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!!

A costume party

Our next door neighbour had a birthday party last night and both Zoë and Alexander were invited. It was a costume party, which is always fun, but always a little bit frantic because it moves my costume deadline from Halloween to...whenever the party is. On a more positive note, two halloween costumes are completely finished so that's a little bit off my plate the next ten days or so!

Zoë wanted to be Fleur Delacour this year. I ordered a dress for her that she felt matched the Beauxbatons vibe. She has been living in it for a week—sleeping in it, playing in it. We basically have to wrestle her out of it in order to wash it.

Primary Program

We had our primary program today and (it ran a little long but) it went great! 

Phoebe made Grandpa take her onto the stand to join her nursery class in singing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam." Zoë played "Book of Mormon Stories" while the rest of the primary kids sang. We had a mother-son duet. Another family sang a song with ukulele accompaniment. We sang a song with sign language ("I Feel My Saviour's Love"). We even broke out the handbells for one of our songs ("We'll Bring the World His Truth"). The kids did wonderfully!

Everyone also had a speaking part and did great!

Homecoming queen

Rachel's friend Hunter invited her to go to homecoming at her high school. Hunter and her sister came to live with their aunt (who is in our ward) a few years ago. Hunter is the other senior young woman in our ward and for a long time she refused to come to anything because she thought she'd be all alone at activities. But then her sister threw herself a birthday party and both Rachel and Miriam came and Hunter was like, "I forgot about Rachel!" So now she comes to church activities and dances and game nights and both Rachel and Hunter are happy to have another "old" young woman around (since the next oldest young women are (a) Hunter's sister and then (b) Miriam, who are both about two years younger than Rachel and Hunter).

Anyway, Hunter's sister is rather gregarious and talkative. She has a ton of friends at school and wanted to go to homecoming with them. And Hunter wanted to go to homecoming since it's her senior year of high school...but Hunter is not as gregarious as her sister. But she knew that she had fun hanging out at church dances with Rachel, so she asked if Rachel would come with her. 

So those three girls got together and took pictures and had dinner and then went to the dance. They had a fun time (though they all not-so-secretly agree that church dances are superior because (a) the music isn't quite as loud, (b) they allow kids to go outside to get some fresh air, (c) they play complete songs rather than snippets, (d) they play at least a few slow songs, (e) people aren't making out all over the place). 

Rachel drove herself over to Hunter's house, where she found that she (Rachel) and Hunter's sister had picked out matching dresses. In all the pictures they took together they put Hunter in the middle, flanked by dark green dresses. I don't have those pictures, but I do have a few I took of Rachel before she left. 

Here she is holding a white pumpkin, poor Yorick:

Phoebe the caboose

I snapped this picture one fine morning when we were all having a little sleep-in together. "Little sleep-ins" is how we survive because this little girl is still not the very best sleeper. We take the sleep when we can get it...and where we can get it. 

She enjoys being close by, both a night and during the day. 

Alexander is 7!

Today is Alexander's birthday. 

It's also Canadian Thanksgiving. 

And Indigenous People's Day in the United States.

Sometimes I feel bad for celebrating Thanksgiving on what was Columbus Day in the States (since both Canadian Thanksgiving and that holiday land on the second Monday in October) because that might look like I'm celebrating Columbus Day (which I'm not), which losing its footing to the counter-celebration of Indigenous People's Day (with good reason). 

Though Canadian Thanksgiving has a separate history from American Thanksgiving it's truly no less colonial in nature. And the selection of the second Monday in October—though claimed to be because it's often the last nice weekend of the season—is suspect. Canadian holidays often align with American holidays even if we're completely unaware of it.

Ever heard of Family Day? It's a holiday that celebrates families—you get a day off of school and work and there are discounts at family friendly venues and it's great fun! It's the third Monday in February...which just happens to be when they're celebrating Presidents' Day south of the 49th. 

Coincidence? 

I think not. I really think it's simply convenient for Canadian institutions to have these kinds of "bank holidays" on the same schedule that the American Superpowers have their bank holidays.

But that's just my theory. 

Anyway, we had Thanksgiving dinner for Alexander's birthday dinner and Andrew went all out because we aren't hosting Thanksgiving this year (for the first time in a long time)! 

Here's our little harvest of garden carrots that we had with our meal:

Pumpkin patch

Alexander, Zoë, and Benjamin got to sleep over at Grandpa and Darla's house, along with two of Darla's grandchildren—Noah and Minnie. Noah is Benjamin's age and Minnie is Zoë's age. Alexander was just along for the ride and loved being the odd-man out and the youngest kid around because Grandpa and Darla just doted on him.

They decorated Halloween sugar cookies, they made little corn on the cob decorations out of beads, they made a turkey craft, they watched a movie, they camped in the back yard...they had a great time!

The older kids played some Dungeons and Dragons (which also happens to be the movie they watched). 

We met them at a little pumpkin party hosted by the realtor who sold Grandpa's house recently. He (the realtor) was a good friend of Darla's husband Dave (who was also in realty, though in commercial realty rather than residential realty). Anyway, they had a bunch of pumpkins scattered across their lawn for people to choose. I think we took an embarrassing number home...but Phoebe was just so excited to be at the pumpkin patch. She wanted to take all of the pumpkins home.

She had been consoling herself with this pumpkin patch idea all weekend!

"I don't get to sleep over at Grandpa-Darla's," she'd explain. "But I do get to go to the pumpkin patch. I do!" 

She was living her best life, collecting a whole pile of pumpkins for herself.

The dentist

We took everyone to the dentist over the course of the past two weeks. Here's the low down:

1. No cavities for anyone. Electric toothbrushes are amazing.
2. My dentist really wants me to get braces to fix my bite. 
3. Miriam is having a lingual frenectomy/frenotomy this week. Apparently she's been tongue-tied her whole life and...that's true. She has. We have made fun of her inability to stick out her tongue for ages. But she never had any trouble eating. And she never had any sort of speech impediment. Apparently she's just really good at compensating. But our dentist said there's lots of new research linking tongue posture to breathing issues like sleep apnea later in life (see also: the reason the dentist wants me to fix my bite). 
4. Miriam, Benjamin, and Zoë all need to visit the orthodontist as well. Miriam is ready for round two of braces, which should go a lot quicker than round one. Benjamin needs to pull down what we call his, uh, narwhal tooth. And Zoë has several teeth that haven't erupted (but which are present and need to be coaxed down somehow). She's had gaps for years it feels like. Alexander was on the cusp of needing his gums sliced to allow his front teeth through but I think the threat of that made him will his two front teeth to start making their way down after months of that big ol' gap up front.
5. Rachel laughed at everyone because she has beautiful teeth.
6. Phoebe was so sweet and cooperative (which was a real shocker given her behaviour in the past).  

Halloween Twister

After a brief talk about traditions for our family night lesson, we broke out our traditional Halloween Twister board because...we've been playing it during October for years and years and years. It's an easy tradition to do every year because we always have the supplies on hand so it costs nothing (at this point, though I think it once cost us like $5 or something), requires virtually no prep work (aside from making the kids pick up all their stuff from the floor), and everyone seems to enjoy it (though also multiple people cried about it). 

Those are the best kind of traditions, in my opinion—free, easy, and fun (the tears are optional).

Here are the youngest three playing together (though apparently that's an offensive term to Alexander because he's a middle-aged kid):