Bipedalism

This past week (on Saturday to be exact) Benjamin figured out how to stand up, from the ground, on his own power. He'd only recently begun experimenting with letting go of whatever he used to pull himself up in order to practice balancing and now he's already doing this:

Pioneer Pete

Partly because of our family goal to dedicate twelve family home evening lessons to family history and partly because we're still thinking a lot about our pioneer ancestry, we had another lesson about our pioneer ancestors for family home evening tonight.

I spent a good chunk of the day researching ancestors (Miriam and Benjamin simultaneously went down for naps, which was wonderful (though Miriam is still awake (and cleaning the bathroom as her "get out of bed" activity) because of it)). I wanted to review the ancestors we'd talked about a couple of weeks ago but also introduce a few new ones. Eventually inspiration struck and I decided that I'd just plop all (well, some of) our ancestors down on a single sheet of paper and make a game of it. Thus the game "Don't Eat Pioneer Pete!" was born (the rules are here, in case you've never played).

Making the game board was fairly simple. Finding facts and stories to share about each ancestor was a little more time consuming, though certainly worth while.

I've always loved hearing "the grown ups" talk about my predecessors but now I am one of the "grown ups" (though I'm not quite sure how or when that happened) and it's my responsibility to pass on the stories. I also need to familiarize myself with Andrew's side of the family tree, so I dabbled a bit on his side as well and came up with some pretty interesting stories.

All nine of the ancestors we highlighted this evening were converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All nine of them crossed the plains (and sometimes the ocean as well) in order to reach the Salt Lake Valley. All of them led very different lives and we learned a lot from them and had a lot of fun doing so! 

Feel free to read about our ancestors below...

Pioneer Day Celebration

We had such a busy day slated for today that we had to wake up the children this morning so we could get started. I hate waking children up but we had to do it anyway. Benjamin had claimed a spot in our bed—horizontally, of course, with his head resting on Daddy's arm (and his feet poised to be kicking my back/head/stomach/whatever).

School and stuff

Our day started bright and early when Miriam fell out of bed. Andrew put her back to bed and got up for the day since he had to leave the house by 6:30, anyway, to help sort food for the bishop's storehouse. I got up soon after that because I had to have Rachel up and moving by 7:00. Miriam apparently never went back to bed and was eager to get up when I went into the girls' room to wake Rachel. And I guess we made so much noise getting ready that Benjamin decided to begin his day as well.

Thankfully he slept through the night. That was not the case the night before when he joined me and Andrew in bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and instead of having my little boy snuggled comfortably beside me I found, to my horror, that I was clutching his ankle. The rest of his body was dangling over the side of the bed! And he was fast asleep!

I don't know how or when he and I managed to get in that position, but there we were, his head mere inches from the floor. I always put extra pillows on the floor when Benjamin's in bed with us because our floors are hardwood, but Benjamin hadn't even made it that far. I was worried about how long he'd been dangling upside down, but there's no way to know for sure. He seems fine though...

After we dropped Rachel off at the bus we came inside and got some laundry started before going out to do some weeding. Andrew came home while we were weeding and decided he'd mow the lawn. I took the kids inside because Benjamin was acting like a baby who needed a nap. After several failed attempts at getting him to go down, I decided to lie down with him. He takes his best naps that way.

When Andrew came in, Miriam was happily watching Tangled and Benjamin and I were snoozing away together. He showered and then took a little catnap in Miriam's bed while she prepared an elegant meal for him.

Eastern Tiger

While we were taking out the garbage and recycling this evening we found some Eastern Tiger Swallowtails fluttering around a butterfly bush, so we went ahead and caught it for further examination. We only kept it for a few minutes because it was rather flustered to find itself in a cage and because it was nearly bedtime.

Gladiolus

Last night Andrew and I made pickles because if there's one thing in my garden that's growing well, it's cucumbers. Andrew got me a canning set...for my birthday, I guess...because we've been wanting to learn how to can things like peaches and applesauce and baby boys and such.

