26 January 2014

We met a group of friends on Monday for our annual Martin Luther King Day service project.  We made fleece blankets for a homeless teen drop-in center.

 We've done the same project for a few years now.  It's a great project for school age kids-- the skills required are cutting fringe and tying knots-- so everyone can help.

 We finished 7 blankets in about an hour.  Our project gets a little bigger each year.  In the back row are Sofi, Eliza, Annie and Helen.  Seth, Tayvon, Jake, Abe and Ashton are in the middle.  Taylor, Sadie and Maddie are in front.  Gibson is behind the green and brown blanket.  Sofi made her headband by braiding the selvages from each of the blankets.

 Monday night we had the sisters for family night.  For our activity, we had a mini "Chopped" competition.  Each team had to make a healthful snack that included apples and craisins.  They could add any other ingredients they could find in the house.  Sister H. and Gibson made a bowl of granola and yogurt with apples, bananas and craisins.  Sofi and Helen hollowed out their apple and filled it with a mixture of peanut butter, honey, craisins and pecans.  Abe and Sister D. made a spinach salad with apples, craisins and poppyseed dressing.  Brandan was the judge and called it a three way tie.

 Helen started growing crystals on Saturday using a kit she got for a birthday present.  She and Brandan made three solutions: yellow, blue and green.  So far the yellow solution has grown the most crystals.

 After a couple of weeks of freezing (and gloomy!) fog, we had a wonderfully warm weekend with record high temperatures.  Helen, Gibson and Abe rode their bikes on Saturday.

A friend took a photo of our family at stake conference and emailed it to us.  This is a photo we want to remember!  Time is flying by and we'll only be sitting together at church for a few short years.

19 January 2014

Helen got to have a birthday party with her friends this week.  Since her birthday was during Christmas break, it worked better for us to have her party after we were settled back in at home.  Our whole family loved the movie "Frozen" and we used the movie as the theme for the party.  Olaf decorated the front door.

We froze Elsa and Anna dolls in cups of water for invitations.

 Abe showed the girls how to do the first activity-- making clay Olafs.

 Helen and Paige made themselves into snowmen.

 

Kate made herself a clay mustache.

 There wasn't enough room at the table so Gibson sat on the counter.

Here are the finished Olafs before they went into the oven.

 The girls made snowflake hair clips for another activity.  Adele is choosing rhinestones for her snowflake.

 Addi and Clara helped each other.  Clara still had her snowman eyebrows on.

In this photo, Annie is making a reindeer cookie out of a gluten free oreo and pretzels.  

 Here is Sophie with her reindeer cookie.  There is a reindeer named Sven in the movie.

 Here is Helen's birthday cake.

 Happy Birthday, Helen!

 Here are all the girls together.  Helen had a great time at her party and the other girls seemed to enjoy themselves, too.  Nine is such a delightful age.

In other news of the week, Sofi's school elections were on Friday.  Our family helped her out by taping paper tags that said "Vote Sofi the Zombie Slayer" onto more than 500 tootsie rolls, a reference to the video she made for the election.  We're thankful Sofi goes to a small school!  The election results will be announced on Tuesday.

Sofi dressed as a beatnik for school on Wednesday.  We're not sure what beatniks are, but Sofi looked pretty cute in her black wig.

 Brandan showed Sofi how to make pulla, a Finnish bread, for her Personal Progress goal this week.  They made three big loaves.  Sofi took 2 of them to her Sunday School class today and they were devoured.

 Becky showed Abe how to iron and he ironed his own shirt and pants for church today.  

12 January 2014

Sofi is running for student government.  Her school is holding elections this month.  Joey helped Sofi film a campaign video.  Instead of a typical "vote for me" video, Sofi's video shows her fighting off a zombie attack and then curing Joey with candy.

 We took down our Christmas decorations this week, but here is one last photo of our snowflake tree.  Helen made the 3D paper snowflake for the top of the tree.

