The case of the missing hairbrush

I could have sworn I brought my hairbrush back from my trip to Utah, but I haven't seen it or used it since coming home and unpacking (even though I swear I took it out of my suitcase and put it in its proper place). 

I looked many places.

I would say that I looked everywhere, but that would be hyperbole. I did not look everywhere. But I did look a lot of places. I looked in predictable places. I looked in unpredictable places. 

I thought about asking my mom if I left it at her house, but I knew she'd been in the guest room reorganizing things and surely she would have mentioned a stray hairbrush (that most likely would have been left on the floor of the room as I was packing or something). There's not a whole lot in that room, so a stray hairbrush would have been rather out of place. 

But—again—I swear I brought it back with me. I distinctly remember not only packing it but also unpacking it. 

Regardless, it was just...gone. 

So I've been borrowing from Phoebe's stash of brushes. She got a three-pack of these Star Wars themed hairbrushes for Christmas a few years ago when she was obsessed with Grogu (that obsession continues to this day). They're WetBrush brand, which I like, so it's not terrible using them. But I want my WetBrush. 

And then I was going through pictures for my Christmas Day post and I found this one:

And what do I spy on Alexander's desk (of all places)?

My hairbrush.

So I asked Alexander to go down to his desk and retrieve my hairbrush for me. He did.

"I have no idea what this was doing on my desk," he said. 

"Oh!" Phoebe exclaimed. "That was me!"

"Why would you take my hairbrush downstairs?" I asked.

"I was using it to do the cat's hair!" she chirped innocently.

Neat. Cool. Love that for me.

So my hairbrush has been found, but do I still want my hairbrush is the question.

Stitches for Zoë

We left for Tennessee to visit Rosie on Sunday immediately after church. We spent an enjoyable Sunday evening with her family and this morning I told Rosie we'd watch Oaklyn while she took Ireland to speech therapy and went to a chiropractor appointment. No problem—Oaklyn's a cakewalk. 

Unfortunately, I...planned poorly. 

It has been so warm outside and while I knew there was a cold front coming in—it is, after all, winter—I didn't quite register when it would be coming in. I looked at the weather. It said the high would be 55°F (12°C), so I decided that sweaters would do for us. We could still go to the park in sweaters and enjoy ourselves at those temperatures. 

I did not realize that today's high would be at 12:01 am, but that was indeed the warmest part of today. The storm blew in with a fury in the night and brought the cold front with it. The temperature plunged. It was below freezing when we woke up this morning.

We southerners do not do well with below freezing temperatures! (Especially without coats!)

I woke up early with the little girls and let everyone else sleep. After Zoë and Alexander woke up we went outside for a walk, anyway, at the children's and the dog's insistence. Ireland had an extra coat hanging on the coatrack, so I borrowed that for Phoebe, bundled Oaklyn up, and went headed outside for a very brief, very chilly stroll. 

We came back in and decided we'd wake up everyone else around 10:00. 

Benjamin was finally coaxed out of his sleeping bag around 9:45.

He was in a rambunctious mood. 

By 10:15 the little girls were ready for "second breakfast" (or simply "a snack") so I took them downstairs to share a banana and warned my bigger kids that they were getting carried away and that they needed to simmer down. 

I was still in the middle of slicing that banana when we heard (1) a crash, (2) some stifled sobbing, (3) and frantic whispers of...

"You tell Mom!" 

"No, you tell Mom!" 

"No, you tell Mom!"

"No, you tell Mom!"

"Mom is coming!" I warned. "Just let me finish giving Oaklyn her snack..."

Andrew was in the middle of a bowl of cereal. He left it to go check on things because (1) those whispers were concerning, and (2) we couldn't tell precisely who was whispering and who was crying. 

He bolted up the stairs and moaned, "That's gonna need stitches!"

(Pictures of the injury at the end of this post...so be warned).

I shoved Oaklyn her plate of bananas, grabbed the paper towels, and bolted up the stairs after him.

Miraculously, we didn't get any blood on the carpet! 

The kids had been "playing" (read: roughhousing) with the pillow-fort cushions and Zoë ended up falling and landed too close to the wall. She hit the wall with her knee and then...landed on the baseboard, which is a square-edge baseboard...and her knee just...split open. 

Her hands were covered in blood from holding her wound. I took over direct pressure for her with some paper towels and just managed to put my hand out and catch the blood dripping from her hand in my own hand before it got on the carpet—champion choreography! 

I held her wound tightly while Andrew researched care centers nearby that would take our insurance—luckily there was a place not too far from Rosie. 

Here's Benjamin (repentantly) putting some direct pressure on her leg while Andrew and I got ready to go. We left right as Rosie was arriving (Rachel and Miriam were also there, so it's not like the kids were unattended ever). 

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve Andrew made tamales and fried green chili burritos, a tradition carried over from his growing up years. It's a time intensive project and a dish intensive project and somehow years ago I made the deal with Andrew that if he was going to whip up phenomenal feasts like this he would also be the one to clean the kitchen and he has not gone back on that deal! 

(I'm rather fond of one-pot meals, myself, and am very lucky that Andrew does so much of the cooking and kitchen stuff). 

Aw, damp! (and other Christmas stories)

It's December 27 and it's 70°F out (21°C). Phoebe put on her swimsuit and asked if we could go to the pool (which we couldn't do because they close the pools for the winter here—like, why tho?). She played outside in her swimsuit all day long. 

Bog-standard cookies

This is a cookie that Phoebe made for Rachel. Underneath it all is a bell-shaped gingerbread cookie. On top of it is a whole bunch of leftover birthday icing and some candies (and a goldfish cracker) arranged to look like a landscape of sorts—some earth (with a worm), a stream (with a bridge and fish). 

It. Is. A. Masterpiece.

Gingerbread houses

Our house has been a flurry of activity lately. Monday night was gingerbread houses. 

Benjamin actually had swimming practice, so we had planned to get started the minute he arrived home. He ended up coming home much earlier than anticipated because although I remembered to mark which days he still had practice I forgot to note the time change. Since the younger groups don't gave practice, his practice started earlier. So he caught the tail end of his practice and then arrived back at home to decorate houses.

Rachel and Miriam had a bunch of friends over to play games, so they sneaked off to the basement. 

And Phoebe dove right in when Andrew and I were in the middle of setting things out. She opened a container of icing (left over from her birthday), got a knife out, and started smearing icing onto her graham cracker house and plunking candies down. By the time we caught her she was well on her way to making her vision come to life.

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2025

This poor poem stayed on the back burner far longer than it should have (and we haven't even managed to take family pictures yet), but all of my kids are under one roof and we're living life—it's busy and messy and beautiful.

I started putting all the Christmas cards and letters we've been collecting up on the wall. It's nice when I'm ready to do that as they begin arriving, but I have to admit that it was a bit of a thrill to get to put them all up at once—we have so many wonderful family and friends flung far and wide. We're really quite lucky!

The visual theme of this year's newsletter is brought to you by a collection of about 200 pictures Phoebe took of our living room carpet with my phone the other day. It adds to the general theme of chaos of the newsletter (and our life), I think.

You can download it here, or read it after the break!

Fall birthdays (in which we "can't believe!" everyone is getting older)

 

I still feel like I'm just catching up on life! 

We fell behind on our fall birthdays and I finally made everyone who hadn't written birthday messages write birthday messages after I got home from Las Vegas/Provo. So now we can take down our birthday balloons and put up the Christmas cards that have been piling up.

A visit from Diana's brother!

Back in October, Diana's little brother texted me to see if he and his family could stop by for a visit on their way to see April's family for Christmas. We spent the next two months looking forward to their visit (though by the state of our house that might not have been obvious). 

I opened the door and was greeted with a little "Pika! Pika!" from W (who was waving about his Pikachu doll) and almost immediately after got a hug from "Reddy" the red panda (and travel companion of L). April happened to be wearing a Bluey shirt (technically, I suppose it was a Muffin shirt) so Phoebe immediately felt she was pretty safe. And then there's Diana's brother—who had Zoë wondering why he'd write "I can't wait until you are dead" on someone's wedding day.

The very unsatisfactory answer is that he was 13 years old and...that's it. 

We had pizza for dinner on Friday. Andrew had had to take Benjamin to swim practice and then meet up at the church to get a new calling (Elder's Quorum 2nd counselor) and then came home briefly before heading out to pick up pizza. Grandpa and Darla planned to pick Benjamin up from swimming and come over for dinner. I was trying to get the kids to clean up the basement...for the third time this week...and scrounge up enough pillows and blankets...because we had company coming.

Did we have 2 months' to prepare? Sure. 

But there's always time to procrastinate (and always more to do)! 

I think Grandpa, Darla, and Ben arrived first. And then the Gillespies. And finally Andrew arrived with what everyone had been waiting for—the pizza.

We ate dinner, Grandpa and Darla had to run, and then we let the little kids run amok while we played Nerts. I dominated the table. We put the kids to bed and then chatted until late in the evening. 

Matching jammies!

Last year I was looking for some article of clothing for someone after Christmas when I came across these Christmas pyjamas that were super on clearance. I bought a set for each of the kids...except Rachel...because I know she doesn't love matching with everyone. But when I told Rachel about it she all but started crying and was like, "I'm still your kid even though I'm moving out!" 

As luck would have it, I was able to get one more matching set! 

We pulled them out last night to celebrate having all our kids home for the holidays. Phoebe was thrilled to be matching with all her sisters (and to coordinate with her brothers)!

Here's Alexander and Phoebe hugging on the floor after she tackled him with much enthusiasm: