Razzle Dazzle

Phoebe got into one of her favourite things last night—Zoë's purple lip gloss. She figured that if that purple sheen was that dazzling on her lips, surely it would be dazzling everywhere! 

Do *YOU* have a billdew?

In my mail preview I saw that we were supposed to get a letter from BYU-Idaho today. Usually that's because we've missed some charge on Rachel's account. Here's the thing: we pay tuition because it's pretty obvious when that is due, but then sometimes her courses will have textbooks that they will automatically charge us for her to use...at random points in the semester. Like we will check and check and check...and then we'll forget to check for charges. And then they'll charge us and send us a letter in the mail saying, "Hey! Pay for your textbooks already!"

It's fine. 

So I walked down to her room and said, "Hey, do you have a bill due at BYU-I?"

And she goes, "What's a billdew?"

And I was like, "You know...like...when you have a bill that you have to pay at a certain time and..."

"Oh!" she said. "I thought you were talking about a thing called a billdew. And I was like, I don't even know what that is..."

And I said, "I don't know what a billdew is either, but this does not bode well for sending you out into the world..."

"Hey!" she said.

I thought I did, I thought I did...

Today there was a copy of The Little Engine That Could in a "Little Free Library" we passed while out on a walk, so we took it home with us. On a very technical level, I believe that we have a copy of this book in our house somewhere, but I don't know where it is off the top of my head and I haven't read it to the kids in years so it's possible it didn't move with us...or...at any rate, we haven't read it for a long time.

But we read it today and then the kids wanted to get out one of our felt board games (that are typically reserved only for sacrament meeting, to keep them novel and entertaining on Sundays). The kids know the back side of this felt board because it's The Three Little Kittens and I sometimes sing that to them for a bedtime song, but I guess they've kind of been in the dark about the significance of the train part. 

Not that they haven't ever played with the trains—they definitely had—they just didn't realize they could have been retelling the specific story of The Little Engine That Could. My bad.

I thought I had read them this story. I thought I did. I thought I did. I thought I did...

But for sure I have now.

A-B-C-D

Phoebe made me a bookmark during reading time this morning. It's a picture of Luna (the neighbour's dog), obviously. You can tell because of the legs.

We're reading Codename Kingfisher by Liz Kessler, but my thoughts are only tangentially on the topic of the book (which is a holocaust story). Or perhaps they are precisely on target, but also tangential. 

Because everything looks the same, everything feels normal. Until it's not. 

All homemade (except the stuff that isn't)

Last night Rachel was cleaning her room when she came across a UFO (an UnFinished Object), which she decided to take a few minutes to finish. It was a hat she had started during General Conference...in October...of 2021. 

She's standing over my shoulder as I type this and would like to say that in her defense she started it then, put it down, and left it down for 3+ years before picking it up again. 

I suppose that's an excuse.

At any rate (and the rate in this case was incredibly slow because it took her 3+ years to do so) Rachel has finally finished the hat!

This morning Zoë helped Phoebe try on all our most recent handmade items (hat and sweater by Rachel, scarf by Zoë):

As Rachel put it,  Phoebe looked very Dobby-esque. Phoebe also requested pants and socks. We'll have to work on that.

In other news, Benjamin's new sweater arrived today. 

Free money

We finally redeemed the gift certificate Zoë for the spooky story contest. The last time I used this particular bookstore was when Benjamin won the spooky story contest a few years ago, so I was surprised to find that my gift card balance was $50 instead of the promised $25. 

I did a little digging into our account and found out that when Benjamin and I ordered his books—and I have a distinct memory of this—I had used my credit card to pay the little bit he went over. It's really hard to hit exactly $25 when spending a gift card and the total in his cart came to something like $28 when it came time to check out. So I was like, "That's fine. I can pay $3 to get him these books."

That's where they get you with these gift cards, isn't it?

They doubly got us, though, because when I went to check out I somehow overrode the gift card payment and payed the whole thing with my credit card. We've just had $25 sitting at the bookstore for the past couple of years!

So Zoë picked out her $25+ of books (remember—it's very difficult to hit that $25 precisely) and I thought, "That's fine. I can pay a couple of bucks to get her these books." 

But then I looked at my total and it told me that we still had a good $20 left to spend on books!

It really was like finding free money! 

So we stuck a couple more books in our cart...and still ended up paying a couple of dollars using my credit card. BUT this time I was sure to actually apply the gift cards as well. 

I think I'm most excited about Wild Robot. We haven't read it yet (or watched the movie) but I've heard excellent things about it. It is always, always, always checked out at the library and I haven't jumped into the hold line yet. I've been putting holds on so many other things lately—for both my class on Race, Class, and Gender in Children's Literature and for my job with the Georgi Children's Book Award—that I just...haven't bother putting this on hold, especially knowing that we'd only have it for three weeks with no hope of renewing...but also that so many different people in our house want to read it that we'd need more than three weeks with it to let everyone read it. 

So I think this was a wise purchase.

This evening at dinner

For some reason, Andrew mentioned that Costco sells elk antlers...for dogs to chew on. This got Benjamin very excited, but Andrew told him that he was not going to buy any for him. 

"It's not like the entire antler," Andrew said. "It's just pieces of elf antler."

"ELF ANTLERS!" the little kids all squealed. 

"Ugh. Wrong continent," Andrew moaned.

"WRONG CONTINENT?!" the kids howled. "Where do you think elves live?!"

"Wrong consonant! I swear I said consonant!"

"You did, in fact, say continent," I solemnly informed Andrew. 

"This is like cannibalism!" Zoë exclaimed. 

And thus ensued a long conversation about (a) Andrew's knowledge about which animals live in the south pole and which live in the north pole—he gets them confused sometimes and (b) the hierarchy of humanoid creatures in The Lord of the Rings and who is okay with eating who and (c) how this translates back to our own realm regarding humans, elves, and apes. 

Apparently elves outrank humans. Orcs are fallen elves who don't necessarily outrank humans but who definitely would eat humans. But in our world humans outrank elves, so we could eat elves, but only if we were fell humans.

Andrew was laughing so hard he was crying.

Come on, get in my boat, fish!

Yesterday Andrew made challah specifically so he could make French toast for dinner. He made some delicious fried apples to go on top (which our kids like to call "simmered fruit" because of Zelda). The whole meal was divine. 

When we were taking our little "Victory Lap" around the table, Andrew answered that "making this meal" was...something...either his F-POD or his F-Party...I can't remember which. We'll pretend that it was his F-Party.

"I celebrate making this food!" Andrew said. 

"Me, too!" Phoebe agreed. "Thank you for this yummy dinner, Daddy! It is so delicious!"

She is very quick to thank people for things. And she is very quick to praise people for things.

"Thank you for wiping my bum." 

"Thank you for handing me that crayon."

"You are very good at walking up the stairs."

"Wow! I love that picture. It is amazing!"

She is overflowing with gratitude and awe. And we love that about her.

It's dynamite!

Alexander told me a joke the other day. He made it up about a picture on the cover of the joke book we checked out of the library. It's not a joke in the book. He just made it up about the cover, which features a skateboarding dinosaur (or something like that—definitely a dinosaur, might not be skateboarding), proclaiming, "These jokes are dino-mite!"

"What do you call a dinosaur who might do something?" he asked me (when he was supposed to be brushing his teeth). 

"I don't know," I said.

"A dino-might!" he cackled. 

"That's hilarious!" I said. "...go brush your teeth."

So, chuckling, he walked away to brush his teeth. Approximately two minutes later he came back to me. 

"This is sort of a follow up to that last joke," he said timidly, but you've got to understand that when Alexander feels any sort of fluster or confusion or excitement, he starts hiccoughing basically between every syllable. And evidently he was either really excited about part two of his joke or he was nervous that it was now past the time when he was sent to bed (the punishment for which is...being reminded that it's time to get to bed...so pretty serious stuff...I'm going to go with "he was excited about his own cleverness"). 

"This—hic—is—hic—sorta—hic—a—follow—hic—up—hic—to—hic—to—hic—to—hic—that—hic—last—hic—joke!" 

"Go for it, buddy," I said. 

"Did it..." He waggled his eyes as he said this next part: "Blow. Your. Mind?"

And then he ran off to bed laughing his head off. It was a pretty good follow up joke, I have to say!

(If I were to workshop the first part I would suggest something like, "What do you call a dinosaur who maybe will, maybe won't?" But overall, two thumbs way, way up!)

Li'l Adrenaline Junky

We were gathering for scriptures and prayer the other day when Phoebe decided she wanted to brush my hair for me. She was wielding a comb, however, and I was like, "No, thank you! Not with that! If you want to brush my hair you have to get a hairbrush."

She does not hold back when she uses a comb and I'm always afraid she's going to slice into my scalp. 

Anyway, she went upstairs to find a hairbrush. And it took her a while because she stopped to wash her hands and liberally apply someone else's chapstick to her face and...who even knows what else. She took forever. And when she finally came downstairs she did, in fact, have a hairbrush, but her sleeves were soaked and her face was covered in purple chapstick, so we know she was up to a few things.

Anyway, she was taking so long up there that Andrew hollered, "Phoebe! Come downstairs!"

"Okay, I'm coming!" she hollered back. And then she whimpered, "Oh, no..."

"Not like that!!" I yelped as we heard the first thud.