care (that is, we are no longer quite as outnumbered by chaos-makers as we once were).

Everyone got three eggs to decorate (with one egg designated the emergency back up egg...which we didn't even need).

Phoebe Narrates the Easter Egg Hunt

"Take, take, take, take, take!" she said as she gathered the shiny plastic eggs (that were expertly hidden by the young women earlier that morning).

Good Friday

Phoebe and Zoë wore matching dresses for tonight's Good Friday concert. They're dresses that Darla's girls used to wear when they were younger.

Benjamin On Campus

After all the chaos that was today (though we're not even finished yet because the reason I went to the dentist was to have my attachments be put back on my teeth—they've been off the last couple of weeks because I had a tooth that wasn't tracking so I had to get new trays fitted to try to get that tooth to move...but two of my new attachments have popped off and I'm a little sad about it because it means I'll have to go back in again), Rachel, Benjamin, and I were finally able to leave for campus. 

Murder on the Orient Express was playing at UGA, we knew...because we saw it being advertised when we were looking for shows Rachel could go to for her class. We went to John Proctor is the Villain and Rachel really wanted to go to Murder on the Orient Express as well, but since it's just playing now and her semester is over...it wouldn't really work for her class. So she and Miriam and I went to The Addam's Family at a local high school. It was decent...

But then one of my classes hosted an outing to Murder on the Orient Express this evening so I thought I should go. And Rachel would go as well. And then I decided Benjamin should come along as well. 

At first, the outing was going to cover the cost of my ticket. But then I was told we'd have enough to cover Rachel, too, and I then thought for sure that I'd have to buy Benjamin's ticket...but no! They had enough tickets for him as well, so we sure lucked out there! 

We went to campus before rush hour traffic and had enough time to go on a little hike near campus along the Oconee River that Rachel and I have been wanting to try. We'd walked as far as the graveyard before, but pressed on until we came to these rapids by Easley Mill Dam—that was a treat to come upon:

"I really wanted to hit a widow with a baseball bat"

I realized that I completely missed out on making a joke about spring break! Because last week is technically when we took our spring break (though we're also almost through all of our curriculum so we're on, like, "school lite" right now...plus it's, like, the crunch time of my semester, so...). We had such a good spring break our spring broke!

Apparently that's an important bit, but it's all together again!

Surprise...surprise!

"You're going to want to sit down for this..." the plumber said on the phone to Andrew last night. 

Our water heater had stopped working. The plumber asked what year our water heater was installed. 

"2005..." Andrew said, and that's when he was told to sit down. 

Evidently the life of a water heater is not typically so long. The recommendation: a new water heater. 

Of course. 

So the plumber came this morning and he was like, "Wow! I haven't seen you guys in a long time!"

And I was like, "Thank goodness for that!"

It's been about two years since our last plumbing emergency. Our plumber laughed and said, "Yes—plumbers, dentists, lawyers...all people you never really want to see!"

So, as of today we have a brand new water heater. It's smaller than our old one (which was massive—75 gallons), but is function (which is helpful for running a household of this size). The price tag was a bit of a yikes (which is why we downsized) but, you know, we were living on borrowed time with that thing, I guess. 

These surprising and costly fixes are...getting a little less surprising as time wears on. 

Just Mommy and Me

We went to the library, just Mommy and me. 

"Yay! No kids!" Phoebe cheered.

That meant she got to feed every book to the hippo and choose every book from the shelf. 

FHE

Phoebe is our default FHE conductor. She just assumes that giving everyone the agenda for the evening is her responsibility...and she loves it. 

"Welpum to faminy night!" she'll announce. "I'm going to choose the song..."

Of course she's going to choose the song (like there's any other option).

"...and Mommy is going to say the prayer. I choose...Once There Was a Snowman!"

She used to always choose How Much is That Doggy in the Window, but we told her it had to be a primary song. Technically, Once There Was a Snowman is a primary song. It's just not a very reverent one.

So we sang that song while she twirled around in circles, shaking her little egg shaker, and having the time of her life. When it was time to get ready for prayer, she ran over to kneel by Daddy. 

She's so glad he's home!

Lavender/Lilac

Phoebe wanted to make soup for dinner, using some rosemary she picked in the garden. She even got out a pot and put it on the stove with the rosemary in it, but I got out a bigger pot and started dinner in that. We had a head of cauliflower that we hadn't gotten to yet, so I decided on cauliflower soup and even found a recipe for rosemary cauliflower soup...which I loosely followed.

