A walk, a fox, a fallen loaf...

We went for a walk this afternoon, as is our habit. I really needed to be getting ready to head to the dentist, but I wanted to squeeze in one more faux-spring walk before we're hit with a wet and rainy cold front. 

These little daffodils are in for a shock! I'm glad the ones in our yard haven't yet made an appearance.

New year, new header (finally)

It has been a hot minute since I updated the look of this blog. Aesthetics kind of fell by the wayside while I was busy with other things...but we squeezed in some family pictures on Sunday...so I figured I would throw something together before my semester began and things got...wild again.

Here's a (probably non-comprehensive) look at the blog through the years, courtesy of the The WayBack Machine...

For several years we had some rendition or other of "Heissatopia in Egypt":

Tooth-hurty

I just went to tell Andrew that I was calling it a night and going to bed. In return he asked me what time my dentist appointment was at tomorrow.

My teeth are fine. It's just a(nother) Invisalign appointment (I will be in braces forever, I fear). 

"It's at the funniest time!" I said. 

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah—1:00!"

And then we both laughed much harder than perhaps we should have because the punchline here is actually that Rachel legitimately can never remember what the "funny" time is, so she has—on several occasions—claimed to have a dentist appointment at the funniest time, when her appointment has been at, like, noon, or 4:30, or 9:15. 

We all know that the best time to go to the dentist is at 2:30 though, right? Right?

Yours, mine, and ours!

We are slowly getting over this cold. 

Poor Phoebe has been so miserable that we haven't been very strict about making her get back into her own bed when she wakes up in the night. In fact, we've been getting so unstrict about it that we thought it might be easier if she just sleeps with me and Andrew sleeps elsewhere.

He hasn't gotten sick and there was the potential that he'd need to be out of town next week (though, as it turns out...he doesn't), so we didn't really want him to catch this sickness. True that Andrew and I continued to sleep in the same quarters while I've been sick, but I'm a bit better at keeping my germs to myself than Phoebe is. So when Phoebe was begging to squeeze her snotty, sneezy self between us for the night, Andrew suggested that he leave the two of us sickies—me and Phoebe—to snuggle and sleep in the big bed while he headed to the couch for the night. 

That way she wouldn't end up sneezing directly in his face (a sure-fire way to get sick). 

She agreed that was a lovely idea. 

So he grabbed his pillow, put Phoebe's own pillow in its place, and headed to the couch, leaving the two of us to fall asleep. 

He was out like a light within 30 seconds, I'm sure. (He's blessed with such skills). 

I was busy trying to fall asleep when suddenly (from my perspective) Phoebe started sobbing—big tears were dripping off her face, getting all mixed in with her snot. It was quite disgusting.

"What could possibly be wrong?" I asked (you know, aside from being sick, which she obviously was...but, like, I was too—and the best thing for that was a good night's rest).

"I just wish that we didn't send Daddy away!" she wailed. 

Sweetwater Creek

"Where is my carrier?" Phoebe asked when we pulled up at Sweetwater Creek State Park, hot on the heels of Grandpa and Darla (which was pretty amazing timing, considering we'd come from opposite directions). 

"You're too big for the carrier," I said. "I gave it away to a different baby."

"You mean I have to walk?!" 

Phoebe was aghast, but she soon found her stride. With the trail stretched out before her, she declared herself the leader and started marching down the path in front of everybody.

Syllable, syllabus, crescendo, credenza

I'm in the process of organizing all my course readings for next semester (it's a doozy of a semester—I'm going to read until my eyeballs fall out). Alexander came up beside me and began reading over my shoulder.

"Is that how you spell syllable?!" he asked in shock.

"Syllabus," I said. "A document that tells what the course is going to cover."

"Oh," he shrugged and ran off. 

*****

He has so many little confusions and I keep meaning to keep a list of them to share and keep forgetting to do so. Perhaps in the future I will be better. For now I will tell you that we were looking for Alif Baa the other day, a text book for learning the Arabic alphabet, which we had misplaced. Alexander was the one to find it.

"It's right here on the crescendo!" he called from the dining room.

Credenza.

He consistently mixes up those words. 

He's cute.

NYE on the Town Green, etc.

Just kidding! I did take Phoebe to the park another time this winter break! Phew!

My friend Christine invited me and another family to meet at the park so our boys could play. And so our teenage girls could hang out. And so our tween girls could play. Mostly I think she had the boys in mind, though.

But then I realized there was no one for Phoebe to play with (Alexander would have played with Zoë and Kate), so I invited my friend with twins her age. And then Christine told me that she'd invited her sister (who has two little girls around Phoebe's age) as well. And then we decided we should just send out a message to the entire ward (these were all church friends). 

I think two other families ended up coming. It was a real party!

We packed picnic lunches, the kids played at the playground, and many of the kids also walked over to Barnes and Noble to hang out for a bit.

Here's Benjamin (in orange) with his friends, looking like an album cover:

It was a chilly day, but we eventually got smart and set up around the gas fire pit in the middle of the Town Green.

Cousins (once removed)

The kids were so excited to go visit Rosie and Austin and their kids! Due to some over-scheduling on Rachel's part (she's an in-demand kind of girl!) we could only stay for one night (Sunday, December 28 to Monday, December 29), but it was so fun! 

They have a great playroom upstairs. The kids love to get out all the toys at once. 

Big girl swings and walking through culverts

Striking a balance between mom-of-teens and mom-of-toddlers is...hard.

My mother warned me it would be. And it is, though admittedly I think she had it harder than me in that department. Consider, for example, this colour-coded list of children (red), grandchildren (blue), and great-grandchildren (purple) my mom recently included in a post she wrote:

Christmas, Christmas! Read all about it!

Here are my two little up-early cuties waiting for their grown up siblings to get up so we can do Christmas (note the hairbrush on the desk):