Remembrance Day 2013

I'm always pleasantly surprised when Remembrance Day rolls around and Rachel has the day off from school. I suppose I'm not always surprised since she's only been in school for two years, but for each of those two years I've been pleasantly surprised. I grew up having a day off of school on Remembrance Day but then my family moved down to the States and—in Utah, at least—we no longer had the day off, even though it's Veteran's Day.

So after a decade of basically not ever having a day off for Remembrance/Veteran's Day we finally do, and it's nice.

This year was an exceptionally lame day off, unfortunately. Miriam is still sick. Benjamin woke up sick. And I haven't been feeling great, either. Rachel was sick last week, however, and, having shared her nasty germs with everyone else and already having acquired immunity to said germs, was able to bounce out of bed as chipper as a chipmunk this morning.

Primary Program

This morning the primary put on their annual sacrament meeting presentation. Every year the church puts out a curriculum for the primary to follow during sharing time, with an overarching theme for the year (as well as themes for each month...and week). It includes concepts to cover, songs to learn, and so forth. This year our theme was I Am A Child Of God  and the children did a wonderful job presenting what they learned.

It takes a lot of courage to get up in front of an entire congregation of adults (since all the kids 3–11 are on the stand behind you) and speak into a microphone.

Miriam's line was: The word of wisdom helps us to have a healthy body.

What's funny about this is that she has a nasty cold right now. At the practice yesterday she got up to say her line and coughed all the way through it. Thankfully she managed to say her line today without coughing once (though she was coughed through nearly everything else).

Rachel's line was a bit longer and although she memorized it (as did Miriam) she read it when she got up there because "it was there." Her line was: Jesus Christ taught the gospel and set an example for us. Christ's atonement is a gift that has been given to us so we might repent and live with God again.

They had fun singing all the songs, too, but the best part, I think was that the girls' ballet teacher/Rachel's kindergarten teacher came to watch. We sent her an invitation in the mail and when she told me she was planning on being there I told her we'd save her a spot. We got to church ten minutes early and she was already there, saving us a spot. The girls were so excited to see her!

She is a remarkable woman.

Rachel also sent a few invitations out to her friends from school and a little girl in her class came (though Rachel will tell you that "she's not a little girl—she's seven!"). It made Rachel feel so special! She ran up to her friend after and gave her a big hug.

It's always fun to watch the kids deliver their lines. They're all so sweet!

As a member of the primary presidency, I'm certainly glad the primary presentation is over so that we can focus on Christmas and get ready for the new year. There's always so much to do this time of year!

The Mill and the Amphitheater

At the beginning of the year we made a goal to go on 100 family walks. It's mid-November. We still have 24 walks to take. Andrew swears we'll be able to take them all. I am not so confident but I planned a family walk today (more than our usual up-and-down-the-street romp before bed or quick-jaunt-to-the-park) and we were able to cross one more thing off our list.

We were also able to cross off another "North Carolina Adventure." We aimed to do 24 adventures over the course of the year. We have one left to go on.

The adventures were fun to plan. Sometimes they were elaborate plans, like our trips to the beach and the mountains. Other times they were relatively simple, like visiting a splash pad or trying out a new hike or visiting a local museum. Each adventure had to be unique, but each adventure typically counted as a family walk (since most of our adventures were outdoor and included a lot of walking).

The only other rule for our walks and adventures were that everyone in the family had to go. I think that's what's made it so difficult to get all our family walks in. It's hard to get everyone out for a walk. I can't tell you how many times I've either taken all the kids to the park or pool while Daddy's been at school. Nor can I tell you how many times either Daddy or I have taken the girls to the park or pool while the other parent stayed home with a napping Benjamin. But those times don't count because not everyone participated.

Anyway, today's walk was a new trail that I saw while zooming in on West Point on the Eno Park on Google Maps. It looked like a paved path, heading toward the amphitheater and a pond (though we didn't ever see the pond).

We were excited to find the mill open when we got to the park. I'd all but forgotten about trying to get there (it's open on weekend afternoons from 1 to 5) but since it was open we moseyed on in and counted it as a family adventure prior to taking our walk.

The nice old man behind the counter gave us a tour. During the tour he kept opening various windows and doors and sticking his head outside. It took us awhile to realize this was because he had a mouthful of chewing tobacco (we're pretty sure he was spitting outside). The tour was fascinating though! He turned the waterwheel on for us, which was awesome. The turning of all the cogs in the building shook the floors and made the girls pretty nervous.