Roseola?

Now that his fever (which did seem a little high for teething, reaching around 103 degrees F) is gone and he's woken up with a rash, I'm fairly certain that Benjamin's not actively teething. My new hypothesis is that he has roseola infantum.

Granted, his rash is currently confined to his face, but that's how Miriam's rash started as well when she had roseola. 

It does explain how he was able to have such a high fever with seemingly no other symptoms (his eyes were a little puffy and he soiled a few more diapers than normal but was mostly active and happy (but only mostly because he's also done a fair amount of squawking this past week)). And now the fever's gone and has been replaced with a rash, but he's still perfectly active and happy. 

So, I'm pretty sure it's roseola. 

But just in case it's a food allergy and because I can't remember anything unless I write it down, we had a lazy, lazy dinner last night of crackers and cheese and fruit and vegetables. Benjamin had blueberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, and cucumbers (as well as crackers and cheese) but I think the melons were the only things terribly new for him.

But, I'm pretty sure it's roseloa, because of the mysterious fever that no one else got (roseola is highly contagious but comes with the gift of lifelong immunity) and because of the rash on this smiley-guy's face:

You can actually see the rash better in this picture but he's not smiling:

Sorry everyone we may have infected. Enjoy your fever and rash (and, afterward, your lifelong immunity). You're welcome.

Rachel turns 6!

Here's Rachel's birthday loot:

Morehead Planetarium at UNC

The girls filled their "Obedience Bean Jars" last night, coinciding beautifully with Rachel's birthday, and were excited to claim their snow cone rewards at Pelican's this morning. Miriam was being such a slow poke about getting her morning jobs done (emptying half of the dishwasher; so taxing, right?) so Andrew threatened to leave without her if she didn't hurry up.

"Uh...I'm not old enough to stay home alone so you're not going to do that," she said, rolling her eyes.

He was kidding anyway, but it was rather humorous how quickly she stripped us of power. We eventually got her to finish her job and loaded all the kids in the van to head to Pelican's. At least, we let them believe that's where we were going the whole time we were driving.

Rachel had brought a book in the car and was completely oblivious to her surroundings. Miriam though kept piping up, asking if we were almost there. Rachel kept shushing her (she was trying to read!). When we pulled up in front of the Morehead Planetarium instead of Pelican's Snow Cones, the girls stumbled out of the car. They dazedly blinked in the sunshine and spun around a couple of times.

"Huh?" Rachel asked. "Where are we?"

"I thought we were going to Pelican's! I want a snow cone!" Miriam shrilly wailed.

"We're going on a surprise adventure first!" Andrew informed the girls. Their faces both lit up in wonder and then excitement as he explained where we were going.

As I've explained before, the girls both are rather fascinated by space...so we went ahead and bought the pass, which is technically just a donation to the planetarium that they thank you for by allowing you to attend shows for free. We're looking at it as an extra-curricular educational activity for all of us. Andrew's a push-over when it comes to spacey stuff.

A giant sundial

Dreaming

We think Benjamin's teething. He's started running random fevers again, but with no other symptoms. No rashes. No cough. No loss of appetite. He's not even particularly grumpy. He's just a little feverish and a little bit clingy.

And that's how Benjamin and I came to have a sleep-in this morning—he was literally sleeping on top of me and his sleep has been so delicate lately that when our alarm went off this morning, Andrew got out of bed to get the day started, leaving me and Benjamin undisturbed. He'd slept so little in the night that my only option was to let the poor boy sleep some more and since I was were he was sleeping I went ahead and took a little nap, too.

Andrew finally woke us up half an hour before we had to leave the house.

"I had the strangest dreams last night," I told Andrew.

My dreams tend to get particularly crazy when I'm extra tired (as I was last night) or am sick or pregnant (which I'm not) or just, you know, when I sleep. I told Andrew about my dream...