Brandan and Helen are working on making a snowflake out of sheet metal using the same design as the paper snowflake.  The sheet metal is trickier to use than paper.  If it works out, they might make a few for permanent Christmas decorations.

And here is the answer to the birthday math problem we  posted last week: 42.  The series lists numbers that are flanked by two prime numbers.  The next three numbers in the series are 138, 150 and 180.

5 January 2014

We just returned from a holiday trip to visit family in Utah and Idaho.  We were in Utah before Temple Square turned off the Christmas lights for the year and spent Sunday admiring the lights.

 This was Abe, Helen and Gibson's first time to see the famous light display.  It was magical for all of us.  

 Helen is our Christmas baby.  The name "Helen" means "light," and Christmas celebrates the Light of the World.

 The luminary next to Brandan says "Merry Christmas" in Finnish.

 We loved the nativity and the lights floating in the reflecting pool.

 And the magnificent Cedar of Lebanon that was wrapped in red lights.

Sunday was also Helen's 9th birthday.  Helen is extraordinarily talented and capable.  She was also very flexible about having her birthday on the road.  Kind cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents kept the party rolling all week.  This photo shows Emma and Dallin with Helen and her birthday jello.

 We don't have photos of all our adventures (for which you are grateful, we're sure.)  On Monday we went sledding with Wade and Steph's family in a little gully called Happy Hollow.

 Gibson liked riding with Emma and Dallin.

The local kids have named one steep part "Deathly Hallows" after the Harry Potter book.  Our kids liked sliding down this best without a sled.  The photo shows Sofi at the bottom of the hill.

Gibson, Sofi, Helen, Kaylee, Dallin, Emma and Wade held hands and tried to slide down the hill together.  It took them a long time to reach the bottom.  Parker and Abe are watching their slow descent from the side.

 On Tuesday morning, Sofi, Brandan, Becky, Wade and Parker woke up early and drove to the Bountiful temple to do baptisms.  Even though it was early on a vacation day, the baptistry was packed with teenagers and their parents.

 The sun was just rising as we left the temple. 

 On Tuesday evening, Brandan's siblings met together for a New Year's Eve party.  We intended to celebrate the New Year on Eastern Standard time, but somehow stayed up until midnight anyway.  Maggie brought the ingredients and taught Sofi how to make baklava (called "betleuwa" in Arabic,) Sofi's second cooking project.  Delicious!  Sofi shared the butter letter she made last week at the party.

 On Wednesday we drove to Idaho.  We spent some time with Joe and Keri's family and Grandma and Grandpa before driving to Sarah and Joe's house.  Sarah helped us make lavender sachets.  Sofi ate some of the lavender, but not the heaping spoonful shown in the photo.  Becky packed the sachets in Abe's suitcase for the drive home (he had the most room) and his church clothes smelled very nice for today.

 Joe took us horse riding which is a rare treat.  We rode in a friend's indoor arena.  Here's Abe getting settled on the horse.

 And Helen.

 Sofi knows a little about horse riding.

Gibson did not want to ride and Zina rode along with him to help him feel safer.  He managed to smile before his turn was over.

 Even Brandan went for a ride.

The horse's name was "Runaway," but at 20+ years, his running days are over.  He was a gentle choice for our kids.

Abe spent a lot of time making paper monsters from one of Zina's papercraft books.  The monsters had lots of small parts and required a lot of patience and attention to detail.

 Gib took photos of some of the finished monsters.  They were very detailed.

 And sometimes gruesome.

 Brandan's birthday was Saturday and Sarah had a little celebration planned for Friday night before we left.  The flag in Brandan's bowl of sorbet has Brandan's traditional birthday math problem written on it.  The answer to the problem always equals his age.  Here is the problem: What is the missing number in the series? 4, 6, 12, 18, 30, ?, 60, 72, 102, 108  Bonus: What are the next three numbers in the series?

This problem is a little trickier than his birthday math problems have been for the past few years so we're not going to put the answer here.  If you think you know the answer, email us and we'll send you a prize.  We'll post the answer next week.