There is no escaping!

Zoë had a well-child check this morning. She's growing just fine, had her tetanus shot today. No real concerns.

While we were waiting for the nurse to come in for vaccinations (see: tetanus, also flu, with COVID to come in the next little while) we were trying to figure out all the animals and actions on the poster. The manatee playing the mandolin was a tricky one for Zoë—and what obscure things to choose. Urchin for U was interesting, but the poor urchin was doing little other than being under water. 

N was just offensive though...it was of a newt clearly taking a nap. 

And we all know how I feel about napping newts.

Primary Program (and Phoebe's first talk)

We had a long full day of church-related stuff. Thankfully I got to have a nap in the middle of it all. Some notes:

• yesterday was "Donut Day," also known as the anniversary of Karen's death; Grandpa brought some donuts over for us
• this morning was our primary program; Grandpa and Darla came to watch; Elder Fish of the (tenth quorum of the) seventy was there
• then I taught primary as normal; the entire stake primary presidency was there, along with the stake president
• Andrew stuck around long enough to have a temple recommend interview and then took Phoebe home because she's not entirely healthy still
• I had a temple recommend interview after primary
• I took a nap
• We went to choir practice
• Miriam drove me to the stake center for a stake leadership meeting

All in all it was about 12 hours of church-y stuff, so a very church-y Sunday, indeed. 

I made a slideshow that told all the kids when their part was coming up, and had all the songs in order and everything. And then I had a complete brain meltdown before one of the songs and couldn't remember the time signature or even feel the beat of the song somehow and realized that I've probably never actually conducted that song in my life, in spite of having spent the past 11 months teaching it to the kids, because I've only ever done the actions and...it was a bit awkward. But we got through it just fine...more or less.

Next time, I'm going to make a note of the time signatures for myself just to give my brain a break. 

I just...completely forgot how to conduct for a minute there. And I didn't have any music up there with me because I don't use music in primary. I just...sing along with the kids...sans music. So I fumbled through a few bits, but that's okay.

It went well. We had about a dozen kids there and they sang nicely and said their lines just fine. 

Zoë was in charge of helping the Sunbeams, specifically because we knew Phoebe wasn't going to let anyone else help her. She said, "Jesus loves us all the time, no matter where we are. How can you show love to someone else, just like Jesus does?"

Then she prompted Phoebe to say, "I can show love to others by drawing them a picture."

The other Sunbeams said things like "share my monster trucks," and "give a high five," so she was very much on theme.

Oh, Miriam (and Oh, Phoebe)!

We finished reading the Doctrine and Covenants a couple of weeks ago (I can't remember precisely when anymore) and have been working on memorizing the Articles of Faith in addition to finishing up our memorized scriptures for the year (you can see how we're doing here: the green (17) are passed off and yellow (3) mean we're still working on things). Soon we'll start going through our Christmas devotional book. 

Anyway, memorizing the Articles of Faith has been a fun challenge. Phoebe has been working on the first one, which is a funny one for her because she still struggles with fronting. She can say /k/ and /g/ now but it's harder for her to place those sounds in certain words. For example, cat. That is a trickier word than you might think because she used to say "tat," and that's not right because there's a /k/ in there. But where?

Is it tac? Is it cat? 

Sometimes she has to say the word multiple times to get it right. 

And so it is with the first Article of Faith. 

95% of the time, Phoebe will begin, "We believe in dog..."

"God," we'll tell her. "Start at the back and move to the front."

"We believe in dah...in dah...in dog...in dah...in God!"

"Hey! You did it!"

"That was duud, wasn't it?"

"Mmmm...yes. Keep going."

"We believe in dog the Eternal Father..."

Where's my pants?! (part 4, I think)

Andrew packed a suitcase the night before he left. He never worries about these things very far in advance. He's just...a very confident packer.

He landed in DC and...I don't know at what point he noticed, but it was after he got to his hotel room and was going to freshen up before heading to an important everyone-else-was-wearing-suits dinner.

"Guess who forgot *~*~*~pants~*~*~*" he texted.

This was news was incredible! We have such a rich history of DC and...forgetting pants.

Rachel famously forgot to pack pants back in 2016. 

That same year, Andrew forgot to pack a coat for DC. 

And now here it is, 2025 and he forgot to pack pants for DC. 

Everyone needed to know about this.

So I quickly told everyone.

While Andrew was in DC

Andrew is on his way home from a whirlwind trip to DC for a conference. True to their word, the FAA did cancel a lot of flights. Andrew was lucky that both his flights remained on the docket...though they were delayed...and the airports were miserable. 

Phoebe decided it would be a good time to get croup (maybe). 

She was up all night coughing last night. I barely clocked 3 hours of sleep by the time I needed to get up to head to seminary with Miriam. I brought a pillow and blanket and tried to nap in the car while she was in seminary...but was ultimately unsuccessful. 

