Pinewood Derby/Kub Kar Rally

DO THINGS

It's like our new family motto...except that it's not quite new. 

It's something we've been talking about for years. 

We've focused on "cheerfully do all things that lie in our power" (D&C 123:17) and on President Hinckley's admonition to "be up and doing" and on Nephi's call to "go and do" (1 Nephi 3:7), being doers (and not hearers only—James 1:22), and so on and so forth. There are a lot of scriptures about doing things. 

Admittedly, I'm sometimes a little like April Ludgate from Parks and Rec, who says, "I don't want to do things. I want to not do things." Certainly today I feel like I perhaps would have liked to do fewer things. 

Between an hour of gymnastics, two hours of music lessons, and two hours of church activities (plus all the time driving between those events) I hardly felt like I was home today! We did a lot of doing. 

Thank goodness Benjamin didn't have swim practice today!

With all my final projects due this week (and Andrew now out of town at a conference) I am anxiously anticipating doing a little less homework and a little less driving and far fewer extracurriculars...next week.

Anyway, our family motto has for years and years taken on a variation of the theme of doing things. 

Most recently, after a particularly unfortunate day of idleness and shenanigans, Andrew printed out the words DO THINGS and posted them around the house to remind the kids that...they've got work to do!

Uh-oh!

Paper Stars

This morning I taught the kids how to fold star segments and then set them to work folding and folding forever while I read to them from Dracula (which we finally finished reading today). We are using the pages from old Come Follow Me manuals because (a) we get new manuals every year anyway, (b) recycled craft supplies feels rustic and we're going for a rustic look at the Christmas party, and (c) we thought it would be nice to have parts of the pictures from what we've learned about this year up around us at the party—pictures from church history, pictures of the Savior, and so forth. 

So far nothing much looks very star-like in these pictures, but we've folded enough segments to make 40 stars today! 

Here's Zoë hard at work:

4'33" contest

Today Miriam drove into campus with me. She is quite happy to be chauffeur, now that she knows exactly what coming to campus with Mom entails (peace! quiet! spacious office! desk snacks!).

"No wonder Rachel liked coming to campus with you!" she remarked.

And it's true. We do get a lot of uninterrupted work accomplished when we go into campus. 

We just have to offset it with the commute time. Is [[x hours of uninterrupted work] - [y hours of commute time]] > [z hours of Phoebe-infested work time at home]? 

I'm really not sure. That's why we also like to stay home sometimes, too. 

But today I needed to go in because I was one of ten presenters at the 4'33" contest!

I spoke about religious literacy (which is what I usually speak about) and awkwardly used the word "Mormon" in place of "member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" because...when you only have 4 minutes and 33 seconds to describe your entire research project (and your research project necessarily involved you talking about your subjectivity as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, saying The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a billion times really eats into your talking time). So I made a little disclaimer and just went with a good ol' nickname.

Patrick and Hadis watched from Austria (super last minute, too—I was like, "Hey! This is starting in 7 minutes. I'm the second presenter!" and they hopped on) and sent me this picture:

Simply Ravenous

After Phoebe had perked up enough that she was actually able to join us for a meal, she was rather... enthusiastic...about the idea of eating, having gone for so many days with hardly any appetite at all.

"Somebody put food on my plate!" she demanded, before the prayer had even been said.

To be fair, we often do put food on her plate so that it can cool off while we're waiting to say the prayer and she can be...satisfied...while everyone else is getting their food. It's probably a bit of a holdover from her toddler years, which are now over. Apparently.

Are we babying her? Probably.

Anyway, we told her that we hadn't even had the prayer yet and were still getting things on the table—so hold her horses!

"Somebody put food on my plate so I can be ready to eat after the prayer," she clarified. "I won't eat before the prayer. I promise."

We eventually did start filling a plate for her and when the prayer was said she tucked in with gusto. 

"Wow, Phoebe," Andrew remarked. "You're ravenous today."

She stopped, looked at him, batted her beautiful eyelashes.

"Fank you!" she said through a mouthful of food. Then, realizing this might have been a self-centered response, quickly added. "You, too!"

"Do you...know what ravenous means?" Andrew asked. 

"I do not," she said. "May I have s'more pears, please?"

"It means that you're really hungry."

"Oh, I am!" she said.

And she was.

Benjamin's swim meet

Today I got to take Benjamin to his swim meet (because it was at our own YMCA and I...can drive there). I parked myself in a seat in the viewing deck (which was the hallway), pulled out my laptop and worked on a presentation and did some research in between his events. These meets are way more chill than the summer events, which always feel like pure chaos to me.

Probably helps that I've only ever signed up for ribbon duty. 

Benjamin's coach was quite ambitious this meet—he signed Benjamin up for a 50 free, a 200 IM, and a 100 fly in addition to two relays! Benjamin took it all in stride, though! He dropped time on his free and IM events. This was his first time racing a 100 fly.

Here he is doing the fly portion of his IM:

Phoebe is 4!

Where do I begin with this girl?

She woke up around 1:00 in the morning (she's been waking up a lot lately—we'll blame it on the pneumonia). 

"Happy birthday," I whispered when I picked her up.

"It's not morning," is what she told me.

"True, but it is your birthday," I told her. "And listen! Your primary songs are even playing birthday songs for you! Isn't that lucky?"

"It's not," she said. "I need a drink."

"Let's get a drink for you," I said. 

Meanwhile Andrew had come upstairs to take over. Phoebe has always been a little bit...permanently annoyed...with me at night time so Andrew has stepped up to be the one to put her back to bed over and over and over again. Because she responds better to him in the middle of the night.

Though I was secretly happy to hear her also tell him "It's not morning!" in response to his "Happy Birthday!" to her. 

Andrew had to work all day on Thursday, so he wasn't there when Phoebe rolled over, put her face in my face and said, "Mom—presents!" to wake me up. 

Joke was on her! I hadn't even wrapped her presents yet because we'd talked about just doing that on Friday instead. She's a baby, we reasoned, she doesn't understand time. Alas, she's not a baby anymore and has been meticulously counting down the days until her birth, pneumonia notwithstanding. 

I put her off gifts by suggesting she help me make her cake.

Phoebe wanted a pink heart-shaped cake with "bad puppies" and pears, pineapple, and cherries (the latter of which she found in our storage room while we were fetching a pink cake mix). I managed to talk her out of the pears and pineapple. The cherries we turned into a filling.

Here she is stirring the cake batter:

Playing!

I took the boys to the doctor (for well-child checks) first thing in the morning, leaving Andrew and all the girls sleeping away. The boys are growing great. Benjamin is 5'3" tall, only two inches shorter than Miriam (who seems to have plateaued) and precisely one foot taller than Alexander. 

When we came home, Zoë was practicing the piano and Phoebe was setting up an elaborate game of "Bethlehem," with the ball at the very center representing baby Jesus. 

Unlimited snuggle time

We went for another walk in the cold today. Here is Phoebe at the beginning of our walk, looking much more alert and alive than yesterday: 

Phoebe with pneumonia

Yesterday Zoë had her well-child check. Tomorrow Benjamin and Alexander have their well-child checks. So we figured we may as well squeeze in a little sick-visit for Phoebe today (before her and Miriam's well-child checks in a few weeks) so the office really gets to know us.

She's on day five of a cough and fever, and is quite miserable. She's been diagnosed with pneumonia due to her little lungs crackling and is on antibiotics, so will hopefully be feeling better by her birthday!

Poor little thing!

More haiku moments

1) That time (yesterday) I very nearly stepped on this tiny frog that was sitting on our driveway.

Small piece of gravel
hopped away from my foot fall—
camouflaged frog