We decided on a whim to add some red cabbage to the soup. Quite a lot, actually. Because one head of cauliflower isn't going to feed a family of seven and we had some red cabbage in the fridge. 

Plus, it was bound to turn the soup a delightful pinkish-purple, which felt very springy, very Easter-y. 

Phoebe was very pleased with the light purple we ended up with after everything was blended together. But then I decided that it could use a little more acidity. So I grabbed a lemon and squeezed it into the pot and...

While the cat's away...

Last Saturday Phoebe asked me when Daddy was going to be home and I wasn't quite sure, so I texted him to ask, and in response he Facetimed so he could speak with Phoebe. 

She was sitting on the potty—her question to me had been some potty-time chatter—but she's pretty open about her bathroom habits, even demanding sometimes that people (specifically Andrew or I) watch her while she's in the bathroom. Thus the reason I was sitting and chatting with her in the first place. So I figured she'd be okay talking to Daddy while sitting on the potty.

She seemed happy to see him but was very pithy about things—giving him yes or no answers only. 

Book of Mormon Read-athon

When I was in Young Women, our YW president was amazing. I still hang on her every word...and can...even have thousands of miles between us and have gone decades without seeing each other...because she's a wonderful author.

One of her most recent books—Buffalo Flats—spoke to my very inner being, brought me back to my roots, and was simply the most beautiful embrace of a book. 

I've been thinking about her a lot lately because when I was in YW she planned a Book of Mormon Read-athon. My memory is getting less reliable these days, in a way I never thought it would. I seem to have too many thoughts knocking around inside my brain to keep them all straight, but here is what I remember:

We began after school, probably on a Friday. 

Was I homeschooled then? Or was I attending the high school? I honestly can't remember what year we held the read-athon. But I do remember that I walked to the church from the dentist office, where I'd just gotten a cavity filled. My mouth was numb for the first little while, but that was fine.

We started out doing a pop quiz on the first few chapters, since everyone has read "I, Nephi..." a billion times. I remember there was a question about Sam and whether he was Nephi's older or younger brother and...I was one of the few who got that question correct. 

I remember that we were often in the primary room. We had a line of tables set up and a number of readers would come up to the tables to sit; they would each read one paragraph and then relinquish their seat to someone else. 

We accomplished a lot of our reading that way.

Somehow—magically—food would appear for us to eat in the gym. I'm sure there was an entire army of volunteers I was unaware of. I have no idea what we ate, only that we did. 

Sometimes we were broken into groups to read sections of the Book of Mormon. At one point we had to make a skit to present to everyone else about a chapter or two. 

I don't really know what happened on Friday versus Saturday. But at some point—late in the evening, probably 10:00 or so—we went home to sleep. 

In the morning people came around to pick everyone up—carpools had been organized to get us all to the church. My friend's dad dressed up like a gorilla and was "kidnapping" kids from their houses. 

We read and read and read. And discussed. And ate. All day Saturday.

And at the end we had read the Book of Mormon. 

It was exhausting. And long. And at times difficult. 

But it was also beautiful and uniting and good. 

I'm positive it was a lot of work...because we're hosting a Book of Mormon read-athon at our house right now. 

Sitting in the hallway

On Tuesday I didn't see Phoebe at all. 

She was a stinker on Monday night and had a rough time falling asleep and staying asleep. And then she insisted that Andrew stay in her hall while she worked to fall asleep at 2:00 in the morning, even though he had a plane to catch on Tuesday morning. I tried to convince him to just let her suffer through me sitting in the hallway, but he felt bad doing that because...well...it makes her angry to have me in the hallway.

"Mommy and I are just going to say our prayers and then one of us will come back to sit in the hallway for a little while," he reassured her. 

"One of you...but not Mommy..." she said. 

"Well," he hedged. "I have an early flight in the morning so..."

"Please not Mommy!" she begged. "It makes me angry to have Mommy in the hallway! I just want you!"

So he caved and sat in the hallway while she fell asleep. 

Then he woke up early and left for the airport. 

Rachel milestones

Rachel submitted her last paper for her last BYU-Idaho class (and thus her last class for high school graduation) on Wednesday morning. That means she's now officially a high school graduate!

On Tuesday morning Andrew flew to Utah for a week-long workshop at Utah State University. He took along a suitcase of stuff Rachel will need when she moves out there...including this temperature blanket that she finally finished. She started it in 2023, and I believe she finished it in January of this year, so it took her about two years to finish. It's long!

They were in my drawer!

Years ago—I can't find the post right now, though I know it exists, Rachel walked into the house after school loudly complaining that her pants were uncomfortable.