When we got home (where Benjamin was left in charge), the kids were still sleeping. Here's Phoebe, who definitely claimed Andrew's spot as if it were her own:

Ups and downs

This afternoon while Miriam and Zoë were at music lessons, I took the other kids to the park. Phoebe has been begging to go to "the sandbox park" for ages, but the last few times we've gone the sandbox (intended for volleyball) has been occupied by a large group. So we've skipped out on that in favour of other play places. But today—surely—was our day! 

We got to the park and the sandbox was free but...the sand toys that had been patiently waiting in the van were no where to be found. I guess Daddy took them out when he was loading up soups and things to take to the church for Alexander's baptism on Saturday.

"So it looks like we don't have any sand toys," I said, after looking in the trunk (just in case). 

"That's okay!" Phoebe said. "I can use my hands! I just need to play in the sand!!"

Evidently she's been desperate to get good and sandy for quite some time, but she agreed to go on a little walk around the pond first. Here she is sitting on the bench, watching the pond (her words):

What have I done?

This week I...

• Submitted a proposal to the 4'33" contest (Monday, October 27)
• Had a week full of typical school and work and extracurricular activities
• Celebrated Halloween (a doozy of a day, if ever there was one)
• Hosted a baptism celebration (Saturday, November 1)
• Attended a ward party (Saturday, November 1)
• Went to church, where we had a run-through of our primary program (which will be next week—and I think we can have a Zoom option on if anyone should want to join in). I also was roped into a meeting about the Christmas party, and went to choir practice (Sunday, November 2)
• Found out that I am one of 10 finalists for the 4'33" contest (today!) 
• There is an option to Zoom, I believe, if anyone wants to watch me receive my "prize"...which is giving a presentation... (Such lousy prizes in academia sometimes—right, Mom?)
• Turned in my second to last big project for my "designing qualitative research" class (today!)
• I don't mean to brag but, uh, it's 13,904 words (and I am so happy and relieved to have turned it in)

I also had to spend the entire week negotiating with the ultimate loop-hole-finder. Perhaps "ultimate" is too strong of a word because I find that most little kids are notorious loop-hole-finders.

Alexander's baptism (and the ward trunk-or-treat)

There's this page in the book I Spy a Nephite (which you can borrow on the Internet Archive if you, like, me only own Where Have All the Nephites Gone?—or worse! If you own none of Pat Bagley's search and find books) which I felt like we were living today! 

This particular page is of a wedding reception. There's a pile of gifts on stage (including a canoe-shaped package) beside a little chamber orchestra. There's a bouquet toss going on, a wedding line, a buffet table, streamers and bells and...a basketball game. As it turns out "somebody made a mistake in scheduling the ward cultural hall."

To be fair, scheduling our building is particularly tricky because we have three units in the building across two stakes. So putting things on the calendar is a bit of a gamble. For example, we booked the church from 9 to 2 today...but when we showed up there was a suspicious number of cars in the parking lot and the door to the church was propped open. 

We went inside and found that one of the other wards was decorating for their Fall Festival this evening. The cultural hall was all decked out in Halloween decorations. They'd even put up a big ol' display directly in front of the doors to the baptismal font. 

Andrew explained that we had a baptism today and...

The lady in charge basically told him he'd have to schedule the building like everybody else and pick a new day for his baptism. 

He said that we...weren't going to do that, that we had booked the church. 

She said that was impossible because she had booked the church. 

They both pulled out their phones to show each other that they had each booked the church. And, indeed, they had each booked the church. Further, Andrew informed her, there was to be another baptism after this one...so...

Eventually the lady decided she could give us one third of the cultural hall, that her crew would move all the decorations into the other part of the gym and...that was kind of them because it meant that they had to undo some of their work (we really couldn't have their display in front of the baptism font). 

And then I just had to kick the missionaries out of the Relief Society room (where they were having a meeting). 

And then we were able to set up for Alexander's baptism. 

Halloween 2025

 

Halloween 2025 is in the books! And what a day it was! 

Remind me never to hold a baptism the day after Halloween (and the same day as the ward Halloween party) ever again! I made about 12 dozen cookies, pureed and froze 20 cups of jack-o-lantern, and made 2 loaves of pumpkin bread (with another 2 cups of pureed jack-o-lantern). Andrew has made three types of soup and some rolls and is working on crackers. 

And I spent like two hours taking kids trick-or-treating. 

And I have a big assignment due on Monday. 

It's fine. It's been...just...a big and full day. 

Pre-trick-or-treating

Our neighbour Miss J recently got a job as a STEM teacher at an elementary school and this week she did a whole bunch of spooky science experiments. She texted me yesterday to say that she had some supplies left over and invited the kids to come hang out in her garage to do some of the experiments she did with her kids. Mostly she had some dry ice left over and wanted to do some carbon dioxide bubbles with the kids (since dry ice doesn't keep too well). 

So here are the kids making carbon dioxide bubbles: