Baptism Announcement, Service Activity, Birthdays, Lost Teeth...and more!

I just pulled Miriam's cake out of the oven. 

We did a horrendous singing to welcome her birthday this morning, but we'll sing to her properly over cake and candles tomorrow. 

We left for Athens early this morning so we could paint CASA's (Court Appointed Special Advocates) porch and shutters, clear their gutters, trim their bushes, and so forth. I'm the service chair for our graduate student organization, but honestly Bekah did most of the planning. Her sister is on the board at CASA and when she heard we were looking for volunteer opportunities she quickly came up with a list. It worked out very well. 

We had 22 people sign up and 19 people attend. We had doughnuts and chicken-biscuit

So we spent the morning cleaning and painting. Zoë was working the crowd, getting to know everybody. She lost a tooth and told everyone it was Miriam's birthday. There were congratulations and birthday wishes all around. It was a big day!

Then we went stopped by the botanical gardens to take some pictures of Alexander so I could make his baptism announcement...which I finished just a few minutes before pulling the cake out of the oven. 

He has paint on his arms and holes in his shoes and could hardly stay still for a picture, but I think that speaks volumes about his heart and direction. He's dirty from service and his soles have been worn out in following a good course.

At least, that's what I'll tell myself. 

New clothes and passports and lizards and things

My sister Josie sent a Grogu-themed sweatsuit for Phoebe. She was overjoyed when we finally opened the package and wanted to try it on right away. I asked Phoebe to strike a pose for Auntie Josie and this is what she did:

Rick Steves' Romania...or Steve Ricks?

Bram Stoker's Dracula is our current read-aloud, so our attention is shifting away from the Great Depression (which has been our focus for the last little while) towards...wherever it is we're heading in our social studies...studies. Alexander was having some trouble picturing the castle as described, so I thought we should take a little visit to Romania (something Bram Stoker never did). 

I called on the knowledge of Rick Steves, a travel writer/guru my Auntie Colleen recommended to me years and years ago. She raved about his guides to Europe. And I have to admit that they are, in fact, good. One year when I visited her she gave me an older copy of one of his guide to Europe after she got a revised edition for herself. He's very knowledgable.

And he now has a YouTube series as well!

Swimming and Organ Awards

Saturday, as mentioned earlier (I think), was a busy day, but the kids have come off conquerers!

Here's Benjamin with his ribbons from his swim meet:

Both his relay teams won first place (he swam a 50m leg of breaststroke in the medley relay and a 50m leg of freestyle in the freestyle relay, as one does). He got second place in the 200m IM (individual medly—so 50m each of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle). He got third in 100m backstroke, and fourth in 50m freestyle. So not a bad day for him!

Halloween Twister

We pulled out our "spooky spin" game a while ago but didn't get around to playing until FHE yesterday. We played a little bit before FHE, then stopped playing to have a lesson on prayer (which Alexander had prepared), and then we played a bit more before getting ready for bed. 

A busy week

Zoë had her first day of gymnastics this week. She was worried she was a little too old for starting, but I told her that I was her same age when I started gymnastics and that helped her feel a little bit better. She had a blast!

In which Phoebe protests child labour

Rachel shared with us that she'll be starting a second job, helping a professor with some research. She shared this news separately with Andrew and me in text messages....or something. I can't actually find her original message about it so maybe she told me in person. Whatever the case, Andrew brought it up one evening while we were gathered for scriptures and prayer.

"Rachel got a second job," he said.

"Doing research with Dr. A?" I asked. 

"Doing research with Dr. A," he confirmed.

Miriam, who has only ever worked for tuition reduction at her teacher's music studio, asked, "Does she get paid for this job?"

"That's how jobs work..." I chuckled.

Phoebe, who had been lying with her head on my lap, half asleep, suddenly jerked up quite alert and said, "Hey! Why don't I get paid for my jobs?"

We...don't give our kids allowance. I know a lot of people feel allowance teaches kids responsibility and how to manage money and so forth. But, honestly, not once have I ever been paid for doing the dishes or cleaning the toilets or folding the laundry (at home). I just have to do those things...because that's part of being alive. So I don't pay my toddler allowance for putting away the clean dishes because...that's just part of being alive. 

Anyway, learning that people get paid to do jobs has awakened Phoebe to, like, child labour rights...or something.

This morning she came into our room and woke me up to inform me that she did a very good job staying dry and staying in her bed all night long (she's been waking up to fuss and "forcing" Andrew to sit up with her while she goes back to sleep the past few nights). And she did do a good job with both those things. 

Then when Andrew asked her to unload the dishwasher, she turned on the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack and got right to work.

I made some remark about how nice that was—to just have her pitch in and do her work without crying and carrying on. Very mature. Very responsible. Very cool. 

"I think," she said. "That since I'm doing such a big-girl job at the dishes and staying in my own bed that I can stay up a little later."

"What?" I asked. 

"I want to stay up later because I'm not crying about doing the dishes."

"You're trying to negotiate a later bedtime?" 

"The big kids do it."

Fortunately, Phoebe doesn't understand time, can't read clocks yet, has no idea what her bedtime is, and often goes to bed later than we intended to put her to bed, anyway. As long as it's dark out, she thinks she's staying up late (lucky for us, we live in a place where daylight doesn't vary too much).

Alexander is 8!

Someone was giving away an expired gingerbread house on the Buy Nothing Group and because it had some autumnal vibes, I figured it would be a great way to ring in this season of gratitude. So for FHE on Monday—Canadian Thanksgiving—we put it together (and worked on some leaves to add to our thankful tree). We were very lucky that the kit came with seven distinct pieces to decorate (two roof tiles, four walls, and a chimney). That meant everyone got something to decorate! The instructions also suggested decorating the pieces flat and then putting them together, which for some reason I have never thought of doing...but it did make the whole project much less crowded.

Here's everyone working on their pieces...

Benjamin did a side wall and worked very meticulously on his vines and things:

On Campus with Phoebe

Miriam drove to campus on Monday. 

She is a very different driver than Rachel in ways that I didn't expect. For example, when we'd get stuck behind a slow vehicle, Rachel would often be content to be stuck behind the slow vehicle. It was a relief, really, because then no one behind her could really be mad at her for going slow because they could see as plain as day that she was, for example, stuck behind a big truck. 

Miriam is like, "Gross. Why is this car going so slow? Should I go around them? I can totally go around them..."

Andrew was coaching her the whole way, of course, because if I had been coaching her I would not have been encouraging her to pass anyone unless things were perfectly clear. 

That's...why Andrew is coaching her, probably. 

Anyway, Phoebe was super excited to get to spend the day on campus. She loves getting to see "Campus Puppy." On this particular day there was a girl out front taking her graduation pictures. 

"Ooooh! That girl is graduating!" Phoebe sang out. "Isn't that great of her?!"

Then she saw "Campus Puppy" and squealed, "Oooh! Campus Puppy is graduating, toooooo!"

Banned Book Fest

I spent the day on campus for the Banned Book Fest. I've "tabled" at this event three times now, and I think this was my best year yet. 

The first year I was super pregnant and it was super hot outside and the tables were all in the sun. The second year it rained so they moved the tables inside. Both years I more or less ran the table by myself (the first year Dr. Panaou was with me for part of the time and the second year...I think it was just me). I couldn't make it last year. But this year I did!

And the weather was beautiful and I sent out a message to our graduate student organization asking for volunteers to help "table" so I had wonderful company (Aila, Morgan, Lu, and Jie).