Pumpkin Carving 2019

We typically try to squeeze in our pumpkin carving on Halloween itself so that we can then turn our pumpkins into puree later for pie, but this year Halloween is set to be a little crazy schedule-wise, as is tomorrow, so we carved our pumpkins today.

Alexander was 100% invested in this project so prepare yourself for a lot of pictures of him. He loved every step of the process. Zoë is feeling a little out of sorts today but she's usually not terribly into activities that get her hands messy (unless it's mud)—finger paints appall her, for example. I didn't think she'd love the sliminess of pumpkin guts. 

(Don't ask me how she manages to eat with her hands. She's a mystery.)

In addition to her touch sensitivities, she hurt her finger at yesterday's Fall Festival. This festival is held at the home of some people in our ward. They have a ginormous yard, as you can see:

Fog and a Fall Festival

I—as in me (yes, me), I—drove 41.7 miles today.

Not that I'm looking for a medal or anything but, like, this is me we're talking about.

First I had to take Miriam to orchestra this fine, foggy morning. Driving her to orchestra is on my list of Top Things I'd Rather Not Being Doing Right This Very Minute (right up there with child birth and root canals) already. Throw in fog and, well, it was a spooktacular drive.

Here's the view from our deck:

Acorns ramblings

I'm not huge on sharing memes and jokes on facebook, but sometimes I appreciate those who do. Today a friend shared this joke:

Do you even know what propaganda is?

The answer: It's when an Australian takes a good look at something.

And...guys...it might be the hour of the evening, but I laughed so hard for so long.

That really has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I'd jot it down because I find it hilarious.

Currently I'm waiting for Andrew to finish writing an abstract for a paper he's doing. He recently assigned his RA to do some background research for him and he was blown away by what a thorough job they did. He came into the kitchen glowing just telling me about it. With how busy he's been, I'm sure he's glad to have the help (though we are looking forward to next semester when he only has to teach one class (and it happens to be a class he's taught previously as well, which cuts down his workload immensely so he should be able to get a ton of research done)).

Last week he was out of town at a conference in LA, which meant I was on my own with the kids, which really isn't so bad, except at night.

One of the charming things about living in a forested area is that there are a lot of trees (duh). One of the not-so-charming things about living in a forested area is that those trees (especially, but not exclusively, in the fall) drop an amazing amount of debris, which ends up falling all around our house. It's like that primary song:

Leaves are falling all around
On the housetops, on the ground...

The leaves aren't so bad, though. It's the acorns that get me.

Miriam's 10!

It's hard to believe it's been ten years since Miriam was born. But numbers don't lie and she's a full decade old!

She had a pretty good day today, I think (and hope (in spite of a few nasty tricks I played)). We did all our schooling in the morning and early afternoon and then had friends (another homeschooling family) come over in the afternoon.

For her birthday dinner she requested orange chicken, which is a meal that I simply would never attempt so it was up to Andrew to make it. Unfortunately, he had a conference all day so he decided to just pick up some orange chicken from Panda Express. He came home briefly before taking off again and Miriam started talking about how Daddy was going to make her birthday dinner while we worked on her cake together. 

"I don't think Dad is going to make orange chicken after all," I told her.

"What?!" she asked. "But it's my birthday!"

"Well, sweetie, it's after 5:00 now and he's not even home. I don't see how he'd have time to make orange chicken..."

She was overjoyed when he walked through the door with her hoped-after orange chicken. Frankly, he didn't have time to make it from scratch this evening. So I didn't lie to her. I just tricked her.

After stuffing ourselves full of orange chicken, we went for a family walk and opened presents before cutting into the cake. We're pretty lame when it comes to giving gifts. For example, we'd planned on ordering a Phantom of the Opera music book for her but then forgot about it until today. It will be coming tomorrow...so instead I printed out the purchase order and gave her that. She was just as excited about it as she would have been to receive the book itself, I think.

Early Out Day

Rachel had an early-release day today so after she got home we went to the park to enjoy our afternoon. I'm so glad we have this park close by. Honestly, living in a city this big sometimes can feel overwhelming and having parks like this available offer a bit of relief from the bustling atmosphere of the city—a little wildlife retreat in the middle of everything. 

The kids were saying it was the best of both worlds (meaning Durham and Spanish Fork) because while we were walking along a trail that reminded them of West Point on the Eno (near our house in Durham) a train went by which reminded them of The Train Park (near our Spanish Fork house).

Anyway, we had fun playing tag at the playground and doing some urban hiking together. 

(I feel like I should mention that as I sit here writing this I can hear an owl hooting outside my bedroom window and a train whistle sounding in the distance (probably around the park we were at earlier today)).

Here's Alexander getting ready to go. He wanted to get a water bottle because some of the other kids were so he climbed up to grab a full cup of water from the counter.

Infinity Stones

This story is an old one but a good one that never got recorded (I don't think).

After a particularly long day (we've had a lot of those lately), we were sending the children off to bed and Andrew said in a rather annoyed* voice, "Miriam, I thought I told you to pick up your infinity stones!"

Miriam turned back around with quite a bewildered look on her face.

"My...infinity..."

He grabbed her infinity scarf from the floor, balled it up, and tossed it to her.

"This is a scarf, Dad."

"Huh. What did I say?"

"Infinity...stones..."

We all (even Andrew who was exhausted and grumpy (we all have those moments)) dissolved into uncontrollable laughter and have been joking about this for weeks, cautioning Miriam not to snap while she's wearing her infinity scarf and making jokes about Thanos.

(If you don't get this, that's alright because I hardly do. It's some Marvel comics thing. I watched some movie with them in it, so I kind of get the snapping thing, but mostly I'm just playing along because the kids (and Andrew) are enjoying the joke).

* To his credit he is really an incredibly patient father and had asked her several times over the course of the evening to gather the stuff she'd left strewn about the room.

You are my Sunbeam, my only Sunbeam...

I have another story to add to my repertoire of missing Sunbeams, but this time instead of being the one to lose a pupil, the lost pupil was one of my own.

Being the big two-year-old that he is, Alexander went to nursery quite well this week. I promised him that I'd stay with him the entire time but I didn't interact with him at all. I did my best to just be a piece of furniture in the room (which made me feel a teensy bit guilty because it meant that I just sat there and didn't play with any of the kids or help clean up toys or pass out snacks or anything...but, like...you gotta do what you gotta do) and urged him to instead rely on his peers and leaders.

"These are our friends!" I told him. "Grab a car and play with your friends. You know Kate. You know Winston. You know Bruce. They're all friends."

Alexander bravely selected a car and stood by me.

"Well, this is just boring," I told him. "Look at how much fun your friends are having playing on the car mat! Can you drive your car with them? Mommy will stay right here."

Alexander went over and started driving his car on the mat, too. And he had a good time doing it, too. Every now and then he'd look up at me and would act like maybe he was planning on bolting across the room to me, so I'd signal to him to "stay" and then give him a big smile and thumbs up. He played the whole play time and when they were called for snacks he got very excited and ran over to me (probably because he didn't know what to do because he's never stayed in nursery long enough to really figure anything out because he's too busy having panic attacks).

"I don't have any snacks," I shrugged.

So he boldly ran over to the one of the nursery leaders who'd been trying to gain his trust and he pulled on her skirt.

The other kids had found their snacks at their seats, so she guided Alexander over there and he climbed up onto a chair and happily tucked into his snacks.

Gather for Goats

A few weeks ago, as part of our discussions on the UN's 17 goals of sustainability, we settled on doing a fundraiser for Gather for Goats to help do our part and finally—and suddenly—we managed to pull it together today.

We had originally planned on doing it Saturday morning but the forecast for Saturday morning was looking particularly dismal (cold and rainy) and we didn't think even the promise of hot chocolate would lure anyone our direction. So as I was hemming and hawing over whether we should postpone until next Saturday (which would be hard considering all the goodies we'd baked this week) it dawned on me that Friday afternoon/evenings are a thing. 

So, in a flurry of activity this afternoon we managed to (1) make and deliver flyers in our neighbourhood, (2) announce it on our ward FB page and on our neighbourhood website-app-thingy, (3) make rice krispie treats, (4) make a banner for our table, and (5) set everything up. 

The kids had high hopes of earning $300 (because then they'd get to name a goat! (which would be given to a family of Syrian refugees living in Jordan to provide milk)) but only managed to rake in $70 (which is a pretty good amount, I think, especially considering that donations are matched 1:1 through the month of October). 

Here they are with their cute little stand:

Zoë is pouting because she was told she would have to wait before she could have hot chocolate. 

So many things

A friend delivered a stillborn baby the other day—8 lbs. 6 oz, 22 inches long. She'd made it through ten long months of pregnancy. She was at the finish line. She had gone into labour naturally, her water broke, she called her midwife, the midwife came over to check for a heartbeat, and...there was none. After being rushed to the hospital, they found that her baby had suffered from a prolapsed cord—the umbilical cord dropped into the birth canal before the baby's head engaged and the pressure from the baby then engaging in the birth canal cut off the flow of blood between the baby and the placenta, essentially suffocating the baby (if I'm explaining things correctly).

And I just...

I'm so sad.

I mean, a lot of things make me sad. But I'm just so sad for them.

To be at that moment where you think, "This is it!" and then instead of "it" being wonderful, "it" is anguish. I just...

Dinnertime

We're a little behind on our thankful tree this year because instead of making one out of paper I decided to paint one on the wall, which feels like a rather bold move, but I think it will be fun...in the end...when I'm finally finished. 

Rachel pointed out that "it's a cool idea but might look kind of silly the rest of the year," so I explained that we had big plans for ever-evolving wall art. Not only is it a thankful tree—it can also be a poet-tree, a Christmas tree, a heart tree, a tree with blossoms, a family tree, a tree filled with butterflies. There's no end to how we could bedazzle a tree. So a tree is going on my wall.

It feels like a rather brave thing to do since (a) it's so permanent and (b) I'm not, per se, an artist. But we're going to roll with it and see how it goes. 

Instead of painting our thankful tree tonight, however, I'm working on another family book (free offer expires on Sunday) about our last couple of years in Spanish Fork. There's a lot of ground to cover there. And instead of doing that, I'm sitting here writing. 

*****

After pulling off Thanksgiving dinner on Monday, I made soup on Tuesday. 

It's cold, guys. 

It's put-an-extra-blanket-on-the-bed cold. 

We dropped from the nineties down to the fifties in the past week and we're f-f-f-f-freezing! 

Obviously we're not literally freezing because we haven't even turned the heater on yet (our HVAC system is so old that we have to switch over manually from cooling to heating, like barbarians) but we've definitely broken out our sweaters and fuzzy socks so that we can stand being inside our house (it's 66 degrees currently). 

So I made soup—cabbage roll soup, to be precise (this recipe).