Above the shop counter they had a rack full of snake skins. The man said he collects them from wherever he finds them inside the mill. I shuddered but said, "They're probably after all the mice that live here, aren't they?" "You bet they are," he said.

In the end we purchased a bag of grits that was ground right there in the mill (Rachel's holding it on her lap while pretending to play a match of checkers with Miriam). We're planning on having stone-ground grits for dinner tomorrow night!

Musicals, Chocolate, and Love

Tonight we went to our stake's roadshow: Sing Down the Moon: An Appalachian Wonder Tale. No one from our family was in it, though the dress my mom took in for me to wear in the musical Steamboatin' (back in 1993) made an appearance on one of my friend's daughters. Part of me wanted to try out for it but...I can't drive to the stake center on my own. They found enough talent without us, of course. And it was a good (if not a tad long (over two hours!)) show, putting many unfamiliar spins to the fairy tales I'd grown up hearing (Jack Tales are a thing in Appalachia—he does much more than climb a beanstalk!).

We sat down next to an elderly couple. Benjamin's started to be really friendly to people so he immediately started trying to make eye contact with the woman beside me. He kept leaning across me and into her lap so he could peer right into her face and smile, as if to say, "Ignore me not!" She seemed to enjoy his company.

In the middle of the show, right after Jack earned a bag of money from the king and brought it home to his family, the cast came out and threw chocolate coins to the audience (which I imagine turned out much messier and more dangerous than they'd imagined it would be (but only because I saw how messy and dangerous it was (Andrew got hit in the face by a rogue coin and the coins that fell on the ground shattered so when you opened them up the chocolate inside crumpled all over the place))).

I let Benjamin eat one of the coins (while his sisters greedily devoured the rest) and he was in heaven. He went around begging for chocolate coins for the rest of the intermission, though I don't think anyone really understood what he meant when he came up to people with his hands outstretched, his face pleading for them to begin throwing that chocolatey goodness around again.

That was before he noticed all the bits of broken chocolate on the floor. I suppose he only spent half of intermission begging people for chocolate coins and spent the second half eating the unwanted bits that had fallen to the floor.

When I first spotted him pick something off the floor and pop it in his mouth I quickly went to investigate. Rachel followed me (Daddy and Miriam were in line at the bathrooms).

"What have you got in your mouth?" I asked Benjamin. I then pried his mouth open. He then reluctantly let me peek inside his mouth. "More chocolate! Where did you find that? On the floor, obviously. The floor's pretty gross. You probably don't want to be eating off of it..."

My prattling trailed off because just as I was telling Benjamin to beware the filthy floors that I spotted Rachel nonchalantly eating bits of chocolate off the floor. She was literally crawling on the floor, picking up specks of chocolate, and eating them.

"Rachel!" I said in surprise.

"What?" she shrugged. "I'm hungry."

But believe it or not, this post isn't about how two-thirds of my children were crawling around the cultural hall eating chocolate off the floor. It's about the woman I was sitting beside.

Star Student Rachel

Rachel came home with a certificate stating that she'd been selected as student of the month for November. We're not entirely sure how selections are made or what it even means, but she was sure happy about it!

She also brought home a motley collection of prizes that she got to pick out of a box. For herself she picked out a "Blockbuster Promotion" toy from 1998 (The Cowardly Lion) and for Miriam she picked out a book from Chick-fil-A called Aslan (which, curiously enough, was published in 1998). 

They're absolute relics but she was so proud of her prizes—and most especially to present one to Miriam.

I love that my girls are usually pretty good about thinking of each other. They're pretty good at sharing when they get something special and when they don't split it 50/50 they're typically good at graciously receiving whatever they're granted. They enjoy picking things out for each other and sharing what they have.

I'll just sit back and enjoy this stage while it lasts because we've been through the selfish don't-touch-my-stuff stage before and I'm sure we'll be back there again. But for now they're at a sweet spot in their relationship and I'm going to relish it!

Overcorrection

When we went camping in the Appalachian Mountains last month we learned that, if we wanted to blend in with the locals, we were in App-uh-LATCH-uh and not App-uh-LAY-shuh. Rachel really took this lesson to heart because she was genuinely terrified of someone spitting at her for saying it wrong.

During scripture study this evening, we read Alma 51 and Rachel happened to read verse 21, which happens to have the word 'appellation' in it.

"And thus Moroni put an end to those king-men, that there were not any known by the..." she trailed off, having come to her first difficult word. "App-uh-LAY-shun," she sounded out. Then she shook her and said firmly, "App-uh-LATCH-uhn. There were not any known by the app-uh-LATCH-uhn of king-men."

