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.

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).

St. Patrick's Day

I neglected to get a picture of everyone wearing their green on St. Patrick's Day, but we were all sure to put on green first thing in the morning. St. Patrick's Day pinchers were out in full force that day!

It was pretty funny, though, because we kept forgetting why everyone was wearing green. At the dinner table Rachel remarked, "Hey! We're all wearing green today...oh."

Here's Zoë wearing a lovely green mustache:

Auntie K sent a bunch of St. Patrick's Day things years ago and we just get them out every year and enjoy them. I even brought our stash of headbands and hats to primary and had the primary kids wear them while singing wiggle songs.

Valentine Exchange (and a poem on Executive Orders)

Not only did we have the excitement of getting a bearded dragon to contend with this morning, but we also had to walk Luna (which we usually don't have to do on Wednesdays, but needed to do this week), and we had to walk her early because we had to get to co-op early for the Valentine exchange that we had beforehand. 

It was a busy Wednesday...and then got busier with piano for Zoë and organ for Miriam, and activity days for Alexander and Zoë, and a temple trip for Benjamin, Miriam, Rachel, and Andrew. Luckily it was just as crazy for our friends the Fitzes—they dropped their youth off at our house and Andrew drove all the youth to the temple and they picked up Alexander and Zoë for activity days since they're the activity day leaders, which left just me and Phoebe at home. On Tuesdays we hardly see each other at all, but on Wednesdays we are stuck together like glue, Phoebe and I.

We haven't participated in a Valentine exchange since exiting the public school system, so I was sorely out of practice. We signed Valentines for Family Home Evening on Monday and it was a real slog, let me tell you. Approximately 30 children participated in the Valentine exchange, which meant my four co-op children signed approximately 120 Valentines between them. It was...taxing. 

But I have to say—we came away with a lovely haul. 

I remember feeling like a bit of a curmudgeon about Valentine's Day back in 2019. To be fair, that was our first Valentine's Day after Karen passed away...and Valentine's Day is her birthday...so none of us were feeling super pumped about Valentine's Day.

But also! The. Amount. Of. Candy. my kids came home with. It was absurd!

Not so in our homeschool group! We had a few rice krispy treats, some muddy buddies, an orange...some erasers...stickers...pencils... Our family put a little frisbee in each Valentine box (they were leftover from the Anderson family reunion...in 2015...so I figured it was a good time to finally offload them). It was a lovely. I mean, a few candies here and there might have been okay. 

But nobody needs 10 boxes of conversation hearts. 

Anyway, I'm just saying, we ended up with different things at this Valentine exchange than I imagined we would. And it was lovely.

One little boy even crocheted a little whale for everyone. He made thirty of these things! And they were a huge hit. Everybody loved them. And he felt so happy that he was able to spread so much joy (even if his fingers were aching). Here's Phoebe with her whale:

The Dreidel Game...and gingerbread

After an entire month of advent calendars counting down until Christmas, the kids (Alexander, in particular) were excited to start counting the days of Hanukkah. As it happened, the first day of Hanukkah was on Christmas Day this year...but somehow we didn't get around to playing the dreidel game until today. We didn't get any gelt this year (although technically the kids got chocolate coins at both the live nativity we went to and in a Christmas gift from Jessica (their primary teacher), but they ate all of that) so we played with M&Ms instead. 

They were left over from our gingerbread houses...which I never did post about, did I? 

Guys! We made gingerbread houses! On December 19!

And, honestly, Phoebe ate so much candy it was concerning. She ate so much candy that her tummy hurt. When I suggested she could...stop eating candy...she simply batted her eyelashes at me and said, "No, fanks!"

New Year's Day

As it turns out, Phoebe does not have a stomach bug. This is lucky on two counts (1) because stomach bugs are awful and (2) because she basically slept on top of me last night.

Happy New Year!

Last night someone on the Buy Nothing Group offered up some NYE balloons, available after noon today (since they were throwing a Noon Year's Eve party at their house, wouldn't need the balloons for the evening, and wanted to spread the joy). I wasn't selected to get the balloons.

But! The person who was selected messaged me to say that she only wanted the word balloons (that spelled out "Happy New Year!") and since I live just around the corner...did I want to come pick up two big garbage bags of white and gold balloons? 

We had just finished preparing all the pirogies, but they were in the oven warming...so I said yes! We could come right now! So we got the balloons and then had our dinner. 

After dinner I set up a balloon drop in the living room:

 

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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):

Fourth of July Fireworks

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

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

Easter Egg Smackdown 2024

 Like many families in the world this week, we dyed Easter eggs. Below you'll see (from left to right, in columns) Phoebe's, Miriam's, Zoë's, Alexander's, and Benjamin's eggs, respectively:

Easter Sunday

Miriam and Rachel stayed for all three sacrament meetings at our building today. First they attended the Spanish ward, where Miriam is the organist. Then they stayed for the next ward because their friends from seminary were singing. And then they attended our meetings where...

Easter Saturday

Knowing that Sundays have been anything but restful recently, we decided to go ahead and do Easter baskets on Saturday this year. The Easter Bunny hid eggs all over the main floor and the basement, so we'll probably be hunting Easter eggs for a good year or more. Phoebe has been finding eggs all day!

 

Green Day

Alexander is terribly concerned about his lack of green church attire and the fact that St. Patrick's Day falls on a Sunday this year. He absolutely did not want to get pinched but just wasn't sure what he was going to wear! It was a real conundrum. 

So I joked that Miriam could make him a tie really quick since she's our resident seamstress.

To my surprise/delight she said that she would! So we looked up a few patterns and she was less than impressed to find out that a necktie involves very little machine sewing and a whole lot of hand stitching. I told her that I would do the hand stitching if she would do everything else—all the cutting and ironing and machine work. And we had ourselves a deal (though to be fair I ended up doing a whole lot of the ironing)!

This little project soon became two green ties (one for Benjamin and one for Alexander, since neither of them have green church attire, while the girls have plenty of options when it comes to skirts and dresses and things). When Miriam saw how much green fabric she had left after making the ties, however, the project ballooned into two green skirts (one for Zoë and one for Phoebe) and two green ties (one for Benjamin and one for Alexander).

It took us longer than we thought, but we managed to finish it all in one day (and it cost us nothing because it was all fabric I picked up from our Buy Nothing Group). We also learned a lot!