I looked at her and gasped because she was very clearly wearing Miriam's pants. 

This is less of a big deal now that they're about the same size of people. But back then (when Miriam was a teeny preschooler and Rachel was already in school) they were sized considerably differently. 

"Now wonder!" I said. "Those are Miriam's pants!"

"Well, they were in my drawer!" Rachel retorted. 

And that line...is one that frequently pops up at our house. Most recently it popped up last weekend when Benjamin got dressed to go for a walk between conference sessions. 

"Man," he said. "My 6T pants are finally getting too small for me! These things are so tight!"

"6T?" I said. "Those can't be yours! 6T is much closer to Alexander's size than..."

"But they were in my drawer!" Benjamin protested.

"And who puts your laundry away?" I asked. 

"Good point."

Clearly a pair of Alexander's pants had gotten mixed in with Benjamin's pants at some point. Benjamin swears he's been wearing them regularly...but I disagree. I think the reason they were "suddenly" much too small is because they've been too small for years and have belonged to his little brother for a while now. 

Rachel points out that Benjamin's confusion over pants is "much worse" than her confusion over Miriam's pants because (1) Benjamin is five years older than Alexander and she is only two years older than Miriam, and (2) her mistake happened when she was in the early years of elementary school...not the end of middle school. 

A morning at the playground

As I mentioned, we spent the morning at the park. Did it rain last night and I just missed it? The weather history says no...so perhaps they just sprayed the pavilion? Whatever the case, Phoebe enjoyed splashing in these puddles while her siblings completed their morning work.

Early literacy

On Wednesday while the boys were in their co-op classes (Zoë didn't come with us because she needed to go to piano lessons and Andrew wasn't here so Rachel had to drive Zoë in when she took Miriam), Phoebe decided she wanted to learn how to write her name. 

Here is one of her attempts from Wednesday:

J'ai voté!

I'll admit I was a little worried when I didn't get a confirmation email...

I got one email from Elections Canada saying:

Your application to vote by mail has been received.

An Elections Canada representative will contact you if your application is incomplete or cannot be approved.

If your application is approved, you will receive a confirmation email and a special ballot voting kit will be sent to the mailing address provided on your application. 

I didn't get a second email. But today when I opened up the mailbox, my ballot was there! 

We're here to burgle your turts!

Phoebe slept in her own bed—and stayed dry!—until 6:00 or so. I helped her go potty and then we climbed back into bed for some morning snuggles and ended up falling back to sleep. She woke up hankering for a trip to the park.

I had a meeting in the early afternoon, but we decided we could do our writing time at the park and our math when we go home (we've finished with our science curriculum for the year and the kids have been working on reports for social studies). So we got up and started getting ready to go right away.

We had fun at the park, and I'm sure the kids would like me to share pictures of the cool stuff they did (and I will) but this post is about the turtle-y awesome walk we went on just before we came home. We decided to just take our ordinary stroll around the pond to see how spring is coming on (very nicely, if I do say so myself). 

Suddenly Zoë screeched, "Is that a turtle?!"

"Is what a turtle?" I asked. 

"That!" she said, pointing to the sidewalk. "I thought it was a rock...but it just moved..."

Potty training progress...and things

There are days when I literally don't care that Phoebe wears a pull-up to bed. And there are also days where I do care because I honestly never had a child in pull-ups before. For the most part they potty-trained over night quite easily. Benjamin was reluctant...but he managed. And he wasn't angry about it.

Phoebe is reluctant. And angry. 

Like, having to get up to go potty in the night just makes her so mad. 

Andrew usually wakes her up to take her potty because she tolerates him at night. When I weaned Phoebe some switch in her brain went off and she just finds my very existence to be beyond annoying at night. I think she was a little bitter about weaning (it's been eleven months now!) and she just was kind of like, "Well, what good are you to me now?!!?!" 

So Andrew has been waking her up to go potty at night. 

This has been our method for the rest of the kids, except for Alexander who I just said, "Okay, no more diapers." And he was like, "On my honour..." and literally never wet the bed (except for one time when he was five). But the other kids we just would put them to bed, and then wake them up consistently for several nights. And then they'd typically start waking up on their own to use the potty and then we could stop waking them up to use the potty and pretty soon...presto!

Phoebe...is taking a while. Her sticker chart is full because she can stay dry. She even has stayed dry for five consecutive days (at which point I thought, "Phew! We did it!" but at which point she thought, "Cool. Did that. No need to do it ever again."). 

So she's off again, on again.