26 October 2008

Sophie has piano lessons Wednesday afternoons. Becky packs up Helen and Gibson and picks Sophie and Abe from school. It's about a 20 minute drive to the piano teacher, Teena's, house. Her quiet neighborhood doesn't have a park and is too far from shops to do errands, so Becky brings a book to read to Abe while Helen takes a nap and Gibson plays with the car alarm and windshield wipers. Teena is fairly incredulous that our family does this every week, but it's only because Sophie is the oldest. We'll be all worn out by the time Gibson is old enough to take piano lessons- he'll have to ride his bike there.


It was our turn to host Helen's playgroup again-- 4 weeks have gone by very quickly. The girls are very sweet and the time they're here goes by quickly, too. This time we baked and frosted sugar cookies. From the left are Annie, Rachel, Ellie and Helen.


Becky caught Gibson licking frosting off some cookies left on the table.


We're enjoying amazingly warm, beautiful fall weather. We take a walk nearly every day after Abe catches the schoolbus. One of the places we walk to is the entrance of our neighborhood to check on the progress of new landscaping. The centerpiece is a double waterfall topped with a 2X life-sized elk family. Often on our walks, other people will ask if Helen and Gibson are twins. No, they're 2 years apart. The people probably aren't even looking at Helen and Gibson-- they just see blond hair and a 2X life-sized baby jogger.

After a month and a half of school, Abe's reading skills have taken off! He brought home Nan and Pap from school and read the entire book to Becky. Nan and Pap are dogs who like to nap. We're so excited to have another reader in our family!

Brandan spent most of the week in Portland at a medical conference. His hotel unexpectedly upgraded his room to a luxury suite. Then, he got food poisoning at some fancy dinner and spent Wednesday night and all of Thursday being violently ill. We felt so, so badly for him. There's not a luxury suite in the world that's nicer than your own home when you're puking your guts out. We're glad to have him back home again and he's feeling much better.

19 October 2008

Sophie turned 11 today! We've been celebrating her birthday all weekend. This was Sophie's year to have a friend party (our rule is no friend parties until you're 5 and then only every other year) and Sophie planned a terrific party. She invited her friends to come at 3 pm and they worked on a play for a couple of hours. Then, the friends' families came at 5 pm to watch the play and eat dinner afterwards. All of her friends were excited to create the play and quickly got organized. They chose parts, worked on their costumes, made scenery and rehearsed the play a couple of times. At 5 o'clock, they were ready to go. The photo shows the girls making wreaths to wear on their heads.


Sophie chose the classic Greek story Demeter and Persephone from a book of plays she borrowed from her teacher. Becky made simple togas from sheets she got at Walmart (one queen size flat sheet makes 4 togas.) The play was about 10 minutes long, a good length since 2/3 of the audience was under 10. About 40 people came. The photo shows a dramatic moment when Hades kidnaps Persephone. Sophie, the narrator, is reacting to the action.


The girls take a bow. They are all excellent little actresses. Persephone, played by Mandy, was especially good. She coached the other girls on how to deliver their lines effectively. From the left, the girls are Emma, Riley, Payton, Mandy, Sophie and Ellie.


Next came dinner. Putting on a play is hard work and the girls worked up an appetite. We set up several tables on our patio and still had people sitting on the grass. We had rain earlier in the day, but crossed our fingers and everything dried out in time for the party. It would have been a tight squeeze to fit everyone inside. Dinner was lasagna, salad and rolls. The biggest hits of the meal were Italian sodas. Everyone liked customizing their drinks and trying new flavors. Pink grapefruit is a new favorite. Abe likes to mix things and is drinking a blackberry/raspberry blend.

The grown ups talked and talked and the kids ran gleefully amok. They played tag for a long time, with the big rock as base.

Sophie's birthday celebration continued on Sunday. Sophie enjoyed funnel cakes at Drue's birthday party this summer and Drue and Maggie sent her a funnel cake kit for her birthday. She was delighted to try them again. We're so glad to have Sophie in our family- she's smart, sweet, original, practical, fun, enormously talented and delightful to be around.

We tried cooking wheat/egg/milk-free funnel cakes and they were a big success with Abe and Helen. Drue and Maggie also introduced us to Cool Whip in a spray can and that was another special treat.

Abe said, "Take my picture, too." So here is Abe digging into his dessert. No photos of Gibson tonight, though. He's completely exhausted from the weekend and went to bed at 7 pm.

12 October 2008

We love our fireplace. We've been lighting a fire every night before bedtime. It's so relaxing. Gibson especially gets very sleepy watching the flames. Abe likes to help Brandan get the fire ready. They favor a log cabin design of fire building. We've ordered some firewood to be delivered, but until it arrives, we've been burning scraps of hardwood Brandan keeps in the garage. Let's hope our firewood arrives soon so we don't have to burn the table and chairs next!


Sophie and Abe didn't have school on Friday so we tried to hike to the top of an extinct volcano on the edge of the valley. It was getting late and cold, so we turned back before we got to the top. Still, the kids said this was the coolest hike ever. Except for the rain. And the hail. And the big dog. And the mountain lion scare. And Gibson falling backwards down a 10 foot embankment. Other than that, it was the coolest hike ever. Next time, we'll take Brandan along.


To warm up after the hike, Sophie put about 1/4 cup of red pepper flakes on her fajita. We were impressed she could eat it without flinching. She did say her stomach felt like a lava lamp afterwards.

Abe and Helen warmed up in a gentler way, wedged between the fireplace and the stairs with Brandan, reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This is our third time through the Narnia books as a family. One of the nice things about a big spread in our kids' ages is we can keep sharing old favorites.

Brandan took the kids to our local extension garden on Saturday to get ideas for our yard. The extension office researches which plants grow well in our area. Surprisingly, there was a pomegranate tree growing. We didn't know our climate was warm enough. In the photo, the kids are playing with ice from a bird feeder- it's not tropical here.

5 October 2008

Growing up, Becky built many things with scrap wood, old nails and battered tools. Her dad (wisely) kept his good tools locked up. This week, she needed to build some wooden frames for an Activity Days paper making project and realized that she was the adult at home with a garage full of tools. The table saw looked too complicated, but using the chop saw was easy and using the nail gun was fun, fun, fun! Becky may never use a hammer again.


While Brandan cleaned up after dinner Thursday night, Helen, Abe and Gibson set up a picnic in the middle of the kitchen floor. We're not sure if it was the cold cereal or the soy milk, but the kids thought they were being very funny.


Brandan surprised us Friday by coming home from work in a pink shirt with a butterfly on it. Friday was Breast Cancer Awareness Day and Brandan wore the shirt to show support for his wonderful medical assistant, Susanne, who is a breast cancer survivor. Looks like Becky has a new shirt!


We've enjoyed the cooler weather and a little rain this week. Saturday we saw 2 different rainbows. We wonder how many rainbows we miss?

Hooray for General Conference! Our tradition, dating pre-Sophie, is to have a huge breakfast Sunday morning to celebrate conference. Becky asked everyone to pick an item for the menu and we feasted on homemade cinnamon rolls (Sophie), bacon (Abe), hot chocolate (Helen) and fruit (Becky inserting some sanity into the menu). Brandan thought that sounded like enough food. We've feasted on the talks as well: seeing the 1st presidency in action and President Monson's admiration of his counselors (Brandan), being so in love with the ideas of unity and Zion (Becky), the story of Bathsheba Smith leaving Nauvoo (Sophie), and both the Primary choir and the story of the little deaf girl (Abe). Helen's favorite part of conference was our candy game. It's sad to have come to the end of the last session, but we have plenty to work on until April.