We tried gently correcting her but ended up laughing about it until everyone was in tears.

Eventually we all calmed down enough to continue and I was reading the next verse when Rachel broke into laughter again.

"...while Moroni was thus breaking down the wars and contentions among his own people, and subjecting them to peace and civilization," I read.

"Subjecting them to peace!" Rachel guffawed, and then I couldn't help but laughing, too, because I didn't expect her to pick up on that little paradox. In fact, the two of us were being so terribly irreverent that Andrew had to finish reading the verse for me.

In this instance of the word, however, I think 'subjecting' is less along the lines of 'forcing' and more along the lines of 'predisposing,' but I think that, typically, people automatically denote the verb 'subject' to mean force, just as I typically associate the noun 'sock' with cozy footwear and not with a violent punch.

Teething

I just put the baby down for (practically) the first time since yesterday morning at 8 AM. He did spend some time playing on his own. And he also spent about a grand total of two-and-a-half hours sleeping in his own bed. Other than that I mostly just held him, including all night long.

He's cutting the last of his one-year molars. And I'll be so happy when we can move on with life.

Rachel told Andrew last night that she was teething, too. He wasn't too sure about this. Anatomy is not one of his strengths.

I've been toying with the idea of taking a class to help me prepare for a future graduate program. Andrew suggested taking statistics since he figures it would come in handy regardless of what graduate program I one day hypothetically choose. Also, he could "help me." I said that I would take statistics when he could tutor me (which means I won't be taking it for a while because time is a precious commodity he does not have a lot of during the school year) and mentioned instead that I might take anatomy. I've toyed with the idea of doing a speech-pathology degree and anatomy would come in handy for that. Andrew thought anatomy sounded too hard. Statistics, though—that's a cake walk.

This is coming from the man who had to ask me what an Achilles tendon was. Not that I know anything about anatomy at all, either. I just happen to know more than he does.

Anyway, I told him that Rachel is probably getting her six-year molars, so he shared his newfound wisdom with Rachel this morning.

This evening as I was giving teething gel to both Rachel and Benjamin we laughed about having two kids teething at the same time. Who'd have thought that would ever happen!

Artwork and Apology Letters

Now that Rachel rarely brings home paperwork, I rarely see any of her artwork. I must say, however, that the things she's been bringing home are fantastic!

Here's a sunflower she painted (everything else is crayon):

An Awesome Fire Safety Lesson

Last week at school Rachel had a lesson on fire safety that had a huge impact on her. She came home from school excited and passionate about the topic. She was so fired up (haha! a pun!) that I asked her to lead a family home evening lesson on fire safety.

I reminded her after school that she'd agreed to give the lesson and she immediately set about preparing all sorts of things. She made a little stack of pictures to hold up while she told us different thing. Miriam was her "helper," and is dressed as a firefighter. She's wearing the hat Rachel got at last year's fire safety presentation as well as a jacket that they figured looked rather firefighter-y (and, yes, she's wearing a flouncy skirt under her nightgown (and, yes, she's sleeping in it now)).

Gladioli

Shortly after Easter I planted 20 gladiolus corms in our garden and then waited anxious for them all to send shoots up through the ground. I nervously counted them every time I walked past the garden. Once all the leaves were out I nervously waited for each of them to blossom, inspecting the stalks each day for signs of flowers. They certainly staggered their entrances, probably trying to keep me antsy for as long as possible!

All of them bloomed, though, and they were beautiful while they lasted. Recently they've been doing much more withering than blooming so today while I was outside waiting for Rachel's bus to arrive I finally got around to digging them up.

In truth it took me quite a while longer than simply waiting for her bus. I was still digging when the sun went down (at 5:15 PM (thanks a lot, daylight saving time)). It was a lot of work, especially with Benjamin "helping" (by throwing clods of dirt and rocks, by upsetting my bucket of corms, by running off toward the street and making me dash after him, by stealing my trowel, etc.) but the sunset was beautiful!

I did a little research before I started digging because I'm still pretty new to this whole gardening thing. I knew that I was supposed to dig them up when they started to yellow but before they turned all the way brown and I knew that they'd grow a new corm on top of the old one and that I'd have to pull them apart so I could keep the new corm and discard the old one. Other than that I was clueless.

So, I pulled my first gladiolus corm out of the ground and was rather perplexed to find two corms beside each other. The new corm, you see, is supposed to grown on top of the old one. I was like, "How am I ever going to figure out which is the old one and which is the new one?"